Advice on a Feint Situation

[Celebrim]

This has nothing to do with the RAW. By the RAW everything that happened is legal.

This is about the metagame, not the game.

The fault here lies not with the player from running away from a feint. A player cannot be reasonably expected to consciously make decisions to cause the death of his own character. Once a player has metagame information he shouldn't have, it's too late to try to fix it in game. Once again people, problems with the game should be addressed in game and problems with the metagame have to be addressed outside of the game. Yes, it was a jerk move to run away from a feint that we've established in game the character doesn't know coming, but that's not the main point here. It's perfectly plausible tactics for a character losing a fight to run away anyway, even if he doesn't actually know he's being feinted. It would have been equally a jerk move to feint to try to constrain a player to not choose to run away. And in any event, there is no objective way to disentangle it now.

The fault here comes from the inexperience of the DM. The DM unwittingly, without realizing how it would impact play, used a process of play that is perfectly fine for PvE (because DMs have little incentive to metagame against the PCs, and by definition have to consciously practice the art of not doing so) but which is insufficient for PvP. And notice the particular process of play - who rolls what, when, and in secret or not - is really at a level above the rules. The RAW doesn't tell you how to run the process of play. The rules only tell you how to fairly set the fortunes.

How this is 'run properly' isn't even part of the rules.

So the DM should apologize to the players for his oversight, go to a better process of play where less metagame information is disclosed and the only thing that the players know is what their characters could know, and keep playing while keeping in mind the situation. Once you as the GM have goofed, you have to do your best to make recompense for your injustice.

If the player can still charge, let him charge as if the running player had been feinted. That's the closest available to fair without retcons or carrying debt. If not, I'd still make the player whom I cheated roll the attack as if he feinted. If it would have missed, then I'd declare it all a wash - no one is owed anything. That's really me trying to find a graceful way out of the problem. If the feint would have hit, then I'd award the character I'd cheated some sort of resource - in my game a bonus destiny point that would be a reasonable payment - that would make up somewhat for the lost opportunity for victory. Or perhaps I'd award some recovered hit points. Once everyone was happy I was being fair, we'd resume using secret declarations and secret rolls (which usually means, the DM rolls and chooses whether or not to roll in the open).

 

[Oryan77]

Again, a logical interpretation of the RAW, but not one which is written into the RAW.

The failed Sense Motive check says he fails in reacting to the blow in time, but not seeing the blow coming.

It isn't an interpretation of the RAW, it is a straight reading and comprehension of the RAW. It also has nothing to do with seeing the blow coming. He's seen lots of blows coming. Some of them may have even missed. Why all of a sudden is he reacting to this particular blow that misses when he failed his Sense Motive check?

Sense Motive
"A successful check lets you avoid being bluffed. You can also use this skill to determine when “something is up” (that is, something odd is going on) or to assess someone’s trustworthiness."

If you have failed your Sense Motive check, how can you possibly tell "something is up"? If you can't tell something is up, how can you possibly react to a successful feint attack?

The only thing I interpreted is the fluff/flavor behind the action to explain why he wouldn't know he was duped until after his action. The ruling remains the same.

Clearly you have made up your mind and are choosing to reward someone for metagaming and punishing someone for thinking outside the box and wasting a round to legitimately use an obscure rule. So I won't push it any further.

 

[Celebrim]

It isn't an interpretation of the RAW, it is a straight reading and comprehension of the RAW.

If a player suspects a trap, he's allowed to have his character search a 5' area for traps, right? If a player suspects a trap, is it metagaming, or does he have to roll to see if his character might have suspected a trap in the first place?

Suppose the DM rolls in secret. The player is told he doesn't find a trap. Must the player now enter the 5' square believing there is no trap, or is he allowed to have his character suppose that he might wrong and try again or try a different plan?

Suppose the roll isn't made in secret, and the die comes up a 1. If the player doesn't now enter the 5' square as if there is no trap, can the DM compel him to do so simply because the DM knows that the player knows the throw was a 1 and thus unlikely to have succeeded? Who is meta-gaming here again, and whose fault is it?

