If you missed it, Pointed Question from the Interrogation methodology of the Investigator can now be used in combat as of Player Core 2. It couldn't before because of the "have been conversing with" clause, but that's gone now and it even gives the off-guard penalty on your next devise a stratagem against the target if you succeed.
That's cute, but you know what's better...
Lie
Auditory Concentrate Linguistic Mental Secret
You try to fool someone with an untruth. Doing so takes at least 1 round, or longer if the lie is elaborate. You roll a single Deception check and compare it against the Perception DC of every creature you are trying to fool. The GM might give them a circumstance bonus based on the situation and the nature of the lie you are trying to tell. Elaborate or highly unbelievable lies are much harder to get a creature to believe than simpler and more believable lies, and some lies are so big that it's impossible to get anyone to believe them.At the GM's discretion, if a creature initially believes your lie, it might attempt a Perception check later to Sense Motive against your Deception DC to realize it's a lie. This usually happens if the creature discovers enough evidence to counter your statements.
Success The target believes your lie.
Failure The target doesn't believe your lie and gains a +4 circumstance bonus against your attempts to Lie for the duration of your conversation. The target is also more likely to be suspicious of you in the future.
So, if you succeed on Pointed Question they are forced to directly answer your question. If the goon you're wailing on wants to truthfully answer your question about the whereabouts of the kidnapped little girl, Great! That's a free action. However if they try to lie to you they lose their turn to do so.
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Hmmm. Not a fan of that as a GM. I'd end up having all goons clueless as to goings on if I had to worry about PCs bypassing a mystery I had set up
if I had to worry about PCs bypassing a mystery I had set up
well, this part hasn't really changed much. That's just kinda the Investigators wheelhouse. Before the interrogation was just happening after the fight
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if I had to worry about PCs bypassing a mystery I had set upwell, this part hasn't really changed much. That's just kinda the Investigators wheelhouse. Before the interrogation was just happening after the fight
The difference here being that it I want to lie and keep the mystery as something to be engaged with, I have to skip the NPCs turn in combat. With a feat like that engaging mystery and balanced combat might become a zero sum game.
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Replying "screw you" is also directly answering.
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Replying "screw you" is also directly answering.
No lies detected, carry on citizen
Replying "screw you" is also directly answering.
Witty as this may sound on paper, it is not in fact a direct answer to a question, and a GM who uses this as their NPCs’ default response will very quickly come off as antagonistic. I could forgive the GM for ruling it that way, though, because this looks like one of several character options that are set to make the remastered Investigator especially irritating to GM for.
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You are required to give a response; you are not required to give a good or thoughtful response. This goes beyond "screw you" and similar replies; a simple and unconvincing "I dunno!" is the same.
The rub here, imo, is that the lie action assumes you are trying to tell a believable lie, or at least make a genuine effort to have the other person believe you. I don't think there's any requirement the enemy attempt to make their lie convincing. A simple "don't know nuffin, officer" strikes me as a free action.
If you want to keep this from being obviously overpowered, but still make it enjoyable for the investigator player... I suppose you could have it prompt a cute back and forth where the enemy tells substantive but extremely shoddy lies as a free action over and over again and the investigator gets to dramatically shred the obvious lies as a free action between attacks. My guess is the inclusion of off-guard is meant to imply that kind of flavor, anyways.
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You are required to give a response; you are not required to give a good or thoughtful response. This goes beyond "screw you" and similar replies; a simple and unconvincing "I dunno!" is the same.
You are required to give a direct response, is the problem. The creature can answer truthfully or attempt to Lie, but in all cases the action compels the creature to produce a relevant response to the question. If the creature says "I dunno" and they do in fact know, that is an attempt to Lie, which mechanically takes at least a round to do.
I think in general, we're looking at the problem from the wrong end here: the problem isn't necessarily that Pointed Question compels a direct response, because as everyone mentions it's totally okay for a NPC to lie, the problem is that the Lie action is mechanically codified to take at least one full round, which in a combat encounter is a massive debuff and clearly doesn't reflect the terse replies most people would be likely to give under those circumstances. At the very least, Pointed Question should specify that the response shouldn't take up any of the creature's actions unless they take the time to come up with an elaborate Lie, particularly since the difference between a creature taking a full round of actions and a creature taking no actions at all to communicate the same information would be a dead giveaway. More broadly, it's weird that lying takes actions when communicating literally anything else does not, and I don't see why lying should take up any number of actions unless the person making the check is spinning some tall tale.
