[3.5] lying without words, or hiding in plain sight?

[thubby]

what would you consider concealing an injury to be, hide, bluff, or something else entirely?

the specific situation involved the party fighter trying to avoid an encounter while not letting on that he couldn't use one of his arms.

[AstralFire]

Bluff to not show obvious pain, disguise, sleight of hand or hide (should be low DCs in most cases, depends on wound) to dress the injury itself.

[kamikasei]

If caught completely unprepared, there might be a hide roll or something similar (sleight of hand?) to make sure the injury couldn't be seen. If there's any time to prepare, I'd treat it as simply a bluff check. The bluff check should take place regardless.

[Frog Dragon]

Bluff. The fighter is trying to misdirect the other guy out of noticing his injury. He isn't trying to avoid beign seen. Just trying to act like his arm is ok when it's not. Comparable to feinting I'd say.

[Wulfram]

Possibly a fortitude or will save might be appropriate too. If the pain is severe enough, you'd need to be tough or strong willed not to show it.

[Mastikator]

A disguise check would also be useful to hide the actual wound. It's a bit pointless to hide your wound by hiding your pain when the blood is spraying all over the place
"Oh that, just a flesh wound, never-mind my intestines hanging out"

[Yora]

Maybe sucessfully disguising a particularily nasty wound would grant a bonus to the bluff check.
Or a wound that is not disguised counts as highly unfavourable conditions for bluffing and causes a -4 penalty to bluff.

[JeenLeen]

If its fitting for your campaign, Autohypnosis from Complete Psionics could replace Bluff. That would be a role to make yourself stop noticing the pain, thus allowing you to move naturally.

Sleight of Hand or Disguise would still be needed to hide the actual wound from others' view.

[kamikasei]

Autohypnosis from Complete Psionics

Autohypnosis is from the XPH and is found in the SRD.

[blazinghand]

Or a concentration check if the wound is still bleeding or you have a weasel attached to you. I feel like the con-based skill is underused. If the wound has already been dressed, I don't think sleight of hand or hide would be necessary. If the arm is actually paralyzed by the attack, the fighter should have to bluff to make it seem normal that he just doesn't feel like moving his right arm. If it causes him pain to move it, I'd say concentration to avoid flinching in pain as he gesticulates OR bluff to look normal while not moving an arm, his call.

[kamikasei]

I think people are way overcomplicating this; there's no need to make it "roll Concentration or Autohypnosis to ignore the wound, and roll Hide to keep the arm out of sight and Sleight of Hand to keep it covered, and roll Bluff to lie about it, and roll Perform (feigned heartiness) to do a jig to convince the listener that you're just fine and dandy..."

Any of these things may be justifiable from the point of view of precise simulation, but they're overkill as far as the level of detail anyone cares about in the game.

The fighter was injured. He couldn't use one of his arms. Was the reason for this a visible wound or something the enemy might spot? Makes sense to have a Sleight of Hand to conceal it, and if it's spotted, the enemy gets a bonus on his Sense Motive when the fighter tries to Bluff him. That is the absolute maximum complication I would add to the issue. It could easily be rolled in under the single Bluff check.

[Hat-Trick]

The Hide skill is used to hide objects as well as one's self, isn't it? I'd say hide and/or disguise to keep any wounds out of sight and bluff to convince others you're fine.

[Riffington]

I'm baffled that skills other than disguise and bluff are being named.
This is what disguise is all about - if it were just makeup, then it would be Dex-based and you'd be able to do it on others. Disguise is 10% makeup, 90% holding yourself in such a way that people don't notice pertinent facts about you but rather what you lead them to expect to see.

It's at +5 because it's a minor detail.

Now, bluff makes some sense, because the difference between bluff and disguise is a little fuzzy, and because feinting is bluff. Also because sizing up an opponent is Sense Motive. So I can't fault someone for using that.

[Magugag]

Personally, if my players can find justification for using a skill in a given situation, I let them use it. That's part of the fun and creativity of D&D, and I don't see a reason to limit clever thinking. However, this is only with good reasoning. As a DM, almost every post I've seen on here provided enough justification that I would let the fighter take any one of those options, and have his opponent roll against the ones that said fighter chooses.

I don't see it as complicating things, I just see it as interesting problem-solving.