Oppesed Checks

[Silma]

I just have a question. How can u make a Diplomacy or Intimidate check versus a teammate? So far we're just making the check versus the teammate's Will Defense, but it's like an auto-success.

[Oracle_Hunter]

I don't think you can in any edition of D&D. At least not by RAW and, IMHO, no DM should allow skills to force RP actions on Players -- and only use magic compulsion rarely and sparsely.

[Silma]

Yeah, but doesn't it sound logical that if a character has a high Diplomacy, he would be able to convince others more easily? For example.

Player_1 plays a bard.
Player_2 plays a rogue.

They have to expose a corrupt noble. The rogue says that they should break into his house and search for evidence. The bard says that they should thy to get themselves invited to the noble's party that is taking place the next day. Isn't it logical that the bard can convince the rogue? Diplomacy is supposed to make others see things your way.

[Oracle_Hunter]

Yeah, but doesn't it sound logical that if a character has a high Diplomacy, he would be able to convince others more easily? For example.

Player_1 plays a bard.
Player_2 plays a rogue.

They have to expose a corrupt noble. The rogue says that they should break into his house and search for evidence. The bard says that they should thy to get themselves invited to the noble's party that is taking place the next day. Isn't it logical that the bard can convince the rogue? Diplomacy is supposed to make others see things your way.
Never use logic in a RPG -- or you'll find out that a fall from a 50' building will kill most everyone, and a good hit with a sword will kill you no matter how long you've been fighting :smalltongue:

No, the reason is based in an axiom I dub The Axiom of Player Autonomy : Players get to decide what their characters do when the character would have volition to make a choice.

You can run it differently, but few RPGs operate explicitly without this axiom and, in general, Players prefer to be in games where it is in effect.

Coincidentally, it might be a good idea to read over Burlew's article on RP Decisionmaking (http://www.giantitp.com/articles/tll307KmEm4H9k6efFP.html) :smallsmile:

[Silma]

As a group we generally accept the whole "this is how my character would/should react" argument, so I was trying to find a way to use diplomacy and intimidate as opposed checks. Any ideas would be greatly appreciated. I mean Bluff can easily be used as an opposed check. (Bluff vs Insight.) Even the PH says so. But why can't someone convince his teammates to see things his way instead of lying to them?

[Oracle_Hunter]

As a group we generally accept the whole "this is how my character would/should react" argument, so I was trying to find a way to use diplomacy and intimidate as opposed checks. Any ideas would be greatly appreciated. I mean Bluff can easily be used as an opposed check. (Bluff vs Insight.) Even the PH says so. But why can't someone convince his teammates to see things his way instead of lying to them?
There are lots of ways to do it, but ideally this is the sort of thing you'd work out without dice.

For example, the Diplomancer's Player and the Rogue's Player can both agree that the Rogue does this thing because the Diplomancer is so persuasive. If the Rogue's Player disagrees, he's not going to enjoy having some dice tell him how to play his character. But if he's OK with dice deciding these things, have him establish the mechanics. Examples include:

- Skill checks vs. Will Defense
- Coin Flips

but anything he's OK with would be fine. There's no "fair" way to do this, IMHO, due to the nature of the request.

[Dumbledore lives]

In my opinion a character with a higher diplomacy/intimidate should get his way more often when the characters have an argument, because in character he can convince the other person better, and opposed rolls help to represent this.

In 3.5 we do opposed rolls fairly frequently for bluff vs. sense motive, with one member of the party lying to the others, though generally it's a white lie and the players don't really mind, and it makes sense. Of course, we generally run evilish campaigns, so it may be different for people running straight up heroic fantasy.

[Silma]

Actually everyone in my group agrees to this more or less. We 're just trying to find an eligible way of doing this. But anyway, I might try talking to them and see if we can drop the whole thing. Thanks for the help! :smallsmile:

[Cerlis]

I don't think you can in any edition of D&D. At least not by RAW and, IMHO, no DM should allow skills to force RP actions on Players -- and only use magic compulsion rarely and sparsely.

Done right thats not happening at all.

If the group is expected to Rp their characters correctly, if you faced them with a problem you expect them to do what their character would do.

