Duel of Wits in Pathfinder

[Kyle Simons]

After playing some Burning Empires and Mouse Guard my group is now playing Pathfinder and having a ton of fun. The GM who is now running Pathfinder told me he really liked Burning Empires when I ran it, in particular the Duel of Wits mechanic. He asked me if there might be any way of incorporating it into the game. Here's my attempt to do so. For the most part I'm going to assume people are fairly clear on how a Duel of Wits works and just present the changes and tweaks for Pathfinder. If further clarification is needed don't hesitate to ask.

DUELING SKILLS
Characters may use the bluff, diplomacy or intimidate skills to engage in a Duel of Wits. Prior to a Duel of Wits, at the GM's discretion, sense motive and/or knowledge checks can be made to influence the starting disposition of a character. (This is still pretty vague but will probably use the the d20 chart as well to keep it simple)

BODY OF ARGUMENT

Once the cases have been made clear, each player notes down his disposition pools, which are equal to the total skills in bluff, diplomacy and intimidate. Players keep track of damage done to their disposition as it affects all disposition pools.

Eadric has a skill rating of 10 in Diplomacy and 3 in both bluff and intimidate. He makes note of his starting disposition pools, which are 10 for diplomacy, 3 for bluff and 3 for intimidate

There are seven actions a speaker can take in a Duel of Wits: Avoid the Topic, Dismiss, Feint, Incite, Redirect, Point and Rebuttal.

Avoid the Topic
Root Pool: Bluff, Diplomacy or Intimidate
Effects: Scripting the Avoid the Topic action allows the player to defend himself against most attacks. Roll a d20 and consult the chart below. Successes are subtracted from the opponents Point, Redirect, or Incite. Avoid the Topic automatically beats Feint and Rebuttal; it does not work against Dismiss.

Dismiss
Root Pool: Bluff, Diplomacy, Intimidation
Effects: Scripting a Dismiss adds +2 to your successes against the opponents disposition pool (an automatic 2 points off the opponents disposition). Dismiss successes that are not Rebutted are subtracted from the body of argument.

Feint
Root Pool: Bluff
Effects: Feints automatically counter Rebuttals and can then make a point.
If scripted against a Point, Dismiss or Incite, the Feinting player gets no attack or riposte; against an Avoid, the defender escapes unharmed. Scripted against Redirect, the Feinter’s Bluff is rolled twice. Successes are added together from both rolls for the versus test. Both parties involved apply their bluff modifiers to their rolls.

Incite
Root Pool: Intimidation
Effects: Roll a d20, your opponent must roll a d20 and beat the number you roll or is forced to hesitate for his next volley. If you fail however, your opponent gets a +2 on his next roll against you. Both parties involved apply their intimidate modifiers to their rolls.

Redirect
Root Pool: Diplomacy
Effects: Roll a d20, the victim of the redirect must beat the number if the Redirector wins, the victim of this tactic loses his current action. For every 5 he beats the opponent‘s roll by, the victim’s disposition is reduced by 1. For every 5 he loses by, 1 point of disposition is subtracted from his own diplomacy pool.

Point
Root Pool: Bluff, Diplomacy, Intimidate
Effects: This is the main attack of the verbal duelist. Roll a d20 and add your Bluff, Diplomacy or Intimidate modifier to the roll and then consult the chart to see how many points you score against the opponent’s disposition. This is the way to win debates! Successes from Avoid the Topic and the defense half of rebuttals knock off disposition successes.

Rebuttal
Root Pool: Bluff, Diplomacy, Intimidate
Effects: Roll a d20 and apply your Bluff, Diplomacy or Intimidate modifier to the roll. After consulting the chart to see the number of total points, you may choose to spend points to either reduce the number of points subtracted from your own disposition if any are subtracted in the current volley only. At least 1 point must be put into defending, even if no attack is made, if there is any more than that they may be allocated as the player sees fit to either reduce his opponent’s disposition or protect his own disposition pool.

DETERMINING SOCIAL SKILL MODIFIERS

Modifiers for the Bluff, Diplomacy and Intimidate skills are made by simply halving the total number of points in that skill and rounding down if necessary.

(Eadric has a skill of 10 in Diplomacy. Halving that number gives him a +5 Diplomacy modifier.)

