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Message: <blockquote data-quote="Celebrim" data-source="post: 8725769" data-attributes="member: 4937">Yes, I agree.  I'm not at all opposed to a low charisma character failing at a social check despite the circumstances.  But the circumstances should matter.  So in my game you've brought forward at least three circumstances that would be informing the scenario if I was running it:a) There are set penalties for xenophobia in my game when a character is influencing another character of a different culture.  Simply put, elves are more likely to listen to other elves than a dwarf, because racism is rampant in my setting.  So if your party is speaking to members of a different culture - "barbarians" - everyone who isn't part of that culture in my game would already have increased DC.  If on the other hand your barbarian was from the same culture, you'd know the customs and ways of that culture and would put them more at ease and so potentially wouldn't have the xenophobia penalty on your social interactions.b) The starting disposition of the chief toward you can be radically different.  If the Barbarians actively dislike members of a culture, then they may start with a disposition of antipathy or hostility rather than apathy.  That has a huge impact on the chance that someone is going to listen to you.  I had a character who was a low charisma Hobgoblin in my game, and the party encountered a goblin knight in the forest.  Between the xenophobia penalty and the fact that the goblin had neutral disposition toward the strange Hobgoblin, the Hobgoblins effective social skills were actually better than the elven face in the party whom the goblin reflexively hated and would have liked to kill (and probably would have if he wasn't outnumbered).  Effectively the face was operating at a -15 penalty because the knight hated and distrusted elves.  The party wisely let the Hobgoblin do the talking, which they would never have done in the Court of Talernga where the Hobgoblin was viewed as a rather smelly mangy dog that probably should be put down and gods only knew why the heroes kept their "pet".  c) And on top of that you've outlined a plan that should influence the Chieftain and so should have some specific and not general circumstance modifier.</blockquote>

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