What are some good uses of Bluff?

[Frosty]

With an Eternal Wand of Glibness (it's an Arcane spell of 3rd level or lower, jeez...), my caster (or Rogue with UMD) can reach into the 50s for my bluff check with almost no effort (the wand only costs like 11k). What can I do with such a high bluff check? Even people with really high sense motive are likely to fail against an average result of in the 60s for Bluff.

[arguskos]

Convince people they owe you obscene amounts of money. Profit.

Tell someone that you're the Messiah of a new faith, and they should all bow down to you and worship the ground you walk upon (include monetary "sacrifices" in your dogma).

Abuse public speaking opportunities for whatever you could possibly want.

Bluff your way to the king, convince him that you are his long-lost son, get him killed off, take over.

Glibness is soooooo ripe for breakage.

-argus

NOTE: I've done or seen all of the above uses of Bluff work. It just takes sometime and a few tries to get them right.

[Frosty]

Do you know what kind of epic uses for bluff there are?

[arguskos]

Uh, not really. I don't have the Epic Level Handbook on me, or at all for that matter. Sorry.

Vael pwned me with the SRD, which I didn't know had the epic rules in it.

-argus

[AmberVael]

Do you know what kind of epic uses for bluff there are?

Well you could look in the SRD right here.

They're kind of handy, the suggestion is especially fun. The other two are too high for their worth, really.

[TheCountAlucard]

Step 1: Convince the king that he is a slice of dry toast.
Step 2: Offer to sell him the butter you happen to have on hand.
Step 3: ???
Step 4: Profit!

On a more serious note, you can seriously abuse this, but doing so is likely to irk your DM, who will begin to take counter-measures against your silver tongue. Try not to get carried away, 'kay?

[Frosty]

Step 1: Convince the king that he is a slice of dry toast.
Step 2: Offer to sell him the butter you happen to have on hand.
Step 3: ???
Step 4: Profit!

On a more serious note, you can seriously abuse this, but doing so is likely to irk your DM, who will begin to take counter-measures against your silver tongue. Try not to get carried away, 'kay?

Or something like, "Yes, I am a female. Let me into the women's locker room. Just ignore the adam's apple."

[Deth Muncher]

Take over cities? Thats what I plan on doing, and I've only got a +39 with a single use of Glibness. Hell, I can do it with probbably my base +19, seeing as I'm only level 10.

Other profitable ideas with Epic Bluff are:
-Convince Storeowners that you own their stores
-Convince nobility you're one of them, and, in fact, better than them.
-Tell people their pants are on fire.
-Get adventurers to go on quests for you.
-Getting the best loot in the party! ("No, that floating black sphere with the amulet next to it is just a figment of your imagination. Go have a pastry.")

[llamamushroom]

-Getting the best loot in the party! ("No, that floating black sphere with the amulet next to it is just a figment of your imagination. Go have a pastry.")

Possibility of getting your fellow players incredibly angry aside, are you technically allowed to Bluff fellow PCs?

[Aquillion]

Possibility of getting your fellow players incredibly angry aside, are you technically allowed to Bluff fellow PCs?

Sort of. Diplomacy specifically says it's not for use on players. But other skills, like Bluff (and Intimidate) don't.

However, PCs are still in control of their character (and as the text says, Bluff is not a suggestion spell.) If you bluff them into believing they owe you money, they're perfectly entitled to say "Well, my character decides not to pay it." If you bluff them into thinking the treasure belongs to you, they're perfectly entitled to say "Fine, I believe it, but I take it anyway, even though I believe it's all yours. I'm greedy like that." In other words, while the DM is supposed to play NPCs 'realistically' and have them react realistically based on their beliefs, PCs are under no obligation to do so if they don't want to -- it's bad roleplaying, generally, and it's more than a little rude and meta-gamish for them to do, but it's pretty rude for a PC to bluff other PCs in the first place unless you have a PVP game or something.

