Disposition

Disposition is a type of reputation system which affects how individual characters react to the player, based on their personality type. There are ten personality types; the player disposition toward each is tracked globally based on their responses or ways of dealing with people. Dispositions complement the individual location/group/faction party reputation system, and the companion relationship system.



Overview
The player's overall behavior impacts how the world views them. There is no overt morality or judgment associated to these traits. In other words, a "good" character can get in as much trouble as a "bad" character depending on the type of person they engage with at any given time. Personalities are also not one-dimensional. A player known for their honesty might also develop a reputation of eerie stoicism. Non-player characters may act in ways that reflect how they feel about the player. This can encompass anything from giving gifts to attacking on sight.

There are ten different personality types available at the player's discretion, based on their actions or deeds. The type of personality a player has cultivated is visible on the character sheet. By default dialogue options that will impact your dispositions will be tagged with the relevant personality type in front of reply text (e.g. [Aggressive] your aggressive reply). Those indications can be turned off in game modes and are always off when playing in Expert Mode.

Compared to party reputations system for individual communities/factions, fewer people respond to the player dispositions, and only specifically when they particularly care about that kind of reputation. But they tend to have a stronger reaction and allow individual characters to express a personal stance that reflects something contrary to their faction.
 * Example: If you save a village by brutalizing the bandits, torturing their accomplices, and executing their leader after he begs for mercy, you will probably be well-liked by most people in the village (positive village rep) but will also earn a separate reputation for being cruel and merciless. The high priest at the temple of the mercy god in the same village won't like you.

Player dispositions affect how people talk to you or treat you as person, often outside of the context of you making those individual choices.


 * Example: An NPC might meet you and invite you to a party based on your reputation for wit (even if you're not being particularly witty at the moment). Another person might balk at involving you in a discussion of faith because they assume, based on your reputation, that you're a clown who can't take anything seriously.

People will react to you in beneficial and detrimental ways based on your personality reputations, but they will only react to one specific reputation. If you have a few personality reputation at moderate levels, you will get reactions based on those moderate levels, spread out, but will not get reactions that require a high level in a reputation. It's possible to have points in every reputation, but it's unlikely that more than a handful of reputations would be high enough to let many NPCs react to them.

Personality types
There are 10 distinct personality types the players can be disposed toward. The following is a list of them, and examples of how they might be judged:


 * disposition_aggressive.png Aggressive – Hot-headed, bold, or impatient. Some characters will think that you provoke fights and make only trouble, but others will admire you for taking charge, being decisive, and not letting people push you around.
 * disposition_benevolent.png Benevolent – Charitable, kind, soft, or weak. May be viewed as charitable and kind but others may consider the player weak or assume he or she will do things for free.
 * disposition_clever.png Clever – Sarcastic, sassy, foppish, or irreverent. May be well received by some as amusing, but other characters will assume that you are not to be taken seriously.
 * disposition_cruel.png Cruel – Merciless, sadistic, brutal, or imperious. It doesn't typically earn you a lot of friends, but there are people who respect (and/or fear) brutality.
 * disposition_shady.png Deceptive/Shady – Dishonest, manipulative, or shrewd.
 * disposition_diplomatic.png Diplomatic – Cautious, tame, or courteous. For example gained by remaining silent when two people are arguing and you choose to not interject.
 * disposition_honest.png Honest – Guileless, sincere, or straightforward. Gained for being straightforward. e.g. telling a guard that you broke in the house.
 * disposition_passionate.png Passionate – Zealous, romantic, or obsessive.
 * disposition_rational.png Rational – Practical, standoffish, or cold.
 * disposition_stoic.png Stoic – Tight-lipped, cool-headed, or simple-minded. Gained for being unmoved/quiet in dialog options.

Disposition gain
Dispositions increases primarily through actions or deeds. Each Disposition contains three ranks or titles, which reflect how the character has consistently presented themselves over time. They are tracked separately; gaining points in one disposition will not affect the rest.

You need a specific amount of points to reach each rank.
 * In - Minor options give 1 point, Average 3, and Major 7.
 * In - Minor options give 1 point, Average 4, and Major 8.

Other bonuses
Priests and Paladins are granted certain bonuses to abilities depending on how well their dispositions align with the preferred behavior of their deity and paladin order respectively.

