Are things like Intimidate/Bluff/Diplomacy too easy?

[LostSoul]

Not sure if this is directed at me, but if it is, I'm not sure if you caught it in my post:

Whoops! Yeah, I missed that.

 

[JamesonCourage]

As part of my ongoing, "did you know that in reality..." series...

So, it turns out that making that initial Diplomacy roll in the first 6 seconds may be realistic and that talking longer won't change that.

I'll have to say, in general, I don't agree with your example. Take your job interview example. What happens if I show up, and he says, "so, James, why should we bring you on board?" and I talk for six full seconds and then stop. Just stop, and that's my whole case. I made my entire case in six seconds.

To me, I feel that doesn't mesh nearly as well with reality as having the actual interview, the back and forth dialogue. Sure, he might know whether or not he likes me within the first six seconds (I'm crushing him with my +23 to Diplomacy), but it would be entirely different if I just stopped there. And realistically, I don't think -10 is big enough there, but that's RAW.

Anyways, I do agree with you that it's not good to over-nerf anything. I tried to make the social skills balanced (obviously from my perspective), not underpowered. I think that they should be powerful if you have good skill in them.

At any rate, play what you like

 

[Janx]

I'll have to say, in general, I don't agree with your example. Take your job interview example. What happens if I show up, and he says, "so, James, why should we bring you on board?" and I talk for six full seconds and then stop. Just stop, and that's my whole case. I made my entire case in six seconds.

well, obviously, you can deliberately screw the pooch. But two individuals, both honestly attempting to get the job, the tests showed, the interviewers given 10 seconds of footage of the candidates, and 10 minutes, it turns out the results were statistically the same.

I don't have the full story, but the gist was, they filmed 2 people (I think in the original experiment, teachers teaching a lesson). and folks preferrred the same teacher, regardless of how much footage they saw. Of the 2 candidates, as I understand it, one was "better" than the other.

Anyway, what appears to be happening, is the emotional part of the brain makes a snap judgement in those first moments, and the rational brain comes up with supporting reasons. So, from the first moment, you've either won or lost the skill check, from there if you win, the rest of the encounter is yours to lose rather than an ongoing struggle to win them over.

Its a wierd effect, and it challenges how we believe we think, versus what shows up in tests and MRI's.

It basically can justify why a Face can get farther socially, than the curmudgeon. They already appeal to the other party, and they tend to be deft at fitting in, and being likeable.

That still might not mean he can social a dragon's pants off. I think there's a case that my 8 CHA orc is appealing to other orcs, and that basically the te CHA stat is ranked by a human perspective. Thus, facial qualities and expressions the Face uses may be offensive to an orc or dragon.

 

[Krensky]

I agree that civility is preferable.

NAmby pambly civilization... what need Kronk with cviility?!

I'm not Ron Edwards. I do find the GMing advice that comes out of The Forge and some of the games it has influenced, or that are influential there (eg The Burning Wheel, HeroQuest) to be the best GMing advice I've read.

Which is funny, since I've read Burning Wheel. Well, Burning Empire. It's among the most dense, overly complicated game systems I've ever seen with pages upon pages of systems for things that really the GM and players should just make up.

Frankly, I've found the most useful GM advice in terms of running a game to came from Play Dirty, Listen Up You Primitive Screwheads, and Paranoia XP SP2, with Crafty's GM advice sections in SC2.0 and FC following close behind.

The content of your post appeared to be a reiteration of earlier comments you've made - that your game is low magic even at high levels, that Bluff is not an influence skill, and that allowing Bluff to be used as an influence skill will overpower the skill.

Actually, I said that magic items powers take second fiddle to the PCs powers. At level 14, for instance, the equivalent class to fighter can declare an attack check, a fort save, or a Strength or Constitution based skill check to be a natural 20 without. Heck, if he took a a specific selectable ability a few levels earlier too, he can then activate it as a critical hit for free. Every class has an ability on a similar scale at level 14 (or 10 for experts or 5 for master classes). They're called gamebreakers. The abilities granted by Magic items just aren't on par with the characters inherent abilities. The game is as high or low magic as you like, but it's not typically very magic item heavy.

I'm not sure what game you're playing (if you mentioned it in this thread, I missed it, sorry). I think most high level D&D play does involve magic, which is the context in which I made my remarks about that.

