Diplomacy dilemma

[Theodred theOld]

Most on this board would agree that diplomacy is one of the most useful skills a player can have and recently I've seen it in action while playing a beguiler. Any encounter or npc we find seems to result in a new ally for the party. It would seem, however, that this is entirely in the hands of the dm. My question is this: what happens if the dm stops playing ball. His frustration was obvious after we bypassed not one but two large scale encounters that he had planned by talking our way out. Has this happened to anyone and how was it handled? Thoughts?

[rockdeworld]

It would seem, however, that this is entirely in the hands of the dm.
That is correct. I'd post the RAW text of Diplomacy, but there's a lot, so just keep in mind I'm referencing the d20srd text (http://www.d20srd.org/srd/skills/diplomacy.htm) for the rest of this post.

what happens if the dm stops playing ball.
"I'm sorry, friend, but my orders are to stop you, and I always follow orders."
"I like you, but I can't condone what you're doing. I'm stopping you because I want to help you."
"You're insane! I have to stop you, that's the only way I can help you now!"

In all cases: "I could have provided protection/back up/healing/aid (and I did provide healing after the fight was over - except if my orders were to kill you), if only you hadn't tried that/you hadn't been my target/you stayed away from here."

[noob]

By the rules that never happens if he start heavily pumping up diplomacy(with something like 150 bonus to diplomacy you turn automatically people into definitive slaves)
Is there is an artificer in the team?
With the right infusion and five custom +20 diplomacy items you can increase of 100 your diplomacy.(artificers have some cool stuff)

[Bronk]

Most on this board would agree that diplomacy is one of the most useful skills a player can have and recently I've seen it in action while playing a beguiler. Any encounter or npc we find seems to result in a new ally for the party. It would seem, however, that this is entirely in the hands of the dm. My question is this: what happens if the dm stops playing ball. His frustration was obvious after we bypassed not one but two large scale encounters that he had planned by talking our way out. Has this happened to anyone and how was it handled? Thoughts?

When the DM stops playing ball, assuming you don't work it out OOC first, you may see:

-more NPCs starting out as hostile

-more NPCs having diplomacy skills themselves

-more encounters beginning with surprise rounds

-more use of the silence spell, either on your character or on the mooks


You might also find that the DM starts using the -10 modifier for rushed diplomacy, and also might notice that the DCs listed on the diplomacy table are only 'basic' DCs, and start adding more modifiers.

[Story]

The answer is to talk to your DM. Diplomacy is horribly broken as written.

[noob]

As an advice to gm giving ranks in diplomacy to their npc: never do that for two reasons
1: When the player make one npc with diplomacy ranks his fanatic it gives him more diplomacy power.
2: Diplomacy is not an opposed test and it also does not works on players and in addition you can make a npc have friends without that so in fact those diplomacy ranks will have been wasted on your npc.

[Brova]

Honestly, the diplomacy rules are ... not clear. Someone who is helpful towards you will "protect, back up, heal, [or] aid" you. Frankly, any of those could be argued to mean any number of things. It's well within the rights of the DM to claim that people will "aid" you by giving you food, or "back up" you by offering their political support, or whatever. I strongly suggest that you hash out how you are going to treat diplomacy with your DM, ideally before the game starts (unfortunately, that ship has sailed).

I'm obviously not your DM, but I'd recommend the following changes:

1. Fix diplomacy somehow. It does things that are broken and encourages bizarre behavior. I can't really help you here, unfortunately.
2. Limit the helpful condition to one person willing to fight for you at a time. If multiple people are helpful, pick one.
3. Bump Mindbender up to full casting, replace eternal charm and Thrall with an additional ally at each odd level. So a 1st level Mindbender has two allies who are willing to fight for him.

Admittedly, #1 as written is a rather big hole to fill, but I think that fixes the core problem while giving the Beguiler some ground to play.

[LokeyITP]

The answer is to talk to your DM. Diplomacy is horribly broken as written.
This. It can be used untrained, Aid Another action adds 2 and can also be used untrained. In short order everyone that isn't a construct, undead, alien or mind-blanked is rapidly going to be everyone else's friend forever :)

[rockdeworld]

The answer is to talk to your DM. Diplomacy is horribly broken as written.
Diplomacy is only somewhat broken if you use the RAW like I posted above. Fanatic isn't even horribly broken, because if you start making DC 50-150 diplomacy checks, you'll find start finding opponents immune to mind-affecting, and fanatic is a "mind-affecting enchantment effect".

