d20 modern will save?

[(Psi)SeveredHead]

Now there's a save I'm always happy to fail.

It depends on their gender.

 

[Roudi]

It depends on their gender.

That attitude is so 90's. It's the new millenium! My Will saves are not restricted by such petty things as "preferences" or "looks" or "drunkeness."












actually it's quite often affected by drunkeness...

 

[takyris]

No. I don't think there's any point to a Will save or Wisdom check or whatever. If they ignore the threat of the dozen intimidating hitmen, then they die (or live but are badly wounded, have to flee to the hospital, and can get killed there, too). If they ignore the threat to have damaging info posted about them, then they end up getting run out of town. If they ignore the threat to have unspecified things happen to them (eg a bomb in their car), then they get a bomb in their car. (There was a great threat at WotC about how much damage that does.) Intimidate isn't mind control.

No. I do think there's a point to a Will save. An Intimidate check turns a target NPC's attitude to Friendly while threatened (which can be direct observation or perceived area of threat, depending upon the Intimidate check). A Friendly attitude doesn't automatically mean you follow orders. It means that it's a lot harder for you NOT to follow orders.

Hence, Will save. The D&D charm person spell turns you Friendly, and that uses opposed Charisma checks. Different mechanic, but would you have a problem with opposed Charisma checks, too, even though they're right there in the Charm Person spell?

Bluff isn't mind control. If someone is tricked into attacking the bad guy on his home turf, they deserve whatever happens to them. Unless they've got Intuition, there's no need for game checks to hold their hand.

It's not holding their hand. It's actually making a stat matter. If the bad guy is a Charismatic Hero who's trying to trick you into attacking him with all his henchmen around by using a Bluff, and you have no ranks in Sense Motive as a PC and thus lose the opposed roll by a lot, then you're looking at either:

1) Doing exactly what the bluffing party wants, by nature of the bluff
2) Ignoring the bluff, which I consider as valid as choosing to ignore a low attack roll because "I would swing better than that."
3) Coming up with some middle ground -- like, for example, a Will save to catch yourself at the last moment.

But I don't think non-FX mind control is fair.

Why not? Non-snark -- I ask this in all sincerity. If you're playing a Fighter, and the DM's evil sorcerer charms you, do you have difficulty helping him out by loaning him a few of your potions and telling him what the party's plan is? If you're playing a Rogue, and the DM's evil vampire dominates you, do you have difficulty asking your fellow party members to come into the room?

I have a frank talk with my players at the beginning of campaigns, in which I tell them that there will be occasions where bad guys are going to try to manipulate them, either with magic or with really high skill checks. I ask the players if they can roleplay that convincingly and with a good sense of fun.

If they say yes, then this is largely what I go with -- normal rules, and Will saves to give players a chance to steer into the skid.

If they say no, then I pretty much work around them. If someone bluffs them successfully and they choose to ignore it, then I work behind the scenes so that whatever the PC did turned out to be what the bad guy wanted them to do. (Mind you, this is ONLY if the bluff is successful -- and most bad guy bluffs are at a fairly big penalty to begin with.) So if the bad guy says, "I'll be happy to surrender. But can I get my coat from upstairs? You can come with me if you like," and the heroes fail the bluff check but still say, "No! You walk out that door with us RIGHT NOW!", then the bad guy shrugs sadly, steps outside, and is whisked up by the henchmen in the car who were waiting for him.

Also mind you, that's only if I don't get a yes-vote on "Can I roleplay being manipulated?"

And also also mind you, this kind of thing pops up pretty rarely. I don't run melodramas of manners in which this sort of thing happens eight or ten times a session.

I think the "I don't think non-FX mind control is fair" comment is the core of our disagreement. My buddy is a psych student going for her doctorate in business and negotiation, and it's AMAZING to hear her talk about the different facets of manipulation, and how much manipulation works on people. I wouldn't use these mechanics in an FX game, since the magic is the metaphor for those things, but I'd definitely use them in a non-FX game.

 

[Vigilance]

I included some mental fatigue and mental stress rules in Blood and Guts precisely because I saw PCs constantly using Wisdom as their dump stat.

Still, I would say in general that the less FX you have, the less the Will save is going to matter barring some house rules.

Chuck

 

[Committed Hero]

Resisting the effects of torture - including truth serums - or succumbing to addiction.

But the point the OP makes is a good one.

 

[arscott]

I'd avoid tying will saves to skills like intimidation and bluff. There's already a way to resist these skills written into the rules. A few non-fx abilities already grant will saves in modern--Of the top of my head, There's frightful presence, and I think that the smart and charismatic heroes and the personality and negotiator AdCs all have abilities that grant will saves.

In practice, you'll likely run across opponents with will-save abilities more often in games that focus less on combat and physical challenges and more on interaction and mental challenges. Which works out well, because Will tends to be the good save for the mental classes.

 

[(Psi)SeveredHead]

No. I do think there's a point to a Will save. An Intimidate check turns a target NPC's attitude to Friendly while threatened (which can be direct observation or perceived area of threat, depending upon the Intimidate check). A Friendly attitude doesn't automatically mean you follow orders. It means that it's a lot harder for you NOT to follow orders.

That doesn't work on PCs. You can't change a PC's attitude with a skill check.

