ogrezilla

why can't my mage intimidate him with a fireball? why can't my rogue intimidate him with a dagger to the throat?

It's relative, in theory you could pump intelligence to the level of a Wizard in the DnD sense, certainly if you so chose. As you said your combat would suffer, but you could. However would you be intelligent in the same way as the Wizard? Without the comparable Wizard levels to said Wizard you wouldn't have any of their Wizard oriented knowledge or specialization that they might add to a conversation. And, really, why would you? That said the same happens on the other side of things, all things being of equal intelligence, and you're a Fighter, a Wizard wouldn't necessarily have your knowledge of physical combat tactics . . . though one could argue, being you've upped your intelligence, and neglected your combat prowess, that you might not know some combat oriented stuff that another Fighter might know despite being less intelligent. This is where I come into the idea that the Warrior with lower intelligence would be able to accomplish his goals as readily as the Wizard, he'd just do so through different means. No less capable, just capable of different things by the chocies he made. Statistical choices and Class specialization choices aren't necessarily linked. I'm not sure that you should be able to do, 'what that guy can' just because you're both smart, as your class choices represent different life choices and knowledge bases. that's fine. the warrior doesn't have to do it the same was as the mage. The class should be a factor too. I'm just saying in general, making an intelligent or persuasive warrior should be just as viable an option as an intelligent or persuasive mage. They could use the intelligence differently. I don't want my warrior to start reciting spells and I don't want my mage to threaten to club a guy with his staff. Both classes would have the choice of being great at their combat skills but bad socially, or they could give up some combat skills to improve their social skills. Most RPG's like this basically push you into being a magic user if you want to have good social skills.

I am perfectly happy making these choices. Really my only concern is that I want the choice to be intellegent or charismatic to be the same for a mage or a warrior. If the stats that dictate social interactions are mostly separate from stats that dictace combat, the game can be balanced as such. Too often though the same stats make you a good spell caster and conversationalist. Let me be an intelligent warrior or archer or wizard. Sure, my combat skills will be worse if I choose to invest in the social stats. That's fine. Same thing with strength often being linked to intimidation. If I want to threaten someone with a hammer, a knife or a fireball, I should be able to if I have the requisite skill to do so. Basically I think persuasion and intelligence should either have little effect on combat, or they should be beneficial to any class in combat. That way every class can choose to give up some combat prowess to improve their social interactions.

ya most likely. and in that case, I hope I am not forced to level up a skill that only helps mages just to be able to have good conversation skills.

This could add a great twist and allow for a wider field of role playing. For instant, you could recruit Foppy McFopperson, the flamboyant Scottish bard, and use him as a "front man". His charming and disarming smile hides your thuggish and selfish goals, and allows you to maintain a relatively high reputation as a party while you go about beating up old ladies for their bingo money. I wonder if they could queues to the dialogue system if you have a companion say something they are uncomfortable with or disagree with. You could either interject your own comment or get a affection role or something to push the companion into actually saying what you want. I like the idea of you telling them what you want them to say. As far as roleplaying goes, I like the idea of only controlling your characters dialogue directly. But I would love if the game included situations where you could choose to have your party members handle a situation. Maybe you need something from a shopkeeper who won't sell to you. Maybe you need information from a thief that you just beat up yesterday and he won't talk to you. You would have to give your companion the information they need to know and instructions on what needs done and then trust them to get it done. Try to send a companion who you treat like crap and maybe they screw you over.

I would definitely like to see fighter skills. I don't mean big things like whirlwinds and leap attacks and such; let the fighters do most of their damage with plain attacks. But something like a shield bash would be cool for a shield user or a skill to let a rogue type trip their opponent. Just enough to add some flavor and to allow these classes to be more fun. Just a few simple skills. I wouldn't want any threat or taunt skills. If he gets to my mage, maybe give my warrior a tackle skill that knocks both the enemy and myself down, giving the mage a little time to move. The rogue's trip might not be as reliable, but wouldn't have the drawback of knocking himself down as well.

If any of my party members can do the talking, I don't mind it being strongly based on stats. If only the PC can do the talking though, I don't want it to be tied to a stat that helps some classes in combat but not others. A wizard shouldn't automatically be a better talker than a warrior or rogue. I personally would prefer it to be a separate group of stats from the base stats. Sure, my mage doesn't have much strength but I think I could intimidate a shopkeeper with a fireball just as well as an axe. And I think a properly built archer could lie just as well as a wizard without being a weaker archer because of it. So I think having things like lie, intimidation, etc could make sense as their own set of stats that don't require me to put less points in my strength or agility to get. I basically just don't want a system that forces me to play a specific combat class if I want to be effective in both combat and conversing.