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It is annoying when people state the flatly untrue premise that any limits whatsoever in any way on an ability render it 'completely useless'. That there is some mythical binary state of usefulness where either bluff lets you turn the guard into 'The Chicken Man of Varisa' with a successful bluff, or the skill is completely useless.
No, I'm not saying it's binary. I'm saying it's arbitrary. Or, at least this impractical assumption that a GM can turn a success into a failure at a whim makes it arbitrary.
If there is a possibility that the GM could turn a successful bluff check into what is essentially a fail (the target doesn't believe what I said but he thinks I believe it - that's very much a failed outcome) then why even have the skill?
As long as this possibility exists, a failed roll means I fail, and a success means I might still fail at the GM's whim.
So ultimately, even if I roll a success, it's going to be GM's whim that decides if it works.
Why have the skill?
It would be easier to just roleplay the bluff and ask the GM if it works. Avoid the d20 entirely. Save the GM the trouble of rolling a Sense Motive and figuring out all the bonuses and penalties and comparing the values. Easier for everybody to just not even roll the dice. And if we're not rolling, we don't even need the skill.
If I jump over a ravine and roll a successful Acrobatics check and the GM says "You failed to jump over the ravine but you think you succeeded. You take 60 falling damage." I don't think I'd play in that game.
If I'm climbing a cliff and roll a successful Climb check and the GM says "You failed to climb the wall even though you think you succeeded. In fact you fall and take 60 damage." I wouldn't play in that game.
If I'm swimming and roll a successful Swim check and the GM says "You failed to swim even though you think you succeeded. You start to drown." I wouldn't play in that game.
And if I'm bluffing and roll a successful Bluff check and the GM says "You failed to bluff the guy even though he thinks you believe your own lie. He calls for the guards to arrest you." I don't think I'd play in that game.
TL;DR: Bluff cannot have special pleading. It needs to follow the same rules as everything else in this game: a success must be treated as a success. If it isn't, there is no point even having the skill; it would be neutered.
So let's see if we can wrap up this thread, because we're clearly not bringing up any more productive points.
Bluff is not mind control. It's not magical or supernatural or extraordinary in any way. However that does not mean it cannot achieve amazing and fantastic things.
Bluff is certainly not a binary. It's a roleplaying skill and is extremely arbitrary and situational. While a successful bluff versus somebody may not seem believable to us, it does seem believable to them and they will act accordingly. There has been more than one time where I basically knew just by personally judging the GM and an NPC that I was being lied to, but my character failed his sense motive roll so I acted accordingly.
Bluff is not mind control, but it can be very convincing.
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Honestly, I have to admit that I habitually play stealth, grapple and the social minigames according to rules that I make up on the spot.
I've yet to hear complaints about it. It's probably not fair, from a game-mechanics standpoint, but in-game, it works fairly well.
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Except the rule flat put says the upper bounds of bluff are arbitrary in that the GM decides what is truly 'inconcievable'. If you say that is the case and let them roll anyway, the outcome of the succesful roll is indded that they believe that you believe that
Nope, not for me. If a player wants to try something that I deem is impossible ("Hey, you're a chicken!") I just tell the player it won't work. If he still says it, I don't have him roll a Bluff check and then tell him what happens, I just tell him what happens (no roll, no success or failure determined by the dice and then potentially ignored by me). I just tell him what the guy does after being obviously lied to.
Or, in other words, if you walk up to a guard and say "You're a chicken!" he won't believe it, he won't think you believe it, he'll probably just ask what the heck you're talking about, or just tell you to move along because he doesn't have time for your nonsense.
Now, maybe, if you want to try a Bluff check to convince the guard that you believe he's a chicken, that might be possible. He's never going to believe he's a chicken but you might pull off a successful bluff that you're crazy, raving insane, and believe he's a chicken. Not sure why you'd do that, but if you tell me that's what you're trying for, I'll allow that bluff, and if you SUCCEED (on the roll) then you get a SUCCESS that it works. Congratulations, he thinks you're crazy.
But you'll never get that outcome from a SUCCESSFUL roll when you're trying to make him believe he's a chicken because that would be a FAIL result and more so because I won't even have you make the roll if you're trying something that impossible.
I have to go with DM_Blake here , if it is an impossible roll , then it is normal to not allow the player to roll in the first place , not allow him to roll and make it a failure dont matter the result.
Bluff is a skill rolled against sense motive , so there is no DC , but if you try this on a skill with DC , the player get a 20 and you tell him he just failed , he is going to get pissed.
I have seen this happen before , it is making someone annoyed for no reason really.
Personally, I think the player should be allowed to roll even if it's impossible to succeed, though the GM should saying something like "Are you sure you want to do that?" if the character can be expected to know how difficult a task is.
Personally, I think the player should be allowed to roll even if it's impossible to succeed, though the GM should saying something like "Are you sure you want to do that?" if the character can be expected to know how difficult a task is.
My take on that is that characters always know how difficult a task is. Or, more accurately, they always know their own ability to attempt a task, but some unknown variables might alter the difficulty (such as how good the guard's Sense Motive skill is).
But while a character always knows what he can and cannot do, with reasonable accuracy, the player doesn't always know. We assume Superman can fly through the sealed door of a bank vault, but only Superman knows for sure if he can do it or not - maybe HE knows it's impossible; all he'll do is smash the vault out through the wall and onto the street without him actually flying through the sealed door. Or maybe it would work. Superman probably has an accurate idea of what would happen even if his player doesn't.
So I tell the player what I'll allow and/or how difficult it will be. At least as much as he can know without revealing any unknown factors (did Lex Luthor line that vault door with lead and Kryptonite to raise the DC? - only one way to find out!)
