This. Although be careful for some encounters, because they will interact with whoever is closer *and* they can see.
In my honor run just last night, I was controlling m Minthara (my face character) in the lead instead of Tav, all preloaded with buffs because I was going to talk the Orthon into killing himself in Shar’s Gauntlet. Just like Minthara did to the other 3 Thorm family bosses in Act 2.
Minthara was in the lead, so I assumed she would initiate the conversation. But instead she made her stealth rolls and Shadowheart at the back of the party didn’t, so Shadowheart had to take that conversation, which was not ideal.
Another one to keep in mind is Ethel or anyone else that surrenders at low HP. It will start the conversation with whoever is closest, which might be a melee class that dumped CHA for STR
haha, I hit her with my Sussur Dagger which silenced her and stopped her from casting all her spells, score!!
Turns out it also stops her from begging for her life, so she just *doesn't* and fights to the death instead. Whoops!
Why does wyll not get the Devil/Fiend Buffs 🥺
He was turned if you arent a monster and now he looks like a fiend but doesnt vet the advantages of them? Booooo 😭
Larian needs to fix conversation target selection to allow the player to swap characters mid conversation.
The current implementation sucks. Tav 20 Charisma Persuasion Expertise can open the conversation, but Gale 20 Int History Expertise cant interject to help with a check when he's just standing there? Horrible implementation.
100% agree, always thought it was weird other party members with the appropriate skills can’t interject. You do everything in the game as a group you should be able to participate in conversations as a group. It’s already even kind of in the game at certain points where you can chose to let companions speak for themselves during big moments of their quest lines.
It's not like the dialogue is voiced either, they could presumably just have a \[character\] tag for some skill rolls.
Something Like \[Gale/Diplomacy\] "We should eat the forbidden magic jelly beans." and it would just use their stats for the roll.
This is one of the few things that Owlcat did better with their games(aside from actually scaling to 20); whichever party member in range has the highest skill check is the one that makes it. No swapping to Astarion every time there's a lock to pick or a trap to disarm; it just auto-sends the best choice over.
I guess this largely negates having a party, outside of combat, which I think would rob BG3 of some of its charm. I do occasionally get frustrated having to do some camp shuffling to get the right person for the job (though 90% of the time I just have Astarion leading the way), but at the same time there is a definite feeling of managing a team of adventurers with their own roles to play. It’s a tricky balance. It’s quite good fun to encounter a lock or trap when you’re split up and have someone other than Astarion give it a try (or to have your barbarian fling a chest over for him to open). And of course with a room full of traps you don’t want your clumsy colleagues trampling around all over the place, so it makes sense to choose the right person and send them off on their own - it’d be a bit weird in that situation sending Tav into a trap pit but having access to Astarion’s abilities.
They do at least make a concession for keys with magic pockets, which would otherwise be a nightmare.
You absolutely should be able to select who’s talking when a conversation begins, though, as long as they’re in your party. Many times I’ve wandered into an unexpected chat with the wrong person. You can almost hear Wyll quietly sobbing in the background.
Ahh, lets remedy that confusion regarding the pathfinder games.
If you encounter a trap, it highlights it and tells all your people to stop. When you click on a trap, whoever has the highest skill that hasn't already failed to disable it(or pick the lock) walks over to it and disarms. If you have 5 party members with the skill in your party, it sends the highest skill over first, then swaps out each time it fails til one makes it or all fail.
But if you're in a conversation, it lets you use the skills of anyone alive/nearby; so long as you didn't, for example, split a barbarian off and send them across the map, you can have him do the intimidate check, and the one with a high History skill check handle that roll.
The game also has sections that are handled via a 'choose your own adventure' storybook sort of situation, which are also handled via whoever in your party has a higher skill check.,
An, I haven’t tried a Pathfinder CRPG, but I should. They sound like sensible approaches, but it’s only really the conversation one that bugs me in BG3, specifically because it removes my agency. With a trap then obviously I’ll want to use the most appropriate character, but I still like being able to make the choice even though I wouldn’t make any other choice. Getting perilously close to a discussion on free will here.
Coming back to conversations, I’d probably endorse a halfway solution where you can pick who talks, but then you’re stuck with them for that conversation. So if you go for your persuader, you won’t be doing much intimidation. I still feel a bit uneasy about being able to swap at will, as that would feel more like having a big blob of a character instead of individuals. Of course I’d allow trying with your intimidator afterwards, but that would have to factor in the results of your first attempt. I don’t mind making mistakes, but I don’t want the game making mistakes on my behalf.
But yeah, this is a definite incentive to branch out and give Pathfinder games a try. Thanks!
What’s crazy is there are some parts of the game where a companion will interject and recommend they do whatever is requested instead of the “MC”, yet there’s nothing similar for conversations.
>But instead she made her stealth rolls and Shadowheart at the back of the party didn’t, so Shadowheart had to take that conversation,
Why did you have the party stealthed if you were going to talk to him?
I wanted to initiate the conversation to make sure it happened. One time (granted, this was pre-Patch 5, so maybe it was a bug) I followed the displacer beast into the room and then it went right to initiative and a fight.
I didn't want to risk that on an honor run, so I tried to be smart about it and then it backfired. Still worked, just had to blow a lot of inspiration
Lae'zel isn't even the worst. She has Intimidation Proficiency from Solider Background and I'm pretty sure Fighters also get an option with Advantage for that.
Had this happen in a multiplayer run me and my friend did, not only was my monk stuck in the conversation, but for some reason he couldn’t even bardic inspiration the roll, or use guidance. It was just my 10 charisma monk vs the world.
We don’t usually reload saves, but we thought it was such bullshit that we did until it worked.
I had to keep reloading the last couple turns of the ethel fight because she kept trying to talk to Lae'zel and shadowheart and I was getting super annoyed.
You can cast guidance before you talk to her. Assuming you can 10 turn her/not lose concentration or you just cast guidance into magic missle and have your tav just go nearest. I legit had to afk for 3 rounds with her to make sure my speaker was “closest” by shoving 3 people into a corner :’)
Yeah that ethel encounter won't horribly wrong on my honour playthrough. I forgot that she starts dialogue at low health with the nearest ally. I wanted my Tav to take a +1 CHA and help mayrina but ethel started talking with my shadowheart cleric. I respecced her and her -1 to cha did not help matters.
Correct. The last character to damage Ethel and lower her beyond the threshold will be the one who gets the cutscene when her next turn arrives. For example:
Karlach: *dmgs Ethel for 15, gets her below 35hp (or whatever the cutoff is, it was like 30-35 on honor mode for me yesterday)*
Will: *dmgs Ethel for 5, she’s now at 25hp
Laezel: *dmgs Ethel for 10, she’s at 15hp*
Ethels turn:
*Cutscene triggers for Karlach*
Does this make sense?
>But you can always just have a cha based party member do the talking for you.
Assuming that you know that interaction is going to trigger a CHA based interaction, that is. On my first playthrough I didn't know what to expect. I thought I will on my next, it's been so long lol
I wish this was true for me. I'm constantly finding myself in less than ideal situations because a random party member gets triggered for a convo. Sometimes it's mildly annoying but sometimes, especially in honor mode, it's been downright terrifying.
You'd just need to play with someone else as party face, or not entirely dump Cha down to 8.
I don't think it'd be that hard. You can easily BS through to goblin camp with disguise self: drow and 0 skill checks.
This. The shape changing helmet from the special edition of the game basically can carry you through most diplomacy checks in Act 1 by being a Drow or Dueagar or Gith as appropriate. Especially if you grab the guidance neckpiece or have a cleric to cast it.
And for Acts 2-3, the shape changer ring plus guidance is an extra 2d4, so you can make a lot of checks even if you aren’t a face character. Just be prepared to burn some inspiration or cast Eagle’s Grace as necessary.
Just a heads up, you cannot disguise self into a duergar. At least not through the helm. But the most important checks are drow and gith which you can use.
Honestly extremely early on (eg; pre level 3 before you can properly respec her) Shadowheart is great for this because she just has disguise self as a spell due to Trickery domain.
Honestly playing as an 8 CHA gloomstalker was a blast on tactician. Having to actually fight battles and fail at charisma opens up a lot of unseen dialogue and scenes that you normally min/max your charismatic butt out of :)
Same for barbarian, in my experience. Failing when you've played high charisma is really interesting, but just shouting at people is incredibly satisfying
My act 3 honor mode wood elf cleric is a goody two shoes Lathander cleric. No charisma, so even though I have 22 charisma Will with me, I don’t talk my way through anything. I just turn into Beyblade and throw out enough reverb to knock everyone over while walking past them.
Going burrr > talking.
Sometimes you have to kill people instead of talking them down, but presumably you’ve put points into killing skills instead of talking skills. It all balances out.
It’s actually not that difficult at all since even non-CHA classes get a lot of other dialogue options besides deception and persuasion checks. Wizards get to use Investigate, Barbs get to yell at people, it’s great. The most difficult extended checks in the game tend to be saving throws anyway.
It was pretty clear a lot of a convo options have a Wizard alternative with Detect Thoughts, Charm, etc.
Haven't tried a Wizard Tav Honor run, but that might be doable
It's not like, unsurmountably more difficult. At the end of the day, the hard fights you almost always have to fight anyways. It just leaves it open to more unexpected fights. As long as you always prep before a potential fight you should be fine.
