Yes, yes, I know he slings insults. But he does that for a laugh, not because he hates people.

What I am seeking help with is that he is behaving in a way I've never seen in my previous play throughs. Hovering over him and it shows Sammie as amiable to me. Reaction is 93. And I can talk to him, and of course, he will insult me as is his style. However, every dialogue option I choose will cause him to attack me. Taking offense, insulting him back, even saying goodbye. He asks if I am crackers and draw his rather scary gun.

Has anyone had this happen with Sammie or any NPC before?

I will admit that I use the HighRes patch, and also am using a custom background. But I can't conceive how any of this would cause him to become provoked no matter what I say. Which is a problem since I had hoped to master some thieving skills.

I've not yet discovered any other NPC's who have such a dramatic and unprovoked response. Again I find it odd because if someone is just disliking me because I accidentally hit them or did something offensive in their presence, it would show them as suspicious, dislike, or hate right off the bat. It's the whiplash of going from 93 reaction to 0.

Any thoughts? I've accepted that I may need to start over or just never seek him out as a master, but if I can understand the nature of the problem, I may be able to avoid it in the future.

I don't know why but the screen resolution can have an affect on relations between and NPC. I has something to do with distance between you and the NPC. Try a different resolution.

I know it sounds crazy but I have had the same issue. Mostly it happened with the implementation or Arcanum multiverse. I had crazy love/hate reactions that ruined a game where all of a sudden they would start attacking my character upon sight. I was never able to actuallly fix it.

https://steamcommunity.com/app/500810/discussions/0/152393186503755087/

I am not supporting nor disapproving the idea that your issue is caused by the resolution, but in any case, the only thing you need to do after modifying the config.ini file is running the _install.bat file to implement that configuration into the Arcanum executable.

Alas, a change in resolution did not fix the issue. Although I only tried two resolutions. One being my native monitor's resolution and one being the original 800 x 600.

However I am pleased to have learned how to change my resolution.

Any other ideas?

Maybe go to a save before you met them? I don't know at this point. I am only going by what I heard. I just know I've had the same issue and it killed the game I was playing.

When Sammy White reaction drops down to 60-, you should have this dialog option : "I think you actually enjoy insulting people.".

Sadly, I don't get the chance because he attacks me. That ends any hope of dialogue.

It sounds like there's something messed up in the mod you're using.

Before you engage a talk with Sammy, you can hover and see his reaction 93 : that's correct.
You start to talk with him and he starts to insult you and his reaction drops : that's correct.
But when his reaction drops to 60 (dislike), you should have that dialog option : "I think you actually enjoy insulting people.".
And anyway, Sammy shouldn't attack before his reaction falls down to hatred.