What if your character could learn?

[Noah_The_Warlock]

No matter how many books you read in any of tes games I have played, your character was essentially and idiot. What if flipping through pages in key books gave you more intelligent responses to statements? I think it would be cool, what do you think?

[ToxicCosmos]

No matter how many books you read in any of tes games I have played, your character was essentially and idiot. What if flipping through pages in key books gave you more intelligent responses to statements? I think it would be cool, what do you think?

I think that would be cool, too. To be able to participate in a discussion of sorts, not just be told information. There was some of this I think (or that may have just been a mod I used) where based on some stat/skill, there were differing responses. A conversation with some Jarl's court mage comes to mind, but I'm no longer sure.

[Durnehviir]

Sounds cool and I don't think it would be to difficult seeing how a modder can make books you haven't read glow in his free time shouldn't be that hard to add talk options.

[Ripcage]

I think that would be cool, too. To be able to participate in a discussion of sorts, not just be told information. There was some of this I think (or that may have just been a mod I used) where based on some stat/skill, there were differing responses. A conversation with some Jarl's court mage comes to mind, but I'm no longer sure.

It's not a mod, if you have certain a few certain magic skills up to a high enough level and talk to Farengar before the Jarl tells him that you can help with his 'task' you can get atleast 3 different dialogue options. One of them being:

Spoiler:

Watch out, you're about to step on your own Flame rune.

Or something along those lines.

[CBR JGWRR]

No matter how many books you read in any of tes games I have played, your character was essentially an idiot. What if flipping through pages in key books gave you more intelligent responses to statements? I think it would be cool, what do you think?

I don't really like it. It's stupid to say the player character is essentially an idiot, and that they would have to start off as an idiot and then get more intellegent. It's immersion breaking and would be highly annoying to have to grind through reading endless books just to get to the point where one is effectively fresh out of secondary school (or high school for the US readers)

It's also something that annoys me about the skill system in general...

[Beytran70]

I wish my character could talk in general. Shouting doesn't count. I would even accept generic race voices.

[Dark Spark]

I didn't name my last character in Oblivion 'Casandra' just because I have a penchant for three-syllable names with incorrect spelling.

She knew everything that has going to happen in the course of the story. Problem is, it didn't matter because everyone else went around acting if this was their first rodeo. So, she went with what felt most fun: ripping spines out.

[the Savage Hippie]

Maybe that would be a lot of work considering the enormous amount of books and NPCs in the ES games.

[Dark Spark]

Oddly enough, my Dark Brotherhood character is a bit of a bibliophile. She thinks rare books are the best score when looting corpses.

[Dohva.]

Yeah, when my smart characters are given the dumb and dumber speaking options, I just roll my eyes because its like hey, she probably already knows that. So I'll either back out of the conversation or choose the next best option. It would be as simple as them just putting in smarter responses for your characters, a variety. So that way you could choose whether your character was learned on a subject or not. That would be easier than the book options, I think...but yeah, you're right, it is annoying that they automatically assume the pc is ignorant. What about the elves that live a really long time? They have nothing better to do with their time than read books anyway.

[Avron the S'wit]

I think having one or two extra options to answer or ask a question, such as the intimidate, persuade, and threaten speechcraft options, would be great, but I know it'll change depending on your skill levels, as Ri'Zahr mentioned above. I like responses to be as simple as possible myself because it doesn't inflect too much personality in my character. I'd be a little put off if Bethesda gave me sassy responses for my not-very-sassy characters. Still, a few extra vanilla options to project a tiny bit of personality in would be nice.

I do love the "stay silent" option in the DB, though. Now that's class.

[Dohva.]

I do love the "stay silent" option in the DB, though. Now that's class.

Can you imagine what the pc's face actually looks like while they are staying silent? I like to think of my assassin having a devious smirk on her face...like yes Astrid, you're not worth my words.

EDIT: It was nice being able to throw in Farengar's face that my characters had magickal knowledge. They should just have let him step in that rune for fun.

[Leisure Pirate]

Something along the lines of the Intelligence checks from Fallout?

[Beytran70]

Something along the lines of the Intelligence checks from Fallout?

