Conversationalist?

[nmnighteyes]

I've seen more builds here than I'll be able to play in a life time, but 1 thing I haven't seen is one which stats are focused on conversations and then figured out which class would work with those stats ^_^

 

Not having access to the beta myself, I have very little input myself aside from asking the question, which stats are most relevant for conversations and how high should they be without wasting points going too high, yet still being relevant.

 

So which stats would wou value higher than any other for conversational purposes?
and how can we use passiv skills to arugment either our weak stats or improve further our high ones...

[omgFIREBALLS]

In PoE1 the primary stats used for conversation were per, int and res. Saw more of each of those than of mig, con and dex combined. I'd actually hoped they won't be needed anymore, in favor of skills and Party Assist, but apparently stat checks were used on stream.

 

Now, int is an easy attribute for me to like, and I'm no enemy of res either, especially as I typically make my Watchers tanks. Per however I would only pump for stat checks or on absolute glass cannons. Still, if you make your Watcher a tank they can make do with low mig and dex. Others can deal the damage. Surely some will argue you can dump con too/instead.

[KaiG]

Roleplaying-wise my character should have super high Resolve, but unfortunately it's only really useful for tanks, and my character ain't no tank. It's a pity, but I'll have to live with Int as my conversation attribute. Hopefully the conversation skills will be used for often than attribute checks.

[Enoch]

I suggest not worrying about it too much.

 

Sawyer has highlighted the over-reliance on RES and the Lore skill in dialogues as one of the weaknesses of the first game.  My assumption (hope) is that they're going to be more evenhanded this time.  The goal should be for every player to have his/her character creation choices acknowledged in non-combat situations to a roughly even degree.

 

Note that, for Deadfire, they can rely more on a far more rigorous skill system, so options that can be "won" only via a high attribute should be more rare.  It is probably still reasonable to expect that the mental attributes will be tested more in conversations, while the physical attributes are checked more often in scripted sequences.  So maybe it's best to make a high PER/INT/RES main character and make Eder (or whoever) do all the dangerous athletic stuff.  Or maybe not-- we don't really know yet what they've cooked up that will be protagonist-only. 

Edited May 7, 2018 by Enoch

[omgFIREBALLS]

@Enoch that does sound promising. I find that between attributes and skills, there are many blurry distinctions though, and it's not made less weird by Party Assist letting you benefit from your minions' skills but not their attributes.

 

What might really spice things up would be punishing ridiculously low stats too. Like if you dump resolve, you'll back down from nearly any discussion, etc. While PoE1 had rewarding and reasonable conversation options for high attributes, it felt a bit like the standard options all assumed you had at least ten in every attribute.

[Vastus]

From what I've seen from Cohh's stream it's mostly Perception that's important in conversations in terms of attributes, outside of that there is more of a reliance on the skills (especially passive ones) for conversation options.