Hence, Will save. The D&D charm person spell turns you Friendly, and that uses opposed Charisma checks. Different mechanic, but would you have a problem with opposed Charisma checks, too, even though they're right there in the Charm Person spell?

Charm Monster is FX, hence it's allowed to be mind control.

It's not holding their hand. It's actually making a stat matter. If the bad guy is a Charismatic Hero who's trying to trick you into attacking him with all his henchmen around by using a Bluff, and you have no ranks in Sense Motive as a PC and thus lose the opposed roll by a lot, then you're looking at either:

If you get bluffed, you get tricked. Options 1 and 2 are valid, however.

If the PCs are to be tricked into attacking the bad guy, it's not enough to bluff them. You also have to convince them. Manipulation and all that. But even that's not mind control.

Why not? Non-snark -- I ask this in all sincerity. If you're playing a Fighter, and the DM's evil sorcerer charms you, do you have difficulty helping him out by loaning him a few of your potions and telling him what the party's plan is? If you're playing a Rogue, and the DM's evil vampire dominates you, do you have difficulty asking your fellow party members to come into the room?

That is FX.

 

[Zen]

Thanks, all.

I won't use Wisdom as a dump stat, but I won't take iron will as a bonus feet, either-- it just doesn't seem to come up often enough.

--Z

 

[takyris]

Charm Monster is FX, hence it's allowed to be mind control.

That is FX.

I believe I noted that. I'm asking what, in your mind, is the actual functional difference between FX and non-FX. This is, to me, like saying that a fireball spell should do different fire damage from a fire-grenade. Fire is fire. Damage is damage. If you take fire damage, it doesn't matter where it came from, unless you have an item that protects against normal fire but not magical fire (or vice versa).

If someone is manipulating you, someone is manipulating you, regardless of whether they're casting a spell, activating a subharmonic neural destabilizer, or using cunning manipulation and rhetorical devices.

That doesn't work on PCs. You can't change a PC's attitude with a skill check.

This is a core area in which I freely acknowledge that I don't agree with the rules as written.

I think PCs should be vulnerable to having their attitudes changed. Not to be explicitly controlled, but to be manipulated.

Yes, it requires players to be able to roleplay someone getting affected by someone else in a way they might not enjoy. No argument.

There are two reasons I believe this, both of them subjective as all heck:

1) As I wrote above, I don't believe that "I know how to swing a sword better than that" is a valid reason to toss out a poor attack roll. Similarly, I don't believe that "I can tell that NPC is trying to trick me" is a valid reason to toss out a poor Sense Motive check. If I build a PC with a low Wisdom, I accept that there are times when I'm going to have to suck it up and do stupid things. To do otherwise screws over the players who actually bothered to put points into Wisdom.

2) There are a bunch of different villain-types out there. One of those villain types is the evil manipulator villain. If the brutish villain can hit the PCs and the nimble ninja villain can hide from the PCs, having the evil manipulator villain not be able to psychologically mess with the PCs is effectively taking him out of the game. Sure, he can still affect NPCs, and there are a few class abilities that do actually force Will saves (some of the Charismatic talents in d20 modern, as I recall without looking), but you're taking away the most obvious of his powers -- the fact that he's got a +26 Bluff check. I don't say that Hide doesn't work on the PCs. If my players can roleplay, I don't see why they shouldn't roleplay the fact that Bluff works on them.

Both of these reasons are important to me, but need not be important to all GMs. I don't think it's a pre-requisite for good GMing. You can run fun campaigns without having either of those elements. But that's not the way I prefer to GM.

(And to be clear: What I'm suggesting are House Rules. They're the House Rules I use if I'm trying to make Will saves important in a non-FX game. I rarely if ever use them in FX games, and I treat them as I'd treat the Horror, Vehicles, or Cybernetics rules-modules from Grim Tales: they are things to put in to give you the campaign flavor you want. If what you want is a campaign where Will saves don't matter and PCs are never at risk of being manipulated by a bad guy unless he has "Dazzle" or "Taunt", regardless of the fact that they have a Wisdom of 8, no ranks in Sense Motive, and a Will save of +2 at 10th level... you go. That's fine.)

 

[(Psi)SeveredHead]

I believe I noted that. I'm asking what, in your mind, is the actual functional difference between FX and non-FX. This is, to me, like saying that a fireball spell should do different fire damage from a fire-grenade. Fire is fire. Damage is damage.

And SR is?

Similarly, I don't believe that "I can tell that NPC is trying to trick me" is a valid reason to toss out a poor Sense Motive check. If I build a PC with a low Wisdom, I accept that there are times when I'm going to have to suck it up and do stupid things. To do otherwise screws over the players who actually bothered to put points into Wisdom.

My example didn't involve PCs not getting tricked or fooled. They believe what the NPC told them, unless there's cues to say otherwise. They just might not agree that attacking is a good idea. They don't have to do what they're told, but they're supposed to believe what they're told.

(some of the Charismatic talents in d20 modern, as I recall without looking)

You mean Fascinate and Taunt? I don't know what to do with the former. The latter I roll up into Dazzle - but I made Dazzle nastier to be worth taking.

but you're taking away the most obvious of his powers -- the fact that he's got a +26 Bluff check. I don't say that Hide doesn't work on the PCs. If my players can roleplay, I don't see why they shouldn't roleplay the fact that Bluff works on them.

I didn't say they did. I just don't think being tricked means you're being mind controlled.