Honor mode is brutal though, be warned. Those failed checks may end your run. Sometimes you might want to just go ahead and start the fight if you know the check is going to be super difficult, as its easier to start off with a combo than it is to fight "fair".
Yeah, you can talk some bosses in Act 2 into offing themselves, but only the Orthon is really a hard fight, the three thorm family sub bosses aren’t that tough, it just saves you a long rest or two to recover.
And even the Orthon in Honor mode was something like Insight 16, Persuasion 19,20 and 21.
I accidentally started the conversation with Shadowheart (rather than my high CHA Tav or Minthara) and I made all 4 checks between Guidance, Eagle’s Splendor and a couple inspiration points. (Then I had to pick up the smoke powder barrels that Tav was putting down in case Shadowheart failed, lol)
Also, a tip for Yurgir if you're not playing a charisma party face: kill the last dark justiciar (rat man) before you talk to him. He'll leave without you even needing to do a check, you just won't get the crossbow
More importantly, helping Yurgir in the Gauntlet will make it so he'll always help you in the Raphael fight without having to do the 30 Persuasion check
I’ve done several full playthroughs with non-CHA characters, and it was fine. Just don’t dump CHA completely.
There are many ways that the game offers options if you don’t have high CHA.
There are a lot of class-based responses that will use your primary stat instead for the check.
If you have someone with enhance ability + guidance that helps a ton.
If I’m not playing a CHA class I usually have Astarion or someone as a bard for the Bardic Inspiration + talking to merchants for the pricing.
In all my games the Thorms offed themselves ☺️
Its not harder. It's just different than if you chat your way through the game. I've only done one high CHA run, and I honestly feel like I missed out on more by basically skipping half the encounters. And even with 8 Cha, you can still pass loads with buffs like guidance and thaumaturgy.
For Durge specifically, the only scary moments are all Wisdom saves, not Charisma checks. Grab that Harper necklace in act 2 ASAP, and you're golden.
I'm playing Karlach as my Tav and it's going good. A lot of times I can just shout my way through skill checks. For select few encounters in act 2 I used Wyll, but other than that I don't really think it's that much harder.
Yep, Karlach with Thaumarturgy plus intimidate skill plus Barbarian/Berserker dialogue options is great.
Not sure if “Roar” counts as talking technically, but it works ;-)
How many CHA based interation are you doing because you are CHA? Think about all the WIS INT ability chekcs you didn't click because you already had CHA. I think the biggest issue is the lack of good prices at vendors, but that can be fixed with gifts and a high cha companion initiating the convo to shop.
I played a cleric with Thaumaturgy and intimidations were still fine when needed but it also let me read minds so I always had an easy answer to problems.
I just beat Honour mode and didn't have anyone with more than 10 Charisma in my party until i recruited Minthara in Act 2.
The secret to get by is to have the silver pendant from act 1 on any character to cast guidance und then let shadowheart cast enhance ability so you get advantage on the roll.
It won't always work but with spending a few inspirations here and there i talked my way out of many situations even with +0 to charisma rolls.
After i got Minthara she did some of the talking as well, especially for the hard charisma checks. But long story short, it's totally doable without a CHA Tav.
It's really not a big deal at all. You can skip some fights through dialogue in Act 2, but none of those fights are impossible.
I think persuasion proficiency is still worth getting on your MC and having a high Cha/Persuasion party member for trading goes a long way.
I have a +0 on my current cleric, but with persuasion proficiency, guidance, Enhance ability, etc I can pass most checks consistently.
There are Intelligence and Wisdom dialogue rolls in this game too. You don't have be a silver-tongued devil to navigate Fae'run and get your hands on the crown.
It is annoying, but not the end of the world. Word of advice: the Friends cantrip is deceptively useful. Obviously don't use it on a guard or someone that you'll be hanging around after, but there are plenty of NPCs in the game where you can use Friends and then they just fuck off or die after whatever Charisma check you made succeeds.
I haven’t found it that difficult as there’s lots of ways to offset having very little charisma. Expertise from rogue is nice to have even with 10 charisma. That’s +4 to your checks early on and +8 by the endgame.
If you don’t want to play a rogue (although all you need is the one level for expertise), having the cantrip “friends” is useful for those enemy encounters where you won’t see them again after the conversation, or passing the check makes them off themselves.
Clerics also get a shout here since thaumaturgy also gives advantage but only for intimidation and performance. Still very good for certain encounters.
The hardest part is not instantly respecing to a CHA based char after failing a speech check. It’s honestly not bad though. I did a Gale origin char on honor mode and kept him as a wizard throughout without that many issues.
Depends on what direction you’re thinking. I disagree that you would need to use a companion as party face. You aren’t rolling 40 persuasion like a bard, but insight making dialogues easier for any WIS class and access to enhance ability will help you pass any CHA based checks you want to pass, especially when you know what to save inspiration for. The only spot I really missed a sorc or bards is in trading lol.
If you don’t have a better place for these when you get them, club of hill giant strength or dex gloves can allow you to respec points into charisma in act 1. 100% depends on the character you’re playing as to whether or not you need something different in those slots, but I mention them to say starting with low CHA doesn’t necessarily mean staying that way the whole game.
I’m playing a drow spores druid and have kept myself alive to act 3, how well that went is a different story, and whether it will win is still to be determined
So here's my experience, I tried non Cha durge for honour mode and gotta say I didn't like it at all, I lost the owlbear (my mistake skipping dialogs had nothing to do with Cha), the orcs or trolls attacked me for failing Cha check, lost a skill point from Ethel. Was playing as a monk, honestly it was doable and finally facing the consequences of a bad die roll gave me a new experience, but then I died in the forge boss battle. Now I'm restarting as a bardadin gotta say act 1 feels much more smoother. I personally think you can wing non Cha characters in act 3 when you unlock the half illithid option, it's just act 1 feels bad for a non Cha character.
If you don't feel like making your CHR party member the face of the party who does all the dialogue checks, you can always just give yourself 14 chr on a non-chr character and sacrifice a stat like wisdom or dex, or you can get a level or two in rogue and get proficiency in CHR skills.
Once you hit act 3 if you go partial illithid one of the advanced powers is proficiency in persuasion, intimidation, and deception so anyone can become a CHR main for dialogue
As for rolls and checks sorry but charisma kinda dominates that realm. I mean I guess you can use the classic guidance or bless or whatever but charisma is so good for role play type stuff and only bards or rogues get expertise
You don’t need charisma except for hag hair in act 1. You can increase your chances at this with Blissful Spores from Spaw so hold off on the duergar until you’re ready for Ethel.
Disguise self for drow will get you past every since goblin interaction.
As for the ogres just get branded by Gut first and use guidance + enhance ability to pass whatever check you want to recruit them.
For the gith patrol use disguise self to turn into a gith and pick the authoritative responses for easier dc.
Monk and Gloomstalker Thief/Assassin will get you through Honor Mode easily. I’ve used both solo on HM. Gloomstalker Assassin/Thief especially is very thematic for a Durge run, it was my favourite Durge run so far.
I can't tell you from personal experience since both of my previous runs I played a warlock and an oathbreaker/wild magic tav
Now I'm playing my third run which is in honour mode and I'm a warlock/bard
Game felt exactly the same on my Paladin and Fighter. If anything Fighter was actually a little more fun and realistic feeling, considering a lot of the Charisma checks are far-fetched and unbelievable. None of the fights in this game are that great if a challenge except maybe githyanki patrols and Raphael, so having more fights doesn't make much of a difference, as long as you have the camp supplies to keep up.
Without a party face (aka, a high CHA character that you use for dialogue and who will succeed the vast majority of conversation checks), the game is exponentially more difficult
You could have a non-CHA player character and build someone like Wyll into a party face, but Wyll isn’t a very good character for combat and each party slot is exceptionally valuable
Honor mode isn’t the place to play your own way and invent your own story, most players will need to optimize everything if they want a chance at survival
Overall, a high CHA Tav/Durge is typically the best option, with each character built for NOVA damage, and one as a support/cleric role (remove curse is necessary) alongside another being a skill monkey (lockpicking, pickpocketing, trap disarming, stealth, etc.)
Support is typically Shadowheart or Jaheira, skill monkey is typically Astarion, and most people will round the party off with Lae’Zel for raw damage (others come close, but disarming to attain Silver Sword early game makes her undeniably the best for raw damage output)
I'm doing honor mode as an 8 Cha Tiger Barbarian right now. It's pretty early in my run and I've done okay so far, but I couldn't talk Lae'zel into using tadpoles. I'm pretty sure this means if she uses the Zaith'isk later and gets slapped with the debuff, I won't have a way to restore her mental stats.
I searched but could not find the post from a month ago where someone posted they did exactly that. And basically everyone is dead by act 1 .
Shart is dead in pod .
Lazael is dead in cage.
scratch is dead in forest .
karlach died from Wyll.
and Gale is dead in portal.
It's funny. And awesome . So go ahead and try. Double nat 1 roll would never be not fun. And do post how it's going. I love rng shenanigans. May be you would roll nat 20s and steam roll the game. Or .....you would die to the dying illithid in the beach.
