Persuasion. Is it worth it

[mcolton1]

Persuasion is such a pain in the butt, especially in Arx. Let's say I have a char with 6 int, 30 strength, 20 with, and 25 const, and 3 persuasion. Sometimes, I get success with int. Sometimes with wits. It makes no sense.

When I start my second game, I'm wondering if I should waste 5 civil points on it.

[Icedfate]

I think so...especially near the end of the game. if you run a party of 4, I see no reason not to have it on someone and your main is the ideal choice to be that someone.
Ultimately, it's not necessary, all encounters can be resolved without it, but it certainly makes specific encounters get resolved in the best possible way.
on my first play, I had 1 persuader, 1 loremaster, 1 thief, 1 lucky charm.

I feel like sneaking isn't worth it and bartering is totally not worth it if you can just do thievery instead...unless you have a moral thing against stealing or you feel that stealing makes the game too easy , you can skip that too, it isn't needed.

[DAVOS CENSORSHIP 2030 FTW!!!]

Persuasion is key to getting best possible exp or rewards with quests in vanilla. Some quests can even be exploited twice for extra gain exp and you can also kill the same quest npcs at the end for extra exp.

Bartering is worth it because you can only steal once per npc and you'll constantly keep coming back to the many merchant npcs after some time and leveling to find the best gear for your build. The whole infinite mercenary steal thing is pointless and a total time waster. Remember the merchant npcs only change gear after trading with other npcs and you have to wait some time again after bartering or stealing from them. Lohse is always the barter npc in my team.

[Icedfate]

the reason I felt that bartering wasn't worth it is the opportunity cost, to put points into barter, you have to take points away from something else.
and even with only the 1 or 2 barter I got from gear, once I did my little crime spree and stole from every npc in an act, I had enough wealth to get what I needed to finish the act.

starting in act 2, you can respec your characters and theoretically, do a crime spree with all 4 characters, but after the second respec, I felt like it was just excessive. I had done 1 crime spree at level 10, then waited until 16 and respecced 1 character into thievery and stole from everyone again and got enough stuff to break the game. I never even bothered to steal from anyone in act 3 or 4

thievery is just so much more profitable than bartering, although, if you take the honest route and choose not to steal, then I would totally recommend bartering instead.

[AsianGirlLover]

If you’re picky about your civil point distribution and don’t mind save scumming, you could also keep a persuasion necklace on hand for whenever you get a check you can’t meet.

For example, there’s one where a certain boss will not fight you if your persuasion is at level 6, which you can’t get naturally since the cap is 5. To pass this check, you’d have to either be a lizard and have the +1 passive, or carry that necklace with you for just that occasion.

Example:
You: “I would prefer we work together rather than fight”
Boss: “No, that sounds dumb, fight me.”
You: “Ok, one sec” *puts on necklace and clears throat*
“I said, I would prefer we work together rather than fight.”
Boss: “Well why didn’t you say so!?”

[gregfromthepeg]

In a four person party, I have persuasion at 3 or 4 with a necklace +1 as I walk around. I just respec to bartering when I go to sell a bunch of stuff. The other 3 use lucky charm, lore, and thievery. I never bother with sneaking or telekinesis.

2 person party is a bit trickier but I generally still have 3 persuasion plus the necklace.

[Slim Sic]

bartering and lucky charm will be your top money makers. Hands down, no contest. First of all, your time is valuable right? The less you have to work for cash the better. What people underestimate is the frequency of lucky charm. Even early game you get two points into LC, it gives you enough stuff to work with. You get plenty of gear for your characters. If you have no use for it you can sell it. Here's where people fail to take full advantage of barter. You can gift lesser items or one nice item you don't need to traders you plan on visiting regularly. Getting them to 100 favor stacks with barter and makes your items sell for that much more and you buy things for way cheap. Another point to add, every level items become more powerful and hence more expensive. so by lv 9 when you reach driftwood for example, you favor them to death with junk you keep and then by lv 13 or whenever the next talent pops up, you should be rolling in dough without ever stealing anything.

Loremaster is a waste, just pay to identify it, it's not expensive. Your third should be persuasion.

your 4th is just dependent on what your playing. Thievery is great for an undead. Sneaking is useful for combat and rogues, telekinesis is nice because you can lob items on enemies for damage and reach things you normally can't, which once again is a giant time saver

[RainingMetal]

My key abilities are Persuasion for your main character, Thievery for lockpicking, Loremaster for identifying gear and enemy weaknesses, and Lucky Charm. I don't bother with bartering because money is plentiful anyway and Telekinesis because Teleport exists. Once you max out each of those on each character (you only need to specialize in one for each), feel free to invest a little bit in sneaking.

[Azor]

Originally posted by mcolton1:

Persuasion is such a pain in the butt, especially in Arx. Let's say I have a char with 6 int, 30 strength, 20 with, and 25 const, and 3 persuasion. Sometimes, I get success with int. Sometimes with wits. It makes no sense.

When I start my second game, I'm wondering if I should waste 5 civil points on it.

Some persuasion checks are harder than others, some are impossible. It's not just your stats. Pay attention to dialogue.

[rasmasyean]

I think it's pretty much obvious what you should select to get the most out of a "normal" playthrough. Likely in that order.
Persuasion
Thievery
LoreMaster
Lucky Charm

It's becomes really evident that Civil skill balance (or rather "imbalance") pretty much lead you to this route. Not including respec exploits via preknowledge of events and reloading and the likes.

Telekinesis helps you set up the battle field and place Barrels and steal stuff from a distance, but these are just perks and aren't really necessary to experience the game fully as intended. If you really want that Potion, 325 gold, Essence + Chance of magic item 30 meters away, you can respec for that event.

There are things you just cant experience without Persuasion. And you can always choose not to use it.

Thievery allows you to unlock otherwise inaccessible stuff, not to mention acquire items of choice (via direct theft or being rich).

Loremaster is a biggie unless you're really great with memorizing all the books and guessing what enemies might be resistant too or just remembering your first encounter with that type and take notes.

Lucky Charm also adds to being rich but loot is random so...

Don't forget Pet Pal too.

[LArc7thHeaven]

Thievery is a must i think, you can easily bypass most door with lockpick, stealing really help with 4 man party (great gears were quite pricey).

Lucky charm help a lot to acquire great gears but not very often.

Loremaster is so-so (identifying item when money were abundance isn't a problem, but enemy info is priceless). Persuasion is great to bypass some fight.

Telekinesis is downright breaking the game LOL