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Okay, so maybe I'm missing something here, but the 'hunch' use of the sense motive skill, a DC 20 check to get...
Hunch: This use of the skill involves making a gut assessment of the social situation. You can get the feeling from another's behavior that something is wrong, such as when you're talking to an impostor. Alternatively, you can get the feeling that someone is trustworthy.
This seems amazingly powerful. Let's say a player is playing a spy type character, and encounters an enemy in their stronghold. The player has a massive bluff check, great disguise, and is all ready to go. The guard rolls a DC 20 check for sense motive, does he automatically detect them as an impostor or that they are untrustworthy? Does the player even get to roll any of his skills? Like I said, maybe I'm missing something here. Thanks for your feedback.
-Xavier
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i guess it just bugs me that you could have a perfect disguise, succeed at your bluff check, do everything right, and he can still just know this person is untrustworthy. what if you're posing as someone they know, fool them, but they make their hunch roll? what happens then? do they dismiss it, or does it allow them to KNOW for certain (meta, i know, but still) that something is up?
It's a hunch.
It might tell you that something is off about that guy, but a gut instinct should just tell you that he's being shifty. Telling that he's an imposter outright would be Bluff (or Disguise) on the part of the other guy.
Or perhaps Sense Motive vs Bluff/Disguise. A high enough Sense Motive would give you a hint, but nothing concrete. Maybe your disguise/story passes for now, but he's still suspicious in general?
Remember that it doesn't tell you exactly what is wrong, just that something is fishy. The guard will be more alert/suspicious so will maybe take an extra thorough look at the papers, pull the character aside for a more thorough questioning or make a bit of a background check. It's a setback, but not an insurmountable problem. Maybe make the player sweat a little, ask for another bluff checks at a +5DC or allow the guard to take 20 on his linguistics skill as he double (and triple) checks the paperwork is legitimate. In a more chaotic evil stronghold a random murder and a bluff check to a less suspicious passerby might be the way forward.
Glibness-
"I am not suspicious at all."
"Oh, right, carry on."
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That's why the best spies are not One-Skill-Ponies...
Invest some ranks in Diplomacy, too.
Guard: Hmmmm, I have a hunch that this guy is acting a little weird. "Hey, you, what's your problem, anyway?"
Spy: "Nothing, my good man. Why do you ask?"
Guard: "Why are you here? By who's authority?"
Spy: "Well, the duke sent me to stock of how the local lord is running things around here, captain."
Guard: "I ain't no captain."
Spy: "Oh, really? A sharp, observant guy like you? Maybe you should be. Anyway, as I was saying, the Duke sent me. Say, do you favor your local lord? Is he a good man?"
Guard: "Well, yes, I suppose so. Why?"
Spy: "Well, you didn't hear this from me, good fellow, but one of the counts at court has taken deathly ill and the duke is looking to enlarge a smaller lord to that title. Count that is. He thinks your lord might be the right man for the job. I could really use your opinion, good sir guard, you being such a sharp and clever fellow. I have just a few questions about your lord and I'm ever so sure I'll be making a glowing report to the duke. Now, let's talk..."
A decent bit of fluff and flattery and that guard's hunch goes right out the window and the spy actually gets the suspicious guard to tell him everything he wants to know.
So no, don't fear the hunches. Somebody with some ranks in sense motive should get a hunch now and then. But it's not admissible in court and a decent bluff or diplomacy should sweep it right back under the rug where it belongs.
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I think this is realistic. Sometimes you just see certain people and they give you a bad feeling. It sets of your spidey sense. But you can't prove anything, you just have this pit in your stomach, the hackles on the back of your neck that tell your something aint quite right.
It doesn't negate the spies abilities, but merely mean one person is suspicious of you. However, without proof he can't convince anybody else. And, other people are likely to ignore the person unless he has proof (which he doesn't).
RPG Superstar 2009 Top 32, 2010 Top 8
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Plus... Not everyone who has something to hide is a spy.
Think about the following scenarios:
Guy getting past guard
Busy social event
Interrogation
All three could trigger hunches without being a spy
Man is trying to get past the guard for a romantic tryst.
Woman at the social event unexpectedly sees a rival, or an ex.
Man bein interrogated doesn't have anything to do with the crime, but does have something non related to hide.
It is an assist, not spy-be-gone.
Okay, so maybe I'm missing something here, but the 'hunch' use of the sense motive skill, a DC 20 check to get...
Hunch: This use of the skill involves making a gut assessment of the social situation. You can get the feeling from another's behavior that something is wrong, such as when you're talking to an impostor. Alternatively, you can get the feeling that someone is trustworthy.
This seems amazingly powerful. Let's say a player is playing a spy type character, and encounters an enemy in their stronghold. The player has a massive bluff check, great disguise, and is all ready to go. The guard rolls a DC 20 check for sense motive, does he automatically detect them as an impostor or that they are untrustworthy? Does the player even get to roll any of his skills? Like I said, maybe I'm missing something here. Thanks for your feedback.
