What's a suuuuper high (60+) diplomacy check like?

[danzibr]

Changing someone's behavior from hostile (will take risks to hurt you) to helpful (will take risks to help you) take a diplomacy check of 60+ when done as a full-round action.

So if we think about this... will take risks to hurt you. They're willing to endanger themselves to mess with your life. Then you do some sort of mysterious action which only takes 6 seconds, and suddenly they will actually fight to protect you.

What could you possibly be doing in those 6 seconds to change a person's opinion of you so much?

Not that D&D is supposed to reflect real life, but no matter how skilled a person is, I don't think I'd ever go from hostile to helpful in 6 seconds. Then again, I've never met a TO mid-level person in real life.

[Gavinfoxx]

*Waves hand*
"You don't want to hurt me."

"I don't want to hurt you."

*Waves hand again*
"You want to help me achieve my goals."

"I want to help you achieve your goals.

*Waves hand again*
"You are rather fond of me."

"I am rather fond of you."

[Xiander]

*Waves hand*
"You don't want to hurt me."

"I don't want to hurt you."

*Waves hand again*
"You want to help me achieve my goals."

"I want to help you achieve your goals.

*Waves hand again*
"You are rather fond of me."

"I am rather fond of you."


This is really all that needs to be said.

/thread

[Analytica]

The anime "Monster" may provide some examples of this that almost doesn't break versimilitude.

I realize I am grasping at straws, but...

- Suddenly, your posture, facial expression, vocal stresses etc exactly resemble those that the target experienced during truly safe and happy moments in early childhood. These memories are subconsciously activated.
- You are using exactly those phrases, and presenting them exactly so that you make the target associate you with whatever the highest authority they venerate is.
- Similarly, the counterpoint to what you want (i.e. hurting you, not letting you pass) is described in words, voice stresses, body language etc. that remind of every sad or horrific memory the target has ever had. Thinking of not doing as you say is effectively the same as remembering clearly every moment of doubt you ever experienced. It is unpleasant, and your subconscious won't want that.

Of course, nothing of this would work without some supernatural guidance or insight, but the direct effect on the target can still be extraordinary in this manner.

[Malroth]

When talking to the overlord's leutennant



I know that virtue to be in you, Brutus,
As well as I do know your outward favour.
Well, honour is the subject of my story.
I cannot tell what you and other men
Think of this life; but, for my single self,
I had as lief not be as live to be
In awe of such a thing as I myself.
I was born free as Caesar; so were you:
We both have fed as well, and we can both
Endure the winter's cold as well as he:
For once, upon a raw and gusty day,
The troubled Tiber chafing with her shores,
Caesar said to me 'Darest thou, Cassius, now
Leap in with me into this angry flood,
And swim to yonder point?' Upon the word,
Accoutred as I was, I plunged in
And bade him follow; so indeed he did.
The torrent roar'd, and we did buffet it
With lusty sinews, throwing it aside
And stemming it with hearts of controversy;
But ere we could arrive the point proposed,
Caesar cried 'Help me, Cassius, or I sink!'
I, as Aeneas, our great ancestor,
Did from the flames of Troy upon his shoulder
The old Anchises bear, so from the waves of Tiber
Did I the tired Caesar. And this man
Is now become a god, and Cassius is
A wretched creature and must bend his body,
If Caesar carelessly but nod on him.
He had a fever when he was in Spain,
And when the fit was on him, I did mark
How he did shake: 'tis true, this god did shake;
His coward lips did from their colour fly,
And that same eye whose bend doth awe the world
Did lose his lustre: I did hear him groan:
Ay, and that tongue of his that bade the Romans
Mark him and write his speeches in their books,
Alas, it cried 'Give me some drink, Tintinius,'
As a sick girl. Ye gods, it doth amaze me
A man of such a feeble temper should
So get the start of the majestic world
And bear the palm alone.

[danzibr]

*Waves hand*
"You don't want to hurt me."

"I don't want to hurt you."

*Waves hand again*
"You want to help me achieve my goals."

"I want to help you achieve your goals.

*Waves hand again*
"You are rather fond of me."

"I am rather fond of you."

This is really all that needs to be said.

/thread
Normally I find the /thread thing very annoying, but I do agree that Gavinfoxx nailed it. Well, to be honest I still find the /thread very annoying.

[Togo]

Gavinfoxx is describing something like mind control, which isn't how it works. This is more the presence of the great king, someone who is personally so impressive that people will change their ideas.

Bear in mind that diplomacy checks only work if you're, you know, trying to be diplomatic, and that a full round is actually time for quite a speech. And it doesn't make them nice to you, it doesn't make them like the fact that you need their help.


