I got a slight problem, that I'm absolutely not sure on how to handle.
My party is now 7th level and one of my players has the following scores: Charisma 18, Diplomacy +18, Intimidate +18, Bluff +17
She also has the Inner Beauty trait, which means she can once per day get another +4 on top of one of those checks.
Now... how to I keep her from making all enemies surrender their weapons, or convince them it's a bad idea and they should just leave, or even turn them to their side.
Intimidate DC is 10+HD+Wis to "Influence Attitude".
7th level as I said, so the average HD of enemies is maybe between 5 and 9, Wisdom rarely has a higher modifier than +3 or so.
Which means even on a nat. 1 she succeeds on Intimidation against most of them. By taking 10 she can make them s@@% their pants. By rolling a 20 they probably should think it's better to run off into the icy wastes screaming for their mama without food and water than to face her.
Diplomacy isn't that much better. DC 25+Cha for Hostile enemies seems like a lot, but she can do that on a Take 10 most of the time, or an average roll if I don't allow to Take 10 in the situation.
Beating it by 5 isn't out of the realm of possibilities, just requires a 13 or so, even beating it by 10 is possible still. That turns the guy that just wanted to cut them open a moment ago Indifferent or even Friendly.
I didn't have much problems with Bluff yet. Though I guess convincing the city guard that it was the other group of two humans, a half orc and an elf that just killed everyone in the tavern and then set it on fire and absolutely not them should work equally well. (They haven't actually done that one though)
Saying "Yeah, you rolled a 33 and used your 1/day ability on it for a 37, but they still attack you. Because I say so" feels just like denying that player the benefit of what she specialized in.
On the other hand allowing them to overcome to many encounters that way makes the other players just sit there and be bored.
I just don't know how to handle it without it seeming unfair to either side
| 2 people marked this as a favorite. |
The non-answer:
This character is obviously a social powerhouse. A force to be reckoned with for her sheer mastery of the silver tongue, in any social situation.
Think "if I had an important NPC with +18 intimidate, +18 diplomacy and +17 bluff, what could I justify him accomplishing?" These things, and likely more, is what your player can expect to accomplish. This means that whenever you run a social encounter, or a conflict that does not immediately explode into a tornado of chaotic violence, this character has a chance to difuse the situation, because that is how good she is.
The answer:
Language barriers can be a real hindrance to social skills.
Misunderstandings based on culture can get in the way of social skills.
Influencing people's attitudes with intimidate takes about 1 minute, while diplomacy is largely useless in combat.
So if the players invoke murderous rage in a group of bar patrons, she cannot necessarily talk them down again, and they need to be indifferently disposed towards her, before she can even make requests of them.
Bluff is a different story, since bluff is go-to for on-the-fly, immediate reaction social-rolls. A character with high bluff can get herself out of alot problems, just by waggling her tongue.
-Nearyn
Yeah, it's in the rules that Diplomacy is generally not effective in combat, and that the GM can rule that some lies will just never be believed by the person. Intimidate? Shouldn't work very well on animals or creatures with animal intelligence. I also rule that characters trainined in Intimidate can make opposed checks to negate an attempt, because a fighter who's spent his whole life using intimidation tactics isn't going to fall for someone else's very easy.
How exactly are they using these skills? Can you give some specific examples? If their trying to
Note that diplomacy isn't effective in combat because it takes a full minute to work, at least.
So for the 10 rounds in which those hostile creatures are attacking and she's using Diplomacy (and you'd be well within your rights to say it takes a full-round action each round to use it, even though talking is a free action), their attitude is still hostile... How long do your fights last?
Likewise for intimidate.
Oh, I totally forgot or missed that Intimidate and Diplomacy take about 1 minute to do, which actually limits that quite a bit.
The enemy might just be attacking or the leader telling their minions "Don't listen to her! Attack them now!"
I think that actually solves most of my issues. If they actually can talk for that long it makes sense that she can do some crazy stuff.
I let them become shaken, that's not a problem, in fact the character is build around causing the shaken condition in as many people as possible (She gets lots of bonuses against shaken targets etc, next level she's gonna take Shatter Defenses too, just to make my life even more miserable :))
Yeah diplomacy and intimidate take 1 minute interaction to accomplish, so you wont be using them in combat to scare away enemies or turn them into friends if they're already hostile. You can use intimidate to demoralize, but it only imposes the shaken condition. Also, you definitely can't take 10 during combat either as you would be in immediate danger during that time.
TLDR: Intimidate and Diplomacy wont work during combat (to influence attitude) unless your combats last longer than 10 rounds regularly.
There are some good answers here already, but I'd like to add that GM fiat "because they're not intimidated" is not a bad decision on your part. Do it diplomatically at the table, and your players will respect the fact that your NPCs aren't spineless dweebs to be manipulated.