Again, suppose the declarations and rolls were made in secret? Would it have been then wrong for the player to choose to have his character run away?

For the record, the decision to feint without a feat that enhanced the action was a stupid one anyway. The odds of hitting AC 13 at least once in two tries are generally higher than hitting AC 10 at least once in a single try. Deciding to feint was a clumsy and poor tactical decision in this situation, and even if the player who ran away hadn't been acting on metagame knowledge, the gap in the combat was a perfect place to flee in. After all, the real situation being marked by feint is that you trick the opponent into some ill-advised action along a false line, perhaps stepping backward to invite a false timed step forward by your opponent, maybe dropping your blade low when plan to attack high, or whatever. If you step back feinting a defensive action when you really mean to rapidly attack as the opponent steps forward, it only matters that the foe didn't see through you plan, if the foes plan is to press the fight. If the foes plan is already leaning toward to disengage or withdraw, your feint however well made just results in the distance opening up. The narrative of the fight sounds to me more like the woodcutter's story in Rashomon.

Point is, you don't get to pretend to adhere to the rules by making up things that aren't in the rules.

 

[Water Bob]

This has nothing to do with the RAW. By the RAW everything that happened is legal.

This is about the metagame, not the game.

I laugh to myself here only because, over on the Conan Lives! thread, the designers and fans of the game have been trying to convince me that Meta-Gaming is Good! As, their new Conan game has, central to its main mechanic, a glaringly super meta-game device.

And, on top of being, flat-out, a meta-game mechanic, it also punishes players for being daring and heroic.

The fault here lies not with the player from running away from a feint.

(trim)

The fault here comes from the inexperience of the DM.

You speak as if you were there!

But, you weren't there. Because if you were, you'd know that what I describe in the OP never happened for real. As a poor and inexperienced DM, considering the Feint rules might be a problem in my game, decided to ask other gamers about how they run it.

I made up the entire scenario.

I did that because I actually run a different game. Not 3.5 D&D, but the Conan RPG, based on d20 3.5. In the Conan game, Feint has a bit more bite than in the D&D game. A successful feint in the Conan game renders the target to AC 10.

That's because, in the Conan game, armor does not affect AC. There's a penetration/Damage Resistance mechanic that is used.

So, instead of going all through that, I had to frame my example in such a way that comments would be useful to me. That's why both the characters in the example aren't wearing any armor. I wanted those that reply to consider that the Feint, if successful, would cause an attack against AC 10.

The goal was to think through the situation, consider what other experienced gamers thought about the situation, and figure a way to implement the game rule well in my game.

And...I'm here to say that, yeah, some of you here and on the other forum helped me with some good advice.

I now know how I will play Feint, without the benefit of the Improved Feint Feat, in my Conan game.

 

[Oryan77]

Again, suppose the declarations and rolls were made in secret? Would it have been then wrong for the player to choose to have his character run away?

If the roll was made in secret, why would we force a player's actions? The whole reason for rolling in secret is so we don't have to force actions.

As I said previously, when rolled in secret, he is moving away not because he knows a feint is coming, but for whatever other reasons he chose to do so. Basically, he just got lucky and avoided a feint attempt. I have no problem with that. Unfortunately, the player isn't doing that. He isn't withdrawing for any other reason than to avoid the penalty to AC that he shouldn't know he has until it is too late.

Any opposed rolls where the result should not be known to the player doing the check is rolled in secret at our table. It solves this very thing that the OP is dealing with.

I am also not interpreting anything. It's right there in the description of the rules. I quoted the Sense Motive rule for you in my previous post. You are ignoring the fact that he didn't sense the PCs motive. Then, you're saying that even though you failed to do so, you still sensed that "something is up".

There's really nothing to debate other than determining what feinting actually does flavor-wise since the physical action is not spelled out in the Feinting rule. Even then, that's just fluff for narration sake.

