Fellow gamers,

I am not a D&D tabletop player, so I am clueless as to the general logic / framework of the rules (although I do understand how they function).

For BG3, nearly all conversation checks/rolls are Charisma based. So if you have low Charisma - good luck trying to talk your way out of anything (you might be most intelligent or wise, but this is not going to help one bit).

Is this how it's meant to be in the D&D Universe?

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You should be able to use another character with higher charisma to do the talking. But yes, it is highly advantageous to have at least one high charisma/persuasion character in the party.

That is one of the reasons I usually like to play a sorcerer - a mage that uses the charisma attribute. In this way you have both access to powerful spells and pass nearly every persuasion check.

The class has, however, not yet been implemented. And I really hope it will be soon.

Yes.

Charisma is literally your Personality attribute; all social skills are dependent on Charisma.

yes cha is the top stat for talking in the same way str is best at wacking things & yes that is the Point of D&D

Dex = duck and Int = figger it out the puzzle + skills give you a reroll or a +2 on the disc

I haven't played 5E to date (and I'm waiting for the final release before trying out BG3. Early Access games aren't for me), but is there still dialogue skills in 5E like Diplomacy/Persuade, Bluff, Intimidate etc.?

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Yes. I've seen such checks coming up repeatedly.

Not true, sometimes you have an option to make a check using a different attribute, eg. Nature or Religion, which uses the corresponding attribute. It doesn't happen often, but I've seen it pop up several times already.

Howevver in most cases you usually get Persuasion, Deception and Intimidate, which use CHA, so I recommend picking a background or skills that add proficiency in them (or just one, depending on which options you will be using).

Also Friends is supposed to give you an advantage on Charisma checks, so if you cast it before talking with someone, you should roll twice and use the better of the two rolls - I'm not sure if it works ingame or not. Someone said that supposedly it doesn't work yet, so check whether you actually roll with advantage or not when rolling it.

I'm playing as a Wizard and selected Persusasion as a proficiency, and with +1 Charisma, I'm getting +3 to all rolls using that (which helps considerably), and casting Friends when I can. Ultimately, even if you pick a CHAR class, it only gives you +2/+3 more (if you reach 17/18 CHAR), so personally I think it's not worth it to pick a CHAR class for the dialogue options unless you really want to, esp, if you have fast loading.

Edit: Just to be clear, it's not such a big deal - if you put +1 in CHAR plus pick the relevant skills you want to be using, you should be good to go and you will be able to persuade others, otherwise it's justa matter of reloading and rolling again. And if the Friends cantrip works, you have an even bigger chance of succeeding, as you roll twice and use the better number automatically.

In 5e you need to roll higher than a number you're given - eg. 10 or 15 on a D20 and the threshold for the difficulty check is 20, so you are always able to succeed at a check with luck/RNG. And in this game your bonus gets detracted from the total. So instead of needing 15, if you have +1 to CHAR and proficiency in Persuasion, you get a +2 for being proficient in a skill, so you have a total bonus of +3, therefore you only need to roll 12 or high. If you are rolling with another check, like Nature/Religion, then you would use the attribute and the +2 if you have prof even when it's a check done in a dialogue. So if you're playing as a Wizard, and need to do a History check, for example, you get +3+2, so you need to roll 10 instead of 15, while it would be 12 if it was a Persuasion check.

Friends gives the caster a reroll... it does nothing for anyone else

Neither Nature nor Religion are SOCIAL skills. Charisma(Persuasion), Charisma(Deception), and Charisma(Intimidation) are the social-interaction skills of 5E.

Thank you to all that responded - I really struggled with my initial fighter build with low charisma. Only so much of reloading one can do for a better roll :)

If this is D&D rules then no further comments.

So, wait... you built a character that was very intentionally not good at social interaction ... and you were surprised that your character was not good at social interaction ...?

It's the same as building a character with a very low Strength score, and being surprised that your character can't lift giant boulders with ease.

Or making someone with a very low Intelligence score, and being surprised that your character is as dumb as a bag of rocks, and can't solve puzzles with ease.

Sarcasm noted albeit uncalled for.

No, I was not expecting Charisma to have such a big impact. I expected the relevant attribute to play a role in a conversation depending on the situation. E.g. if the subject is lore, maybe Wisdom. If the subject is science, intelligence, etc. - a lot of games (non-D&D) do not rely on ONE attribute for all conversation checks. This is primitive in design - it's like saying that if you are charismatic, then you can win over any discussion regardless of what this discussion is all about. Even the good old D&D games like Planescape Torment did not have this programmed in such a manner I think.

Hence my question about whether this is D&D specific.

This is actually how it works with some dialogues, as I've mentioned above - in some situations you will use a Nature check instead of Persuasion check, for example, when trying to persuade someone with your knowledge of Nature (eg. telling a druid what you think the natural balance is), or when using History. It doesn't happen that often, but I've seen several non-Charisma based rolls in conversations already, like the aforementioned Nature check. I don't know if it happens that often though, since I haven't played all of it yet. I've seen Arcana checks during companion conversations for example, to discern something magical and then ask about it, so it seems to be more varied than just having only Char rolls.

In Neverwinter Nights 1 you can definitely use your skills in dialogue, so it depends on the DM/writer, so it's more of a case of how well can the specific game utilize them, rather than the system itself. Yes, but he was specifically asking about what checks are used in dialogues, so if you can persuade someone using History or Nature, it's what he was asking about, since in this instance it becomes a social skill. Reread my last two replies and what he wrote there if you disagree, because this is what he wanted, he wanted to know whether other checks may be used in dialogues besides Charisma-based ones - and yes, they can. Debating whether they are social skills or not is irrelevant, what matters to this discussion is whether non-Charisma dialogue checks appear during conversations.

Yes and besides the three Pax listed, you can use other checks in dialogues to get further questions, topics or persuade someone using that skill - I've seen Nature, Arcana, History, Religion and Animal Husbandry so far, however the Char ones usually pop up the most.

I've played a fair amount of the early access in BG3, and 90%+ of all conversation checks are charisma based. So other checks are used (in my opinion rightly so) but not often enough to be able to ignore Charisma-based skills. In fact, if you do not have a high Charisma character in your party, then you will have to resort to violence most of the time.