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I've never run into this in the various groups I've DMed but remember, Bluff is an opposed check and Circumstance modifiers need to be applied.
Even if the PC has a great roll Bluffing the guard that the PC is the King's brother, the guard may have a significant Circumstance modifier that helps his Sense Motive.
You may have an awesome Bluff, I may tell my Players, but the NPC's gonna likely get a +10 or something on his Sense Motive -- HE'S A GUARD!
In other words: you're a well-known minister of the king, you have a high Bluff and no Diplomacy, and you want to see the king; but he has forbidden the throne room to anyone. You have better time saying that you're the king's father, or his brother or son, or his jester, or anything except the truth: that you have to see him as a minister. I'm asking for a confirmation about this nonsensical fact.
IF the king's brother/father/son/relative has a better ability to breach the King's orders than a minister of the king on official court business, then there's probably a good explanation for it, like the relative is equally powerful in the administration of the realm as the King, or was granted a special exception.
IF there is no reason for a relative of the king to be exempt from the order, I should hope that the DC to bluff one's way past the Guard (regardless of whom one is trying to impersonate) is at least as hard as the DC for a bona-fide Minister to Diplomacize his way in. (Note, bona-fide Ministers should usually get a circumstance modifier to their Diplomacy checks for this sort of thing, I would think. In my games, anyway.)
In other words, yes, the situation you describe is either out-of joint because the GM failed to provide the Guard or the Minister with the proper circumstance modifier, OR is perfectly reasonable due to factors that are not immediately apparent.
It strikes me, though, that a Minister with a high Bluff and no Diplomacy would be better off telling the guard something along the lines of "Fool, for whom do you think His Majesty is waiting in there? Open up, and speak of my passage to no-one, by His Majesty's orders." To me, this makes perfect sense for Minister McBluffington to say.
In other words: you're a well-known minister of the king, you have a high Bluff and no Diplomacy, and you want to see the king; but he has forbidden the throne room to anyone. You have better time saying that you're the king's father, or his brother or son, or his jester, or anything except the truth: that you have to see him as a minister. I'm asking for a confirmation about this nonsensical fact.
Not at all. This is what skill check modifiers are about. If you are a well-known minister you take a huge penalty to bluff about who you are, unless you also disguise yourself. Furthermore, if the king says "Let noone in," even if you have a terrible diplomacy skill, you should get a skill modifier that would increase your chances based on the situation. The point that everyone is making here is that, yes having a higher bluff than diplomacy means you are better at lying than convincing someone using the truth, however, the GM is always the final arbiter on such matters. Therefore, it won't matter how good a liar someone is, you can make it impossible for them to pass on a bluff if the situation warrants it.
If you read the Bluff rules in the CRB, it answers your question for you.
some lies are so improbable that it is impossible to convince anyone that they are true (subject to GM discretion)
emphasis mine.
What this means is that the GM should rule that no matter how high you roll on Bluff NO ONE IS GOING TO BELIEVE YOU. The guard knows every person who comes in and out of the King's private chambers b/c he's been posted there every night for the past 10 years. If you try to bluff past him, he's not going to bother making his opposed SM check, he's just going to run you through and ask questions later (see speak w/ dead).
The Difference between Bluff and Diplomacy, and Intimidate for that matter, isn't the mechanics of the check but the results after the fact. Diplomacy is using persuasion to sway the target into seeing your point of view, this should have little or no negative repercussions.
Bluff is lying. In some cities lying can get you hanged. At the very least the guard you bluffed is going to be pissed when he figures out he's been tricked and he's going to alert the guards or try to take it out on you himself
Intimidate allows you to force someone to do something against their will and they will immediately hate you for it. Be careful intimidating the guard b/c you might just find a knife in your back the second you walk past him.
While mechanically speaking it may perhaps be easier to dupe someone than it is to persuade them (which I think is true in real life anyway, just look at American politics), that has no bearing on how the skills are used. If you're basing your choice of skills on which mechanics seem easier in a social situation, you are no longer roleplaying, and missing a large point of the game.
