Breaking the world with "bluff."

[Allianis]

So we're just wrapping up a campaign and I won't have to DM the next one (YAY!!!!). However, I was thinking about making my character and I started reading up on Beguilers.

At first glance, they seemed like niche sorcerers with a cool little gimmick. Excellent in some scenarios, useless in others. Then I came across the spell, "Glibness." Holy hoards of mindless mooks Batman! You mean to tell me I can have +30 to bluff, on an already optimized bluffer, giving me a net +10 even when I'm throwing out completely ludicrous lies? Oh, I so pity this DM... so let's get started.

From the SRD:
A successful Bluff check indicates that the target reacts as you wish, at least for a short time (usually 1 round or less) or believes something that you want it to believe. Bluff, however, is not a suggestion spell.

While I can think of some truly excellent uses for getting 1 round of control out of my target, I think the really fancy uses are going to be in getting people to believe something.

My question for all of you fine folk is two-fold. First, how far should I take this? Being funny is great, and beating the campaign is fun, but being obnoxious sucks for everyone, and breaking the campaign makes everyone lose interest fast. So help me in determining a good place to draw the line.

Second, when it inevitably comes to pass that my DM starts pushing the mindless horde on us (undead, construct, vermin, etc.) to nerf the game-breaking power, what would be your back-up plan? The beguiler comes standard with some nifty tricks like halt, hold monster, and haste. There are prestige classes which would fit nicely with beguiler to pump up his secondary tactics (maybe Unseen Seer?). I could even go into some more martial tactics, as I should be able to spare the feats. What do you think?

[Vhaidara]

Bluff, however, is not a suggestion spell.

Well, first off, this is kind of a lie. See Epic Usage of Bluff (http://www.d20srd.org/srd/epic/skills.htm#bluff)

Now, to the point: Only do it when it's funny. If the GM asks you to stop, stop. Glibness is kind of really stupid.

As far as backups, especially if you're going for a manipulator-type character, a level dip in Mindbender (Complete Arcane) will delay your Advanced Learning so that you can pick up a 4th level spell, namely, Shadow Conjuration. If you play a gnome, you can then go into Shadowcraft Mage and eventually have illusions ranging from 70% real to (if you cheese it) 110% real (enemies would take 10% more damage on a successful save)

[Segev]

Play it with a touch of Baron Munchausen, I suggest. Be creative, and tell fibs and lies all the time, making your stories more interesting, your past more evocative, your abilities more fitting to getting you the treatment you wantdeserve... but don't be malicious, at least not to the party, about it.

Let them be in on it, at least enough of the time that they feel like they're in a special group who are, again, in on it. Being in on the joke is fun, and makes it "we" instead of "he." "We pulled one over on the sherrif" is cool and fun. "He pulled one over on the sherrif and the party" is less so for the party.

Lie outrageously. One possibility is to play it such that you deliberately don't lie well with a lot of it, so the times when it matters, your lies are all the more believable. The other way to do it is to play it as your lies are so believable despite being outrageous that people have a hard time telling if you're ever telling the truth...but they really, really shouldn't take the chance.

Getting people to react how you want them to, at least for a round, is good for fast-talking. Make sure you only NEED them to buy your fib for a round, because you are buying them turning on your enemies or not following you long enough to buy you time to escape.

I would also take advantage of the Beguiler's Disguise skills and spells. Get them distracted for a round while you disappear, then quick-change to "somebody else" and lie again about which way you went...



As for the mindless things... that's what minions are for. You have Charm spells, amongst other things. Have friends around to handle them. Remember that illusions and invisibility work on even mindless things, too. They still operate on senses, and they do so programatically. A bluff check to convince them a thrown rock is where you ran off might not be inappropriate.

[Deophaun]

Just a couple things to look out for:

1) The best you can do is a lie that is "almost too incredible to believe," so there are things that will totally fail. Now, what those things are in a world where reality can be reshaped and written with some funny words and silly gestures is anyone's guess.

2) Regardless of how well you lie, Sense Motive has a DC 20 trump card after a minute of interaction. So if you're trying to pretend to be the kings of five warring kingdoms at the same time (see above), eventually someone will get suspicious.

