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Message: <blockquote data-quote="Zaruthustran" data-source="post: 3090092" data-attributes="member: 1457">They three social skills are a mess. The simple "Look behind you!" could arguably be performed using any of the three skills. It'd help if they clearly described the effects. Dispensing with the name of the skill itself (the words carry connotations that the rules might not necesarily enforce):Skill A: Indefinitely improve a subject's attitude by a variable amount. Usually a set DC. Takes a long time to perform.Skill B: Briefly get a person to perform as you wish. Opposed roll (vs. Sense Motive). Takes a short time to perform. Can also be used to feint in combat.Skill C: Temporarily improve a subject's attitude to Friendly. Opposed roll (vs. modified level check). Takes a short time to perform. Can be used in combat to impose Fear penalties. Indefinitely worsens attitude after effect wears off.Reading it that way, I suppose Skill A (diplomacy) can be a long, elaborate lie. Someone could use skill A to to flatter, or evoke sympathy through self-deprecating comments, or other tactic. The goal and purpose of the skill is simply to improve the attitude of the subject. The mechanism (flattery, intimidation, reason, guilt-trip, playing to the subject's emotions, etc.) is up to the player.Skill B (bluff) does not need to be a lie. It could be a barked command, or whining whimper, a fast-talk, an truthful appeal to reason, or wordless feint. The goal and purpose is to get the subject to "react as you wish". Skill C (intimidate) is very similar to skill A except that success means a guaranteed result of Friendly attitude (as opposed to Skill A, which improves attitude by a variable amount). Since skill C won't work on creatures immune to fear, skill C--unlike the other skills--has a single mechanism: intimidation. While you can use Diplomacy to tell a lie, or Bluff to tell a truth, Skill C requires the player to change behaviour using fear. I don't think the skill requires the player to be the threat; you could temporarily make someone Friendly to you by making that someone aware of the highlighting the threat of terrorist attack, for example. So...Player A runs around the corner and sees Guard B. Player A shouts "There's a troll right behind me! Run!"This situation could call for a Bluff check: regardless of whether this is true or not, player A needs to make a Bluff roll because he's trying to get the subject to react as he wishes. This situation could call for a Diplomacy check: if the player improves the guard's attitude, then the guard may wish to help out. This situation could call for an Intimidate check: trolls are scary, satisfying the requirement that the subject of Intimidate by made fearful.</blockquote>

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