+1
If you allow Bluff to do the same, you end with absurd situations like this:
No, that's what with you end up if you allow absurd situations.
A common form of bad arguing is to state that something leads to some sort of overexxageration and then argue as if that is the only logic consequence. It's called "strawman argumentation", please stop that.
As for the topic, just think about if something looks right. Just use common sense, there can be misunderstatements but these will always be the first time someone plays with a new DM.
You use diplomacy when you're telling the truth, and bluff when you're lying.
This is a very common misconception. Bluff is used to tell a lie convincingly, not just to lie in general. Diplomacy has nothing to do with whether you're telling the truth, lying, or doing interpretive dance.*
You can use this skill to persuade others to agree with your arguments, to resolve differences, and to gather valuable information or rumors from people. This skill is also used to negotiate conflicts by using the proper etiquette and manners suitable to the problem.
Diplomacy is to make people like you, or listen to you, or tell you what you want to know. It usually applies over a longer term than a single exchange, but when applied in the short term, it represents saying whatever you want to say correctly.
If you said you were the king's brother, and you clearly weren't, you can roll your Bluff, and if you roll really well, you might be so convincing that the guard believes you anyway - at least until he has a chance to think and reevaluate. On the other hand, if you said you were the king's brother, and someone had cast a spell on you to try and hide you away, the guard might be more likely to believe you.
If you were in that situation and you truly were the king's brother under a polymorph spell, you wouldn't need to roll Bluff at all. You're automatically convincing, because you're telling the truth. Again, whether or not the guard believes you is another question, but he at least believes you believe it. You wouldn't roll Diplomacy to convince him of the truth.
What you would roll Diplomacy for, regardless of whether or not are the king's brother, is either A) to know not to go barging in on the king when he's left orders to be alone (in which case you wouldn't even try the guard); B) to know (or fake) the correct protocols to get the guard to let you in despite his orders (Maybe messengers from the sick queen's doctor have standing permission to barge in at any time); or C) to do something that makes the guard more favorable to you (a bribe, or promise of a promotion, for example).
Intimidate is the actual opposite of Diplomacy, not Bluff. Intimidate and Diplomacy are both about convincing people to behave differently, one through fear, the other through social pressure. Bluff is just about telling good lies, which can support either one of those two.
OK, how about this situation:
You are a PC with excellent bluff and terrible diplomacy. You know a halfling assassin is about to kill the king, who is asleep.
Guard: "The king does not wish to be disturbed!"
Now, going by 'you use bluff to lie convincingly', if you say, "The king is about to be attacked by a halfling assassin!" you can't use your bluff skill, because you're telling the truth. So what you must do instead is say, "The king is about to be attacked by a gnome assassin!" That's a lie, so you can use your bluff skill, and it will be more convincing than if you'd told the truth, even though they're both equally plausible on paper.
What would be a common-sense way for the GM to handle this situation?
OK, how about this situation:
You are a PC with excellent bluff and terrible diplomacy. You know a halfling assassin is about to kill the king, who is asleep.
Guard: "The king does not wish to be disturbed!"
Now, going by 'you use bluff to lie convincingly', if you say, "The king is about to be attacked by a halfling assassin!" you can't use your bluff skill, because you're telling the truth. So what you must do instead is say, "The king is about to be attacked by a gnome assassin!" That's a lie, so you can use your bluff skill, and it will be more convincing than if you'd told the truth, even though they're both equally plausible on paper.
What would be a common-sense way for the GM to handle this situation?
That's still a diplomacy roll. What you are trying to truthfully convey is that the king is about to be assassinated.
One you've established that premise, it would be bluff check to convince the guard that it is a gnome assassin and not a halfling assassin.
If the character is no good at persuading others through reasoning to see their side, then it is fine from a game mechanics and RP situation to try to get the guard to believe something else to achieve the same effect, IMHO.
PC: [Diplomacy] Let me through to the king, he's about to be assassinated.
Guard: Yeah, right.
... Or ...
PC: [Bluff] The King sent for me for a late night meeting. Here's his summons note [Holds up Dr. Who Psychic Paper].