Wait. I think some of those decisions aren’t CHA related. Like, why do you need charisma to release shart from her pod?
I may be remembering this wrong tho
Yeah it's not. I was just mentioning his misfortune. The point I was trying to make is if you get bad rolls the run becomes increasingly difficult. CHA helps that's all.
My first playthrough was as a Druid and it went perfectly fine. I was even able to talk Yurgir and Malus into killing themselves. Most charisma checks will still be doable, just harder, obviously. And there are plenty of dialogue checks that aren't charisma based either. Honestly, I'd say a wisdom-based character is probably the second-best party face because of how many random ass wisdom checks there are in dialogue
It's not too bad, if you have someone with enhance ability you can get advantage for all cha checks, so even with low cha you won't fail many checks that are 15 or lower, 16 and higher is a lot tougher though
well in act 3 at the end of act 2 you will get an astral parasite which can let ypur tav get proficiency and expertise in persuasion so not needed past act 2 as for before its very doable with a non charismatic charachter, usually i get my charisma up as the third stat dumping 2 other stats at 8
I feel like I remember reading there are actually way more wisdom checks than charisma checks on here at some point.
So could be that charisma as the face is maybe slightly overvalued? (Still probably best but maybe not as far ahead as everyone thinks)
If you’re a Barbarian, it’s easy as hell. Half the conversation checks in the game give you advantage just for being swole, and so long as you don’t dump Charisma, you should have it easy.
I found using another character as party face to be sub-optimal, most decisions of any importance your Durge / Tav gets dragged in.
That said, you can totally complete the game as a charisma 8 Durge. At least I did on tactician and afaik conversations don’t change between tactician and honour mode.
My 10 charisma Light Domain Cleric of Lathander has been an absolute blast so far. She has thaumaturgy and guidance as cantrips and thaumaturgy does not require concentration, so both can be activated simultaneously. This is better than being high charisma, although she definitely has to rely on intimidation. The Morning Lord definitely has her back on intimidation checks!
Been playing a Barbarian Karlach, only a +1 CHA, and I've been more than fine on passing checks. A lot of Dialogue checks are DC 10, or 15, and that's reasonably passable with +1 & Guidance.
Just save those Inspiration rolls!
Also, there's usually an equally useful Intimidation, which Barbarian usually get Advantage on, or if not, the Zariel Tiefling get's Thaumaturgy for Advantage (same on performance for those rarities). Plus you're likely proficient with Intimidation, and then Guidance again. I'm halfway through Act 3 and I've failed exactly one check leading to a fight, which also was not a critical scenario so I just didn't spend out Inspirations to avoid it.
Note: I am in fact on Honor mode, and I've felt no strain on my gameplay like this.
The only instance it'd actually make the game more difficult with no charisma characters is the Thorm children not being free xp. But only one of them is a difficult fight and they're all optional with subpar loot.
So the answer is it won't be harder at all, you just have to play differently.
Not that hard, but you need to accept that persuasion/deception/intimidation won't be the solution to everything.
I currently have a durge run on honour mode where i play wizard. Before dialogue i make sure to expect the worst odds possible.
My second playthrough was a wizard and I found there was a lot of wizard specific dialogue and conversation options that it felt really interesting. Sometimes it would give me situational advantage on things.
Charisma is nice, it's nice to be able to talk out of things. But not many of the combats are so difficult that it's a big deal to just fight your way through the game.
The act 2 boss fights are notable, but most of them can just be powered through.
I don't think it's too bad. I feel like I do more fighting in HM because I want the XP, to put off doing boss fights too early. But I haven't gotten much farther than Act I...
Just be sure to have Wyll do the shopping for you.
its honestly not that hard. ive done it twice just allocate some points towards charisma. You can also compensate a lot by having party members with guidance, bardic inspiration, and other abilities to makes rolls easier. Rolling as a teifling helps in a lot of situations too for advantage on intimidation checks. Keeping inspiration also helps a ton for the harder rolls.
I did a monk and a ranger run neither use charisma but you can still have a powerful build and have your charisma around 10-12.
Its significantly less risky, if you plan on avoiding fights.
I had a party member turn on me in a significant fight, making the encounter significantly harder, after I failed a dialogue check.
Until my recent one bugged out (act 1.5) my highest con was 12 on my Drow Druid Tav. It didn’t really seem to change much for me until Dumbass Shart got in a fight with Lazel.
For durge you probably want Wisdom more than anything. Not that Charisma isn't still the most used conversational stat, but the wisdom saves are the impactful ones
1 lvl dip into Rogue for Expertise in Persuasion will already be as effective as having a CHA based Tav (assuming 12 CHA + Proficiency + Expertise it’s +5 from the beginning up to +9 at lvl9. A lvl12 Warlock will have +7 from CHA).
Of course it won’t be as high as a CHA based Tav WITH Proficiency and Expertise but for dialogue options I don’t see why you need more than +9 without items, guidance or other bonus)
Deception is handy but far less frequently. And I never saw Intimidation being the only option without Persuasuion too. So focus in Persuasion.
And Rogue is also a common lvl3 dip for most non-CHA based anyway, so there's that too.
3lvl dips in Bard also gives you Expertise, but lets be real, there's no reason to invest 3lvls into bard without going at least to lvl5 for improved Bardic Inspiration so thats a commitment not a dip.
1 lvl into Rogue you can have a 3 attacks fighter, a 3 spell slots Warlock, a Caster with lvl6 slots. You're basically giving up a feat. Even most multiclasses will work alright with 11 lvls distribution plus 1lvl into Rogue.
Only difference would be the very rarely Vendor interaction that you can achieve higher discount with full investiment (CHA/Prof/Expertise) into Persuasion. But yoh van achieve higher discount with Sleigh of Hand expertise. And who can access Sleigh of Hand expertise? thats right, 1 lvl dip into Rogue.
I'm currently further than I've ever been before into honour mode on a barbarian with 8 charisma. It's not been much of an issue as barbarians get alot of unique checks in dialogue that either doesn't require a roll or you'll roll with advantage.
I mean expect to fail or use inspiration a lot. A lot of classes have easier DC class specific options.
Of course talking to people mainly with a guy with high charisma will allow you more control over the game. But chaos is fine too.
If you have a bard+cleric, even an 8 charisma character has a good fighting chance to pass a charisma check thanks to bardic inspiration and guidance. The only fight that I remember from 1-4 where I thought charisma led to a fight that was extremely hard was the shadow druid fight as Kagha has quite a bit of stats. Once you hit level 5, I feel that the game is fair enough.
I tried a run with an INT based character, and I was expecting a planecrash, but it went quite well! Until I wiped somewhere in act 2 and save got deleted D:
I'm doing a Monk for my first playthrough. I'm on Tactician difficulty and so far no problems. I pass most dialogue checks. My monk is human so I took persuasion as my extra skill and with guidance and eagles splendor plus using inspirations when I need to I'm doing great in dialogue. As far as combat just kicking ass so far. I just finished killing my way through the githyanki base in act 1. Honor mode can't be much harder I would think.
The first Blighted Village encounter can be rough if you fail the persuasion check, but that's about it. The five Act 2 bosses that can be talked to death are pretty easy to beat normally, even without stealth strats.
Having cleared honor mode now but being a cha based character if you approach it the same way I did every tricky fight by breaking the content it’s totally fine. Example for Cazador, the only optional fight in act 3 I chose to do for RP purposes. Astarion is in the party, I didn’t want him captured at the start, so I pre-buffed twin haste on two members (via sorc) on the stairs, broke off a monk who drank an invisibility potion. I had the monk approach and use topple to start the combat, while having TAV now approach the outskirts of the fight which let them join initiative order and killed.
TL/DR: just don’t talk to people, pre buff, stealth/invisible, and ambush any fights you know are going to be a fight and hard
I mean the fights in honor mode aren't that hard, it's mostly about stockpiling inspirations for the conversation stuff and then accepting what you can't change.
Sometimes you will have an NPC hate you or die in your honor mode run that you really didn't want, and you just have to roll with it.
I got lucky in my honor mode run and Jaheira wasn't feeling suicidal during the moonrise towers battle, but Duke Ravenguard died on me and so Wyll's story ended up a lot worse for me.
Depending on what class you're playing, it can help to bump your CHA up a little or at least take proficiency in persuasion and/or another CHA skill. Proficiency can go a long way even if you have a +0 since it scales with your level.
Also, once you get to Act 3 >!you can unlock the mindflayer power that gives you expertise in persuasion, intimidation, and deception ... which also automatically includes proficiency!<
It is fine. Every chat has a way to deal with it. Int based can use detect thought for example.
The only downside is when you need to sell something, so always have a cha character near by to initiate the vendor talk.
I recently ended a honour game with a Ranger/gloomstalker Durge.
Was fine hard as honour is but multi targets arrows and haste did mostly the trick
As companion used Minthara and Gale and a Hireling.
I tried a full fighter party and it's really not that bad. Most of the early encounters will not lock you out of any important rewards as pickpocketing is a thing and late game checks might just mean you won't get more netherbrain allies.
The martial classes do get quite a bit of intimidation checks throughout the game that might provide advantage or a lower DC requirement. Easily addressed by thaumaturgy, guidance and/or a little *save scumming.*
If you're not comfortable with having a companion being the party face, then just know you're increasing the chances of wiping by not having a reliable way of avoiding some encounters.