[OldTrees1]

I took one look at Diplomacy RAW and threw it out. Now my players make Diplomacy checks when doing something that would take Diplomacy. The higher the result, the more favorable the outcome. These checks receive modifiers from PC action and the DCs receive modifiers from the circumstances. Kinda like a skill check :P.

This very campaign one of the players tried to use Diplomacy(just in case) on someone that was highly resistant to diplomacy(tradition, strongly loyal, and thought the request was suicide). While the PC's check did not immediately succeed in getting the NPC to make a policy reversal that betrayed their superiors, the check did get the NPC to convince himself(over the course of a month) to flee the region instead of support their superiors. Note that even though the result was favorable, it was not high enough to get the NPC to make a political about face on the spot and risk execution.

[Crafty Cultist]

IMHO, the main thing that keeps diplomacy in check is that it doesn't override personality. Even at helpful, "will take risks to help you only goes so far." a necromancer might try to convince you that you'd be happier as an undead thrall, rather than attacking you instantly, even though it would mean more time for you to plot against him. a knight might decide that you are trustworthy, but his devotion to duty trumps that.

In short, Diplomacy doesn't change a person. a helpful reaction means they'll go a little out of their comfort zone for you, but they would strain if you tried to push for more.

I think this works for bluff too. You might convince someone that you're sincere in what you've said, but if that goes against what they consider common logic, they'll assume you're some kind of insane.

[rockdeworld]

I think this works for bluff too. You might convince someone that you're sincere in what you've said, but if that goes against what they consider common logic, they'll assume you're some kind of insane.
Unfortunately by RAW it doesn't, because of this:

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

[LokeyITP]

Bluff has a couple things going for it. It's very situationally useful but has limitations spelled out. It also says that there will be other factors involved besides what the PCs are aware of and that it may just not be possible.

Most of the Diplomacy entry is on negotiations and mostly useless except in that case (as well as being bad design). Then there's the little bit about reactions (with infinite duration and no way to change them) and a two tables that are hilariously breakable by a one hit die commoner with no charisma, feats, items or skills and some friends.

It's just broken RaW period. There are many things you can do with it (and older editions are good to look at for ideas), but you need to present your house rules first for discussion. If that's all of yours above, I don't think you're fixing the right part of the problem :)

[ekarney]

If this were happening to me, with me being the DM I'd possibly be placing more situations where diplomacy simply wasn't an option.

You can't really talk to a trap.
The screaming, raging berserker isn't likely to take 1 minute out of his busy schedule of tearing your limbs off to hear about how much you like the basket he weaved.
Nobility who are cunning, deadly and most of all rich might have even forked out the 60k for an item of continuous mind-blank.
The Wizard whos minions you've been diplomancing now casts contingency on his lieutenants with Mind Rape in effect, should someone ever succeed on a diplomacy check, forcing them to totally forget about the diplomacy attempt and see the players as threats who need to be terminated immediately.
As stated earlier, silence.
You may be attacked by monsters who are part of a hive mind and cant be effecting by your devilish words.
The bandit chief who's men you diplomanced will now cut out your tongue and sew your mouth if he gets the chance, should it start getting to a ridiculous point.
Drow (provided the party is non-drow) simply don't care, I know by RAW they should be affected, but if you try to turn thme over to your side it simply won't happen, they think they're above you and all your good for is slave labour and if you're not working for the Drow you should be exterminated. They're not hostile or unfriendly, they simply don't care.

I'd still give you opportunities to use diplomacy, but if there were situations that I don't think you should be using diplomacy that's what would happen in them.

Alternatively, your best bet is simply self control, if you feel like it's getting out of control, lay off the damn diplomacy.

[SangoProduction]

Someone uses Diplomacy by RAW? lol. It just flat out doesn't work. Just role play the RP stuff, and roll for the combat stuff.

[Gabrosin]

Most on this board would agree that diplomacy is one of the most useful skills a player can have and recently I've seen it in action while playing a beguiler. Any encounter or npc we find seems to result in a new ally for the party. It would seem, however, that this is entirely in the hands of the dm. My question is this: what happens if the dm stops playing ball. His frustration was obvious after we bypassed not one but two large scale encounters that he had planned by talking our way out. Has this happened to anyone and how was it handled? Thoughts?

