Social Skills in general?

[Riffington]

I hear about Diplomancy being too powerful, and... thinking about it more makes me wonder why Diplomacy ranks go up past 4 at all? Or, for that matter: Intimidate, Bluff, Sense Motive, etc.

If we assume that a 1st level cleric should be able to talk down a hostile drunk, and we allow diplomacy to scale with level, then by 20th level he'll have enemy warlords pledging allegiance to him. People propose fixes like "subtract target's level", but this is ridiculous - if high level adventurers bicker over the last pancake, should it take powerful diplomancers to talk them down? Surely they should listen to reason MORE easily than inexperienced adventurers.

The same is true of Bluff. A first level Bard should be as good a liar as Ali G (or at least as good as Ashton Kutcher). If this can scale, then at 10th level he won't need money to buy things -- and worse: any Solomon he can't fool can never be lied to by the other characters. Games are WAY more interesting if the Paladin could be a halfway decent liar if he could bring himself to do it. By the rules, anyone the bard can't push over will just take one look at the Wizard and say "Is this true"... the look on her face gives it away every time.

--
Now, it's good to have social skills... and I like to see characters progress a bit there. It's neat when the arrogant aristocrat or brusque barbarian learns a lesson in manners. But is there any good reason to have them reach stratospheric levels like other skills?

[tainsouvra]

is there any good reason to have them reach stratospheric levels like other skills?

That's exactly the reason--they are like other skills and a heroic specialist in one should be capable of impressive feats. A diplomat with +50 to his skill should be just as impressive as a tracker with the same rating...the problem is that a DC of 60 doesn't seem like enough to turn a violent psychopath to your best friend in under 6 seconds, but the rules permit it. The main problem with Diplomacy is that it's too easy to reach the level of skill needed to instantly turn an aggressive enraged horde into a group of passive happy hippies. Simply making the attitude-change chart more demanding, as well as introducing creatures and abilities that resist Diplomacy, is enough without overhauling the entire set of social skills.

Anything more than that, honestly, is just a reason to not use the d20 system for skill checks at all

[Kenbert]

That's exactly the reason--they are like other skills and a heroic specialist in one should be capable of impressive feats. A diplomat with +50 to his skill should be just as impressive as a tracker with the same rating...the problem is that a DC of 60 doesn't seem like enough to turn a violent psychopath to your best friend in under 6 seconds, but the rules permit it. The main problem with Diplomacy is that it's too easy to reach the level of skill needed to instantly turn an aggressive enraged horde into a group of passive happy hippies. Simply making the attitude-change chart more demanding, as well as introducing creatures and abilities that resist Diplomacy, is enough without overhauling the entire set of social skills.

Anything more than that, honestly, is just a reason to not use the d20 system for skill checks at all

You're right -- adjusting the DC chart should be enough, and it's probably a good idea for a merchant to have some sort of defense against getting "conned" into giving awesome items away for nothing. Another thing that might help (as a house rule) is to say that no single diplomacy check can change an attitude by more than perhaps two levels.

[tainsouvra]

You're right -- adjusting the DC chart should be enough, and it's probably a good idea for a merchant to have some sort of defense against getting "conned" into giving awesome items away for nothing.

With the latter part, are you referring to Bluff? Diplomacy won't do that--it can make the merchant go from indifferent to helpful, but it in no way makes him wish to bankrupt himself.

Another thing that might help (as a house rule) is to say that no single diplomacy check can change an attitude by more than perhaps two levels.

You can accomplish enough by altering the table such that it is statistically unlikely that more than two levels will be changed at once...I'd probably make it three though, myself.

[Viscount Einstrauss]

Making social skills work better has been a huge concern for me as a DM.

As a player, however, they're hilariously awesome for derailroading and obtaining otherwise hard to get things. My new character is the most serious abuse I've ever worked out with these skills. I'll be winning more battles by talking then by fighting by around level six.

[Mewtarthio]

You could look at Rich Burlew's variant Diplomacy rules in the Gaming section.

