I don't want to use my feat!

[KarinsDad]

By way of contrast, a fighter with +N BAB can disguise his fighting ability by essentially throwing away his bonuses by aiming to miss (a called shot to 2" away from the target's arm, a called shot to glance off of the shield, a called shot to graze the helmet, etc). Repeated misses could come from an unlucky warrior of ANY level- even THOR could miss like a newbie. However, a successful sense motive check would determine that the fighter is missing deliberately.

You are adding a rule for fighters that spell casters do not have. Why?

If a Ranger is tracking, he can ignore the tracks and continue on in the wrong direction. Would you require a Bluff / Sense Motive in that case as well? Even if the Ranger did not say a word, but just started following imaginary tracks?

The fact is that Bluff is fine when you are speaking. Bluff is fine for feinting (but this is not feinting). But you are just adding a brand new Bluff rule to emulate some portion of the real world that you assume exists by doing it here.

The DMG Similar Rule rule handles this fine without giving Bluff a meaning that is NOT written in Bluff at all. You are adding a rule which does not even follow something like the DMG Similar Rule rule (e.g. this is not similar to feinting). That's called a house rule.

 

[werk]

By your reasoning Mike Tyson could boxe like a rookie without being suspect...

If spectators didn't know it was Mike Tyson, he should be able to act like a rookie. (the Buster Douglas fight) But it requires a heavy bluff.

Keep in mind, it's not that he doesn't have bluff, it's that he cannot train bluff. I'm no gymnast, but I can try a tumble pass, I'll prolly just fail. He can try what he's doing, and he's not good at it, so he'll need great rolls to pull it off. I think that you are trying to find a feasible way for him to do something that is very difficult (nigh impossible?) for him to pull off repeatedly over time.

 

[FreeTheSlaves]

INote: I have already obtained the answer I asked for: there are no RAW to allow you to lower your bab.

Yeah, I've pretty much said my peace, I'm not looking for converts but noone presented any game balance reason for it not to work. Karinsdad pretty much summed up the objection of it devaluing bluff by pointing out that to require a bluff check would be writing a new use of the bluff skill.

 

[Dannyalcatraz]

If a Ranger is tracking, he can ignore the tracks and continue on in the wrong direction. Would you require a Bluff / Sense Motive in that case as well? Even if the Ranger did not say a word, but just started following imaginary tracks?.

Yes if...

the real tracks are plainly visible to a 0 level commoner...

there is someone else in the party who is able to track...

there is no way the creatures being tracked could have or would have gone in that direction (party just came from that direction; ranger is tracking someone known to be mortally afraid of the dark and is headed into a dark cavern)...

he has given the people for whom he is tracking any reason to doubt his abilities or his intent ("You want me to track my wife for you so you can hunt her down and kill her? OK!")...

or any other reason exists why persons around that ranger wouldn't believe him going in that direction.

In the case of a warrior in combat with another warrior, he is facing another person who is trained to evaluate his opponent's prowess. If he's just going nuts to try and kill his opponent, he's not using his brain, so he'd auto-fail the sense motive check. However, if he is the prototypical intelligent warrior (like Odysseus), he would be trying to size up his opponent before the first blow was ever struck...perhaps even upon meeting him for the first time. Thus- Bluff vs Sense Motive.

And for the record, if my PC encountered a mage known to be the evil equivalent of Merlin, Mordenkainen or Elminster, etc., and he launched a 5d6 Fireball at me, I'd definitely be trying to figure out why. Bluff and Sense Motive again.

Ditto if I were the DM adjudicating a similar situation.

Why? Because someone who is obviously powerful enough to be a famous mage is going to throw around fireballs bigger than 5d6- he is trying to make me believe something that is patently untrue.

 

[FreeTheSlaves]

In the case of a warrior in combat with another warrior, he is facing another person who is trained to evaluate his opponent's prowess. ... Thus- Bluff vs Sense Motive.

These statements contradict each other, a warrior is one of the least skilled in either bluff or sense motive.

 

[Dannyalcatraz]

Its not self-contradictory. It would just be an opposed skill roll between relatively unskilled characters.

It IS, however, a failure in the system to recognize that warriors of all kinds DO get trained to recognize things like the level of skill of an opponent.

 

[RandomPrecision]

I agree, you're pretty much stuck with your BAB. To expand on my 2-word post above, however, you can elect to deal subdual damage at a penalty to BAB, and since you don't deal real HP damage with it, it's also a way for that high-level fighter to pretend to be weaker.

 

[KarinsDad]

Its not self-contradictory. It would just be an opposed skill roll between relatively unskilled characters.

It IS, however, a failure in the system to recognize that warriors of all kinds DO get trained to recognize things like the level of skill of an opponent.

The system purposely has spell casters NOT get trained to recognize when another spell caster is lowering his caster level.

Is that a failure of the system as well?

I don't think so.


The Rogue picking the lock cannot pretend to not be successful and someone else can easily tell so because he sucks at Bluff?

The Cleric turning cannot pretend to not be successful and someone else can easily tell so because he sucks at Bluff?

The Bard playing his lute cannot purposely be a little off key and someone else can easily tell so because he sucks at Bluff?

 

[Majoru Oakheart]

I will say this re: Bluffing. I would not allow people to take any less on their BAB or WF, precisely because the Bluff skill exists. If you allow them to take less, then you allow them to get away with not having spent the requisite skill points in Bluff. The houserule is excellent if Bluff does not exist - but that is not the case.

Not true. No matter how good I am at something, I could choose to be less good at it. If I was really good at a video game, I'm positive it would be easy to lose. If I knew a lot about a subject it would be easy to tell people the wrong answers to questions.

However, it's likely that it would be obvious that you were faking it without a lot of Bluff.

I have no problem with a player saying "I want to only use +4 to hit out of my +20", but I'd likely describe him as swinging his weapon around half-heartedly and with an obvious lack of trying. Of course, this is assuming that everyone made a sense motive check.

 

[Quasqueton]

How can one pretend to be a deaf-mute? Blind? Can you pretend you can't read? Can you pretend to be left handed? Are any of these deceptions automatic successes, or must the pretender make a Bluff check?

Quasqueton