The biggest problem with Diplomacy isn't really its mechanical brokenness; it's that when you succeed, you've solo'd an encounter that would otherwise have taken the whole party. Do this once in a while, it's not so bad. If you start using it to solve every problem, the rest of your party is going to start wondering why you keep them around. It's really no different from a sorcerer dropping super-fireballs or Evard's Black Tentacles into the opposition every time and wiping them all out. Or the ubercharger who drops the BBEG on round one.

As with pretty much everything else, talk to your DM about using the skill appropriately.

[Larrx]

It sounds like your DM is getting upset because s/he put work into designing a fun encounter, and it was trivialized. This is completely understandable. The natural response, as a skilled runner of games, would be to modify future encounters so that diplomacy worked sometimes, but there were also sometimes complications that made that tactic less viable. The problem is that RAW diplomacy is hilariously broken, and it's counters are few and niche.

As a player it seems like you recognize the problem as well. Awesome. Suggest a nerf yourself preemptively. Something quick and dirty, like add the target HD to the DC, might placate your DM, while still leaving you with a useful and potent tool.

Note: this is a suggested fix for this particular game, it is by no means to be taken as a comprehensive Diplo fix.

[noob]

Or still do not forget people could have made a spell preventing them from hearing people trying to use diplomacy on them.(it would probably be easy to do it is less impressive than some level 1 spells and is extremely situational for a PC)

[Bronk]

Oh, plus, your DM might start paying more attention to what languages everyone knows, and fewer NPCs would know common by default.

[Brova]

As a player it seems like you recognize the problem as well. Awesome. Suggest a nerf yourself preemptively. Something quick and dirty, like add the target HD to the DC, might placate your DM, while still leaving you with a useful and potent tool.

Adding HD to stuff does stupid things. It becomes very hard to diplomacy minions (because they are of crappy types with lots of HD for their CR, like Giants or whatever) but very easy* to diplomacy boss monsters (because they are often outsider, humanoids, or templated versions of such with less HD for their CR). You want to add CR to the DC, but it doesn't actually do much, because it's rising at the same rate as the check. At best you're forced to continue investing in the skill, which is not much of a cost. Here's a fix you might try:

Diplomacy is the skill you use to convince people of things which are actually true by argument, unlike Bluff (things which are false) and Intimidate (convincing with threats). You can use diplomacy to negotiate, to convince someone that something is true, or to convince a large group to support your agenda (i.e. win an election)

Negotiating: To negotiate, make an opposed diplomacy check. The winner is able to get better terms on a deal. For example, a successful diplomacy check might convince the king to offer a larger reward for saving his daughter from ninjas.

Persuasion: Basically, this is like Bluff. Honestly, it's probably just actually Bluff. The skills could easily be combined.

Groups: When confronted with a situation where a large group of people must be persuaded of something, you can make a diplomacy check to convince them to support you. This check is unopposed unless you are arguing against someone. The DC is <I'm not going to mathhammer this, probably 20 for reasonable, 30 for extreme, 40 for out there or something - with clear examples>.

*: Relatively, it's still harder in absolute terms.

[Sliver]

Has your group considered Rich's diplomacy fix (http://www.giantitp.com/articles/jFppYwv7OUkegKhONNF.html)?

[noob]

Well the group use have complex dc it should depend of the mass to influence(a metropolis is harder to influence than just your family) then the previous opinion(if they had a similar opinion before it is easier than if they had an opposite opinion) then of the opponents(it should be an opposed check if someone else is trying to do it then you subtract the second highest value to the highest value and it is the result of the diplomacy test of the one who won) and then of the absurdity of what you want to transmit(you would have +50 to the dc if you try to convince people they are all great ancients and that they are flying above a potato and that the end of their top hat happens when they hit a particular rock you have)
I got sword-saged.
On that diplomacy system the previous person did there is a problem you can automatically convince nearly anyone to stop hostilities with only 75 at most so you can stop fighting with the BBEG who hate you the most and with 20 levels and +20 modifier in wisdom.
and 75 is reached easily with some trough(like taking an artificier or having an item familiar and so on)

[Brova]

Has your group considered Rich's diplomacy fix (http://www.giantitp.com/articles/jFppYwv7OUkegKhONNF.html)?

