Improving Icewind Dale's dialogue system

Discussion in 'Icewind Dale Total Conversion' started by Allyx, Nov 16, 2016.

Remove all ads!
  1. Shiningted

    Shiningted I want my goat back Administrator

    Joined:
    Oct 23, 2004
    Messages:
    12,651
    Likes Received:
    350
    Well, here's how I calculated KotB's DCs (from the manual);
    Now, you don't have to follow any of this by any means. but I did it this way and got no complaints - in fact the only feedback I got was from someone (The Royal Canadian I think?) saying they hadn't thought about calculating DCs that way before. Generally speaking feedback falls into 4 categories:

    1) Folks like FDR, or Gazra, who go out of their way to help
    2) People who don't like this or that (a bug or decision), and say so
    3) People who don't understand something, and call it a bug
    4) People who are happy with what you have done, who say nothing or give generic praise - "Great job guys, thanks for the effort!" Which is upliftin :) But not helpful.

    I got not feedback on the skills other than that one comment (and some constructive criticism about the Climb skill, which was fair enough. And the bugs in the Disguise skill, which was also fair enough) so I took it to mean people were ok with it.

    I'd set them lower for IWD myself - 4 + expected level, rather than 6, since a lot of folks familiar with IWD will not expect skill checks and may not worry so much about them. But that's just me :)
     
  2. Allyx

    Allyx Master Crafter Global Moderator Supporter

    Joined:
    Dec 2, 2004
    Messages:
    5,001
    Likes Received:
    250
    Thanks for your insight Ted, helpful as always. I do like the idea of opposed rolls for dialogue skill checks, but am happy to concede that regular IWD players would be thrown by such a drastic switch in dialogue conduct, not that they couldn't get used to it, but it would render a lot of the original dialogue options unused most of the time (the best face PC's are Bards and Rogues as they get the most skill points, and the most class skill talking options - therefore there is limited scope for those *readable by Barbarians/Clerics/Druids/Fighters/Paladins/Rangers/Sorcerers/Wizards only* dialogue options).

    However, since the Combat system is being updated to 3.5 ed D&D rules, so too should the dialogue side of the game. Ideally opposed rolls would be my first choice as that IS how it is handled in 3.5 ed, but I would allow reverting to ToEE's method of setting a DC for dialogue options for ease of use, and familiarity's sake.
     
Our Host!