Is Diplomacy Worth It?

[Storyteller01]

Our teams designated leader uses it numerous times. He has political and noble ties, so having ranks in that skill makes survival much easier.

Then again, I use 3rd party black market rules. Tends to make it exceptionally useful if you want to buy restricted or rare items.

 

[Pickaxe]

FWIW, the Adventure Paths from Dungeon Magazine tend to use Diplomacy quite a bit. In fact, they try to find a place for every skill over the course of the campaign, but Diplomacy is one that seems to be hard to do without.

When it comes to non-combat situations in any adventure, Diplomacy seems to be the skill most often called for.

--Axe

 

[airwalkrr]

Hmmm, I appreciate your example Airwalkrr but when you say:

This is not how it plays out ime.

I was just stating how the skill technically reads, which leads to abuse. I am not so literal in my interpretation.

 

[Rystil Arden]

You can easily get in the upper +30s without magic by level 3, in a build that I have posted to many of these threads before and will do so for this thread if anyone likes.

 

[FreeTheSlaves]

I was just stating how the skill technically reads, which leads to abuse. I am not so literal in my interpretation.

Oh I agree. The diplomacy skill is one of those rules that you have to nut out in actual play to find out how it really works.

There are quite a few of these sorts of rules. The book says something, you think you know how it's going to work but then actual play comes along and says "sorry mate".

 

[BRP2]

I think Wizards were too obsessed with stats when they made Diplomacy. While the haggling bit in Complete Adventurer is just fine, I think Diplomacy should work like Gather Information, but on a more personal level. It should give players clues on what to say next to make a good impression.

 

[Neijin]

The Epic Level Handbook lists DCs for making people fanatics for your cause. The DCs range from 50-150. Here is the chart:

Initial Att--New Att--Hostile--Unfriendly-Indif--Friendly--Helpful--Fanatic
Hostile Less than 20, 20, 25, 35, 50, 150
Unfriendly Less than 5, 5, 15, 25, 40, 120
Indifferent ---, Less than 1, 1, 15, 30, 90
Friendly ---,---, Less than 1, 1, 20, 60
Helpful ---, ---, ---, Less than 1, 1, 50

Treat the fanatic attitude as a mind-affecting enchantment effect for purposes of immunity, save bonuses, or being detected by the Sense Motive skill. Because it is nonmagical, it can't be dispelled, however any effect that suppresses or counters mind-affecting effects (such as calm emotions) will affect it normally. A fanatic's attitude can't be further adjusted by the use of skills. The duration is one day per point of Cha bonus, if any, after which time the attitude will revert to its original state.

Fanatic description:
A Fanatic will give his/her life to serve you. Possible actions include fighting to the death against overwhelming odds, throw self in front of norushing dragon.

 

[Votan]

I was always bothered by the fixed DCs for the Diplomacy Skill. This suggests to me that it was not intended to be used as a way of handling encounters as, otherwise, it becomes too effective at high levels for the amount of investment that it requires.

 

[irdeggman]

The usefulness of diplomacy and other interaction skills depends on the "type" of game being run.

In a typical dungeon crawl game interaction skills come up very, very rarely.

In a city based game the opposite tends to be true.

I tend to find that games with a lot of role playing also rely more on interaction skills while those with a lot of dice rolling (i.e., combat heavy) games do not.