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If the creature says "I dunno" and they do in fact know, that is an attempt to Lie, which mechanically takes at least a round to do.
I do not follow you here. The lie action states "You try to fool someone with an untruth", and by just saying "no clue" you are not doing that, you are just using a free action to speak.
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Teridax appears to have a very specific idea of what it means to directly answer.
That said, saying "no clue" if you do in fact have a clue, means you are lying.
Really what this means is that you're going to get a lot of NPCs aligned with an organization that have a very limited view of what's going on (if you have an Investigator in the party).
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I do not follow you here. The lie action states "You try to fool someone with an untruth", and by just saying "no clue" you are not doing that, you are just using a free action to speak.
Let's illustrate this with a simple example: I ate all the pies. You ask me who ate all the pies. I tell you I don't know who ate all the pies. That is a lie, an untruth devised with the intent to fool someone.
Now, let's take this to an in-game example: a mook's been posted to guard their gang's stash of demon dust, which they know is in the barrel behind the counter. The Investigator uses a Pointed Question to ask the mook where they're storing the drugs. If the mook says "I dunno", they are lying, and so their response in an attempt to Lie.
So, to reiterate, I don't think it's really sensical or even particularly healthy to try to twist the meaning of "lying" just to dance around the text of the rule. The part where you're meant to answer directly with either a truth or a lie is pretty clear-cut, the problem lies with being required to spend a full round attempting to Lie when an unconvincing "I dunno" is something a creature could easily do without spending any actions. Furthermore, this would make the GM's job a lot easier, as they can determine on the spot whether the NPC is telling the truth or not without that costing the creature extra actions. Rather than force the GM to effectively stun a creature for a whole round on top of making them off-guard when they do possess valuable information, they can simply tell the Investigator if the creature is lying, without having to divulge any information at that point in time. That, I believe, is the intent of the feat, rather than forcing the GM to either reveal information they didn't want to give out so soon or trivialize their combat encounter.
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I could forgive the GM for ruling it that way, though, because this looks like one of several character options that are set to make the remastered Investigator especially irritating to GM for.
That phrasing suggests this is some natural quirk of the class that just might be awkward to play around, but that's not really the case here. This is a broken interaction that's only really a thing if you squint at the rules a certain way and have a GM willing to play along.
"Roll diplomacy to force enemies to forfeit their turn" is not a real mechanic here in the fist place.
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That phrasing suggests this is some natural quirk of the class that just might be awkward to play around, but that's not really the case here. This is a broken interaction that's only really a thing if you squint at the rules a certain way and have a GM willing to play along.
"Roll diplomacy to force enemies to forfeit their turn" is not a real mechanic here in the fist place.
I'm completely on board with you there, I'm just pointing out that the brokenness specifically comes from the Lie action taking a round at minimum. Clearly, the developers wanted to make Pointed Question useful in combat, but failed to adapt the entirety of the action to encounters, creating this monster of a crowd control effect that would normally warrant the incapacitation trait for much less. I doubt this interaction was intentional when making a target off-guard as a single action is already strong enough.
However, my point is that we don't need to lie to ourselves here just to dance around the text of the rule to the potential detriment of its intent. Forcing someone to either lie or tell the truth is fine by itself, and coheres with the Investigator's flavor even if it does carry the annoyance to the GM of tracking which of their NPCs knows what. The problem is specifically the bit in the Lie action that says it takes at least a full round, when communicating normally doesn't take any actions. Many people on here have produced easy examples of how someone could easily lie without much effort or commitment, so as the GM I would houserule that the Lie action has no minimum action requirement. If someone wants to spin a yarn, that'll take them more time, but if a NPC wants to Lie to the Investigator mid-combat in response to a Pointed Question, I would rule that they can do that without spending any additional actions.
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"I ain't telling you jack" is a direct answer that doesn't attempt to deceive the listener.
However, it does pretty much confirm that the speaker does know something, so the successful action isn't wasted, either.
I'd probably let it work the first time or against particularly dumb or unwitty foes, but after the first time would warrant a discussion about expectations going forward.
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"I ain't telling you jack" is a direct answer that doesn't attempt to deceive the listener.
However, it does pretty much confirm that the speaker does know something, so the successful action isn't wasted, either.I'd probably let it work the first time or against particularly dumb or unwitty foes, but after the first time would warrant a discussion about expectations going forward.
