Larian Studios Forums Baldur's Gate III Baldur's Gate III - Suggestions & Feedback We should be able to switch PCs mid conversation.

Title. Let's say one character initiates a conversation with the intention to use persuasion, but finds that for one reason or another that another character should have started the conversation instead. It'd be a bit more realistic AND convenient if multiple characters could be part of a social interaction.

Always +1.

Yep. Maybe when we get a Community Manager they can put together a list of these common requests and an official response (eg. it’s in the pipeline, or under consideration)

I disagree ... with the title. Because it's incorrect.

PC stands for Player Character. That's the one character you create at the start of the game (or several, if/when it becomes possible to create a full party of PCs, but I currently treat this as an edge case).

The other characters in your party are your Companions. And they are also NPC (Non-Player Characters), like all the NPCs in the world that are not Companions.


What I wholeheartedly agree with however is the request that :

We should be able to change the Party Member who does the talking, and rolls on an Ability Check.

(Regardless of whether the current speaker is your PC, one of your PCs if you created more than one, an NPC Companion, or the PC Companion of a friend you're playing with.)


There are so many good reasons why this would be much better than the current system, but I won't go into them. This request has already be made dozens of times, the explanations have been given, and my purpose in this post was mostly just to add my +1 to the idea of the request (by the way, it's still possible to change the title).

I'm not holding my breath until I hear Larian's response to this, but I'd be quite interested to know, at the very least, if they have any plans to rework the conversation system. Or, on the contrary, if they're happy with how it is and plan to leave it as it is. Swen announced in the last PFH that Larian is starting to see the end of the project, so maybe they are starting to stop brainstorming new ideas (like new ways to make Throw the main action in the game), and have an approximately finished list of features to work on.

Same

Always +1 every time someone brings it up.

I agree, so +1 from me. Especially since it often happen, that conversations with npcs start automatically and then the wrong character is involved. It would be great to have the right character taking over.

+1

Are you talking about switching PC in multiplayer or being able to switch to one of your companions mid stream in a conversation?

I ask this because (while I have never played multiplayer mode) I saw a video by Larian showing that when it comes to PC dialog that there is some sort of voting system/ ability to communicate with the other people in your party to decide who speaks/ makes the check or has that not been implemented thus far?

As far as being able to just switch between who's speaking in a single player game I am going to have to disagree. The character who carries on any conversation/ makes checks in that conversation should be the character you chose at character creation OR the character you have selected atm dialog begins, but switching between your PC and the companions mid dialog would cause a lot of meta gaming. Ex. I start a conversation with some one as my PC and I am trying to talk my way out of getting in to fight and one of the selections is persuasion, but my character isn't proficient, but I know one of my companions is so I switch to them to make that check, but the conversation progresses and now I need to make an intimidation check, well the companion I just switched to isn't proficient in that my PC who is a Barbarian is so I will switch back to them. So, no... if anything they should allow you to switch who is doing the conversation once per conversation and I say that in part because of the amount of times I have been annoyed that the conversation is initiated by one of my companions due simply to them being closer in proximity to the NPC.

I agree this tile+post is a but unclear. This is why I suggested the title/request :



Well, I have played in multi-player mode (me + a friend). As of now, unless things have changed since I tried, what we have is this.

• You cannot chose who initiates the conversation. If your friend clicks on Kagha first, then your friend does the Kagha conversation. Likewise if the conversation is triggered by Character proximity.
• Consequently, you cannot choose who rolls when an Ability Check occurs. It is the Character who initiated the conversation, i.e. the Speaker, that does all the rolls.
• You can vote for the dialogue option to be chosen. This is non-binding.
• And regardless of whether you voted or not, you cannot see what dialogue options your friend selects unless you ask them constantly, or you open the Dialogue History layer (and likely keep it open during the whole conversation). Oh and you are not automatically dragged into the conversation when it occurs ... you have to click "listen to", even though you're standing right between your friend's Character and the NPC talking. So you will usually miss the first voiced line, if the NPC speaks first.

In short, the multiplayer gameplay during conversation is very poor at the moment. (And when you think that Larian is a company that prides itself on making multi-player CRPGs, and that some of the gameplay problems we face when playing Single Player might be due to the game being developed with Multi-Player in mind, this is just disappointing.)



I'm sorry to hear that you disagree. But this is exactly what I, and other players, want. For at least 2 very good reasons.

