Some rule clarifications, please!

[reanjr]

If that someone is a PC, then yes. The person with the -2 Sense Motive can choose to RP his character as being oblivious. Or he can choose to RP his PC having a sudden burst of inspiration and thus realizing he's being lied to. The choice lies with the player.

I think most of the opposition to Sense Motive/Bluff being used PCvPC is based around this fallacious assumption that it tells you someone is lying and that your character believes/disbelieves this. That's simply not the case. It is not a yes/no sort of skill, but rather one that indicates your gut assumption. Take the following example:

Someone steals my wallet. I saw him do it. He picked it up off the table when he thought I wasn't looking. I ask him about it and he says he didn't do it. He's a very convincing person. I can't tell that he is lying due to vocal anomolies, body language, or any other such thing. I failed my Sense Motive vs. his Bluff. On the other hand, I KNOW that he is lying anyway because I have contradictory evidence.

Now, it doesn't always have to be that cut and dry. Basically a failed Sense Motive check reveals nothing. It does not tell you something is wrong, nor does it tell you nothing is wrong. A successful one, on the other hand, only MAY tell you something is wrong. It may even give you a false positive. You may detect him being dishonest while he is telling the truth, because his motivations may be what is really being disguised even though the facts are not.

In addition, there is the table for Sense Motive modifiers (to oppose Bluff). As a player, you are in full control of which modifier you think is appropriate. So, if desired, all players have a +20 to sense motive whenever they want it.

And even if the check results in you being duped, as a player, you do not have to act in any particular way. As a DM controlling an NPC, I play it the same way. The NPC has motivations above and beyond those related to the PCs. The PCs are not the be all and end all of important happenings in the universe (whatever they may think).

Going back to the uses of Bluff listed in the SRD:

Feint - I think it would be very unfair and strange not to allow a PC to use feitn on another PC. I think this one is fairly self-evident, but if someone disagrees, I will try to make a more analytical assessment.

Creating a Diversion to Hide - again, this seems like something that should definitely be possible to use on a PC. I don't see why a PC should be immune to this affect just because they want to be.

Delivering a Secret Message - since this is something that you are trying to accomplish on both ends (Bluffer and Motive-Senser), it is pretty obvious that this should be allowed.

So all three hard examples of the things to use bluff for should be allowed. Why shouldn't the implied usage be allowed as well?

 

[Majoru Oakheart]

This was spelled out before in the 3.0 PHB. It used to say it could not be used against players. I've seen Monte Cook talk about this sort of thing before. He really hates the concept of die rolls telling people what their character thinks. He was who wrote the section of the PHB that said you could not use bluff on other players because he hated the thought of telling a player "Oh, you rolled low on your sense motive? Oh, you believe him." and them answering with "But he was caught red handed, I saw him with it in his hands." and then telling them "Sorry, his bluff is 50, he convinces you that it was all a misunderstanding and that your eyes must have been playing tricks on you."

I agree with Monte on this one, however all the relevent text about it not being allowed was removed in 3.5 edition. I know that a lot of DMs allowed it, even in 3.0 due to not having read that section.

I would recommend that you don't restrict role playing based on the results of a die roll. If anything, if a PC fails a Sense Motive check against a player, I'd tell them "You can't tell if they are lying or not, he seems to be sincere about the fact that he didn't do it. But you DID just seem him steal it. You decide what your character does."

In most of these cases, the PC might as well have not bothered trying to use the bluff skill as the other PC may metagame regardless of the results of the dice and then it becomes a matter of whether or not you order PCs to role play a certain way. i.e. "Your character doesn't want to look in his bag for other stolen stuff, you don't believe he stole anything."

I, personally, don't allow bluffs against players, I just tell people to role play their characters.

 

[Insight]

I allow PCs in my game to use Bluff and Sense Motive against each other, but not Diplomacy. My reasoning here is that Diplomacy is more of a shorthand to deal with NPCs, and is not intended for either a) interactions between PCs or b) important interactions with bad guys. The reasons for the first one should be obvious, and have been spelled out already. In addition, I do not allow PCs with high Diplomacy bonuses to effectively mind control important NPCs in the adventure. According to the rules, a PC with a high Diplomacy and a good enough roll could make a Hostile bad guy into a Friendly. I don't really like that idea, and nixed it for my game. Maybe you could use that on a guard or lackey, but not the big bad guy. I treat him/her as a PC for the purposes of Diplomacy.

We have had a few situations where the PCs have needed to or wanted to Bluff each other. In a recent case, one of the PCs was Geased to help the bad guy, so he was trying to Bluff the other PCs into following a course of action that would take them away from where the bad guy was located. We have also had a few cases where a rogue in the party was trying to hide the fact that he pocketed something from a corpse. Again, this usage of the Bluff skill seems appropriate.