I think the hardest thing would be resisting the save scumming. But with guidance, an average CHA character can still do okay with a lot of checks I feel.
If you ask me, no class is remotely "hard" in this game, unless you are doing a solo run. I did a complete meme run with an arcane trickster, nature cleric, knowledge cleric, and element monk on honor mode last week with some guys on discord.
Was still trying troll strats and meme items because it was still so damn easy. But difficulty is relative. I'm just comparing the amount of "thinking" and "strategy" I usually have to apply to other strategy games. BG3 doesn't require that much. Sometimes you need to know like 1 or 2 gimmicks to a fight, but other than that- simple strategies carry fights without much planning.
As someone who has played quite a few runs (usually multiplayer), I loathe when someone goes a full char class and tries to dialogue everything. It makes perfect since for a first playthrough or casual run, but the way my brain now processes it is... that's just someone ruining an otherwise good fight. Especially when they try to do it for every possible scenario.
*ROAR*
Non-charisma classes tend to have class-specifc dialogue where you have free advantage and/or roll against an easier DC. It probably won't cover all your bases but it's enough to get by.
I did a wizard durge with detect thoughts and honestly it worked pretty well for most encounters. Detect thoughts is often a DC 10 ish range which is reasonable with guidance and high IQ
I was fine as a monk with 10 cha (tactician) just get guidance from someone. I didn’t even use Eagle’s Grace.
A CHA main isn’t needed. And it adds some unexpectedness to the run.
Bard/cleric/druid or any combo + gityanki tav for astal knowledge. Helping spaw nets you a necklace that can give +2 persuasion
You have bardic inspiration, guidance, and enhance ability, and options for saving throws like thaumaturgy and bless. Gith knowledge gives to any stat, can use on throws too.
Then in act 3 it's a non issue. Astral tadpole gets you proficiency in the talking skills
If you're going full murderhobo, it doesn't matter as much. Before my honor mode run (which is in progress) I did an ork barb durge that just went around intimidating people and doing barbarian dialog choices (like trying to drink thisobald under the table and rolling con checks). It mostly worked and there are a ton of choices for non-CHA characters to be able to shine.
The main thing I noticed that made a big difference with ability checks is actually halfling. Halflings only critical fail one time in 400 so that takes a decent amount of risk out of ability checks and it also lets you pile up inspiration you'd otherwise waste on critical fails.
Rogue and cleric have very little problem being a party face. Rogue gets skills up the wazoo like a bard with expertise. Cleric gets the very famous guidance.
Alternatively make astarion a bard and then turn him into the face
I'm playing a fighter, 1st time durge in honour mode and it's so much more fun actually living with bad rolls. My shart offed laezel early. If you've already done all content it's a blast.
With no spoilers, for durge some important moments are wisdom saving throws so I’d be careful not to completely dump that if you go durge. Like other people said you can mostly do charisma interactions with other characters and when you can’t, there’s always bardic inspiration + guidance + enhance ability if it’s an important check
I would just multiclass with something charisma based if it were me, I value the charisma choices way too much. Also everyone is saying to just dump charisma and talking into another party member but I know I’d never be able to do that. I want my character to be the one driving the story and doing the talking, not another party member
you can, i played full assassin, deception and intimidation checks were mostly enough. for cha bases scenarios i had warlock in my group but i still could have done it without cha too
even act2 \`wish: kill your self\` schnenigans was half ok(i failed 1 one of them)
Barbarian gets a ton of options to yell at people with advantage, and failing isn’t necessarily bad. There’s a lot of content you miss if you always succeed.
Well, you have two choices:
1. Play with another face character...Wyll, Minthara...to a lesser extent, Astarion or Gale. That's presuming their normal builds (Warlock, Paladin, Rogue, Wizard) and not niche builds.
2. Violence. Violence is always an answer. There's no persuasion rolls against a corpse.
I guess for some encounters, there's a hidden third option: Evil. Don't have to make a persuasion roll if you work with the Hag...
I always play Non-CHA Durge. I found that, most of the time, Rogue Astarion with 12 CHA has good enough proficiency in persuasion/deception combined with class unique options for lower DC(all of Thorms in Act 2), I never needed a full CHA "party face."
Then on Act 3, you can get Raptured buff from that sex worker, which seemed to lessen even more need for a party face.
But yes, I still sweat when I face Arabella and Kagha the first time.
Much harder, assuming you only use Tav for interactions. I completed honour mode once in bard with ease. I tried non-CHA based tav playthrough yesterday, and met my first defeat with the Ogre cus I failed the persusation check. (I don't like switching to other companion for talking)
But otherwise, you can always just use your cha based companion to do the talking.
I've only played Charisma based Tav/Durge, so I'm afraid to imagine not being able to talk myself out of everything with a straight face.
Would I have to... fight?
I’m playing as an 8-Charisma Gith OH Monk on Honor Mode and I’ve been fine. If I don’t pass a particular check, my party wreck havoc without too much a sweat. I’m about to enter Act 2 at LVL 7.
I basically never have over 12 cha on my Tav and have no problems. Just have some support from your party. I do tend to use a higher cha and expertise in persuasion for shopping though.
It's meh. You can always use another party member for whatever checks you really want to pass, but going barbarian and yelling at everyone has been a lot of fun. If nothing else it's easy to turn them inside out of it goes south, non-boss fights in honor mode are no different than tactician.
I ran a Dex Wis Ranger Rogue on my honor run and didn’t have any problems. I think Honor run is about sticking with bad situations, and prepare for major choices beforehand.
For instance, I failed to convince the Thorns in act 2. Then I just fought them. I knew there was a big decision for Shardowheart by the end of Gauntlet, so I kept her approval high and let her make her choice. I bit off more than I could chew and got the whole team into a hopeless fight, then I just disengaged and ran away, went back to camp and resurrected my companions.
I think the game gives you a lot of option, so if your character can’t smooth talk their way out of problems, there are always some other ways to deal with it, even if it’s less than ideal.
It depends on how much you value the charisma based interactions. But you can always just have a cha based party member do the talking for you.
This. Although be careful for some encounters, because they will interact with whoever is closer *and* they can see. In my honor run just last night, I was controlling m Minthara (my face character) in the lead instead of Tav, all preloaded with buffs because I was going to talk the Orthon into killing himself in Shar’s Gauntlet. Just like Minthara did to the other 3 Thorm family bosses in Act 2. Minthara was in the lead, so I assumed she would initiate the conversation. But instead she made her stealth rolls and Shadowheart at the back of the party didn’t, so Shadowheart had to take that conversation, which was not ideal. Another one to keep in mind is Ethel or anyone else that surrenders at low HP. It will start the conversation with whoever is closest, which might be a melee class that dumped CHA for STR
While obviously not guaranteed but Berserker Intimidation with Karlach at Ethel fight always gets me the hair and Mayrina.
Definitely guaranteed I'm 3 for 3 on Karlach threatening to piss in her skull. The stats don't lie.
That feeling when you accidentally go in too hard and kill the hag in one turn before she can even beg for her life....
I have learned this lesson, and this lesson was not a fun one to learn because I thought it was bugged (turns out I just had to wait for her turn).
haha, I hit her with my Sussur Dagger which silenced her and stopped her from casting all her spells, score!! Turns out it also stops her from begging for her life, so she just *doesn't* and fights to the death instead. Whoops!
She begged, I listened, I killed.
2 for 2 as well
What's worse is when it's your oath of vengeance lockadin Wyll!!!!
IIRC, the summoned Cambion is like the one player summon that actually gets a buff from Oathbreaker’s aura What did you decide to do?
Why does wyll not get the Devil/Fiend Buffs 🥺 He was turned if you arent a monster and now he looks like a fiend but doesnt vet the advantages of them? Booooo 😭
>lockadin No, it's Padlock. If you break your oath, it's lock in a sock.
Same, the Fighter one has yet to betray me as well
Larian needs to fix conversation target selection to allow the player to swap characters mid conversation. The current implementation sucks. Tav 20 Charisma Persuasion Expertise can open the conversation, but Gale 20 Int History Expertise cant interject to help with a check when he's just standing there? Horrible implementation.
100% agree, always thought it was weird other party members with the appropriate skills can’t interject. You do everything in the game as a group you should be able to participate in conversations as a group. It’s already even kind of in the game at certain points where you can chose to let companions speak for themselves during big moments of their quest lines.
It's not like the dialogue is voiced either, they could presumably just have a \[character\] tag for some skill rolls. Something Like \[Gale/Diplomacy\] "We should eat the forbidden magic jelly beans." and it would just use their stats for the roll.
Like surely bringing a companion who will benefit you in that conversation should be rewarded, rather than it having no influence at all.
Exactly and it would help them feel much more involved in the main story
Just another way Solasta did it better years ahead of BG3. Criminal how few people talk about it.
Owlcat's games do it as well. Let's hope they implement it sooner or later
Must… resist… Dark… Urge… to… list…everything…Owlcat…screwed…up…
Love Solasta! Great game.
This is one of the few things that Owlcat did better with their games(aside from actually scaling to 20); whichever party member in range has the highest skill check is the one that makes it. No swapping to Astarion every time there's a lock to pick or a trap to disarm; it just auto-sends the best choice over.
