Crossposted to the Icewind Dale series sub-group. So the game in question is Icewind Dale 2.

https://sorcerers.net/Games/IWD2/Walkthrough/chapter4/chapter4.php

So, in the monastery there is this Sersa who needs help to convince her instructor (Svaltid) to continue training her. Has anyone figured out what kind of character can convince Svaltid?

Depending on a walkthrough, it has been suggested that:

1. Use a monk
- My party has no monk. I tried by multiclassing my party leader (Paladin) to a 4th level Monk, but it didn't help, Svaltid says no.

2. Use a person with high Diplomacy skill. Some FAQ suggests Diplomacy 9 or more.
- I tried it with my party leader who had Diplomacy 16, and Charisma 20. No go.

3. Use a person with high Bluff.
- I tried the aforementioned party leader with Bluff 8. No go.

Just to be sure, I tried also with other characters with my team (some have high INT etc.), none worked. I am wondering what I am doing wrong, e.g. am I doing the quest at a wrong time, or is there something else besides e.g. high Diplomacy (and CHA) that is needed? I've mostly min-maxxed my characters so e.g. my party leader has low INT 3 because he doesn't need it for anything, but I am wondering if this quest expects several attributes to be "high enough"?

EDIT: One walkthrough suggested this quest is easy(?) to finish after completing the "banish Aruma" quest, but it didn't seem to affect the outcome if I waited until finishing that quest first.

I played this very long ago, but if I remember right, if you have a Monk then the way to complete this quest would be talking to Sersa herself and training her yourself, not by talking to Svaltid. I think the Monk has to be a high level enough though.

If you wait till Sunday, I'll be able to get my dusty CDs out and use WieDU to check the exact requirements for all dialogues. I don't have the game on GOG.

That would be appreciated, thanks.

I tried to google for Icewind Dale 2 Weidu but didn't quite grasp it what mod it is and how to use it.

Thanks, that solved it. In order to get the correct dialogue option with Svaltid:
CheckSkillGT(Protagonist, 9, Diplomacy)
CheckStatGT(Protagonist, 9, INT)

So, no, having 9 Diplomacy is not enough, but your INT must also be 9. My Paladin has INT 3 (since I presumed he will not need it for anything, so I rather used those points elsewhere).

If you were a monk, then there were also some options to teach Sersa directly, but there were also level and some stat restrictions too.

No idea why some of the walkthroughs claimed that you can convince Svaltid with a high Bluff skill, I didn't find anything related to that.

Oh well, I guess I can't solve that one sidequest then, just wanted to make sure that is the case. Moving on then...

EDIT: Well, there might be a way, as I've "level-squatted" quite a long time (skipping four levels so far, my characters are level 9 even though they could be 13 already), so of course I could level level up one character which has high enough INT, and use all the available skill points to Diplomacy. Not sure if I want to waste skill points like that, just to complete this one sidequest...

How about potions/spells that increase INT? As far as I remember potions stack.

Wonder if this was a typo by the devs and they didn't mean to check for CHA but put INT accidentally instead.

I have to check that. I know there is at least a wizard spell that adds max 5 points or so to CHA. Yeah not sure why they felt INT is important for this quest, but then there was a similar in earlier chapter where you could help that one orc to finish his new crossbow design, if you had high enough INT. There only INT mattered though apparently.

Anyway, I guess CHA relevant in the Sersa case as well because CHA seems to affect the Diplomacy skill directly, giving a negative or positive bonus to it. E.g. with my rogue who has a very low CHA (3), apparently I need to give her 12 points to Diplomacy before it reaches the needed 9 (as that low CHA subtracts 3 points out of the Diplomacy skill score). Similarly, as my Paladin has a high CHA, he gets a bonus to Diplomacy. Too bad he has low INT as well...

I tested it and yeah I can choose to level up my Rogue (who has INT 10) and give her enough skill points to Diplomacy, and then I seem to be able to finish that quest. I would rather use those skill points to Rogue skills (finding traps, picking locks, hiding etc.), but unfortunately I can't give enough skill points to my other two high INT characters as for some reason they don't accept more than 8 points to Diplomacy.

Probably because Diplomacy isn't a class skill for them, so you can't max it to their level+3 points. Max you can do for a 'cross class' skill is (Level+3)/2 points, if memory serves.