That fix doesn't really solve the problem, it just means that you will be off the RNG with respect to achieving broken things. The DC to get your nemesis to accept a horribly unfavorable deal is 35 + Level + Wis Mod. Level cancels with ranks, Cha mod cancels with Wis mod, and you're left needing to find +22 worth of BS bonuses. That's guidance of the avatar plus masterwork tools.

And there's also the problem that it's easier to convince a peasant to take a horrible deal (DC 27) than a great wyrm gold dragon to accept an overwhelmingly favorable deal (DC 32).


Well the group use have complex dc it should depend of the mass to influence(a metropolis is harder to influence than just your family) then the previous opinion(if they had a similar opinion before it is easier than if they had an opposite opinion) then of the opponents(it should be an opposed check if someone else is trying to do it then you subtract the second highest value to the highest value and it is the result of the diplomacy test of the one who won) and then of the absurdity of what you want to transmit(you would have +50 to the dc if you try to convince people they are all great ancients and that they are flying above a potato and that the end of their top hat happens when they hit a particular rock you have)

That depends. The thing you need to constrain are outcomes. There just can't be an option where you cheese up your check and then an entire city decides to get up and follow you around. You could make the case that it should be harder to convince people of some things, but that takes more complexity and is not necessarily needed. You probably just want to give examples. Some real world examples might be DC 20 to win the presidential election as a member of the favored party, 30 as a member of the unfavored party, and 40 as an independent. Maybe you have a list of five general tasks (go to war, choose you as leader, etc) and examples of each for each difficulty (for example, convince people to go to war with an enemy army camped outside their gates might be DC 20 or even DC 10).

[noob]

Only 40 for becoming the new leader is WAY too much low there is tons of builds who can do that at level 2(or even level 1)
Basically 30 is doable at level 1, 40 is for level 2, +infinite is doable at level 3.

[NichG]

This is kind of a tricky situation, and it comes up all the time. Basically, you took a really potent ability and are using it as such rather than e.g. just passing checks the DM asks you to roll or some other more passive use of Diplomacy. So that's fun for awhile, but eventually the game starts to break down from it and becomes boring either for you, the other players, or the DM.

On the one hand, yeah, the ability does what it says, and you paid the character resources for it, so its kind of bad to design encounters to negate it, nerf it to not be the awesome thing it was when you paid for it, or simply tell you to stop using it the way that made it seem cool. On the other hand, you can't really go on using it either.

So I think you're going to have to use some OOC diplomacy here, and reach some kind of compromise. My advice would be not to try to muck around with DCs or numerical tweaks - the core problem is going to be the same and its just going to come up again when you figure out how to reach the new DCs or whatever - and then when you have to negotiate it again, its going to end up being a lot harder to come to a compromise since the previous one didn't work in the end.

Instead, I'd say to discuss with the DM what the most important things the skill does for you that you want to keep, and how to change either how you're using it or how it works mechanically to remove the objectionable parts. I'd stick with ends rather than means - its less important what the DC is or what dice you or the other guy rolls, and more important to stick with 'I think I should be able to do X; is it possible to do that and keep the game fun?'.

Look for outs that you can give the DM - like 'Diplomacy will not work on hostile targets' or 'Diplomacy cannot convince someone to make insane or wildly unbalanced trades' (grain of rice for a kingdom, or 'go sacrifice yourself for me and I'll give you a cookie' or such). If the DM explicitly has veto over the wacky, extreme cases, they're more likely to be okay with otherwise powerful uses.

[Brova]

Only 40 for becoming the new leader is WAY too much low there is tons of builds who can do that at level 2(or even level 1)
Basically 30 is doable at level 1, 40 is for level 2, +infinite is doable at level 3.

Honestly, that's an unsolvable problem for a fix this small. The divergence of the skill system is huge. The gap between "guy who doesn't do it at all" and "specialist" is massive, and the gap between "specialist" and "cheesed out specialist" is even bigger. It is basically impossible to set DCs that a guy without any special sauce could hit ever that a guy with all the special sauce could not hit at level one. You basically have two solutions. First, you can just not have the skill system do anything too impressive. No one actually cares if you break the RNG on spellcraft, because you don't really get anything for that. Second, you can figure out where people are on the RNG, ask them not to pull out the guidance of the avatars and glibnesses of the world, and simply scale checks to there.