Consider also the fact that many officials and governors are already used to people with silver tongues trying to flatter and manipulate them left and right, and many of them will look at the PC and shake their heads while the PC tries to talk them out of the kingdom. "Leave off, you lout. I'll have none of your nonsense today." The idea that anyone with a high bluff score can talk anyone into anything is a falsehood.
|
Frenzy is also something you can use. Unthinking non-intelligent rage from a barbarian or even a juiced up alchemist.
I'm sure there are plenty of creatures in the bestiaries you can use that don't speak at all.
Ambushes are a great choice. All your honey'd words are for naught when the rain of arrows fall upon your heads.
At worst you can use the characters own tactic against them. Two bards having the "intimidate" fight out in the center of town; it reminds me of the Walk off in Zoolander.
Having a social character around can be a pain, but they can be just as easily controlled as the 100AC fighter. A fun and exciting game is the goal for everyone.
Your players also don't typically know the hit dice and wisdom scores of NPCs you throw at them. If it's absolutely critical that the conflict can't be resolved diplomatically, just say it fails.
The first diplo check should stall combat long enough to get your minute in. If your character has built for this, then allow them some victories. If your fighter built to trip/disarm, then you are screwing his fun if all he fights is huge natural attack beasts. Same thing if you always foil your cha guru with mindless or even more cunning enemies. Let them have their fun, but shake it up every now and again.
That said, it's hard to talk your way out of an ambush after the first shots have been fired.
Diplomacy is not mind control. At best it makes them view you as a friend. If the evil guys would not surrender for a friend, they should not do it for the PC, even if he would have time to talk them down.
Short version:Just because someone is your friend that does not mean you will do what they want.
| 1 person marked this as a favorite. |
Diplomancy works in the court, or even against enemies, if they'll stop to listen. Some people just won't listen though, because they hate your guts and are taking active steps towards spilling them.
RAW an NPC can just say "no". No matter how high the score is, and there are a good number of modifiers in the way of a high score anyway.
Edit: Worst thing I've seen is GM say an NPC using intimidate on a player was mind control. The PC's roleplaying and the GM's call there were both not the best in the moment.
|
The first diplo check should stall combat long enough to get your minute in. If your character has built for this, then allow them some victories. If your fighter built to trip/disarm, then you are screwing his fun if all he fights is huge natural attack beasts. Same thing if you always foil your cha guru with mindless or even more cunning enemies. Let them have their fun, but shake it up every now and again.
Except that unlike trip/disarm, Diplomacy is supposed to be an out-of-combat trick, and Intimidate and Bluff have clearly defined roles in combat (demoralize and feint). The character's victories using these skills should be out-of-combat (or in demoralize and feint checks). A character can have plenty of victories with these checks without ever turning them into "I end combat with one roll."
For example, my last social-skills character convinced Villain A that his friend Villain B had betrayed him, causing Villain A to take revenge against and greatly weaken Villain B for us. However, if Villain A had been actively attacking us at that time my character would not have been able to deflect his attention to Villain B.
The same character also convinced a dragon to give the party some magic items from his hoard. However, if the party had attempted to steal those items and the dragon had attacked us, my character would not have been able to talk him down.
Problem??? I see no problem. The sorcerer can just charm them and combat ends lol.
Charm monster the pyrohydra!!! Hydra fails on a 1. Wanna clear the dungeon hydra??? Rawr free exp. Fin.
You could also roleplay the situation.
If the player gives the enemies a plausible reason to stop attacking then his check might work. If there is no reason would they should stop to charge her, then the diplomacy check should not work.
The same with intimidate. A troll wouldnt be intimidated by a human unless there is some reason to.
Omfg he just burned that troll to ashes run noobs!!!!!
There's a lot of ways around this. The full minute check is one. Requiring them to give credible reasons for certain actions or increase the DC to substantially difficult levels. Some things I just wouldn't allow. Intimidate, diplomacy and bluff aren't magic.
Having said that, I would let a character use their abilities now and again. I hate when someone builds a character a certain way and plays them really well and then the DM decides they're nerfed.
Two things:
Intimidate to demoralize is a standard action (per below comment). Standard action, move action .. tomahto, tomayto ...
Diplomacy starts at the stated DCs. There is some unfortunate glossing over of the accompanying circumstantial increases to that DC. An example of this in an AP *as written* sets the Diplomacy DC to 41. The PCs cannot take 20 on this check due to the what happens if that check fails.
Okay, a third thing:
People remember one who intimidates them into getting their way. The "social god(dess)" should reap the harvest sown via Intimidation at some point.
Bonus points for tying it all together in some kind of group ambush involving turkey basters, fresh pastries and rabid rodentia. ;)
Demoralizing an opponent is a standard action.
There are many ways to shorten it however.