The name of the skill is "Sense Motive". If you fail, then you fail to to sense any motive. You don't get to sense some kind of motive like you are suggesting.

For the record, the decision to feint without a feat that enhanced the action was a stupid one anyway.

I completely agree. I just didn't feel that it was appropriate to criticize someone for using a valid tactic. Even using the Improved Feint feat is a waste of an action most of the time. But that's an opinion on tactics and doesn't seem reasonable to derail the thread into that discussion.

Point is, you don't get to pretend to adhere to the rules by making up things that aren't in the rules.

Show me how I would not be adhering to the rules and I'll agree. Thing is, I've pointed to the exact ruling to show how you guys are not adhering to the rules.

"You can also use this skill to determine when “something is up” (that is, something odd is going on)"; a direct quote from the SRD Sense Motive skill. It sounds extremely cut-and-dry to me. If you disagree and still think that the metagamer should sense that something odd is going on (specifically a feint, at that) when he failed to sense something, then there's simply nothing else I can add to this discussion.

I now know how I will play Feint, without the benefit of the Improved Feint Feat, in my Conan game.

Regardless of how you decide to do it and what we say, if it makes sense to you and your group, then that's all that matters.

 

[Celebrim]

I laugh to myself here only because, over on the Conan Lives! thread, the designers and fans of the game have been trying to convince me that Meta-Gaming is Good! As, their new Conan game has, central to its main mechanic, a glaringly super meta-game device.

And, on top of being, flat-out, a meta-game mechanic, it also punishes players for being daring and heroic.

I share with you a disdain for blindly applied narrativist mechanics, added to games because of slogans like, "Indy is good!" or "Narrativist is good!" without really understanding the role such a mechanic should have or what sort of story you are trying to create.

In a game like say Dread, the fact that there is building tension that comes from the player's knowledge of impending doom adds to the atmosphere that the game is trying to achieve (I presume, as I haven't actually played the game). And I understand why adding to the sense of impending doom and ever increasing danger makes sense within the context of a game meant to simulate a horror story that is usually of a single stand alone chapter.

I can't imagine what a person reading Conan short stories thought corresponded to the mechanic of Threat or why it was needed to improve the story within the game. The usual story arc seen in a Conan short story is that of the motif that will assume a greater and hopefully surprising significance at the stories conclusion. In other words, they aren't marked by increasing Threat and with it inevitable failure, but by a revelation or discovery. If anything, I would reverse the described mechanic as the usual mode of Conan's action is more like Rocky in a Rocky movie - the more that is demanded of him, the greater reserves of strength he is found to have. So maybe every time you fail in a Conan story, you gain a point you can apply to some category like: "blinding speed of the panther" or "natural killer" or "mirthless savage grin". Then at some future point you can narrate how your "blinding speed of the panther" helps you in this situation, and spend the point to gain some advantage. That might make at least a little bit of sense.

Leaving aside it's poor suitability to the source material, the Threat mechanic seems to be a mechanic designed with the intent of creating a good GM where the mechanic only works if you have a good GM in the first place.

You speak as if you were there!

But, you weren't there. Because if you were, you'd know that what I describe in the OP never happened for real. As a poor and inexperienced DM, considering the Feint rules might be a problem in my game, decided to ask other gamers about how they run it.

I made up the entire scenario.

Then the imaginary DM is displaying their inexperience and the situation is the fault of the imaginary DM. Of course my assessment is based on the narrative I've been given. Whether the narrative is imaginary or relates something that actually happened doesn't change my assessment of the narrative.

And again, the solution here is not for the imaginary DM to say, "No!" to the player or constrain their agency. The solution is for the DM to in the future work hard to see that the player is not tempted to make life and death decisions based on knowledge that the character wouldn't have.

In the Conan game, Feint has a bit more bite than in the D&D game. A successful feint in the Conan game renders the target to AC 10.

