Terror Bird Diplomacy????

[Par-a-dox]

heres the situation...

The druid 5/master of many forms 2 in the party decided to try to "talk" (squak?) it out with the terror birds that were nesting in front of dark mountian pass. After some scouting/spying, he wildshaped into a terror bird, and approached the nesting area. He was immediatly set upon by the nest mother.

He said that he shouldnt have to use a "wild Empathy' check becasue he wasn't in human form. He could talk to th birds in their "language" becasue he was one of them, and he thought he could just use a regular diplomacy check...

is this true? if a druid is wildshaped into the same animal he is trying to influence can he simply use diplomacy instead of wild empathy??? its really no different than two humans using diplomacy on each other isn't it? they are the same race now...

help? This guy has his diplomacy maxed out and has taken two feats that bunp his Diplomacy check LOL He got a 35 on his check!!!! which, I guess, changed the nest mother to friendly from hostile. He then lead the nestmother off into the jungle so the others could sneak by and into the cave... I let him do it... and they succeeded in making it into the cave without any combat... the other birds spotted the PC's, but would not follow them into the caves...

Diplomacy or wild empathy? Which one should I have made him use???

Thanks!

[lin_fusan]

If you read the description of both Wild Empathy ability of the druid and the Diplomacy skill description, it notes emphatically that you use Wild Empathy to influence animals (and beasts) and Diplomacy with NPCs.

It does not mention anything about specific communication ability.

In other words, changing into a terror bird or perhaps casting Speak with Animals doesn't affect attempts to influence them, it is still a Wild Empathy check.

Being able to talk terror bird merely allows the player to ask questions and get really simple Int 2 answers.

So Wild Empathy.

I might give a circumstance bonus for being able to speak Terror Bird, but really, it's a Int 2 animal. No amount of fancy words via a high skill of Diplomacy will affect an Int 2 animal.

[Phil. L]

While terror birds are social animals they are still only animals and wouldn't understand the nuances of diplomacy. A typical terror bird would care about food, procreation, self-preservation and that's about it (I'm generalizing here). If you read the description of the skill it says that Diplomacy relies on tact, subtlety, social grace, etiquette and a way with words. I'm not sure how eloquent a terror bird can be since their language is not really a language in the way that English is a language.

That being said, the rules aren't exactly clear on the issue. My rationale for not letting my players do it is that they are not trained to speak to terror birds. They have been trained to use diplomacy on intelligent creatures with an evolved language/society. They could make an untrained diplomacy check if they could speak the same language as the animal, but in those circumstances they would rather choose wild empathy (unless they didn't have that class feature).

I would be careful allowing his two feats to be used either way, particularly if the feats are ones that should only apply in certain situations. Skill Focus and Negotiator would both be fine, but again if I was in your shoes they wouldn't apply for the reason given above (you have been trained to negotiate with intelligent creatures not animals).

[Par-a-dox]

Both helpful posts... Thanks... and in hindsight, I feel the same way. I just didn't want to stop the action to look up both wild empathy, and diplomacy...

I agree, that I probably should have required him to use Wild Empathy... this would've made more "sense" and would have made the attempt more challenging...

I guess he and I will be having a talk about using diplomacy while wildshaped...

[Craig Shackleton]

I would allow circumstance bonuses to wild empathy for being in the form of the animal and for being able to speak with animal (two seperate issues. If a character using wild empathy and speak with animals had 5 ranks of diplomacy, I would also allow a synergy bonus.

But I wouldn't normally call it a diplomacy check. Just my take.

As an alternative, I could be convinved to allow a diplomacy check with a circumstance penalty (or a higher DC, if you prefer).

In either case, I would only allow diplomacy to come into it if the charcter could specifically speak with animals, which I don't think wildshape allows, any more than shapechanging into a Drow would give you the ability to speak undercommon.

[Par-a-dox]

scribe wrote:

In either case, I would only allow diplomacy to come into it if the charcter could specifically speak with animals, which I don't think wildshape allows, any more than shapechanging into a Drow would give you the ability to speak undercommon.

Actually Wild Shape does allow it.

D&D srd 3.5 wrote:

...but she can communicate normally with other animals of the same general grouping as her new form...

[James Thomas]

Par-a-dox,
Diplomacy is a language thing. Unless you use langage, you're not doing diplomacy. Period.
Anything else is wishful thinking.

[Curaigh]

James Thomas wrote:

...

Diplomacy is a language thing. ...

That's my take on it; you need to speak the language. Even if you speak the language you may not know the culture and still might suffer a negative (think Middle-East diplomacy). Rambling scribe's suggestions for bonuses/penalties all ring accurate to me.

[Craig Shackleton]

Well, I should have looked that up (I was actually half-asleep when I made my earlier post). So I might allow a Diplomacy check. Still I would definitely set the DC higher due to the nature of the communication. Terror Birds do not have a proper complex language, and I would continue to interpret that it would be more difficult to use. And I would still prefer to give a bonus to Wild Empathy for being able to communicate better. All my personal opinion.

[Canadian Bakka]

I would suggest that you call for a wild empathy check instead a Diplomacy check. As mentioned above by others, Diplomacy is a language-based skill. Even if you can communicate with the Terror Birds in what passes for a "language" among their kind, they still have a Intelligence score of 2. I am sure a typical "conversation" among Terror Birds would not go something like this:

Bill: "Hey Bob?"
Bob: "Yeah Bill?"
Bill: "I think we should go over there, to the caves, with the puny pink meat bags."
Bob: "Why Bill? It is it not easier just to eat them here?"
Bill: "Naw Bob, I think they are a fine bunch of fellows and I am sure that by doing what they say we will get more food that way."
Bob: "Oh, o.k., Bill, sure thing. Lead the way."

Animals rely on a variety of methods to express themselves, ranging from sounds to physical mannerisms and odours. In fact, most people do not realise it but when talking to another people, you unconsciously gauge your impression of them primarily through their body language, not merely by what they are saying.

Diplomacy is not going to convince the Terror Bird to be your buddy. Wild empathy is going to convince the Terror Bird not to eat you at the time and then afterwards you can use the Handle Animal skill to teach the Terror Bird not to eat you or your buddies at any time (although that takes time and the Terror Bird might get bored and go away).

Of course, that is my opinion. Sometimes you just have to make a ruling on the fly based on what you know and feel at the time in order to prevent the game from coming to a complete halt. What matters in the end is that you and your players enjoy the game.

Cheers

CB

EDIT: On a side note, regardless of what method you use to befriend the nestmother Terror Bird, the PC should not have been able to convince the nestmother to leave her nest. Unless they managed to dominate the poor bird. Leaving her nest is completely against her nature unless self-preservation instincts are kicking in. In that case, she might leave, she might not. Think about it in this way: You are a single parent of 3 kids and you are at the local park. A stranger walks up to you and after chatting with this person, you think he is the most charismatic person you have ever met. This person now asks you to leave your kids and come with him to another location in the park for a little while. Would you leave your kids alone in the park while you are away and thus cannot keep an eye on them? I think the answer would be obvious. ;)

[lin_fusan]

If you go RAW from the SRD, you can use this sentence from the Diplomacy skill description:

"Use the table below to determine the effectiveness of Diplomacy checks (or Charisma checks) made to influence the attitude of a nonplayer character, or wild empathy checks made to influence the attitude of an animal or magical beast."

So Diplomacy for people/NPCs and wild empathy for animals or magical beasts.