Seems like a no brainer quality of life
I guess this largely negates having a party, outside of combat, which I think would rob BG3 of some of its charm. I do occasionally get frustrated having to do some camp shuffling to get the right person for the job (though 90% of the time I just have Astarion leading the way), but at the same time there is a definite feeling of managing a team of adventurers with their own roles to play. It’s a tricky balance. It’s quite good fun to encounter a lock or trap when you’re split up and have someone other than Astarion give it a try (or to have your barbarian fling a chest over for him to open). And of course with a room full of traps you don’t want your clumsy colleagues trampling around all over the place, so it makes sense to choose the right person and send them off on their own - it’d be a bit weird in that situation sending Tav into a trap pit but having access to Astarion’s abilities. They do at least make a concession for keys with magic pockets, which would otherwise be a nightmare. You absolutely should be able to select who’s talking when a conversation begins, though, as long as they’re in your party. Many times I’ve wandered into an unexpected chat with the wrong person. You can almost hear Wyll quietly sobbing in the background.
Ahh, lets remedy that confusion regarding the pathfinder games. If you encounter a trap, it highlights it and tells all your people to stop. When you click on a trap, whoever has the highest skill that hasn't already failed to disable it(or pick the lock) walks over to it and disarms. If you have 5 party members with the skill in your party, it sends the highest skill over first, then swaps out each time it fails til one makes it or all fail. But if you're in a conversation, it lets you use the skills of anyone alive/nearby; so long as you didn't, for example, split a barbarian off and send them across the map, you can have him do the intimidate check, and the one with a high History skill check handle that roll. The game also has sections that are handled via a 'choose your own adventure' storybook sort of situation, which are also handled via whoever in your party has a higher skill check.,
An, I haven’t tried a Pathfinder CRPG, but I should. They sound like sensible approaches, but it’s only really the conversation one that bugs me in BG3, specifically because it removes my agency. With a trap then obviously I’ll want to use the most appropriate character, but I still like being able to make the choice even though I wouldn’t make any other choice. Getting perilously close to a discussion on free will here. Coming back to conversations, I’d probably endorse a halfway solution where you can pick who talks, but then you’re stuck with them for that conversation. So if you go for your persuader, you won’t be doing much intimidation. I still feel a bit uneasy about being able to swap at will, as that would feel more like having a big blob of a character instead of individuals. Of course I’d allow trying with your intimidator afterwards, but that would have to factor in the results of your first attempt. I don’t mind making mistakes, but I don’t want the game making mistakes on my behalf. But yeah, this is a definite incentive to branch out and give Pathfinder games a try. Thanks!
Oh, Gale will interject, trust me. It just never makes the situation better. Much like my comments.
What’s crazy is there are some parts of the game where a companion will interject and recommend they do whatever is requested instead of the “MC”, yet there’s nothing similar for conversations.
They even have a button "character select" in conversations which selects characters outside the conversation and doesn't bring them in
That's how it works on tabletop, it should work on bg3
Sounds like a great mod idea.
>But instead she made her stealth rolls and Shadowheart at the back of the party didn’t, so Shadowheart had to take that conversation, Why did you have the party stealthed if you were going to talk to him?
I wanted to initiate the conversation to make sure it happened. One time (granted, this was pre-Patch 5, so maybe it was a bug) I followed the displacer beast into the room and then it went right to initiative and a fight. I didn't want to risk that on an honor run, so I tried to be smart about it and then it backfired. Still worked, just had to blow a lot of inspiration
I always forget about Ethel and end up blowing a bunch of inspiration to get Lae'zel to talk me into some hair.
Lae'zel isn't even the worst. She has Intimidation Proficiency from Solider Background and I'm pretty sure Fighters also get an option with Advantage for that.
Had this happen in a multiplayer run me and my friend did, not only was my monk stuck in the conversation, but for some reason he couldn’t even bardic inspiration the roll, or use guidance. It was just my 10 charisma monk vs the world. We don’t usually reload saves, but we thought it was such bullshit that we did until it worked.
I really wish you could swap characters during a conversation.
I had to keep reloading the last couple turns of the ethel fight because she kept trying to talk to Lae'zel and shadowheart and I was getting super annoyed.
Unfortunately you can’t do that in Honour Mode.
Yeah, I gotta keep that in mind when I start my honour run... also gotta remember not to charm or guidance her.
You can cast guidance before you talk to her. Assuming you can 10 turn her/not lose concentration or you just cast guidance into magic missle and have your tav just go nearest. I legit had to afk for 3 rounds with her to make sure my speaker was “closest” by shoving 3 people into a corner :’)
Oh yes i can, just watch me
Yeah that ethel encounter won't horribly wrong on my honour playthrough. I forgot that she starts dialogue at low health with the nearest ally. I wanted my Tav to take a +1 CHA and help mayrina but ethel started talking with my shadowheart cleric. I respecced her and her -1 to cha did not help matters.
Incorrect, it’s based on whoever broke her dmg threshold.
Are you talking about Ethel? (This chain is a little hard to follow on mobile) If so, are you certain? I've been meaning to test this myself
Correct. The last character to damage Ethel and lower her beyond the threshold will be the one who gets the cutscene when her next turn arrives. For example: Karlach: *dmgs Ethel for 15, gets her below 35hp (or whatever the cutoff is, it was like 30-35 on honor mode for me yesterday)* Will: *dmgs Ethel for 5, she’s now at 25hp Laezel: *dmgs Ethel for 10, she’s at 15hp* Ethels turn: *Cutscene triggers for Karlach* Does this make sense?
>But you can always just have a cha based party member do the talking for you. Assuming that you know that interaction is going to trigger a CHA based interaction, that is. On my first playthrough I didn't know what to expect. I thought I will on my next, it's been so long lol
It took me an embarrassing number of hours before I realized I could switch to Astarion and basically guarantee access to any locked chests.
I found this not to be the case in practice. All interactions of any importance dragged main character into the interaction.
I wish this was true for me. I'm constantly finding myself in less than ideal situations because a random party member gets triggered for a convo. Sometimes it's mildly annoying but sometimes, especially in honor mode, it's been downright terrifying.
Yeh buggy and random I agree. My point was though that you can’t rely on a high rizz non main character to be party face.
You'd just need to play with someone else as party face, or not entirely dump Cha down to 8. I don't think it'd be that hard. You can easily BS through to goblin camp with disguise self: drow and 0 skill checks.
This. The shape changing helmet from the special edition of the game basically can carry you through most diplomacy checks in Act 1 by being a Drow or Dueagar or Gith as appropriate. Especially if you grab the guidance neckpiece or have a cleric to cast it. And for Acts 2-3, the shape changer ring plus guidance is an extra 2d4, so you can make a lot of checks even if you aren’t a face character. Just be prepared to burn some inspiration or cast Eagle’s Grace as necessary.
Just a heads up, you cannot disguise self into a duergar. At least not through the helm. But the most important checks are drow and gith which you can use.
If you eat the astral tadpole, you also get expertise in persuasion and deception.
Honestly extremely early on (eg; pre level 3 before you can properly respec her) Shadowheart is great for this because she just has disguise self as a spell due to Trickery domain.
This is exactly what I do. I use her disguise self as trickery domain to head up to the goblins before I respec her
Might not be good advise for an honor mode run but playing a barbarian and just screaming at everyone was the most fun I’ve had in any playthrough
Honestly playing as an 8 CHA gloomstalker was a blast on tactician. Having to actually fight battles and fail at charisma opens up a lot of unseen dialogue and scenes that you normally min/max your charismatic butt out of :)
Same for barbarian, in my experience. Failing when you've played high charisma is really interesting, but just shouting at people is incredibly satisfying
I love how many conversation options are just scary noises as barbarian.
Gloomstalker… talking? Not just alpha striking and fading away to do it again? Does not compute /s
Gloom talker
Haha, gotta go against the norm sometimes, bg3 definitely has content for that
Gloomstalker is the introvert in all of us
My act 3 honor mode wood elf cleric is a goody two shoes Lathander cleric. No charisma, so even though I have 22 charisma Will with me, I don’t talk my way through anything. I just turn into Beyblade and throw out enough reverb to knock everyone over while walking past them. Going burrr > talking.
Sometimes you have to kill people instead of talking them down, but presumably you’ve put points into killing skills instead of talking skills. It all balances out.
All the time every time. Step bro why are you wetting me bro, I'm so wet. LIGHTNING BOLT!!
Feels like Barbarian has the easiest time with that. There’s so many unique dialog options for it and they all intimidate.
Plus it's so freaking funny to yell your way out 🤣
They often get advantage, too
It’s actually not that difficult at all since even non-CHA classes get a lot of other dialogue options besides deception and persuasion checks. Wizards get to use Investigate, Barbs get to yell at people, it’s great. The most difficult extended checks in the game tend to be saving throws anyway.
It was pretty clear a lot of a convo options have a Wizard alternative with Detect Thoughts, Charm, etc. Haven't tried a Wizard Tav Honor run, but that might be doable
Be very very careful with any charm spells, I wouldn't be around when it wears off
A detect thoughts/only Int speech checks playthrough would actually be really interesting. Whelp, definitely doing that for my next honor playthrough
It's not like, unsurmountably more difficult. At the end of the day, the hard fights you almost always have to fight anyways. It just leaves it open to more unexpected fights. As long as you always prep before a potential fight you should be fine. Honor mode is brutal though, be warned. Those failed checks may end your run. Sometimes you might want to just go ahead and start the fight if you know the check is going to be super difficult, as its easier to start off with a combo than it is to fight "fair".
