Dealing with talk monkeys

[Keenath]

Anyways, to the DMs: How much does the fact that the warlock cast a spell matter when you make your decision? At this point we're no longer really dealing within the bounds of human experience. Can he really talk his way through the gate?

None whatsoever. +5 is +5, and whether that came from arcane magic, divine inspiration, or just being really good at convincing people, it's just what it says it is.

Somebody tried to use a skill and their head to get around an encounter rather than mindlessly bashing like people claim 4e is all about, no roleplay and only mass fighting, and it went to waste instead of the encounter going to waste..

That's the question, yes. How can I make his action useful without trashing the encounter?

As mentioned, it would be inappropriate for a single roll to cancel out the whole fight. Would you allow a fighter who rolled a crit to end the entire encounter right then and there? Of course not. He wounded one hobgoblin out of six. So similarly, a strong single check should probably have a similar amount of impact on the fight.

"The minotaur looks down on you, and starts thinking. To him it was just a job to guard this place, and he could care less who owned it or what he had to do for his job. But somehow he felt that, whether due to the intensity and earnestness of these intruders' pleas, or due to being vaguely aware of the whole scope of the danger caused by what he guarded, or perhaps both, his job wasn't worth doing anymore."

His high diplomacy check made the PCs telepathic?

Anyway, you're making assumptions that the guards don't really care. What about when they do? What if they're protecting a beloved leader? Should King Richard the Lionheart suddenly lose all his guards because Guy of Gisbourne is a sweet talker? If these men are willing to die to protect their king, would any amount of diplomacy convince them to turn and walk away?

But at the same time, should Guy (assuming he's a PC) get no benefit out of his high check just because these guards aren't going to walk away?

 

[Mouseferatu]

It's also worth noting that it is not railroading for the DM to decide, in advance, "Diplomacy and the like aren't going to work in this encounter." Just like some encounters cannot be solved by combat, and some cannot be solved by, say, Athletics.

No, you don't want to do it all the time, but sometimes? Absolutely.

Now, if the DM decides "The PCs can only succeed by taking specific actions X, Y, and Z, in that order, and I won't even consider other options," then you're getting into potential railroad territory. But there's nothing wrong with deciding that approach A and B won't work here, but C--and anything from D onward that I haven't thought of--might.

 

[FurryFighter]

None whatsoever. +5 is +5, and whether that came from arcane magic, divine inspiration, or just being really good at convincing people, it's just what it says it is.

That's the question, yes. How can I make his action useful without trashing the encounter?

As mentioned, it would be inappropriate for a single roll to cancel out the whole fight. Would you allow a fighter who rolled a crit to end the entire encounter right then and there? Of course not. He wounded one hobgoblin out of six. So similarly, a strong single check should probably have a similar amount of impact on the fight.

His high diplomacy check made the PCs telepathic?

OR... you're narrating a story by talking about the minotaur. ever saw the movie, stand by me? I thought DMs were part storyteller too, if the PCs players can keep from metagaming based on hearing personal thought out loud, so that they play through their character's eyes (and therefor only "knowing" what they would know when making decisions and so on), while enjoying 3rd person perspective of a player, it goes from "good roleplay." to "good roleplay!". thats just how we roll in my hood.. triple pun intended..

We are having something similar going on in our games. Always someone gets knocked out at the end of the fight. We have this annoying habit of not killing, then interrogating, one of the combatants.

This gets messy when you have 3 or 4 encounters in one building/dungeon, and by the end you have half a dozen prisoners tied up in various rooms. Some of them tortured.

I think if you are planning on making a diplomat PC, or someone with an aversion to killing, you need to be up front about it, and try to keep to that character ideal. The DM can then plan for that eventuality, and allow you to shine occasionally.

Jay

Awesome. This sounds like a fun group. Very Jack Bauer/24.

Diplomacy isn't required to work when you roll high enough. Some NPCs are too entrenched in their beliefs, or too dismissive of the PCs, that Diplomacy is an auto-fail.

What I suggest:

Player: Can I try Diplomacy?

DM: You can roll an Insight check to see if they're open to negotiations.

Player: <rolls> I got a 25.

DM: They're not backing down without a fight.

thats a semi-decent idea. maybe if they LOOK like they wont back down without a fight, then they can roll intimidation to see if they REALLY wont back down, or if they will.

Instead of definitive statements, make them more open to options later on. That would be my suggestion when using such a tactic as this to facilitate game movement.

 

[Regicide]

Is there a problem with using the (corrected) Skill Challenge rules instead of a single roll for this sort of thing?

Aside from the skill challenge system being a pile of dog droppings you mean? "I have no diplomacy but I'm forced to participate for some strange reason, I'll use an athletics check to show the orcs I'm buff like them so they'll let us pass assuming everyone else can also do something nonsensical too!"

If you feel like having your players roll several dice instead of one die, that is up to you. All it does is mean more dice are rolled though and really changes nothing.

 

[Obryn]

I'll note, I have no problem at all with my players "breaking" my encounters! I love it when they do! Heck; sometimes I set them against odds that are impossible if they confront the encounter head-on - although this is usually for Call of Cthulhu and not D&D.

