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Message: <blockquote data-quote="aboyd" data-source="post: 4593455" data-attributes="member: 44797">Because that's how the game is balanced.So if you would like that, then either all the characters should have put ranks into diplomacy/bluff/sense motive, or else they should be putting points into charisma.  Either way they would see small improvement over time.Just like real life.Do you think it's unfair that someone who attends Toastmasters and took some psychology classes is able to interact with people better?  Is it wrong that they can tell a story that makes everyone laugh, while someone else in the room sits quietly, unable to be as charismatic?Life is unfair and unbalanced, and that's... fair, oddly enough.  Some people are better than others.  I prefer a game that models that inequality.Sure, if they're all missing their loot, the rolls or checks should eventually move from Sense Motive or Spot and into deduction-type rolls, such as Wisdom checks or Intelligence checks.  But at no point should we say that it's unfair that the rogue has these skills and everyone else should be equally good at theft.  Likewise, a half-elf bard will kick everyone else's butts when it comes to diplomacy rolls.  That's the build, that's what it does, it should be better at it.  Maybe even better than a level 20 character that has penalties to wisdom & charisma, and zero points in social skills.I don't think diplomacy works like that.  It's not like bluff; there is no opposed roll.  Maybe you know that and used "check" instead of roll to denote your knowledge that there is no roll.  If so, good for you.  But then you must also know that diplomacy involves more than that.  There is an actual table in the DMG that must be referred to.  NPCs have dispositions and high diplomacy rolls can move an NPC from one disposition to the next (such as from hostile to neutral).  Players have no disposition and cannot be moved from one state to the next.  Instead, the humans sitting around the table playing the game are empowered to make judgment calls on their own.I don't know if this is a house-rule, but I do not allow PC-to-PC rolls to diminish a player's decision-making.  The rolls may impact physical things, such as whether a character visually spotted something -- rolls determine what info they get and what they perceive (if they fail a Sense Motive, they don't get the tipoff that the speaker is a jerk).  But I do not allow a NPC or PC to diplomacy-force PCs into compliance.  That's a mechanic that only works PC-to-NPC, as far as I'm concerned.  Partly I feel that way because there simply isn't any mechanic for the players to state their dispositions and whether there are mitigating circumstances, etc.  It's a whole evaluation thing that a DM can easily adjudicate for a monster, but which is dynamic, constantly revising, and complicated for a player.  There is no "current disposition" checkbox for hostile/unfriendly/neutral/favorable on any player character sheet I've ever seen, f'instance.</blockquote>

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