dialogue quests are lame

I love this game and in fact just like it more as time goes on, but the whole check-stat-pick-yellow-line-of-dialogue twitch is worthless. The only real-world stat the gamer is actually contributing to a CRPG is intelligence, and that applies to every decision one makes. By making dialogue dependant on one stat and its derivative Skills, you take all the challenge and fun out of non-combat quests.

Imagine if combat were resolved like this:
Your party must defeat a wyvern. The first character to approach needs Str 18 to beat it. His Str is 18, it dies, you collect the loot. Wow, that was fun!!

But what if his Str was only 17! Oh no, you lost! But no one dies, of course. You merely trudge back to town, brew a potion of Bear's Farts, return and lo! You win. Challenging and satisfying. I'll be chatting online about that epic battle for weeks.

IMO, scrap all the Cha related skill checks and especially the yellow lines of dialogue. If the GM created actual dialogue trees of any length, the player could make decisions dependent on her intuition and on other information she could collect beforehand (ie. research through other dialogue, reading texts, etc.); then talk to the Grand Poobah or whomever. And more importantly, consequences. As in, no you can't go to Jared's house and ask about Subway 40 times until you have the right Cha/Intimidate score. He'll get so irritated he'll cut you up.

Why gripe about this now, you ask? (I don't know if you do ask, but I'm going to say anyway): People are talking about a total TOEE mod with a new town, new backgrounds and new everything, and I hope to GOD these types of quests are composted before then.

 

To a degree... this really depends on the type of character you have created. Is this person really an intelligent character? maybe an intelligent character but with the common sense of a toaster? or maybe very dim-witted? by having dialogue options based off of stats and feats, you are either rewarded or restricted by either being smart or dumb. i ran a campaign of dim-witted half orcs and barbarians and i highly doubt any of them can negotiate as well as a paladin even though i myself would have easily figured out what to do. its part of roleplaying something other than yourself. I understand it can be frustrating to make skill checks but thats the reality of the matter. If you aren't skilled, you aren't going to succeed unless blind luck occurs (like a roll of 20).

 

I'm not sure how relevant that actually is. There aren't too many parties consisting of one barbarian, or even 5 dumb fighters of any type. Beyond the yellow line issue, there are other severe limitations in dialogue, like:

1) the game choosing the closest character to initiate dialogue on being surprised or entering a new area;

2)not being allowed to use your charismatic NPC's for dialogue.

Point #2 means that out of the five PC's you create, at least one has to specialize in dialogue. Because in TOEE more than half the total quests are dialogue only, with no other solution, you're stuck.