In the bluff skill section it lists various modifiers to your bluff skill check based on how believable your lie is. I've always worked off the assumption that you just pick the one that fits and use that. Recently I've had a GM who thinks you take all the penalties/bonuses from that chart and add them together (in other words, if a lie is unlikely and far-fetched it's a -15 penalty). And he did specifically say this is what he's doing saying what we got the penalties for ("The lie is unbelievable, and the lie is far-fetched so you take a -15 penalty."), not a variety of circumstantial penalties.
So my question is pretty simple: which is correct? I'd like citations if at all possible (citations make any situation like this easier) so I can bring this up at the next session. I didn't bring it up at the table since the situation didn't particularly matter, but would like it resolved for future reference.
To me it seems pretty cut and dry - the ladder of modifiers is just that, a ladder. You go up or down on it and use the appropriate modifier, not the appropriate modifier plus all other possible penalties from the chart. Unfortunately I'm unable to find any specific place in the book or online that makes this clear. This keeps it just ambiguous enough that I'm unsure. Maybe every group I've ever been in is wrong.
Don't expect a legitimate citation. The developers don't often issue such things for stuff they consider obvious, and I don't blame them. In your matter, you are correct. Thats like being frightened and panicked at the same time.
However, I will concede that his argument has some merit on the grounds that I believe some of the bonuses would stack. For example, you try to pass as a visiting royal while dressed as a road-weary adventurer, while your adventuring party and the animal companion are your royal court (-20 for being unbelievable), trying to gain access to the restricted area. The guard is drunk (+5) and your offer him land and title for his indiscretion, plus you put a sack of gold in his hands (wants to believe you +10). Plus you have a stolen royal ring, forged papers, and are disguised to look similar to a local noble (convincing proof +something). We can be quick to stack bonuses, but not penalties? However in this case, the three penalties seem to represent varying severities of the same penalty.
I didn't mean having a developer come in and give a comment (or a link to a comment on another thread). I meant if there was a rule in a book, or if there was something in a FAQ or errata that I've missed I'd appreciate a page number so I can crack open my own book and show it.
And I agree with different bonuses for different circumstances stacking (though nitpicky the target wanting to believe you is a +5, not a +10 unless there's separate bribery rules I'm unaware of), though that's because I'm of the opinion these are all circumstance bonuses/penalties (though they aren't spelled out specifically as that, this is one of those it's pretty obvious they are as far as I'm concerned), which specifically stack with each other provided they don't come from essentially the same source.
Which is in turn why I'm against the penalties stacking since as far as I'm concerned they're - as you said - varying severity of the same penalty (which in my mind is basically the same source - how believable your lie is on its own merit - as far as circumstance bonuses go).
Problem is while this GM knows they're really new, they're also really bad at reading the rules and interpreting them. He can't really figure out RAI all that well and sticks to what he sees as RAW (which given how he has a flimsy understanding of the rules to begin with means a lot of mistakes, usually to the detriment of the players). Having more than just "this player says this is how it works" would be useful.
I agree with you, though I don't think I can find any kind of citation.
Ciaran Barnes means that the developers are unlikely to spell out something explicitly when it seems intuitively obvious to most readers, as in this case. (Also the +10 is from 5 for the guard being drunk +5 for wanting to believe you.)
"Impossible to believe" is a more extreme version of "unlikely." There is no situation in which a lie would be "Impossible to believe" but not "unlikely." Thus there is no reason to list separate penalties and require the group to add them together - it just makes things needlessly complicated and requires the group to do more math to figure out what the penalty would be. They already double to indicate increasing difficulty.
Hopefully having a couple of people chime in on the forums is enough for your GM?
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I view all those as coming from the same source (how believable the lie is) and thus do not stack.
Does the GM also add the bonuses for Perception to oppose Disguise skill based on how well the viewer knows the target?
Agree wholeheartedly on how an impossible lie is just a much higher version of an unlikely lie. If they did stack it would mean an impossible lie is always a -35 before other modifiers. Not that it couldn't be, but if they were meant to stack I think they'd be more incremental. Unlikely would be -5, far fetched another -5, and impossible a -10 which adds up to the -5/-10/-20 set up.