Fantasy Craft. Which has more magic using classes then non-magic users. The game is designed without assuming that magic, let alone magic items, is an element in a game world though. So Magic Items are desirable and very, very useful, but they're not a necessary element of play at any level.

And as I've already said, I don't see the risk of overpowering if Bluff is allowed to act as an influence skill. As the social skills are set up in 4e - Bluff, Diplomacy, Intimidate - there are three sort of PC possible: tricky/smooth, pleasant/earnest, and scary. This works for me.

That's cool for you. I don't see the need or desirably of giving the PCs a third way to influence NPC reactions. All of those are already covered by Impress and Intimidate. You can be all of those things with either Impress or Intimidate. Frankly, the issue is that social skills are an afterthought in pretty much every version of D&D. Which makes them an afterthought of an afterthought in certain versions.

Not every game has this problem.

Social skills should be opposed tests. In my game, the NPCs scale with the PCs. Not quite as fast so a high level PC has a better chance then a low level PC, but it's a spread of a +5 advantage over 20 levels rather then a +20 or so. Not precise, but give you a better idea. Not to say PCs can't generate big bonuses for specializing. The Talker I mentioned above could generate big bonuses to social skill rolls like Haggle, Impress, etc. She was also built to that, with a Talent (thing race) Specialty (no good analogy), and class that were focused on dominating social interactions. Typically you can't adjust an Attitude more then one grade up or down a scene, and all attitudes fade over time, drifting back to neutral. PCs and Villain (a specific type of NPC) can choose to halve all Disposition changes effecting them. I usually have a pile of Action Dice to use to boost my NPC skill roles, etc. Special characters (including PCs) can spend action dice to ignore uses of Impress or Intimidate on the, and the target's Disposition effects use of the Impress skill. So it's actually easier to make people who like you, like you more. If someone is at the bottom of the scale (-25, Adversarial, Will do anything in their power to hurt the character) you take a -25 to Impress checks against them. So if someone really hates you, Intimidate might actually be a better choice, depending on if you want them to stop hating you, or just help you out with something for right now.

 

[pemerton]

The technique I had in mind was 4E's general "DC is set by party level". I think this means that the players overcome the challenge by building a party that has all the skills covered; when to expend resources in the form of Utility powers also plays a role.

OK, makes sense.

 

[pemerton]

However, the spells get a saving throw, where the skills do not

<snip>

That means that at level 3 my half-elf bard can make that check on any creature he meets on a natural 12 or better. That's 45% of the time. 45% of the time, the level 3 half-elf bard is so good at saying something within 6 second that Asmodeus himself (or Orcus, if you prefer) goes from "will take risks to hurt you" to "doesn't care much." That's massive.

That's why I think it's able to be abused. No, you can't dictate NPC actions. You can, however, reliably make NPCs act much more civilly to you, even by level 3.

That looks to me like a flaw in the action resolution mechanics for a particular game, rather than a reason to think that social skills are too powerful per se, or uniquely prone to abuse.

One sort of solution is to make multiple checks required, comparable to combat - games like HeroQuest, The Dying Earth and 4e (via skill challenges) take this approach. Another solution is to make the DCs level-sensitive in some fashion or other - saving throws would be one way to do this (HARP takes this approach), or scaling DCs (as per 4e) would be another.

And, the 4E DCs are low enough that even the "Hard" DC is pretty easy for somebody trained in the skill.

But in 4e you wouldn't sway Orcus via Diplomacy without a skill challenge. Which will require multiple rolls, and also will require the other PCs to do something to stop Orcus eating them in the meantime.

 

[Stalker0]

It is going to be almost impossible to use intimidate to betray the cult. Now tricking him might work.

To me, this is the crux of why high skill checks can be "unbalancing".

In 3e terms, a +20 to the DC was for the "Practically Impossible".

Thing is, its actually quite easy to make character builds that can get intimidate and diplomacy checks so high that a -20 is not even an issue.

When a player can roll an 80 diplomacy check...there's a certain social inertia there. It can feel wrong to tell the player no, even though the rules might allow for it.


You also get to the problem of superspecialization. In other words, in order to prevent Mr. Diplomancer from making literally everyone his buddy, you need very high DCs. But that shuts down other players from using diplomacy.

