i was wondering, how you guys handle bad diplomacy checks, such as if if you roll a natural 1.
in the game i play in, a low diplomacy roll sometimes results in the opposite of the desired result, or worse yet, the NPC involved nearly attacking.
this being the case, i am sometimes hesitant to use diplomacy, even though i have a fairly decent rank, 13 modified. in my opinion, even though my character has a fairly decent rank, the chance of making an enemy out of an NPC is sometimes not worth the use of the skill.
in our game, diplomacy is not used (in my opinion) as much as it should be (the same goes for bluff and intimidate). most encounters are done strictly through role-play, which i have no personal problem with, although it would be nice for the DM to enforce stricter rules regarding diplomacy, bluff, and intimidate. (but that is once again, just my opinion).
as a result, i find myself just roleplaying an encounter, without even resorting to a diplomacy check, since most of the times i can roleplay better than what i would actually roll, even though i have a decent modified rank in diplomacy. many times i have roleplayed an encounter which was headed in the direction i wanted, and then made a diplomacy check, only to roll a 1 and have it all fall apart in front me.
sometimes, i feel that my skill points could have been put elsewhere.
however, there have times as well, that having a high diplomacy has aided myself and my adventuring party.
in my opinion, it seems to be a bit skewed when a player rolls bad on a diplomacy check, no matter how many ranks they have, when they could theoritically roleplay a situation and obtain the desired result without having to rely on the roll of the dice.
on another note, i believe we use the variant rule of 1 equals a -10 on a skill check, but many times we forget to enforce that rule. as a result, we fall back on the 2nd edition belief that 1 results in a critical failure.
in the game i play in, a low diplomacy roll sometimes results in the opposite of the desired result, or worse yet, the NPC involved nearly attacking.
this being the case, i am sometimes hesitant to use diplomacy, even though i have a fairly decent rank, 13 modified. in my opinion, even though my character has a fairly decent rank, the chance of making an enemy out of an NPC is sometimes not worth the use of the skill.
in our game, diplomacy is not used (in my opinion) as much as it should be (the same goes for bluff and intimidate). most encounters are done strictly through role-play, which i have no personal problem with, although it would be nice for the DM to enforce stricter rules regarding diplomacy, bluff, and intimidate. (but that is once again, just my opinion).
as a result, i find myself just roleplaying an encounter, without even resorting to a diplomacy check, since most of the times i can roleplay better than what i would actually roll, even though i have a decent modified rank in diplomacy. many times i have roleplayed an encounter which was headed in the direction i wanted, and then made a diplomacy check, only to roll a 1 and have it all fall apart in front me.
sometimes, i feel that my skill points could have been put elsewhere.
however, there have times as well, that having a high diplomacy has aided myself and my adventuring party.
in my opinion, it seems to be a bit skewed when a player rolls bad on a diplomacy check, no matter how many ranks they have, when they could theoritically roleplay a situation and obtain the desired result without having to rely on the roll of the dice.
on another note, i believe we use the variant rule of 1 equals a -10 on a skill check, but many times we forget to enforce that rule. as a result, we fall back on the 2nd edition belief that 1 results in a critical failure.