[Riffington]

So if you want to make social skills less awesome at high levels, do you really also want to gimp them at low levels?

Basically: If a mob boss wants to convince a hit man or police officer that he would be a better employer and they should serve him rather than attacking/arresting him (which they are just about to do)... that's like a 25% chance. So DC 20, since a great Earth Human would have +5 or +6 tops.
Do you just make that a higher DC to make it a challenge for higher level characters, despite it meaning low level characters are worse than real life?

Do you really make characters without Bluff skill unable to deceive?

[EndgamerAzari]

If we assume that a 1st level cleric should be able to talk down a hostile drunk, and we allow diplomacy to scale with level, then by 20th level he'll have enemy warlords pledging allegiance to him.

If that happens, the DM is at fault. There are circumstances where diplomacy should not even be able to function.

[DeathQuaker]

I generally do Bluff and Sense Motive as opposed rolls. So your silver-tongued bard will, yeah, have an easy time of convincing Moe and Joe the Thugs in the corner that "No, really, my friend was just admiring your pockets, not picking them."

He's still going to have a heck of a time smoothing his way past the very experienced head of the constabulary whose intuition is keener than a razor edge.

Diplomacy rolls... huh, actually, there haven't been a lot of Diplomacy rolls in the games I've run. But generally I would just start with the tables in the books as a guideline and adjust modifiers as I need to based on hostility levels and other factors. In some circumstances, again, opposed rolls would come in handy, and then you're just pitting skill against skill.

The other thing about social skills in my games is that they're generally only done when a shortcut is needed. We usually like to roleplay social interaction where possible; it's only when we need to either do a lightning fast shopping trip (okay, roll your haggling rolls) or when a character's ability technically exceeds the player's.

[Riffington]

The roleplay vs rollplay: yes, this fixes the problem.
But consider the difficulty if the head of the constabulary has a Sense Motive that stands up to the Bard.
1. He beats the party Bard, because he just looks at the bard's friends; their eyes give everything away. Don't tell me every character took Bluff.
2. He beats every 2-bit thug, every time. This means that criminal organizations have to change a lot, if only the high level characters can ever lie to the police.
Now, if you just wave away the rolls, fine. But it seems like just capping social skills at a fairly low level (5 ranks?) would work as well.

[Quellian-dyrae]

Myself, I have the social skills be about a communication of intent, not a determination of reaction. For example, I revised Intimidate to mean that the target believes you are willing and able to follow through with a threat. So if you successfully threaten to kill the BBEG's minion if it doesn't tell you where your foe is lairing, and that minion is afraid of dying (moreso than whatever the BBEG probably threatened to do to it) it will probably tell you what you want to know. If it's a fanatical zealot who would gladly die for the cause, it believes you will kill it, but that doesn't make it any more likely to give you the information you want.

[tainsouvra]

But consider the difficulty if the head of the constabulary has a Sense Motive that stands up to the Bard.
1. He beats the party Bard, because he just looks at the bard's friends; their eyes give everything away. Don't tell me every character took Bluff.

If your DM allows this, that is fine, however that is a house-rule change to how Sense Motive works. The skill normally can be used..."to tell when someone is bluffing you, to discern hidden message in conversations, or to sense when someone is being magically influenced." If someone isn't personally Bluffing him, he doesn't get a Sense Motive to sense a lie, per the rules.

Using Sense Motive on someone's companions to bypass a Bluff check is not given as a valid use of the skill, and its use as such is a house rule. The most that, per the official rules, our constable friend could manage is to successfully have a hunch that the party is not trustworthy...that's all, nothing specific to the lie the Bard is telling, just a general feeling that they're shady characters.

2. He beats every 2-bit thug, every time. This means that criminal organizations have to change a lot, if only the high level characters can ever lie to the police.

The constable in question, if he's equalling a high-level Bard's Bluff checks, is an amazingly trained and talented officer. He is mid-or-high level himself, with an almost supernatural ability to know when he is being lied to. Such a character would probably be well-known as a master investigator and, simply put, should be feared by criminal organizations in his region.

