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Message: <blockquote data-quote="(Psi)SeveredHead" data-source="post: 5589456" data-attributes="member: 1165">The bluff, IMO, should make sense given his orders. If the guard is told not to let someone through, they shouldn't, unless the PCs come up with the "right" bluff (eg I'm the king's assistant spymaster and need to deliver an urgent message right away, or didn't the king tell you the Fellowship of Ee would visit today?). Even if the guard fails, they should demand the PCs drop their weapons.(And I think in the above scenario, you have to fool a bunch of guards. No guard is willing to do something dodgy with witnesses, and even a private meeting with the PCs is suspicious.)I think the real problem is trying to write a set of rules for social skills that are too simplistic. If they're complicated, it becomes a new subsystem like combat, which means time has to be spent learning them, and it's going to be less structured than combat, too. If you just follow the simplistic rules as written, then rolling high means the guard falls under mind control, and that's just silly.If you've got him at your mercy, sure. Even arrested al-Qaeda members sometimes spill, and I'm not talking torture here. But not if you just spook him. I think 4e has a specific Interrogation skill challenge, but I don't recall any rules about "having the NPC at your mercy".For Diplomacy (possibly the worst offender in 3.x), Rich Burlew, writer of OOTS, came up with a great system that's level-based, but more importantly (from a flavor perspective) also has good modifiers for "making a deal". In that system, Diplomacy isn't "make friends", it's "make a deal". Which means even if you deal with the guard to sneak into the king's chambers once, you're going to have to make it worth his while the next time.</blockquote>

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