If you've never seen the Mentalist, it's a show about a con artist, who pretended to be a psychic, and he works for the police. He uses his fake psychic con, as well as many other mental tricks and manipulations, to screw with everyone's head and thus solve the crime. I enjoy the show alot, as I'm a fan of heroes who win by trickery and cunning.
Anyhow, I believe the trick that fake psychics use to con people is called the "Cold Read". This feat is my offering on how it could work in a D20 system.
Please provide criticism and/or feedback.
Cold Read
With a successful Cold Read, a character can learn anything that the target knows or remembers. However, the target may realize that a Cold Read is occurring (by successfully making a Sense Motive roll DC 20 for a “hunch”) and then apply his own bluff check to defeat the Cold Read, or simply end social interactions by leaving or by initiating violence, or resist it directly by making a Will save against the Cold Reader, DC is the same as the Sense Motive roll.
A Cold Read only works on a creature who knows the language you are speaking.
Reminds me a bit of Lie to Me, too. Really cool show.
Requirements are fine for the flavor of this feat.
If I understand right, this works basically like Read Thoughts, in terms of it's scope anyway, but without a spell. I mean, reading someone's memories through conversation? It's not impossible, I guess, but seems hard as hell, which warrants the penalty.
Anyway...It seems to be a little...vague on how limited it is. It seems like I can learn an entire person's backstory over time. I would rather it be worded like this, with changed in bold.
By spending one minute in conversation, you can make a DC 20 sense motive check. If successful, you can guess one piece of personal information about the target. This information can be used in conversation to make a far-fetched Bluff check (-10) against the target. Through a mental trick of leading the target, you can learn valuable information under false pretenses, even without their speaking.
With a successful Cold Read, a character can learn any one thing that the target knows or remembers, that is pertinent to what the "Reader" is attempting to learn. However, the target may realize that a Cold Read is occurring (by successfully making a Sense Motive roll DC 20 for a “hunch”) and then apply his own bluff check to defeat the Cold Read, or simply end social interactions by leaving or by initiating violence, or resist it directly by making a Will save against the Cold Reader, DC is the same as the Sense Motive roll.
A Cold Read only works on a creature who knows the language you are speaking.
Thoughts?
Seams reasonable.
Technically the Cold Read can be done again and again to get more pieces of information, which makes sense.
Note that oftentimes the Cold Read gets alot of general information on the way to getting the "good stuff". It's like for the first while the con artist/"psychic" gets a numbers of items of info, starting vague and growing more accurate, while establishing credibility with more and more accurate guesses. Then they go for what they're after.
I really like this idea. with the modifications presented by TheRedArmy, I would love to use this feat in my own games.
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I like both the Mentalist and Lie to me and have studied NLP and I use it as a GM in my games. But I use it as a role playing angle, and as you have written the feat it seems to turn a "Role Playing" opportunity into a "Roll Playing" situation.
I think using sense motive, bluff, and diplomacy you can accomplish what your feat describes. You can already do a cold read without the feat.
Maybe a Cold Read feat could allow you to make a sense motive check on a hostile mob as if it was indifferent, or use it on an indifferent mob as if it was friendly, or give you a +4 to gather information on a friendly target. Maybe a generic +2 to sense motive and a +2 to bluff.
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I know this situation isn't exactly a cold read, but this is how it might work.
I don’t have my books so I can’t make real numbers checks but this should be close.
Assuming the mentalist is the top in his field and spent points in the applicable disciplines at every level and is lvl 10.
Cha of 18 (+4 Diplomacy) lvl 10 bard (+14 Diplomacy) and some feat that gives a +2 Diplomacy, that = a +20 to diplomacy which makes it plausible to reach those DC 30+ checks for dealing with hostile people.
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The mentalist walks into the questioning room where the drug dealer suspected of murder is being held.
Drug Dealer=Unfriendly (-10 to diplomacy, gather info, bluff)
The Mentalist says he doesn’t like cops and shows the dealer a card trick. (Diplomacy check, -20 penalty due to Unfriendly opponent). The mentalist makes a DC 20 (30?) diplomacy check (Check to take a unfriendly target to indifferent)
Drug Dealer is now Indifferent.
The Mentalist offers the Drug Dealer a smoke and says that he thinks the drug dealer is innocent of murder (Trying to get the drug dealer to friendly to give the mentalist a bonus to diplomacy checks) The Mentalist makes a DC 13 Diplomacy check (DC 15 with a +2 bonus for the smoke)
Drug Dealer is now friendly, the mentalist now gets +5 to sense motive, bluff, and diplomacy checks.
