So I always thought it curious that the guys running the show are the one race with no combat or magicka bonus: The Imperials.

We all love to make such a big deal of our sneak damage, combat multipliers or spell stacks.

Yet despite all this is Speechcraft actually the most powerful skill in the game?

I played as an Imperial Rogue in "Oblivion" and that's probably the highest my speechcraft ever got in an Elder Scrolls Game and it openned more a number of options I never knew were there.

I might just have to try a character who really maximises this skill in Skyrim at some point.

Azrael
The Nord with the Sword

So far in Skyrim, Speechcraft just saves you money rather than open up new options or discover secrets.

It also makes persuade options more likely to succeed.

Yup but most of the time, you persuade because you don't want to pay 1000 gold to get someone to reveal details. So it ends up being a money-saver skill through barter and persuade.

Social interactions are linear and without any real decisions or secrets in this game as far as I can tell.

Most powerful skill for anyone who doesn't go outside cities, sure.

But enter a dungeon and the bandits will happily cut off your silver-tongue.

Gameplay-wise, it's not that great or powerful. Useful, though.

Canon-wise, it's basically the fact that diplomacy can work wonders.

That's generally why Imperials are such a dominant race, they know how to butter everyone's backside enough, at least so far as the canon and lore is concerned.

That's actually not true. In oblivion, if you got your speechcraft high enough even random spawns would like you too much to attack you. I would hope it would operate the same way in skyrim.

Not my sort of playstyle, but certainly an interesting one.

I'm maxing all the skills that reveal extra play options like speechcraft, sneak, and pickpocket (lockpick doesn't need maxing as you can open master at any level but it is increasing steadily regardless). I also steal every key I see.

Also you get some downright interesting insights when you bribe people you wouldn't think would normally accept a bribe (like the priestess at the start of the hangover quest). Goes to depth of gameplay and how well they thought out various characters.

I like being able to explore more of the game. And speech lets me do that.

The nice thing is that if you just spend time dungeon-diving or otherwise hunting animals for pelts and NPCs for loot, then sell off as much as you can, your speechcraft will level up fairly quickly, on top of making plenty of cash.

Lockpick doesn't need maxing, but as your skill improves, your picks are less likely to break as quickly so that you have more chance per pick to find the sweet spot and pick the lock. I'm surprised they didn't use the level requirement system from Fallout, though, where you had to have a minimum level to pick locks of the corresponding level. It's basically Fallout's interface with Oblivion's set up.

If you like dungeon-diving a lot and finding chests of loot, though, lockpick is a good thing to level so you can get the treasure hunter perk, that's what I'm after.

We already got the shouts, so why not add powerfull speech or songs? Bard skills, you know.
For example you could sing the "The Dragonborn comes" song until your enemies throw up and die!

Speechcraft in Skyrim saves money and makes bandits go away.

Really. [censored]. Disappointing.

>(Intimidate) Piss off, and die! -kill somebody and then carry on
>Pay the (1000) gold. -carry on
>(Persuade) How about you just let me go? -carry on

I wish it played a larger role in the games. I was hoping that with their experience with Fallout 3 and then seeing what Obsidian pulled off with New Vegas that they'd possibly start investing more into it.

Absolutely. I make buffing up speech/barter skills a top priority, and always make sure I save perks for the 'Investor' branch. As in real life, in the Elder Scrolls world the more money you have the more options you have. In the immortal words of astronaut Gus Grissom in 'The Right Stuff', "No bucks, no Buck Rogers." :wink_smile:

As an aside, one of the best things about the Mage School quest path is that at the end of it you get rewarded with what is essentially the best house in the game, free of charge.

I'm sad that you only get a perk to improve your persuasion at level 50, and a perk to improve intimidating at level 70. It makes it really obvious that bethesda sees it as the mercantile skill and couldn't be bothered to improve the speechcraft part.

perking speechcraft has made items so valuable that no merchant has the gold to ever buy them even with a 1500g investment. yep, real great skill.

my warrior has invested zero perks in speechcraft yet i cant get below 30k gold if i tried. seeing as the only thing persuade is good for is preventing you from having to pay some paltry sum or beating someone senseless, i cannot justify wasting perks on speechcraft... it just takes far too many perks to get to anything good, and by the time you get anything good you dont even need to save money anymore. like perking illusion so that spells work on creatures 5 levels below you and on no creatures their actually useful against, speechcraft perks are always e a great help 5 levels before you can even get them.

It would be so awesome if speechcraft had a positive effect on the companions you bring with you...

For example it would've been nice if in default mode companions would choose to flee at some point when they'd see enemies with a level way above their own or in too great numbers, but then there would be a speechcraft perk that gave them more courage and maybe some more health. Or maybe a perk to allow you to bring one extra companion.

Now the entire speechcraft tree is about saving money.

Along with lockpicking, speechcraft is probably next on the chopping block whenever the next game comes out. Slowly and surely.

very few speechcraft options in dialog, for skyrim.

They're there, but they don't happen often.

As other people have said, it mostly just lets you get more money. Later on, perks in speechcraft just lower the frustration level of managing your inventory. That is, you'll be pretty much immediately soaking up every vendor's gold at high levels - speechcraft perks just make it slightly less of a hassle.

It's really frustrating running from town to town trying to dump my inventory between missions and dragon kills. The extra 5% gold you earn per PP isn't really worth it. The extra gold merchants have, and the fact that you can sell anything to anyone might be, if you're like me and don't enjoy shopping for gold. At the late game you aren't really struggling to find wealth, it's just much MUCH harder to turn that wealth into gold.

Yeah, why fix it if you can just chop it?