But it seems like just capping social skills at a fairly low level (5 ranks?) would work as well.

This is true if, and only if, you don't want social skills to be a core part of the game. With such a low cap, any character can easily max out his social skills, making them boil down to a coin toss regardless of who is using them--in short, not something that any character could be built to utilize. That effectively removes social builds from the game rather than fixing them.

[Mojo_Rat]

Thing is Diplomacy can only become an issue if its allowed to. To be honest there are sentient creatures that can communicate that will not give a rats ass that you are trying to speak to them. IT seems to me that mostly It should largely only apply in a situation here communication is already existent. Even then there will be things the NPC just wont do. It isnt charm or dominate it may even be that just because they now like you they still plan to kill you because they are like that.

[Kenbert]

That's a good point, Mojo_Rat. The diplomacy check takes ... what, a minute? of dialog that's not going to happen with the common encounter. Unless it's a Bond villain.
"Do you really expect me to talk, Goldfinger?"
"No, Mr. Bond! I expect you to listen to half an hour of plot exposition as this laser moves closer and closer to your crotch, which imposes a penalty on any checks you make, because you're distracted."

[tainsouvra]

That's a good point, Mojo_Rat. The diplomacy check takes ... what, a minute? of dialog that's not going to happen with the common encounter. Unless it's a Bond villain.

At a -10 penalty, it takes one combat round.

[Mojo_Rat]

what Im Saying Is unless he player does something spectacular to make sense. I would wholly encourage any DM to ignore then -10 penalty one combat round thing.

I dont care how good a diplomat you are, but you step into the middle of say 2 Gangs fighting all your talking is going to do is direct their attention. Diplomacy isnt some sort of magic mind control.

[Kenbert]

The only exception to that (so far as I can imagine) is the sort of "oh you really don't want to be doing that" sort of thing ... something that in one combat round piques the interest of the aggressor. For instance, Captain Jack Sparrow in the cave suggesting that Barbossa not regain their mortality ... it gets him to listen for long enough to get that "diplomacy check" in. but even then, well, it's more of a DM's call to determine what should happen.

[BardicDuelist]

what Im Saying Is unless he player does something spectacular to make sense. I would wholly encourage any DM to ignore then -10 penalty one combat round thing.

I dont care how good a diplomat you are, but you step into the middle of say 2 Gangs fighting all your talking is going to do is direct their attention. Diplomacy isnt some sort of magic mind control.

Yes, but if we look at the skills themselves (particularly epic skills), we see that realism and real world rules tend to completely vanish (without even considering magic) by about level 5.

The skills are meant to be amazing, and amazing in D&D tends to be whatever is even more outlandish and unrealistic, but cool, than the most recent action movie.

Personally, I don't see these skills as any more broken than magic in D&D. They are easily negated by the number of things immune to mind affecting things as well.

[tainsouvra]

what Im Saying Is unless he player does something spectacular to make sense. I would wholly encourage any DM to ignore then -10 penalty one combat round thing.

I dont care how good a diplomat you are, but you step into the middle of say 2 Gangs fighting all your talking is going to do is direct their attention. Diplomacy isnt some sort of magic mind control.

In order to cause two hostile parties to become helpful, you have to make a DC50 Diplomacy check. To do it in one round, you have to make that check at a -10 penalty. As a simplification, this means that convincing two gangs that are fighting to instead become friends, you are making a check equivalent to DC60.

That said, check out some Difficulty Class Examples. DC60 is literally way off the charts. Someone who can pull that off is doing something that defies all mortal explanation, he's just that impossibly good. It shouldn't make sense in a non-D&D world, as it's roughly equivalent to managing to track the path that a single ant took across across solid stone more than a month ago.

[Kenbert]

Yes, but if we look at the skills themselves (particularly epic skills), we see that realism and real world rules tend to completely vanish (without even considering magic) by about level 5.