You again! I told you what would happen if you showed your around here. I'm gonna kill yo-

Yes! Yes, you did, and I didn't want to disturb you, but we're tired, hungry, cold, and didn't know where else to go. I know we aren't welcome here, but we're far from home, we're trying to do what's right. Have you had kin, far from home, relying on the tolerance of strangers to seem them through? I'm not asking you to like us, I'm not asking you to forgive us, I'm just asking that you don't throw us out into the night. It's a small gesture to you, an act of kindness that would so much to us, and to anyone who might be in the same position.

If you're not out by dawn, I'll set the dog on you.

Absolutely.


That's what I'd say it looked like.

Most of the nonsense around the diplomacy skill can be avoided if you just remember that people can't just roll dice, they have to be nice to the NPC. If your players are abusing it, they're probably just making checks to influence when, strictly speaking, they aren't attempting to use the skill. Using the skill means being diplomatic, in the same way that you can't make a jump check to float up in the air when you're sitting down, or use a craft check to make home-made objects shoot out of your palms.

[Gavinfoxx]

The thing is... I would say that at high levels of skill, it is mind control, which Mind Blank can't protect you from.

[Togo]

Similar points can be made in real life about particularly inspirational and charismatic people.

Nonetheless, diplomacy the 3.5 skill has a great many limitations, the largest of which is that if you aren't continually diplomatic, you don't get to make a check at all, while your undiplomatic actions still can turn people against you.

So, no, it's not mind control, at least not pre-epic. People will take risks to help you, but they won't do literally anything, and they should be reasonable risks. Asking someone to do something obviously harmful to themselves is clearly out. This is the skill for those charismatic heroes and rogues who can charm their way out of anything. If they can get a very high score, there's no reason why it shouldn't be a practical means of achieving things that mind-control spells would struggle with, getting someone genuinely on your side.

[Lonely Tylenol]

Hey.

http://static.tvfanatic.com/images/gallery/joey-tribbiani-picture.jpg

How YOU doin'?

http://images.wikia.com/friends/images/f/f5/JoeyTribbiani.jpg

[Shadowknight12]

An example of a super high diplomacy check? Forging peace between long-lasting foes.

ME3 Spoilers below:

Like the geth and the quarian.

[Flickerdart]

Keep a list of all the enemies you've killed up to this point. Recite it. Then pause while they appraise how many times you've been killed by your enemies. After that, your winning smile should be enough to convince them that yours is the winning side and it's the other guys they should be cleaving in twain.

[NichG]

The thing is, its not just a power, its something that is fully 'mundane', just unimaginably skilled. If you hit a DC 60 Diplomacy check it works just as well in an antimagic field as not.

I much prefer the explanation that somehow you just know exactly what it is to say to this person, exactly how to speak, what pose to hold, etc. Its the conversational equivalent to throwing an open palm up in the face of the person charging you - something so perfectly unexpected that it completely puts the person off-guard. I think its pretty much impossible to describe an example without context though, because whatever the Diplomancer is doing is going to involve some perfectly chosen thing relative to the target. Imagine:

Guy: You! You killed all my friends, murdered my family. I don't care if it kills me, I'm going to-

Diplomancer: Its almost time for them to be resurrected, and I'm the only one alive with the key. Their souls are safe from the demon that was hunting them. Your brother has a message for you from the afterlife by the way: "The black rock in clover field". Mean anything to you?

That's a bit thin, and its more of a Bluff example I guess.

[ericgrau]

Good diplomacy is basically a silver tongue. It's not magical, but anything 20+ above normal is beyond comprehension. Maybe you read the nervous ticks in his face whose specific twitch style indicates that an owlbear assaulted him as a child while he was doing X and which means ever since then he has always fought for Y. And so will you. Hello, instead of fighting eachother let's fight together against Y. Oh and also our own goal Z in the meantime. Join us, we can work together.

I'd avoid using charisma skills as more direct mind control though. It cheapens them a bit, besides being less plausible. And sometimes the answer should simply be "no" regardless of the roll.

[Kerilstrasz]

An average Barbarian sits at a bar and drinks beer...
He is thinkin that he has to pay a gold piece to get a lady tonight since no woman loved him,or even offered him a night cause of his magificent -5 Cha mod.

His swοrn enemy, a +8 Cha Female rogue enters the bar,(1sec)
drops her weapons(2 sec)
drops her clothes(3 sec)
approaches him with a flirty smile (4 sec)
touches his crotch(5 sec)
and tells him "I m yours now! (6sec)

thats a 6 sec 60+ roll!