Even so, this is exactly the same assessment I made when judging the tactical value of feinting in the situation. In D20, a 'non-improved' feint is generally only a valid tactic when doing so would more than double your chance of hitting. So, for example, if the target's AC was 18 and it had no other source of XP but a +8 dodge bonus, and you had no bonus to hit, feinting the target to drop it's AC to 10 would be reasonable. You have only a 15% chance to hit without a feint. If you attack twice, you expect ~27.8% chance of hitting at least once. But if you feint, you expect about a 55% chance of hitting at least once. But suppose the target's AC was 13 and you had a +2 bonus to hit. If you fient and drop the target's AC to 10, you have a 65% chance of hitting at least once. But if you just attacked twice, you would have had a 75% chance of hitting at least once. Or another way to put this, is that if the average attack did 6 damage, in the case of feinting then attacking the expected result is 3.9 damage. But the expected result of attacking twice is 6 damage. This gets more complicated to calculate with armor as DR, but the results still will favor attacking twice.

But the actual utility of feinting under the mechanics of the system isn't actually what determines whether the DM mishandled the process of play.

 

[Water Bob]

I can't imagine what a person reading Conan short stories thought corresponded to the mechanic of Threat or why it was needed to improve the story within the game.

The designers didn't think anything. The 2d20 is the house system of the game publisher, Modiphius. So, they're trying to make it work.

But, it ain't workin' in my opinion.

Then the imaginary DM is displaying their inexperience and the situation is the fault of the imaginary DM. Of course my assessment is based on the narrative I've been given. Whether the narrative is imaginary or relates something that actually happened doesn't change my assessment of the narrative.

I do appreciate your input. I posted the problem here not to have everybody agree with me, but to listen to their opinion on the matter. I never expected to agree with every poster, but I still wanted to hear their take.

 

[Celebrim]

If the roll was made in secret, why would we force a player's actions? The whole reason for rolling in secret is so we don't have to force actions.

Well, if the roll wasn't made in secret, why would we force a player's actions? The whole reason for having more than one person playing the game is to not have one person making all the decisions. More to the point, by what right do you force a player's actions? GM's have lots of rights stated or implied, but telling a player how to play their character is in general not included among them.

As I said previously, when rolled in secret, he is moving away not because he knows a feint is coming, but for whatever other reasons he chose to do so. Basically, he just got lucky and avoided a feint attempt. I have no problem with that. Unfortunately, the player isn't doing that. He isn't withdrawing for any other reason than to avoid the penalty to AC that he shouldn't know he has until it is too late.

You can't know that. You can't even know that if the player actually is withdrawing to avoid the feint. That's because you can't know whether, absent the information that a feint was coming, whether he the player would have withdrawn anyway. Nor for that matter can even the player himself known how he would have acted were he not influenced by such salient information. Once you concede that the withdraw action was a valid possibility even absent knowledge about the feint, then you concede that the knowledge of the feint only made the withdraw more likely but that you also don't know whether it was the only information that would have caused the withdraw. That's the nasty thing about metagame information. If you spoil a mystery to someone, they can never know whether or not they would have solved the mystery on their own. They can say to themselves, "Ahh.. that's obvious. I would have caught on to that, even without your spoiler.", but they can never really know for sure.

In a very real sense, when you release metagame information to the player that their character wouldn't have had, you've already screwed around with their free will and agency as a player. You made the answer to the puzzle obvious, and they lose the ability to judge for themselves. One huge and I think valid objection a player may make to this situation is that the roll was made openly specifically to prevent the player from making choices he wanted to make, and that in fact the open roll itself was metagaming by someone else at the table.

I am also not interpreting anything. It's right there in the description of the rules. I quoted the Sense Motive rule for you in my previous post. You are ignoring the fact that he didn't sense the PCs motive. Then, you're saying that even though you failed to do so, you still sensed that "something is up".