• Immersion/verisimilitude. We are a group of adventurers. We are all there together during the conversation. Don't you think it would make sense that we can all talk ?
  Picture this scene : the Bard tried to persuade the guard to let the team through as the party needs to speak to the master of the place. The guard is too stubborn, it doesn't work. The Barbarian moves forward with the intention of threatening violence ... but the Bard stops them : "sorry mate, this is my conversation ... you can try your gig next time, but right now, if I fail, we'll just have to kill the guard or turn back". That would be ridiculous, in my opinion. It wouldn't happen this way in a non-interactive story-telling media (book, film, etc), nor in real life, so I don't see why we should do it in that unrealistic way in a video game or tabletop RPG.
• Party-based RPG. There is that sentence on one of the loading screens : "Adventuring alone is a hard road. Gathering a balanced party makes everything easier, from conversation to combat". The whole point of being a party and have characters specialising in different skills is that, if we build our party a certain way (a balanced, well-rounded way), we can in principle handle all sorts of situation. If we are forbidden to switch Speaker during a conversation, it defeats the whole purpose of having a wide range of conversation skills in the party.

Finally, and I'm sorry to have to say this but ... if you feel switching Speaker would be un-satisfying play, then just don't do it. Very minor inconvenience to you, if any. At the moment, those of us who think it is a lot more reasonable and satisfying to switch are forced to roll ahead with the sub-optimal Speaker and reload to try with the specialist if it fails. That's more inconvenient. (And also more meta-gaming, since I'd carefully choose who initiate the conversation based on the knowledge of what checks will be required in it.)



To some extent, I'm happy that you too are frustrated by the very sub-par User Interface Larian is providing us with at the moment. Let's keep asking for improvement.

Okay, so you have swayed my opinion a little bit on this. Maybe you should be allowed to switch characters mid dialog, BUT you have to do it before you can see the possible responses.

We will use your example of the Bard and Barbarian: The Bard Starts the conversation and tries to persuade the guard, but fails (and either you have no inspiration or choose not to waste it on this check). Once it fails the guard responds rebuffing the Bard. I would say it would be at THAT point is when you'd have to decide if you want to switch party members not knowing what next set of dialog options will be (unless you have played that scene trough several times and well then you know and more power to you I guess). In this example yeah an intimidation check is likely to be an option so switching to your Barbarian is probably a good idea, but still there is a chance you could be wrong. The reason I think the switch should have to be done BEFORE you see the dialog options is because in a TT session if I start a conversation and roll for persuasion and fail, the DM doesn't typically say "Well if you like you can attempt to intimidate the guard." the person playing the Barbarian decides on their own to attempt to interject either by stating what they say to the guard and the DM responding "Okay make an intimidation check" or the player playing the barbarian asks "can I roll to intimidate the guard?" and in the second case (at least in my experience) the DM will follow up that request with "What do you do/say?" before okaying the check. Luckily in a lot if not most case in BG3 I have noticed that in dialog that requires a CHA check (either intimidation, deception or persuasion) you are quite often given at least two options.

Also, IF Larian were to implement this ability then they I think they should also program different responses for the different characters (either based on class/race for the PC and that fit the Companions' various personalities) that the others may not have. I don't mean just for flavor like replacing one bit of dialog for another but having the same check or simply replacing a regular intimidation check for a berserker intimidation check, I mean literally different options.

So using our friends the Bard and the Barbarian as examples The Bard starts the convo tries to persuade the guard but fails, the guard responds rebuffing the bard. Now before seeing the options you have to choose who is going to respond to the guard. Since Bards are about as intimidating as a chihuahua choosing to move forward with them might result in choices being another persuasion check with a bribe or a deception check to lie your way in, however choosing to switch to your Barbarian (which usually are blunt as a hammer) would open up an intimidation check, but of course (unless you've played through this scene at least once probably more) using my suggestion you won't know till you make that choice.

Also just as a side note I think special versions of checks should have auto bonuses to them that the normal ones don't it shouldn't just be flavor... Example a Barbarian Intimidation check should get like I dunno a +2 over a normal intimidation check IMHO

I just wanna switch the active speaker for roleplay reasons. This is the thing I most want to see added.

An engine limitation from 1995 doomed us to thirty years of "single party face ever gets to talk".
Time to break with this ridiculous tradition.

This could easily be rectified by allowing any party member to roll a check. Just because my no CHA barb was unlucky enough to be right next to an enemy (you know, where martials usually are?) that then immediately forces conversation, does not mean my silver-tongue bard is incapable of joining the conversation.

Like, Christ alive, this was shit system in DoS1 that nobody liked and Larian still decided to keep it nearly 10 years on effectively ruining party composition and destroying player agency by needing to have all speech checks on a single character.

+1 it's one of the things which annoys me the most, especially for dialogue encounters after battles. As a ranged character you have to go though loops and loops to hope you end up in the right space.