NOW LIVE! Today's the day you meet your new best friend. You don’t have to leave Wolfy behind... In 'Pets & Sidekicks' your companions level up with you!

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Message: <blockquote data-quote="Seravin" data-source="post: 948891" data-attributes="member: 6783">Some Ad-Hoc RulesI’m still putting together the next installment, but I needed a break and wanted to post tonight….One of the fun things about being the DM is coming up with on the spot rules and providing interpretations.  I like coming up with the answers; I don’t always get it right the first time but the fun is in the trying.  <img src="https://cdn.jsdelivr.net/joypixels/assets/8.0/png/unicode/64/1f642.png" class="smilie smilie--emoji" loading="lazy" width="64" height="64" alt=":)" title="Smile    :)"  data-smilie="1"data-shortname=":)" />  Kestral’s and Panther's players with their focus on the social skills have provided more opportunity than most for this kind of fun; notably in the areas of Diplomacy and Gather Information.By this point in the game the party is about 3rd level and closing on 4th and I was just beginning to see what happened when a character began maxing the interactive skills; but only an inkling.  It would take a few more levels and a big city adventure before I came up with some house rules and guidelines to deal with some situations that came up; posted here for your use.1) Diplomacy:  A fairly broad and open-ended skill that can lead to some silliness.  Guidelines I adopted include:a. Diplomacy requires at least 1 minute of interaction before it can be rolled.  b. Diplomacy cannot be used when the target is about to attack.  (see below)c. Diplomacy can only be used once to set the initial attitude of the target versus the character.  d. However the target’s attitude is how receptive the target is to ideas from the character. The character can make additional diplomacy checks to get the target to perform tasks, provide information, etc.  For example, Count Parlfray is unfriendly where Kestral is concerned.  She’s too young and obviously too weak to be anywhere but over her head and will only get herself killed.  As opposed to Kellron, who he is friendly with.  However Kestral’s a bright woman and fairly charismatic.  Given time and the right words, she can argue Count Parlfray into a corner where he has no choice but to agree.  He may regret it later, but that’s later.  I expect this is a fairly broad interpretation, but it gives a small party some options in case of a bad roll.  Note that a person who is unfriendly or hostile to the party may refuse to see the party to give them another chance to negotiate.  Also note that when characters can average 15+ before the die (or make a 25 by taking 10) they can change a hostile persons attitude to indifferent and make an unfriendly person helpful.  Indifferent folk (the man on the street for example) are automatically friendly. e. Some ideas are so alien to the mindset of an NPC/Monster, that they fall in the realm of practically impossible.  Of course characters can pull this off with 10 ranks in the skill and at a –20 modifier.  Convincing a Vampire to go vegetarian should require a modified roll 70 (hostile to the idea and must be convinced to actively participate – which is helpful).  Convincing the same vampire to drink only the blood of animals might only require getting a friendly result (modified roll of 55).2) Charisma Checks:  Characters wanting to stop a fight just as it begins must accomplish either a charisma check or a bluff check with a DC of 35 (friendly).  Diplomacy cannot be used, however 5 or more ranks of diplomacy adds a +2 synergy bonus to the check.  3) Gather Information:  This is the only skill I heavily modified.  I don’t like that someone with 7 ranks in gather information still takes eight hours to track down a single piece of information, despite having a total Gather Information score of say +12.  So instead I allow players to gather 1 itemof information per rank per day of gathering.  It still costs one or two gold pieces per day per piece of information, but it’s now a little faster to get it.  Of course some people might want to know why a character is asking so many questions.edit: stupid tags and the man who edited them. <img src="https://cdn.jsdelivr.net/joypixels/assets/8.0/png/unicode/64/1f642.png" class="smilie smilie--emoji" loading="lazy" width="64" height="64" alt=":)" title="Smile    :)"  data-smilie="1"data-shortname=":)" /> </blockquote>

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