Larian Studios Forums Baldur's Gate III Baldur's Gate III - Help Tips & Tricks Rogues in a post CHA world?

A while back, I had the urge to play a Rogue/Monk character, but it was pretty much dashed when Charisma became King. Now that I'm back to playing semi-regularly, I've got the itch again. So if anyone out there plays a Rogue who isn't designed around CHA, what's your playstyle like? How do you dance around Charisma?

I typically just go 12-14 CHA with Expertise in Deception and Pursuasion. This provides more than enough bonus to facilitate all speech skill checks that matter.

With such a low investment, it's still possible to max DEX and put a bunch of points into CON and/or another focus stat (Such as INT if making a magic focused AT/Wiz or WIS if you want to do something like Open Hand Monk)

I recently started a Shadowheart Origin run and wondered what to do about her abysmal charisma as well. In the end, I granted her 10 points instead of 8 and either weasel around the charisma checks by using insight checks or the tadpole, or let Astarion, Gale and Lae'zel deal with social situations which require their specific proficiencies. It's nice to have a character who actually has a chance of failing dialogue checks for a change - and it's also nice to play the tadfools more as a team outside of combat.

My favourite characters do tend to be high CHA ones, but solving everything by talking makes playthroughs overly same-y so I enjoy mixing it up too. I find approaching tasks in different ways, or even trying and failing a CHA roll, can help make characters feel different and enhance roleplay. With a rogue, there can be options to sneak past encounters rather than engage, or assassinate or ambush rather than talk, or to use class or other non-CHA skill-based options in a number of situations. Admittedly to add deception to the toolkit then some CHA helps but you don’t need a lot, especially if you select deception expertise or are willing to use, say, the Friends cantrip and make a swift exit. Or have a higher CHA party member do the talking, but where’s the fun in that?!

Having a "face" character who isn't my character is part of the fun, as far as I'm concerned. Think Martin Landau's character from the original Mission Impossible series, or Dirk Benedict from the A-Team; neither of them were the "lead" character (e.g. Jim Phelps or John "Hannibal" Smith), but they added a dimension to their respective teams that, to me, feels richer and more sensible than what we have in game.

But I've made that argument before. After trying my hand again at playing a Rogue over the past couple of days, I'm already on the verge of shelving the character. It's too weird a disconnect from teams in various forms of entertainment, and even in real life.

Totally fair, and certainly when I’m trying to play a sneaky character one of the things I do is have other party members engage people in dialogue as a distraction. I can see the roleplaying appeal of the sort of setup you mention, though for me personally, having seen the outcomes from succeeding CHA checks, when I’m not playing a high CHA character I’m more interested in seeing other ways encounters and quests can play out.

my thief just snuck pass the queen spider to unlock a waypoint and drop down into the underdard... up until now all my other characters have battled the queen first

fighting, not fighting and talking your way out of fighting are all valid options so you be you

The problem isn't with the lack of options - the problem is with the game forcing the least capable "speaker" (e.g., my rogue) to speak when another party member (e.g., Gale) is much better at it. We each have a party of specialists, but NPCs that have a flair for the diplomatic aren't allowed to use their comparative advantage. Or, to put it another way, the players aren't allowed to leverage that advantage - unless the PC has resonable CHA skills.

That said, I'm close to ranting about a situation that isn't likely to change, so I'll step away for a bit.

I’m certainly with you in wishing the game always allowed us to pick which party member should talk (apart from possibly the odd situation where that wouldn’t be appropriate). But given this has been a popularly requested feature since early access I suspect you’re unfortunately right that it’s not likely to appear now.

Of course, it ain’t over until patch 7 is out, but I am resigned to disappointment on that front. Though I’m all for banging the drum once more as even if the ship has sailed for BG3, I can hope Larian will design this into any party-based RPGs they develop in future.