Diplomacy

[rmnimoc]

Back in character creation I decided my beguiler was going to want his own demiplane and my DM joked to me that if I could figure out a way to cast genesis as a beguiler totally by RAW, and then escape the tarrasque he'll send at me for doing it, then I can use all the cheesy demiplane shenanigans I can come up with. Which is good, because I'm the only non-tier 1 class in the party and I doubt enchantment does much against most gods, and I'm pretty sure he intends on us picking fights with a few of them in the future. I'm also stuck 2 levels behind the rest of the party, so the whole demiplane would be a huge help right now.
Anyway, back to the main thing, I was wondering about diplomacy rules. We recently met a level twenty wizard in the town we will be spending all of our free time. He has scribe scroll and genesis. Can I take 20 in diplomacy and just diplomacize this wizard (who is already friendly) every day until he becomes fanatical (diplomacy of 30, capable of bringing it up to 40)?
I'm running off the assumption that if a fanatic will die for you, they would also scribe a scroll with an xp component of 5000. He is also rich, so the scroll won't leave him broke. Could I get him to do it?
I've already got a plan for escaping (I have a druid ready to cast reincarnation on me if I die, and I've got a ring that will teleport my severed hand to her on my death), and I've got a high enough UMD to cast it from the scroll, so all I need to do is figure out if the whole diplomacy thing will work.

[RustyArmor]

It really just depends on how your DM runs with diplomacy skill. To me its like the bluff skill where people think its high enough you can do/get away with everything. Some DMs simple just say "Well I guess it works then." Where as others like me are more like. "No I don't care you rolled a 55 on diplomacy the dragon is not giving you its treasure hoard."

It really just comes down to money, all magical items cost xp and yet mages seem to sell magical items all time. Give that friendly wizard enough cash and you can more then likely just get the place made, just make sure you really really really trust him.

[ranagrande]

You can't take 20 on a Diplomacy check. How much gold do you have? You could just diplomance the wizard once, and be guaranteed of success to raise him from Friendly to Helpful. Then just ask to buy a scroll of genesis. Market price on it should be 28,825gp, and he might be willing to give you a discount if he's helpful.

[rmnimoc]

My DM is all for diplomacy as written. He's also all for letting us get away with ridiculous things as long as we manage to keep him from realising it. Which means if I ask him, he'll engineer a way to keep it from happening. Sadly I've got nowhere near the funds to buy the scroll, and I'm fairly sure our druid is sneaking away with a large chuck of all the money we get. Can I just keep doing diplomacy checks daily then? Also can you can aid another in diplomacy?

[Emperor Tippy]

If he can scribe a scroll of genesis he has Mindblank up all the time and thus diplomacy can't ever get him about Helpful.

[rmnimoc]

He is my character from a previous campaign. I had picked Abjuration as a banned school for him for flavor reasons. As much as I lamented that fact during that campaign, I'm rather grateful now.

[Fouredged Sword]

What you want to do is borrow a runestaff with genesis on it. It should cost 32400, but it will be unlimited uses, so borrowing on shouldn't be too expensive.

[rmnimoc]

Sadly that can't happen. My DM ruled that there are no spell level nine items floating around unless he specifically said otherwise or it was made there at the table.

[Fouredged Sword]

I think we can get the cost of a custom item of genisis, once per week, down to much less than a scroll.

Lets see...

A use activated item costs Spell Level X Caster Level X 2000

Spell level 9, CL 17

So 306000

Add to this the exp component cost

5 gp per exp, so 25000 gp

now 331000

But we devide the cost by uses per day, so it has 1/7th of a charge per day, so we devide the cost by 35.

The final cost is 9457 gp and change

[Emperor Tippy]

He is my character from a previous campaign. I had picked Abjuration as a banned school for him for flavor reasons. As much as I lamented that fact during that campaign, I'm rather grateful now.

Irrelevant thanks to Third Eye Conceal. Or Planar Bind a Paeliryon (FC2, page 130) with its at Will Mindblank SLA.

[rmnimoc]

I still have to manage to convince someone that it is worth their experience to make it. Plus there aren't that many high level spellcasters in our world, and finding one who I can convince to spend experience is a bit tricky (the vast majority of high level casters in this world are either evil or hermits).


Irrelevant thanks to Third Eye Conceal. Or Planar Bind a Paeliryon (FC2, page 130) with its at Will Mindblank SLA.
The DM doesn't have FC2 and the wizard would never take off his goggles. So neither of which he has at the moment. Which is why I can't just ask my DM more about diplomacy rules, because then he just might get one.

[Fouredged Sword]

Do you have scribe scroll? If so, you only need to convince the wizard to provide the spell slot. You can expend the exp, the time, and the money. It will still be expensive, but less so that openly buying the scroll.

It will still be 14412.5 gp to pull off, but not too bad really. A helpful wizard of high enough level should be willing to expend a single 9th level spell slot at a time of his convenience to help a friend. You could craft the scroll and send it to him through magic for him to finalize and send back. At worst you pay him the going rate for a casting of a 9th level spell, 1530 gp.

[rmnimoc]

That is a good idea, but sadly I'm still poor. I lost most of my money two levels ago when our archivist murdered me, and after buying new gear I'm sitting on a measly 7000 gp, under half what it costs to pay for crafting the scroll.

[Fouredged Sword]

OOOOH! I know, do it in steps. You can diplomance multiple people, each with a piece of the puzzle for the stuff you want.

Get a fanatical banker to give you a line of credit, then get a fanatical NPC adept with scribe scroll to craft it using the money you provide. Then send that scroll to the helpful wizard for completion.

[rmnimoc]

OOOOH! I know, do it in steps. You can diplomance multiple people, each with a piece of the puzzle for the stuff you want.