-Xavier
Assuming the guard has a 0 for sense motive - it will depend...
Did your player have less than a 20 on their bluff check?
Then by RAW no - you can't critical or auto fail a skill check - a 1 can still succeed and a 20 isn't an automatic succeed. When used against a player it's always an opposed check - the DC 20 is for non opposed rolls.
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Personally, I think the DM should make this roll in secret when players want a hunch.
Guards don't draw their swords and point it at a commanding officer or the Earl on a hunch. A hunch might result in making sure the person has proper identification, or if they don't the 'spy' will need to bluff about why he doesn't have it. This roll will determine getting by with disguise alone, or having to make a bluff or other skill check to secure your cover.
I agree with those that say it should be based on the other guy's skill. Otherwise, by midlevels a person who wants to be good at sense motive automatically knows that an equally skilled guy isn't trustworthy. I absolutely agree that they should automatically hunch unskilled/low-skilled people. But a social scenario between expert courtiers should be as tension-filled as a good combat between expert warriors.
It also comes down to the GM: how much information is "a hunch"? Just a feeling that "something is a little off"? You don't have to give away much on a successful Sense Motive roll.
On the other hand, you don't want to screw players who invest in it either. (Which is why I hate these mechanics in RPGs. It becomes a judgment call all the time!)
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Okay, so maybe I'm missing something here, but the 'hunch' use of the sense motive skill, a DC 20 check to get...
Hunch: This use of the skill involves making a gut assessment of the social situation. You can get the feeling from another's behavior that something is wrong, such as when you're talking to an impostor. Alternatively, you can get the feeling that someone is trustworthy.
This seems amazingly powerful. Let's say a player is playing a spy type character, and encounters an enemy in their stronghold. The player has a massive bluff check, great disguise, and is all ready to go. The guard rolls a DC 20 check for sense motive, does he automatically detect them as an impostor or that they are untrustworthy? Does the player even get to roll any of his skills? Like I said, maybe I'm missing something here. Thanks for your feedback.
-Xavier
You are indeed missing something.
You seem to be under the impression that Sense Motive says it tells you if someone is an impostor.
It does not say that.
It says that you can get the feeling that something is wrong. It then lists an example of something that could trigger that feeling that something is wrong. It never says (or even implies) that you'll know whether it was that thing or a different thing that triggered your feeling that something was wrong.
So if you're talking to an impostor, a DC 20 check will give you the feeling that something's wrong. This will not reveal whether the thing that's wrong is that this is an impostor, or that she's hoping you don't ask where she's going right now, or that he's got the last pastry behind his back, or what.
You just know something's wrong, so maybe you investigate further.
I agree with those that say it should be based on the other guy's skill. Otherwise, by midlevels a person who wants to be good at sense motive automatically knows that an equally skilled guy isn't trustworthy. I absolutely agree that they should automatically hunch unskilled/low-skilled people. But a social scenario between expert courtiers should be as tension-filled as a good combat between expert warriors.
No, it most definitely should not be.
Sense Motive is opposed by Bluff when the suspicious person is actively trying to deceive the guy sensing his motives. That requires activity, at least a full-round action or more:
Deceive or Lie: Attempting to deceive someone takes at least 1 round, but can possibly take longer if the lie is elaborate (as determined by the GM on a case-by-case basis).
So IF the bluffing guy is doing this, then yes, absolutely, the motive sensing guy should have to beat the opposed bluff check.
But that is NOT what the "hunch" is. The hunch is set, BY RAW, at 20. Not an opposed roll. This for a very good reason, because the guy is spending at least a minute, up to possibly an entire evening to get this hunch about an entire social situation. If somewhere in that social situation there is a suspicious spy who, so far, has NOT actively tried to deceive this guy trying to get a hunch, then this guy has no opposed roll to check against - he's just relying on his own gut instinct. DC 20 is pretty hard for ordinary people, certainly high enough that ordinary people won't rely on it.
Only the very wise, or those who put some investment into Sense Motive, or both, are going to rely on their hunches and even then, they still won't know anything more than "Gosh, that fella over there just seems a little off."
So if you're talking to an impostor, a DC 20 check will give you the feeling that something's wrong. This will not reveal whether the thing that's wrong is that this is an impostor, or that she's hoping you don't ask where she's going right now, or that he's got the last pastry behind his back, or what.
You just know something's wrong, so maybe you investigate further.
This is probably true if you're talking to that imposter about the weather, or about the peculiar seasoning in the porridge.
But if that imposter is making any effort at all to deceive you, and spending at least a round on his bluff check, then you are going to need to beat the opposed check. It seems unintended that you should do both, check to see if you have a hunch that something is off AND check again, with the same skill, to sense the actual bluff - that is probably the incongruous situation the OP and a few others on this thread are worried about.
Which probably is not what you intended; I'm merely pointing out where a distinction should probably be made.