I think it would help to actually list what the action does, just so that people don't keep making the same mistakes:
You ask a question that charms or needles someone in just the right way. Ask a question of a non-allied creature that you can see. Attempt a Diplomacy check against that creature's Will DC. The creature is then temporarily immune for 1 hour.
Critical Success The target must directly answer your question. It doesn't have to answer truthfully, but you gain a +4 circumstance bonus to your Perception DC if the creature attempts to Lie to you. Whether it answers truthfully or not, you clean something from its body language, and it is off-guard to the Strike you make using Devise a Stratagem against it before the end of your turn.
Success As critical success, but the circumstance bonus to your Perception DC is +2.
Failure The creature can refuse to answer you as normal.
Critical Failure The creature can refuse to answer you as normal, and its attitude towards you decreases by one step due to your aggravating attention.
So, "I ain't telling you jack" is a valid thing for the NPC to do... if you get a failure. Because that is unambiguously a refusal to answer. If you succeed, the creature must answer directly; that is the point of this action. Between accepting that a character option has an unintended side-effect and expecting us to collectively degrade our own grasp of the English language just to avoid facing the facts, I'd rather choose the former.
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There are also plenty of direct and honest replies that are useless.
"Where is the prince?"
"With Bobo."
"Where's Bobo?"
"Guarding your guy."
They could even be misleading if perhaps the person they reference has a common name or the PCs have false info from earlier that interferes (whether the goon knows that or not).
Which is to say both sides should approach this in good faith so that the feat works as advertised w/o eliminating an enemy like some Legendary skill feat might.
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So, "I ain't telling you jack" is a valid thing for the NPC to do... if you get a failure. Because that is unambiguously a refusal to answer. If you succeed, the creature must answer directly; that is the point of this action. Between accepting that a character option has an unintended side-effect and expecting us to collectively degrade our own grasp of the English language just to avoid facing the facts, I'd rather choose the former.
Yeah, Pointed Question is kinda unique in PF2. It's as close to mind control as a non-magical effect can get in this edition. Most skill and non-magical class effects aren't like this; Antagonize doesn't force anyone to attack you it just applies penalties if they don't.
Which is to say both sides should approach this in good faith so that the feat works as advertised w/o eliminating an enemy like some Legendary skill feat might.
This is the way, I think. Work with your GM about expectations, as forcing someone to answer truthfully or attempt to lie (even assuming those are both free actions) is already incredibly strong as a non-magical effect.
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I think it would help to actually list what the action does, just so that people don't keep making the same mistakes:
You ask a question that charms or needles someone in just the right way. Ask a question of a non-allied creature that you can see. Attempt a Diplomacy check against that creature's Will DC. The creature is then temporarily immune for 1 hour.
Critical Success The target must directly answer your question. It doesn't have to answer truthfully, but you gain a +4 circumstance bonus to your Perception DC if the creature attempts to Lie to you. Whether it answers truthfully or not, you clean something from its body language, and it is off-guard to the Strike you make using Devise a Stratagem against it before the end of your turn.
Success As critical success, but the circumstance bonus to your Perception DC is +2.
Failure The creature can refuse to answer you as normal.
Critical Failure The creature can refuse to answer you as normal, and its attitude towards you decreases by one step due to your aggravating attention.
Excellent. It is always hard to discuss rules that I don't have yet.
What I notice in here is that it doesn't specify an amount of time needed to form the response by the enemy - in any of the degree of success outcomes. And it doesn't specify using the Lie action either.
So it appears to be similar to Bon Mot in that the response is a custom action. Unfortunately, unlike Bon Mot, it doesn't specify the action cost. So I would assume that it uses a free action to reply - with either a truthful or untruthful response. Which matches the free action for combat banter, and since the ability doesn't say that it costs an enemy any of their actions, then it doesn't.
You are required to give a response; you are not required to give a good or thoughtful response. This goes beyond "screw you" and similar replies; a simple and unconvincing "I dunno!" is the same.You are required to give a direct response, is the problem. The creature can answer truthfully or attempt to Lie, but in all cases the action compels the creature to produce a relevant response to the question. If the creature says "I dunno" and they do in fact know, that is an attempt to Lie, which mechanically takes at least a round to do.
