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SLIGHT SPOILERS AHEAD - End of Act I

So I just boarded the Lady Vengeance and I started tweaking my party in the mirror. I haven't used persuasion at all during act I and I thought about sacrificing some bartering points that my custom main char has to pump it. The thing is - I worry that keeping my persuasion too high will make the game a bit too easy - after taking just two points I was able to get that adamant deckhand taking care of YOU KNOW WHO to give information about the ship - and I'm cool with that happening every once in a while, but I'm worried that persuasion checks grow in a linear manner (that is, the further you get, the higher ALL persuasion checks get and it works in a sort of binary fashion - either you're able to talk everyone into helping you, or it just stops working altogether).
I don't want to be able to talk my out of every situation, as that's unrealistic, but it would be nice to persuade someone every now and again.
So my question is: would a persuasion score of 2 let me persuade npcs from time to time, or would it become completely useless at the later stages of the game?

Last edited by Wigu; 31/10/17 03:15 PM.
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The short answer is 'no', go for it. It makes you avoid some fights or get some extra story content here and there, but overall I'd say you actually lose out on XP; not by a significant amount but talking yourself out of fights doesn't give you sweet murder points.

It's overall well-balanced, but you will find that with 5 persuasion that the people you can't convince number in the single digits.


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I think having Beast in the party makes the game even more easier than the persuasion checks, everybody gives him gifts and help him for free...

About persuation, you lose xp for peaceful solutions, so in the end is not that useful. It prefer more options to use persuade to get better rewards or more information like in some places of the game.

IMHO it is more unfair the tag "Scholar" wich is used a lot in plenty of quest in comparison with the others and cannot be learn in your diplomat character until act 3.

Last edited by _Vic_; 01/11/17 09:19 PM.
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Originally Posted by _Vic_
I think having Beast in the party makes the game even more easier than the persuasion checks, everybody gives him gifts and help him for free...


Who? I have Beast as my avatar and don't remember getting anything very useful.


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Originally Posted by Stabbey
Originally Posted by _Vic_
I think having Beast in the party makes the game even more easier than the persuasion checks, everybody gives him gifts and help him for free...


Who? I have Beast as my avatar and don't remember getting anything very useful.



Mmm I do not remember very well, but i had that feeling while playing with him as companion, not avatar.
Comes to mind
the dwarf in fort joy that gave you upstairs key for free, the girl that breaks source collars that you do not have to convince nor rescue Gareth to break your collar, dwarf in Driftwood that lets you pass to the undertavern without password, the guy that think you are one of Lothar´s men in Driftwood so he just gives you the key to the warehouse basement without steal or persuade him... and I think some more

Last edited by _Vic_; 01/11/17 10:34 PM.
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Originally Posted by _Vic_

Mmm I do not remember very well, but i had that feeling while playing with him as companion, not avatar.
Comes to mind


Very cool.

Still doesn't make up for his lame story and its progression.

How do you make that boring, Larian? He's a god damn dawi pirate.

Last edited by Alexstrasza; 02/11/17 01:51 AM.
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You can max persuasion and still fail some dialogue checks because its against an attribute you have little or no points in. Some checks just have absurdly high requirements.

Most of the time, persuasion is about giving dialogue a different flavour even if the material outcome doesn't change much. There are numerous persuasion checks which seem to avoid combat but if you pass them, it ends in a fight anyway. The dialogue is different though and sometimes it feels good to have different conversation options appropriate for several varieties of silver tongued trickster.

While avoiding spoilers, there is one story event where persuasion is important on your main character and can have a profound impact going forward.

You can respec at any time from Act 2 onwards, so you shouldn't feel like you are misallocating civic points. If you are repeatedly failing conversation checks, put on some +persuasion items or use the respec mirror then try again. See if the outcome changes or if the conversation turns on it.

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Ah, Okay. The first two of those are questionable, the key is of marginal use at best, and if Beast is the avatar, and his collar is already off from the arena, Beast gets nothing from Leya, she won't remove anyone else's collars.

Originally Posted by Alexstrasza


Very cool.

Still doesn't make up for his lame story and its progression.

How do you make that boring, Larian? He's a god damn dawi pirate.


By not giving him a lot to do over the course of the story, and forgetting to put in clear breadcrumbs in Act 4 to at least give a vaguely clear objective.

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Originally Posted by Alexstrasza
Originally Posted by _Vic_

Mmm I do not remember very well, but i had that feeling while playing with him as companion, not avatar.
Comes to mind


Very cool.

Still doesn't make up for his lame story and its progression.

How do you make that boring, Larian? He's a god damn dawi pirate.


I agree, I like his dwarven brawler, pirate and revolucionary background but his plot and dialogs seem subpar in comparison with all the others, sadly.

And I actually prefer companions that puts you in jeopardy sometimes and forces you to make tough decisions, because background or plot reasons, like
Sebille with Stingtail or the Tree, Fane, Lohse and his inner demon or Ifan with Alexandar, the magister in Driftwood or the deadfog decision. I had the impresion that everybody seems to help Beast "just because". He did not even force a fight with Lothar or the Queen´s guards, for example ... and yes,
he is booooring

Last edited by _Vic_; 02/11/17 10:28 AM.
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I believe even with that skill i still fail checks regularly. Also in Driftwood difficulty increases so level 2 might not be that much. It also depends on the skills you are relying on and backgrounds. When certain background is combined with int/wits/str etc check it seems to rather significantly increase success chance.

