Morrowind talk:Speechcraft

Bribes

"Note that unlike the other three options, bribes will increase your Mercantile skill instead of your Speechcraft skill."

Really? I just bribed someone 100 gold and got an increase in Speechcraft. I didn't use any other speechcraft options when talking to them, and looking back, I haven't done any successful speechcraft options ever (other than bribes). Is this a typo that is supposed to read "as well as" instead of "instead", or am I missing something? --Xyntfos 23:34, 22 June 2008 (EDT)

Yes, I've had a speechcraft increase off bribery too. I'll add a verification tag to that statement but I suspect it might be incorrect. –Rpeh^{•T•C•E•} 02:05, 23 June 2008 (EDT)

This came from looking at the Character/Skills section in the Construction Set. If you look at Mercantile, you see:

• Successful bargain: 0.30
• Successful bribe: 1.00

While looking at Speechcraft, you just get:

• Successful persuasion: 1.00
• Failed persuasion: 0.00

Now, from this it's clear that they at least intended for Mercantile to be affected by bribes. It's possible the feature was not properly implemented, or that perhaps a bribe counts as persuasion and increases both skills. But this would have to be tested. If it does indeed increase only Speechcraft and not Mercantile, I'd classify it as a bug, as the existence of these game settings make it pretty obvious that was not their intention. --TheRealLurlock ^Talk 02:22, 23 June 2008 (EDT)

I tested this by bribing people different amounts of gold, and my Speechcraft went from experience 20 to 67, while my Mercantile sat frozen at 93. I've changed both pages to reflect this. --Xyntfos 03:11, 28 June 2008 (EDT)

Intimidate does nothing to disposition

When I "successfully" intimidate someone, they'll say something like "Whoa, okay. Calm down, I understand." but their disposition does not change. Is this normal? Not mentioned in the article.—Moonraker0 19:43, 12 February 2009 (EST)

• It happens to me about half the time. The other half of the time, it goes up, but the very next time I talk to them, their disposition is even lower than it started with. Help? Jedibob5 14:52, 4 June 2009 (EDT)

The lower disposition the next time you talk to them is intentional, and is a side-effect of you attempting to intimidate them. As for their disposition not changing at the moment you successfully intimidate them, that's probably due to the 'random' nature of the disposition changes during persuasion. I don't know how the game calculates the amount to decrease or increase their disposition based on success or failure, but it seems it can result in an increase/decrease of zero. I don't tend to use intimidate, so I can't comment specifically on that, but I have experienced failed taunts that haven't decreased their disposition, and both failed and successful admires that haven't changed their disposition either way. --Gaebrial 03:57, 11 June 2009 (EDT)

Intimidation & Flee

I saw on http://www.uesp.net/wiki/Morrowind_talk:Disposition that intimidation increases an NPC's chance to flee. Does that mean that you can potentially calm a hostile NPC, and basically talk them out of a fight?? — Unsigned comment by PouncingAnt (talk • contribs) on 28 October 2010

You would have to enter dialog with them to use Speechcraft of any type. That is difficult with a hostile NPC. --Brf 11:22, 28 October 2010 (UTC)

Thanks for your input, just tried this out with a few console cheats, and it works very nicely. So making a relatively cheap calm spell, and with a little speechcraft, you can basically persuade the enemy not to attack you! Great for diplomats & spies! Anyone else think this little trick is noteworthy enough to be added to the page? I quite like it. --PouncingAnt 14:46, 28 October 2010 (UTC)

It's not quite that simple as whether or not an NPC attacks is dependent on their Fight score too. See that page and the Disposition one for more. rpeh •T•C•E• 16:10, 28 October 2010 (UTC)

Doesn't Flee overule Fight? The only problem I had with this tactic with so far was people who refused to talk to my character (to top that off I was beast race, and couldn't do the naked trick... but then, that would be a bit of a cheat anyway) Otherwise 10 successful intimidations tended to do the trick.--2.98.194.103 20:14, 28 October 2010 (UTC)

I just tried intimidating a calmed Snowy Granius (usually defaults to fighting you) while simultaneously checking his fight on the console (getfight), and intimidate definitely acted to lower his fight attribute. So even if you can't intimidate them enough to run away, you might be able to persuade them to back down sometimes.--PouncingAnt 22:22, 8 May 2011 (UTC)

This is interesting, I'll experiment with this and see if I can confirm the above. Hecerinde 01:53, 25 July 2011 (UTC)

Admire your way into a fight??

