Issue with "The Charlatan" quest.

[Vamenn]

Has anyone had trouble with this quest? I am at the point to"unmask" but I cannot actually speak with him.
I found the items behind his shop, but still no dice.

[Bastila Shan]

Did you look behind his shop before speaking with him? If so you may have broken it.

[Vamenn]

I looked after, but I was never able to speak with him to begin with. It played his cutscene and then I tried to talk but it wouldn't let me. At that point, I went around back and found that stuff.
A bummer if it's broken since another quest seems to depend on it.

[Bastila Shan]

Hmm sounds like a bug, might be worth starting a new game and see if you can talk to him first.

[fastica]

Originally posted by Vamenn:

Has anyone had trouble with this quest? I am at the point to"unmask" but I cannot actually speak with him.
I found the items behind his shop, but still no dice.

Oops, looks like the kind of script bugs that never were fixed in previous Spiders games.

[Vamenn]

I just called it a loss and moved forward. A shame but at least it wasn't game breaking.

[☢︎Noob☢]

Luckily you're still right at the beginning. Restarting wouldn't be a huge issue. That kind of buying is annoying regardless tho :x good luck

[halfmonkey]

There's a comment in a letter that points you to another clue--which does not appear with a marker. You should check his room in the tavern to learn more about him. It may be a script flag or what-not to get the appropriate "Confront" stage dialogue later.

[Vamenn]

Monkey - I did that one as well I do believe, but I may be mis-remembering,

[FeelsGouda]

Had the same problem:

After restarting I could talk to him, but I already gathered the materials, so didnt work anymore.
So fix the bug before gathering anything, or hope that you have a save ready.

[Strifeboy]

Are there suppose to be cut scenes in this game with him drinking the first vile and him running away cause i got nothing?

[Bastila Shan]

Originally posted by Strifeboy:

Are there suppose to be cut scenes in this game with him drinking the first vile and him running away cause i got nothing?

When he runs away it just fades the screen to black and hes gone

[archonsod]

There's no cutscene.

Talking to him can be a bit weird due to his stall blocking access and the bystanders clustered around it - I found it more reliable to actually walk around to the side.

For the quest itself, In the first conversation you can get him to drink a phial, but you'll note he pulled it from his pocket rather than his stock. This will prompt the 'we should look in his cart' stage of the quest. Go around behind him (you need to backtrack to the canal, there's a metal gate you can open to go through), have an easy fight with his guards and you find some loot; quest items would be his notebook, a letter from the landlord and a phial of the potion. You can then either investigate his room at the inn or try to force him to drink the potion you found, at which point he'll 'escape' back to the room at his inn 'pursued' by an angry mob. Head back to his room and you can trigger the final stage of the quest - help him escape by fighting or persuading the mob, find a way out of the inn that avoids the mob, or arrest him.

If the quest 'breaks' you can usually work around it by flipping to the alternate route - if you discover the key items and the conversation doesn't work try going to the inn and vice-versa. Similarly if the escape from the inn doesn't trigger when you find the correct route out try persuading the mob

From what I've seen with this and the Naut warehouse quest it looks like when you're on branching quests if you complete a step from a branch other than the one you're currently following it'll reset the branch you're on. So if you're going down the 'confront' line of the Charlatan quest and switch to the 'Investigate' branch it'll reset wherever you were up to with the confrontation path, which can be a problem if it requires a quest item you've already used for example.

[Strifeboy]

Originally posted by Hoboslayer:

Originally posted by Strifeboy:

Are there suppose to be cut scenes in this game with him drinking the first vile and him running away cause i got nothing?

When he runs away it just fades the screen to black and hes gone

So there was suppose to be nothing there to begin with?

[76561198284263386]

Hello Vamenn ! :)

Thank you for reporting this issue. We are currently investigating it.
Sorry for the inconvenience !

[Verquon]

Originally posted by Focus_Claire:

Hello Vamenn ! :)

Thank you for reporting this issue. We are currently investigating it.
Sorry for the inconvenience !

Has there been any progress on fixing this bug? I just picked up the game and decided to explore before tackling quests, as that's a normal thing I do in these kinds of games. I found the tavern room way before even picking up this quest, and now I can't talk to the Charlatan at all. This has frozen up this quest as well as the Heretics quest. I'd really rather not start the game over again, as I already have to fix an earlier bug. And I'm not wanting to progress the main story without completing these quests in fear of losing the opportunity to finish them.