Larian Studios Forums Baldur's Gate III Baldur's Gate III - General Failing dialogue rolls is fun

Personally I like games that encourage you to accept the consequences of your choices / failures . And BG3 clearly tries to make sure you don't have everything under control. That's what's supposed to make each playthrough a bit different. I'm a huge fan of this choice.

You will always discover something new if you don't resolve to save scumming because you feel " I have to win this roll". Why would you save scam? Because you have high intelligence so you should absolutely not fail this roll? It happened, deal with it.

Failing the dice kinda always result in a slaughter and that's a shame, I have to admit. I want a different outcome and not " I will kill you/ fuck off " kind of failure.

I think the simplest outcome to failure that is not combat would simply be the mob trying to lie to you, depending on the quest maybe offer you an alternative " at a price". Instead of obtaining what you want you can still get it but now you will have to pay for it. There are several options to this apart from "DEATH TO EVERYONE!".

I think most good DMs can read their table well. Using the druid girl as an example; I would allow a persuasion/intimidation check like the game. If that failed, I would allow the party to attempt to persuade Rath(?) to disobey such an obviously wrong order. Assuming both attempts fail all is not yet lost. I would give any high dexterity player an opportunity to slay the snake before the bite lands. All of these rolls would be a successively higher DC than the previous, but I think it's just a poor choice to let one roll steal player agency at the table.

If anyone here watches Critical Role you'll know that Matt Mercer usually has "skill challenges" for things that can radically alter the players trajectory. There will be multiple roles at specific intervals that will sway outcome one way or another, but it's how well the party did overall that makes the final determination. Usually it's a single person rolling with the opportunity for that roll to be at advantage if another player steps up to help, sometimes it's a group roll where the success or failure is determined by the average of all rolls so a very high roll can offset a very low one. This, in my opinion, is good DMing and good storytelling.

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The DC you see is the number you need to equal or be greater than on the D20 to have a success. Your bonus are already reduced from the DC, not applied to your result. You can see them if you mouse over the DC.

Guidance is in the game but bugged.

The reroll are allowed via inspiration points. You get them for doing things, I haven't paid attention to when or why you get them.



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Okay, I can see Guidance being bugged, and I've heard that before. But how do you explain a DC requirement of 17 when a character is +6 in a given choice? Shouldn't the max DC requirement be 14 then? And why would something like say for instance the Teifling Child scenario have a premodified 20 requirement, and something like convincing someone to give you an antidote only have a premodifed 7? See, this is where showing the math would come in handy for players who don't have a 5e DM manual in their hands, and why it seems like some dialogue options are heavily weighted against the player for no apparent reason. A good DM gives players multiple ways to approach a scenario and still achieve a desirable outcome. Not everything should live or die based on one bad dice roll.

Have Fun !

Clearly this is a game where the dice roll decides. While stats may increase the chance to succeed, still these aren't your choices, or failures -- but something random, given by a dice roll. You had some part in it, but not more than rolling a dice.

That's very different from many RPG I played, where was all about which dialogue options you picked as well what you did outside those dialogues. Those were truly your choices.

I like and support the principle.

There are two dialogues I experienced where failing in dialogue was not fun.

Just two rare cases. I am not blasting the game as such.

a) Failing to not be controlled by the wounded Mind Flayer was not fun at all. He got up, semi-healed, and did a mind blast cone that wiped my two starting characters. Game over.
- thereafter, frak the dialogue or talking to anyone there : shoot wounded Mind Flayer on sight, period.
- I am not frustrated, forgot it, just went on my merry way, but that dialogue bit is a failure at failing is fun. The wounded Mind Flayer could see us as potential Absolute tools or allies and just walk away.

b) At the windmill, failing the dialogue check led to a fight where my party was in a bad position and got wiped.
- thereafter, I came back, took good positions, and wiped them all on purpose without dialogue. Instead of killing the boss, I made him Sleep, so I could wipe the floor with them all. :P
- Yes, that time I was frustrated and enacted bloody vengeance !
- On the other hand, with a bit of luck, being surprised after that dialogue can lead to an exciting fight where you drop the boss ; or suffer TPK (the goblins lob mucho AOE cocktails if you are in a bad position).

c) The goblin camp accusing you of poisoning them could be a third case, but I kicked their asses, so it felt fine in my case.

