Talky tank?

Remove all ads!

Me and my OCD have been stuck in the chargen for about a year now, struggling to find a way to have my tank also be my diplomat. I don't want to lead with a fragile glass cannon, and I don't want to constantly manually pick my last character and walk him to the front either. How do I do this?

There's only three classes that benefit from having high charisma. Paladins are right out because they refuse rewards (no, I don't want to manually talk with somebody else). Sorcerers die if they come within any enemy contact. And bards just drag the party down with their not-a-proper-warrior, not-a-proper-caster uselessness.

What do?

 

Maybe you should stop writing wrong things and look at facts. Bards improve the party with their powerful songs, they don't drag it down.

 

As a variation on manually picking someone else to accept rewards, what about two "leaders"? The paladin can go to the top when out in the wilds, the sorcerer once you hit the towns. Once they hit level 4 sorcerers are actually fine at surviving. They won't die from a single arrow anymore and mirror image will save them if they get into trouble. The main problem is occasionally having to run away rather than doing anything productive. Ditto a wizard with talking skills and a good charisma.

Do you want a talker with great charisma and stuffed with talking skills? Does the character have to be a full on tank or will just being robust do?

If being decent will do then you've options. Be a human and you can dump INT and still get some skill points for talking. A cleric in heavy armour could have ok STR and DEX and thus spare some points for CHA. She'll be able to turn too. A ranger in light armour and weapon finesse only needs decent STR and WIS to do some serious dual dagger stabbing.

If you want a great talker who's still a traditional tank I'd probably just cheat to be honest. Pumping up INT and CHA for a fighter or barbarian is more for making life easier than powergaming in my opinion. You don't need to use an editor, using the cheat console to put in the right potions is a quick and easy way of doing it.

 

That was a little rude kmonster. Everyone has to start somewhere. When I started playing these games I made a lot of assumptions but the people on here were very helpful. There is no need to be snippy

 

I misspoke. Bards don't suck. However, they still won't work for my purposes unless I can turn the bard into the party tank.

My problem is the game's damnable habit of NPCs talking to the closest character instead of the character with the highest talking skills: this means the party "face" has to be physically in the front or else when somebody runs up to my CHA 1 barbie and initiates conversation, it's Power Word Reload time lest I miss something.

I have been considering cheating. And I have been considering giving up and just dealing with the discomfort. I was just wondering if there was a non-cheaty solution.

Cleric might work I suppose, clerics tank well and I'm of course going to have one in my party, but raising CHA instead of WIS as a cleric sounds iffy, especially since in my earlier little test runs I didn't find any enemy I could turn (I only reached the Ice Temple though). And the chief problem here is - I will have a sorcerer in my party, and the sorcerer will have either the single highest charisma or be tied for the highest, for obvious reasons, and it would be weird for the party diplomat to not be the one with the highest charisma.

BTW, has anyone made a list of the locations in the game where speech checks are made? I poked around with an editor once and it didn't seem like there was that many of them, maybe 13-14.

 

Which is one reason why having a tank/talker isn't all that important.

 

I didn't mean to suggest taking CHA over WIS. It's doable to take 14 or 16 CHA while maxing WIS and still being ok at combat. Being human would still give you 2 skillpoints a level for talking skills and concentration. My cleric like this was ok at combat and would have been ok at talking if I had used her that way. She wouldn't have been as good in combat as my cleric which dumped CHA nor would she have been as good at talking as my sorcerer. It's just a suggestion of someone who's reasonable at both. Turning is a minor bonus. There's only a handful of times it's useful but it's extremely powerful when it is.

 

It's not just about dialogue encounters. Doesn't CHA impact pricing as well? That is why I prefer to have a high-charisma character in my party. I love buying on the cheap!

 

In my first game I made the sorceress the party leader. I had about 5 reloads, none because of her being at position 1.