No. I'm not. I'm not stating anything of the sort. All I'm saying is nothing in the rules says that the target of a feint, if it is successfully feinted, cannot take the withdraw action on its next turn. Nothing in the rules constrains the targets actions at all, regardless of the result of the role. That's not even really arguable. You are interpreting what you think the intention of the rule is, and adding clauses to the rules not found in the rules. It makes sense to you that if you fail the sense motive check, you aren't allowed to take a withdraw action to evade the feint.

But you've already admitted that the rules don't say that when you admitted that you have no problem with the withdraw action if the roll was made in secret because you admit the player is free to choose that action. So now you are claiming that the rules say, "If the sense motive roll wasn't made in secret, then the player isn't allowed to make a withdraw action in the round following a successful feint." Of course, the rules don't in fact say anything of the sort. You are adding to the text based on your interpretation of the intent, because nothing in the text of the feint constrains the targets next action at all whether or not the role was done in secret. We certainly could write it that way, and it might make an interesting combat maneuver to feint a target out so successfully that they were basically mind controlled over a short term. But that's not the way the feint works as written.

The name of the skill is "Sense Motive". If you fail, then you fail to to sense any motive. You don't get to sense some kind of motive like you are suggesting.

Ok sure. I agree. So what? Whether or not you sense any motive, you still get to act however you like on your next turn.

Show me how I would not be adhering to the rules and I'll agree. Thing is, I've pointed to the exact ruling to show how you guys are not adhering to the rules.

Show me the rule you are adhering to. If you can't point to the rule you are adhering to, then I suggest that you don't actually have a good handle on how rules work. The thing you are pointing to doesn't say anything like you say it says.

"You can also use this skill to determine when “something is up” (that is, something odd is going on)"; a direct quote from the SRD Sense Motive skill. It sounds extremely cut-and-dry to me.

Yes, it sounds really cut-and-dry to me as well. First, you are quoting out of context. "You can also... very clearly indicates that this aspect of Sense Motive is unrelated to other aspects of it. It's not actually a part of the rules on feinting, which makes no mention of sensing when something is up. Secondly, you still haven't quoted anything that backs up your claim. The feint rules completely describe the results of a successful feint, which are, "If your Bluff check result exceeds your target’s Sense Motive check result, the next melee attack you make against the target does not allow him to use his Dexterity bonus to AC (if any)." It says nothing at all that suggests the target's next action is constrained, or that the target cannot take certain actions until you make your next melee attack. There is no wording for that rule at all, so we would have no idea what it is. Multiple wordings are possible, but we have no recourse to the rules to know which is right. This is a pretty clear indication that if we desire such a rule we have to invent it.

And by your own discussion, this invented rule would have to refer to whether or not the roll was made in secret, because you've agreed that feint works differently depending on whether or not the rolls are made in secret.

If you disagree and still think that the metagamer should sense that something odd is going on (specifically a feint, at that) when he failed to sense something, then there's simply nothing else I can add to this discussion.

I think that sentence is confused nonsense. "The metagamer" is not an identified party in the rules. It's not a defined term. Again, "sensing something" isn't part of the rules on feint. Additionally, while the rules don't state the answer one way or the other, I do think it is a reasonable interpretation that the character doesn't 'sense' that he has been feinted until it is too late to respond. And certainly, the rules support this, because once the character has been feinted, that penalty to his AC sticks around versus the attacker regardless of what he does. The penalty to the AC is conditional on what the attacker does, and not on what the character that has been feinted does. But it also doesn't matter that the character doesn't 'sense' something, because I don't think the rules mention the player at all. Nor do the rules constrain the character at all - which you have admitted. By the rules, the player whose character may be feinted may still choose a withdraw action (or any other action, say casting a shield spell, taking a total defense action, etc.), and by the rules the character may still run away. The rules certainly don't say, "Players may not take any action where it may be construed by the DM that they are metagaming." That's not a rules issue. That's a metagame issue and a matter of social contract that is not addressed by the rules. The rules provide no mechanism for dealing with failures of a social contract, particularly one that is likely unstated.

