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Message: <blockquote data-quote="Matthias" data-source="post: 6032598" data-attributes="member: 3625">Sense Motive isn't magic. Even if totally reliable, it can only detect deliberate and knowing attempts at deception. A character who lies but believes he is telling the truth and characters who are pathological liars should both register as 'truthful'.A character who has built such a character has earned the right to be able to use his ability to "read" people so well as one of the 'tools' in his adventuring kit. One should no more think of it as "unfair" for a character to have such a good skill bonus than to think it "unfair" for a character to cast such good spells to blow away hordes of critters or to be able to knock down the best kitted-out NPC with his wedge of steel.But neither should the player be able to expect his character to now be free to coast through the campaign on his Sense Motive superpower alone. Say he makes some powerful enemies by foiling their diabolical plans, and they learn his secret. They should not be expected to fall for the same trick over and over--if PCs can improvise, adapt, and overcome; why not NPCs? Let him face threats that Sense Motive may seem to defeat, but not completely (an assassin that is also a pathological liar, or a pawn or stooge who thinks he is working for the 'right' people but most assuredly is not)--or let the Sense Motive be highly useful and yet totally irrelevant ("You have figured out my evil plan, but so what? 'When the avalanche has already started, it is too late for the pebbles to vote'!)</blockquote>

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