You know, unlike those who we can decide whether we’d show kindness to or have a fight with(like Ulgrim, Stephen Skinner, Isaiah Reddan), when we try to persuade him to go with us, there’s a chance that he’d refuse no matter what, unless we go back to mainmenu and enter to have a new try.
There’s no need to make the thing like this, right? It always me feel bad when I have to choose between killing the kind man and esc to travel that long again. Why must we have randomness on such a thing, especially when the similiar NPCs are not like this?
Please make the result of the dialogue definite. Let us players choose whether to kill the poor kind man, not the randomness…
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It’s good the way it is. It brings home the fact that you can’t always choose to be a hero, that sometimes there is no good choice and no good outcome.
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If they want to express this, the result could also have been definite, that no matter what he must die. I can accept that. Yet now sometimes we have a choice, while some other times he must die. It’s weird.
The point is that your intervention sometimes helps and sometimes doesn’t and you can’t be sure what will happen. Sometimes you just can’t win. It’s very true to real life in that respect.
Maybe it’s true to real, but as I say, there’s no need.
the “need” is there, in that not everything has be the same,
it’s even a sentiment devs have applied to other aspects like itemization, skills, quest rewards etc, and since some players have raised it or even complained about it with this specific quest, Zantai has explained it was very deliberate by their side, to not have it be like the other NPC choices and the randomness being the very essence of this interaction, “shaking things up” for the player/world
The RNG of that quest has irritated some players ever since it was made. 
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Things might be choosable, be definite, and even be unpredictable. These could all be real. But in such a part in such a game, why can’t thing just be the former two types? Set randomness on a kind man is just… boring.
Yeah, I really feel boring after going back to the mainmenu so many times with so many characters when clearing requests. I admit RNG can truly “shake things up” in many places, for rewards, for loots, etc… Yet it’s hard to say that you must RNG to be kind is something clever…
If you have tried to save him you have been kind. Kindness is a matter of intention not outcome.
Regarding the fact that other quests work differently, I think part of the idea of this quest is to send up those other quests that allow you to pick an outcome like a flavour of ice-cream.
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Okay - way back when I always tried to save him – sometimes successfully and sometimes not. For the past several years I always choose the option that results in him dying right there. If he dies right there and you send the kids back don’t you get the EXP immediately where if he lives you’ve got to go back to sewer hideout to get EXP? Is there any difference in the amount of experience either way?
Nope, it’s the same according to the wiki.
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I think the only quest where a dialogue choice results in extra XP is the one in the little village near the Rover camp where you can choose to give Silas some scrap, or kill him. Killing him results in Cronley’s gang taking revenge, burning the village and kidnapping the kids, and freeing those kids gives extra XP but you have to live with the fact that your actions were “wrong”.
Although it’s not a very meaningful choice over the course of the whole campaign, it adds a lot of grimness to the world, just like Nicoh’s quest. I hope FoA will have more “tough” choices like that, and outcomes that defy the expectations of the player. Streamlining quests to always have a clear-cut outcome doesn’t fit the game very well imo.
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Killing Silas is necessary to maximize the population in DC 
You also get xp if you kill Cronley before taking action in that village. According to the wiki the xp reward is apparently different depending on what you do. Though it doesn’t list what you get when you kill Cronley first.
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interesting, I never noticed that killing Silas gives less XP than the other options. But rescuing the children afterwards makes up for that, both quests together give 44000 xp and paying tribute gives only 30000.
Apparently it’s 28500 (I had a char that was still in the Arkovian Foothills on Ultimate so I did a quick run to Four Hills to try that)
Still better than the worst option of them all, bribing Silas gives only 27000.
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