Diplomacy +23 at 3rd level??? Help, my player must be wrong!!!

[Lord Pendragon]

While I agree a player should never be forced, I would also expect good roleplayers to take another person's skills and stats in consideration when interacting.

If a party member has an uber charisma and diplomacy skill, then I would expect other players to at least listen to him when he offers a proposal. They could argue back of course, but at least be open to the ideas instead of just blowing them off.

Well, there I disagree with you. Some people aren't open to diplomacy. Just because a character is good at it doesn't mean my character need be receptive to it.

I'd hope a good roleplayer would be consistent, not being swayed by some NPC but never by a fellow PC, but being unresponsive to Diplomacy is certainly a viable character trait.

 

[rkanodia]

First of all, those house rules fail outright when applied to characters who are not more or less maxxed out in skill ranks. The author has admitted as much.

Second of all, you are mistaken about the 3e skills breaking down so easily for two reasons. The character can Take 10 and automatically succeed at trivial actions. Truly trivial actions have DCs of 5 or less, usually much less, so failure will rarely occur even if you are forced to roll for some reason (and if circumstances are so extraordinary that a roll is require we are no longer dealing with a trivial case).

I guess I see Duke Lord High Muckity-Muck, 16th level Sorceror, as being more or less unresponsive to the overtures of someone who is uncouth and unsophisticated in the arts of diplomacy and negotiation. He's hard to impress. His participation in a plan represents a large investment compared to that of a commoner. My view is that, no matter how little risk and how much reward my offer entails, the big boys aren't going to want any part of it if I sound like a rube. Your mileage (and expectations) may vary.

I see that I said 'all sorts of skills' would break down. That was a poor chose of words. I didn't mean to imply that all skills break down when trivial cases occur. I think that most skills handle trivial cases quite nicely. For instance, if I say 'Use Rope is broken because it can stop me from tying my shoelaces,' then I'm dead wrong. With an average Dex and no ranks in Use Rope, I can still take 10 (just as you said) and perfectly hit the DC for 'Tie a knot'. If I'm under pressure, I might fumble it. If I'm clumsy, I can't take 10, but I'll still get it if I try a few times. Fits both my real-world experience and my gameplay expectations just perfectly.

But there are some skills that don't handle trivial cases very well. Going by the SRD: even if you assign DC 0 to 'Find out the Soup of the Day', it still takes 1d4+1 hours using Gather Information. Even if you assign DC 0 to 'Get Rex to come over for a pat on the head', a PC without any ranks in Handle Animal can not make Rex come over, because they can't even attempt the check untrained. Same thing with knowledge skills. If you decide that knowing the name of the kingdom you live in requires a knowledge: local check (the SRD lists DC 10 for 'really easy questions', but making it 0 still wouldn't change anything), then the vast majority of people in your campaign world don't know it, because they don't have any skill ranks in knowledge: local. Under the d20 rules as written, the only thing a sensible DM can do is to say that there are some situations which can't be reasonably mapped onto the skill system.

I agree that the house rules would fail in some cases that the SRD rules would hold up, such as your 'ask your lover for the time of day' example. By the house rules, this could have a very high DC if your lover is, say, a high-level cleric. By the SRD, the worst that could happen (assuming you have low Charisma, or are under a curse or something) is that the lover goes from 'Helpful' to 'Friendly' (maybe you asked rudely) and they still are willing to 'chat' and 'advise'.

The point of this long-winded monologue is to highlight the reasons I have for my opinion: I think that the house rules are worth looking at, because the increased value that they offer as compared to the SRD rules (in terms of accuracy of modeling character interactions, and in terms of providing a clear, unambiguous framework for PCs and DMs to use) is greater than the value that they take away by breaking some trivial cases. I would rather say 'This trivial situation gets you a specific outcome without requiring a check, even though if I were to make you roll a check according to the literal rules, you'd probably fail it' (as I'll have to with the house rules) than say 'This serious situation is going to be resolved in a nonspecific way according to a set of modifiers that I'm choosing entirely by fiat, without any sort of guidelines' (as I currently have to do all the time with the SRD).

That being said, I haven't tried the house rules in actual gameplay yet. I'll keep you posted when I find out how it goes.

Edit: And if'n ye be finding the house rules not ta yer likin, well then I be havin a short plank 'pon which yer welcome to be takin a long walk, landlubber!

 

[Tarril Wolfeye]

But there are some skills that don't handle trivial cases very well. Going by the SRD: even if you assign DC 0 to 'Find out the Soup of the Day', it still takes 1d4+1 hours using Gather Information. Even if you assign DC 0 to 'Get Rex to come over for a pat on the head', a PC without any ranks in Handle Animal can not make Rex come over, because they can't even attempt the check untrained. Same thing with knowledge skills. If you decide that knowing the name of the kingdom you live in requires a knowledge: local check (the SRD lists DC 10 for 'really easy questions', but making it 0 still wouldn't change anything), then the vast majority of people in your campaign world don't know it, because they don't have any skill ranks in knowledge: local. Under the d20 rules as written, the only thing a sensible DM can do is to say that there are some situations which can't be reasonably mapped onto the skill system.

