One who realizes the potency of cross-class skills. One who wants to be able to deal with social situations and use sense motive which serves as an extremely useful traits in those cases.
I think, am not certain, that the dwarven fighter in my current game has the highest sense motive or if not is very close.
BTW, in case you and everyone you have ever gamed with missed it, by taking a couple points off the meat stats, you can increase those skills per rank quite a bit. getting a 14 is rather cheap, costing only 6 points in a point buy where a 18 costs 6 points more than a 16. So, for example, a fighter who wanted to be more than meat could take a 16 str and a 14 INT and have on top of any skills the meat-only fighter wanted some 13 ranks in intimidate and 13 ranks (for +6) in sense motive and not be bluff fodder for the vast majority of people.[/b][/quote]
You're obviously using a rather high point buy. If you think that 16 strength, 14 int, and 12 wisdom are a low-cost option for a fighter, then you're talking a minimum of 28 point buy for str 16, dex 10, con 14, int 14, wis 12, cha 8. At 32 point buy, 12 dex and 10 cha would be possible as well. However, that's not too likely a build for a dwarf fighter who "wants to be able to deal with social situations." Such a character would probably want more than a modified 6 charisma--he might even want a 10 charisma. So now, you're either talking 36 point buy (which is above the DMG recommendation for a high powered campaign--I tried it in a home campaign and found it to be equivalent to a +1 or +2 ECL) or a fighter with a 14 strength (a very marginal proposition in 3.0e IME--more so in 3.5).
And even for the 14 int fighter you're talking about, the 12 ranks of sense motive represent 20-25% of his total skill points. For that, he ought to be difficult to bluff in combat. God knows he won't be difficult to fool in conversation (+16 vs +7).
Actually, having a totally lopsided add-on makes it less than "not automatic" and more into the realm of BAD CHOICE. If they had made BAB stack into BOTH SIDES, then the issue of "fighting prowess" would be reflected. Now it just ignores the bluffers fighting prowess.
The difficulty with this is that adding BAB to both sides would once again make the bluff automatic against anyone without maxed sense motive.
Take a best case scenario for the target (at 20th level, the BAB difference between the fighter and the rogue is at its greatest): 20th level rogue (23 ranks, +5 charisma, +15 BAB = +43)
Against a 20th level paladin (23 ranks, 18 wis, +20 BAB=+51) w/maxed sense motive he's unlikely to succeed and it's a bad choice. Then again, it should be. 23 ranks of sense motive isn't pocket change--especially not for a paladin.
Against a 20th level fighter with maxed sense motive (11 ranks, 12 wis, +20 BAB= +32), the rogue is unlikely to fail--making the 11 ranks of sense motive a very poor investment of 22 skill points.
Against a 20th level fighter without sense motive (+20 BAB, +1 wis=+21), it's impossible for the rogue to fail.
Lets use a better example to get this little point across.
My fighter spent by level 10 13 ranks on bluff so i CAN feint. Your fighter being meat-boy dropped his int to 8 and spent his skills on tavern knowledge. When i apply my +5 to my bluff roll to feitn you, you get a +10 due to your BAB. Your combat prowaess trumps my 13 skill ranks and my combat prowess which is equal to your is irrelevent.
This raises a very important question... which is "huh??"
Indeed it does. The "huh??" is coming not from the "what's up with this mechanic" side of the aisle but from the "what on earth is a single-classed fighter doing feinting another fighter--especially a meathead one?" side of the aisle. It's not as if you're likely to get more than an effective +1 to hit out of your standard (or ME if you wasted a feat) action. If you were a rogue it would be understandable since you get sneak attack. But not as a fighter.
Why doesn't combat prowess, if it is to be considered a relevent factor, count on both sides?
Why does a wizard who has a lower BAB get the bonus for combat prowess and the fighter attempting to bluff him get squat?
O do not think making fighting prowess a factor in the odds of sucess was a bad thing. i think making it an entirely one sided factor in the odds of success a bad thing.
That may be... however your suggestion would just make the bluff manuever go back to being a sure thing against anyone who doesn't have Sense motive as a class skill and max it out to boot.
Sense Motive includes Wis bonus, and Bluff includes Cha bonus.
