I used to always try for the best outcome but with this have it seems like half of the time a failure also leads to an amazing consequence and story.
Like this from act one in the Underdark:
spoiler
I had to find a hidden gnome that could supply me with gunpowder, but she was so much on edge that she lit up the barrel of gunpowder and blew up the whole room, leaving half of my party dead. A suicide gnome bomber. I couldn’t convince her that I was not an enemy. Reloaded just to see if I could successfully do it, but much preferred the first outcome of the dice roll, so had to reload and try 6 times until I failed again. What a game!
If we’re talking specifically about dice rolls, I generally accept failures. But I absolutely save-scum to get around anything I perceive as “videogame bullshit” such as an unexpected scene triggering a conversation on a character I would NEVER want having that conversation, even if they pass the rolls it feels icky to have someone like Lae’zel playing diplomat.
I feel like this is one of the aspects of DnD the game doesn’t do a great job of. In the tabletop you sometimes have one character handling the conversation but you can usually switch pretty easily. Like the paladin could be talking to someone and fail to persuade them, then the barbarian steps in to intimidate or something.
It does bother me quite a bit how conversations are so one-on-one. I really appreciate the peanut gallery comments from my companions, but they’re too few and far between. I would love if there was some way to make manual checks based on the dialogue but still totally dependent on the player understanding what types of check they might need.
E.g., I’m talking to an NPC as Tav, but the NPC mentions something which I pick up on as sounding religious (and my Tav isn’t versed in religion). I should be able to make a religion check as whichever companion I want – essentially, let the player role play for the whole group the same way an actual group of people would in DnD. The game is already meta-gaming for you in exactly this way, by performing, say, a religion check when my character probably wouldn’t have picked up on any religious undertones, and now I’m wondering why my character suddenly knows about some obscure religious proverb or some such.
Yeah, I wish that would have been implemented. Maybe at a later update or a mod?
This is the approach I take. I can roll with character deaths and dice rolls that fundamentally alter the trajectory of the game - I just can’t tolerate losing my agency to quirks of the engine. I once lost 3 companions because they were standing on a trap during a cutscene - didn’t hesitate to reload in that case.
Exactly the same here. Did I somehow click something behind the camera, causing my moron to run directly at the giant enemy crab I just managed to carefully avoid? Yeah I’ll reload.
Same if it’s a dialogue option I (or the NPC I’m talking to) clearly misunderstood. In tabletop or real life it could be cleared up by “no, party member, I only told the bad guy I’d help him as a lie” even if it added a persuasion or deception check. In game, there’s just no dialogue option to say “sorry, i didn’t mean it that way” in most situations. See also: accidentally romancing the wrong person as many players apparently do
Yea I had an instance of this as well. “I totally agree to do this evil thing in your place, leave it up to me guys go have a drink on me” was a lie. I couldn’t make up the disapproval from 2 other party members even when I saved the person afterwards.
At this point I basically assume that if something doesn’t have a deception check attached, friends and foes will both believe it 100%
You know what that’s probably correct. I will look out for that going forward.
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I have definitely had some happy accidents, which only makes me wish even more for the ability to see what ANYONE in my party can say instead of just the accidental face.
Karlach is a surprisingly adept negotiator with her “I’LL CHOP OFF YOUR HEAD AND MAKE YOU TONGUE YOUR OWN ASSHOLE” style of persuasion.