[illyahr]

Just going to leave this (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kvAzB_dAhNs) here. :smalltongue:

I'm not allowed to play Bards or Beguilers anymore for the Bluff/Diplomacy abuse that I can pull off. :smallsmile:

[Flickerdart]

Well, for a bluffomancer who's on top of his game, the first thing you should do is persist Glibness and Serene Visage (http://www.giantitp.com/forums/showthread.php?154326-3-5-quot-Bardzilla-quot) and have a +yes mod all day.

[LooseCannoneer]

http://www.giantitp.com/comics/oots0767.html

Have fun.

[Hiro Quester]

My previous character was a bard who persisted glibness. Between that, skilranks synergies and a insanely high charisma I could beat a DC 60 on bluff without rolling.

Use it responsibily. It's not an alter reality spell, no matter what OOTS plays it as.

It's an attempt to convince someone that what you are saying is what you believe to be true.

Make it too outrageous ("you are a wallaby") and the guard thinks you are simply delusional.

My DM nerfed many of my extreme uses of bluff by just responding to my roll of 70 on a bluff check in an attempt to bluff the guard with "He is 100% totally convinced that you believe what you are saying".

[Deophaun]

It's an attempt to convince someone that what you are saying is what you believe to be true.
While this is perhaps a useful house rule, it's not Bluff by RAW. "You are actually a toad polymorphed into a man, and if you don't look out, I will break enchantment you back to where you came from," should get you 1 round of compliance if you can pull off the check.

[Banjoman42]

Sometimes it's fun to mess with your team mates IRL (if it isn't malicious). Once, I convinced them all (via hiding character sheet) that I was an entirely different class. Make up random lies in your backstory just to confuse them later. It will come in handy later if they don't know your a class based on lieing.

[newb]

1 level dip of warlock will give you +6

[goto124]

As someone coming from a Kill 50 Demons game where Diplomancy/Bluff/blah would probably broke the storyline a bit much... I still don't get how to use Bluff in a useful but not game-breaking way. Weren't we supposed to fight this and that monster? Do we try bluffing mid-combat, where talking to the opponent takes an action?

[LooseCannoneer]

My previous character was a bard who persisted glibness. Between that, skilranks synergies and a insanely high charisma I could beat a DC 60 on bluff without rolling.

Use it responsibily. It's not an alter reality spell, no matter what OOTS plays it as.

It's an attempt to convince someone that what you are saying is what you believe to be true.

Make it too outrageous ("you are a wallaby") and the guard thinks you are simply delusional.

My DM nerfed many of my extreme uses of bluff by just responding to my roll of 70 on a bluff check in an attempt to bluff the guard with "He is 100% totally convinced that you believe what you are saying".

Yeah. It isn't an alter reality spell. It doesn't need to be. But bluff is an attempt to convince others that something is true, not that you believe it. The DM changing that is a worse solution to your bluff bonus than, say, having an OOC talk about not overusing it.

[Doctor Awkward]

Behold the ultimate master of the art of bull****...

The Charlatan (http://www.minmaxboards.com/index.php?topic=8763.0)
A dinky little 5 level prestige class found in the back of Dragon Magazine 335. This was the winner of the Origins Prestige Class design contest.
I played this once as a changeling Rogue 5/Charlatan 5/Chameleon 10 named Thix.
And it was glorious.
I played him as a "Spy With Good Publicity". He was an infiltrator and a sneak, but literally everyone knew him as being something else. He had an enormous reputation around the realm, even greater than the rest of the party. Of course none of it was true, and most of the deeds were actually accomplished by other party members. We worked out a deal where they agreed to prop him up as this massively powerful figure to which they were the followers in exchange for him being the target for the fallout for when things went sour (which, thankfully, wasn't often).
The height of the campaign for him was when I bluffed a fallen paladin working for the big baddie into thinking I was not only a high cleric of his order, but that I had cast an atonement spell and forgiven him for his crimes so he wouldn't participate in the final battle.

