[Tokse]

Or does Intelligence and wisdom stats also affect conversational options?I am in the middle of levelup to level 4 and I want a character with conversational influence..Are skills like diplomacy, bluff and intimidate alone determining conversational options or does stats (charisma, intelligence, wisdom) also play a role? When I think logically about it I would think that intelligence would determine intelligent answers and that charming but stupid characters woulden¨t be capable of very intelligent conversational options..? Or am I wrong?

[kmonster]

There are 2 int-based dialogue options I know of. The second isn't beneficial and the first and only useful one is about being able to help building a crossbow (requires 18 int).
But you can just have your mage start a second conversation since it's obvious that int is required in this case.
The rest depends on conversation skills which are strongly influenced by charisma.

I'd tend to increase charisma rather than int or wis, but without knowing anything about your party I can't say if this is the best choice in your case.

[Tokse]

I'd tend to increase charisma rather than int or wis, but without knowing anything about your party I can't say if this is the best choice in your case.

I `ve got an aasimar ranger as a spokesman, walking beside a halforc fighter without much personality. These two walk in front and do most of the melee fighting. Behind them are a battlepriest of tempus, a druid, a rogue and a wizard.
The ranger is about to advance to level four so I can choose a stat to increase. Now he has: cha 16, wis 12, int 10, con 16, dex 10, str 16. Verbal skills: diplomacy 6, bluff 5, intimidate 4. I think I will increase cha to 17 now. My wizard often cast the spell eagle`s splendor at him so this will help him even before level 8, when he can increase cha to 18.

But I am wondering, will the ranger get more skill points if I increase int to 12 or 14? In that way I could place more skill points at diplomacy, bluff and intimidate(or maybe I should specialize one or two of them..?). But I realize of course that cha-increase will make a bigger difference alone.

[Claudius]

early on high +stat (cha for bluff an example) is quite important. But eventually it is most important to have as many points in that skill as you can for your level. So then intelligence is important. 16 charisma is already way high for a Ranger. I don't have experience with such a char I use bards or sorc as diplomat.

claudius

[Tokse]

Does anyone know (or have a suggestion) how high the skills diplomacy, bluff and intimidate should be to make successfull rolls throughout the game then? The ranger has quite low base skill points per level (2 per level with an int of 10), but maybe I should increase int to get more verbal skills then..? But are the diologue-rolls made exclusively on the the skills diplomacy, bluff and intimidate, or are diologue-rolls also made on charisma stat?

[Tokse]

hmm..maybe I should multiclass him to a ranger/bard then..

[kmonster]

Don't raise int, you'll have to raise it to 12 to get an extra skill point per level and you'll only get one extra skill point per level when starting from this point, you won't get the skill points you would have gotten with 12 int at the start.

Rather increase charisma, this will also reduce shop prices. With 17 cha and a lucky eagle's splendor you get 22, that's already a +6 modifier for diplomatic skills even without having a single skill point.
The value important for dialogues checks is the sum of cha modifier + points spent in the skill + eventual feat bonusses.
I think the diplomatic skill values checked for aren't higher than 11 in the game, but that's just a guess.

The diplomatic skills are very useful in the prologue, but later you'll hardly need them any more.
Diplomacy is the most important of the three diplomatic skills. How important the others are to you depends on your roleplaying style, "bluff" is for liars and "intimidate" for thugs.
The "bullheaded" feat is probably worth taking for a pure ranger diplomat, but take "mercantile background" first if you don't have it yet.

It's no problem beating the game with 1 cha and no diplomatic skills, Powergamers would just look at your ranger's combat stats and raise dex to 13 (for rapid shot).

Multiclassing your ranger with bard will make your party stronger, because of the extreme buffs you can get with the bard songs. Lingering song is an extremely powerful feat.
Since "diplomacy" and "bluff" are bardic class skills you only need one skill point to rise them by one and extra spells don't hurt either.
Just keep in mind that you get a slight XP penalty when your classes aren't even.

