Thoughts about playing stats with a negotiater.
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Alot of this intersting and varying. Though i think for the most part somthing important is being forgotten. It is not enough to roleplay your stats you must roleplay your skills too. It is possible to learn body language to study it. Read about social interaction. Read about what motivates people psychology books. Learning the the common sterotypes. All of this is in fact intelligence related book learning. It can in fact greatly improve your interactions in the situations you have read about though social interactions. I admit this sort of thing should not help you in situations outside your realm of knowledge in the slightest. I think it should not be ignored that social interaction can in fact be an area of study as well. These are repesented in a large part by skills Intelligence does not increase them directly but gives you points you can put in them. While sense motive is not represented in NWN it still is a skill none the less in the D&D universe so it can be raised with skill points you get from a high intelligence.
So what i am asking is the skills more important to social interactions or are the stats it seems the stats impact on the skills are already represented.
It's the skill ratings that matter. - persuade/bluff/appriase (asuming appraise is wider than just worth of items) So in COA, for a dipomat, what will matter more than any stat, and almost as much as skill ranks, is phat lewt.
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In my opinion, the stats would affect like so:
Charisma: Your ability to speak well and make people listen to you
Wisdom: Your ability to see the opposing side, their "weaknesses" and their "locked points" (that they won't budge on).
Intelligence: Your understanding of the information at hand and your ability to plan ahead.
So in general; a person with good intelligence and charisma would be a good talker with good understanding of the situation, but absolutely no clue about his counterpart, either leading to him giving out way too much info and hurting his side/the one he works for, insult and misunderstand his opposing side or in general make really shitty deals and think he's just done a fantastic job.
A good negotiator would IMO not work with a low wisdom score. He might try hard, buy relentlessly fail, despite his likability. It doesnt matter if you can push a good point across when the other side can play you like a puppet for your incredibly lacking wits.
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Right , sorry if I'm going to be a bit of a buzzkill here.
Now , my guess is Charisma is most important for negotiating.
Followed by Wisdom.
And then Intelligence.
Everyone's already explained why bellow already, now for the skills.
Persuade, Bluff and Intimidate.
"Negotiating" could be anything from convincing people your way is the right way, to lying through your teeth, to openly threatening one way or another.
The last bit is especially hard. Few people can tell you they're going to hurt you and make you be wary, unless they have you bound and gagged. Having real intel , spying on someone makes all of these easier , especially the intimidation.
But here's where CoA's rules come in. If you're going to roleplay your skills , that's good! But if you want to actually pit your skills checks against other characters , they have the choice not to play along. Unless a DM asks for a roll of your diplomatic skills (persuade/bluff/intimidate), they don't have much , if any, weight.
Just a heads up, if you're planning on dealing a lot with other characters and using said skills on them (and if you didn't know about what I wrote above)
So , if you're going to put all those skills to good use, you'll have to aim big!
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If you want to play a diplomat, I'd say Charisma is -the- most important stat. Doesn't matter if you're a sage or a scientist, or both, you simply wouldn't be able to put forth your thoughts and ideas if you lack social skills. On the other hand, you might very well have no knowledge of the situation and yet, merely through your force of personality, be able to have your way.
To me, diplomacy is knowing what to say, when to say and how to say. High charisma doesn't necessarily mean a smooth talker, it simply means that the person knows what the other party wants to hear. He can "talk to you". You can be a diplomat with a low wisdom and intelligence, though having a decent score in those is always helpful.
At the end of the day though, your characters personality is defined by you, not by his stats and diplomacy requires personality.