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Message: <blockquote data-quote="Sekhmet" data-source="post: 5987280" data-attributes="member: 97602">Again,   [MENTION=6669384]Greenfield[/MENTION], I'm very aware that Sense Motive is not a lie detector. You, however, have failed to recognize the syntax of the skill in question. Only when used to react to a Bluff check is the skill not a minute action.  Reading the Bluff skill is also important in determining when Sense Motive can be used as a standard action instead of a minute action. Any time the player makes a Bluff check, his opponent makes a Sense Motive check. When a player wants to make a Sense Motive check independent of a Bluff check, he must take a minute action. Hunch is outside of the reactive requirement to make a standard check, so it takes a minute.You're playing Sense Motive up to be much more impressive than it actually is. RAW does not state that you become fully aware of the opponent's deception, it states that you can feel "something odd is going on" or if a person is trustworthy. Trustworthiness is a direct factor of being honest or being dishonest. "Something odd" can be absolutely anything. Perhaps Bartender's son just died, and his heart just isn't in it that day. He's off, he's acting strangely, and your Paladin won't know if he's being dishonest, deceptive, or secretive. Just that he is off.  So, in the given situation where the Bartender is an Assassin, and a Paladin is harassing him:  Paladin: "Do you know where the Assassin is?" Bartender: "I don't know what you're talking about."  No Sense Motive can be used. This is a five second conversation. (I encourage you to walk up to a stranger and say "Do you know where the Assassin is?", and try to gauge their innermost thoughts and secrets (related to the question, of course) by their first response.) If it were to go on: Paladin: "I heard this bar was the place people came to for that sort of work. Know anything about that?" Bartender: "I told you, I don't know what you're talking about. " Paladin: "How is it that the proprietor and barkeep of such a small tavern doesn't know everything that goes on in it? " Bartender: "Look, holy man. I told you I don't know anything, and I'm not going to change my story." (Paladin now gets to roll his Sense Motive check, having spoken with and studied the Barkeep's agitation over the simple question) Paladin: "I might not be clear enough, either you tell me what you know about the Assassin or I'm bringing in the clergy to cleanse this den of harlots and alcoholics." So, here we have a little dialogue that likely takes up the span of about a minute or two. The Paladin has interacted with the Barkeep, and he made his check toward the end there right before his threat.  This is a perfectly valid use of Sense Motive, where your previous examples were not.</blockquote>

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