Well that's just weird. I guess I'm fine if the spy is an imposter, but in my gaming experience, as well as a viewer/reader of spy novel/movies is very often a spy isn't an imposter, he is exactly who he says he is, it is just that in addition to whatever his cover job is, he is also spying. So the placed spy is a secretary for the embassey of the other country being spied upon is indeed a real life secretary with the skills and necessary resume for the job secretary.
Yes, he's a spy, but he's also really a trained secretary - so is he really an imposter? The only thing he is imposing is that he is only doing secretary work, which is not the whole truth, but it is true.
Now if the spy is a PC, more than likely, it is fulltime spy profession. However, most spies (NPCs) are recruited from actual positions. Persons who currently have the clearance, skils and experience to be where they've been assigned, however due to need of funds for personally reasons or issue of desperation, a handler has turned the selected individual to gather information in exchange for money (some needed reward) while working that official position. Being a secretary with a separate personal agenda, is not really an imposter.
I ran a PC as a spymaster. He didn't actually spy himself, rather he spent is time recruiting the kind of people described above - he made spies out of ordinary people. One of his recruits was the lieutenant to the city guard. He had been a loyal member of the city guard for nearly 20 years, until his brother also in the king's army was arrested for gambling debts, that turned out to actually be a false accusation against the brother by his commander for corruption reasons. My character promised he'd help get his brother released if this lieutenant would just provide some information. Efforts were indeed made (hired an attorney, tried diplomatic channels) to clear the brother so the spy could be kept on the take. After a time, not being able to get the brother released, his role as a spy would be revealed if he didn't continue spying, but eventually the spymaster has to cut the cord and evacuate the city with his ill gotten information.
I cannot see how this kind of spy could be considered an imposter. So would hunch detect anything?
All Hunch does is create story-telling and role-playing opportunities. It leads the guard to asking questions instead of just letting the spy walk through the gate unmolested. Perhaps the guard watches him a few seconds longer once he enters the gate. Or harasses the spy in the pub later that night. But a good Bluff build will overcome that (probably). What's the fun of a good build if you assume everything is automatic? RPGs are about story-telling; story-telling is about drama; Hunch creates drama. Its doing its job.
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That's why the best spies are not One-Skill-Ponies...
Invest some ranks in Diplomacy, too.
Guard: Hmmmm, I have a hunch that this guy is acting a little weird. "Hey, you, what's your problem, anyway?"
Spy: "Nothing, my good man. Why do you ask?"
Guard: "Why are you here? By who's authority?"
Spy: "Well, the duke sent me to stock of how the local lord is running things around here, captain."
Guard: "I ain't no captain."
Spy: "Oh, really? A sharp, observant guy like you? Maybe you should be. Anyway, as I was saying, the Duke sent me. Say, do you favor your local lord? Is he a good man?"
Guard: "Well, yes, I suppose so. Why?"
Spy: "Well, you didn't hear this from me, good fellow, but one of the counts at court has taken deathly ill and the duke is looking to enlarge a smaller lord to that title. Count that is. He thinks your lord might be the right man for the job. I could really use your opinion, good sir guard, you being such a sharp and clever fellow. I have just a few questions about your lord and I'm ever so sure I'll be making a glowing report to the duke. Now, let's talk..."A decent bit of fluff and flattery and that guard's hunch goes right out the window and the spy actually gets the suspicious guard to tell him everything he wants to know.
So no, don't fear the hunches. Somebody with some ranks in sense motive should get a hunch now and then. But it's not admissible in court and a decent bluff or diplomacy should sweep it right back under the rug where it belongs.
There's something close to this now in the rules. The Giant Hunter's Handbook of all places added this combined use of Bluff and Diplomacy:
Suggest Course of Action
You can use Bluff and Diplomacy together to make a request of a creature, without it even realizing you have made the request.
Check: You can gradually coax a target into thinking a suggestion is entirely its own idea, making the creature more likely to act on the idea than if you had suggested it outright. You discuss topics subtly relevant to the request, asking leading questions and narrowing the scope of the conversation so that the target eventually decides to take a specific action you have led it to.
You first attempt a Bluff check to convince the target that your request was actually its idea. This is always treated as far-fetched circumstances, resulting in a –10 penalty on the check. If successful, you then attempt a Diplomacy check to make the request of the creature, treating its attitude toward you as indifferent for this single request (regardless of its actual attitude).
Action: Planting a notion and then coaxing a target into suggesting the notion himself each require at least 1 minute of continuous interaction. This can be difficult to arrange with a hostile or unfriendly creature.
I really want to build a character around this now. The -10 on the Bluff check makes it hard to pull off at low levels, though.
Ah.
Well that's just weird. I guess I'm fine if the spy is an imposter, but in my gaming experience, as well as a viewer/reader of spy novel/movies is very often a spy isn't an imposter, he is exactly who he says he is, it is just that in addition to whatever his cover job is, he is also spying. So the placed spy is a secretary for the embassey of the other country being spied upon is indeed a real life secretary with the skills and necessary resume for the job secretary.