In short, you are rules lawyering to try to enforce your idea of what the social contract at the table should be. And you are actually inventing rules on the fly in order to control player agency just because you don't like what the player is choosing to do with their agency. It's no more respectful when a DM does it than when a player does it.

 

[Oryan77]

In short, you are rules lawyering to try to enforce your idea of what the social contract at the table should be. And you are actually inventing rules on the fly in order to control player agency just because you don't like what the player is choosing to do with their agency. It's no more respectful when a DM does it than when a player does it.

Ok, please stop insinuating that I am doing this or that. Frankly, you seem to be arguing with me for the sake of arguing. In fact, if you pay attention to what I'm saying rather than being quick to tell me I'm wrong, you will see that we actually agree with each other, except you want to let a metagamer cheat and I don't.

I have quoted the rules word for word, that's it. I haven't done any of the nonsense that you are accusing me of doing. I find your accusations and assumptions for my DMing ability to be laughable.

Go back, read (all) of my posts, and give some real thought about what I'm saying. I think if you pay attention rather than wishing so hard to prove me wrong, you'll see how much we agree.

Any heavy handedness I am referring to is due to players metagaming. I have no patience for metagaming and I stated in this very thread how I would handle a player metagaming a feint attack.

I said I would ask the group if they think he's withdrawing because he was going to anyway, or if he is metagaming. If they say let him withdraw because he may have anyway without metagaming, then I'll let him withdraw. Otherwise, if they agree that he is metagaming to screw another player out of his action, then I don't feel bad at all telling him, "Sorry, no, you've stayed in melee combat until you realized he was feint attacking. Let's not metagame here."

My argument is in defense of the actual rules. If you think using the RAW in order to eliminate any metagaming is a form of "rules lawyering", then call me a rules lawyer! I won't defend cheating, and metagaming is cheating. Sometimes it can't be helped and I understand that. When it can be helped though, then no way, I won't tolerate it. I really don't care how anyone feels about that because I'd rather take the side of the player using the feint and not cheating than take the side of the metagamer screwing him over.

*edit

Yes, it sounds really cut-and-dry to me as well. First, you are quoting out of context. "You can also... very clearly indicates that this aspect of Sense Motive is unrelated to other aspects of it.

I had to respond to this part cause it's baffling. Quoting out of context? The Sense Motive rule is like 2 sentences long. It's as direct and to the point as it can be. How on earth is looking at the Feint rules, seeing that you need to make an opposed Sense Motive check, and referencing how the Sense Motive skill works considered "quoting out of context"? I quoted the one and only sentence that could possibly be in regards to the Feint rule. None of the other text in the skill is associated with Feinting. My gawd man, are you just joking around here?

 

[N'raac]

RAW this, RAW that, blah blah blah. A myopic focus on the RAW fails to acknowledge that the RAW is there to facilitate the management of the narrative that unfolds through the character's actions. The rules may involve mechanics X and Y, but they do so to support Z happening from the perspective of the characters in the game. Don't forget the Z.

The theory is very true. But your interpretation of Z is not the sole valid interpretation.

Like you, I started with the viewpoint that the Sense Motive check detected whether a Feint was attempted. Under that model, Barlo has no reason to withdraw. The player is (or strongly appears to be) acting on knowledge the player lacks.

However, the other interpretation of Z – that the Sense Motive reflects perception of the feint in time to not be drawn in by it is also consistent with the RAW effects of the Feint maneuver. That’s actually supported by the addition of BAB – your combat skill – to the roll. As well, having the roll made now, instead of when the attack is made, can reasonably be taken to imply the result of the check is known to both parties (as it is known to both rollers) up front, not when the attack is made.

Your interpretation of the “Z” represented by the “X” and “Y” mechanics is not the only possible interpretation. From his comments, the OP recognizes the possible differing interpretations and, presumably, has assessed which interpretation will apply in his game, taking into account the comments made.

This has nothing to do with the RAW. By the RAW everything that happened is legal.