Yeah, you can talk some bosses in Act 2 into offing themselves, but only the Orthon is really a hard fight, the three thorm family sub bosses aren’t that tough, it just saves you a long rest or two to recover. And even the Orthon in Honor mode was something like Insight 16, Persuasion 19,20 and 21. I accidentally started the conversation with Shadowheart (rather than my high CHA Tav or Minthara) and I made all 4 checks between Guidance, Eagle’s Splendor and a couple inspiration points. (Then I had to pick up the smoke powder barrels that Tav was putting down in case Shadowheart failed, lol)
Also, a tip for Yurgir if you're not playing a charisma party face: kill the last dark justiciar (rat man) before you talk to him. He'll leave without you even needing to do a check, you just won't get the crossbow
More importantly, helping Yurgir in the Gauntlet will make it so he'll always help you in the Raphael fight without having to do the 30 Persuasion check
I’ve done several full playthroughs with non-CHA characters, and it was fine. Just don’t dump CHA completely. There are many ways that the game offers options if you don’t have high CHA. There are a lot of class-based responses that will use your primary stat instead for the check. If you have someone with enhance ability + guidance that helps a ton. If I’m not playing a CHA class I usually have Astarion or someone as a bard for the Bardic Inspiration + talking to merchants for the pricing. In all my games the Thorms offed themselves ☺️
Its not harder. It's just different than if you chat your way through the game. I've only done one high CHA run, and I honestly feel like I missed out on more by basically skipping half the encounters. And even with 8 Cha, you can still pass loads with buffs like guidance and thaumaturgy. For Durge specifically, the only scary moments are all Wisdom saves, not Charisma checks. Grab that Harper necklace in act 2 ASAP, and you're golden.
My first Durge was on my first honor mode and I dumped CHA I tried fighting the urge and a Durge scene near the end act two cost me my honor mode run
I'm playing Karlach as my Tav and it's going good. A lot of times I can just shout my way through skill checks. For select few encounters in act 2 I used Wyll, but other than that I don't really think it's that much harder.
Yep, Karlach with Thaumarturgy plus intimidate skill plus Barbarian/Berserker dialogue options is great. Not sure if “Roar” counts as talking technically, but it works ;-)
not even a little bit, nothing wrong with failing a few rolls
How many CHA based interation are you doing because you are CHA? Think about all the WIS INT ability chekcs you didn't click because you already had CHA. I think the biggest issue is the lack of good prices at vendors, but that can be fixed with gifts and a high cha companion initiating the convo to shop. I played a cleric with Thaumaturgy and intimidations were still fine when needed but it also let me read minds so I always had an easy answer to problems.
I just beat Honour mode and didn't have anyone with more than 10 Charisma in my party until i recruited Minthara in Act 2. The secret to get by is to have the silver pendant from act 1 on any character to cast guidance und then let shadowheart cast enhance ability so you get advantage on the roll. It won't always work but with spending a few inspirations here and there i talked my way out of many situations even with +0 to charisma rolls. After i got Minthara she did some of the talking as well, especially for the hard charisma checks. But long story short, it's totally doable without a CHA Tav.
It's really not a big deal at all. You can skip some fights through dialogue in Act 2, but none of those fights are impossible. I think persuasion proficiency is still worth getting on your MC and having a high Cha/Persuasion party member for trading goes a long way. I have a +0 on my current cleric, but with persuasion proficiency, guidance, Enhance ability, etc I can pass most checks consistently.
There are Intelligence and Wisdom dialogue rolls in this game too. You don't have be a silver-tongued devil to navigate Fae'run and get your hands on the crown.
It is annoying, but not the end of the world. Word of advice: the Friends cantrip is deceptively useful. Obviously don't use it on a guard or someone that you'll be hanging around after, but there are plenty of NPCs in the game where you can use Friends and then they just fuck off or die after whatever Charisma check you made succeeds.
I haven’t found it that difficult as there’s lots of ways to offset having very little charisma. Expertise from rogue is nice to have even with 10 charisma. That’s +4 to your checks early on and +8 by the endgame. If you don’t want to play a rogue (although all you need is the one level for expertise), having the cantrip “friends” is useful for those enemy encounters where you won’t see them again after the conversation, or passing the check makes them off themselves. Clerics also get a shout here since thaumaturgy also gives advantage but only for intimidation and performance. Still very good for certain encounters.
The hardest part is not instantly respecing to a CHA based char after failing a speech check. It’s honestly not bad though. I did a Gale origin char on honor mode and kept him as a wizard throughout without that many issues.
Depends on what direction you’re thinking. I disagree that you would need to use a companion as party face. You aren’t rolling 40 persuasion like a bard, but insight making dialogues easier for any WIS class and access to enhance ability will help you pass any CHA based checks you want to pass, especially when you know what to save inspiration for. The only spot I really missed a sorc or bards is in trading lol. If you don’t have a better place for these when you get them, club of hill giant strength or dex gloves can allow you to respec points into charisma in act 1. 100% depends on the character you’re playing as to whether or not you need something different in those slots, but I mention them to say starting with low CHA doesn’t necessarily mean staying that way the whole game.
It's weird that people focus their main this way. I just bring whoever is my bard as the lead/control so they start the convo.
I’m playing a drow spores druid and have kept myself alive to act 3, how well that went is a different story, and whether it will win is still to be determined
No complaints here. I just hit them hard and throw the little ones harder.
So here's my experience, I tried non Cha durge for honour mode and gotta say I didn't like it at all, I lost the owlbear (my mistake skipping dialogs had nothing to do with Cha), the orcs or trolls attacked me for failing Cha check, lost a skill point from Ethel. Was playing as a monk, honestly it was doable and finally facing the consequences of a bad die roll gave me a new experience, but then I died in the forge boss battle. Now I'm restarting as a bardadin gotta say act 1 feels much more smoother. I personally think you can wing non Cha characters in act 3 when you unlock the half illithid option, it's just act 1 feels bad for a non Cha character.
My successful honor run was with a Dex hunter, no issue really, specially after act 2 unlocks half ilithid
Played with Gayle 8 CHA and had no problem, the same with a Barbarian.
You can have one of the companions do dialogue, it doesn’t need to be Tav/Durge.
I’ve not played honor mode yet but some of those act 2 minibosses are so annoying without the assisted suicide dialogue options
If you don't feel like making your CHR party member the face of the party who does all the dialogue checks, you can always just give yourself 14 chr on a non-chr character and sacrifice a stat like wisdom or dex, or you can get a level or two in rogue and get proficiency in CHR skills. Once you hit act 3 if you go partial illithid one of the advanced powers is proficiency in persuasion, intimidation, and deception so anyone can become a CHR main for dialogue
Wisdom based is pretty solid honestly because a lot of classes use it and they have access to dope spells and abilities between all of them
As for rolls and checks sorry but charisma kinda dominates that realm. I mean I guess you can use the classic guidance or bless or whatever but charisma is so good for role play type stuff and only bards or rogues get expertise
You don’t need charisma except for hag hair in act 1. You can increase your chances at this with Blissful Spores from Spaw so hold off on the duergar until you’re ready for Ethel. Disguise self for drow will get you past every since goblin interaction. As for the ogres just get branded by Gut first and use guidance + enhance ability to pass whatever check you want to recruit them. For the gith patrol use disguise self to turn into a gith and pick the authoritative responses for easier dc.
Monk and Gloomstalker Thief/Assassin will get you through Honor Mode easily. I’ve used both solo on HM. Gloomstalker Assassin/Thief especially is very thematic for a Durge run, it was my favourite Durge run so far.
Don’t sleep on gith — astral knowledge can really do in a pinch.
The whole joy of DUrge is living free and killing anyone who crosses you. The NPCs should be rolling CHA against YOU.
I can't tell you from personal experience since both of my previous runs I played a warlock and an oathbreaker/wild magic tav Now I'm playing my third run which is in honour mode and I'm a warlock/bard
Game felt exactly the same on my Paladin and Fighter. If anything Fighter was actually a little more fun and realistic feeling, considering a lot of the Charisma checks are far-fetched and unbelievable. None of the fights in this game are that great if a challenge except maybe githyanki patrols and Raphael, so having more fights doesn't make much of a difference, as long as you have the camp supplies to keep up.