I on the other hand like to talk my way out of combat. Sometimes, getting it done without weapons can be harder than the actual fight :P + the character I play right now is merciful and doesn't want to kill that much. Though frankly, even though this game's writting is mostly excellent, I have yet to find dialogue similar to for example dialogue with Master in fallout 1. (though I admit it's not very fair comparisson)

As for your problem, maybe you can try more militant approach from time to time, or make different character handle the talking, that may help you with some fails :P or even surprise options.

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no, persuasion does not make the game too easy. in fact, i highly recommend it

you may need it in order to get the sorts of quest results you want. it's not just a get out of combat free card (and in those scenarios you can just forego persuasion and fight anyway, if you want)

it adds a lot to the game, which makes me wish it was a global trait that applied to all characters, rather than just the one you skill it on, particularly with this game's way of making AI characters engage with whichever character is closest, rather than your main one

edit: and to be clear, you do actually need to level it up. a couple of levels and high stat values actually will not cut it later in the game, and there are some very tough persuasion checks that can impact important decisions

Last edited by miaasma; 03/11/17 02:39 AM.
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I'm trying to level Persuade and Barter on my MC. It seems like your avatar gets some free positive attitude with shopkeepers that is lost if you switch to another character to barter. I'm only in Act 2 and I have 2 points in Persuade and 3 in Barter (1 from a quest), not counting points from gear. I'll probably leave Barter there for awhile and level Persuade up as much as possible from here on out.

Without spoilers, is this feasible?

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that's normally what i do

bartering and persuasion tend to be best on your avatar since you'll be doing the majority of interactions with that character (unless you meticulously micromanage your party so that your persuasion character always engages npcs)

and like you said, characters' attitudes for the most part seem to only affect your avatar, so you're better off bartering on your avatar, especially if they're a human

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Originally Posted by JosieJ

Without spoilers, is this feasible?


That depends on how lucky you get with equipment, because you get exactly 6 points total on a normal playthrough. Add one from starting as a human or lizard. I would say that no, it's not feasible.

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Thanks. Do you get more points if you're a Lone Wolf, like you do for attributes? I don't see how else I'd be able to cover the civic skills I'd need in a 1 or 2-person party, although that's for my next playthrough, not my current one.

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you do not, but you get enough points to level each one appropriately

persuasion isn't something you'll need above 3 points in for most of the game (in my current co-op lone wolf run my friend has 5 persuasion and we're at around the beginning of act 3, but we could likely have gotten by with 2 points in something else like bartering and 3 in persuasion)

i'm not sure if bartering is worth maxing either, i've gotten by without it and still gotten enough money from looting

though in my case i tend to use thievery

the point is that you don't need either of them to be maxed in order to benefit from them for most of the game; between bartering and persuasion i'd prioritize the latter in the end game

Last edited by miaasma; 04/11/17 02:52 AM.
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Hmm, that sounds more promising. I'll be maining Lohse next go-round, so she'll start out with a point in Bartering because she's human. I guess that puts her on an even footing with my current custom elf avatar, who got a free point from a quest due to Corpse Eater. On my current playthrough, I've also got a belt that gives me +1 to Barter, so it sounds like I'll be good putting points only in Persuasion from now on.

As for civic skills on my next playthrough, I'll have to give that more thought. I'm running a full party now, so I've had no issues with other skills. I'm using Fane for lockpicking since he doesn't need picks, Beast for Loremaster and Ifan for Lucky Charm. Loremaster and Lucky Charm would seem to go together, since a lot of the stuff you find needs to be identified. I'm not doing much pickpocketing on my current playthrough. I find it tiresome because the tooltips block my view, plus I'm getting a ton of drops because of Lucky Charm, most of which I sell, so I'm not hurting for money. In a 2-person party, I can see that Lucky Charm and Loremaster would probably have to go by the wayside; there are too many doors that need to be lockpicked and that's not conducive to running back to the Lady Vengeance to respec like you can do with chests.

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Thievery has no cost because each act is gated. Once you finish an act, you can't go back to a previous one so you can simply not put any points in thievery until you are at the end of the act, then respec all your characters to max thievery and rob every merchant on every character. Then you can use hirelings to do the same all over again.

It doesn't matter who has loremaster in your party. You can open containers with your Lucky Charm guy and identify items with your Lucky Charm guy. Magic pockets will automatically transfer the ID glasses to your Loremaster guy who will identify it for you.

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I know that Loremaster and Lucky Charm don't need to go on the same person; I'm having no problems with it on 2 different companions in my current full-party playthrough. My concern was for my next--or I should say concurrent (I couldn't resist and started it yesterday)--Lone Wolf playthrough, when I have 2 fewer companions to spread points among.

After playing a lot more yesterday, I think it will be doable. Act 1 is tricky because you can't respec, but you also don't need many points in any of these abilities, so it evens out. In Act 2, there seem to be fewer doors than I feared that you need Thievery for in the moment, without being able to respec. If I get lucky with gear, I can bolster my abilities with that. My LW playthrough will lag behind my full-party playthrough by an Act, so hopefully I'll have a decent idea of what's needed beforehand.

We'll see how it goes!


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