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What kind of screwed up world has a penalty as a reward?Finally found it.
GMs are always encouraged to reward role-playing and flavor when adjudicating the reactions of NPCs or the outcome of ingame encounters.There you go. Carte Blanche*. The masks flavor can be used to adjudicate outcomes.
*okay, not really carte blanche, but certainly ample justification for imposing a -2 penalty, or for giving NPC spellcraft checks, or other stuff.
My thoughts exactly when I read this. It says GMs are given leeway to rule in favor of the players and not against them.
Have people that have been fighting so hard for a penalty on this item really been talking about a -2? If this is the case I can't imagine this ever actually even mattering. If your goal is to bump bluff, it is ridiculously easy to outpace someone else's sense motive to the point where the dice, let alone a -2, barely matter.
The entire time I have been reading this, I have been thinking people have actually been talking about imposing penalties that would cause a person to fail. While I think the minus anything for it is out of line in PFS, I also think it would be virtually in inconsequential in this matter.
As for the people saying a player must remove the mask to speak, do you also have people leave all weapons at the door for every building they ever walk in?
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Matthew, if good roleplay or appropriate flavor can get you a reward, then bad roleplay or inappropiate flavor is rewarded with what it deserves.
Or are you saying I can go up to the Grand Duchess, spit in her tea, call her a troll, wipe my nose with her dress, and then roll my +15 diplomacy skill with no modifiers?
I only believe what the guide says. I know its a hard quote to read but I can only keep typing it.
If an encounter is a trap, haunt, or skill check that needs to be achieved to bypass a situation then the listed DCs and results are not to be altered, as they are the mechanics of that encounter.
There isn't really more to be said. If a chat with the duchess is required to continue the mod and diplomacy of DC X is called out then the GM is not allowed to change it. Its really not hard. You don't need to make up a straw man argument. You don't get to fail the party because they are wearing a mask, brought a barbaian with them, or are tieflings.
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You don't get to fail the party because they are wearing a mask, brought a barbaian with them, or are tieflings.
You don't get to fail them, no, but you might adjust for their 'preparations'. Why is it we buff for combat and spend ages thinking through the ins and outs and preparing ourselves for contingencies, yet with Diplomacy/Intim/Bluff we make few/no prior preparations and then insist on an unadulterated check?
Is it because Diplomacy is only something that can happen to NPC's and not players? I think we'd be having totally different conversations if Diplomacy was something players had to defend against.
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I think we'd be having totally different conversations if Diplomacy was something players had to defend against.
Yes. We would be talking about Not Pathfinder.
Edit: For example in Fate one takes social stress, engages in social combat and can achieve intermediate values of success. Skill checks in pathfinder are simple gateways of success \ fail. You can't have a hard won debate in Pathinfer (at least not without seriously modding the rules - as a few scenarios have done with moderate success).
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Matthew, if good roleplay or appropriate flavor can get you a reward, then bad roleplay or inappropiate flavor is rewarded with what it deserves.
Or are you saying I can go up to the Grand Duchess, spit in her tea, call her a troll, wipe my nose with her dress, and then roll my +15 diplomacy skill with no modifiers?
Do you think it was an accident they left the penalty part out, or they wanted to save words and expected everyone to extrapolate and form the same conclusion?
Actually if I recall, the GM 201 guide specifically says you should not penalize a player for bad roleplay, you are to accept that the character is more diplomatic than the player.
However, if the character is actively hostile or unfriendly against another person that seems like a good reason to treat them as hostile or unfriendly.
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The entire time I have been reading this, I have been thinking people have actually been talking about imposing penalties that would cause a person to fail. While I think the minus anything for it is out of line in PFS, I also think it would be virtually in inconsequential in this matter.
As for the people saying a player must remove the mask to speak, do you also have people leave all weapons at the door for every building they ever walk in?
While I'd never auto fail for wearing a mosd, I'd most certainly auto fail people for some things. The example of somebody spitting in a drink while making a diplomacy check above is a good one.
As an aside, I let the players describe their actions and tell me what they're saying but it is I who decide if they roll against diplomacy, bluff or intimidate (I'll let them change their actions if the don't like my interpretation).
And yeah, I've forbidden PCs from taking some weapons and some armours into some buildings.
Circumstances and player decisions matter. Sometimes a little, sometimes a lot, and sometimes they completely dominate
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A Bluff doesn't usually have a DC. It's an opposed roll vs. the target's Sense Motive. However, as Pete pointed out:
Bluff checks are modified depending upon the believability of the lie. The following modifiers are applied to the roll of the creature attempting to tell the lie. Note that some lies are so improbable that it is impossible to convince anyone that they are true (subject to GM discretion).Examples of Circumstance bonuses and penalties:
Any PC from Irrisen who makes her origins known, suffers a –10 penalty on any of the checks below.If any PCs <redacted>, the party receives a +2 circumstance bonus on Diplomacy rolls to negotiate...If the PCs choose not to participate <redacted>, the party suffers a –5 penalty on any future Diplomacy checks.if any PC offers <redacted>, the party gains a +5...