Suggested feats:
Able Learner: Keep up Diplomacy as well as Bluff, intimidate, and other relevant skills. You are not just the party face, you are THE party face.

Fade Into Violence, PHB2 p. 79- roll bluff when unamred to make enemies hit your allies instead of you, like the crusader who would love to fill his delayed damage pool. "Don't hurt me! I'm a useless coward! (sucker...)"

Combat Panache, PHB2, p. 93- roll bluff to make enemies hit their allies instead of you, or play dead to neutralize trip builds and get free sneak attack.

Master Manipulator, PHB2, p. 80- "Did you just try to lie to me? To me? Why don't you tell the nice people here what made you say those awful things?"

Suggested skill tricks:
Assume Quirk, Second Impression, Social Recovery, False Theurgy

[newb]

Changeling has some good feats to help also

[Segev]

A good way to run the "he believes you believe it" thing is to have that be the result if you manage to beat his Sense Motive without the "it's too ridiculous to believe" penalty, but not with it.

So he isn't convinced - the lie is just too ludicrous - but you didn't come off as a liar. Just mistaken. Or crazy.


But yeah, a super-high bluff that overcomes even that penalty? It is supposed to represent the supremely skilled con man's ability to, at least for a few moments, make YOU buy his story. Sure, you might (say, 6 seconds later) go, "waaaaaiiiiiiiit," but for just a few seconds, he was just so convincingly sincere that you bought it without thinking about it too hard.

I'm told, though I haven't had opportunity to see it, there is a documentary or some-such about a con artist who's gone straight and demonstrates some of the fast-talk techniques. One of the extended bits has him approaching random strangers on the street and getting them to hand him their wallets, often without them even realizing they'd done so until after he's walking off with it.

That's the kind of lie we're talking about. Or, rather, deception. Because it could be truths, falsehoods, or distracting patter that is utterly irrelevant to the one thing you're using it to "support" doing. (e.g. "since the sky is blue and that makes the street dry you need to hand me your wallet" somehow working)

[Andreaz]

Oooooor you do the sensible thing and have the target react for a round to check the statement.
If you tell it the sky is red, it'll look up. If you tell it it is a polymorphed toad, it'll ponder on its memories to conclude otherwise. If you tell it its guarding duties are just a simulation and it should report back to the boss, it'll report back to the boss (with all that implies).

[Segev]

Oooooor you do the sensible thing and have the target react for a round to check the statement.
If you tell it the sky is red, it'll look up. If you tell it it is a polymorphed toad, it'll ponder on its memories to conclude otherwise. If you tell it its guarding duties are just a simulation and it should report back to the boss, it'll report back to the boss (with all that implies).

Viable if that's the reaction for which the bluffer is looking.

[Deophaun]

Viable if that's the reaction for which the bluffer is looking.
And then only for a round.

[Segev]

And then only for a round.

That is how Bluff works. :)

[Chronos]

You can get a particular behavior for a round, but there's no time limit on believing something to be true.

And remember, the example in the book for a lie with a -20 penalty is "I'm actually a polymorphed lammasu, and you can believe me, because lammasu never lie". Is there really that much difference between saying "I'm actually polymorphed" and saying "You're actually polymorphed (http://www.giantitp.com/comics/oots0767.html)"? Keep in mind, too, that Haley in that strip could probably pull off Bluff checks at a -50 penalty or so, not just -20. It's hard to imagine a lie that's really that impossible, in a world with magic.

[Flickerdart]

Is there really that much difference between saying "I'm actually polymorphed" and saying "You're actually polymorphed (http://www.giantitp.com/comics/oots0767.html)"?
Uh, yeah. The guard has no idea who you are and no evidence that you're not a polymorphed lammasu. On the other hand, he has his entire life's memories as evidence that he is who he is. You would have to try and convince him that not only is he secretly a lizard, but he has received an entire life's worth of fabricated memories, which would be a separate check at the very least.

[LooseCannoneer]

Uh, yeah. The guard has no idea who you are and no evidence that you're not a polymorphed lammasu. On the other hand, he has his entire life's memories as evidence that he is who he is. You would have to try and convince him that not only is he secretly a lizard, but he has received an entire life's worth of fabricated memories, which would be a separate check at the very least.