I think in general, we're looking at the problem from the wrong end here: the problem isn't necessarily that Pointed Question compels a direct response, because as everyone mentions it's totally okay for a NPC to lie, the problem is that the Lie action is mechanically codified to take at least one full round, which in a combat encounter is a massive debuff and clearly doesn't reflect the terse replies most people would be likely to give under those circumstances. At the very least, Pointed Question should specify that the response shouldn't take up any of the creature's actions unless they take the time to come up with an elaborate Lie, particularly since the difference between a creature taking a full round of actions and a creature taking no actions at all to communicate the same information would be a dead giveaway. More broadly, it's weird that lying takes actions when communicating literally anything else does not, and I don't see why lying should take up any number of actions unless the person making the check is spinning some tall tale.
The lie action assumes you are trying to fool the person, is the thing. Simply spewing verbiage with no care for whether you are convincing, or whether or not you'll be believed, doesn't fall under the purview of the lie action. It likewise doesn't require a round.
My take is that the target would only need take a round or more to lie if they were genuinely trying to pull the wool over the investigator's eyes. So for two extreme examples: Saying "I can't even fire a gun!" immediately after firing a gun would not require a lie check, and wouldn't need an action. But explaining how you couldn't have possibly have left fingerprints on the murder weapon, because you burned your fingerprints off in a lab accident 9 years ago, and the murderer must have been right handed for reasons, but look only my left hand has fingerprints...! That kind of thing would probably not only take a lie check, but at least a minute of talking.
You ask a question that charms or needles someone in just the right way. Ask a question of a non-allied creature that you can see. Attempt a Diplomacy check against that creature's Will DC. The creature is then temporarily immune for 1 hour.
Critical Success The target must directly answer your question. It doesn't have to answer truthfully, but you gain a +4 circumstance bonus to your Perception DC if the creature attempts to Lie to you. Whether it answers truthfully or not, you clean something from its body language, and it is off-guard to the Strike you make using Devise a Stratagem against it before the end of your turn.
Success As critical success, but the circumstance bonus to your Perception DC is +2.
Failure The creature can refuse to answer you as normal.
Critical Failure The creature can refuse to answer you as normal, and its attitude towards you decreases by one step due to your aggravating attention.
Okay, this is just a poorly written ability that implies your only possible options are to tell the truth or use the Lie action, even though that's not the case. That's just a bad mechanic that presents a false dilemma, and it should probably be errata'd day 1. It's obviously not intended to let you either get a truthful answer (possibly instantly ruining a plot) or instantly deny a round of actions (instantly ruining an encounter) at literally level 1. I'm with the person above who said it should specify how long it takes to reply, as Bon Mot.
What I notice in here is that it doesn't specify an amount of time needed to form the response by the enemy - in any of the degree of success outcomes. And it doesn't specify using the Lie action either.
So it appears to be similar to Bon Mot in that the response is a custom action. Unfortunately, unlike Bon Mot, it doesn't specify the action cost. So I would assume that it uses a free action to reply - with either a truthful or untruthful response. Which matches the free action for combat banter, and since the ability doesn't say that it costs an enemy any of their actions, then it doesn't.
This is probably how I'll run it until errata comes out. As an aside Bon Mot+Pointed Question looks like it will be a pretty great combo.
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The lie action assumes you are trying to fool the person, is the thing. Simply spewing verbiage with no care for whether you are convincing, or whether or not you'll be believed, doesn't fall under the purview of the lie action. It likewise doesn't require a round.
Sure, but then we're back to the target refusing to answer, which is the action's failure effect. While I do take issue with the way Pointed Question has been reimplemented, I also feel that trying to finagle my way into turning a player's successful check into a failure wouldn't be the right thing to do as a GM.
My take is that the target would only need take a round or more to lie if they were genuinely trying to pull the wool over the investigator's eyes. So for two extreme examples: Saying "I can't even fire a gun!" immediately after firing a gun would not require a lie check, and wouldn't need an action. But explaining how you couldn't have possibly have left fingerprints on the murder weapon, because you burned your fingerprints off in a lab accident 9 years ago, and the murderer must have been right handed for reasons, but look only my left hand has fingerprints...! That kind of thing would probably not only take a lie check, but at least a minute of talking.
