Upgrade your account to a Community Supporter account and remove most of the site ads.

Reply to thread

Message: <blockquote data-quote="Lamoni" data-source="post: 1536942" data-attributes="member: 12680">I agree, it depends on the King.  And I don't see what is so wrong with having friendly or helpful NPC's.  Many NPC's have lines they won't cross.  Let's say you have a friend that started using drugs.  You could be friendly and helpful, but if he asked you to buy some drugs for him, you would still say no.  Instead, you would probably be helpful by trying to persuade him to get some help with his addiction and to never ask you for drugs again or you may be forced by your conscience to turn him in.  Let's say that you were in the same situation and you were unfriendly... you could say, "yes, wait right here." then leave, go to the police station and invite a cop to come with you to arrest the guy.In my opinion this is done too often by too many people and it makes me dislike the diplomacy skill.  I agree that you shouldn't have to interrupt play all the time to check the tables, but you should know them ahead of time or try to learn them quickly after referencing them once or twice.With setting DCs ad hoc, the players never know how much they will need to turn an indifferent NPC's attitude to helpful.  With other skills, they can know exactly what they need.  This becomes a problem because it is very hard for a DM to not base their judgement in part by what the die roll is.  If a party only has 2 ranks in diplomacy, they will get on average between a 10-13.  If they roll a 4, they would probably always fail and if they rolled an 18, it would seem very high and therefore probably succeed.  On the other hand, someone with 12 ranks in diplomacy would average a 20-23.  If they roll a 4, they would probably always fail and if they rolled an 18, it would seem very high and therefore probably succeed.I know that my examples were extreme and the player won't always succeed on an 18 with only 2 ranks while the person with 12 ranks won't always fail on a 4 (if they are doing an easy task), but it is just so much nicer as a player to have more concrete rules.  Using the rules more as set in stone, and using less ad hoc DCs is nicer from the standpoint of a player.  The DM can still role play the NPC's appropriately because just because they are friendly or helpful doesn't mean that they will disobey orders or their beliefs to help them.  They will only offer whatever help is easy for them to give, even if it ends up being advice to leave the city because the party will get killed if they pursue their current objectives.  (At least that is better than having the NPC run and report them to the nearest enemy)edit: Just wanted to add, from the SRD: Helpful = Will take risks to help you.Not reporting you to his superiors is probably taking a risk, and is all they will probably do if they still don't agree with your cause.  On the other hand, if they don't have strong beliefs either way, they may distract the other henchmen so you can better sneak past them.  Making someone helpful towards you should offer some help to the party.</blockquote>

Verification