Core Rules Only

[Rystil Arden]

And a character whose Diplomacy bonus is half that of a bard of the same level is going to fail a LOT more often than he succeeds.

Such a character may THINK he's suave, but in terms of his effectiveness in-game, he isn't. He might be fun to play as someone who tries (and fails) to be a smooth-talker, but if he's played as a successful smooth talker, that's really no different than having an Int 5 barbarian always act in the most tactically astute manner possible.

Looks like we posted nearly the same thing at the same time This is why I have you in my sig

 

[Crothian]

And a character whose Diplomacy bonus is half that of a bard of the same level is going to fail a LOT more often than he succeeds.

So by Suave you rellay meant the most suave a character can be? Suave in my mind does not automatically mean max ranks in the class skill of diplomacy.

 

[Crothian]

But if you consistently fail at trivial tasks for a suave character, then you weren't really suave at all, right? I'd find it hard to justify that a character was suave if all I had was a track record of failing at basic common suave-sweet-talking tasks.

Trivial would be what DC 15? So, 14 Charisma and 2 ranks allows a first level character to make it 50% of the time. Of course if you relaly wanted to Suave you could take a feat to improve it more or place a higher score in Charisma or be a half elf.....

 

[MoogleEmpMog]

Except that is not always true. A skillful DM can not include many of your haves and include many of your have nots without leaving the core rules. Granted, there are not a lot of skillful DMs out there.

Without EXTENSIVELY homebrewing and/or disallowing wide swathes of the core rules, explain to me how a skillful DM can create a playable setting using only the core rules that is:

> a swashbuckling world of high-flying airships that sail over a world-sea infested with titanic sea serpents, where bold rogues with a variety of abilities battling it out with rapiers, pistols, muskets and the occasional experimental aeroplane.

> a gritty sword and sorcery world where humans are the only widespread sapient race, and all other intelligent creatures (mostly demons, snakemen and man-apes), to say nothing of all spellcasters and magical items, are tainted by the ineffable, mind-wrenching touch of the outer dark.

> a treetop-leaping, sword-flourishing mythic far east, where skilled warriors, sages and wizards are most often one and the same, wuxia flourishes are commonplace, dragons are benevolent spirits and the non-human races are a mix of animals that can take human form and assorted (sometimes) benificent spirit creatures.

 

[Rystil Arden]

So by Suave you rellay meant the most suave a character can be? Suave in my mind does not automatically mean max ranks in the class skill of diplomacy.

Suave to me means reasonably able to achieve results through suave word-based means like Diplomacy and Bluff. I suspect MEM would agree.

If you can't Bluff the guard to get into the gate, you aren't suave. If you can't convince someone of something trivial (stop doing something suicidal when you have every reason to stop and no reason to continue), you are not only not suave, you are unsuave and bumbling at social skills.

 

[Doc_Klueless]

Truth be known, if I were ever blessed with the time and opportunity to get back into D&D, I'd really want to be in a Core Only game. There's just too much for me to keep track of. Other people, I've noticed, have no such problem, so I can only assume that my brain is... slowing.. .. .. down.

 

[Rystil Arden]

Trivial would be what DC 15? So, 14 Charisma and 2 ranks allows a first level character to make it 50% of the time. Of course if you relaly wanted to Suave you could take a feat to improve it more or place a higher score in Charisma or be a half elf.....

Right, DC 15 sounds reasonable. But failing at somethign trivial half the time and anything non-trivial all the time is probably not going to allow the character to be suave. The real trick is with Bluff though, since that's an opposed roll. When you have half the ranks, your chance of Bluffing someone becomes vanishingly low, unfortunately.

 

[Crothian]

Without EXTENSIVELY homebrewing and/or disallowing wide swathes of the core rules, explain to me how a skillful DM can create a playable setting using only the core rules that is:

You are missing the point. You are bringing up these examples that are so far removed from D&D they are no longer D&D. Might as well ask how a skillful DM would make a sci fi epic out of just D&D core rules. I never said it could do everything under the sun, I just said that many of the things you claim it can't it actually can.

 

[MoogleEmpMog]

Trivial would be what DC 15? So, 14 Charisma and 2 ranks allows a first level character to make it 50% of the time. Of course if you relaly wanted to Suave you could take a feat to improve it more or place a higher score in Charisma or be a half elf.....

Even with an 18, being a half-elf, max cross-class ranks in diplomacy and the Negotiator feat, you have a +9, which gives you a 30% chance to fail a routine diplomacy check.

I guess I missed all the adventure fiction in which a character who is presented as being suave and charming fails at routine social interaction almost a third of the time, and has at best a 50% chance to succeed at a difficult task.

Of course, to be even that good, he already has to be a member of a fantasy race, so settings in which that race is restricted or banned are already out. And, since he's trying to be a dexterous fighter, he's also extremely pressed for feats at low levels, and has potentially traded two (one for being human, one base feat) to become good enough at his other core shtick to have even a better than 50/50 chance of success. :\

 

[Rystil Arden]

You are missing the point. You are bringing up these examples that are so far removed from D&D they are no longer D&D. Might as well ask how a skillful DM would make a sci fi epic out of just D&D core rules. I never said it could do everything under the sun, I just said that many of the things you claim it can't it actually can.

I think that if you include non-core stuff and have a good GM, you can play a totally awesome game just like any of those describe by MEM with the D&D ruleset, though.