Quote:
Originally posted by ZFR:
Just one thing: with sorcerer as your spokesperson it means he'll be always in front. thats why I always have tanks as my spokespersons.... unless you know some way to solve this i.e keep weak spokesperson not in the frontlines in the battles...
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Yes. Drag the character portrait of the sorceror to the front or back as needed. There's no real reason to have the weak "negotiator" at the front of the party
all the time.
Turn off scripts when walking around dungeons. Scout areas first with your rogue so you have a sense of what kind of enemies are in the area (as soon as you see somebody, pause and move your mouse around to see if any of the visible enemies have a "talk" cursor, then unpause and get the heck out of there before anyone sees you). Get used to selecting individual characters and moving them manually to good/safe positions, while you move other characters into blocking positions, or other characters cast blocking spells-- basically set your party in fighting formation out of range, send the "talker" forward alone, then make them run to the back of the party when the fight starts, leading the enemies right to your waiting group of destroyers. And never forget to PAUSE the very second that you get control back after the encounter, so you can scope out what's going on in the area and plan appropriately.
It's not as if you don't (usually) know when you're going to need to speak to someone, and that is usually in town where there are no battles (stores, town Fed-Ex quests). Even in town, you usually have a clue if someone you need to talk to is going to become an enemy when you do so.
Now, admittedly, there are several battles where there will be a "speaking" encounter beforehand (or during), many of which include chances for extra XP, a chance to get more information, or to change the course of battle (convince an enemy to go away, for instance). A lot of the time, you know when this is going to happen as well, since many of the "boss-type" characters you can speak to are behind locked doors, or a cutscene reveals their position, so you have a general idea where they are going to be, and can set your "negotiator" to the front before entering the area.
There are a couple of speaking encounters that catch one "off-guard" (thinking most notably of the Goblin Warrens). Since I advise saving once you've cleared an area (even an area so small as a single room or stretch of hallway), this is not such a problem, since if my scout then takes two steps and runs into a speaking encounter with her CHA of 8 (-1), it's easy enough to reload and then have the charming character take those two steps instead.
Alternatively, you could always have a paladin in your party-- good tank, and doesn't need to be moved to another position in the formation except for accepting quest rewards, which is again going to happen in "safe" areas, so it's not stressful to remember to do. Actually, I use a paladin(3)/barbarian(x) for this, though my main "negotiator" is my wizard-- paladins naturally have a charisma bonus, and some diplomacy (though they're too honest to bluff), and barbarians are
very intimidating. So even though my ranger(4)/wizard(x) is overall a better talker, the pally/barb does OK if I get caught off guard. Plus being a paladin and an Aasimar can get some conversation options that the ranger doesn't get-- though, depending on the encounter, sometimes the ranger (being a devotee of nature, and evil) sometimes gets options that the pally doesn't. Generally, I find the advice given by the game to be good-- "give more than one character a few ranks in the Diplomacy, Bluff and Intimidate skills...".