I don't know any GMs who use diplomacy/bluff/intimidate as written. It's even more universally loathed than leadership as written.
Wow. The mere concept of games like anything by White Wolf must completely terrify you as DM/ST, doesn't it? Social manipulation is easy to deal with. I never had a problem with any of those skills.
They do what's logical for them, that is, you take the viewpoint of the NPC, use that to limit what a successful check could do by a PC. These NPC's are people; don't treat them as two dimensional morons.
|
Now that I'm looking at those Diplomacy difficulties, they do seem a bit low. Or more precisely: non-scaling. They're difficult for low-level characters, but the difficulty barely changes with the power level of the target. A peasant or a dragon are roughly equally difficult to influence (the only difference is their Charisma modifier).
This seems unfortunate, because it means that after a couple of levels, a diplomancer can have a Diplomacy bonus sufficient to autosucceed on most requests. At which point the GM has to rely time and again on this part of the skill:
Some requests automatically fail if the request goes against the creature’s values or its nature, subject to GM discretion.
But that's a bit of a crutch. Because if you're asking the ancient gold dragon to smite your undead enemies, that's probably not against his values or nature; and doing it for free is probably also okay because it's easy for him; so the diplomancer can make an NPC do the whole adventure for him.
Because if you're asking the ancient gold dragon to smite your undead enemies, that's probably not against his values or nature; and doing it for free is probably also okay because it's easy for him; so the diplomancer can make an NPC do the whole adventure for him.
Well, dragons are also by nature inherently greedy, so they will want something in trade, remember that. See what I mean?
Because if you're asking the ancient gold dragon to smite your undead enemies, that's probably not against his values or nature; and doing it for free is probably also okay because it's easy for him; so the diplomancer can make an NPC do the whole adventure for him.Well, dragons are also by nature inherently greedy, so they will want something in trade, remember that. See what I mean?
Also it could be totally beneath them. Just because someone is against something, that doesn't mean they are going to drop their plans because some insect-like peons asked them to. Even if they're "very convincing." He might agree the undead need to be destroyed, and might even offer assistance in some form to sponsor the plan, but a Dragon has his own business.
I’ve played a character that excelled at the social skills, particularly Diplomacy. I was inspired by having worked closely with highly skilled negotiators and wanted to play a character that could in-game manipulate people, situations and events as well as my real-life colleagues could do. Unfortunately I played with a GM who (despite me running the character concept past him first in detail) was totally unprepared for the consequences of such a character. This experience has helped me consider playing and countering socially skilled PCs.
In real life, diplomacy could be seen to be a form of combat – think of the negotiations of a car purchase. Unfortunately, in game, many consider CHA to be a dump stat and the social encounters are roleplayed so skills like Diplomacy etc are seen as a waste when compared to skills like perception, stealth and the like. Consequently, a highly skilled diplomat in the average social encounter is the equivalent of a high level fighter in combat against a bunch of goblins.
The solution: Unfortunately, it needs three house rules:
1) Make Diplomacy opposed against Diplomacy rather than just CHA. A skilled diplomat can recognise the techniques being used against him. Then include NPCs that are also skilled in diplomacy.
2) Allow Intimidate to make the subject friendly, but make any request subject to an intimidate v diplomacy check. The skilled diplomat should be able to appear to give aid whilst actually falling short. Bluff v sense motive may also be called for to see if the intimidated party can successfully pass of less than full cooperation.
3) Allow the social skills to be used against the party. This is the most controversial and needs to be roleplayed well but if the GM tells the players that the NPC comes across as warm and friendly they shouldn’t metagame and assume they are being manipulated when you roleplay a request.
With these three rules in play the GM is able to include encounters where a socially skilled character doesn’t steamroller every NPC they come across into doing the PCs bidding.
Adversaries who speak a different language.
Or not at all.
|
|
| 1 person marked this as a favorite. |
By the way, this problem predates Pathfinder. The Alexandrian has an interesting article about it.
By the way, this problem predates Pathfinder. The Alexandrian has an interesting article about it.
This is an extremely good article, thank you for sharing it.
In particular the point about the relationship is well made. Too often players will adjust the attitude with one Diplomacy check and then make a request with the second. One could houserule that if a request is made then it is the original, rather than current attitude that determines the DC. But the RAW then don't allow diplomacy on unfriendly or hostile NPCs; which doesn't make sense when the PCs are offering the town guard a year's salary to 'be a bit slow in their next patrol of this section of the wall' - the guards are unfriendly but the deal is fantastic. So the revised Risk v Reward mechanic in the article is also superior to the request examples in the PRD.
Perhaps there needs to be a mechanic for cultivating a relationship. For starters lets say 1 diplomacy check per daily contact with no request to gain a +1 bonus on future requests. Each request carries a -1 penalty to future checks.