Is this actually a possible softlock?? [spoilers]

[wowleegans]

Quest to finding Ruby.

The situation: Feld Electric mural. Shivers check. Leads to either climbing ladder (Savoir Faire) or going into drainage pipe (Physical Instrument).

I see a lot of discussion out there about the Shivers check, but at least the game apparently gives you tons of ways to unlock/amp up your bonus for that. That's not what I'm here for.

My problem: I failed the Savoir Faire check even with bonuses. I failed the Physical Instrument check (despite it being easier for me). Then while wandering the world trying to rack up enough XP to level up again, I come back and the *drainage pipe is no longer interactable* (bug???? reported it via the google form), which leaves me with the Savoir Faire check. Fortunately for me, I hadn't spent my level up yet, so I was able to unlock the Savoir Faire check, and this time I actually qsaved before hand to savescum if necessary.

If I had failed that check and hadn't saved beforehand - boom, is the game really softlocked at that point??? I don't know how else I would gain XP - all my coastline church quests are essentially blocked by a failed Perception white skill check with Soona (and my Perception is literally 1 - I'd be savescumming to hell if I spent my level up there to unlock it). I don't know if there's somethign I could do with Ervart and the eviction notices (blocked by a failed white skill check), but maybe that would've been more XP. But I don't have anything else I could've done.

Is there some other way in? Because otherwise I find this rather upsetting, that so much of the game (and reviews of the game) talk up the flexibility of Disco Elysium, and makes big deal about how even failing rolls is ok, and talks up the ability to retry rolls, but if the main story quest really hinges on one of two sequences of two very specific skill checks (Shivers -> Savoir Faire, or Shivers -> Physical Instrument; and the latter is buggy apparently) that seems *insanely* brittle and screw over a lot of possible character builds, especially given finite XP and no respec option.

[MoreEvilSquid]

Even on HARDCORE there are tons of skill points to collect, so it's not too hard to keep a couple in reserve if you should need them (yes it's kind of a lame tactic, but it is somewhat encouraged by the mechanics).

But from what I remember, there are a number of ways to get those odds up for those checks - and I believe failing them may also help get the odds up.

I think with the drainage pipe, I recall Kym helping out at some point (but I could be mistaken as it's been a while).

Plus you can take speed for the ladder, and skull a beer for the pipe.

And of course there should be some clothing items you can wear, which I'm sure you've already figured out. You should be able to get at least +2 Savoir Faire and/or physical instrument quite easily.