Another problem fixed by convincing them they were mind raped.

Yes, mind rape is a solution to unbelievable bluffs.

[Allianis]

Ok, so we seem to have divided opinion on the subject, but my DM and I have talked it over and we agreed that a bluff will convince a person that what I say is true, not simply that I believe it is true. Of course, he also warned me of dire consequences should I try to abuse such a power.

Now, how about this. Can you use bluff through a medium other than conversation? For example, if you used a message spell, or telepathy.

Let's say that I were to hide in the forest line 100(ish) feet away from the castle gate, where stand two guards. I cast message and whisper at one of the guards. It would be a DC 25 listen check for them to hear me and detect my presence. Through the message spell, I tell the first guard that the second guard has been mind controlled, and has just finished killing off the first guard's family, friends, dog, and is waiting for an opening to kill him too. Does bluff apply here?

The way I figure it, there are only two options. Either (a), there's about to be at least an argument, maybe some death. Or (b), the first guard will sound the alarm because some idiot's casting on him. Ideas?

[Deophaun]

Yes, you can bluff through any mode of communication.

Now, there are problems with your actual bluff.

A) You're getting the +20 penalty right off the bat. I mean, the voice in my head is saying that the other guy is the one that's been possessed? Actually, this might be one of the times when this doesn't even manage that penalty: it's completely unbelievable.

B) There's no fight. You've convinced the guard that his buddy is a stab-happy monster. So, the guard calls for reinforcements. When they get there, he explains how a mysterious voice told him about his partner's crimes. The castle is now on the alert for some kind of enchanter.

Now, if you were to instead feign as a powerful wizard who had kidnapped the guard's family, and would do horrible things if he didn't do as you asked, that would give you more time.

[Allianis]

Yes, you can bluff through any mode of communication.

Now, there are problems with your actual bluff.

A) You're getting the +20 penalty right off the bat. I mean, the voice in my head is saying that the other guy is the one that's been possessed? Actually, this might be one of the times when this doesn't even manage that penalty: it's completely unbelievable.

B) There's no fight. You've convinced the guard that his buddy is a stab-happy monster. So, the guard calls for reinforcements. When they get there, he explains how a mysterious voice told him about his partner's crimes. The castle is now on the alert for some kind of enchanter.

Now, if you were to instead feign as a powerful wizard who had kidnapped the guard's family, and would do horrible things if he didn't do as you asked, that would give you more time.

As far as the penalty, let's assume that I was using glibness for this bluff. As far as the turnout, that's completely fine. I was more curious as the the premise of the bluff, than the bluff itself. Although you do make an excellent point, that bluff is a weapon to be used with finesse. Even with the highest rolls, it can go awry fast if you don't think it through.

[atemu1234]

Note a wondrous item of continuous glibness is 42,000 gp. Seems comparatively inexpensive, no?

[Deophaun]

Note a wondrous item of continuous glibness is 42,000 gp. Seems comparatively inexpensive, no?
Which is why no DM should approve it (and being a custom item, its existence is entirely at the DM's discretion)

[Flickerdart]

Note a wondrous item of continuous glibness is 42,000 gp. Seems comparatively inexpensive, no?
It's too bad that custom items are priced based on their effects, with the spell-based prices being mere guidelines for the DM.

[Chronos]

Yeah, the spell level calculation is just one of many guidelines given, with others being "compare to other existing items" and "if it gives a bonus to something, price it based on the amount of the bonus". So you might end up with an item that requires Glibness for its crafting, and gives a constant bonus to Bluff, but it's going to cost the same as any other item giving a bonus of that size to a skill. I don't know why everyone always focuses on the spell level calculation, and assumes that it's always going to be in effect for everything, 100% guaranteed.

[Segev]

Glibness provides a +30 competence bonus to your Bluff. An item which provides this bonus would use Glibness, certainly, but would use the pricing for a competence bonus.

This pricing is 100*(bonus)*(bonus).

100*30*30 = 90000 gp.

[Chronos]

Which is if the item even exists at all, which it might not.