Dialogue choices in skill checks
There are six types of dialogue skill checks in Kingdom Come: Deliverance 2. Not all of these will appear in every chat with NPCs, though it’s a good idea to choose a response that best applies to the given situation. Below, we cite the factors that primarily affect your success when choosing these options:
- Persuasion (positive): Speech > Charisma; high reputation.
- Coercion (negative): Speech > Charisma; low reputation.
- Impression (positive): Charisma > Speech; high reputation.
- Domination (negative): Charisma > Speech; low reputation.
- Presence (positive): Gear quality > Strength, Agility, and Vitality; high reputation.
- Intimidation (negative): Gear quality > Strength, Agility, and Vitality; low reputation.
As you can see, certain options are diametrically opposed depending on your reputation value. For instance, let’s say you’ve been playing as a cutthroat feared by everyone, and the only available replies during a cutscene are Persuasion (positive), Impression (positive), and Domination (negative). You probably have a better chance if you pick Domination because of your lower rep with others.
Aside from the above, the perk that you really want to have is Scholarship: Liberal Arts. This shows you the difficulty of dialogue skill checks, not your potential success rate or the effect of reputation. Example:
- You have high Speech, Charisma, and reputation.
- The available responses are Persuasion (Medium), Impression (Medium), and Intimidation (Easy).
- There’s a decent chance that you’d still pass the Intimidation check if you select it. However, both Persuasion and Impression could work out well enough due to your attributes, even with the medium difficulty.
In any case, don’t forget that failing a dialogue skill check in Kingdom Come: Deliverance 2 leads to a slight decrease in your reputation. Severe drops are unlikely to happen unless you’re really role-playing as a terrible villain, so don’t worry too much about selecting the wrong responses.