Say my buddy is interacting with something and there is an investigate option, but his chars intelligence is not up to par, can my char attempt the skill check without him cancelling the interaction and me initiating it again?
Say my buddy is interacting with something and there is an investigate option, but his chars intelligence is not up to par, can my char attempt the skill check without him cancelling the interaction and me initiating it again?
The devs did mention in the weeks before launch that it was something that they wanted to address but that it was very difficult to implement with their current system and how the conversation cutscenes work. They did try different things internally that they never added to Early Access but they weren’t happy with any of their solutions and so they opted to focus the efforts on polishing other aspects of the game.
I have a very limited understanding of game development, but isn’t it as easy as checking which characters/players are currently participating in a conversation, be it actively or just listening, and then allowing the player(s) to choose a characters stat for a given skill check?
It might have to be limited to stuff like investigating, arcana checks, athletics checks, etc. and not include conversation relevant checks, like intimidation, persuasion, and deception
Pathfinder already solved this problem, any time there is a skill check in dialogue it automatically uses the skill check of the character in the party with the highest bonus, no matter who is “talking”, and mousing over the selection will show you whose skill check you’re using. It’s pretty seamless and it works because the party engages in conversations as a unit, just like a real tabletop party does. You usually have a main character that’s driving the specific conversation but party members interject or argue frequently.
Often times those seemingly trivial fixes can be quite more complicated because of how the code is structured.
It’s possible they tried it and didn’t like it or thought maybe it made conversations too easy. You’d probably have to ask Larian to be certain. They are probably going to do a dev stream some time soon. Might be able to get an answer then if you submit it.
It does seem to be the easiest solution if they were to try but it’s possible they just let modders work it out since they are working on releasing mod tools for BG3 later this year.