In :
 * Priest: Holy Radiance
 * Paladin: Faith and Conviction

In :
 * Priest:
 * Holy Radiance (Deadfire): Heal is calculated with
 * Holy Radiance (Deadfire): Burn damage is calculated with
 * Spiritual Weapon (Faith Attuned): Bonus damage calculated with
 * Paladin:
 * Faith and Conviction (Deadfire): Defenses is calculated with

Bonus multiplier
A multiplier is used to scale the effects of the above abilities, called the religion bonus multiplier or deity multiplier (for priests) or paladin order multiplier (for paladins). This bonus only applies to the Watcher, and not to any companions or non-player characters. For NPCs this multiplier defaults to 1.0.

First, a per-disposition bonus is calculated for each of the favoured and condemned dispositions of the priest deity or paladin order of the character. Favoured dispositions give a positive bonus, while condemned dispositions result in a negative bonus (penalty).

In
The intended design has the multiplier at 1 (100% - no change). Each rank in the list of favoured dispositions gives a +0.2/+20% modifier, while ranks in the opposed dispositions give a -0.2/-20% modifier (caps at ±60% per Disposition). The modifier is calculated additively.

The following table lists the resulting "final" disposition multiplier given the ranks of the two favoured (X-axis) and two condemned dispositions (Y-axis). The values in the center have had 1 added to them, as the multiplier starts at x1 or +0% (no change).

Naturally, if the multiplier is less 1 - it is a penalty to values. If the multiplier is greater than 1 - it results in a bonus to values. Should the priest or paladin have a negative multiplier (i.e. two ranks 3 or 4 in condemned dispositions, and no ranks in favoured dispositions) their abilities will actually benefit the enemy, though in some cases abilities with negative values are simply clamped to 0 - they do nothing.

In
Due to the way the multiplier/adjustment system works in, negative values are not treated the same as positive ones (this may have been an oversight in how this system was designed, since does not exhibit this behaviour):
 * Positive values keep the same value:
 * Negative values are adjusted with:

The resulting "corrected" bonuses are then added together. In Deadfire, the resulting multiplier is  if the sum of the bonuses is positive, and   if the sum of the bonuses is negative.

Example 1 - Priest of Berath, mixed dispositions: Click "Expand" to show more details  Stoic (Favoured) - Rank 2 Bonus is 0.4 Adjusted bonus is (0.4 + 1) - 1 = 0.4

Rational (Favoured) - Rank 2 Bonus is 0.4 Adjusted bonus is (0.4 + 1) - 1 = 0.4

Cruel (Condemned) - Rank 1 Bonus is -0.2 Adjusted bonus is -0.2 / (-0.2 + 1) = -0.25

Passionate (Condemned) - Rank 2 Bonus is -0.4 Adjusted bonus is -0.4 / (-0.4 + 1) = -0.666666667

Sum of bonuses 0.4 + 0.4 + -0.2 + -0.666666667 = -0.116666667

Multiplier for a negative summed bonus is: 1.0 / (1.0 - -0.116666667) = 0.895522388

Example 2 - Priest of Wael, positive dispositions: Click "Expand" to show more details  Shady (Favoured) - Rank 4 Bonus is 0.6 Adjusted bonus is (0.6 + 1) - 1 = 0.6

Clever (Favoured) - Rank 4 Bonus is 0.6 Adjusted bonus is (0.6 + 1) - 1 = 0.6

Rational (Condemned) - Rank 1 Bonus is -0.2 Adjusted bonus is -0.2 / (-0.2 + 1) = -0.25

Honest (Condemned) - Rank 0 Bonus is 0 Adjusted bonus is (0 + 1) - 1 = 0

Sum of bonuses 0.6 + 0.6 + -0.25 + 0 = 0.95

Multiplier for a positive summed bonus is: 0.95 + 1 = 1.95

Example 3 - No dispositions: Click "Expand" to show more details  Sum of bonuses = 0

Multiplier for positive summed bonus is: 0 + 1 = 1.0

Trivia

 * Josh Sawyer noted that the disposition system developed for Pillars of Eternity is very similar to the reputation system for the canceled game Baldur's Gate 3: The Black Hound.