Wisdom, Intellect and Charisma need to be more useful.

Dazzu

Simply put, they are dump stats! You get 11 Int to avoid Mind Flayery death, and only get 10 Wis if you're worried about your lore stat.

Otherwise, you dump them.

I read that Wis was useful for certain saves, In the BG2 manual, it lists Wis as effecting Mag Def Adjustment and low wisdoms causing a chance of spell failure. These are unimplemented.


Would it not be great to make these useful even on warriors and Thieves?

paulsifer42

I think they made it so there were more talking options with higher Wis. At least, I know it BG1 that Jahera got many more options than my main character, and the only difference I could see was in Wis.

Tanthalas

I'm pretty sure that there is already a thread with similar requests.

MooseChangerPat

Well one must also not forget that wisdom goes towards will type saving throws and towards the wish spells. Charisma is also seen effecting certain conversations in the game, like in early candlekeep you'll get more loot from those quests if you have a higher charisma. (Like an 18)

Dazzu

Actually, WIS saving throws aren't in effect in IE games. Feel free to use as a dump stat.

bgplaya

Am I the only one who doesn't pick stats that just make you incredibly uber? I try to pick ones that make sense for the character concept wise, at least somewhat.

<--- doesn't believe in 'dump stats'...even at the expense of getting killed 5,000,000 times a game!

AndreaColombo

@Tanthalas - here is my request for PnP bonuses for high INT and WIS scores. I know for sure there was one for CHA as well, but it wasn't mine so I don't have quick access to its link through "My Dicussions".

Konabuga

I never noticed Intelligence or Wisdom affecting conversations in BG, or even in BG2. Though I did play mostly with a fighter whose Intelligence and Wisdom were both around 3 or 4 and the rest of the points were set to Strength, Constitution and Dexterity. He formed sentences just fine.

Did you really get more conversation options in BG with high INT/WIS/CHA? I remember that that's how it worked in Fallout and Planescape, but never noticed it in BG. Surely you couldn't talk your way out of fights?

Syntia13

In BG1, there was that one instance, I think it was in the Skie's father's estate, when a noble women would give [charname] a kiss if he had high charisma, but call him an ugly brute if his charisma was low. I found that amusing.
Probably there were other little differences like that, only I didn't notice - the dialog options are plentiful regardless of your stats, and it's hard to remember ALL of them.

Heinrich

One feature I would absolutely love is having the Intelligence stat giving you bonuses or penalties on gaining experience depending on how much you invest in that stat.

Intelligence as described in the game is your character's memory and learning ability. Just think about it, If you have a higher intelligence than normal then you could learn more easily so it would make sense to have XP bonuses for each character. If your character has very low intelligence then your character could get less experience due to not having enough brainpower to do so.

For example:
3-4 = -30% XP
5-6 = -20% XP
7-8 = -10% XP
9-12 = 0%
13-14 = +10% XP
15-16 = +20% XP
17-18 = +30% XP

This would make the Intelligence stat more desirable to me as I have a guilty pleasure of having a character with genius intellect. In the current systems there are very few dialogue options for this stat and other for it being used by mages, the the score is pretty much a dump stat.

I'm not sure if this would be possible to do but if it is then I'm hoping that it would be implemented either in this game or the long-awaited Baldur's Gate 3.

Ulfgar_Torunn

Though players often give their characters reasonable mental stats on roleplaying grounds, it isn't beneficial to increase them beyond the 'average' range. I think this is unfortunate, and I agree that all mental stats should affect dialogue options, and possibly experience gain (though certainly not as much as 30% at a mere 18), similar to what was done in PS:T.

At present the mental stats may as well have been unimplemented. They do nothing that we expect them to, and, for non-spellcasters, are merely artefacts of high stat rolls.

PS:T and NWN showed that ability scores can play a valuable part in non-combat interactions. I would welcome any increased significance to mental stats in BG:EE and BG2:EE.

Dazzu

Would it hurt to give charisma an IN combat role rather than for interactions... which rarely use it anyway.

Communard

I will say I loved the stat-based dialogues in PS:T. Even though I know it's impossible to do such to the existing dialogue (due to time constraints and contract), I would really love it if the new dialogues followed that style.

Wikkid_Suhn

Heinrich said:

Intelligence as described in the game is your character's memory and learning ability. Just think about it, If you have a higher intelligence than normal then you could learn more easily so it would make sense to have XP bonuses for each character. If your character has very low intelligence then your character could get less experience due to not having enough brainpower to do so.

What about conditioning, though? A warrior's learning curve may depend more so on muscle memory, and strength being a prime requisite, shouldn't he receive an experience bonus due to having a high strength?

This is actually straight from the player's manual. Each class has prime requisites. A fighter's is strength. A thief's is dexterity. A ranger's, I believe, is strength, dexterity, and wisdom. The rules state that if your character has a score of 16 or higher in all of you prime requisites, you get a 10% bonus to all experience gained. That is what should be in the game. Unfortunately, according to my experimenting it isn't.

I do think bgee should adopt PST's system of having soft stats having pronounced effects on interpersonal relations.

Heinrich

Ulfgar_Torunn said:

and I agree that all mental stats should affect dialogue options, and possibly experience gain (though certainly not as much as 30% at a mere 18), similar to what was done in PS:T.

Exactly, and yes maybe the 30% would be a bit much now that I look at it but I would love for this feature to be implemented.

Wikkid_Suhn said:

What about conditioning, though? A warrior's learning curve may depend more so on muscle memory, and strength being a prime requisite, shouldn't he receive an experience bonus due to having a high strength?

I see what your point is but that's not where I'm coming from. For example, Fighters get their bonuses already by having "to hit" and extra damage for having a high strength. Intelligence comes in with quick thinking of tactics, knowledge of the enemy as well as the learning from a battle and such to apply for next time.

Another thing too is in the later editions, having INT scores get you more skill points that can be used towards certain skills regardless of class. I'm not asking for 3rd Edition Rules but maybe a small XP bonus would add incentive to invest in for all classes as the mental stats right now are dump stats for non mages or clerics.