 

A good option would be to create a Sorcerer with high Charisma and some (possibly 4) Fighter levels. Pick Armoured Arcana with Fighter feats unless you want to rely on Mage Armour (which is definitely an option with high Dexterity characters especially in the early game). The character will suck as a nuker but will work as a spellsword. Use buffing spells (you can take off armours to avoid casting penalties). There is something to be said about a buffed Sorcerer/Fighter with Mirror Image, Stoneskin, Fireshield and stuff. Bear in mind that a Sorcerer in armour can use scrolls without too much hassle.

This is probably not as "effective" as a straight Sorcerer build but devising a high Charisma tank is possible (make sure you put enough points in Dexterity and Intelligence to get Dodge and Expertise). I see two ways to go about this build, either make a high Dexterity character (Dual Wielding, Weapon Finesse, Mage Armour and Cat's Grace -possibly taking one Ranger level instead of four Fighter levels; Wild Elf is a good choice for the Dexterity bonus) or a character with enough Dexterity to get Dodge but more Strength or Constitution to get the most of two handed weapons and armours (Armoured Arcana won't completely negate the penalty but you can still pick spells that can be cast before getting into a fight and use scrolls to avoid casting penalties).

A Bard is a good option for a multiclass since the songs don't get better after the War Chant of the Sith. Lingering Song is a must have. More skillpoints work nicely if you really want to put points in talking skills. The Bard spell selection works nicely as far as buffing goes. If you play normal mode you may not want to put too much points in Charisma (possibly enough to cast 6th level spells that is 16 or even 14 if you plan on using Charisma enhancing items or increase Charisma at level ups later on -this incidentally makes a Dwarf a solid candidate if you don't plan on maxing out Charisma et the start) which makes it easier to put more points in other abilities.

 

If you're having problems with the character at position 1 being attacked when combat starts, consider a different formation, like the star-shaped one, where nr.1 is in center....
I don't know if nr.1 will still be force-talked to, I never tested it.
AFAIK, force talks don't check stats like charisma, but are more focused on your class. A cleric will get an entirely different conversation option than a barbarian. And there aren't any XP bonuses from force talks when entering a new map. At least, as far as I can remember. The other force talks can be influenced by putting the right character into view first.

 

For store prices, my impression is that the character with the highest charisma is taken into account, no matter at which position is in the party or who is speaking with the trader. Am I wrong ?

The concept of "party leader" seems meaningless in the sense that it only matters when you have selected the whole group, the character at the first position steps up to do the talking. If the dialogue is forced, it usually doesn't matter who you put in the first slot since it often happens that other character to do the talking, while when you choose to initiate the dialogue, you proceed to talk with all of your party members, to see which dialogue options you get depending on their classes and attributes.

 

When trading, the charisma of the character doing the talking is checked. Unlike, say, BG series where the designated leader is assumed to talk no matter who physically hauls their arse to the merchant.

There aren't many forced talks right after area transitions, even less those that grant exp based on talking skills. The one right outside the final fortress is the only one I can think of, and possibly worth up to 1,500 exp for anyone good at bluffing.

 

There's one in the goblin warrens isn't there? Where you either convince the tribe to go home or end up having a fight. Don't think it gives much xp or that there's much difference either way

 

The tribe encounter starts by someone talking to the leader, thus anyone can be selected to do that.

 

was just going to add that having a paladin leader isn't that bad, gold from quest rewards is just a drop in the ocean compared to the wealth you harvest from monsters.

 

True but you do occasionally get some decent items (more in HoF mode). An early example is the burning oil foem the archer captain at the pallisaide. Comes in handy as at the point in the game that you're going to need it, you probably won't be able to afford it (IIRC).

 

Strange, no matter which character I select to speak to merchant, the prices are the same.

 

Wait, is it only CHA affecting dialogue now? In IWD1 there were also checks for WIS and INT.

And assuming healthy doses of Diplomacy and Bluff, how much stats are we talking about? 14? 18?