Agreed. However, I believe you have skipped the step of how the mechanics of RAW translate to what has happened in the game. If we accept that the feint means the target is now off balance, but knows that he has been drawn in in and placed off balance, Barlo is not metagaming. If we do not, the metagame issue kicks in.

This is about the metagame, not the game.

The fault here lies not with the player from running away from a feint. A player cannot be reasonably expected to consciously make decisions to cause the death of his own character.

Disagree. A player might well decide that poor tactics, right up to defending the bridge at the cost of his own life, is exactly what his character, properly role played, would do. It is not unreasonable to expect a player to role play only the in-character info he has. It is, however, difficult for some players. To me, it would be just as damaging if Barlo’s player was thinking “Abel is Barlo’s friend – this has gone too far – he should withdraw and try to cool down the situation”, but then decides “well, he can’t do that now, because I know about the feint, so he should keep fighting”.

I do, however, agree with minimizing the metagame, which is also consistent with making the game mechanics as consistent as possible with the “Z” refererred to by billd91. That could mean secret declarations, so there is no clue of a feint until Barlo’s next attack, or it could mean secret rolls (Barlo knows there WAS a feint, but has no way of knowing whether he succeeded – much like rolling that trap search in secret so you know you checked for traps, but not how good a job you did).

The fault could well be a DM who assumes both players share his vision of how the feint mechanics translate into game occurrences. Abel and DM have gamed together for years and their group, like billd91, has always interpreted the feint mechanic to mean “are you aware a feint was even attempted”. Barlo played at a table where the players all considered the target of a feint knew he had been pulled into a disadvantageous position.

We’re still back to your solution, though – stop the game, apologize and get everyone on the same page, in a model where the mechanics parallel the interpretations of the mechanics’ in-game meaning that apply in this game.

It isn't an interpretation of the RAW, it is a straight reading and comprehension of the RAW. It also has nothing to do with seeing the blow coming. He's seen lots of blows coming. Some of them may have even missed. Why all of a sudden is he reacting to this particular blow that misses when he failed his Sense Motive check?

Because the group interprets the modified sense motive check (it gets a BAB add so it is not a standard use of Sense Motive, it is its specific use against a Feint) as meaning this specific use of the skill is to determine whether the Bluff was spotted in time to make a difference (avoid loss of DEX bonus) or not, and not to determine whether the bluff was spotted before or after the next attack.

The only thing I interpreted is the fluff/flavor behind the action to explain why he wouldn't know he was duped until after his action. The ruling remains the same.

That fluff/flavour is exactly whet determines whether Barlo knows he has been pulled into a bad combat position or not, so that is the key interpretation.

Clearly you have made up your mind and are choosing to reward someone for metagaming and punishing someone for thinking outside the box and wasting a round to legitimately use an obscure rule. So I won't push it any further.

It could also be said you have clearly made up your mind that, by not sharing your interpretation of the fluff/flavor implicitly, Barlo can only be metagaming and should be punished. If you can’t read the DM’s mind, you must be a cheater, or at best a metagamer. I’d rather talk to my players before assuming the worst.

Again, suppose the declarations and rolls were made in secret? Would it have been then wrong for the player to choose to have his character run away?

Maybe. Barlo’s player knows something is up – Abel did not just roll to hit, and Barlo had to roll in response to Abel’s action. This, to me, would be a reason to adopt the “feint success determined only at the next attack”. If you have been declaring actions and rolling all attack rolls in secret, the fact that Abel’s roll was his feint roll, not his attack roll need not be known if we wait until just before Abel’s next attack to have Barlo roll Sense Motive. This would align the mechanics with the in-game effect of “you do not even know the feint was attempted until it is too late if your Sense Motive check fails”.

FWIW, the feint was a bad move – two attacks at -2 (I analyzed Flurry) is almost always a better deal, except where the necessary roll to hit is really high (18-19), and it won’t be for AC 10 or 13. The three point spread won’t change that nearly as much as the potential the feint attempt fails anyway. Feint is much more useful combined with a Sneak Attack. Anyway, I agree with Oryan77 and others that it`s beside the point.