Get a fanatical banker to give you a line of credit, then get a fanatical NPC adept with scribe scroll to craft it using the money you provide. Then send that scroll to the helpful wizard for completion.
Brilliant. I'm definitely going to try that. Not only will it work, it'll confuse the heck out of my party. A confused archivist will follow me to see what is going on, and then I can use enchantment with demiplane metamagic powers to overpower him and make him live out his days enslaved in a super timed demiplane making walls of salt so I can be rich.

[Vaz]

If he can scribe a scroll of genesis he has Mindblank up all the time and thus diplomacy can't ever get him about Helpful.

Wasn't Fanatical the only [Mind-Affecting] result?

I also thought you could only make a single diplomacy check on a particular target.

[rmnimoc]

I believe he meant to say above helpful. Anyway where do you see only getting one diplomacy check? I read "retries usually do not work" as if you try multiple times in a very short period of time you increase the DC. Besides, it wouldn't be a retry anyway, it would be me diplomasizing him from friendly to helpful, then me diplomasizing him from helpful to fanatic. If I failed it still wouldn't be a retry, because instead of talking to him about why enchantment is the best school of magic, I'd use a different approach, like "Hey, those are some pretty cool goggles, is there a story behind them?". That's how I see it at least.
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Home > Skills > Diplomacy

Diplomacy (Cha)
Check

You can change the attitudes of others (nonplayer characters) with a successful Diplomacy check; see the Influencing NPC Attitudes sidebar, below, for basic DCs. In negotiations, participants roll opposed Diplomacy checks, and the winner gains the advantage. Opposed checks also resolve situations when two advocates or diplomats plead opposite cases in a hearing before a third party.

See also: epic usages of Diplomacy.

Action

Changing others’ attitudes with Diplomacy generally takes at least 1 full minute (10 consecutive full-round actions). In some situations, this time requirement may greatly increase. A rushed Diplomacy check can be made as a full-round action, but you take a -10 penalty on the check.

Try Again

Optional, but not recommended because retries usually do not work. Even if the initial Diplomacy check succeeds, the other character can be persuaded only so far, and a retry may do more harm than good. If the initial check fails, the other character has probably become more firmly committed to his position, and a retry is futile.

Special

A half-elf has a +2 racial bonus on Diplomacy checks.

If you have the Negotiator feat, you get a +2 bonus on Diplomacy checks.

Synergy

If you have 5 or more ranks in Bluff, Knowledge (nobility and royalty), or Sense Motive, you get a +2 bonus on Diplomacy checks.

Influencing NPC Attitudes

Use the table below to determine the effectiveness of Diplomacy checks (or Charisma checks) made to influence the attitude of a nonplayer character, or wild empathy checks made to influence the attitude of an animal or magical beast.

[Vaz]

hmm, must have either been a houserule, or I've read it all wrong; probably associated "retry" with attempting a new diplomacy check. Everyday's an education, glad to learn otherwise.

If your result failed, it would be DM's decision whether coming from a new angle would allow a retry, although I agree with your version; attempting to climb a cliff face from a different point is not a retry after all, it's a new Diplomacy check.

Having said that, it's not as though Diplomacy needed to become more powerful from a DM's point of view.

As a DM, I'd have some hearty penalties to new diplomacy checks from the same person; if it wasn't a wizard, I'd have said some Disguise spells. On the other hand, a mundane disguise could work. Wizards typically "low" Wis (comparatively) and usual non reliance on spot checks, having your party aid you for bonuses to Disguise could help; especially if you combine it with a magical disguise; stroking the ego of the Wizard by saying "how clever of you, your True Seeing saw straight through my disguise, no-one has managed that before... I have to trust you now, here's my secret, [secret] is there any way you can help me? I need a Scroll of Genesis/Shapechange so I can become a Zodar...

[rmnimoc]

I wouldn't bother asking him for it unless he was either fanatical or I could pay him for it, and in either situation the odds of failure are rather slim. Like I said earlier he is already friendly, and all I'd be trying to do is be cool enough for him to become fanatical, that isn't really something that's only a one chance thing. Unless I do something totally embarrassing. Then I might be SOL.

[hymer]

In my PHB, it says that retries are 'Optional, but not recommended, because retries usually do not work. Even if the initial Diplomacy checks succeeds, the other character can be persuaded only so far, and a retry may do more harm than good. If the initial check fails, the other character has probably become more firmly committed to his position, and a retry is futile.'
I read that as 'the DM could allow a retry, but that should be an exception to the common practice'.

[Zirconia]

"As a DM, I'd have some hearty penalties to new diplomacy checks from the same person;"

Certainly understandable from a game balance point of view, but in real life it could certainly be argued that it is much easier to make a good friend through repeated interactions over months or years than by just having one really cool conversation. As you find out what they like to do, discuss, etc. you can emphasize that in yourself as well and so on.

[rmnimoc]

Certainly understandable from a game balance point of view, but in real life it could certainly be argued that it is much easier to make a good friend through repeated interactions over months or years than by just having one really cool conversation. As you find out what they like to do, discuss, etc. you can emphasize that in yourself as well and so on.

That is the reason my DM would probably go for it. I just needed to make sure there wasn't an actual rule saying that it was a one shot deal.

[Fouredged Sword]

I always read it as requiring a period of time to pass between attempts. One can't simply try again. It's not that diplomacy can't be used multiple times on a single person, it's that it can't be used on a single person multiple times in an encounter.

[rmnimoc]

That's a lot like how I see it too, that's why in the first post I said I'd try to diplomacize him daily.

[hymer]

Diplomacy is quite broken as it is, why would anyone increase its brokenness by going against the recommendations the rules give?