I agree with this completely. I don't think the Lie action should have any minimum duration at all as a baseline, precisely because it is easily possible to lie reflexively with a single word, even a single syllable. I also think it makes for a weird situation with Pointed Question in particular: suppose the Investigator succeeds on their Pointed Question and asks the target a question. If I as a GM run the Lie activity RAW, the NPC would give a response... and that would be their entire turn. Because this wouldn't happen if the response were truthful, this would instantly signal in a very metagamey way that the response was a lie. It's not just that taking a whole round to Lie is a horrendous price to pay for something so basic, the fact that lying and telling the truth require a different number of actions at all means that in edge cases like these, one can easily be distinguished from the other without making a check. This to me suggests that the developers failed to account for the Lie activity's stated minimum duration when rewriting this action, and it should be okay for the target to be able to Lie in response to the Investigator at no action cost.
Okay, this is just a poorly written ability that implies your only possible options are to tell the truth or use the Lie action, even though that's not the case. That's just a bad mechanic that presents a false dilemma, and it should probably be errata'd day 1. It's obviously not intended to let you either get a truthful answer (possibly instantly ruining a plot) or instantly deny a round of actions (instantly ruining an encounter) at literally level 1. I'm with the person above who said it should specify how long it takes to reply, as Bon Mot.
I agree with the criticism, and I think unfortunately this seems par for the course with the Investigator, whose ability to irritate the GM and trivialize a mystery adventure seems to have been ratcheted up to 11 in the remaster. Had the class simply been made very good at existing mechanics that let players uncover a mystery, I would've been okay with that, and perhaps if they had a few additional tools for drawing up a nifty investigation, that too would've been fine, but a lot of their abilities seem to be designed around forcing the GM to divulge information on the spot, which sounds irritating to deal with and liable to make certain adventures much less interesting for everyone involved.
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The sky is always falling if you insist on it hard enough.
Or you could just ... not use the Lie activity that the Pointed Question action doesn't require.
No, the target isn't allowed to not answer if the check is successful. But it also doesn't cost them any action to respond, and they are allowed to answer in any truthful or untruthful manner that they feel like.
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I'd sort of quibble with "reimplemented" ... the only meaningful change to the ability post-remaster is that it now makes targets offguard when you use it. That's nice, but not especially significant especially in the context of what's being discussed in this thread.
but a lot of their abilities seem to be designed around forcing the GM to divulge information on the spot, which sounds irritating to deal with and liable to make certain adventures much less interesting for everyone involved.
I mean, this ability just lets you try to interrogate someone. It provides mechanics for something that, in a less structured way, any normal character might want to do (though probably more slowly than an action)
I dislike framing this as somehow strong arming the GM because that pre-supposes the thing you aren't supposed to do when the Investigator succeeds, which is give out false information with no recourse no matter how well the character rolled or how poorly equipped the target is to resist, is somehow a reasonable or good behavior in the first place.
Like, no, that's crap no matter what class is being played.
It's absolutely wild to me that people are genuinely trying to argue that deliberately answering untruthfully is somehow different from lying. I suppose that explains the way they choose to argue in this space.
I'd sort of quibble with "reimplemented" ... the only meaningful change to the ability post-remaster is that it now makes targets offguard when you use it. That's nice, but not especially significant especially in the context of what's being discussed in this thread.
This is incorrect, the current implementation requires you to have been conversing with the creature in addition to lacking the off-guard effect, making the ability purely oriented towards out-of-combat interactions. The removal of that bit of wording and the addition of the off-guard condition makes the ability beneficial in combat, a significant and relevant change.
I mean, this ability just lets you try to interrogate someone. It provides mechanics for something that, in a less structured way, any normal character might want to do (though probably more slowly than an action)
There is no core mechanic that forces an answer out of anyone. At any point, the GM can have their NPC refuse to answer if they so choose. Even Ring of Truth, an uncommon spell, allows targets to respond evasively or avoid answering at all.
I dislike framing this as somehow strong arming the GM because that pre-supposes the thing you aren't supposed to do when the Investigator succeeds, which is give out false information with no recourse no matter how well the character rolled or how poorly equipped the target is to resist, is somehow a reasonable or good behavior in the first place.
Like, no, that's shitty antagonistic GMing no matter what class is being played.
I don't think this follows. The problem is with the thing you're supposed to do in this situation being a thing the GM does not necessarily have to consider as a baseline, and normally has the freedom to engineer in a way that makes for a more interesting story or compelling scene. It's not about withholding information from the party, because they're going to get this information anyway, so much as not giving away the plot in an anticlimax just because a character rolled high on their "give me spoilers" ability.
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It's absolutely wild to me that people are genuinely trying to argue that deliberately answering untruthfully is somehow different from lying.
