I'm confused by the rules for Requests, which seem to contradict themselves.
The Request action says:
You can make a request of a creature that's friendly or helpful to you. You must couch the request in terms that the target would accept given their current attitude toward you.
The attitude conditions say the following:
It will accept reasonable Requests from that character, as long as such requests aren't at the expense of the helpful creature's goals or quality of life.
It is likely to agree to Requests from that character as long as they are simple, safe, and don't cost too much to fulfill.
(Doesn't mention Requests)
The unfriendly creature won't accept Requests from the character.
It doesn't necessarily attack, but it won't accept Requests from the character.
The GM Core section on Social Skills says:
When a character uses Deception, Diplomacy, Intimidation, or Performance to influence or impress someone...It often makes sense to adjust the DC based on the target’s attitude for Deception, Diplomacy, or Performance, making the DC easy for a friendly creature, very easy for a helpful one, hard for an unfriendly one, or very hard for a hostile one. You might adjust the DC further or differently based on the PC’s goal; for instance, the DC to Request something an indifferent NPC is fundamentally opposed to might be incredibly hard or impossible, and it might be easy to convince an unfriendly creature to do something it already wants to do.
Then there's the Tense Negotiator feat, one of whose benefits is:
You can attempt checks to make Requests of creatures who're indifferent or unfriendly toward you.
I've quoted these from the Remaster version where appropriate, but as far as I can tell none of the quoted text has changed between Premaster and Remaster.
All of these seem to indicate something different.
The request action clearly says that you can only make requests to creatures which are friendly or helpful, and you have to ask for something that they would accept - per the descriptions of friendly and helpful, this means simple, safe and non-costly requests for friendly creatures, or requests that don't harm the character's goals or quality of life for helpful creatures.
Tense Negotiator also confirms that you can't normally make requests of creatures which aren't friendly or helpful. But it doesn't work properly if you enforce the requirement for the request to be one "the target would normally accept given their current attitude to you" as stated in the Request action, since unfriendly creatures normally explicitly won't accept any requests.
The attitude descriptions themselves explicitly say you can't make requests of unfriendly (or hostile) creatures, but don't say that for indifferent creatures. This strongly suggests that you're supposed to be able to make requests of indifferent creatures. Reading the attitude descriptions, it appears that Helpful creatures automatically accept requests that aren't opposing their goals or quality of life, without having to make diplomacy roll at all. From this section of the rules, it looks like you're supposed to be able to make requests for anything, and make requests of indifferent creatures, and friendly/helpful gives you lower DCs or automatic successes on reasonable requests.
Finally, the GM guidance explicitly says that you can make a Request to an indifferent creature, and even request things which it's fundamentally opposed to (albeit at a very high DC). It even indicates that you can make a request to an unfriendly creature, and that the DC might be very low if you request the right thing.
Could we get some clarity on which of these is the correct reading?
| 4 people marked this as a favorite. |
The general rule is in the Request action. It specifies which attitude conditions are allowed for a target creature to have in order for you to use the action on them.
The Tense Negotiator feat is a specific rule that overrides the general rule. If you have the feat, then you are allowed to use Request on an Indifferent creature.
The Social Skills Rules that you cited don't override the restrictions in the Request action. They give guidance on setting the DC if you do somehow manage to use the Request action on an Indifferent creature - such as by having the Tense Negotiator feat, or by GM Fiat from a one-time role-play/plot grant.
Generally, the gameplay that I would expect is that when the party encounters an Indifferent creature that they want to, or need to, make a request from, they will first talk to them for a bit and use Make an Impression.
I think situations matter. The general rules are for everyday use. The GM guidance is for edge cases like talking to your political rival, they might hate you but unlike many normal game situations that's not going to end in combat, you might even be able to convince them to do something though likely at a high DC and personal cost.
For standard indifferent encounter, just like Finoan said, you need to warm up to them first. Otherwise they have no interest in helping you.
The general rule is in the Request action. It specifies which attitude conditions are allowed for a target creature to have in order for you to use the action on them.
The Tense Negotiator feat is a specific rule that overrides the general rule. If you have the feat, then you are allowed to use Request on an Indifferent creature.