DETERMINING DISPOSITION DAMAGE FROM ROLLS

TOTAL* POINTS EARNED
1________________ 0
4-5_______________1
6-10 _____________2
10-15_____________3
16+______________4
NATURAL 20_______5
*After rolling and applying applicable modifiers

(Eadric rolls a natural 17, with his +5 Diplomacy skill modifier he gets a 22. He earns 4 points.)

DISPOSITION POOLS

Damage is tracked and affects all disposition pools. The argument is over once the opponent’s largest disposition pool is knocked down to 0. Once a disposition pool is reduced to 0, a maneuver that uses that root pool as its base can no longer be used.

(Eadric has a disposition pool of 10 in diplomacy, 3 in bluff and 3 in intimidate. He sustains 4 points of disposition damage. Eadric reduces his pools to 6, -1 and -1 respectively. He can no longer use any maneuvers that use bluff or intimidate as their root disposition (Feint or Incite).)

[Uchawi]

Nice approach, it would be beneficial to add in other skills to the pool, or to the roll, so if you are an expert in an area like knowledge(arcana), streetwise, etc. that it would benefit the character as a resource.

[Kyle Simons]

Uchawi wrote:

Nice approach, it would be beneficial to add in other skills to the pool, or to the roll, so if you are an expert in an area like knowledge(arcana), streetwise, etc. that it would benefit the character as a resource.

Thanks, I had considered that but I think the easiest way to approach the other skills is pre-Duel of Wits. For example, if the PCs are gathering information about a certain NPC before confronting him the GM might have them roll up checks pertaining to the situation, whatever they may be: streetwise, knowledge, sense motive, etc. Depending on how well they make the checks, the GM can add points to their disposition before engaging in a Duel of Wits.

This makes more sense to me because having more information won't make the PCs any more or less eloquent, it just might help them and give them a leg to stand on in their body of argument. It also works better so that I can keep the system nice and simple

[M. Balmer]

Uchawi wrote:

Nice approach, it would be beneficial to add in other skills to the pool, or to the roll, so if you are an expert in an area like knowledge(arcana), streetwise, etc. that it would benefit the character as a resource.

Kyle Simons wrote:

Thanks, I had considered that but I think the easiest way to approach the other skills is pre-Duel of Wits. For example, if the PCs are gathering information about a certain NPC before confronting him the GM might have them roll up checks pertaining to the situation, whatever they may be: streetwise, knowledge, sense motive, etc. Depending on how well they make the checks, the GM can add points to their disposition before engaging in a Duel of Wits.

This makes more sense to me because having more information won't make the PCs any more or less eloquent, it just might help them and give them a leg to stand on in their body of argument. It also works better so that I can keep the system nice and simple

Perhaps you might treat it as a synergy bonus?

For example: a spellcaster is engaging in a Duel of Wits on the subject of magic. The character's skill level in Knowledge (arcana) or Spellcraft is 5 or more, granting a +2 synergy bonus to his Diplomacy, Intimidate, or Bluff checks. Since he knows something about the subject, the relevant skill should provide some sort of bonus.

Perhaps a pre-duel Bluff check for characters who don't know anything about the subject but are going to try to engage in a Duel of Wits anyway. Make a Bluff check against the opponent's Perception check. If the check succeeds he gets a +1 situational modifier to Duel of Wits rolls for every 5 full points over his opponent's roll. If he fails the Bluff check, he suffers -1 to all rolls in the Duel for every 3 points the opponent beats his Bluff roll.

I really like your idea. I'm already thinking of ways to incorporate this into my games. Thanks!

[Kyle Simons]

M. Balmer wrote:

Uchawi wrote:

Nice approach, it would be beneficial to add in other skills to the pool, or to the roll, so if you are an expert in an area like knowledge(arcana), streetwise, etc. that it would benefit the character as a resource.

Kyle Simons wrote:

Thanks, I had considered that but I think the easiest way to approach the other skills is pre-Duel of Wits. For example, if the PCs are gathering information about a certain NPC before confronting him the GM might have them roll up checks pertaining to the situation, whatever they may be: streetwise, knowledge, sense motive, etc. Depending on how well they make the checks, the GM can add points to their disposition before engaging in a Duel of Wits.

This makes more sense to me because having more information won't make the PCs any more or less eloquent, it just might help them and give them a leg to stand on in their body of argument. It also works better so that I can keep the system nice and simple

Perhaps you might treat it as a synergy bonus?