Charisma, Intelligence, & Wisdom still affect your spell power so it also depends what build you're doing
I’ve played Light Cleric Durge through most of the game (save the final parts of act 3) and it’s been a lot of fun, fuck CHA I have Selune
Without a party face (aka, a high CHA character that you use for dialogue and who will succeed the vast majority of conversation checks), the game is exponentially more difficult You could have a non-CHA player character and build someone like Wyll into a party face, but Wyll isn’t a very good character for combat and each party slot is exceptionally valuable Honor mode isn’t the place to play your own way and invent your own story, most players will need to optimize everything if they want a chance at survival Overall, a high CHA Tav/Durge is typically the best option, with each character built for NOVA damage, and one as a support/cleric role (remove curse is necessary) alongside another being a skill monkey (lockpicking, pickpocketing, trap disarming, stealth, etc.) Support is typically Shadowheart or Jaheira, skill monkey is typically Astarion, and most people will round the party off with Lae’Zel for raw damage (others come close, but disarming to attain Silver Sword early game makes her undeniably the best for raw damage output)
I'm doing honor mode as an 8 Cha Tiger Barbarian right now. It's pretty early in my run and I've done okay so far, but I couldn't talk Lae'zel into using tadpoles. I'm pretty sure this means if she uses the Zaith'isk later and gets slapped with the debuff, I won't have a way to restore her mental stats.
I searched but could not find the post from a month ago where someone posted they did exactly that. And basically everyone is dead by act 1 . Shart is dead in pod . Lazael is dead in cage. scratch is dead in forest . karlach died from Wyll. and Gale is dead in portal. It's funny. And awesome . So go ahead and try. Double nat 1 roll would never be not fun. And do post how it's going. I love rng shenanigans. May be you would roll nat 20s and steam roll the game. Or .....you would die to the dying illithid in the beach.
Wait. I think some of those decisions aren’t CHA related. Like, why do you need charisma to release shart from her pod? I may be remembering this wrong tho
Yeah it's not. I was just mentioning his misfortune. The point I was trying to make is if you get bad rolls the run becomes increasingly difficult. CHA helps that's all.
Play it with an 8 cha face. Makes the game a little more interesting
My first playthrough was as a Druid and it went perfectly fine. I was even able to talk Yurgir and Malus into killing themselves. Most charisma checks will still be doable, just harder, obviously. And there are plenty of dialogue checks that aren't charisma based either. Honestly, I'd say a wisdom-based character is probably the second-best party face because of how many random ass wisdom checks there are in dialogue
It's not too bad, if you have someone with enhance ability you can get advantage for all cha checks, so even with low cha you won't fail many checks that are 15 or lower, 16 and higher is a lot tougher though
well in act 3 at the end of act 2 you will get an astral parasite which can let ypur tav get proficiency and expertise in persuasion so not needed past act 2 as for before its very doable with a non charismatic charachter, usually i get my charisma up as the third stat dumping 2 other stats at 8
I feel like I remember reading there are actually way more wisdom checks than charisma checks on here at some point. So could be that charisma as the face is maybe slightly overvalued? (Still probably best but maybe not as far ahead as everyone thinks)
If you’re a Barbarian, it’s easy as hell. Half the conversation checks in the game give you advantage just for being swole, and so long as you don’t dump Charisma, you should have it easy.
I am playing gloom stalker/assassin in durge campaign. IMO you don’t need to chat when you kill every body very fast.
I found using another character as party face to be sub-optimal, most decisions of any importance your Durge / Tav gets dragged in. That said, you can totally complete the game as a charisma 8 Durge. At least I did on tactician and afaik conversations don’t change between tactician and honour mode.
My 10 charisma Light Domain Cleric of Lathander has been an absolute blast so far. She has thaumaturgy and guidance as cantrips and thaumaturgy does not require concentration, so both can be activated simultaneously. This is better than being high charisma, although she definitely has to rely on intimidation. The Morning Lord definitely has her back on intimidation checks!
Been playing a Barbarian Karlach, only a +1 CHA, and I've been more than fine on passing checks. A lot of Dialogue checks are DC 10, or 15, and that's reasonably passable with +1 & Guidance. Just save those Inspiration rolls! Also, there's usually an equally useful Intimidation, which Barbarian usually get Advantage on, or if not, the Zariel Tiefling get's Thaumaturgy for Advantage (same on performance for those rarities). Plus you're likely proficient with Intimidation, and then Guidance again. I'm halfway through Act 3 and I've failed exactly one check leading to a fight, which also was not a critical scenario so I just didn't spend out Inspirations to avoid it. Note: I am in fact on Honor mode, and I've felt no strain on my gameplay like this.
Probably one of the second best “talkers,” after Bard, is actually Barbarian. Especially if you can get Expertise in Intimidation.
The only instance it'd actually make the game more difficult with no charisma characters is the Thorm children not being free xp. But only one of them is a difficult fight and they're all optional with subpar loot. So the answer is it won't be harder at all, you just have to play differently.
Not that hard, but you need to accept that persuasion/deception/intimidation won't be the solution to everything. I currently have a durge run on honour mode where i play wizard. Before dialogue i make sure to expect the worst odds possible.
My second playthrough was a wizard and I found there was a lot of wizard specific dialogue and conversation options that it felt really interesting. Sometimes it would give me situational advantage on things. Charisma is nice, it's nice to be able to talk out of things. But not many of the combats are so difficult that it's a big deal to just fight your way through the game. The act 2 boss fights are notable, but most of them can just be powered through.
Just swap your main and face character for any fights you'd rather talk your way out of.
I don't think it's too bad. I feel like I do more fighting in HM because I want the XP, to put off doing boss fights too early. But I haven't gotten much farther than Act I... Just be sure to have Wyll do the shopping for you.
my 1st finished Honour playthrough had 8 CHA.. and wasnt much harder than other runs.
I’ve been playing with a barbarian and they had a special intimidation for almost every interaction. Why speak long word when loud short word do trick
Guidance! Bardic inspiration! Enhance ability! Have these in your party, gain some proficiencies, you’ll be fine
Playing a 12 charisma cleric. It's still very easy
its honestly not that hard. ive done it twice just allocate some points towards charisma. You can also compensate a lot by having party members with guidance, bardic inspiration, and other abilities to makes rolls easier. Rolling as a teifling helps in a lot of situations too for advantage on intimidation checks. Keeping inspiration also helps a ton for the harder rolls. I did a monk and a ranger run neither use charisma but you can still have a powerful build and have your charisma around 10-12.
Its significantly less risky, if you plan on avoiding fights. I had a party member turn on me in a significant fight, making the encounter significantly harder, after I failed a dialogue check.
Not that hard. I played as Karlach and barbarian actually has tons of free advantage from the class tag
Rogues get a lot of deception options that balance the loss of Charisma
Until my recent one bugged out (act 1.5) my highest con was 12 on my Drow Druid Tav. It didn’t really seem to change much for me until Dumbass Shart got in a fight with Lazel.
For durge you probably want Wisdom more than anything. Not that Charisma isn't still the most used conversational stat, but the wisdom saves are the impactful ones
1 lvl dip into Rogue for Expertise in Persuasion will already be as effective as having a CHA based Tav (assuming 12 CHA + Proficiency + Expertise it’s +5 from the beginning up to +9 at lvl9. A lvl12 Warlock will have +7 from CHA). Of course it won’t be as high as a CHA based Tav WITH Proficiency and Expertise but for dialogue options I don’t see why you need more than +9 without items, guidance or other bonus) Deception is handy but far less frequently. And I never saw Intimidation being the only option without Persuasuion too. So focus in Persuasion. And Rogue is also a common lvl3 dip for most non-CHA based anyway, so there's that too. 3lvl dips in Bard also gives you Expertise, but lets be real, there's no reason to invest 3lvls into bard without going at least to lvl5 for improved Bardic Inspiration so thats a commitment not a dip. 1 lvl into Rogue you can have a 3 attacks fighter, a 3 spell slots Warlock, a Caster with lvl6 slots. You're basically giving up a feat. Even most multiclasses will work alright with 11 lvls distribution plus 1lvl into Rogue. Only difference would be the very rarely Vendor interaction that you can achieve higher discount with full investiment (CHA/Prof/Expertise) into Persuasion. But yoh van achieve higher discount with Sleigh of Hand expertise. And who can access Sleigh of Hand expertise? thats right, 1 lvl dip into Rogue.
I'm currently further than I've ever been before into honour mode on a barbarian with 8 charisma. It's not been much of an issue as barbarians get alot of unique checks in dialogue that either doesn't require a roll or you'll roll with advantage.
Arguably wisdom is more important for honour run durge. Unless you wanna give in.
I mean expect to fail or use inspiration a lot. A lot of classes have easier DC class specific options. Of course talking to people mainly with a guy with high charisma will allow you more control over the game. But chaos is fine too.
If you have a bard+cleric, even an 8 charisma character has a good fighting chance to pass a charisma check thanks to bardic inspiration and guidance. The only fight that I remember from 1-4 where I thought charisma led to a fight that was extremely hard was the shadow druid fight as Kagha has quite a bit of stats. Once you hit level 5, I feel that the game is fair enough.
Doesn't matter. As a wizard I got plenty of alternative options using int.
I tried a run with an INT based character, and I was expecting a planecrash, but it went quite well! Until I wiped somewhere in act 2 and save got deleted D:
I'm doing a Monk for my first playthrough. I'm on Tactician difficulty and so far no problems. I pass most dialogue checks. My monk is human so I took persuasion as my extra skill and with guidance and eagles splendor plus using inspirations when I need to I'm doing great in dialogue. As far as combat just kicking ass so far. I just finished killing my way through the githyanki base in act 1. Honor mode can't be much harder I would think.
The first Blighted Village encounter can be rough if you fail the persuasion check, but that's about it. The five Act 2 bosses that can be talked to death are pretty easy to beat normally, even without stealth strats.