Also, nothing in the Bluff text says that they can't realize the truth six seconds after you successfully bluff them. Again, this isn't something a DM should do unless the PCs are being really stupid (bluffing someone to believe that the sky is green will, realistically, only work until they look outside, say, unless you have a more convoluted explaination for what they seem to see); but a PC is free to suddenly realize the truth whenever they want, although it might make other players and the DM angry at them if they're doing it really blatantly.

(Of course, when a PC does this in response to being bluffed by an NPC, it's called metagaming. But that's a bit different.)

[detrevnisisiht]

Now looking down that list I noticed that a 150 diplomacy would have an entire village, regardless of how they feel about you, jump into a river and pile up to make a bridge for you, without wondering why you don't just use the one right up the road.

How can I attain such awesomeness.

[kamikasei]

How can I attain such awesomeness.

Google "diplomancer". Example.

[Pandaren]

Bluff a god into believing you're a cleric, and get access to spellcasting. Convince the king you're already the king and he's been saving the seat for you, repeat until you control half of the world, then take a look in the ELH.

[Bayar]

Distract someone to make them FF so that you can sneak attack them the next round.

[Quirinus_Obsidian]

bayar; Improved Feint does that, but unfortunately, you cannot use Glibness on a Feint attempt. Still though, I would like to see a Bluff-o-mancer made, methinks that would be cool. Not sure how much effect it would have on game, as the Diplomancer does.

[ThePhantom]

Convice people that they are things like a pancake or a piece of toast. Or even better, convice them at they don't exist and watch as they poof out of existence.

[Comet]

Or even better, convice them at they don't exist and watch as they poof out of existence.

Ooh, that was on Planescape:torment, wasn't it?

[SoD]

Or even better, convice them at they don't exist and watch as they poof out of existence.

Seen that. We're up against the BBEG, our party rogue, after using glibness on herself (from a ring which allowed her to use glibness 3/day), tumbles up to him and say "You don't exist!" with a natural 20. Now, we don't use the instant sucess rules, we use the -10/+10 rules for natural 20's and 1's. That put her bluff check up to stratoshphophic levels. The DM rolls for the BBEG (who had something like wisdom 7 and no ranks in sense motive, as it turned out). Suddenly, the BBEG collapses and curls up into a little ball, moaning quietly, clutching his head. The DM, even after giving a massive circumstance bonus to the sense motive...rolled a natural 1. It really confused his minions, who, after seeing what the rogue could do...fled when she turned to them and asked "Who's next?"

[BardicDuelist]

I've found that the best use of Bluff is to lie. You can also feint.

[Collin152]

These aren't the golems you're looking for.

[EagleWiz]

In fact those are my golems. You should tell them that. Really. Would I lie to you?

[Kiara LeSabre]

I think in some cases, it's valid for even a successful Bluff check on a really outlandish lie to produce only an extremely limited success, wherein the person doesn't actually believe the obviously untrue lie, but she believes that you really believe it (because your Bluff check was so good, you appeared completely sincere).

In short, I'd personally rule that the only thing a successful Bluff check can guarantee is that the other person doesn't believe you're intentionally lying. That means that if your lie is ridiculous and obviously false (i.e., "You are dry toast"), the person won't suddenly say, "Oh gosh, I'm dry toast!" However, he might conclude that you honestly believe that he is.

Now you have a person who thinks you're either being fooled by some kind of magical illusion ... or that you're touched in the head.

Edit: The reason I'd do it this way is lying simply isn't mind-control. The best liar in all of history could not convince you that you're dry toast unless you happen to be insane already yourself, or else under the influence of mind-altering chemicals. The art of lying is really just the art of concealing the fact that you're being deceptive, as well as discouraging the other person from thinking it through too much. The latter part works fine to a point as far as getting people to believe foolish things, but it's not enough to convince people of things that directly contradict overwhelming, obvious and immediately available evidence and personal experience.

[Kiara LeSabre]

Continuing my thoughts ...