Both "The dragon slices through your flesh, almost cutting you in half" You are at -8 hit points and bleeing' And "Kark's eye bulges his face is red and he looks as if he really intends to slice your throat if you dont back down" are both problems, encounters even.

You should no more metagame the second situation than you should say "No, im not eviscerated, My adamantine armor cant be broken by anything without Adamantine or harder hardness so that couldnt have happened"

If you are a light RP group (which i expect most RP groups to be, cus i'd never ever be good at Heavy RP) than yall metagame all you like.

But if you are "serious" about Roleplaying, then if a character's roll tells you he is very intimidating, or persuasive or whatever, you arent FORCED to do anything, other than think "what would my character REALLY do if faced with this situation"

You might say even intimidated (and a bit shaken) your character would every much ignore the threat.

[Silma]

We are a little RP heavy, that's why I'm trying to make it work. It just seems a little imbalanced though to make a check against Will Defense.

[TuggyNE]

Done right thats not happening at all.

If the group is expected to Rp their characters correctly, if you faced them with a problem you expect them to do what their character would do.

Both "The dragon slices through your flesh, almost cutting you in half" You are at -8 hit points and bleeing' And "Kark's eye bulges his face is red and he looks as if he really intends to slice your throat if you dont back down" are both problems, encounters even.

You should no more metagame the second situation than you should say "No, im not eviscerated, My adamantine armor cant be broken by anything without Adamantine or harder hardness so that couldnt have happened"

If you are a light RP group (which i expect most RP groups to be, cus i'd never ever be good at Heavy RP) than yall metagame all you like.

But if you are "serious" about Roleplaying, then if a character's roll tells you he is very intimidating, or persuasive or whatever, you arent FORCED to do anything, other than think "what would my character REALLY do if faced with this situation"

You might say even intimidated (and a bit shaken) your character would every much ignore the threat.

The problem I have with this comparison is that it seems to falsely equate, on the one hand, ignoring an external and objective force in the short run, and on the other hand, rejecting an internal and subjective force with potentially long-term and open-ended consequences. And your proposed solution ("you aren't FORCED to do anything") unfortunately means that the roll has little or no real effect. Thus, you have the apparent choice between taking away a player's control from the inside out* ("No no, your character was totally convinced by that persuasive argument and will never change their mind now") or nerfing the consequences into near-uselessness ("How do you think your character would respond?").

If that is in fact the choice, I would pick the second option, obviously, and it actually sounds like you would too. There may be something I'm missing, though....

To answer the OP's question more directly, my limited experience would suggest not tying it to any specific rules at all, and just roleplaying/metagaming it out to taste. (Though rolling for Bluff vs. Sense Motive may work, depending on the group.)

* Even magical fear effects, which are borderline between "external objective" and "internal subjective", aren't as bad IMHO as a diplomacy/intimidate check, since they don't last as long and aren't as open-ended.

[INDYSTAR188]

Could you make it bluff vs insight? Or diplomacy vs insight/streetwise? Giving him a chance to roll to see if he's convinced by your persuasive speech.

[Doug Lampert]

I just have a question. How can u make a Diplomacy or Intimidate check versus a teammate? So far we're just making the check versus the teammate's Will Defense, but it's like an auto-success.

For diplomacy, page 42 of the DMG (with errata) is your friend.

Difficulty Class (DC) Values
Level Easy Moderate Hard
1st–3rd 5 10 15
4th–6th 7 12 17
7th–9th 8 14 19
10th–12th 10 16 21
13th–15th 11 18 23
16th–18th 13 20 25
19th–21st 14 22 27
22nd–24th 16 24 29
25th–27th 17 26 31
28th–30th 19 28 33

Find the target's level, the player decides if his character is easy, moderate, or hard to influence and exactly what the effects are. Note that this is purely advisory on the target, there are no mechanical effects of diplonacy on a PC. (Note that this is basically the proceedure your DM should be following for NPCs too.)

Intimidate has an attack vs. will use against bloodied foes only. IIRC it's a roll vs. Will +10 even when the foe is bloodied, it certainly should not be easier to use this skill against your allies when they're fresh. Thus I'd use Will +20 or more if I allowed this at all. And again, I'd make it advisory and point out that intimidate tends to be a bad way to deal with allies, since they won't be very intimidated by you next time you're unconcious and need to be healed....