Now the mentalist asks the Drug Dealer (Who is at friendly and a diplomacy check is now at a DC 10 so no need to roll) “Who do you think killed Mr. Winkles?”
Friendly Drug dealer makes his own knowledge local roll (The dealer has 3 skill points and 2 stat points for a +5) rolls a 17+5=22. Drug dealer gives a solid lead. Or the drug dealer fails his knowledge roll and offers the mentalist a gather information roll after a few hours back on the streets.
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The mentalist took away the negatives from Unfriendly, then got bonuses from Friendly, then got information that the dealer didn't want to part with initially.
Give us a situation where you are playing the part of the mentalist trying to do something, then us readers will play the part of the GM to tell you how to do it without the feat.
See, without the feat, here's how I would see it going.
The bluffs are there to put on the act that you know everything already. It's one thing to simply say this stuff, but it's another to convince someone that you're in their head, or already put it all together.
Bluff: I know where you were. You weren't at your alabi.
(Sense Motive: Confirm that he's hiding something - hit!)
(Sense Motive: Going by what he wears, how he carries himself... he's a partier; a hedonist)
Bluff: I'm hoping you were enjoying yourself
(Sense Motive: Sees the momentary guilty look ; hit!)
Bluff: I don't suppose you got lucky that night, did you?
... bam! Without the guy even saying anything, I figured out he lied about his alabi, and that he was out on some pleasurable adventure. The fact that he lied means either he did something shameful he wants to hide, or that he has something to do with the crime. I'd lean more toward shameful acts, since association with a crime would also be a shameful act... and play that angle.
The problem is, in a game, it's not fair to have all the players sitting around for 20 mins while one player and the GM hash this out.
So, the feat is there to do 2 things:
(a) ensure that even a stingy GM can't deny the option for a cold read - now there's a feat for it.
(b) to turn a truckload of rolls over minutes, into 2 contested rolls.
I also considered it a feat because it's one of those things that only rare people have the gift for. However, it can be argued that it's also very rare for someone to be highly trained in both deception (bluff) and social perception (sense motive).
Here's my next draft. I made it less "you know everything" as suggested, and also added an intro paragraph, and finally added a search-the-room option.
Cold Read
To begin a Cold Read, make a Sense Motive check, DC 20. If successful, you analyze the target well enough to figure out some vague truths about them. This information is used to make a far-fetched Bluff check (-10) against the target, making leading or suggestive statements of knowing private or secret things about them. The target’s body language, behavior and appearance alone are enough - the target doesn’t even have to speak to fall into this trap. A Cold Read only works on a creature who knows the language you are speaking; the target needs to understand what you are saying.
With a successful Cold Read, a character gets to know the target very well, exploring intimate details of how they think and what their life is like. After creating this rapport, the Cold Reader gets circumstance bonuses of +5 on any diplomacy and +2 on any later sense motive checks with the subject, and also extracts the one desired piece of information. However, the target may realize that a Cold Read is occurring (by successfully making a Sense Motive roll DC 20 for a “hunch”) and then apply his own bluff check to defeat the Cold Read, or simply end social interactions by leaving or by initiating violence.
One other use for a Cold Read uses a Sense Motive check not only on a target, but also on a personal space. For example, a Cold Reader could walk into someone’s bedroom or personal study, observe the decor and belongings, the positioning of personal items, and then have a rough sense of how the resident thinks. This allows the use of the initial read (DC 20 sense motive check) to give a +2 circumstance bonus on any perception checks in searching the room to find things which the resident has hidden or stowed.
I don't like the idea of paying a feat for this, because anyone with decent social skills should be able to do this. If you really wanted a feat, I'd say more like
Cold Reading
Prerequisites: 4 ranks in bluff, 4 ranks in sense motive
Description: If you spend at least one minute in conversation with a person, gain a +4 to your sense motive check to know one specific piece of information about them. If you use this piece of information in conversation, gain a +4 to bluff checks against that person.
Personally, I'd let the use of a Cold Read not require a feat in my games. I'm more making this as a feat for other GMs, thinking mostly about those that are strict on barring what skills "don't mention".
In my houserules compilation, I have a note under the feat title: (Optionally Open; if the GM prefers, there is no need for the feat to perform these actions)
Nice, Malignor. I think you really hammered it out well. Nice work.