Do you give your PCs bonuses/penalties to diplomacy for the stuff they carry?

[Milskidasith]

For example, do you give your PCs penalties to diplomacy if they are heavily armed, or give them bonuses to intimidate for the same thing? It kind of makes sense to add a circumstance modifier to the rolls, but a lot of people don't.

[AstralFire]

I don't bother with it in most scenarios, but if meeting say, a dignitary - yes, they are expected to leave weapons in another room. Something that I've found makes PCs very nervous very fast...

[Sstoopidtallkid]

I don't bother with it in most scenarios, but if meeting say, a dignitary - yes, they are expected to leave weapons in another room. Something that I've found makes PCs very nervous very fast...

They will exploit any loophole they can to avoid it.

[erikun]

Not per se, but the NPCs do react quite different depending on what everyone is wearing. The common townsfolk are a lot more eager to talk with a knight in shining armor, young children tend to scream and stare if you're still covered in orc blood, the prince of the kingdom isn't going to be friendly if you're still swinging around your sword, etc.

In other words, the stuff they're carrying generally only affects initial impressions. (that is, starting attitude) I'd give a modifier if something they wore marked them as an ally/enemy, though - such as going into a church with a holy symbol around your neck, or talking to the king while wearing the emblem of the neighboring county.

[Pharaoh's Fist]

Read the section on clothing and costumes in the SRD. It actually mentions how your clothing will affect interactions.

[Jimbob]

I have done a couple of times.
The first being a character killing an orc and cutting his head off and attaching it to his belt. Then the party goes and try's to talk to the orc leader and fail to realise he has the orc's head and then they wonder why they got attacked. But I only gave them a -2 on dip as I thought having some thing like that they wont be to pleased about.

The second time being the party killed a well known evil druid who has been causing many problems for a village. Once again he was killed and his head taken by the party as proff he was dead. When the greedy dwarf decided to pull his head out and intimidate the leader into giving him more money, had to give him +2 just for having the balls to do this.