Shattered Kingdoms

I know this is beating a dead horse, but can we please make it so Persuade isn't aggressive? It really doesn't make any sense.

Persuade is the ultimate skill of a bard, the fusion of his fast talking
ability with a magical tongue. It allows him to talk someone into committing
a single action that may not be in their best interest. In practice, persuade
works much like the order command but without any charm affect taking place.

There are actions that are impossible to persuade someone to do. Not only are
the obvious game-related commands like quit or save off limits, but it is also
impossible to persuade them to join your group or give you their possessions.
A bard cannot persuade while singing. It also uses a lot of magical energy.

Based on the help file and the way it works, it's basically a bard trying to talk someone into something and using a bit of concealed magic to help influence them. Truthfully it shouldn't be aggressive or against the law for what it is. Yes, it's powerful in the fact a bard can gather buffs and order people to disband groups, but it souldn't be aggressive. It's not like a taunt to where you're deliberately trying to goad someone into attacking you..

Thoughts?

Persuade is simply too powerful as-is to be a non-aggressive skill.

How is persuade too powerful already?

It fails 1/2 the time on NPCs, on pc's i'm sure its much worst than that.

As for why persuade is powerful: Ordering a priest/mage to flamestrike/color spray their own group will throw an enemy formation into complete chaos. Ordering the leader or any useful member of the party to quaff recall effectively removes them from any combat. In some situations ordering a PC, leader or not, to simply move a room can and will wreck a group. Ordering a melee fighter to dirt kick his own back row or hit his own group, or ordering a rogue to backstab his own healer are all tide-turning uses of persuade, to say absolutely nothing of the buffs it grants outside of combat.

The problem is that if you removed the fact that failed persuades aggro the target, the failure chance of persuade would matter much less and it would be way too useful.

Good luck landing any of that.

I've had like 10 bards try to persuade me to do things and Its never once worked.

I have to agree with mundifisen, the fail rate on PCs is so foolishly high, that attempting it for any of Turon's proposed scenarios would be a waste of time and mana. Singing songs of sleep/silence is a much better and effective tactic.

IMO the usefulness of persuade lies completely in its buff-snatching abilities. The mana drain, lack of meditation, and chance to initiate combat are all features that make the skill pretty balanced.

Should it be buffed? I really don't know. Really don't care.

You can persuade people while you're ethereal and they're not.

And it doesn't require concentration, so you can use it while you are protected from dispel by a certain aura

I still wake up in the night drenched in sweat when I think back upon my hammarh bard who actually got to master, had the ether wire, but never once got to even attempt a persuade.

Hey, I distinctly remember seeing a sweet log of some bard persuading a necromancer to 'disband' the first thing in combat.

But seriously, that's only one time. Making it better'd be nice.

Salak's bard once persuaded a necro to quaff word.

True story.

He may have also died about 100 times right before he did it.

Another true story.