[Domi_Ash]

I think the diplomatic skill values checked for aren't higher than 11 in the game, but that's just a guess.

No. There are higher checks, and they increase with Chapter progression. While in Andora Diplomacy of 6 and Intimidation of 3+ is enough to have a diplomatic solution (and being a cleric, lol), in Chpater 5, the amount of times you can Bluff Archon depends on your Bluff skill and checks up to 16 on Bluff. I think it was Intimidation of 13 to scare away a giant who came with the priestess party after the Ice Temple, and I think about the same (11-13 or so) is needed for the alchemist in Dragon Eye. In other words, 13-14 ranks is what I give each of my characters and specialize each in one 'skill' only (ie my half-orc barbarian is Intimidation gal, and my paladin is Diplomacy, etc).

[Tokse]

I quit the ranger/bard idea and went for inteligence. I actually adjusted the rangers abilities with the program dalekeeper2. (I`m new to the 3rd edition rules so I think that justifies it . I also increased the skill levels to the point I would be if I`d increased intelligence at the beginning of the game. But I`ll only do it once.. Now he has(at level 7): cha 16, wis 8, int 12, con 17, dex 12, str 16. So now he achieves 3 skill points at levelups, thats enough to maximize diplomacy, bluff and animal empathy. In the long run I hope that will compensate for the Charisma-increase I missed. But everything comes at a cost, his low wisdom cripples him from spellcasting..well I guess the cleric, wizard and the druid`ll have to do the spellcasting.

[Jelaweb]

Are you sure the character gets 3 skill points with 10 INT? Humans with an INT of between 3-11 should only get 2 (1 for all other races).
I'd personally reduce INT further and put on a bit of WIS - this will also boost your Will saves and allow Ranger spellcasting. But it also depends on the function of the character - DEX will help for ranged weapons, AC and Reflex saves.

[Tokse]

Are you sure the character gets 3 skill points with 10 INT? Humans with an INT of between 3-11 should only get 2 (1 for all other races).

your right, I was supposed to type 12 int there

I'd personally reduce INT further and put on a bit of WIS - this will also boost your Will saves and allow Ranger spellcasting. But it also depends on the function of the character - DEX will help for ranged weapons, AC and Reflex saves.

He`s a frontperson, melee fighter(large swords and flails) and spokesman. At first I wanted to make him a paladin, but thinking about it that`s kind of too dull, they don`t even accept payment.. Yeah, reducing wisdom has some drawbacks, I gave him the feat Iron Will to compensate some of it. I gave him 12 dex too, to be able to get max AC-bonus from the full-plate(which I still haven`t spotted anywhere..)

[Tokse]

but after all, he`s not the first unwise ranger in history, take a look at the legendary ranger Minsc: Stats: Str 18(93), Dex 16, Con 16, Int 6, Wis 8, Cha 9

[Jelaweb]

I gave him 12 dex too, to be able to get max AC-bonus from the full-plate

There is always the spell Cat's Grace...
It means you could reduce DEX to 10 for a guaranteed DEX of 12 (as low as 7, if you want to risk the lucky rolls).

It means you can put those points into some other stat.

[Klorox]

I remember reading that you need a INT and WIS of 14, and a CHA of 16 for all conversations.

I wonder what the talky skills are for then... ?

[Crucis]

I remember reading that you need a INT and WIS of 14, and a CHA of 16 for all conversations.

I wonder what the talky skills are for then... ?

Because the "talky skills" open up conversation options that aren't linked to those stats.

[Klorox]

Because the "talky skills" open up conversation options that aren't linked to those stats.

So, how high do you need in Bluff, Intimidate, and Diplomacy to get all the options?

[Crucis]

So, how high do you need in Bluff, Intimidate, and Diplomacy to get all the options?

It varies by how early or late in the game you are. Off the top of my head, I can think of at least 3 or 4 places where those skills is useful, and I'm sure that there are more. It's hard to build a character who will be well skilled in all 3 talky skills. You'd need to be a rogue to have all 3 as in-class skills. And if you're taking lots of talking skills at the expense of other rogue skills.

