Yeah they're not exactly the way they're presented, if you re-load and move a little and save again it seems to re-roll you actual chance range (or whatever), the displayed % doesn't change though. I don't know about 5% though, maybe just take the company into a battle and execute them, IIRC that also ends the quest.
Yeah I thought it might be seeded somehow to generate the same results. I literally talked to ~20 different lords before I was able to succeed. I wasn't scumming.