That would be great, actually. I always thought that was amazing. In Fallout 2 for instance if your character had like 5 intelligence all you could ACTUALLY say were things along the lines of "Want food. Moneys." "Grrrrr..." and *Drool.* Or if you were really smart like 70 intelligence you were actually incapable of communicating with common people because of your vocabulary.

[Finn Wolfshorn]

Something along the lines of the Intelligence checks from Fallout?

They actually had intelligence checks in Morrowind - at least there was one quest where, if you had a certain level of intelligence (or were an Argonian), you'd realize that two persons were actually one and the same because the name of one of them was the exact translation of the other's. Can't remember right now if there was more of the kind, but that was nifty.

[Xarnac the Conqueror]

Yep, was about to say that they've had checks like this in the past, before they started dumbing down the series.

[Mr.Argonian]

It would add so much immersion to the game. Imagine reading about harvesting frostbite spider venom, and then next time you kill one ypou get double the amount of venom. Or once you have high skill in the magic skills, you can tell the CoW that you are too good to be an aprrentice.

[Werozzi]

That is actually an excellent idea, just imagine that books that speak of a certain creature like in Skyrim actually gave you not only the ability to harvest more/better creature parts, but gets also reflected on the damage you do to that species, since you know more about them.
Also the books could give you some special combat techniques, or some books revealing all effects of a certain ingredient.
Humiliating the NPC's verbally could have a nice come back, like in Morrowind, where you taunt them into attack/submission. that depending in your intelligence and speech, or disguising as a certain faction and depending on your intelligence is the chance to get caught.

[Pilaf The Defiler]

I think that would be a great idea for RPGs in general. Add more dialogue options based on world experience or books read. Like for instance, if Tiber Septim comes up in conversation and you've read "The Arcturian Heresy" or "The Legendary Sancre Tor" you have more insight on his background and can say stuff you otherwise couldn't. Or if your Blacksmithing skill is high you an say more things to the smiths in the game and get discounts.

[CreeperX]

I think that would be a great idea for RPGs in general. Add more dialogue options based on world experience or books read. Like for instance, if Tiber Septim comes up in conversation and you've read "The Arcturian Heresy" or "The Legendary Sancre Tor" you have more insight on his background and can say stuff you otherwise couldn't. Or if your Blacksmithing skill is high you an say more things to the smiths in the game and get discounts.

Yes. This.

I'd like it if TES had more Fallout-esque dialogue options. Fallout 3 for example gives you new options based on your skills. Like:

Option 1
Option 2
Option 3 [% of success based on speech skill]
Option 4 [appears if you have enough Strength]
Option 5 [appears if you have enough Intelligence]
Option 6 [appears based on moral alignment]

If TES was like that you would get new options based on your particular skills and if, for example, you have high magic skills you can comment on magic related discussion in a manner that you would actually know about it. Or when you are getting strong enough, you can actually threaten people with physical violence or if your destruction skill is top notch you could threaten to burn them to ashes etc. You could also use your speech skill to manipulate people, resolve things peacefully or even get double rewards etc.
In Skyrim the whole speech skill is pretty useless and the dialogue options hardly allow any roleplaying at all. I really hate when my supposedly book wormy and intelligent character is forced to ask stupid questions in order to proceed or is otherwise made to answer in a manner which in my opinion doesn't suit the character at all. I didn't have these problems in Fallout 3 because the game recognizes your strengths and allows you to utilize them in conversations as well which is awesome. My intelligent character who was top notch at Science skill could actually respond in a very detailed, smart ass manner. Also, I'm disappointed how in Skyrim there's usually just one way to resolve conflicts which is with violence. I'd like the chance of really playing that character who's able to put people under his/her spell with those "honeyed words". Like, you could for example use your Speech or Illusion skill in conversations. When you have high enough Illusion or Speech, there could be some new dialogue options. Now the only solution to be more pacifist is to use "calm" spells and such but it's not the same.

Or if skill based options are too much for them to create then could we at least have some options based on your race? Or just give some more options in general? Like one suited for each type of class. Warrior, mage or thief. You could create some fun combinations with that. Like a brutish orc warrior who still talks like a scholar or a snooty looking altmer mage who talks like a drunken sailor. Just a couple more options would enhance the roleplaying very much.