Hi all,
This kind of ties in with update 7 but I wanted to post it seperately.
One thing that really frustrtates me with PS:T is the fact that, to get the most dialogue choice and most depth from the story, you have to put all your points in charisma, wisdom and intelligence. Effectively making you a mage. If you develop your character in another way, you miss out on dialogue and 'story experience'.
Even if Obsidian seperate combat and non-combat abilities - effectively making it so you can develop a character based on strength and still have the same resources to develop the equivalent of wisdom, for instance - you still will miss out on, say, trap-disarming if you want 'story' and dialogue - if they simpy seperate 'non combat' from 'combat' skills.
Who doesn't want the option of experiencing the story to its fullest?
Personally, I feel that there are a number of approaches for tacking this. First - perhaps dialogue skills should be completely seperate from everything else. So everyone will get a lot of dialogue options - it's just how you choose to develop them - whether a persuasive type, or someone who relies on initimidation, for instance. The resources and XP for 'dialogue' are roped off from everything else. So you have 'combat skills', 'non combat skills' and 'dialogue skills'.
Or, I would actually be open to the idea of dialogue skills being completely absent. So the way we develop in dialogue is down to player choice in dialogue rather than options appearing dependent on the level of your Speech skill.
Finally, another option might be to treat speech differently from other skills again - maybe taking a Bethsoft approach. So, there ARE checks for persuasion, intimidation or whatever - but these are not things you pump points into, but rather that are tracked organically based on player choice in dialogue, and so by the end of the game you find dialogue options available to you based on how you have behaved in dialogue in the past.
At the moment I favour the last option. This combines an acknowledgment that dialogue choices are affected by player choice with a way that doesn't limit your character development in other areas.
I hope this makes sense. I just feel that having an option in the character screen that basically is a stat for 'story' is stupid, because most people are automatically going to want that and it just means limiting their options and development elsewhere.