Of course, with a high enough check, and if your DM is actually allowing epic skill uses, then yes -- silly as it is, you can duplicate a Suggestion effect with Bluff. Even then, note that the spell description requires you to word your suggestion in a way that it "sounds reasonable." Ergo, even if you're using the epic usage rules, you can't accomplish more with Bluff than a Suggestion spell could accomplish.

[CompositeSanta]

Thee words.
Emperor's new clothes.

[chiasaur11]

Call up, say, Pelor.

Tell him you're his old buddy from god college.

Procede to be elevated to deityhood.

[Rei_Jin]

Become the best lawyer in the world. Not even a Zone of Truth should defeat you!

[Da Beast]

Tell the universe that you have higher ability scores and such. Alternate path to pun pun-hood

[EndlessWrath]

Convince anyone that you're :
1) a/the King
2) The Highest Servant of a deity
3) a if not the most powerful sorcerer in the world and that the only reason they can't see your magic, is that its so powerful its invisible.
4) that you are not evil
5) convince the sheriff that you did not commit that crime you just did
6) convince the same sheriff that he committed the crime you just committed.
7) a dragon that looks like a man.
8) whoever you're talking to is a ghost.

otherwise:
Convince Belkar to kill all his allies and keep their magical items?
Convince the ogres that you're not worth fighting / they're not worth your time
suggest an assassin to perform a murder for free.
convince the person hiring your adventuring party that you were contracted for him to pay you double if not triple the original asking price and if he doesn't pay up, inevitable will be on his caboose before he can do anything.

[Frosty]

Ok, but which of these things do you think a reasonablwe DM will actually let WORK?

[The_Werebear]

In response to Frosty's Question, on a scale of -5 Sense Motive to +20 Sense Motive:

Convince anyone that you're :
1) a/the King-

If you are talking to people who have never met the king, that gets a +15-20 (And that's if you look the part or have a good excuse. If you are talking to people who personally know the king, or the real king is around, it gets worse.

2) The Highest Servant of a deity

If you are talking to servants of the deity, nearly impossible. If you are talking to laypeople, probably a +15-20, unless you violate the tenants of the religion. At that point, it gets impossible.

3) a if not the most powerful sorcerer in the world and that the only reason they can't see your magic, is that its so powerful its invisible.

That would last until someone challenges you to produce some magical effect of great power, like turning him into a newt.

4) that you are not evil

This would be a case of trying to justify actions (I only pushed Timmy into the well because an Ogre was coming, and I needed to fight it off without worrying about his safety. It is higher if you want to conceal alignment from magical effects. Much higher.

5) convince the sheriff that you did not commit that crime you just did

It depends on the crime and the evidence before him.

6) convince the same sheriff that he committed the crime you just committed.

It depends on the crime and evidence before him, and how well you set it up to frame him (Not to mention if the Sherriff has any history of memory loss or acting out of control). So, as above, but +20

7) a dragon that looks like a man.

Many dragons have the ability to polymorph into humanoids, so that would work at probably a +10, more if you can't produce evidence.

8) whoever you're talking to is a ghost.

I would say around +15-20, as this is something that most people won't believe. Also, it would be counteracted as soon as they found some sort of proof they were alive (Like they couldn't fall through walls, or their friend slaps them in the face)

Convince Belkar to kill all his allies and keep their magical items?

It took a suggestion to do that. Bluff can not replicate suggestion (Until Epic, anyway). You probably want Diplomacy for this.

Convince the ogres that you're not worth fighting / they're not worth your time

That probably falls in like with the example in the PHB. I would guess probably around +10-15, depending on how tough you look.

suggest an assassin to perform a murder for free.

This falls into the purview of Diplomacy

convince the person hiring your adventuring party that you were contracted for him to pay you double if not triple the original asking price and if he doesn't pay up, inevitable will be on his caboose before he can do anything.

That would require forgery to alter contracts more than bluff to lie about what is on the paper/what he remembers. I would tend to say no, especially on the part with the Inevitables. If you want to threaten him like that, it's intimidate.