Indifferent and unfriendly creatures, actually. But the Tense Negotiator feat doesn't override the rule that "you must couch the request in terms the target would accept given their current attitude to you." Unfriendly creatures explicitly never accept requests, and Tense Negotiator doesn't change that, so RAW there are no terms that you can couch the request in when speaking to an unfriendly creature.
This might seem like I'm just being pedantic - obviously, if you have Tense Negotiator, then you're allowed to make requests of unfriendly creatures. But what requests can you make? Does it let you completely ignore the requirement that the request be one the target would accept given their current attitude? Does it simply let you request things that a friendly target would accept? Does it only let you request things the target was going to to anyway?
It would be fairly easy to make a house rule deciding how to interpret this, but it would be a house rule and different tables will run it differently. The fact that the feat doesn't specify how this works suggests that whoever wrote Tense Negotiator ignored the "couch the request" rule.
The Social Skills Rules that you cited don't override the restrictions in the Request action. They give guidance on setting the DC if you do somehow manage to use the Request action on an Indifferent creature - such as by having the Tense Negotiator feat, or by GM Fiat from a one-time role-play/plot grant.
That doesn't seem to line up, frankly. Why would Paizo waste valuable page space writing about how to calculate DCs for something which is only allowed at all by GM fiat, or a feat which hasn't even made it to the remaster? And then not spare half a dozen words clarifying that it can only be done at all by GM fiat? Why would they say you should adjust the DC for requests to easy/very easy for friendly/helpful NPCs, if you can't normally make requests at all until they're friendly? Surely that would have been put in the description of the Request action, rather than hidden in GM Core, since it will apply to 99% of all Requests?
While what you've written is perhaps the best way to interpret those guidelines if the request rules are accepted as "canon", it's clearly not what the writer of the social skill guidelines in GM Core had in mind.
And we haven't even discussed the fourth view, suggested by the Attitude conditions themselves - that you can make requests of indifferent+ but can't make requests of unfriendly creatures.
| 1 person marked this as a favorite. |
the Tense Negotiator feat doesn't override the rule that "you must couch the request in terms the target would accept given their current attitude to you."
Correct. That restriction does not get overridden and is still in effect.
And we haven't even discussed the fourth view, suggested by the Attitude conditions themselves - that you can make requests of indifferent+ but can't make requests of unfriendly creatures.
All of those are effectively reminders or duplication of the rule in the Request action. And they line up fine. Helpful and Friendly say that they can be the target of Request. Unfriendly and Hostile say that they can't. Indifferent does not say one way or the other.
It is a logic error to assume that a lack of information is evidence to one interpretation or another (argument from ignorance fallacy if you are interested in looking it up). If anything, the lack of specifying allowing or forbidding Request for the Indifferent condition leaves it up to the GM to decide on a case-by-case basis (the GM Fiat I mentioned earlier).
That doesn't seem to line up, frankly. Why would Paizo waste valuable page space writing about how to calculate DCs for something which is only allowed at all by GM fiat
Because GM Fiat is a thing that is expected. As are the creation of rules in the future.
I can tell you what the words mean - or at least how I interpret them to mean. I can't make you believe me. If you want to believe something else, feel free.
| 1 person marked this as a favorite. |
Regarding the contradiction between tense negotiator allowing you to make a request of unhelpful creatures, and the general statements about "you must couch the request in terms that the target would accept given their current attitude toward you" and "The unfriendly creature won't accept Requests from the character".
I understand tense negotiator as removing the unhelpful stipulation about not accepting requests. However, you still need to frame it in a way the target would accept. Likely, this means providing a deal to the creature that is more in their favor than yours.
An example I can think of, is the party encounters mercenary. The have a rivalry with the mercenary because the party is encroaching on their work, as a result they don't like them. The mercenary observes the party doing something that the party doesn't want other people to know about become aware. Perhaps they're attempting to be covert at something, or sneak into someplace but the mercenary sees through their disguise. The party could negotiate with the mercenary and say "As a group we could beat you and tie you up, but we'd rather not. What we'd like to do is walk right by you, and for you to have never encountered us at all. Here take these gold pieces and keep walking, you never saw us.".