On repeating playthroughs where I know the answer but fail the roll I roleplay like my character has no idea the real truth or answer cause they dont and sometimes it leads to really enjoyable alternative outcomes

The thing here is that Larian is allowing players to make bad decisions. A dangerous Mind Flayer that has just been possessing three people . . . why the heck would you talk to it? That is asking for disaster. Kill it from a distance (preferably right away to free the poor fishermen).

We have been conditioned by other games to 'investigate everything' and 'select every option' but that is NOT the case here in BG3. You really need to think about the situation and make good choices.

Often times in BG3, by the time you get to a dice check . . . it means you have already made some questionable decisions that led up to that point.

I've seen several people mention this about saving the tiefling girl. I've succeeded at saving her 1 time in 4 so far. Someone can feel free to correct me if I'm wrong but I think the only thing that I got from saving her was a very minor amount of gold from the parents, like 50g or something. It certainly wasn't anything amazing or even relevant or I would remember it better. It's certainly not a vital thing to do and in fact, the deck is stacked against you succeeding at it. I cannot understand why anyone would waste their time reloading the game over that.

The guy pinned under the timber in Waukeen's Rest is the same way. My current playthrough I succeeded in saving him (which is funny because I didn't even go in the room where he is at) and I got nothing. I may have gotten some xp, didn't notice. I wouldn't even have known I'd saved him except I noticed it in the quest log when I was looking for something else.

Both of those are side quests and minor ones at that. You're really not missing out on anything if you fail the rolls. The things that are integral to the main plot usually have very low DCs and/or let you re-roll if you fail or even better, you can use the parasite to make it where you are unable to fail by lowering the DC to 1.

"Table top D&D" is Dungeons & Dragons played around a table (as it originally was) with real people and real dice rolls. This game you are playing is attempting to emulate that experience as closely as possible in a computer game. How did you miss this in their advertising? It's like the big, big hook and the fidelity to the 5th edition rules is one of the biggest topics of discussion about this game.



The first part of this quote is ridiculous. I don't accept failing at rolls because I "enjoy being beaten". I accept it because we live in a world where the good guys don't always win and some failure is inevitable. It's refreshing to play a game where you don't automatically succeed at lying or trying to persuade NPCs. It sounds to me that you want choices in a game to be like this:



Except for you, the man would be spared every time of course



Again, you do realize what game you are playing right? The randomness of dice rolls is not going to go away as dice rolling is pretty much the core of D&D.



Well hopefully for you, someone will make a mod called IWIN button and you can never fail another dice roll in the game. You will hit every swing and do maximum damage each time. What glorious fun that will be eh?

I think maybe you misunderstood me? I wasn't speaking about the actual material rewards my character was missing out on. I was speaking about the empathy I felt toward the two characters, and the sense of futility/failure if I don't get to rescue them.

Maybe this makes me softhearted. I mean, I know she's not a real girl. But I can't help but feel like shit if I don't save her. I *want* to be as good of a person as possible when I play these games, and help as many people as I can.

Yeah, I definitely did not get that from your first post That is admirable and that kind of empathy is something I don't see much from gamers these days. I want to save her too or else I wouldn't try but I don't want to save her bad enough to sit through the loading screens though. Kudos to you

XP-for-kills is a major fault-line when it comes to encouraging variety in RPG gameplay.

IIRC, the early versions of DnD rewarded most of the XP for the value of the treasure when you collect it, rather than for killing creatures. It sounds a little strange, but it meant that you could use either lethal or non-lethal ways to advance.

My only issue with it that I could think of honestly is that the '' roll 1 '' ones are totally unnecessary and kinda just feels like a time waste.
It's obviously not a big deal and doesn't take long, but it always makes me go '' really you're gonna make me roll for that? ''.

I don't disagree with this sentiment. If the DC is 1, and it always is from what I've seen when using illithid powers, I don't need to see the die roll.

Well you do, because 1 is always a failure in D&D, no matter the DC.