Guard: Hmmm, I'm always the last to know about these things. Go ahead.
OK, how about this situation:
You are a PC with excellent bluff and terrible diplomacy. You know a halfling assassin is about to kill the king, who is asleep.
Guard: "The king does not wish to be disturbed!"
Now, going by 'you use bluff to lie convincingly', if you say, "The king is about to be attacked by a halfling assassin!" you can't use your bluff skill, because you're telling the truth. So what you must do instead is say, "The king is about to be attacked by a gnome assassin!" That's a lie, so you can use your bluff skill, and it will be more convincing than if you'd told the truth, even though they're both equally plausible on paper.
What would be a common-sense way for the GM to handle this situation?
You seem to be confusing "lie convincingly" with "being convincing". The first is "He's telling me the sky has turned orange with green polka dots, and he seems to be dead serious. He's probably drunk, but there might really be something strange going on... maybe I should check it out." The later is "Wow, he told me the sky has turned orange with green polka dots, and I believe him without checking." Bluff as written seems to be the latter, but it really should be the former.
In my games, I usually modify bluff slightly to handle this. Instead of "If you use Bluff to fool someone, with a successful check you convince your opponent that what you are saying is true." I change it to "If you use Bluff to fool someone, with a successful check you convince your opponent that you believe what you are saying is true."
It's a very small change, but it makes my job a lot easier. A failed sense motive roll means that the guard is 100% convinced that you're speaking the truth as you know it, but as always, that doesn't mean you're speaking the actual truth. You could be misinformed. You could be magically deluded. You could have misinterpreted something you overheard. But you're so convincing in your belief that the target is compelled to act however he would if you were actually telling the truth.
In your scenario, that would mean that whether you told the absolute truth or whether you changed a detail and then bluffed really well, he would react the same way. Depending on the guard and how it was presented, it could be "Alarm! Alarm! There's an assassin around!", it could be laughing in your face, or it could be a "Wait here while I get my captain."
What Bobson said.
A successful Bluff causes the target to act as though you were telling what you believe to be the truth.
How would the guard act if you truthfully came to him with the information you are currently lying to him about? That's the question, and Diplomacy (which determines how convincing you are in getting the guard to understand and agree with your position) gives us our answer.
Whether you come to the guard babbling about a "gnome assassin" or a "halfling assassin", the guard is going to react in the same way based on his opinion of you -- based on your Diplomacy check.
All Bluff does is let you use a lie in your interactions with an NPC as though the lie was the truth.
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To the OP: the problem lies with the fact that the Bluff checks are opposed with Sense Motive, which is a more elegant system than the weird "Diplomacy / Intimidate Fixed DC" system.
In my opinion, Diplomacy and Intimidate should be opposed by a skill check as well.
Here is my proposed solution, in order to balance the system:
Step 1: Diplomacy and Intimidate should be rolled into one skill, say the "INFLUENCE" skill (Cha-based). There's no reason why one wouldn't be able to roleplay out his character's emotion (i.e. whether he's being angry, smoldering, creepy, rich, noble-like or charming when trying to influence someone... the only important part is that he's good at it or not) when he tries to influence someone. Why the need to spell this out via TWO skills? This takes one skill out of the mix and allows characters to put points in the new skill proposed in Step 2;
Step 2: Add a new skill, say the "JUDGEMENT" (Wis-based). This skill effectively lets one evaluate one's flourishes and sees the true value of one's claim / request / proposition. Why wouldn't you oppose an INFLUENCE check by another INFLUENCE check? first it's mechanically bad as everyone would max out INFLUENCE regardless of it being a class skill or not, and second it allows for true interactions at high levels, and yes, even between PCs.
As for feat/PrC prereqs, INFLUENCE ranks can substitute any prereq that was previously Intimidate or Diplomacy. JUDGEMENT ranks or Sense Motive ranks or a combination of both can substitute any prereq that was previously Sense Motive (i.e. yes, you get a bit of a break that way, since JUDGEMENT has less use than Sense Motive in the game).
I'm very tempted to playtest this in my home campaign. Let me know what you think.
PDK