The hunch detects "that something is wrong, such as when you're talking to an impostor." I think there's still something wrong if the embassy secretary is secretly in the pay of the bad guys and transferring information to them.
That said, you get "a hunch" that there's something wrong. This doesn't tell you what it is. Maybe the secretary's an impostor, maybe the real secretary is also a spy, or maybe the secretary is running a drug ring under the cover of diplomatic immunity. So all you know is that there's an adventure hook involving this guy.
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Well that's just weird. I guess I'm fine if the spy is an imposter, but in my gaming experience, as well as a viewer/reader of spy novel/movies is very often a spy isn't an imposter, he is exactly who he says he is, it is just that in addition to whatever his cover job is, he is also spying. So the placed spy is a secretary for the embassey of the other country being spied upon is indeed a real life secretary with the skills and necessary resume for the job secretary.The hunch detects "that something is wrong, such as when you're talking to an impostor." I think there's still something wrong if the embassy secretary is secretly in the pay of the bad guys and transferring information to them.
That said, you get "a hunch" that there's something wrong. This doesn't tell you what it is. Maybe the secretary's an impostor, maybe the real secretary is also a spy, or maybe the secretary is running a drug ring under the cover of diplomatic immunity. So all you know is that there's an adventure hook involving this guy.
That's not eve necessarily true with the adventure hook thing. The embassy secretary could just be cheating on his wife with a foreign diplomat. Sure it would reveal some illegal activity, but I wouldn't call it a plot hook in of itself.
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The CRB doesn't describe rules for a cloak-n-dagger game. It describes a tolkien-esque fantasy game.
As such, if a cloak-n-dagger plotline comes up in an individual adventure, perhaps the GM will just allow a sense motive to get hints about who's the hidden spy in the current plotline. He might do this out of convenience because it's the closest rules already established that cover that out-of-genre territory.
OTOH, if the GM is actually running a cloak-n-dagger style campaign, the mechanics of sense motive (and bluff) deserve to be fleshed out in greater detail, and it'd be entirely inappropriate to suss out a mole simply by virtue of a single sense motive check.
But if that imposter is making any effort at all to deceive you, and spending at least a round on his bluff check, then you are going to need to beat the opposed check.I never said otherwise. I'm curious what your understanding of my post is.
Your post was fine. I even said that I didn't think you were saying otherwise.
It's just that you described a situation where two people are talking and one of them gets an unopposed Sense Motive check for a hunch - but that leaves out the possibility that, during that talk, one of those guys is actually trying to deceive the other one. Clearly, that would be two different conversations, but you didn't make that distinction, so I made it for you - not because I thought YOU misunderstood, but just because I thought the thread would be better for anyone reading it if the distinction were explicitly called out.
That's not eve necessarily true with the adventure hook thing. The embassy secretary could just be cheating on his wife with a foreign diplomat. Sure it would reveal some illegal activity, but I wouldn't call it a plot hook in of itself.
It would still be a plot hook, just a red herring - a hook that goes no where, leading you on a wild goose chase.
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Also, it's worth remembering that hitting a DC20 check reliably is a pretty tall task for your average guard. While a level 1 character could do it if they were completely dedicated to the task (take 10 + 4 from skill ranks and class skill + 4 from stats + 3 from skill focus) your average guard who even bothers to invest skill points will need to be around levels 8-10 (fighter or warrior, take your pick) to do it reliably (take 10 + 8-10 ranks + 0-2 from stats). At that level, they should logically have no problems sniffing out shenanigans.
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Also, it's worth remembering that hitting a DC20 check reliably is a pretty tall task for your average guard. While a level 1 character could do it if they were completely dedicated to the task (take 10 + 4 from skill ranks and class skill + 4 from stats + 3 from skill focus)
I would never call this guy an "average guard". With more WIS than most clerics and dedicating a feat to what basically amounts to "people watching", I'd call this guy a detective. Or a psychologist. But far from an average guard.
your average guard who even bothers to invest skill points will need to be around levels 8-10 (fighter or warrior, take your pick) to do it reliably (take 10 + 8-10 ranks + 0-2 from stats). At that level, they should logically have no problems sniffing out shenanigans.
He's not an "average guard" either. This is the wizened old watch captain who's been on the job for 30 years. He's seen it all by now and is way too experienced to be fooled by any but the best mastermind criminals.
Your "average guard" will pretty much never have more than 1 point of WIS bonus (more than 1 and he's well above "average"), and he'll probably have no more than 1-2 ranks in Sense Motive (because he also needs Perception, Intimidate, and Knowledge(local) with at least as high if not higher priority than Sense Motive. And no class bonus. At best, maybe +3 or +4 on the roll at the end of his career - more than that and he's above "average".
