Kingdom Come: Deliverance 2 - How To Pass Charisma And Dialogue Skill Checks

Feb 05 2025

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In Kingdom Come: Deliverance 2, you can let your fists, flamberge, and firearms do the talking. But before you commence with violent acts, you could still find ways to wiggle out of tough situations w

In Kingdom Come: Deliverance 2, you can let your fists, flamberge, and firearms do the talking. But before you commence with violent acts, you could still find ways to wiggle out of tough situations with your gift of gab. Alternatively, your own words could inspire and uplift others, leading to an improvement in your standing. Here's our guide on how Charisma and dialogue skill checks work in Kingdom Come: Deliverance 2.

How dialogue skill checks work in Kingdom Come: Deliverance 2 - Speech and Charisma guide

Many of the dialogue skill checks in Kingdom Come: Deliverance 2 are derived from your Speech stat. To a lesser extent, Charisma and other stats also aid in this regard. Our guide discusses the factors that affect your dealings with other characters, as well as the types of responses you can select.

Speech versus Charisma: What are the differences?

Charisma and Speech in Kingdom Come: Deliverance 2 are intertwined system, yet they also operate differently. Here are some important tidbits to consider.

Speech

Speech is considered a main stat. This means it can be leveled up through certain actions, such as passing skill checks and reading books. Naturally, leveling up also lets you unlock related perks.

Generally speaking, higher Speech levels assist you in passing dialogue skill checks, and it also makes haggling with merchants a lot easier.

Charisma

Charisma, meanwhile, is primarily about your fashion sense and people's perception of you. This is dependent on the types of clothes and armor that you're wearing, as well as whether your gear pieces are dirty, damaged, or bloodied. Washing and repairing your equipment so that your full outfit looks pristine helps a lot in how others view you.

Similar to Speech, Charisma also affects certain skill checks and haggling, though to a lesser extent.

Dialogue choices in skill checks

There are six types of dialogue skill checks in Kingdom Come: Deliverance 2. Not all of these will appear in every chat with NPCs, though it's a good idea to choose a response that best applies to the given situation. Below, we cite the factors that primarily affect your success when choosing these options:

Persuasion (positive): Speech > Charisma; high reputation.

Coercion (negative): Speech > Charisma; low reputation.

Impression (positive): Charisma > Speech; high reputation.

Domination (negative): Charisma > Speech; low reputation.

Presence (positive): Gear quality > Strength, Agility, and Vitality; high reputation.

Intimidation (negative): Gear quality > Strength, Agility, and Vitality; low reputation.

As you can see, certain options are diametrically opposed depending on your reputation value. For instance, let's say you've been playing as a cutthroat feared by everyone, and the only available replies during a cutscene are Persuasion (positive), Impression (positive), and Domination (negative). You probably have a better chance if you pick Domination because of your lower rep with others.

Aside from the above, the perk that you really want to have is Scholarship: Liberal Arts. This shows you the difficulty of dialogue skill checks, not your potential success rate or the effect of reputation. Example:

You have high Speech, Charisma, and reputation.

The available responses are Persuasion (Medium), Impression (Medium), and Intimidation (Easy).

There's a decent chance that you'd still pass the Intimidation check if you select it. However, both Persuasion and Impression could work out well enough due to your attributes, even with the medium difficulty.

In any case, don't forget that failing a dialogue skill check in Kingdom Come: Deliverance 2 leads to a slight decrease in your reputation. Severe drops are unlikely to happen unless you're really role-playing as a terrible villain, so don't worry too much about selecting the wrong responses.

Speech and Scholarship

The Kingdom Come: Deliverance 2 Speech stat and Scholarship skill actually go hand in hand. While the Speech stat is primarily increased through skill checks, both Speech and Scholarship also accrue XP whenever you read books. As such, it's always a good idea to read lore books and skill books that you obtain.

Charisma and clothing

As mentioned earlier, Charisma greatly depends on the types of clothing that you're wearing. Consider the following factors:

Your inventory has three outfit sets. If possible, you could have one set for combat--this is the one with all the muck and grime due to tough activities. A second set can then be used for your civilian attire, clothes with high Charisma value that you'd wear when talking to NPCs in settlements.

Jewelry and accessories also provide boosts to your Charisma. Having a regal bearing is better than looking like a bandit who's getting ready to rob everyone (even if you are planning to rob everyone while they're asleep).

Charisma and cleanliness

Another facet to remember is that the Kingdom Come: Deliverance 2 Charisma stat relies on your character looking as clean as can be. In most situations, you probably just want to use the trough, a large bucket with water to wash yourself with. However, this doesn't get rid of all the dirt and disrepair.

As such, it's better to use washing piers and bathhouses to look as fresh as a daisy. And don't forget to repair or replace items that have low durability.

The joys of haggling

Last but not least, don't forget that both Speech and Charisma impact your dealings with merchants. Instead of buying or selling items outright, you can press and hold the button prompt to haggle instead. Here's the fun part: you can pay a bit extra when buying or lower the merchant's expenses when selling. These actions are considered "tips" and vendors will be quite delighted, leading to a double boost to your reputation.

That does it for our guide on how Speech, Charisma, and skill checks work in Kingdom Come: Deliverance 2. Since we're already discussing various stats and attributes, we encourage you to take a look at our Alchemy guide and Stealth/Thievery guide.

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