But you said "if the character can be expected to know" so we're probably pretty much on the same page with this.
Yeah, the character always knows his limits (or at very least, has a very good approximate idea), but he might not know the actual difficulty of the task.
I quibble with the use of the term "impossible."
So the odds that a chicken could have been awakened, polymorphed into a human, and had its memory altered -- while very slim indeed -- are still far short of "impossible."
Hell, we have sorcerer bloodlines that say you're descended from something a lot more alien and bizarre than a chicken, and you actually become an outsider (or whatever) when you hit a certain level. In a world where that happens, the idea that you're actually descended from a squid-headed monstrosity and are eventually turning into an aberration might be less palatable than believing you're descended from a magical golden-egg-laying spirit chicken and eventually will become an intelligent chicken. In Roger Zelazny's Roadmarks, the main character
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Yes, I'd apply the modifier for "so unlikely that the Sense Motive check is almost a formality," but I don't think the word "impossible" is entirely accurate.
Personally, I think the player should be allowed to roll even if it's impossible to succeed, though the GM should saying something like "Are you sure you want to do that?" if the character can be expected to know how difficult a task is.
The problem with this is that it's completely GM dependent. What one GM says is impossible, another may allow. Since there's no way for the player to know how the GM will rule that particular use, I feel it's only fair to let them know ahead of time.
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I quibble with the use of the term "impossible."
Me too.
The core rules for Bluff say "Impossible" is only -20 but "very improbable" is not allowed the attempt.
That's backward. Apparently whoever wrote that needs a dictionary. I haven't checked my 3.5 or 3.0 books but I bet it said it there too.
In any case, reverse those and the rulebook makes more sense.
And I agree that in THIS game with wishes and other amazing magic, nothing is ever quite impossible.
So for my tastes, I redefine the table entry that says "Impossible" to mean "Impossible without real evidence". E.g., words alone won't succeed but evidence (even falsified evidence) can make it possible. And I define that bit about some things being so improbably that no roll is allowed to mean "Even with corroborating evidence the bluff is so improbable that people will disbelieve the evidence in front of their eyes before they believe your bluff".
With redefinitions like that, the Bluff rules work for me.
The other thing that's hard here is that, as a social skill, Bluff acts differently for PCs and NPCs. "He seems honest" is about as much as Bluff gives NPCs when they're opposed by PCs. But I'm pretty sure that's in the rules that PCs get to choose what they believe. Just like how NPC Diplomacy can't change their opinions.
That gives a good perspective on how strong a bluff should be.
Imagine that the adventuring party had been hired to protect Lord McGill from assassins. During the day they try to track down the assassins following clues that lead them into combat, and during the night they guard him while his loyal houseguard sleeps. They already killed one assassin who tried to sneak in under darkness.
At dawn, a serving woman showed up with breakfast tray for Lord McGill. An average roll on Sense Motive by the party's cleric said she was telling the truth. But when the cleric said to go in and deliver the tray, she balked and said, "We were told that you weren't supposed to let us into the room."
The in-game truth would be that the serving woman was an assassin dressed as a serving woman, the breakfast was poisoned, and the woman feared that Lord McGill would recognize that she is not on his kitchen staff. The GM had rolled one Bluff check for her before the game session. Should the GM ask the cleric to make a second Sense Motive check in order to detect the second lie? Or does the lie count as part of the successful first bluff?
Imagine the GM decided on a second set of Bluff and Sense Motive checks and the cleric failed again. But the player was alert now and the cleric told the woman that she can come in so long as he stands guard on her and to please put the tray down on the table beside Lord McGill. The woman followed orders. The GM rolled a Perception check for Lord McGill and a Disguise check for the woman, and Lord McGill was fooled by her disguise.
The cleric's player wanted to detain her until the houseguards show up, or send one of the other party members to the kitchen in order to check her story. At this point, the GM would tell him out of character that he already failed two Sense Motive checks, so he was fooled and would let the woman leave. But when the player argued that his cleric would cast Purify Food and Drink on the breakfast just to be sure, the GM let him because that was plausible. And he can talk to the houseguards when they show up and learn that he was fooled. Later, during the daytime search for the assassins, the cleric would roll to recognize the false serving woman out of her disguise.
That is how I want Bluff to work in the game. Does it work that way, or do I have to create my own house rules? As a GM I like giving my party mysteries to solve, and an all-powerful Bluff skill would ruin that for me as much as a useless Bluff skill.
Yeah, the character always knows his limits (or at very least, has a very good approximate idea), but he might not know the actual difficulty of the task.
I understand this and im not saying one should tell the players the DC of said task , what im saying is , if it is a task with a set DC and a player rolls a 20 on said task.
That is the best he could do.
If he fails at that point , then i have seen people get annoyed , which i found perfectly fair.
Even if the PC doesnt know the difficulty , doesnt change the fact a player himself wont take well to rolling checks he never had a chance in.
Yeah, the character always knows his limits (or at very least, has a very good approximate idea), but he might not know the actual difficulty of the task.
I understand this and im not saying one should tell the players the DC of said task , what im saying is , if it is a task with a set DC and a player rolls a 20 on said task.
That is the best he could do.
If he fails at that point , then i have seen people get annoyed , which i found perfectly fair.
Even if the PC doesnt know the difficulty , doesnt change the fact a player himself wont take well to rolling checks he never had a chance in.
That's why I said the GM should usually say something like "Are you sure you want to do that?" or "[name-of-character] has a feeling this might be beyond his abilities."
I always tell my players... You're always allowed to try anything you want, but sometimes you'll fail and some tasks are too difficult for you to succeed even with a nat 20, so think before you act.