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Also, it's worth remembering that hitting a DC20 check reliably is a pretty tall task for your average guard. While a level 1 character could do it if they were completely dedicated to the task (take 10 + 4 from skill ranks and class skill + 4 from stats + 3 from skill focus)I would never call this guy an "average guard". With more WIS than most clerics and dedicating a feat to what basically amounts to "people watching", I'd call this guy a detective. Or a psychologist. But far from an average guard.
BlackOuroboros is not claiming that guy as the guard, rather a 1st level PC that puts all his skill points towards Sense Motive checks being compared to a normal guard. You're conflating the two, but BlackOuroboros is clearly comparing two very different things, a guard and a highly specialized 1st level PC.
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Also, it's worth remembering that hitting a DC20 check reliably is a pretty tall task for your average guard. While a level 1 character could do it if they were completely dedicated to the task (take 10 + 4 from skill ranks and class skill + 4 from stats + 3 from skill focus)I would never call this guy an "average guard". [...] He's not an "average guard" either.
I believe that's BlackOurobouros' point.
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OTOH, if the GM is actually running a cloak-n-dagger style campaign, the mechanics of sense motive (and bluff) deserve to be fleshed out in greater detail, and it'd be entirely inappropriate to suss out a mole simply by virtue of a single sense motive check.
Except that you can't "suss out a mole simply by virtue of a single sense motive check." If you're actually running a cloak-n-dagger style campaign, then one of the defining tropes of that genre is that nothing is as it seems and that everyone is hiding something.
In such a campaign, the ability to use Sense Motive to detect that something is wrong here is --- literally -- useless. It's like the ability to detect evil at will when the campaign itself is set in the Abyss.
OTOH, if the GM is actually running a cloak-n-dagger style campaign, the mechanics of sense motive (and bluff) deserve to be fleshed out in greater detail, and it'd be entirely inappropriate to suss out a mole simply by virtue of a single sense motive check.
Except that you can't "suss out a mole simply by virtue of a single sense motive check." If you're actually running a cloak-n-dagger style campaign, then one of the defining tropes of that genre is that nothing is as it seems and that everyone is hiding something.
In such a campaign, the ability to use Sense Motive to detect that something is wrong here is --- literally -- useless. It's like the ability to detect evil at will when the campaign itself is set in the Abyss.
That's pretty how I run all my games. Consider that in my first published Kaidan module, The Gift (from Curse of the Golden Spear), by the end of the first "chapter" everyone the PCs run into belong to a different organization, each with a secret agenda, some potential allies, many potential enemies - but everyone is hiding something. The vast majority of commoners due to heavy taxation is trying some means of tax evasion. Making a Sense Motive check will always hit with "something wrong" even if that wrongness is something fairly innocent.
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First off, while I think DM_Blake's suggestion is reasonable, the rules aren't particularly clear on how to deal with a Hunch check vs opposed Sense Motive/Bluff. As written, if you spend a minute observing or interacting with another person you can make a DC 20 hunch check independent of whether or not that person is making any specific opposed Bluff checks.
So if someone introduces themselves as Duke Fancypants of Castletopia, they can roll a 40 Bluff, and you will believe that they're Duke Fancypants - but if you roll DC 20 for your hunch you get the feeling that something is wrong with the Duke (Maybe he's being blackmailed? Is plotting against me?) and therefore are inclined to investigate further. While this might not be a total failure, it's a big problem - a lot of spying relies on not raising suspicion in the first place.
Allowing a hunch only for someone not actively trying to deceive you isn't a simple fix, either. If Duke Fancypants is attending a party, odds are good he'll be observed by a lot of courtiers he's not actively trying to deceive. If we assume 10 courtiers make hunch checks, and each courtier has a modest +4 bonus, then 2-3 courtiers are expected to make the check and at least one of them will probably investigate further.
If my 14th level Kitsune bard with a +30 bluff modifier (pre-Glibness) impersonates a nobleman at a party, it should not be probable that some 1st level aristocrat would sense something wrong, let alone a forgone conclusion.
It should also probably scale better in the other direction. If my 12th level inquisitor with a +25 Sense Motive check is chatting with a barmaid who is secretly in love with him, he should be able to get a better sense of the situation than "she's acting a bit funny."
The Hunch works OK if you don't have a lot of intrigue and no one has terribly high skill modifiers, but it breaks down if anyone actually invests in those things past about level 8.
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As written, if you spend a minute observing or interacting with another person you can make a DC 20 hunch check independent of whether or not that person is making any specific opposed Bluff checks.
Why would you get to do both?
Retry? No, though you may make a Sense Motive check for each Bluff check made against you.
With no retry, and only one Bluff being used against you, you can use Sense Motive only once: to oppose that bluff or to get a hunch but not both.
Further, I submit, if someone is using Bluff against you, then YOU don't get to decide to sense a hunch or sense his deceit. He does. He bluffed you, no roll your sense motive to see his bluff or forever believe his lies. You would only get a hunch when you're observing someone who has something to hide but isn't actively trying to hide it from you right now.