Taking the OP's scenario, I would figure out the level of the encounter, first. Let's say, since the PCs are level 5 and it was intended as dramatic, it's level 7 or 8. I want to make all the DCs Hard - this is arbitrary, but as far as I can tell, the Hobgoblins are behind a wall, in a fortress, on the alert. So DC 19, at a minimum, possibly adjusted upwards for the circumstances.

Since this is a replacement for an entire encounter, I'll make it a Complexity 3 challenge. Or 4 - I'm indifferent either way. But it's certainly more dramatic than a simple check. So we're looking at either 9 or 12 successes before 3 failures. Tough, but doable.

Clearly, Bluff, Diplomacy, and Intimidate are the main skills. Maybe add in Insight. too. Diplomacy is kind of the redheaded stepchild here - no matter how much a guard likes you, they aren't going to let you in because you have a pretty smile. So limit that one to 3 successes, with the remainder as Bluff or Diplomacy. Insight won't count towards the successes, but it can give you hints about their attitudes or expectations and give bonuses to future Bluff or Intimidate checks.

And... well, that's that. That's a skill challenge on the fly, with literally less than 30 seconds' thought. For a Complexity 3 challenge, I'd give somewhere around 75% XP. For a Complexity 4 Challenge, a full 100%.

-O

 

[Obryn]

Aside from the skill challenge system being a pile of dog droppings you mean? "I have no diplomacy but I'm forced to participate for some strange reason, I'll use an athletics check to show the orcs I'm buff like them so they'll let us pass assuming everyone else can also do something nonsensical too!"

I said the corrected, post-errata skill challenges - the one where the math works out. Or use Stalker0's. Or do you just hate skill challenges for some other reason you'd care to share? I'm not surprised you don't like them either way, but it's a powerful element in a competent 4e DM's toolkit. One that can be pulled out on the fly and improvised.

And where are you getting Athletics working in this one? Are you making stuff up again? Maybe you could use it for a bonus to Intimidate, but really. Be serious here.

If you feel like having your players roll several dice instead of one die, that is up to you. All it does is mean more dice are rolled though and really changes nothing.

It changes quite a lot, actually. (1) It expands the opportunity for role-playing. (2) It levels out the probabilities - a single die roll is wildly variable, while ten die rolls exhibit a central tendency. (3) It adds tension to the encounter rather than just crossing your fingers for a single die roll.

It's apples and oranges. It's the difference between climbing a ladder and climbing a mountain.

-O

 

[Turtlejay]

He is just being negative...nothing new there, really.

Turning a well designed combat encounter into an on-the-fly skill challenge makes me more than a little disappointed. I don't think I would want to go that route. If the PC didn't get filled with arrows for approaching to talk, and still made an impact after all those situational penalties, I would consider letting that be the first in a series of rolls to pull the wool over the Hobgoblin's eyes. But not an easy button.

He reasons with the gate guard and gets him to let his guard down. The rest of the party advances and presents their case for why they should. . .wait, what was the party after?

See, to me that is what makes a huge difference here. If it was something like a robber ambush, the party just earned themselves a surprise round instead of the other way around. But, if the party needed something the Hobgoblins had, or came to kill one of their allies, no amount of pure Diplomacy will get them what they want. Try an on the fly challenge to get an advantage, but would you require the party to hand over their Cleric if you rolled a natural 20 on Diplomacy versus them?

As has been repeatedly stated, Diplomacy is not mind control. The use of an Encounter Utility Power with no other combat use is not a great loss of resources.

Jay

 

[LostSoul]

None whatsoever. +5 is +5, and whether that came from arcane magic, divine inspiration, or just being really good at convincing people, it's just what it says it is.

That's interesting!

I like to make these little things matter. I see a difference between casting a spell to get that +5 and, say, having the guard's best friend arguing your case along with you, or by telling a joke about elves. (Do hobgoblins still hate elves?)

 

[Ryujin]

Your statement might not be a meaningless non sequitur if the diplomacy roll was actually being made during an encounter instead of to avoid it.

Let me guess, you don't allow people to use the sneak skill to get past encounters either but an invisibility effect works fine? If you don't want skills to be of any use in your game, let your players know that before they pick feats and powers that help skills.

A skill challenge is an encounter. It just isn't a combat encounter.

No, I don't allow a single stealth check to bypass an entire encounter. Aside from it being banal and boring, I also haven't seen a whole party that could sneak worth a damn. As I suggested previously getting around an combat encounter shouldn't be substantially easier than actually doing the combat, nor should it be any less rewarding in terms of experience.

 

[Dr_Sage]

The power source of an ability does not confer additional abilities beyond how it interracts with your feats. It does not matter if it is an exploit, spell, prayer, evocation, discipline, or um... er... uh... whatever it is called that Shadow does.

So, no, Beguiling Tongue doesn't allow you to do more with it than a Martial ability would with the same text.

I fully agree.

Power source is flavor, not advantage. thats the beauty of 4ed.