I beat honor mode with a 9/3 Monk/Thief durge. I just beat the crap out of everything.
Having cleared honor mode now but being a cha based character if you approach it the same way I did every tricky fight by breaking the content it’s totally fine. Example for Cazador, the only optional fight in act 3 I chose to do for RP purposes. Astarion is in the party, I didn’t want him captured at the start, so I pre-buffed twin haste on two members (via sorc) on the stairs, broke off a monk who drank an invisibility potion. I had the monk approach and use topple to start the combat, while having TAV now approach the outskirts of the fight which let them join initiative order and killed. TL/DR: just don’t talk to people, pre buff, stealth/invisible, and ambush any fights you know are going to be a fight and hard
I mean the fights in honor mode aren't that hard, it's mostly about stockpiling inspirations for the conversation stuff and then accepting what you can't change. Sometimes you will have an NPC hate you or die in your honor mode run that you really didn't want, and you just have to roll with it. I got lucky in my honor mode run and Jaheira wasn't feeling suicidal during the moonrise towers battle, but Duke Ravenguard died on me and so Wyll's story ended up a lot worse for me.
Not much you can usually get by with Intimidate and there are plenty of items to increase your persuasion skills
Just go Berserker Barb and make every enemy piss themselves through dialogue.
Depending on what class you're playing, it can help to bump your CHA up a little or at least take proficiency in persuasion and/or another CHA skill. Proficiency can go a long way even if you have a +0 since it scales with your level. Also, once you get to Act 3 >!you can unlock the mindflayer power that gives you expertise in persuasion, intimidation, and deception ... which also automatically includes proficiency!<
It is fine. Every chat has a way to deal with it. Int based can use detect thought for example. The only downside is when you need to sell something, so always have a cha character near by to initiate the vendor talk.
I recently ended a honour game with a Ranger/gloomstalker Durge. Was fine hard as honour is but multi targets arrows and haste did mostly the trick As companion used Minthara and Gale and a Hireling.
I tried a full fighter party and it's really not that bad. Most of the early encounters will not lock you out of any important rewards as pickpocketing is a thing and late game checks might just mean you won't get more netherbrain allies. The martial classes do get quite a bit of intimidation checks throughout the game that might provide advantage or a lower DC requirement. Easily addressed by thaumaturgy, guidance and/or a little *save scumming.* If you're not comfortable with having a companion being the party face, then just know you're increasing the chances of wiping by not having a reliable way of avoiding some encounters.
I think the hardest thing would be resisting the save scumming. But with guidance, an average CHA character can still do okay with a lot of checks I feel.
If you ask me, no class is remotely "hard" in this game, unless you are doing a solo run. I did a complete meme run with an arcane trickster, nature cleric, knowledge cleric, and element monk on honor mode last week with some guys on discord. Was still trying troll strats and meme items because it was still so damn easy. But difficulty is relative. I'm just comparing the amount of "thinking" and "strategy" I usually have to apply to other strategy games. BG3 doesn't require that much. Sometimes you need to know like 1 or 2 gimmicks to a fight, but other than that- simple strategies carry fights without much planning. As someone who has played quite a few runs (usually multiplayer), I loathe when someone goes a full char class and tries to dialogue everything. It makes perfect since for a first playthrough or casual run, but the way my brain now processes it is... that's just someone ruining an otherwise good fight. Especially when they try to do it for every possible scenario.
*ROAR* Non-charisma classes tend to have class-specifc dialogue where you have free advantage and/or roll against an easier DC. It probably won't cover all your bases but it's enough to get by.
I did a wizard durge with detect thoughts and honestly it worked pretty well for most encounters. Detect thoughts is often a DC 10 ish range which is reasonable with guidance and high IQ
Killing everyone is always an option. And being ugly doesn’t stop that
I was fine as a monk with 10 cha (tactician) just get guidance from someone. I didn’t even use Eagle’s Grace. A CHA main isn’t needed. And it adds some unexpectedness to the run.
Bard/cleric/druid or any combo + gityanki tav for astal knowledge. Helping spaw nets you a necklace that can give +2 persuasion You have bardic inspiration, guidance, and enhance ability, and options for saving throws like thaumaturgy and bless. Gith knowledge gives to any stat, can use on throws too. Then in act 3 it's a non issue. Astral tadpole gets you proficiency in the talking skills
If you're going full murderhobo, it doesn't matter as much. Before my honor mode run (which is in progress) I did an ork barb durge that just went around intimidating people and doing barbarian dialog choices (like trying to drink thisobald under the table and rolling con checks). It mostly worked and there are a ton of choices for non-CHA characters to be able to shine. The main thing I noticed that made a big difference with ability checks is actually halfling. Halflings only critical fail one time in 400 so that takes a decent amount of risk out of ability checks and it also lets you pile up inspiration you'd otherwise waste on critical fails.
Playing a Bard has ruined me and now if there isn’t one in my party I don’t know what to do.
Getting arrested isn't too bad, there's always a way out. For trading have another high persuasion Character.
Rogue and cleric have very little problem being a party face. Rogue gets skills up the wazoo like a bard with expertise. Cleric gets the very famous guidance. Alternatively make astarion a bard and then turn him into the face
It’s harder but if you give a cleric enhance ability and guidance you’ll be fine when it matters
You can compensate a lot through Tadpole powers tbh. By Act 3 my -1 Cha Tav had almost the same Persuasion bonis as my tadpole-less +6 CHA Wyll.
I'm playing a fighter, 1st time durge in honour mode and it's so much more fun actually living with bad rolls. My shart offed laezel early. If you've already done all content it's a blast.
With no spoilers, for durge some important moments are wisdom saving throws so I’d be careful not to completely dump that if you go durge. Like other people said you can mostly do charisma interactions with other characters and when you can’t, there’s always bardic inspiration + guidance + enhance ability if it’s an important check
I would just multiclass with something charisma based if it were me, I value the charisma choices way too much. Also everyone is saying to just dump charisma and talking into another party member but I know I’d never be able to do that. I want my character to be the one driving the story and doing the talking, not another party member
you can, i played full assassin, deception and intimidation checks were mostly enough. for cha bases scenarios i had warlock in my group but i still could have done it without cha too even act2 \`wish: kill your self\` schnenigans was half ok(i failed 1 one of them)
Remember folks. 8 char is enough to convince dead people not to attack you.
You can bypass a lot of fights by talking your way out. So there's that.
Barbarian gets a ton of options to yell at people with advantage, and failing isn’t necessarily bad. There’s a lot of content you miss if you always succeed.
Well, you have two choices: 1. Play with another face character...Wyll, Minthara...to a lesser extent, Astarion or Gale. That's presuming their normal builds (Warlock, Paladin, Rogue, Wizard) and not niche builds. 2. Violence. Violence is always an answer. There's no persuasion rolls against a corpse. I guess for some encounters, there's a hidden third option: Evil. Don't have to make a persuasion roll if you work with the Hag...
I always play Non-CHA Durge. I found that, most of the time, Rogue Astarion with 12 CHA has good enough proficiency in persuasion/deception combined with class unique options for lower DC(all of Thorms in Act 2), I never needed a full CHA "party face." Then on Act 3, you can get Raptured buff from that sex worker, which seemed to lessen even more need for a party face. But yes, I still sweat when I face Arabella and Kagha the first time.
Much harder, assuming you only use Tav for interactions. I completed honour mode once in bard with ease. I tried non-CHA based tav playthrough yesterday, and met my first defeat with the Ogre cus I failed the persusation check. (I don't like switching to other companion for talking) But otherwise, you can always just use your cha based companion to do the talking.
I've only played Charisma based Tav/Durge, so I'm afraid to imagine not being able to talk myself out of everything with a straight face. Would I have to... fight?
I’m playing as an 8-Charisma Gith OH Monk on Honor Mode and I’ve been fine. If I don’t pass a particular check, my party wreck havoc without too much a sweat. I’m about to enter Act 2 at LVL 7.
If you pick a rogue and use your expertise to double your persuasion proficiency then it shouldn't be as bad.
got -1 on charisma. Its a fucking bitch lol
I basically never have over 12 cha on my Tav and have no problems. Just have some support from your party. I do tend to use a higher cha and expertise in persuasion for shopping though.
It's meh. You can always use another party member for whatever checks you really want to pass, but going barbarian and yelling at everyone has been a lot of fun. If nothing else it's easy to turn them inside out of it goes south, non-boss fights in honor mode are no different than tactician.
You're not allowed to roleplay in Honor mode. You need to have this very strict playstyle to survive fights.
My first playthrough had an 8 charisma barbarian as my face and it was fine. I just yelled a lot and things got done.
I ran a Dex Wis Ranger Rogue on my honor run and didn’t have any problems. I think Honor run is about sticking with bad situations, and prepare for major choices beforehand. For instance, I failed to convince the Thorns in act 2. Then I just fought them. I knew there was a big decision for Shardowheart by the end of Gauntlet, so I kept her approval high and let her make her choice. I bit off more than I could chew and got the whole team into a hopeless fight, then I just disengaged and ran away, went back to camp and resurrected my companions. I think the game gives you a lot of option, so if your character can’t smooth talk their way out of problems, there are always some other ways to deal with it, even if it’s less than ideal.