This is based on:
Bluff is an opposed skill check against your opponent’s Sense Motive skill.
If somebody uses Bluff against you, it IS an opposed skill roll against your Sense Motive. Period. You don't get to say "Nah, I don't wanna beat his Bluff; I'm just gonna roll against DC 20 to get a hunch."
So if someone introduces themselves as Duke Fancypants of Castletopia, they can roll a 40 Bluff, and you will believe that they're Duke Fancypants - but if you roll DC 20 for your hunch you get the feeling that something is wrong with the Duke (Maybe he's being blackmailed? Is plotting against me?) and therefore are inclined to investigate further. While this might not be a total failure, it's a big problem - a lot of spying relies on not raising suspicion in the first place.
No, they roll their 40 bluff and you (unknowing of that roll or even that bluff is being used) can decide:
a. Believe it. No motive sensing at all.b. Carefully observe his word choice, posture, gestures, eyes, skin tone, vocal patterns, etc., and try to determine if he's lying. Use Sense Motive to find out by rolling against DC 40. If you succeed, you know this guy just deceived you.
If you fail with b well, too bad. You're done. One Bluff. No retries.
Allowing a hunch only for someone not actively trying to deceive you isn't a simple fix, either.
It's not a fix. It's the rule. If he uses Bluff, you can only use Sense Motive against his opposed Bluff check. Period.
If Duke Fancypants is attending a party, odds are good he'll be observed by a lot of courtiers he's not actively trying to deceive. If we assume 10 courtiers make hunch checks, and each courtier has a modest +4 bonus, then 2-3 courtiers are expected to make the check and at least one of them will probably investigate further.
Maybe. Why is that so bad?
IF Duke Fancypants went up to each of them and deliberately bluffed them, they would each get a Sense Motive check anyway. Odds are, some of them might make it, so he would probably only do this if he is secure in his mighty bluff skill and expects to deceive them so well that they will all fail to sense his motives. That's not without risk, because if even one of them beats him, they have way more than a hunch - they have certain knowledge that he's deceiving people.
Besides, this only applies if Duke Fancypants is just standing around eating hors d'ovres. If he's parading about, acting like duke, introducing himself to all and sundry, etc., then that IS his Bluff attempt and now everyone has to sense his opposed bluff check. No hunches allowed.
If my 14th level Kitsune bard with a +30 bluff modifier (pre-Glibness) impersonates a nobleman at a party, it should not be probable that some 1st level aristocrat would sense something wrong, let alone a forgone conclusion.
Correct. He needs to beat your opposed bluff check because you are trying to deceive him, right?
If you're just sitting at a bar, drinking your beer, and he observes you for a minute, he might be able to pick up some unconscious clues that you're not what you seem. That's a hunch.
But if you are trying to convince him that you're a nobleman, you're using Bluff so he MUST oppose that.
It should also probably scale better in the other direction. If my 12th level inquisitor with a +25 Sense Motive check is chatting with a barmaid who is secretly in love with him, he should be able to get a better sense of the situation than "she's acting a bit funny."
If she's openly in love with him, then he's gonna know it when she plants a big old smooch on him. No skill checks needed. But if she's secretly in love with him, then she's trying to hide it so she's bluffing. Roll your opposed Sense Motive check. If you succeed, you'll know she's pretending not to love you.
The Hunch works OK if you don't have a lot of intrigue and no one has terribly high skill modifiers, but it breaks down if anyone actually invests in those things past about level 8.
Nope. It works if you remember that it cannot be used to oppose a bluff.
It's only useful in mundane circumstances.
Ever seen Inglorious Basterds?
Then the one guy orders some more drinks. He's not even trying to bluff, he's only trying to get drinks. But he screws up and the officer gets an unopposed sense motive roll. He makes it and now he has a hunch.
He tests that hunch with a threat and the good guys reveal themselves.
Maybe not a perfect example, but it's the first that came to mind.
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Haven't seen it, but that scenario sounds exactly like the problem I have.
A person with a massive bluff modifier should be too good at staying in character to slip up while ordering drinks.
Remember, we're talking about someone with a +30 modifier, capable of casually convincing someone of the impossible (which applies a mere -20 on the bluff check). As "real" people, the characters in the movie are probably looking at +15 at most, appropriate for a 5th level character with 18 cha and skill focus.
EDIT: As for the rules issue.
Retry? No, though you may make a Sense Motive check for each Bluff check made against you.With no retry, and only one Bluff being used against you, you can use Sense Motive only once: to oppose that bluff or to get a hunch but not both.
So if no one tries to bluff you, you get no Sense Motive check and therefore no ability to get a hunch?
There are clearly situations in which the number of Sense Motive checks you can make are greater than the number of Bluff checks made against you.
Further, I submit, if someone is using Bluff against you, then YOU don't get to decide to sense a hunch or sense his deceit. He does. He bluffed you, no roll your sense motive to see his bluff or forever believe his lies. You would only get a hunch when you're observing someone who has something to hide but isn't actively trying to hide it from you right now.
