Sense Motive makes me sad

[SuperJebba]

In my games, sense motive means next nothing. My players believe what they want regardless of what the dice say. I'm apparently a poor liar/actor.

 

[Vegepygmy]

So if you're pretending to be someone you're not, you're going to get caught with a fairly good chance no matter what magic or clever ploy you use.

I disagree. If you make a DC 20 Sense Motive check, the DM tells you: "Something about this social situation seems wrong to you. You can't put your finger on exactly what it is, but something's not right here."

That's a long way from "catching" anyone doing anything. An impostor is using the Disguise skill. To actually catch the impostor is going to require an opposed Spot check. What the "hunch" usage of Sense Motive can do is allow you to make an opposed Spot check, since normally you don't even get to do that (unless the disguised person somehow draws attention to himself).

In D&D it's hard to tell your wife that you had one beer even though you had two.

Again, I disagree. First of all, that's probably a -5 penalty on the Sense Motive check (the target wants to believe you). Even if it's not, all you need is to be slightly more charismatic than your wife is wise, somewhat practiced (i.e., skilled) in telling your wife such lies, or lucky and you can win the opposed check just fine. In most situations, you should both be taking 10, so all you need is a +1 on your side that she doesn't have. Even a circumstance bonus from somewhere will net you the win.

Not to mention that if you tell the baron you killed all the orcs, even though you left one alive, you gonna be in a mess (Sense Motive is class skill of Aristocrats).

Kinda seems like it should be, to me. YMMV. But again, someone who is actually good at telling lies won't have much trouble.

So I don't like the fact that social interaction (lying and noticing the truth), is a little bit too mechanic. I'd like my players to find out if someone telling the truth and not be sure about it until they have a proof.

Here I agree with you. Social skills require a thinking DM in order to work well; you can't just blindly, mechanically apply them and expect the game to go well.

But Sense Motive works a little bit too much like a lie detector: Once you get +19 bonus to Sense Motive (you can easily get this at 7th-level, at least) you will always get the right "hunch" about everybody in 1 minute. It's pretty drastic, since it's not an opposed roll (opponent can't do anything about it).

Having actually played a character from 1st level who eventually got to a +19 Sense Motive modifier, all I can say is that IMO anyone with a +19 Sense Motive modifier should have an almost magical ability to "read the room" like that. If you have a +19 Hide modifier, you expect to be able to disappear like a ninja. If you have a +19 Balance modifier, you can speed-walk up a greased tightrope. A +19 skill modifier means you can routinely do "heroic" things and at least sometimes do the "nearly impossible."

And you're completely overlooking things like circumstance modifiers. The DM is well within his rights to decide that a particular "hunch" check requires more than a DC 20 Sense Motive check, so it's not entirely true that the "opponents" can't do anything about it.

So effectively 7th-level Expert will know you're untrustworthy in 1 minute; whether you are or you're not. This beats even Undetectable Alignment.

Since you're alignment tells people nothing about whether you're trustworthy or untrustworthy per se, Sense Motive can't really "beat" undetectable alignment. But again, this just doesn't seem like a problem to me. Given that 7th-level experts in Sense Motive are about as rare as hen's teeth, I'm okay with the possibility of an occasional "Columbo" type character. (In fact, I'm kinda glad the rules allow for such an archetype.)

But to defend Sense Motive, I must say that I once had a DM that utilized this skill in his games with style... He used the phrase "you sense that he's lying" as a plot-element, and it worked great.

Bingo!

So I do admit - wholeheartedly - that Sense Motive and generally everything you find in D&D can be used to make the game fun and enjoyable. Sense Motive is like that also. I just feel that it's not my "thing" as a DM.

TBH I do cheat a lot with Sense Motive when I DM. I do it a lot. I want my players to find out if someone is lying, lie detectors are useless unless magic is used. Which also brings out the fact that Sense Motive requires very, very little innovativity from the player's part. If you cast a spell and know someone is lying, it's fine. You took the risk and effort to cast the spell. But a hidden roll "Ok, you got the right hunch" is not my cup of tea.

If it's not your cuppa, that's fine. Just be sure you tell your players up front that investing their precious skill points in Sense Motive is probably a poor choice in your campaign.

 

[Hassassin]

In my games, sense motive means next nothing. My players believe what they want regardless of what the dice say. I'm apparently a poor liar/actor.

If lying convincingly is a problem, you can always decide afterwards that you were actually speaking the truth. Better yet, don't come up with the truth at all before the conversation.

 

[irdeggman]

The hunch option doesn't tell you whether or no the person is untrustworthy it only gives you a feeling - pretty much an indication to make Sense Motive checks. If you are worried that players are overusing this option then tell them it takes 1 minute per attempt. I treat this hunch in a similar manner as the "common knowledge" of an untrained Knowledge skill check. You get something out of it that won't give you any substantial in-game advantage, but might add some color to the situation.

Trying to gain information with Sense Motive generally
takes at least 1 minute, and you could spend a whole evening trying
to get a sense of the people around you.

The opposed check is made at the end of the interaction, however long that is - and of course as the DM you can apply circumstance modifiers based upon the "quality" of the lie or "questions".

The only way to tell if the other person is lying is by the opposed sense motive - bluff check. So if someone has a +19 on his Sense Motive then in most likelyhood it is possible for his opponent to have a +19 on his bluff check.

 

[steenan]

1. I really like Celebrim's approach. I didn't think about it before, but I will probably use something similar in my game.

2. I've never found bluff or sense motive to be problematic in my games. I rarely roll behind a screen and rarely use situational modifiers that penalize players. On the other hand, I run most of my manipulative antagonists as fully aware of what can be detected by skill or magic and making use of this knowledge.
For example, a person that has been lied to and who believes the lies will be judged fully honest, no matter what means of lie detection is used. Thus, manipulation-by-proxy is often employed against PCs and other important figures. Other approach is speaking half truth and half lies, where the lies are expected to be detected and it's choosing the appropriate part of truth to tell which drives the manipulation. It may be detected by sense motive, but pinpointing what to believe and how to act upon it is extremely hard.