Circumstance bonuses which are specifically written as part of the adventure are very different from an ad-hoc +/-2. Would you limit your penalty to the wearer of the mask to the usual ad-hoc circumstance penalty or would you start making up DM fiat to completely change the check possibly even going so far as to deny the player the chance entirely as some people here are advocating doing.
In the context of PFS one of those things is ok and one of them absolutely is not.
Venture-Captain, California—Sacramento
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The entire time I have been reading this, I have been thinking people have actually been talking about imposing penalties that would cause a person to fail. While I think the minus anything for it is out of line in PFS, I also think it would be virtually in inconsequential in this matter.
As for the people saying a player must remove the mask to speak, do you also have people leave all weapons at the door for every building they ever walk in?
While I'd never auto fail for wearing a mosd, I'd most certainly auto fail people for some things. The example of somebody spitting in a drink while making a diplomacy check above is a good one.
Yup. My weapon stays outside most doors unless I am expecting a fight. :) (It's a gecko) The rest of my gear is a quick draw shield, and a whip, and a crossbow, all of which stay stowed (and I would probably part with everything but the shield if asked.) My character b@#~@es an moans about it, but I the player am cool. (bad things have happened with alarming consistency when he is parted from his mount.)
The assorted alchemy vials, potion vials, explosive reagents are mostly stowed in his back back, and that you are not getting away from him, unless the adventure involves infiltrating a bathhouse.
So, certainly for some social interactions, I would be fine with people taking a penalty on social if they were inappropriately armed, and I expect the penalty to be there, and take measures to negate it, even if the GM wasn't planning on it.
For example, when having traveled several days to talk to very touchy people, my character first made a diplomacy check to convince them that it would be better if we could go somewhere to freshen up, rather than offending them with our road dirt.
So yeah, I buff before social combat. :)
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Yup. My weapon stays outside most doors unless I am expecting a fight. :) (It's a gecko) The rest of my gear is a quick draw shield, and a whip, and a crossbow, all of which stay stowed (and I would probably part with everything but the shield if asked.) My character b@@$$es an moans about it, but I the player am cool. (bad things have happened with alarming consistency when he is parted from his mount.)
The assorted alchemy vials, potion vials, explosive reagents are mostly stowed in his back back, and that you are not getting away from him, unless the adventure involves infiltrating a bathhouse.
So, certainly for some social interactions, I would be fine with people taking a penalty on social if they were inappropriately armed, and I expect the penalty to be there, and take measures to negate it, even if the GM wasn't planning on it.
For example, when having traveled several days to talk to very touchy people, my character first made a diplomacy check to convince them that it would be better if we could go somewhere to freshen up, rather than offending them with our road dirt.
So yeah, I buff before social combat. :)
All this sounds very reasonable. I have to admit that I was very surprised when our GM let us walk armored into what was probably that same bath house.
I am not against the odd circumstance penalties so much as I am against intentionally gimping something or a flavor tax.
EDIT: Speaking of flavor tax, about a year ago I was GMing for a guy that had a reach weapon, a monk kick, and cleave. At the time I would not let him hit someone with the reach weapon and then cleave with the kick because of the fluff text about how cleave works. If you read just the mechanics he was in in the right. Since that time I have come to regret that decision and think that I ruled wrong against him in a PFS environment. I have had a pretty big paradigm shift between what I expect from a home game and what I expect from organized play.
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I admit I am somewhat more sympathetic if the GM is not applying situational penalties for other things but is for the mask.
I'd absolutely agree with you there, FLite.
I think that the thing about the mask in particular in social situations is that the cosmetic alterations it applies to the character are really kind of creepy. If somebody came up to me in the street and began talking in an expressionless monotone, their face barely moving, I'd be a bit freaked out, regardless of whether their face looked like stone or not.
But I'd be equally freaked out if their hand was crackling with lightning (whether or not I could recognise they were holding the charge on a shocking grasp), or if they, say, kept playing with a dagger while talking to me.
For the examples I've offered, for the instance of the mask, I don't believe its cosmetic effects would be serious enough to shift the NPCs starting attitude for Diplomacy, so a circumstance modifier may be called for. For some NPCs (say, those used to dealing with adventurers!) the mask's effects may not cause them to bat an eyelid. For the lightning and the dagger, I think it'd be a circumstance modifier, or if the NPC thinks that the action is actively threatening, would likely shift their starting attitude for Diplomacy to Unfriendly or even Hostile.
In the end, appearances do matter. To take things to an extreme, you can't just walk up to the gates of Nerosyan wearing robes emblazoned with the unholy symbol of Deskari, wearing a helm that's shaped like the head of a locust, and expect the gate guards not to freak the hell out just because taking that action has no mechanical effects spelt out in the core rules or in the hypothetical scenario itself. Things like waving weapons around while trying to be diplomatic may result in lesser penalties than the above example, but it's the same kind of thing.