 

[JamesonCourage]

That looks to me like a flaw in the action resolution mechanics for a particular game, rather than a reason to think that social skills are too powerful per se, or uniquely prone to abuse.

I'm really not sure your point here. I think you're agreeing with my post that Diplomacy is capable of abuse in 3.5, considering I never indicated that social skills are all inherently overpowered, and specifically talked about trying to make them balanced (in my opinion) in my game.

One sort of solution is to make multiple checks required, comparable to combat - games like HeroQuest, The Dying Earth and 4e (via skill challenges) take this approach. Another solution is to make the DCs level-sensitive in some fashion or other - saving throws would be one way to do this (HARP takes this approach), or scaling DCs (as per 4e) would be another.

I built off the GitP rules (but I did modify it): Giant In the Playground Games. It has a much better base in my opinion, and it doesn't include changing someone's disposition (which I really think is what leads to abuse).

But in 4e you wouldn't sway Orcus via Diplomacy without a skill challenge. Which will require multiple rolls, and also will require the other PCs to do something to stop Orcus eating them in the meantime.

My knowledge of 4e is severely lacking, but if it's as easy to pass those "hard" skill checks as some people have indicated, then it's still an issue. I think inherently changing someone's overall, long term disposition towards you is what leads to a lot of abuse, and thus objections. Just my opinion, though.

As always, play what you like

To me, this is the crux of why high skill checks can be "unbalancing".

In 3e terms, a +20 to the DC was for the "Practically Impossible".

Thing is, its actually quite easy to make character builds that can get intimidate and diplomacy checks so high that a -20 is not even an issue.

When a player can roll an 80 diplomacy check...there's a certain social inertia there. It can feel wrong to tell the player no, even though the rules might allow for it.

Yep, I totally agree with this (can't XP again yet).

You also get to the problem of superspecialization. In other words, in order to prevent Mr. Diplomancer from making literally everyone his buddy, you need very high DCs. But that shuts down other players from using diplomacy.

Yeah, and that can cause problems, as it's metagamey, and also shuts down a mode of play that a player wishes to explore. So, I think I agree here, too. Good post.

Play what you like

 

[Elf Witch]

To me, this is the crux of why high skill checks can be "unbalancing".

In 3e terms, a +20 to the DC was for the "Practically Impossible".

Thing is, its actually quite easy to make character builds that can get intimidate and diplomacy checks so high that a -20 is not even an issue.

When a player can roll an 80 diplomacy check...there's a certain social inertia there. It can feel wrong to tell the player no, even though the rules might allow for it.


You also get to the problem of superspecialization. In other words, in order to prevent Mr. Diplomancer from making literally everyone his buddy, you need very high DCs. But that shuts down other players from using diplomacy.

It is one of the flaws I see in 3E a big one.

It requires DMs and players to be on the same page and agree that sometimes the no matter how well you roll it won't work.

The players need to trust their DM that they are not being screwed over. That their is a good in game reason for something not working.

 

[pemerton]

I'm really not sure your point here. I think you're agreeing with my post that Diplomacy is capable of abuse in 3.5, considering I never indicated that social skills are all inherently overpowered, and specifically talked about trying to make them balanced (in my opinion) in my game.

Besides agreeing with you, I also meant (and maybe failed) to bring out what it is about 3E social skills that makes me agree with you - namely, not that they can/cannot affect an NPC's actions (in my view, insofar as a social skill affects attitudes, it will affect actions, given that - crudely but not too inaccurately - attitude + belief yields action). Rather, it is the failure of the maths.

My knowledge of 4e is severely lacking, but if it's as easy to pass those "hard" skill checks as some people have indicated, then it's still an issue.

Not so much in the context of a skill challenge. As I said in the post you replied to, multiple rolls are required - which reduces the odds of success - and the other PCs are also going to be involved (at least in typical party play), which means that a single diplomancer isn't going to resolve the scene.

I think inherently changing someone's overall, long term disposition towards you is what leads to a lot of abuse, and thus objections.

What have you got in mind?

In the abstract, turning a major villain into a friend who will expend resources to help you shouldn't be an more or less abusive than killing the same villain and stealing all his/her resources. Although it many be less exciting.

But I have a feeling this isn't what you're talking about.