Pathfinder 1E Sense motive became lie detector

[Pumpkin]

Ok so I dm a level 1 game where one player is an oracle. He took the nature revelation that gives him an oversight bonus of +10 on any one skill during the day. He also took the feat that allows him to use that ability 2 times/day.

Now, he only uses that ability on sense motive rolls, so at level 1 he has something like +16 on sense motive and he can uses it on most NPCs.

How would you deal with high sense motive characters without ruining the plot and the fun challenge of deceptive NPCs, but without making a player feel bad about his character's high sense motive skills.

I had a similar problem once with a player that had +20 on all knowledge skills.

 

[billd91]

Make use of it. Feed the player information, plenty of it, and let the player sort out what's relevant and important.

 

[Matthias]

Sense Motive isn't magic. Even if totally reliable, it can only detect deliberate and knowing attempts at deception. A character who lies but believes he is telling the truth and characters who are pathological liars should both register as 'truthful'.

A character who has built such a character has earned the right to be able to use his ability to "read" people so well as one of the 'tools' in his adventuring kit. One should no more think of it as "unfair" for a character to have such a good skill bonus than to think it "unfair" for a character to cast such good spells to blow away hordes of critters or to be able to knock down the best kitted-out NPC with his wedge of steel.

But neither should the player be able to expect his character to now be free to coast through the campaign on his Sense Motive superpower alone. Say he makes some powerful enemies by foiling their diabolical plans, and they learn his secret. They should not be expected to fall for the same trick over and over--if PCs can improvise, adapt, and overcome; why not NPCs? Let him face threats that Sense Motive may seem to defeat, but not completely (an assassin that is also a pathological liar, or a pawn or stooge who thinks he is working for the 'right' people but most assuredly is not)--or let the Sense Motive be highly useful and yet totally irrelevant ("You have figured out my evil plan, but so what? 'When the avalanche has already started, it is too late for the pebbles to vote'!)

 

[Pumpkin]

Problem arises when the player says : "Are you the one who killed the king ?" ["I use sense motive with my +10 oversight bonus"]

I can't really answer that with something else than yes or no:
"I did not kill the king and I ate chicken today." [You sense only half is true] xD

But then the pc can do that with every major NPCs and the plot twists possibilities are reduced..

 

[Tovec]

If what you say is true, I guess I would say that even lie detectors aren't 100%. It could be that the guy who killed the king is REALLY good at bluffing. It could be that the guy you suspect just feels really guilty, or is scared or is hiding that he stole a chicken.

It is a near perfect chance of telling if the person is hiding something, not WHAT they are hiding. If the person doesn't feel bad about their action then it may not pick up anything at all, even if they are lying.

And like I said, lie detectors can be fooled. Hell, aren't there situational modifiers that can influence a check (up or down) anyway? I don't have my books on me at the moment but I'm pretty sure.

And of course, after all that, if the oracle wants to waste all their abilities on telling if NPCs are lying... let them? Giving the party more information is never a bad thing by itself.

If it is quest specific then there are numerous ways around the issue so do those.

Make the check less reliable, 90% maybe, and they'll think twice about taking everything for granted with a simple sense motive check.

 

[billd91]

Problem arises when the player says : "Are you the one who killed the king ?" ["I use sense motive with my +10 oversight bonus"]

I can't really answer that with something else than yes or no:
"I did not kill the king and I ate chicken today." [You sense only half is true] xD

But then the pc can do that with every major NPCs and the plot twists possibilities are reduced..

You could consider not answering the question. Answer with another question. "Why would I do something like that? The king was my brother. We played together as children. I swore, on father's deathbed, to support my brother's reign. And now you DARE to ask me such a question?!?"

Just because they ask doesn't mean they get a direct answer.

 

[Elf Witch]

Does sense motive work the same way in Pathfinder as 3E? The person lying can roll a bluff check to fool the sense motive he rolls higher and it does. So to even the play field a little give the NPC a good bluff.

 

[Morrus]

Asking everybody if they killed the king would (a) take ages; (b) involve at least a small percentage with high bluff and/or magical deception so you can still never be sure; (c) cause a lot of offence.

You'll get a load of suggestions on how to nerf his ability. Obviously that's easy to do, and you don't want to do that.

So no, don't nerf his ability. But if he's really just going round asking everybody the same question (is he actually doing that?) it'll backfire.

Definitely allow him to benefit from his choice of specialisation.

 

[S'mon]

If for some reason you need NPCs to be able to tell undetectable lies, then either you need to nerf the PC or have an Undetectable Lie type spell.

Personally, I'm fine with high Sense Motive or Insight as long as the player still has to say "I use SM/Insight" - if the character is suspicious & they're really good, they should be able to detect lies, evasion etc. What I dislike is players who expect me to give them SM rolls while the player herself/himself is oblivious and just auto-piloting through the adventure, making no attempt to determine the veracity of NPCs.

 

[Blackbrrd]

This is a bit typical of DnD when players find and use "broken" combinations of abilities that makes the DM try to work around the "problem". If you constantly work around the problem, the player doesn't really get the use out of the specialization, while if you don't the game can become predictable and a bit boring.

Because of the issues mentioned above, I usually talk to my players and tell them that I don't want combination X in my game if I find it takes fun out of the game. Sometimes we agree to rebuild before it happens, other times the player doesn't abuse the ability constantly and sometimes we agree to rebuild after trying it out.