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Message: <blockquote data-quote="Celebrim" data-source="post: 3435692" data-attributes="member: 4937">I think Rich has set out some very useful guidelines, and I think he takes the skill description in the right direction and I'd like to see his guidelines bundled into '4e' whenever that will be, but I consider his inclusion of HD in the formula to be a gamist kludge and I don't like it.  It also leads to some bizarre situations where for example, a kingly (high level) fighter can't get his wife the (high level) sorceress queen to pass him the salt - despite the low effort in complying, thier intimate relationship, and a happy marriage.  Or, in cases where the game doesn't conform to gamists principles - such as a king being 3rd level aristocrat - his kludge doesn't achieve the result he is going for.Rather than a kludge that depends on hit dice, I think he needs to replace that with a third area of circumstantial modifiers similar to the other two.  Namely, he needs guidelines for the relative authority (as percieved) by the target of the diplomacy.  In other words, a King, by virtue of being the King, doesn't allow himself to be persued by smooth talking slaves no matter how smooth talking they are.  Whereas, a slave, by virtue of being a slave, tends to put more stock in whatever the King says.  I think Rich has been trying to bundle this in with 'percieved risk', and there is something to that, but I think that in general the perception of percieved risk and the perception of authority are distinct things.  In particular, whenever the persuasion depends primarily on an implicit or explicit threat ("if I disobey the king he'll behead me") whats really going on is an Intimidate check.   But it should be pretty clear that people believe and are persuaded and not merely forced to comply by people that they percieve to be authorities or in authority more readily than they are persuaded by other people.  For example, consider the persuasive power possessed by celebraties even though the degree of percieved risk in not being persuaded is quite low.  People believe things sometimes solely because someone who has a high (percieved) social status said it.You can easily see how this solves the problems with Rich's Kludge.  The King asks his wife for some salt, and he's not at a -20 circumstance penalty because she's a 20th level sorcerer, rather he's at +0 circumstance penalty because they are peers (or maybe just a slight penalty, ask any man who is married).  The sellswords ask the King for a favor, and they aren't at merely a -3 penalty because he's third level, but at a -7 (or even -10) regardless of his level because he percieves them as being socially beneath him.  And so forth.</blockquote>

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