Semantically it is not different.
The difference is in game mechanics. Answering untruthfully is not an activity that costs a minimum of one combat round.
I'm not sure why that difference is hard to understand.
I suppose that explains the way they choose to argue in this space.
Personal attacks are not appropriate.
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It's absolutely wild to me that people are genuinely trying to argue that deliberately answering untruthfully is somehow different from lying. I suppose that explains the way they choose to argue in this space.
Not to be a pain, but deliberately speaking untruths need not be lying. The essential component of a lie is the attempt to deceive, not the false utterance. For example, sarcasm often involves the deliberate speaking of falsehoods ("yeah, I had a GREAT day" when your day was clearly not great), but there's no lie involved, because your sarcastic intent is clear. Retorting, mouth full of cookie, that you didn't actually just eat the last chocolate chip confection after everyone saw you scarf it down is better understood as a sort of humorous attempt to save face than an actual lie. And so on.
The problem is the interrogation ability kind of nudges the reader towards the interpretation that the target must interact with the investigator's question "sincerely" and give them either a true answer or a clear lie that would answer the question if true; it further nudges the reader towards thinking the only way to do the latter is via the Lie action by capitalizing it in the text. This just isn't a reasonable way for the ability to work at all in practice, as you've pointed out.
Answering untruthfully is not an activity that costs a minimum of one combat round.
Also, this. "Lie" is jargon in the context of the game. There can be ways to lie (colloquially speaking) in the game that are not the Lie action. For example, just falsely saying "yes" or "no" to a question with intent to deceive probably isn't a good fit for the Lie action as it's written. It beggars belief that it should take a minimum of a round to say "no."
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This is incorrect, the current implementation requires you to have been conversing with the creature
Okay so I say hi to them then activate the ability if they say anything. This is not really a meaningful change, again especially in the context of information gathering.
Like the fact that I can use it to generate off-guard is nice but also immaterial to the issue of how a creature should respond do it or whether it breaks campaigns.
There is no core mechanic that forces an answer out of anyone.
The Coerce action not only allows me to question a target but doesn't even give them the opportunity to lie. "The target gives you the information you seek" on a success or critical success.
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If it seems too good to be true, it probably is.
A repeatable (on different foes) 1 action ability that either forces them to divulge critical plot information or removes their entire turn on a regular success is definitively TGTBT. Especially since it doesn't seem to be limited to your cases or leads or anything.
It's absolutely wild to me that people are genuinely trying to argue that deliberately answering untruthfully is somehow different from lying. I suppose that explains the way they choose to argue in this space.
Attacking people who disagree with your assessment isn't exactly discussing in good faith, either. Framing the discussion on the person who said something ("It's absolutely wild to me that people are...") and not on the something they said is almost always a bad faith argument, imo.
It is, however, a great way to convince people to not engage with your posts in the future.| 1 person marked this as a favorite. |
Looking at the Lie action, it seems to me that the time involved reflects the effort to make the lie convincing, not that lying itself is incredibly time consuming.
Also, I think there will always be ways around this. "Where is the girl?" "Where you'll never find her!" would, IMO, constitute a direct response to the question and could definitely qualify as not a lie should the person responding believe it.
Semantically it is not different.
The difference is in game mechanics. Answering untruthfully is not an activity that costs a minimum of one combat round.
I'm not sure why that difference is hard to understand.
Deliberately answering untruthfully is the Lie action. That's what it's there for. You are attempting to create a false distinction that is supported nowhere in the game rules.
Personal attacks are not appropriate.
And neither is harassment. You have been following me around these forums under multiple aliases, frequently made argumentative posts addressed at me, and often made character attacks in the process. I would ask you to stop.
Not to be a pain, but deliberately speaking untruths need not be lying. The essential component of a lie is the attempt to deceive, not the false utterance. For example, sarcasm often involves the deliberate speaking of falsehoods ("yeah, I had a GREAT day" when your day was clearly not great), but there's no lie involved, because your sarcastic intent is clear. Retorting, mouth full of cookie, that you didn't actually just eat the last chocolate chip confection after everyone saw you scarf it down is better understood as a sort of humorous attempt to save face than an actual lie. And so on.
The problem is the interrogation ability kind of nudges you towards the interpretation that the target must interact with your question "sincerely" and give you either a true answer or a clear lie that would answer the question if true; it further nudges you towards thinking the only way to do the latter is via the Lie action by capitalizing it in the text. This just isn't a reasonable way for the ability to work at all in practice, as you've pointed out.