All of these can be handled.

1. Find out Soup of the day
That's simple. Just ask the waitress. Now, if you want to find out the Soup of the day of some Bandit-infested inn without going there it's obvious you have to use Gather Information and it will also take some time.

2. Get Rex to come over for a pat on the head
You don't know any dogs, do you. If you're not Rex's owner he may not even lift an eye. And you may use it untrained. In the skill description it says you may use Handle Animal untrained to handle an animal.

3. Knowing the name of the kingdom you live in
Even if you need a knowledge check for this, it's common knowledge. You may use an untrained Knowledge check (a.k.a. an Intelligence check) to access common knowledge. And of course there are people who are just too dumb (Int < 8 and rolling very low) to know that, even at DC 0, but that's true in real life even for some people with abysmal IQ.


-As I am German I don't know how to talk like a Pirate, but if anyone wants, I can talk like a Kraut

 

[Pbartender]

Um, he is a Half Elf & has used 2 feats.

And 21 skill points. And put an 18 int cha.

Really, how many resources does one have to spend before they deserve to be good at something??

Right. That's the way I see it too. He's put a lot of effort out-of-game, and a lot of training in-game into being really good at diplomacy. So let him be good at it.

I've got a halfling rogue/fighter who's the same way with Hide & Move Silently... At 4th level he's got 6 ranks, +4 size, +5 Dex, +2 Stealthy, +3 Skill Focus = +20 Hide at 4th level (Hide doesn't get any synergy bonuses). He sneaks ahead scouts out the enemy territory and sneak attacks any lone low-hit-dice sentries he can find. He takes 10 on the skill check and is as good as invisible.

Anyway.... I too, would recommend Rich Berlew's alternate Diplomacy rules, and they easily be adapted for Bluffing and Intimidating.

 

[Dinkeldog]

Help, we've got a player who dun' git' himself a Diplomacy skill of +23 for a 3rd level without magic items:


* Negotiator feat gives +2
* Skill Focus feat gives +3


Are there any stacking limitation errors here?

jh

I would not allow those two to stack. But that only drops things to +21.

 

[Scion]

I would not allow those two to stack. But that only drops things to +21.

Why not? 2 seperate unnamed bonuses from 2 seperate sources. They are both pretty weak feats anyway, why not let them stack?

 

[reiella]

Since each skill is listed as giving the +2 bonus, I would say there is a clear conflict in these two rules statements.

Hmm, I'm just inclined to read that Or in question as a standard or/and/foreach instead of an XOR, solves that problem in my head rather nicely .

On the topic. The important thing is to define when Diplomacy is used instead of Bluff, other skills, or a Cha check. And maintain consistency throughout.

It's rather dangerous to have a diplomatic powerhouse (or even a bluff) as a player as its not a situation you can really through back at the party too easily (the closest is a villain recruiting NPC friends and family to his cause against you), unless you're willing to deal with the headache of applying attitude changes to the party.

3. Knowing the name of the kingdom you live in
Even if you need a knowledge check for this, it's common knowledge. You may use an untrained Knowledge check (a.k.a. an Intelligence check) to access common knowledge. And of course there are people who are just too dumb (Int < 8 and rolling very low) to know that, even at DC 0, but that's true in real life even for some people with abysmal IQ.

I have to say that is pretty funny and reminds me of some US talk shows a few years back... Where Leno was asking people on the street simple geography questions with a bunch of failed answers. "What are the great aqueducts?"

 

[Dinkeldog]

Why not? 2 seperate unnamed bonuses from 2 seperate sources. They are both pretty weak feats anyway, why not let them stack?

Because they're both essentially Skill Focus. If you don't allow people to take Skill Focus over and over for the same skill, why would you let these two stack.

 

[Scion]

Because they're both essentially Skill Focus. If you don't allow people to take Skill Focus over and over for the same skill, why would you let these two stack.

The same reason two of anything different stack, they are different.

Just like if there was a spell that gave a +4 unnamed bonus to diplomacy I would let it stack with both feats.

Also, in the same manner that a spell that grants a +X deflection bonus to ac and a spell that grants a +Y bonus to natural armor both stack for ac. They are different.

The two feats are not both skill focus, one is skill focus while the other is negotiator. Different training, different feat, different bonuses (although both untyped in this case, which means that they stack by default).

Even if there were half a dozen different +2/+2 feats that all happened to have diplomcacy as one of the +2's all of them would stack with one another. Just like the 3 different synergy bonuses stack. Just like all of them stack with skill focus

 

[Dinkeldog]

Sure, just don't walk up to a table I'm DMing in and expect them to stack. :shrug:

They're both skill focus because we've accepted that skill focus is essentially +3 to one skill or +2 to two skills. It goes with the spirit of the rules, at least, to our minds.