[Xiander]

Normally I find the /thread thing very annoying, but I do agree that Gavinfoxx nailed it. Well, to be honest I still find the /thread very annoying.

Ah, I apologize. In hindsight, I agree that it was not the best way to express my sentiment.

My point is, that while you can express it at perfectly performed divine monologue, in the end it boils down to being so good with diplomatic words and rhetoric that even your hated enemies must stop and listen and reconsidder their ways.

And in a lot of ways it does not make sense.

(Also i really did find Gavinfox' comment very humorous.

[NichG]

To my mind, Diplomacy is fundamentally about trading, barter, making offers. Its not just 'hey, work for me' 'okay, boss', but is more that the very thing that the person needs most is on the table, and the Diplomancer can give it to them, and so they'd better abandon whatever they were doing and do his bidding for even a chance at that reward.

I think good examples of high Diplomacy checks about in media, but usually aren't really highlighted like the guy punching someone through a wall is.

For example, any show or movie where you're thinking to yourself 'You've got the villain right there! Why aren't you killing him?' usually indicates that the villain has made a good Diplomacy check. Maybe its 'we need him alive for information' or 'we have to trade him for someone' or 'no, I can't bring myself to kill' or whatever. You could assume its because the heroes are weak or thwarted by their conscience or dumb or whatever, or maybe its just that the villain figured out exactly what to say, how to set up the situation, whatever, so that the heroes would go 'I want to kill you but I can't'.

Similarly, any situation where the hero basically convinces the villain's hirelings to turn against them at the last moment is probably a good example. There's the Austin Powers 'You don't even have a nametag. You really think you stand a chance?', the 'Hey, have you ever met anyone else who worked for this guy? Ever thought why?', etc. Those are quick, don't sound like much, but get the job done despite enemies who would likely give their lives to thwart the hero if it were a combat scene and not a witty one-liner.

I'm not actually sure a super-high Diplomacy check should be flashy, divine, perfect, etc. A check that high, and people can't tell they're being manipulated.

[Doorhandle]

I imagine it works like The part in the Get Smart movie where Maxwell manages to talk down and make freinds with one of the big bad's minions, and thus invovles a lot of psycology (and prior knowlege of the target.)

What you said above me is also quite valid, though.

[Togo]

Like many mechanics, it's an attempt to enable a trope. So you start with the trope, a hero being able to talk his way out of a difficult situation with the gift of the gab, and use this to model it. Try doing it the other way around just feels wrong.

Similarly, this is why housecats are so deadly to commoners. It's because the only times you'd want to model the combat stats of a housecats tend to be during some kind of horror scene, when people die in a variety of absurd ways, such as fallling down stairs while clawing at the housecat on their face, or getting their eyes pecked out by crows. So the combat stats oblige. Use this to model every housecat, and yeah, you get an odd situation.

[Otomodachi]

The anime "Monster" may provide some examples of this that almost doesn't break versimilitude.

I realize I am grasping at straws, but...

- Suddenly, your posture, facial expression, vocal stresses etc exactly resemble those that the target experienced during truly safe and happy moments in early childhood. These memories are subconsciously activated.
- You are using exactly those phrases, and presenting them exactly so that you make the target associate you with whatever the highest authority they venerate is.
- Similarly, the counterpoint to what you want (i.e. hurting you, not letting you pass) is described in words, voice stresses, body language etc. that remind of every sad or horrific memory the target has ever had. Thinking of not doing as you say is effectively the same as remembering clearly every moment of doubt you ever experienced. It is unpleasant, and your subconscious won't want that.

Of course, nothing of this would work without some supernatural guidance or insight, but the direct effect on the target can still be extraordinary in this manner.

Yep, this is basically what I was going to say.

Except I don't necessarily think it requires anything supernatural. I believe it was Wilhelm Reich that took the Jungian idea of archetypes and expanded on it to postulate that there are ways to say things, and thing to say, that will generally have a similar effect on most people. How do those psychics and mediums who aren't on the up-and-up get people to dance to their tune?

Definitely suggest reading some Wilhelm Reich, you'll have to wade through some weird sex stuff but his theories on body language and verbalization are worth some attention.

Remember diplomacy is a skill; even at an epic level the person is able to do it through practice and accumulated expertise, not magic or innate charisma, otherwise it'd just be a charisma check. It can't just be force of personality or a regal bearing or that, it's got to be deliberate and conscious, which is why I like the Reichian explanation. There's a good example of some people DOING this in one of the Invisibles comics; fourth trade paperback, I'd guess.