Right, but we're not talking sarcasm here, we're talking about an interrogator interrogating someone. The text expressly specifies a direct answer, and refers to the Lie activity by name. There is no basis for arguing that the target can just say whatever they want on a success, and ruling the action that way I would say is what would actually constitute a case of antagonistic GMing when you are effectively treating the success as a failure. I think it is obvious that the designers intended for the target to be able to only respond with either a truth or a lie on a success, and failed to account for the Lie activity's minimum duration.
Okay so I say hi to them then activate the ability if they say anything. This is not really a meaningful change, again especially in the context of information gathering.
I can understand not being familiar with the conventions, but conversation is generally considered by most to be a two-way activity. I can assure you that Pointed Question does not get run in the hypothetical way you're proposing here, otherwise we would've heard about it sooner. It is an out-of-combat activity that is being turned into an in-combat activity.
The Coerce action not only allows me to question a target but doesn't even give them the opportunity to lie. "The target gives you the information you seek" on a success or critical success.
Sure, you are correct, and that's an oversight on my part. However, Coerce is also very much an out-of-combat activity, as it takes at least 1 minute to perform. Even Quick Coercion explicitly doesn't let you Coerce someone in combat. This is important, because generally when you run into a bunch of creatures who are violently hostile to you, they will immediately start fighting you, preventing you from Coercing information out of them on the spot.
It is, however, a great way to convince people to not engage with your posts in the future.
As noted above, that particular individual has been repeatedly picking arguments on various threads unreciprocated, so I do in fact wish they'd stop engaging. I also don't think it should be expected to just accept arguments automatically even when they are both baseless and made in a larger context that demonstrates disingenuous intent, and that sort of tactic I think is what makes a big part of all the noise on these forums.
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This seems to be getting a little heated. (Which happens a lot when the Lie action is brought up in threads, now that I think about it)
I think what we can all agree is "Yes, they lose their turn if they Lie... but that's stupid and broken and I won't be having it in my games." Whether that's through houseruling the interaction down or just not answering the way the Action seems to intend.
I'm in the first camp since while forcing to someone to give a binary truth/lie answer seems very strong, I don't think it's stronger than free Insight coffees and Mutagens.
I'll be posting the question in the errata thread. But personally while I think it could use fixing I think the Lie action needs fixing more.
I think what we can all agree is "Yes, they lose their turn if they Lie... but that's stupid and broken and I won't be doing it in my games."
This is the way, IMO. The new Pointed Question is definitely poorly-written and in need of adjusting, and I'm fairly sure the intent was not for it to stun NPCs for an entire round without the incap trait. Potentially coaxing information out of any NPC is annoying to GM for, but annoying the GM is something the Investigator does plenty already.
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Investigator is already one of the few classes where any player interested in it really needs to have a serious conversation with the GM about how it should work out during actual play and to set expectations due to the nature of it requiring the GM being on board with either being an obsessive over-preparer or being comfortable improvising ACTUAL relevant plot/lore clues and mysteries on the fly.
With that in mind I don't see this being either too powerful or weak since the player and GM should really come to an understanding of how it works without either breaking the enemy Action economy (it forcing a relevant truth/lie every time) or it simply just always being a dud ("screw you!") during the course of combat and roleplay.
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I think it's fun to have pointed question occasionally fluster an enemy in combat. But this shouldn't be an especially reliable tactic.
The test for "would they waste a turn trying to convince you" would be:
1) Do they know this information.
2) Do they have reason to want to mislead you with false information.
3) Do they see #2 as a better option than "fighting".
It's kind of a thing that's only going to work on the first round of combat when hostilities are not undeniable yet.
Looking at the Lie activity, there isn't really anything to suggest that this only applies to lies you're trying to make convincing:
You try to fool someone with an untruth. Doing so takes at least 1 round, or longer if the lie is elaborate. You roll a single Deception check and compare it against the Perception DC of every creature you are trying to fool. The GM might give them a circumstance bonus based on the situation and the nature of the lie you are trying to tell. Elaborate or highly unbelievable lies are much harder to get a creature to believe than simpler and more believable lies, and some lies are so big that it's impossible to get anyone to believe them.
At the GM's discretion, if a creature initially believes your lie, it might attempt a Perception check later to Sense Motive against your Deception DC to realize it's a lie. This usually happens if the creature discovers enough evidence to counter your statements.