That is not true in 5th edition according to this page:

https://rpg.stackexchange.com/quest...lure-on-a-natural-1-a-rule-or-house-rule

There are various reasons why players might want to talk to the dying Mind Flayer that has zero HP, but telling you would be a waste of time considering your response above.

That said, I did this scene three different ways, in the following order :
1) First time, I spoke to the folks and killed the Mind Flayer ASAP - Yep, I am not a complete idiot ;
2) Second time, I spoke to it and failed to resist its mind control ;
3) Third time, I knew the scene and just shot it from afar wtihout talking to the folks, etc.

Beyond my pride, the fact remains it is an example where failing a dialogue roll is not fun with consequences : just a game over (unless you somehow defeat it with whoever is left, usually just Shadowheart).

Failing dialogue rolls can be fun in a tabletop game. Because there the player must then use his creativity to he still reaches his goal. BUT this requires the flexibility of a human game master.

In a computer game I am limited to what the player designers have planned. In some games this works quite well (e.g. Wasteland3) there I am easily punished, if I don't succeed with a throw, but I can still reach my target. SaveScumming because of failing rolls is not necessary there. But in this respect Larian does a bad job at BG3-EA.


Example: Tiefling child.

I play a good hero. According to my definition this means that I save children and not watch them being killed.
If the throw succeeds --> all is well.
If the throw does not succeed, there are a lot of other options:
- I could cut the head off the snake before it bites... damn I am a hero with super fast reflexes
- I could use one of my healing potions to keep the child alive until the healer from the next room is there.
- I could use one of my revival scrolls.
- ...
- And if everything does not help, I could call the responsible person to account.

Which of these options did Larian implement? Nothing. Totally unimaginative --> Dice check failed --> Child dead --> Frustration with me --> Save Scumming.

I don't want to save this Tiefling child because I have ingame a great reward / effect, but because it seems right to me (player) and only this result gives me a good feeling.


In the next scene the same thing happens. Failing-roll --> Nettie attacks you --> Here you can at least beat her unconscious.
But probably Larian did not consider this solution. Otherwise there could have been a dialogue after the fight where Nettie asks you again to kill yourself when you start to transform. That would have been much more satisfying than just leaving her lying unconscious.


In other words: Not the failing dialogue rolls are the problem, but the unimaginativeness with which Larian handles them.

I feel like some people don't really get that failed rolls, sometimes consecutive REALLY bad rolls are a part of the game. To Larian's credit, they've cushioned the blow in enough instances that I'm pretty confident that there will be more of it in the final game (PS. It is suggested that you will get a chance to meet the Tiefling parents again in Baldur's Gate. Maybe you'll see how the death of their child affects how things play out there. Also, have you noticed, that if you save Shazza from Arka's crossbow, a choice that does help you and is in some ways the "good choice", you'll find Arka's body later overlooking the goblin encampment? Probably because she went to vent her frustrations on the larger horde and got herself killed instead. All you find on her, is her gear and her dead brother's handkerchief.)

I've never actually tried to knock Nettie out (always been perfectly content killing that murderous poser), but you should be able to, just that the knockout action seems bugged in many cases. I can't knock out the brothers accosting Ethel either, they just die.

I do wish the interface would show more information on the rolls themselves though. Knowing if I have to roll against an 8 or 18 before I choose a dialogue options, and showing how my other modifiers affect that in a obvious and consistent way will make it easier for players to make objective choices, thus making it 'hurt' less when you 'lose'. Also, the combat log needs to stop collapsing itself >.> I need that open all the damned time... Or, at the very least, make it start at the end when it's expanded so it doesn't take 5 minutes to scroll all the way down to what's relevant.

TLDR: Rolling is a core mechanic to understanding how your choices have an effect in BG3 and should be clearly reflected in the interface. Don't dumb it down. Let us see it so we can learn it.

To be honest, the I actually succeeded on the persuade check on the first try with her.

The guy in the burning building though...I did that like 20 times. Not just because of failing the check. Also because pretty much as soon as you rescue him fires consume the room, and it's easy to get stuck in turn-based mode forever if you try and get into it immediately after that dialogue. It took me awhile to realize I was supposed to destroy the debris in the window before I talked to him.