Level 5? I'd say more like ... 2. haha ... anyway, that's the sort of reason I prefer lower-level stuff. Some high-powered campaigning is fun, but when it comes down to it, I prefer having things a bit more realistic. Which is why I also like low-magic campaigns. But that's a discussion for another time and place.

[Hectonkhyres]

In the circle we belong to, the DM always caps the effect of diplomacy and bluff at a point of his choice. As long as the bastard has some minimum of common sense, this works infinitely better than letting the dice do the talking.

[DSCrankshaw]

How do people feel about the way Star Wars Saga does it? Your Persuasion check (persuasion covers both Diplomacy and Intimidate) has to beat your opponent's Will Defense (which scales with level faster than skills do), with penalties for an initial attitude less than friendly (even indifferent has a -2 penalty). A success only improves his attitude by one step, and it can only be done once per encounter.

I actually think this is too harsh. I personally think you should be able to make multiple attempts per encounter, to attempt to move him further up the attitude chart, but a failure by five or more moves him back down. That way you can attempt to bring him around, but if you fail too often, you only make matters worse.

[Riffington]

If your DM allows this, that is fine, however that is a house-rule change to how Sense Motive works. The skill normally can be used..."to tell when someone is bluffing you, to discern hidden message in conversations, or to sense when someone is being magically influenced." If someone isn't personally Bluffing him, he doesn't get a Sense Motive to sense a lie, per the rules.

Using Sense Motive on someone's companions to bypass a Bluff check is not given as a valid use of the skill, and its use as such is a house rule.

If you are concerned about house rules, then directly ask the Wizard "Is all that true"? Then she has to personally bluff, admit a lie, or plead the nonexistent Fifth. However, as a real life matter... good investigators do surreptitiously look at the reactions of the storyteller's friends.

The constable in question, if he's equalling a high-level Bard's Bluff checks, is an amazingly trained and talented officer. He is mid-or-high level himself, with an almost supernatural ability to know when he is being lied to. Such a character would probably be well-known as a master investigator and, simply put, should be feared by criminal organizations in his region.

Yeah, but have you thought through the ramifications of how MUCH they'd fear him? Of how much it changes such an organization's structure if one's minions can never effectively lie to the police? It's not that you need to keep them loyal... loyalty won't make them keep your oaths. Nor will fear. They all need to be kept in the dark about everything. And that's just a start.

[Kenbert]

Other than KOTOR / KOTOR II I'm not too familiar with the star wars system. I guess that makes sense; though it seems front loaded if the Will Defense progresses faster than a skill can, as you say.

It really just needs to be something that the DM and players can agree on.

Peace,
Kenbert

[tainsouvra]

If you are concerned about house rules, then directly ask the Wizard "Is all that true"? Then she has to personally bluff, admit a lie, or plead the nonexistent Fifth.

Or just not answer and let the party face handle it. No Bluff occurs in that situation, so no Sense Motive opposes it.

Yeah, but have you thought through the ramifications of how MUCH they'd fear him? Of how much it changes such an organization's structure if one's minions can never effectively lie to the police? It's not that you need to keep them loyal... loyalty won't make them keep your oaths. Nor will fear. They all need to be kept in the dark about everything. And that's just a start.

Exactly...and when an organization is up against a master investigator and wants to keep him in the dark, double blind is a minimum.

[Jothki]

Bear in mind that even if someone likes you, that doesn't mean they'll help you. A good diplomacy check can turn a suspicious guard into a guard who would love to let you in but he's been ordered to keep everyone out, and is willing to send in a message but doesn't think it would help you. Similarly, a check can turn a deranged cultist who wants to sacrifice you in order to revive his dead god into a deranged cultist who sincerely regrets that he has to sacrifice you to revive his dead god.

[horseboy]

How do people feel about the way Star Wars Saga does it? Your Persuasion check (persuasion covers both Diplomacy and Intimidate) has to beat your opponent's Will Defense (which scales with level faster than skills do), with penalties for an initial attitude less than friendly (even indifferent has a -2 penalty). A success only improves his attitude by one step, and it can only be done once per encounter.