This is based on:
Bluff is an opposed skill check against your opponent’s Sense Motive skill.If somebody uses Bluff against you, it IS an opposed skill roll against your Sense Motive. Period. You don't get to say "Nah, I don't wanna beat his Bluff; I'm just gonna roll against DC 20 to get a hunch."
Generally speaking, you get one skill check per task you are trying to perform.
For example, if you are trying to tumble to avoid AoO and jump to clear a gap in the same turn, you make two Acrobatics checks, one vs your opponent's CMD and one with a DC independent of your opponent.
Getting a hunch (which is not an opposed check) and opposing a bluff check are listed as two separate uses of the Sense Motive skill. There is nothing clearly indicating that the two uses are mutually exclusive. It is not illogical nor clearly forbidden to both make a Sense Motive check to oppose the bluff "I am Duke Fancypants" and to make a Sense Motive check to get a hunch about the general social situation in the conversation you are having with him.
In fact it makes sense that you could get the general idea that there was something off about Duke Fancypants without being able to tell that he lied about being Duke Fancypants. It just doesn't make sense as a flat DC.
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So if someone introduces themselves as Duke Fancypants of Castletopia, they can roll a 40 Bluff, and you will believe that they're Duke Fancypants - but if you roll DC 20 for your hunch you get the feeling that something is wrong with the Duke (Maybe he's being blackmailed? Is plotting against me?) and therefore are inclined to investigate further. While this might not be a total failure, it's a big problem - a lot of spying relies on not raising suspicion in the first place.
That's good spying.... but it's a lousy spy novel. And a good (real) spy wouldn't impersonate the Duke in the first place, precisely because the Duke is too visible and will be watched too closely.
I'm quite serious, by the way. Last time I was at the Pentagon (business trip, long story, whatever), I was amusing myself by playing insignia bingo. I noticed the general officers, the generals and admirals with stars on their shoulders, and so did everyone else. They were surrounded by a cloud of lackeys, their own and everyone else's. If I needed to learn something, I'd do it as an ordinary field grade officer, in the same way that the best spot to hide a grain of sand is on the beach. Or even better, I'd do it as myself by simply putting together a lot of interview transcripts.
Spy novelists know this, by the way, which is why they're careful to make sure that there are lots of people around with large flashing SOMETHING'S WRONG signs above their head, so that you don't notice the lesser but still real motive of the real antagonist.
So the first question is whether you want to run a realistic spy story, or a fun one. If the answer is "realistic," then just buy a copy of the New York Times and ask your players to find the coded message in the financial listing. That's what real spy work is like. If you want something more theatrical, just remember that everyone has something they want to hide.
* I do a Sense Motive check on the Duke.
* Hmmm. It appears that there's something he's trying to hide.
* I do a Sense Motive on the Duke's butler.
* Hmmm. It appears that there's something he's trying to hide. Maybe it's related.
* I do a Sense Motive on the Duchess.
* Hmmm. It appears that there's something she's trying to hide. It's not clear what.
* I do a Sense Motive on the Baron.
* Hmmm. It appears that there's something he's trying to hide, but you're not sure from whom.
* I do a Sense Motive on the Baron's daughter.
* Hmmm. It appears that there's something she's trying to hide. Possibly NOT related to what the Baron himself wants to hide.
* I do a Sense Motive on the Duke's horse.
* Hmmm. It appears that there's something it's trying to hide.
* I do a Sense Motive on myself.
* Hmmm. It appears that there's something you're trying to hide. Possibly related to clinical paranoia, or possibly related to obsessive-compulsive disorder.
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And that's where it would be useful for Hunch to scale on the sense motive side. With a DC 30-40 check you might notice that the baron's daughter is trying to hide something from her father, but wants to talk to the duke about it, and that whatever the butler is hiding has something to do with the duke's horse. This is not itself enough to unravel the full story: The baron and the duchess have arranged for the baron's daughter to marry the duchess' cousin, but the baron's daughter prefers her riding instructor and hopes the duke will intercede on her behalf (the duke is a known romantic). The baron, unbeknownst to his daughter, discovered the relationship and had the riding instructor polymorphed into a horse, which was then sold to the duke. The duke discovered these events by chance when he used Speak with Animals on the horse and is plotting with his butler to assist the lovers in spite of his wife. Meanwhile, the duchess is hiding her own sorcerous powers, which she manifested as a young girl and which she suspects are of infernal origin...
However, it gives the canny character a bit more to go on when investigating and rewards investment in a skill.
I think that rewarding investment in a skill is a good idea, especially if you can do so without trivializing an encounter.
Also, while real spies don't often impersonate someone with a high profile it does sometimes happen, it's something that's really fun to pull off as a character who has heavily invested in Bluff, and it's a gambit that is often vulnerable to just a little suspicion.
