Ok, I know in the previous game even if you didn't have the high enough speech skill you had a chance of still succeeding. In this game I notice that it shows your skill level and perhaps the needed skill to succeed as welll when you get an option to try to talk someone into doing something. My question is this. Do you always fail unless you have the highest skill listed or is there still a chance you might succeed even if your speech skill isn't high enough? Like in Fallout 3?

You have to have the higher number in the question...

35/40 nope
40/40 yes