Personally I see it like using Acrobatics to jump. The DC is equal to the amount you're jumping (going with horizontal jumps for now, not vertical). A 10 ft. jump is DC 10. If you took the DC of all the previous increments up until that point (for one foot, two feet, three, etc) it would be DC 55. Given how it's specifically spelled out as DC 10, that's clearly not the case.
Unfortunately this is a bad example since the jumping section specifically calls this out whereas bluff does not such thing. Which means it's very easy for an inexperienced GM to claim that they do.
And no way of knowing about perception vs disguise since that situation hasn't come up. Given how he ruled bluff he probably would make it a +28 bonus to perception if you're intimately familiar with them.
The only sort of citation you'd be able to find would be pouring through published adventures (if you wanted to do this, I'd recommend PFS scenarios) and searching for situations that call for this situation and list the modifiers for you. Then you'd see that it uses one or the other and never stacks them. But I am also 100% they don't stack without having to do that.
As a DM, I run that "believable" < "unlikely" < "far-fetched" < "impossible" and that only one can apply to a specific con.
That said, I could imagine a situation where a lack of needed convincing proof could stack against a believability penalty on a single Bluff check - even though no such penalty exists on the table (but could be inferred from it's opposite).
And ultimately, perhaps your DM's frustration is that there is no automatic way that the difficulty of Bluffing (or using Diplomacy to influence) his NPCs increases with their level? I share this frustration and implemented a house rule that NPCs add their level, their WIS, and their CHA to a base DC of 10. Any attempts to Bluff, Diplomacy, or Intimidate them must succeed against this DC. If using Bluff, then one of the believability penalties applies. And this works well at our table.
Also you need to account for reputation and other preconceptions.
You might convince me you believe what you are saying, but if I think you/your species/adventurers in general are unreliable/reality challenged, then however well you make your play, ....
Before continuing, should note I was not the one making the bluff check. Just so this is not misinterpreted as a player getting upset at the GM giving him penalties. Someone else made the roll.
The situation wasn't a matter of him adding in other penalties, he flat out said why he was giving them (for the lie being unlikely and far-fetched).
As for a lack of automatic bonuses and the GM attempting to fix what he perceives as an issue, while I'd agree if we were talking about Diplomacy or Intimidate there needs to be something to actually make the DC matter beyond the first couple levels, Bluff has an automatic counter-balance in the Sense Motive skill. Admittedly builds that focus entirely on bluffing can easily get a high enough check to make it really just a formality, but still it is there. And while it does require a skill investment, I rarely see people complain that they need to invest in Perception to avoid getting tripped up by Stealth all the time (and I personally worry far more about Perception than Sense Motive).
Anyway the exact way the GM worded it (while I don't memorize everything that happens per session things that irk me tend to get remembered, plus I write them down for future reference and it may have been a good idea to include this in the original post): "See Bluff is an interesting skill. Depending on what you try to say it gets harder. So the lie is unlikely for -5, and the lie is far-fetched for a -10. So take a -15 penalty to the roll". At no point did the GM mention he was using this as a way to counteract bluff builds (which no one in the group is even using so it'd reduce the skill to an optimize it to death or leave it skill), and he was actually smiling and laughing as though he thought he was clever for this.
Plus this is also a new GM. He regularly makes mistakes with basic rules and demands proof when I point it out. And if it's not spelled out or even slightly ambiguous he goes with his interpretation.
That being said the fact that thus far no one has chimed in supporting his ruling should be enough. Plus looking at other skills they do seem to list when bonuses and penalties are cumulative, it doesn't do so with Bluff so that may also help.
Re: +10 for wants to believe you, my mistake. :)
tsumechk wrote: "See Bluff is an interesting skill. Depending on what you try to say it gets harder. Yes, this is true.
The penalty for an impossible bluff (-20) is twice that of a far-fetched bluff (-10), which is twice that of one that's merely unlikely (-5).
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