And that's where it would be useful for Hunch to scale on the sense motive side. With a DC 30-40 check you might notice that the baron's daughter is trying to hide something from her father, but wants to talk to the duke about it, and that whatever the butler is hiding has something to do with the duke's horse.
So, you're complaining that by rolling dice, you can bypass the mystery, and your solution is you want to roll more dice and bypass more of the mystery?
This is a problem, and the solution is to make it worse!
As written, if you spend a minute observing or interacting with another person you can make a DC 20 hunch check independent of whether or not that person is making any specific opposed Bluff checks.Why would you get to do both?
Retry? No, though you may make a Sense Motive check for each Bluff check made against you.With no retry, and only one Bluff being used against you, you can use Sense Motive only once: to oppose that bluff or to get a hunch but not both.
Further, I submit, if someone is using Bluff against you, then YOU don't get to decide to sense a hunch or sense his deceit. He does. He bluffed you, no roll your sense motive to see his bluff or forever believe his lies. You would only get a hunch when you're observing someone who has something to hide but isn't actively trying to hide it from you right now.
This is based on:
Bluff is an opposed skill check against your opponent’s Sense Motive skill.If somebody uses Bluff against you, it IS an opposed skill roll against your Sense Motive. Period. You don't get to say "Nah, I don't wanna beat his Bluff; I'm just gonna roll against DC 20 to get a hunch."
I don't think this holds up. Retry refers to trying the same task more than once. If you're attempting two different tasks - even with the same skill - it's not a retry.
Forming a hunch is a different task than opposing a Bluff check, as per the Sense Motive skill description.
Same as if you roll two Heal checks on the same character, one to treat a disease and one to treat a poison. It's not a retry, it's two different tasks using the same skill.
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And that's where it would be useful for Hunch to scale on the sense motive side. With a DC 30-40 check you might notice that the baron's daughter is trying to hide something from her father, but wants to talk to the duke about it, and that whatever the butler is hiding has something to do with the duke's horse.So, you're complaining that by rolling dice, you can bypass the mystery, and your solution is you want to roll more dice and bypass more of the mystery?
This is a problem, and the solution is to make it worse!
No, I'm complaining that the relative skill of the characters involved in getting a hunch is irrelevant. A character with a very high sense motive should be able to understand peoples' motives with a little more depth, and the motives of a character with a very high bluff should be harder to read even when they're not directly lying to someone.
People invest in Sense Motive in order to bypass mysteries (or at least get a leg up on solving them). People invest in Bluff in order to be mysterious. A good system supports both those things.
I'm working on rewriting these skills and I'm treating the hunch a bit like a knowledge check, where you get an additional detail for every 5 points by which you exceed the hunch DC (which is partly determined by the bluff skill of the target in the same way a knowledge DC depends on CR). That way the amount of information you get is related to the difference between your skill and that of the person you're trying to read - and the most meaningful contests will be between people of similar skill, just like in a combat scenario. Of course, real social combat would involve multiple rolls but I think this is still a step in the right direction.
Knowledge checks seem to work pretty well in that they can provide important clues or tactical tips and scale fairly well even with very high check results, but don't spoil adventures. You just have to build the adventure with the assumption that the PCs will have access to certain clues early on and make sure that finding out who, what where is only half the problem - the other half is what to do with it. Do you help the baron's daughter elope, do you mediate between her and her matchmakers, do you try to convince her that the political match really is the best idea? And if you uncover the duchess' secret in the process, do you tell her husband?
Honestly, this bugs me more on the GM's behalf than the players'. What if I want to trick them? What if an NPC is supposed to be smooth and likeable? Even if he's 10th level and has a maxed Bluff with Skill Focus, it doesn't matter depending on how you treat Hunches. And once the players hear a "fishy feeling", their hackles go up. They're going to treat that hunch with as much weight as if they saw him kicking babies, because as players, they know exactly what a hunch means. Hunches can't lie. Hunches are a simple DC.
My solution: Roll the Hunch check for them. Don't let them Take Ten on it. As long as they have less than a +19 Sense Motive, this will work to cause some uncertainty.
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I dunno about anyone else, but to me 'impostor' generally means someone pretending to be someone else (specifically, someone you know).
That's not actually what most spies do, and I'd be much less inclined to let people get a hunch about someone who they've just met and seems plausible than the guy who's impersonating their friend Joe.
Which isn't to say that hunches aren't or shouldn't be useful, but I wouldn't allow one to spot a well-entrenched spy. That guy's not nervous, and from his perspective nothing is wrong.
Sense Motive is about reading body language and understanding human nature, and I wouldn't allow a hunch in circumstances where those don't help (so, I'd let you get a hunch to spot the nervous guy infiltrating a party for the first time...but not the guy who infiltrates a party every week). Now, assassination, the assassin is always gonna be nervous or excited to some degree, so a hunch could spot them (as 'something off' anyway)...but standard spying from a professional? Nah.