For example: a spellcaster is engaging in a Duel of Wits on the subject of magic. The character's skill level in Knowledge (arcana) or Spellcraft is 5 or more, granting a +2 synergy bonus to his Diplomacy, Intimidate, or Bluff checks. Since he knows something about the subject, the relevant skill should provide some sort of bonus.

Perhaps a pre-duel Bluff check for characters who don't know anything about the subject but are going to try to engage in a Duel of Wits anyway. Make a Bluff check against the opponent's Perception check. If the check succeeds he gets a +1 situational modifier to Duel of Wits rolls for every 5 full points over his opponent's roll. If he fails the Bluff check, he suffers -1 to all rolls in the Duel for every 3 points the opponent beats his Bluff roll.

I really like your idea. I'm already thinking of ways to incorporate this into my games. Thanks!

Yeah, something like that would work as well if you wanted to do it that way but I think just adding or subtracting from the disposition pool makes sense to me and is a lot less finicky in terms of trying to keep it as simple as possible. We'll see if it survives play though! I'm glad you like the idea if you use it or tweak be sure to let me know how it went down.

[Austin Morgan]

This reminds me of the Debates in the Romance of the Three Kingdoms games (at least in one of them).

You might want to check it out for some ideas.

I believe the one I'm thinking about is number 10... but I could be mistaken :P

I do, however, almost always support the idea of achieving goals with more than a simple skill check. And this is definitely one of those times :)

[Kyle Simons]

Austin Morgan wrote:

This reminds me of the Debates in the Romance of the Three Kingdoms games (at least in one of them).

You might want to check it out for some ideas.

I believe the one I'm thinking about is number 10... but I could be mistaken :P

I do, however, almost always support the idea of achieving goals with more than a simple skill check. And this is definitely one of those times :)

Romance of the Three Kingdoms? Is that an rpg or are referring to the online games, novels? Anyway glad you liked what you saw!

[golden pony]

What's this 'battle of wits' thing anyway?

[SuperTKO]

Interesting, I tried incorperating a system like this for debates for a Rokugan game that I ran about a year ago but the game disbanded before the system was finished and it was lost in the mass of papers.

My system was different from yours though. Mine worked a lot like combat segment.

First off, everyone had a Social HP and Social AC. I forget how I calculated each exactly. I know the HP was based on a level plus a charisma modifier (I'm vaguely remembering 6 + Charisma modifier per level of any class, except courtier which I gave 10 + Charisma modifier). Social AC was calculated weirdly too and changed depending on what you were defending against. It was a base of 10 + your honor (Rokugan Only however) + relevant skill or save + 1/2 level I believe.

But basically it worked like this. You had your Social HP and your Social AC. You considered to have won the debate once you reduced the your opponent's SHP to 0. Basically it means you have either made such a good point that your opponent couldn't refute or you convinced him that what you are saying is correct.

You would roll an Intelligence to see who would go first. Whoever went first made a social attack. The social attack could be very different depending on what you were using, and it was almost always a skill check with modifiers, and sometimes a fail effect, or the bad thing that would happen if you failed the roll.

So you would make your roll and it would have to meet or beat your opponent's Social AC. If you didn't, it means it was an automatically failed attempt and you immediately suffered the drawbacks and took 1d6 points of social damage. If you succeed, your opponent took social damage, which was dependent on what you used. Then it was your opponent's turn to attack.

There were are a lot of things you could do that could help you that increased your Social AC. Like, for instance, instead of attacking, you could "counterpoint" which increased your Social AC by 5. You could "test of knowledge" which turned it into an opposed roll and whoever lost took the damage. Or you could even threaten someone's life or make wild claims that gave you a minus to "hit" on your social attack and increase the social damage dealt (like a verbal power attack). Some allowed you to make an social attack and if you succeeded you got a bonus on your next attack roll, or gleamed information out of your opponent (such as his social AC, his Social HP, or the ranks in certain skills.) To social recovery which you could heal yourself.

The failure drawbacks were mild to wild. A lot of it was social damage, but some gave you penalties to certain attacks from the rest of the encounter. I do believe I a few where you could "kill yourself" socially if you failed.

It was an interesting system and I'm sad I never got to use it, because I believe it had so much potential. I had at least drafted 30 different actions you could take and with different levels. From "Little White Lie" that did minor damage which suffered no drawbacks (other than the 1d6 for failing to meet the Social AC) to "Impossible Claim" which you took a -20 to your roll to deal 10d6 damage to your opponent, but I believe the drawback was far worse.

Well anyway, I hope this helped at least a little. Good luck.