(TL;DR I'd personally like to see the ability to roll a persuasion check to win Rolan back to our side in a game file where one of his siblings died, and where the player didn't do anything else to make him angry at them, instead of him auto-siding with his abusive boss despite everything.)
In Act 3, Rolan shows up at Sorcerous Sundries as Lorroakan's apprentice. He's being abused by Lorroakan physically and hates working under him. If both his siblings are alive by Act 3, you have the option to convince him to fight against his boss with you, should you choose to fight Lorroakan.
However, if both his siblings are dead, or even just one of them died in Act 2, regardless of how exactly they died, when you get to Act 3 Rolan will always side against the player and help his abusive boss. There's no dialogue to try to convince him to help you. Even if one of his siblings stayed alive in Act 2 and, when you speak to him at the start of Act 3, he doesn't react with immediate anger/hatred by blaming you for the other sibling's death, you still can't convince him to help you defeat the boss he very clearly hates.
I thought this was kind of weird and inflexible considering the amount of flexibility with similar characters in earlier acts. And like, even in Act 3, if you tricked Yurgir into killing himself in Act 2, which traps him in the contract with Raphael, when you fight Raphael in House of Hope there's STILL a persuasion check to convince Yurgir to help you anyway. Even though he's really angry with you.
I like Rolan as a character but it's really easy to mess up and one of his siblings ends up dead by the end of Act 2. I feel like considering the narrative circumstances (his boss is clearly someone he dislikes due to the beatings and mistreatment and generally hating his personality. He also expresses shock and judgment when he finds out who the Nightsong is and what Lorroakan intends to do to her, even if he sides with him), it'd make sense and be more fulfilling story-wise if Rolan had a similar persuasion check, so he isn't just hard-locked into death. This way the player also doesn't lose out on a very powerful end-game ally (Ramazith's Tower if Rolan is alive after defeating Lorroakan.)
(Also, it'd be nice to see him and his siblings actually interact in Ramazith's Tower after the Lorroakan fight, since they have so much ambient banter with one another in the first two acts, but then never once speak to each other in Act 3 despite being reunited. But I know that's harder with voice-acting.)
Thank you for coming to my "Please Let Me Save Rolan" TedTalk.
Last edited by druidofthestars; 20/01/24 01:56 PM.