Diplomacy, IIRC, is considered the most useful of the three. After that, I'd say that Intimidate is next most useful. I can think of one situation where you either want a high Intimidate or a high Alchemy skill to resolve a certain situation later in the game. Of the three, Bluff is the least critical, although I know of at least one or two minor situations where Bluff can be useful.


Klorox, I wouldn't worry so much about having the ultimate uber-perfect, "cover every eventuality" party. Even with "only" 6 characters, it's not really possible to cover all of the bases to perfection.

That said, an interesting build that I've used once or twice is a ftr X/rogue 2. I start the character as a rogue and max out the talking skills. I also have the character have a DEX 14, so that he'll have a decent enough DEX to take advantage of rogue evasion at 2 levels of rogue. I switch over to fighter for a few levels, then take the second level of rogue after 4-5 levels of fighter, and max out the talking skills again. (BTW, any excess goes into the stealth skills.) This sort of build ends up being a chain mail-wearing fighter with a reasonably silvery tongue. Not exactly a powergaming build, but a more than competent fighter with the ability to talk to anyone. And you won't feel bad about having such a character in the #1 slot to be the party's spokesperson. No risk of turning down rewards or placing a weak mage out in front of your tanks.

[Jelaweb]

If you have NearInfinity, you can search for CheckSkill, CheckSkillGT and CheckSkillLT in every DLG file.

I remember doing this a while ago - I think 17 is the maximum for one of the diplomatic skills. Remember though, if it is 17, you won't need to put his many points in it, as your CHA bonus would boost it.
So a character with a CHA of 18 would "only" need 13 skill points spent - 11-12 if you cast Eagle's Splendor.

[Tokse]

That said, an interesting build that I've used once or twice is a ftr X/rogue 2. I start the character as a rogue and max out the talking skills. I also have the character have a DEX 14, so that he'll have a decent enough DEX to take advantage of rogue evasion at 2 levels of rogue. I switch over to fighter for a few levels, then take the second level of rogue after 4-5 levels of fighter, and max out the talking skills again. (BTW, any excess goes into the stealth skills.) This sort of build ends up being a chain mail-wearing fighter with a reasonably silvery tongue. Not exactly a powergaming build, but a more than competent fighter with the ability to talk to anyone. And you won't feel bad about having such a character in the #1 slot to be the party's spokesperson. No risk of turning down rewards or placing a weak mage out in front of your tanks.

Hmm..not bad, not bad at all.. What kind of stats would you give him (or her)? If he gains one level of ranger as well he could achieve the two-weapon fighting benefits when wearing studded leather, but than he should have more dexterity to get the max dexterity bonus . 20 dexterity I think, but that would of course mean less str, con, cha, wis, int.

[Crucis]

Hmm..not bad, not bad at all.. What kind of stats would you give him (or her)? If he gains one level of ranger as well he could achieve the two-weapon fighting benefits when wearing studded leather, but than he should have more dexterity to get the max dexterity bonus . 20 dexterity I think, but that would of course mean less str, con, cha, wis, int.

Well, Tokse, the Ftr X/Rogue 2 that I have in a party that I intend to play soon has a stat line of (human) STR 16, DEX 14, CON 16, INT 12, WIS 8, CHA 10. I went with a DEX of 14 so that a) she could have a chance to make a Reflex save when trying to evade and b) so that she could take some of the Feats that have a DEX 13 prerequisite. I don't remember why I set INT at 12, probably something to do with # of skill points. Before you (or anyone else) ask, I don't completely drive down stats like INT or CHA. I'm not a powergamer, not a total roleplayer. But I'm probably much closer to a roleplayer than powergamer.


Yes, you could go with a DEX-style fighter, but I'm not sure that max DEX, leather wearing fighters do all that well as a frontline primary tank, but I could be wrong. I suppose you could go with a 20 DEX build, but at that point, you might have a character better suited to be an archer who only engages in melee when absolutely necessary.