hmmm, my mini mod where fenris (if active) will arrange hawke's duel with the arishok even if isabela returns with the tome (as opposed to vanilla where that exchange only occurs if she doesn't) is already slated to be rolled into my great big da2 full game dialogue overhaul but im wondering now if it's worth making that a follower prompt on the dialogue wheel rather than an automatic intervention. on the one hand I really like the automatic intervention & I appreciate the initiative but on the other hand I really like follower prompts
it would have to be added to the prior wheel when the arishok asks hawke how exactly they think they are going to resolve the situation (sans tome) so a hawke who doesn't think they can work it out one on one can go "uhhhhhhh idk fenris???? buddy??? tossing this one over to you pleeeeease tell me you have a plan here because I sure don't" but otherwise they can shoot their shot and see how well the arishok takes it. which in the case where you don't have isabela but do have fenris would end up skipping two lines vs what currently plays in vanilla.
or hmmmm mb add that to the wheel so a high reputation hawke can choose if they wanna shoot their shot and have the arishok offer the duel himself or just ask fenris to play crisis negotiator again (tho tbf... one of the more reliable ways to earn reputation with the arishok is to just let fenris do all of the talking whenever possible. so there's that)
but then if hawke is low rep fenris can still interject as a fallback like "well hang on im not letting my jackass friend get us all killed over this. hey arishok, why not just duel my jackass friend" so having fenris take up a party slot still guarantees access to a duel (ofc fenris's jackass friend can always just punk out of the duel and get us all killed over this regardless but you know. he tried.)
im probably doing too much atp