About that Carte Blanche ...

[Edena_of_Neith]

Your adventuring party is fed up with low rewards. They are big monster killers, they want the big payoff. The ultimate payoff.

Carte Blanche.

From then on, they are above the law of the nation that gave them the Carte Blanche, forever.
They can:

Explore all the secrets of the kingdom.
Plunder the king's treasury.
Carry off the king's wife.
Demand everyone give them everything they possess.
Kill anyone they want.
Torture anyone they want.
Do anything with anyone they want.
Make themselves the rulers of the land.

The party feels this is fair recompense for saving the land again and again.
The king and the populace think differently, of course, and proceed to have the party taken and (I can't say it - it's too messy for such sensitive eyes as those of the ENWorld readers.)

But now, someone has come up with a + 65 Diplomacy (as per the thread about + 65 Diplomacy.)
With a + 65 Diplomacy, it is theoretically possible for the party to gain exactly that.
Carte Blanche, or at least something dangerously close to it (unbalanced is not the word) is attainable with a + 65 Diplomacy.

I always did say DMs should give their parties Carte Blanche.
And now, the Game Designers have thoughtfully come up with a legal way for it to actually happen.

Of course, + 65 isn't the upper limit. There is no upper limit.
And you thought Denev's Fury was unbalanced ...

 

[Serpenteye]

That's just too messy. It will almost certainly lead to the total destruction of the kingdom. Better to simply have the party seize power and rule the nation in an orderly fashion. At least that way they will have to do what's best for the kingdom, out of the most powerful motivator there is; self-interest. Who knows, they might actually strengthen and expand the nation, into an empire spanning thousands of spheres

 

[Malicene]

tha fact that +65 Diplomacy exist or any +65 (BAB, spell DC ...) since table have no limits don't bother me at all.

the trouble is : You really play character with +65 Diplomacy ?

And in this case your DM should send you encounters accordingly: "no you can't obtain.... form the king has he got +120 diplomacy !"

a good reason stop playing D20 IMO

 

[Dakkareth]

Bluff Vecna into surrendering his godhood to you and be done with this world

 

[Desdichado]

I always give my players carte blanche: that doesn't mean they're immune to consequences, though...

 

[Zappo]

I always let my players do whatever they want, but that doesn't mean that there won't be consequences. I don't care if you can bluff the king into promising you to be above the law; once you've torched a couple villages he will change his mind and have you quietly assassinated, agreement or not. Or, eventually a good adventuring party will come and get you.

In any case, there's no way to just do whatever you want without consequences, no matter what kind of bluff or magic you invent. Hell, you could be a god, and still sooner or later a bunch of epic heroes will come and whack you.

 

[Edena_of_Neith]

Heh. Good points.

I think Serpenteye has the right of it, though.
Why bother with Carte Blanche when you can just use your + 65 Diplomacy, and take over the kingdom to start with?
Then, you kill the monsters that are the problem, and go on to rule your kingdom in peace and quiet.
And, as Serpenteye said, go on to expand your kingdom by just a wee bit ...

Of course, you DO realize it cuts the other way, don't you?
That is, the DM has an NPC walk up to your party, and that NPC has + 65 Diplomacy, and uses it:

I believe it would be in your best interests for all of you to surrender your treasure, give up your lands and titles, forsake the bounty of the world, and go into permanent seclusion as monks.

Then, roll the dice!

 

[Anabstercorian]

That's the point when you can really know who the roleplayers and who the rollplayers are.

Roleplayers: - grits their teeth and hands you their stuff -

Rollplayers: - meteor storm -

 

[William Ronald]

Anabstercorian,

If the roleplayer has a suspicious character who is a patriot, then the meteor swarm is a valid option.

To me, I prefer some limits on the rules into how high bonuses can stack. (A +65 item is trivial. Now if you have 7 +30 bonus items, a +210 diplomacy should be sufficient to convince Cthulhu to bake cookies and make toys for children. Maybe he will even use flying byakhee or reindeer to deliver toys once a year. In which case, we would have Cthulhu Claus. ) It should be remembered the same tactics that PCs can use will likely be used by their adversaries -- or even worse tactics. (You might want to check out my Stacking Bonuses in 3.5 thread where I talk about the issue of bonuses in 3.5.)

I think the +65 Diplomacy thread proves a point that one of my friends made about the 3.0 rules some time ago: there are some things that the designers did not consider

I think a good DM can decide what to allow in a game and not to allow. To quote Goethe, "Genius is the art of limitation." Sometimes, you need limits to make a game playable. In the end, a DM has the final word.

Of course, what would be amusing is if a party thinks it has Carte Blanche ... and then finds out it doesn't. In which case, you can do a little research on crime and punishment to give the players some ideas of what happened to their characters.

Edena, this is a humorous thread, but it does raise a good point: what are appropriate rewards for heroes who save their countries time and time again. Do political rivals see the heroes as a threat? Do some see the heroes as potential saviors of their nation? Is there any chance for compromise between the various factions? So, I think you may have used humor to help make us think about a few important issues. I like to think humor is a useful tool to bring about enlightenment on any issues.

So, why didn't the big wigs at WotC see the problem of stacking skill bonuses? Or are they secretly using their own +210 Diplomacy items on the people at Hasbro.

I hope that the power outage did not hit you too hard.

 

[Leopold]

hey edena why haven't you been on Nutkinland lately? Missed seeing ya around chief!