[SkipSandwich]

I like to use the Giant's rules with the following tweaks;
Each step up/down in relationship is +/- 5 to the dc
Intimate/Personal foe are Auto win/fail, your closest allies trust you enough to go along with whatever you propose(but abusing that trust is an easy way to gain an enemy!) Likewise, anyone who has a personal investment in causing you harm is not going to listen to anything you have to say unless you manage to bring them around to a less hostile attitide first which requires more time and effort investment then can be conveyed in a single skill check.

For example, a group of hostile bandits is unlikely to be open to diplomacy beyond "your gp or your hp", but if you attempt peaceful resolution, then subdue them nonlethaly, then contine to treat them civilly when they come around and they should be at least somewhat receptive at that point if still untrusting.

[Hiro Quester]

So that's fun for awhile, but eventually the game starts to break down from it and becomes boring either for you, the other players, or the DM.

This.

I've been in a similar situation. My previous character was a high CHA bard who maxed out diplomacy and was persisting glibness for a stupidly high bluff, too. The DM eventually had to sometimes rule that my bluff was absolutely convincing, but didn't affect the story/encounter much. ("The guard is absolutely convinced that you believe what you said.")

This was a bit frustrating at first, but when I talked to DM about it OOC, he explained that he had a story to advance, and often we'd learn information (and get treasure we'd need later) from going through with an encounter, rather than talking our way around it.

But he also agreed to only do that when necessary for story and fun reasons, and to let the investment of skill points also be useful at times, too.

Remember that the DM is advancing a story. He's trying to make the game fun for everyone. Having a big scary encounter one you talk your way around is awesome. Once or twice.

But it's awesome for you, while the others in the party sit and watch, and the DM gets frustrated that all the effort he put in to designing an encounter that would be fun and challenging for the whole party doesn't get to be played.

Unless DM is being a jerk about it, perhaps accept that sometimes he needs to nerf your ability a bit for good reasons to do with the story or making sure everyone has fun.

But have a chat, and find a way to compromise.

[Theodred theOld]

Who knew diplomacy was such a hot button issue? To clarify on the OP: our in-game use of diplomacy seems to be alot different than most would assume. Actual roleplay trumps a high diplo check in our games and any use of the skill comes from the dm asking for a roll. I guess that would change this to a roll vs role discussion but it seems a little late for that. Furthermore the dm for this particular game sets dcs on the fly rather than resort to table and charts for the sake of keeping the game moving. I think the real issue in this case is that no one in this group has ever tried simply negotiating with the dragon rather than immediately resorting to murder.

[rockdeworld]

Who knew diplomacy was such a hot button issue?
Everyone on these boards, now including you :smalltongue:

So yeah, attacking someone would probably be a penalty to future diplomacy checks with them in most games.

[NichG]

Who knew diplomacy was such a hot button issue? To clarify on the OP: our in-game use of diplomacy seems to be alot different than most would assume. Actual roleplay trumps a high diplo check in our games and any use of the skill comes from the dm asking for a roll. I guess that would change this to a roll vs role discussion but it seems a little late for that. Furthermore the dm for this particular game sets dcs on the fly rather than resort to table and charts for the sake of keeping the game moving. I think the real issue in this case is that no one in this group has ever tried simply negotiating with the dragon rather than immediately resorting to murder.

In that case, since the DM is always the one asking for rolls when rolls occur, then they already have the ability to moderate its use. It may just be that the DM has to learn when not to ask for a roll but simply to have the NPC initiate their attack while the diplomat is trying to speak.

Actually, I'd say that there is an interesting discussion here from the DM side of things that has very little if anything to do with the Diplomacy skill. That is to say, when you have players who like to negotiate and are OOC good at knowing how to negotiate, it does actually change the kinds of villains you can use. Villains who are just misinformed or who are taking extreme actions because they think it will work out well and that no one else understands what they understand won't end up being fought, they'll end up being talked down and will then become allies. For a villain to make it all the way to a bloody finale in such a group, they either need to be so despised by the PCs that they don't want to negotiate, off-the-deep-end irrational, or have a set of values which is just instrinsically incompatible with existing alongside the PCs.

The best thing to do is to have a mix - have some villains of every kind. Its especially fun if you can ride the edge and have an 'incompatible values' villain who can e.g. be convinced to team up with the party for a time to take care of a greater threat, but then as soon as that's done both sides will immediately start trying to kill each other again.