More Inspection based dialogue

As I was playing my female Baali character for 1.4, I began thinking how cool the extra dialogue choice for Knox was, when you use Inspection to uncover his plot to get you to take out the Asian Vampire. Plus I really liked how you get extra experience points for doing it.

I wanted to expand on this a little and so I made extra dialogue lines when speaking to Gimble. If your Inspection is 4 or higher you can figure out that Gimble is lying and call him out on it. I found some old unused Gimble voice files that fit perfectly with this and you gain 1 XP for it too. I also reduced catching Knox in the line so instead of 2 XP, you only get 1 XP.

Can you guys think of any other instances where using Inspection to alter the dialogue choices would be appropriate?

Perhaps in the abandoned hospital, you could pass an inspection check to bare your fangs at Tommy Milligan and ask if what's chasing him looks like you. This would lead into the dialogue early to persuade him that it's a joke, let him know you're going to kill him or let him go. Should be easy to do since most of his dialogue is just him yelling in fear.

When speaking to Strauss, the line after persuading him to tell you his true feelings about LaCroix, when he says his loyalties are to the clan and the camarilla, the question "in that order?" should probably need an inspection check.

The dialogue that gets him to reveal that the gargoyle in hollywood is his should probably be changed to inspection instead of persuasion, or require both.

I don't know about the hospital idea but changing some of the Persuasion checks to Inspection checks is a fantastic idea, where it pertains to rooting out deceit or lies.

I just swapped out Persuasion 5 to Inspection 5 in order to learn about Strauss' Gargoyle.

Nice, glad to help.

Incidentally, my logic with the hospital thing would be that an observant kindred would notice that the secluded nature of the hospital would for make an ideal haven, and that combined with Tommy being so scared would mean that something has violated the masquerade, and he needs to be dealt with on the spot. But perhaps it's a weak idea because it would be hard to convey this to the player.

I approve of adding more Inspection lines. In fact it would be nice to have lines for other feats too. Although obviously the rewards should be few if any. But it enhances the RP aspect of the game if you can make your character talk in accordance with their abilities.

Actually, I'm against it. Persuasion is the closest to p&p for that matter of "detecting" lies. It uses subterfuge. It would be Perception+Subterfuge in that case though. Why give Inspection everything?

kyoden wrote:

Actually, I'm against it. Persuasion is the closest to p&p for that matter of "detecting" lies. It uses subterfuge. It would be Perception+Subterfuge in that case though. Why give Inspection everything?

It's hardly giving it everything. Persuasion has always been the single most useful skill in the game. I don't really see how detecting a lie should fall under persuasion anyway, since you have to actually notice the lie before you can persuade them to tell you the truth. Personally I'm in favor of it being a two-part check. Inspection to notice that you're being deceived, and persuasion/intimidation/seduction to get them to tell you the truth, exactly like Knox's dialogue.

Problem is, that in the rpg you would roll per+subt vs wits+subt (iirc). Inspection usually transfers to actively searching. Which takes an extended period of time to do so. In a p&p this isn't a problem as you can fast forward any time. Idling at the pc is not that much fun though. With your reasoning inspection should give you a damage bonus in ranged combat as well, as you know your opponents weak spots (aka no armor, etc) - thats a simplified statement of course.

kyoden wrote:

Problem is, that in the rpg you would roll per+subt vs wits+subt (iirc). Inspection usually transfers to actively searching. Which takes an extended period of time to do so. In a p&p this isn't a problem as you can fast forward any time. Idling at the pc is not that much fun though. With your reasoning inspection should give you a damage bonus in ranged combat as well, as you know your opponents weak spots (aka no armor, etc) - thats a simplified statement of course.

Since you can't make a perception+subterfuge check in the game that I'm aware of, translating it to inspection would probably be the closest thing. It's not completely accurate, but it's closer than just being a persuasion check.

I tend to lean on the appropriate skill vs the appropriate attribute though. While skills are cheaper, they only have one function here. Attributes are used in more than one occasion.

And why is perception+_investigate_ more appropriate than manipulation(or charisma)+_subterfudge_. Sure in an ideal world it would be easy to fix it, but we have to live what Troika offered us.

Last night I finished the new dialogue lines for Gimble and using Inspection to figure out that he's kidnapped McGee and Carson. You get 2 XP for this, and I decided to put Knox's Inspection based dialogue back to 2 XP also. Those 2 instances, and using Inspection to reveal the plot about the Gargoyle are the only instances in TFN where Inspection gets you something via dialogue.