"If you're not [skilled in Speechcraft], [admiring] may have the opposite effect, to the point where they may even attack you."

Wait, what? Does this really happen? I know a failed Admire attempt can get an NPC to say threatening-sounding things, but would they actually attack you? That sounds so much easier than the taunting and bribing dance. --67.166.168.186 02:47, 9 December 2011 (UTC)

I have never heard of it. I suppose anything is possible. Eric Snowmane 03:00, 9 December 2011 (UTC)

I have seen a failed Admire lower disposition, but I sincerely doubt you can get them to attack that way, unless their Fight is high. --Brf 03:21, 9 December 2011 (UTC)

I've had it happen several times. Usually, as you say, it's when their fight is higher than normal, like in the case of a Dagoth Ur sleeper. It has also happened with guards and non-sleepers after a few successful taunts, while using admire to try to raise their disposition above 0. When the admire fails, the NPC will say "That does it." before initiating combat, exactly like a successful taunt.— Unsigned comment by 209.65.48.3 (talk) at 05:26 on 14 April 2013

I have never seen this, but then again, I have seen taunt failures initiate combat, and knowing the engine and the way it is programmed, I wouldn't doubt that it could happen. I'll put it on my list of things to test. Jeancey (talk) 05:41, 14 April 2013 (GMT)

I checked into it, and it is indeed possible to have a failed admire initiate combat. At least there is a dialogue option for it. I do not know what is required to achieve this, but it is, in fact, possible. Jeancey (talk) 19:16, 15 May 2013 (GMT)

Absolutely! After killing Allimir, I asked Varona Nelas about the topic "maiden's token", and she refused to hand it over and it seemed she initiated combat, as it said a combat taunt after her dialogue. Then I admired her and failed. I lost a disposition point with her and she said "That does it." and ended the conversation and attacked. So, yeah. If the Fight value is low enough or something, an admire fail might just result in the person attacking. DRAGON GUARD^(TALK) 17:15, 24 January 2016 (UTC)

(←) I believe it happens if their fight value is above 30/at 40 (not sure which), and then when your disposition with the NPC falls below that number. As mentioned in Morrowind:NPCs, most non-hostile NPCs have a fight value of 30, which means that they will never attack the player on sight, even if their disposition is at 0. (That's why this is a relatively rarely seen occurrence.) What happens with Varona Nelas is probably that when you have killed the Bosmer and pick the "Maiden's token" dialogue option, the game changes her fight value from 30 to something high.

EDIT: Going by the Morrowind:NPCs page again, it seems that the point at which they attack is not when disposition falls below their fight value, but rather some arbitrary number depending on what their fight is. (At 40 fight, for example, the article says it's when disposition falls below 10.) I dunno, something about that article doesn't seem right; all I really know is that if you charm a hostile bandit, then raise their disposition to 100, they won't attack you even after the calm spell wears off, UNLESS you draw your weapon, at which point they will attack again. (And the trick to creating fully docile bandits is to charm them, successfully intimidate them for a while (because that permanently decreases their fight), then get their disposition to 100 again. =)) Weroj (talk) 18:37, 24 January 2016 (UTC)

Intimidate causing a fight

During the Hlaalu Hortator quest, I tried to intimidate Orvas Dren into granting me his approval to become hortator. When I used intimidate, the game responded with "Intimidation Success," but the dialogue which usually says something along the lines of "Ok, please don't hurt me," instead said "No Dark Elf (I'm a Dark Elf) can intimidate me!" and forced me to exit the dialogue. He then attacked me. Has anyone else ever experienced this? Was it with Orvas Dren or someone else? — Unsigned comment by 209.65.48.3 (talk) at 02:44 on 18 April 2013‎

I looked into it, and it seems that this is a generic possibility. I don't know what is required to achieve this, but you can have a successful intimidate cause them to attack. Jeancey (talk) 19:17, 15 May 2013 (GMT)

Taunt Requires No Skill or Personality

Because failing to taunt causes the same effect as taunting - lowering the disposition of the target.

