| 1 person marked this as FAQ candidate. |
There's a particular popular module that includes a terrified NPC who needs to be talked down to provide useful information. The text states:
"<<NPC>> begins the encounter with a hostile attitude toward the PCs, but a series of Diplomacy and Intimidate checks can calm him down."
In the Core Rulebook, the description of the Diplomacy skill reads:
Try Again: You cannot use Diplomacy to influence a given creature's attitude more than once in a 24-hour period.
How is it expected for a party to change this NPC's attitude from hostile? Does the CRB rule out the same PC with the highest Diplomacy making a series of attempts? Or does each PC need to make a check, and once that fails they must then use Intimidate checks?
When I ran this encounter, I allowed the same PC to make multiple Diplomacy checks. He made one failed attempt to calm down the NPC, then offered some wine from his backpack and spoke in soothing tones. (He's also a Psychology major!) I didn't see any reason to deny him further checks, so I allowed him more attempts.
Intimdate can be used to make an NPC behave as if friendly for 1d6X10 minutes, after which the NPC becomes unfriendly; I'd rule that while Intimidate is in effect a second character could use diplomacy to increase the NPC attitude to helpful, as in Good Cop/Bad Cop.
Is the module...
Is the module... ** spoiler omitted **
That would be correct. So yeah: if this module was published before Pathfinder's Diplomacy rules were finalized, am I to assume that the NPC's starting attitude would be better than Hostile?
How would we adjudicate an NPC who is initially Hostile, but it's possible for the PCs to make them Helpful? Say, the NPC thinks the PCs are someone else and are assured otherwise?
The Diplomacy rules, as written, seem unnecessarily rigid because they don't allow a single character to change an NPC's attitude more than 2 steps within 24 hours.
Intimdate can be used to make an NPC behave as if friendly for 1d6X10 minutes, after which the NPC becomes unfriendly; I'd rule that while Intimidate is in effect a second character could use diplomacy to increase the NPC attitude to helpful, as in Good Cop/Bad Cop.
That's a good work-around. But it seems strange to require my players to Intimidate an NPC just because the game mechanics require such, when reasoning with the NPC might make sense, too.
Honestly, having him be Hostile doesn't really fit the storyline. He's supposed to be freaked out by the deaths of his friends at the hands of the monsters, so I can see having him attack you when he first sees you, assuming you're some of the undead, but assuming you don't attack him back and make it clear that you're the guys he was prepping the dungeon for, (c'mon, Kassen's a small town, and everyone ought to know who the Questers for the Everflame are this time around), he ought to automatically default to friendly, especially if you offer to help him get out of there alive. I think the idea was to include a use of the Diplomacy skill along with all the other "Look at our new ruleset!" options, but it was poorly implemented, imo.
When I ran it, my PCs didn't have a healer, so I made Roldare a paladin and had the skeletons lock him in the storage closet on the first floor. By the time the PCs arrived, he had used his sword to chip away at the edge of the doorframe enough for him to slide his fingers through, so he became a healing ATM for the party. Dimitra, his fiancee, had the key to the closet, so they had to get to the end of the dungeon and fight the BBEG to let him out. The really funny part was that his LG sense of fair play meant he would only heal the PCs from damage incurred by things that weren't part of the prepared Quest for the Everflame; otherwise, it would be cheating since no one was supposed to help them through their rite of passage. So whenever they came back for a clw or lay on hands, he'd ask what they took damage from. "Giant beetle, huh? That's not supposed to be here. Okay." One time they came back, having taken damage from one of the traps that was part of the actual challenge, and he asked how they'd been hurt. Knowing his sense of morality, the players all glanced at each other around the table for a moment, then one of the PCs said, "Another damn beetle! Can you believe it?" I made him roll a Bluff, he got a natural 18, and he got his healing. :D
** spoiler omitted **...
Haha, that sounded fun. Well, it looks like I'll just defer to my common sense and decide sometimes to diverge from the RAW. I'll use the chart in the Diplomacy skill to help me to determine DCs.
But as for the rule barring a PC from influencing an NPCs attitude more than once a day? I'm chucking it. I just dont see a reason for it, unless someone can convince me otherwise.
But as for the rule barring a PC from influencing an NPCs attitude more than once a day? I'm chucking it. I just dont see a reason for it, unless someone can convince me otherwise.
I think the reasoning is that the DCs to influence NPCs don't scale with level. At 1st- or 2nd-level, sure, it's hard to abuse, but you get a PC like this* who's built for face skills, and if she rolls a 15, she can move a hostile NPC all the way to friendly in three minutes flat, just by taking 10 after the first roll.
I think the reasoning is that the DCs to influence NPCs don't scale with level. At 1st- or 2nd-level, sure, it's hard to abuse, but you get a PC like this* who's built for face skills, and if she rolls a 15, she can move a hostile NPC all the way to friendly in three minutes flat, just by taking 10 after the first roll.
** spoiler omitted **
Yes, I see the logic for single attempt to improve the NPC's attitude: to prevent abuse. I guess the problem in this particular situation is that the module described the NPC as starting off as "hostile," when in reality he was actually much closer to helping the PCs than this suggested.
If I were to run it again, I would roleplay the encounter and, if the PCs established who they actually were and not a threat, then the NPC would start off "friendly." Under the Core Rulebook rules, they could then make specific requests for help to a "friendly" character. If they wanted to improve their chances of getting help, they could make a Diplomacy check to improve his attitude to "helpful" first.