If the roll was made in secret, why would we force a player's actions? The whole reason for rolling in secret is so we don't have to force actions.

As I said previously, when rolled in secret, he is moving away not because he knows a feint is coming, but for whatever other reasons he chose to do so. Basically, he just got lucky and avoided a feint attempt.

HN: SNIP

Any opposed rolls where the result should not be known to the player doing the check is rolled in secret at our table. It solves this very thing that the OP is dealing with.

Does it? Simply calling for a secret roll tells me something is up – if he took a normal swing, I would not need to make an opposed roll.

There's really nothing to debate other than determining what feinting actually does flavor-wise since the physical action is not spelled out in the Feinting rule. Even then, that's just fluff for narration sake.

The name of the skill is "Sense Motive". If you fail, then you fail to to sense any motive. You don't get to sense some kind of motive like you are suggesting.

The name of your defense is Armor Class, but it comes from a lot of sources other than Armor. Spellcraft sounds like I am making spells, but that function is never actually detailed in the skill. This Sense Motive check determines only whether or not the target gets a DEX bonus, and is already altered from the usual rules by adding BAB. Your interpretation is a valid interpretation, but not the only valid interpretation.

"You can also use this skill to determine when “something is up” (that is, something odd is going on)"; a direct quote from the SRD Sense Motive skill. It sounds extremely cut-and-dry to me. If you disagree and still think that the metagamer should sense that something odd is going on (specifically a feint, at that) when he failed to sense something, then there's simply nothing else I can add to this discussion.

It is just as cut-and-dry that “also” means that this is one use and there are others. Is it clearly stated somewhere that the Feint check is not an “also”, or must that interpretation be made by the reader because it is not stated in the RAW? Sorry, but your interpretation is just that – interpretation. There is no One True Way, or even a clear RAW, that makes your interpretation the only valid one.

Regardless of how you decide to do it and what we say, if it makes sense to you and your group, then that's all that matters.

That, at least, is inarguable. The problem arises when you and Barlo`s player are in the same group.

OO-got distracted and did not post. Agree largely with Celebrim`s latest post.

Ok, please stop insinuating that I am doing this or that. Frankly, you seem to be arguing with me for the sake of arguing. In fact, if you pay attention to what I'm saying rather than being quick to tell me I'm wrong, you will see that we actually agree with each other, except you want to let a metagamer cheat and I don't.

I think Celebrim`s interpretation of what you are doing is no more inappropriate than your interpretation that Barlo`s hypothetical player is a metagaming cheat rather than a player who interprets how the Feint mechanics are perceived by the character in the game differently than you do.

I said I would ask the group if they think he's withdrawing because he was going to anyway, or if he is metagaming. If they say let him withdraw because he may have anyway without metagaming, then I'll let him withdraw. Otherwise, if they agree that he is metagaming to screw another player out of his action, then I don't feel bad at all telling him, "Sorry, no, you've stayed in melee combat until you realized he was feint attacking. Let's not metagame here."

And if they say "Ì think Barlo can perceive that he has been faked out – that is why the roll is made on Abel`s action instead of Barlo`s and why Improved Feint exists to let the attack happen before Barlo can react", will you accept this with the same good grace?

I had to respond to this part cause it's baffling. Quoting out of context? The Sense Motive rule is like 2 sentences long. It's as direct and to the point as it can be. How on earth is looking at the Feint rules, seeing that you need to make an opposed Sense Motive check, and referencing how the Sense Motive skill works considered "quoting out of context"? I quoted the one and only sentence that could possibly be in regards to the Feint rule. None of the other text in the skill is associated with Feinting. My gawd man, are you just joking around here?

You focused your interpretation entirely on "use this skill to determine when “something is up” (that is, something odd is going on)", ignoring the "You can also" preamble, and ignoring the fact that the Feint maneuver is not part of the skill description at all.