Incorrect. Failing to taunt leads to their disposition dropping to zero, but they will never attack you if you fail. A successful taunt will cause them to attack you, usually before their disposition drops to 0. This topic should be closed or removed. - BelowTheRoot (talk) 22:10, 11 December 2020 (UTC)

Intimidation lowers disposition after dialogue ends

Hello, everyone! After getting back into playing Morrowind, I've been having my characters try to make friends with every non-hostile NPC encountered, mostly to increase said characters' speechcraft skill.

That said, after a while I noticed that, after using various persuasion techniques to get NPCs' dispositions at or near 100, some NPCs' have vocally reacted with hostility to my character's presence, suggesting a low disposition. I found this to be a rather curious phenomenon, and the obvious course of action for investigating the reason for this was to find out whether or not the NPC in question was still at 100 disposition by initiating dialogue. Lo and behold, upon initiating dialogue, the given NPCs' dispositions were not at 100, but usually at 70 or lower, sometimes even going so low as the single digits!

At first, I was baffled! I specifically remembered the NPCs' dispositions being raised to 100 (or otherwise, I had managed to simply become very good friends with everyone in the area), sometimes even mere seconds before this problem occurred, and even if the dispositions in question were to be effected by faction relations (in some cases, this was impossible, given my character's lack of affiliation with any faction whatsoever), such a thing simply could not account for so great a difference. But then, I realized a pattern in the occurrence of this problem: the adversely-affected dispositions all belonged to NPC's that I had intimidated.

To follow up on this discovery, I did a test: I tried to use intimidation, in varying amounts, on the next 10 NPC's I tried to make friends with. After I had successfully gotten their dispositions to 100, I exited the dialogue box, then initiated dialogue with them again. Sure enough, all 10 of them had dispositions below 100, and in addition, there seemed to be a correlation between the number of intimidation attempts and the amount that the disposition was lowered by.

What I didn't notice, however, was any mention of this phenomenon whatsoever on the main article for the Speechcraft skill. As this is important information for any who aspire to make popular characters, I suggest that the main article be updated to make mention of this obstacle. At the moment, however, I have not made the changes to the main article myself, as I would prefer to first discuss the issue with the community, and perhaps see if anyone else has experienced this phenomenon.--Jadebrain (talk) 22:06, 22 March 2014 (GMT)

Odd that it isn't mentioned on those pages; definitely it should be. Intimidation works like that by design, it's not a bug or glitch. You can't make friends by scaring the crap out of people.

...well, you shouldn't be able to, although as mentioned in the "Intimidation & Flee" discussion above, you can in fact intimidate the fight out of hostile NPCs. =) Good stuff, but that's another discussion. Weroj (talk) 04:24, 16 May 2014 (GMT)

Yeah, I've just tested it and it lowers the NPC's disposition by the amount it raised, but from the number it was at before the intimidation. And are the lowered disposition definitely caused by intimidation? You're sure it's not Ordinators? In my game, I have Ordinators with dispositions as low as 20-30, and NPCs are normally around 70. I'm guessing that being a high-ranking member of the Mages Guild lowers their dispositions. DRAGON GUARD^(TALK) 16:29, 11 October 2015 (UTC)

Speechcraft Effect on Fight, Flee, Disposition

After some testing, I have concluded some mechanics, but am not sure how to add them to the wiki.

Description of Terms and Relevant Variables

Disp - The true value of disposition of the character.

InitDisp - Disposition of person at start of conversation.

TempDisp - The number currently displayed in the disposition bar. Resets to equal Disp when dialog window closes.

PermDisp - A variable that tracks changes in Disposition.. Put another way, Disp = InitDisp + PermDisp. Resets to 0 when dialog window closes.

TempDisp and PermDisp can be viewed by typing TDS or ToggleDialogStats in the console. Disp and InitDisp are variables I coined to better explain. Fight and Flee values can be obtained by GetFight and GetFlee.

TempDisp, Disp, Fight and Flee are limited to values between 0 and 100. PermDisp is not capped in any way.

