Getting rid of the faceless with intimidate

[RandomGuy]

I have a modified Intimidate skill of 105 and still can't get the faceless mindreader i Rail Crossing to go on his merry way and not killing Buzzer? Is it not possible or simply just a matter of having a really, really high Intimidate skill?
If it's not meant to happen, why having the dialogue option at all?

[Greep]

A few of them are just for fun, to show characters are really badass xD  I think intimidate on the guy in Depot A also doesn't work, but I'm not 100% sure.  Unless you have "yell" there's just no reason to have intimidate over persuasion.

[RandomGuy]

From a roleplayining perspective there are many good reasons for investing solely in the intimidation skill and not persuasion. Underrail is a RPG after all.

And I'm ok with, not every dialogue have both a Persuasion and an Intimidate option for solving an issue with non-violence. It's just that, when I see a dialogue option incorporating a skill, I expect that by choosing that option, the game will check my skill and I will be successful or not.
I kind of liked the it was handled in Fallout: New Vegas, where you got the skill requirement for succeeding before you chose that option.

To clarify, if the aforementioned intimidate skill check in the mindreader showdown is higher than 100, I find it a bit unreasonable and if it is a skill check that is not meant to succeed, there shouldn't be an option to use intimidate at all. It's at best misleading and set the player up for failure where there is no hope for success.

[Fenix]

if it is a skill check that is not meant to succeed, there shouldn't be an option to use intimidate at all.

I don't think so.
It was clear for me, that this option is a pure ''just for fun", like with this guy Morde who is fishing. It shows that you can try, but cannot succeed. And it work for me.

[RandomGuy]

if it is a skill check that is not meant to succeed, there shouldn't be an option to use intimidate at all.

I don't think so.
It was clear for me, that this option is a pure ''just for fun", like with this guy Morde who is fishing. It shows that you can try, but cannot succeed. And it work for me.

Each to his own, I guess 

I just feel that, if the dialogue option was just for fun, why involve skill use at all?

In my opinion, using capitalized INTIMIDATE before an dialogue option signify (for me anyway), that you will use your corresponding Intimidate skill value to accomplish something.

[Styg]

if it is a skill check that is not meant to succeed, there shouldn't be an option to use intimidate at all.

I don't think so.
It was clear for me, that this option is a pure ''just for fun", like with this guy Morde who is fishing. It shows that you can try, but cannot succeed. And it work for me.

Each to his own, I guess 

I just feel that, if the dialogue option was just for fun, why involve skill use at all?

In my opinion, using capitalized INTIMIDATE before an dialogue option signify (for me anyway), that you will use your corresponding Intimidate skill value to accomplish something.

Good thing it's not capitalized then. But joking aside, I can see your side of the argument and I can concede that in certain ways it does make more sense than what's implemented.

My line of reasoning is that it is alright to use these skill annotation to convey the manner or intention in which the line is delivered, regardless of whether there is a chance of success. To omit it in these situations would indirectly provide meta knowledge to the player; which is not of itself a bad thing in a game, but my decision was to avoid that here.

Another solution would have been to prevent the player from trying to intimidate/persuade against all odds, but what fun would that be. In Underrail you are free to act foolishly or with overconfidence as long as you are ready to bear the consequences.

But again, there's no one right way to handle this, it's all about trade-offs and I chose what I chose.

[RandomGuy]

if it is a skill check that is not meant to succeed, there shouldn't be an option to use intimidate at all.

I don't think so.
It was clear for me, that this option is a pure ''just for fun", like with this guy Morde who is fishing. It shows that you can try, but cannot succeed. And it work for me.

Each to his own, I guess 

I just feel that, if the dialogue option was just for fun, why involve skill use at all?

In my opinion, using capitalized INTIMIDATE before an dialogue option signify (for me anyway), that you will use your corresponding Intimidate skill value to accomplish something.

Good thing it's not capitalized then. But joking aside, I can see your side of the argument and I can concede that in certain ways it does make more sense than what's implemented.

My line of reasoning is that it is alright to use these skill annotation to convey the manner or intention in which the line is delivered, regardless of whether there is a chance of success. To omit it in these situations would indirectly provide meta knowledge to the player; which is not of itself a bad thing in a game, but my decision was to avoid that here.

Another solution would have been to prevent the player from trying to intimidate/persuade against all odds, but what fun would that be. In Underrail you are free to act foolishly or with overconfidence as long as you are ready to bear the consequences.

But again, there's no one right way to handle this, it's all about trade-offs and I chose what I chose.

Well, you're right. Intimidate is not capitalized. My mistake. ;-)

I get what you're saying and that's cool with me. I'm just saying that your intention with the annotated dialogue choices is not readily apparent to me. I can certainly live with it, because the rest of the game is awesome  , but it will never make sense to me.

Anyway, this is just my five cents to a otherwise great  game.