[Oracle_Hunter]

We are a little RP heavy, that's why I'm trying to make it work. It just seems a little imbalanced though to make a check against Will Defense.
I'm trying to reconcile "RP Heavy" with "we want mechanics to make basic character decisions" but OK :smallsigh:

Since you're playing 4e, you may as well use Diplomacy vs. Will +X since we have a precedent with Intimidate. To make it interesting, I'd say have the targeted Player decide how convincing the Diplomancer's proposal is for their character and assigning an appropriate bonus to their Will defense.

For example:
Very Convincing ("Let me buy you a drink") = +0
Tempting ("C'mon, that lady is totally in to you") = +5
Neutral ("Let's attack the castle this way") = +10
Distasteful ("You distract the guards while we sneak in") = +15
Repellant ("Give me all your loot; I need a new dagger") = +20

This encourages the Diplomancer to make an effort to frame these choices in a plausible way while also giving the Targeted Player some input as to how their character feels about a given proposal.

How's that sound?

[MeeposFire]

Normally the DM is controlling what you are influencing so the DM sets the DC to beat. Since this is on a player and you want to roll what you should do is have the affected player decide whether the request is hard,easy, etc and the outcome of success or failure (you can use the chart for skill checks that was recently posted to give you an idea of what numbers to use). In addition since you say you value you should have the player role play the check and depending on how you (assuming you are the one being dimplomancied) you feel it would affect the character you can give it a bonus or penalty on the roll (for instance if you have a valiant character and a character is trying to convince you to run by describing your running away as "a dog with its tale between its legs" then a penalty might be in order while using the idea of warning the local town of the threat might give a bonus). After setting the DC and deciding whether it gets a bonus or penalty then you can have the other player roll to affect you. If the total roll is better than the DC you set then he affects you in the way you expect.


For example the valorous paladin is going to attack the dragon and you want him to retreat. You decide you want to roll for it rather than just straight roleplay. The paladin player (possibly with input from the DM) decides that since he is so brave makes it a hard DC to convince him to retreat. For he level they are playing let us say that a 19DC is "hard". The paladin player decides that if the player is convincing he will retreat otherwise he will move to attack. The diplomancing character makes a speech saying the party needs to warn the village so it can prepare for the attack. The paladin player decides that this is likely to convince him due to it appealing to his honor and because the other character is a long time friend. They decide this gives a +3 to the roll. The diplomacy roll is made and things move on from there.

Why do you have the player decide the DC rather than use your will defense or passive insight?

To give the player some input on how likely they are to be affected. This way you can prevent stupid things like an evil character trying to diplomacy a paladin to kill his sister for no reason (in which case the player can say there is no roll good enough without the other character having some sort of leverage). Players feel better if they have some control over themselves.

Why decide the consequences before rolling?

So that you can prvent arguments like "wait I did not know that was going to happen. You could never convince me to do that!"

Why allow roleplaying to apply bonuses?

To give you a reason to roleplay at all and allows for cleverness.

[theflyingkitty]

Just make them ROLEPLAY it. Make the player offer a valid argument as to why they should all march into the troll cave. And then the other should either come to see that light or present their ow valid argument from their own characters point of view. As they should be using their characters own diplomacy scores and such to figure it out.

[ericgrau]

IMO diplomacy isn't an opposed roll - PC or NPC - because you're not forcing someone to do anything, you're only making a good idea more clear to someone who might not like you. Thus unless the rogue likes the idea but won't do it because he's pissed at the bard a roll is useless. Role-play it out instead.

Intimidate is similar to diplomacy. It makes someone act as if they're friendly towards you even though they're not; i.e. an intimidate check is merely a pretend diplomacy check. Thus when intimidate is done the rogue is even more pissed at the bard but he still goes along with the plan because he thinks it'll work and he's afraid of the bard. If the rogue and bard aren't at odds with each-other again a roll is meaningless and they should role-play it out.

If you're trying to convince someone of a bad idea either you gotta bring more facts to the table so it doesn't seem so bad or you have to lie about the facts. Then it's a bluff check not a diplomacy. And then it is opposed.

Rolling to dominate another person's decisions never turns out well, nor does it make any sense either.