Larian Studios Forums Baldur's Gate III Baldur's Gate III - Suggestions & Feedback Conversations ending badly

First off, I do not know how D&D would work in these situations. There are a lot of conversations where you need to convince someone else of something. Usually there are options in brackets like persuation or intimidation. Each choice like that results in a D20 roll. And sometimes, you have no choice but to choose one that ends up with a roll. However, if the roll fails, you are stuck. There's no additional conversation and no choice usually other than to attack or leave. This has happened to me often enough that it's noticeable and annoying. Since it's not only an RPG but a game that's supposed to be fun, I'll sometimes end up reloading a save game. I know that's a no-no for a purist, but as I said, my preference is to have fun.

I suppose one could argue that it's like that in real life, and as I said I do not know how D&D works, but I still think I should have other options. Just my opinion of course.

Never played dnd but can only say it was never a problem in BG1-2 even if your main character had 3 charisma

Fun can mean very different things to many different people. But perhaps try to look at it differently: there is no guaranteed outcome. Sometimes things don't work. That's not "Real Life Simulation", it's just a game feature that makes multiple playthrough interesting and unique. A character with low stats on their persuasion, intimidation etc skills, are less likely to succeed in certain situations. That's fine, see how the game plays out like that. Then, try the game again with an entirely different character, that has developed such skills more: KABLAM, almost like an entirely different game/story there.

That being said, this is still Early Access and many dialogues are very likely incomplete. I do think that the above mentality (each playthrough is unique) will still be there but I also believe more options may become available, at least in some cases.

BG1 and 2 were never big in "reactive dialogues" in general.
Say what you want but they have never been a gold standard in handling conversations.

I have mixed feelings about it. I have reloaded a save a few times to get my preferred outcome, but you don't get to do that in a tabletop RPG so Larian is sticking to convention here.

At least on my system, re-loading from a save is pretty quick so that option is always available. Also, I would rather re-try the option I chose the first time for a better dice roll, because it's an expression of the character I'm playing. But that's just me.

Sort of echoing K.O.s post above, I believe Larian has stated that they're trying to design the game so that it's not just okay to fail, it can be a good thing. If you fail a persuasion check in a conversation, a door might close, but another door should open. Sometimes this feels bad when you really want a specific outcome, but if you approach the game as an evolving story you can find a lot of fun in adapting to these outcomes.

Thanks for the comments. I understand that there's no guaranteed outcome, and yes it's part of the fun to find alternatives, but I wonder how many situations there are where you get stuck with either attacking or not being able to continue. I do realize that this is EA, so hopefully any of those get ironed out.