Speechcraft Effects

Admire/Bribe Success - Raises both TempDisp and PermDisp by X. No effect on Fight/Flee

Admire/Bribe Failure - Lowers both TempDisp and PermDisp by X. No effect on Fight/Flee

Intimidate Success - Raises TempDisp by X, lowers PermDisp by X. Fight decreases by X, Flee Increases by X.

Intimidate Failure - Lowers TempDisp by X, lowers PermDisp by X. No effect on Fight/Flee

Taunt Success - Lowers TempDisp by X, lowers PermDisp by X. Fight increases by X, Flee decreases by X

Taunt Failure - Lowers TempDisp by X, lowers PermDisp by X. No effect on Fight/Flee

A Quick Example

I approach an NPC who has a Fight of 90, Flee of 30, and a disposition of 60 towards me. Sneakily of course.

Initial Values: TempDisp = 60, PermDisp = 0, Fight = 90, Flee = 30

I intimidate with my high level, reputation, and speechcraft skill. It succeeds with X = 84.

Final Values: TempDisp = 100, PermDisp = -84, Fight = 6, Flee = 100

So Intimidate succeeded. TempDisp raised by 84, but was capped at 100. PermDisp went down by 84. Fight decreased by 84. Flee increased by 84 but is capped at 100. The NPC's displayed disposition is 100 currently as that is the value of TempDisp.

I close dialog window

Disp = InitDisp + PermDisp = 60 + -84 = -24 but since Disp is capped at 0, Disp = 0. TempDisp resets to Disp or in this case 0. PermDisp resets to 0. Fight and Flee stay at 6 and 100 respectively.

I can provide more info if needed. I tried to keep it as simple as possible.

Lazy Waysef (talk) 00:43, 22 October 2015 (UTC)

Speechcraft Dialogues

Global Dialogue Reactions

Almost all reactions change roughly every 5 disposition, with some gaps or overlaps. This affects what NPCs say when you perform speechcraft on them, for example "I feel the same way. It's been some time for me now."

Admire is unique in that it has two different sets, one for same sex and one for opposing sex.

Admire Fail, Bribe Fail, Taunt Fail, and Taunt Success have a dialogue "That does it (goodbye)" or "You'll regret trying to bribe me (goodbye)" if a variable called ShouldFight is set to 1. This is the variable that is set to 1 when disposition, fight, and flee are such that the NPC should engage combat.

Unique Dialogue Reactions

Speechcraft in Azura's Cave with the ghosts has its own unique set of dialogue responses for each speechcraft option.

Bribe Success

Canctunian Ponius: who responds with "Yes, money. Exactly what I wanted. How did you know?" no matter what his disposition is.

Sovor Trandel: In the quest to get the key will give a unique dialogue and hand the key to you if your bribe gets him above 70 disposition.

Intimidate Success

Cunius Pelelius: Caldera Corruption mission, can get the key by using intimidate successfully and get a unique dialogue along with it. Any disp.

Murudius Flaeus: During the buried treasure mission, you can get his chest key for a successful intimidate check. Any disp.

Rolasa Oren: Hlaalu Guar Hides will agree to buy hides with a successful intimidate check. Any disp.

Orvas Dren: "No %PCRace can intimidate me!" no matter what quest you are on, or what disp he is at, a successful intimidate check will give that dialogue and set his fight to 100.

Lazy Waysef (talk) 15:27, 22 October 2015 (UTC)

Permanent vs Temporary Disposition Changes?

Should it be noted on this page (and/or the Disposition page) that Admiration is a permanent disposition increase, and Intimidation is a temporary disposition increase that actually results in a disposition decrease after the conversation ends. Intimidation shouldn't be used on NPCs you want to maintain a long-term positive relationship with.

I would add it myself but I don't know if it is left out for a specific reason or mentioned somewhere else I am not looking. If no objections I will go ahead and add it myself. (EDIT: Signed in so I can track this topic.) Justeazy (talk) 20:07, 8 February 2024 (UTC) Original: 20:29, 7 February 2024 (UTC)

It has been about a week with no objections. I have added a note indicating such to the description of disposition. Justeazy (talk) 00:31, 13 February 2024 (UTC)