Success The target believes your lie.
Failure The target doesn't believe your lie and gains a +4 circumstance bonus against your attempts to Lie for the duration of your conversation. The target is also more likely to be suspicious of you in the future.
Given how the rule highlights "highly unbelievable lies", it seems to be that even when you're not convincing at all, you're still engaging in the Lie activity. I think we can all agree, however, that disabling a target for a full round is not something you generally get to do as a single action without the incapacitation trait and with a whole lot of other benefits already attached, particularly as the target taking an entire round to communicate something that may or may not be true itself signals to the player that they Lied, and the GM ran it RAW. I would go as far as to say that the designers likely did not anticipate the Lie activity being used in combat at all outside of extremely niche cases that did not include this particular interaction.
With this in mind, the issue IMO isn't even necessarily with Pointed Question here, but with the Lie activity, and specifically its minimum duration. While it is true that having an Investigator in your game generally requires a degree of negotiation that does not exist for other classes (and arguably goes against PF2e's intent to avoid putting undue pressure on the GM), I don't think this is a game that ever expects the GM to fix broken rules or interactions, and all of this could be easily avoided if using the Lie activity took no actions as a baseline, just like regular communication. This wouldn't just affect Pointed Question, but would make the mechanic more consistent across any situation where it could happen, without people needing to make casuistic arguments where there exists this separate, hidden activity where the character deliberately tells an untruth with the aim to deceive, but this is somehow not lying because X.
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This seems to be getting a little heated. (Which happens a lot when the Lie action is brought up in threads, now that I think about it)
I think what we can all agree is "Yes, they lose their turn if they Lie... but that's stupid and broken and I won't be having it in my games." Whether that's through houseruling the interaction down or just not answering the way the Action seems to intend.
I'm in the first camp since while forcing to someone to give a binary truth/lie answer seems very strong, I don't think it's stronger than free Insight coffees and Mutagens.I'll be posting the question in the errata thread. But personally while I think it could use fixing I think the Lie action needs fixing more.
First lines of the Lie action :
"You try to fool someone with an untruth. Doing so takes at least 1 round, or longer if the lie is elaborate. You roll a single Deception check and compare it against the Perception DC of every creature you are trying to fool."
I can perfectly give an untruthful direct answer without trying to fool anybody.
Checking the result of Pointed Question :
"Critical Success The target must directly answer your question. It doesn't have to answer truthfully, but you gain a +4 circumstance bonus to your Perception DC if the creature attempts to Lie to you."
I have to answer directly, I do not have to answer truthfully and I do not have to use the Lie action either, since I am not trying to fool anyone.
Clear cut to me.
I agree though that Pointed Question might have been rewritten a bit better.
I have to answer directly, I do not have to answer truthfully and I do not have to use the Lie action either, since I am not trying to fool anyone.
How is this meaningfully different from refusing to answer, the failure effect of Pointed Question?
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This seems to be getting a little heated. (Which happens a lot when the Lie action is brought up in threads, now that I think about it)
I think what we can all agree is "Yes, they lose their turn if they Lie... but that's stupid and broken and I won't be having it in my games." Whether that's through houseruling the interaction down or just not answering the way the Action seems to intend.
I'm in the first camp since while forcing to someone to give a binary truth/lie answer seems very strong, I don't think it's stronger than free Insight coffees and Mutagens.I'll be posting the question in the errata thread. But personally while I think it could use fixing I think the Lie action needs fixing more.
First lines of the Lie action :
"You try to fool someone with an untruth. Doing so takes at least 1 round, or longer if the lie is elaborate. You roll a single Deception check and compare it against the Perception DC of every creature you are trying to fool."
I can perfectly give an untruthful direct answer without trying to fool anybody.
Checking the result of Pointed Question :
"Critical Success The target must directly answer your question. It doesn't have to answer truthfully, but you gain a +4 circumstance bonus to your Perception DC if the creature attempts to Lie to you."
I have to answer directly, I do not have to answer truthfully and I do not have to use the Lie action either, since I am not trying to fool anyone.
Clear cut to me.
I agree though that Pointed Question might have been rewritten a bit better.
So your solution is that this PC's primary class feature, which they spent an action to use and succeeded at a check for, does nothing?
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Because you know they told a lie.
Again: How is this meaningfully different from refusing to answer, the failure effect of Pointed Question?