I actually think this is too harsh. I personally think you should be able to make multiple attempts per encounter, to attempt to move him further up the attitude chart, but a failure by five or more moves him back down. That way you can attempt to bring him around, but if you fail too often, you only make matters worse.

Sounds like a half-ass rip off of Earthdawn. Their defenses are Physical, Spell, and Social. Based off of Dex, Perception (Int) and Charisma. Then different "classes" go up at different rates depending on their orientation.

[Kurald Galain]

One of the problems with diplomacy is that it's considered a full-round action (or even faster than that), whereas in real life diplomacy is a full-day action.

Barbarian: Raaagh! Me kill you!
Diplomancer: Calm down, my friend. Let us discuss the terms of our allegiance over a nice glass of -- aaargh!
Barbarian: Thog smash puny mancer!!!

[Irreverent Fool]

Or just not answer and let the party face handle it. No Bluff occurs in that situation, so no Sense Motive opposes it.

Not answering rarely works unless your face can somehow draw the attention back to himself.

Face: "...and so you see, we ultimately had to leave him to guard the entrance and await our return. We don't have time for a trial, lives are on the line!"

Mayor: <looks at wizard> "Is this guy for real?"

Wizard: .....

Mayor: "Yeah, you with the long white beard and other stereotypical wizard accessories! If this is all true, then why aren't your clothes damp?"

Wizard: .....

Mayor: <gaining circumstance bonuses during each awkward silence> "You know, I think there may be a hole in your story..."

-----

That aside, I think the main problem with the social skills is that they represent conversation that your character and the 'victim' are having that are not something that is getting role-played out. It's easy to imagine your character swinging his sword through the air and dodging nimbly aside as the giant's club comes crashing down when all that really happened was the d20+attack didn't meet your AC score. Imagining an oratory master saying the precise things that will sway another's opinion is harder to imagine simply because most people don't have it in them to precisely read their subject and play on his unique sympathies.

As for the craziness around about level 5, I feel it's true. There's some huge article describing why even the greatest heroes both real, modern, and legendary were level 5 at the highest, mostly based on skill-ranks. Once you pass level 5, you're up there with Hercules, Merlin, Einstein, Hitler and Batman. The vast majority of people are lucky they even lived long enough to see level 1.

[Dausuul]

I hear about Diplomancy being too powerful, and... thinking about it more makes me wonder why Diplomacy ranks go up past 4 at all? Or, for that matter: Intimidate, Bluff, Sense Motive, etc.

If we assume that a 1st level cleric should be able to talk down a hostile drunk, and we allow diplomacy to scale with level, then by 20th level he'll have enemy warlords pledging allegiance to him. People propose fixes like "subtract target's level", but this is ridiculous - if high level adventurers bicker over the last pancake, should it take powerful diplomancers to talk them down? Surely they should listen to reason MORE easily than inexperienced adventurers.

I think the point is that the higher-level you are, the more confident you are in yourself and the less impressed you are by folks trying to change your course of action. If two 20th-level characters are bickering over the last +5 holy pancake of speed, they simply won't pay attention to the level 1 diplomancer trying to talk them down--he's beneath their notice.

The same is true of Bluff. A first level Bard should be as good a liar as Ali G (or at least as good as Ashton Kutcher). If this can scale, then at 10th level he won't need money to buy things -- and worse: any Solomon he can't fool can never be lied to by the other characters. Games are WAY more interesting if the Paladin could be a halfway decent liar if he could bring himself to do it. By the rules, anyone the bard can't push over will just take one look at the Wizard and say "Is this true"... the look on her face gives it away every time.

But if the bard is convincing enough, the subject shouldn't be suspicious enough to bother asking the wizard.

IMO, the real problem is the fact that the bard can Bluff the wizard into quitting the magic business and taking up macrame, because the wizard has no Sense Motive.

I hear (and hope) they plan to address at least some of this in 4E...