Inspection - 3 instances
Persuasion - 1,000 instances, lol

I still think the ratio of Inspection vs. Persuasion is still tipped in Persuasion's favor big time. I don't mind swapping the Gargoyle thing for this one time. I looked at other places where I could use Inspection and not much popped out at me as being a good idea. I'll keep looking but for now, it's just the 3 instances.

Zer0Morph wrote:

Last night I finished the new dialogue lines for Gimble and using Inspection to figure out that he's kidnapped McGee and Carson. You get 2 XP for this, and I decided to put Knox's Inspection based dialogue back to 2 XP also. Those 2 instances, and using Inspection to reveal the plot about the Gargoyle are the only instances in TFN where Inspection gets you something via dialogue.

Inspection - 3 instances
Persuasion - 1,000 instances, lol

Inspection - 4 istances: you can know more about the Ankaran Sarcophagus from Johansen with a 5 Inspection check.

When talking to Strauss you can recover the old Malkavian lines as you say something "I see a king with an iron crown and the jester in an ivory tower" (or something like that) implying that Strauss is the one with real power. There should be the lines in Vanilla for the old answer or you can use the "I can see you'll do well in this new file young one".
Also with Strauss, as Griff said, you can learn more about what he thinks about LaCroix with an Inspection check.

Doris is a good choice for a inspection check too. There is that line where you try to bribe her, and unlike the other cases this is really a situation where you actually need observe the ambient.


Another good candidate is Mira. There are two lines requiring Persuasion 9, the first line could be changed to inspection.
Also would be a good idea to change the description of Inspection too. Something like: This is skill is useful to detect lies and secrets.

Welcome Judas, you finally made a post, I hope to hear more from you.

Yeah guys, these are good points, thanks for helping bring this to light for me. I'll dig around and see what I can change. Updating the Inspection description is a must then.

Also when Wong Ho is asked about the Thong and he says they are stronger since Ming Xiao came.
What about using Auspex in dialogues? And making inspection sentence green (like blue for persuasion)?

Green is already used for Intimidation in Vanilla/CE and Serpentis in TFN, but I suppose if we're limited to the standard colours and fonts, it's as good as any other option. Maybe a new color/font combination could work? Otherwise, I'd not denote it at all, as some things aren't colour-coded either - e.g. if you're Gangrel, you can talk to Beckett about your disciplines (Animalism/Protean), which is an option that's not available for, say, a Tremere, and this isn't colour-coded either. It may add more to immersion (and cause less confusion) if lines depending on Feats/Talents are not singled out with colour or font changes. There's not going to be a whole lot of them like with Persuasion, Seduction, Intimidation or Discipline usage, anyway, so it's not really necessary.

As far as I know, only Persuasion, Seduction Intimidation, and Domination have color specific dialogue, and they are tied to those feats/disciplines.

You finding out something is "off with knox's story" isn't colored either (it becomes blue only after you said so).
I'd love more non-colored dialogue that depends on the characters stats. So you pay attention to the words

Claudia wrote:

You finding out something is "off with knox's story" isn't colored either (it becomes blue only after you said so).
I'd love more non-colored dialogue that depends on the characters stats. So you pay attention to the words

That would be even better, it would give greater immersion. Although I'd keep a different font/colour for disciplines.

Oh yeah disciplines is logical to me.

Claudia wrote:

You finding out something is "off with knox's story" isn't colored either (it becomes blue only after you said so).

Finding out is inspection related, so there is no color for it.

Quote :

I'd love more non-colored dialogue that depends on the characters stats. So you pay attention to the words

Makes sense in some places.
On the other hand, for seduction and intimidation it might be better to make both, the sucessfull and the failed line colored. So you know you are trying to use the feat, but don't know in advance if it will work.

I could change the Persuasion, Seduction, Intimidation, and Serpentis lines to look like regular text, lol. Wouldn't that be funny? You wouldn't be able to tell what's a feat or discipline related text?

Zer0Morph wrote:

I could change the Persuasion, Seduction, Intimidation, and Serpentis lines to look like regular text, lol. Wouldn't that be funny? You wouldn't be able to tell what's a feat or discipline related text?

Nooo...!
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