Classes / character types
 

If I understand correctly, Social skills in dialogue are party-based, right? How well developed are the non-combat skills? I want to know if there are good opportunities to use the various skills, or should I just play a strong combat character?

You should have a balanced party. Social skills are party-based AFAIR, so it is enough to have one charismatic talker. Only exception is flirting (I don't know how this is translated), which is dependent on sex, so if you want it fully balanced, you have a male and a female flirter in your party (not that you get to use the skill that often anyway). Barter is also useful, especially in the beginning. But even later, when you accumulate hundreds of gold coins, there will be some items that will cost almost everything you own.

Very important is to have healers and crafters. Especially later in the game you can make your life much easier, since you can craft some powerful weapons, and can produce your own healing potions and salves. One of your characters should be good at lockpicking, and someone should be a good spellcaster. Unless your PC is a mage, it will take a while until a capable mage joins you, though. I don't regret my choice of playing a mage myself. There are three NPCs which can be turned into good front liners, and two thief-like characters.

I didn't use sneaking very often.

Every char needs to be able to hold his own in combat. It's impossible to stay out of the action.

Sadly, yes.

I started as a battle mage, so far the game has been a breeze (just got out of the first zone into the city). I enrolled a rogue and an amazon, the rogue for the social skills and chests, the amazon for the outdoors skills (plants and animal lore, treat poison, etc). Just looking to hire a dwarf for the meatshieldness and blacksmithing needs :) (already found a nice axe for whenever I find him).
I thought I was rich when leaving the first town with 20Ds in my hand, only to spend it all a minute after going into town buying bow making skill for the amazon and buying a couple of spells *sigh* back to poorness. I'm liking the game so far

I have already seen (I think) the impact of having a diplomat as my main character in dialogue.

Couple things:
- I chose to play as a woman, and one character referred to me as a male .. but he was a bit nutty anyway - hope it is just accentuating the nuttiness and not a sign of missing gender context.
- I have yet to open a locked chest, despite being ready to leave the opening area … I picked up a rogue and all he manages to do is get 'shaky hands' … crap.

20D is, for the average person in Aventuria, indeed a damn lot. Enough people don't get to see a gold coin very often.

TDE has a great economy system. Very realistic.

Lockpicking took me a whie to figure out. It is not enough to just own lockpicking equipment. You need to use it on the chest. So (AFAIR) click on it, click on the locked chest. The starting area has at least one locked chest as part of a quest.

If you switch on the console you see that you thief gets a huge malus because he is not using a proper tool for lockpicking. You need to have a tool in a quickbar and use it on the chest.
Strange … but realistic.

If you are talking about Rakorium, it is completely normal for him to confuse a few things.

Thanks to all … I have gone around cleaning up all those locked chests … now to get to the 2nd part of that quest …

Yes, this got me too until I checked the console and saw the -10 there. I found the console to be very informative of the game and now have it up a lot.

I loved that - seeing him with 'shaky hands' and watchign the console values for his impaired skills!

It's very useful indeed.

Although there is one thing that you may either like or dislike:
It shows if there are further dialogue options you do not get at the moment, because one of your dialogue skills is too low.

For instance at the very beginning of the game, when you open the console while talking to Sergeant Erland (the very first character after the bridge who interrupts you), you will see something like "Etiquette < 3, failed.", which gives away that you will get another dialogue option with him if you have Etiquette >= 3.

There are a few exceptions, where only the social skills of the self-created player character will count in dialogue. But in most cases the task of social skills will be performed by the party member who is best at it.

Unimportant side note:
I interpret these few 'only main char' dialogue checks as a trade-off for the fact that a socially skilled character is less useful in heavy combat situations and you can't switch your main character out. If your talker however is one of your companions, you can kick him out and take a fighter instead before heading into a major dungeon.

I like that - I got options related to my Etiquette skills as well as others doing intimidate and smooth talking …

Not so! Well, surviving was enough for one of my companions. I had Dranor train only in social skills, lockpicking, bartering, disarming traps, pickpocketing and so on. He didn't have any combat skills worth mentioning, and it was only late in the game when all his charismatic and thieving skills were maxed that I let him train things like flurry and death strike. I replaced him only for one fight, where he really was useless:



I'd not be so sure about that. If your talker happens to be good in lockpicking and disarming traps too, letting him stay out of major dungeons would not be a good idea either. Also, talking opportunities aren't necessarily restricted to only towns and villages …

Shaky hands seem to be on a timer and when it runs down you can try again.
I gave him a bunch more points in lock picking and it still takes him a few tries to open anything however I never tried to put the tools on the quick bar.
Cool game by the way and can someone tell me what the hell is the creature on the table in the harbor bar? Thought it was a monkey first till I lokked closer.

It's a (mild spoiler)

Yes, it is.

The creature is a kind of Kobold. http://de.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kobold

@Grandor: Personally, I wouldn't call it so. Personally, I'd stick to that name of a Kobold.

The dancing Kobold is assumed to be named differently within development.