Whither thou, Gamble skill?

[VorpalBunny]

OK, easy enough scenario. Your players arrive at an inn or tavern and the less savory elements of the party decide to raise some capital by playing at bones or some other game of chance.

Since there's no Gamble skill in 3.5, how do you handle it?

 

[diaglo]

bluff, sleight of hand, and sense motive.

edit: but i really like some of the stuff out there for 2000ed. Tournaments, Fairs & Taverns by MEG is worth buying.

 

[jmucchiello]

I would only use bluff, sense motive, etc if I were role-playing the hands.

It's much simpler to use a Profession (Gambler) skill for a nightly haul. DC is set by the location/type of the game.

If it's a game like Poker, everybody rolls. Average the rolls. Everyone above average wins, everyone below loses, distance from average determines amount won/loss.

If it's a game against the house, house sets the DC.

This is just off the top of my head though. But basically I'd treat it the same as a Bard using his Perform skill to earn some money at the inn over night.

 

[Mercule]

The gambler I played had ranks in Profession: Gambling.

He only played fair, so sleight of hand wouldn't have been much use. If someone wanted to cheat, then, yeah, I'd use sleight of hand.

Also, although a pretty good poker player myself, I really have no interest in playing poker during D&D. If I did, bluff and sense motive might be appropriate, but rolling it into a single profession skill makes it easy for the non-gambling players in the group to play a gambling PC. It also means that someone who focuses on gambling (like my sorcerer) isn't going to be upstaged by a PC who has never played the game before, but is a good con-man.

 

[Piratecat]

You would certainly want bluff to give a significant synergy bonus on your profession: gambler skill.

 

[Sidereal Knight]

You would certainly want bluff to give a significant synergy bonus on your profession: gambler skill.

You might also consider adding a synergy bonus from Sense Motive.

 

[Plane Sailing]

There are some decent rules in StarWars d20 revised - you could just use them with profession(gambler) instead of the gamble skill (and I'd give synergy bonuses for 5+ ranks in bluff and ditto sense motive).

Cheers

 

[VorpalBunny]

There are some decent rules in StarWars d20 revised - you could just use them with profession(gambler) instead of the gamble skill (and I'd give synergy bonuses for 5+ ranks in bluff and ditto sense motive).

Cheers

I agree - except I'd keep it as 5 or more ranks in Bluff give you a +2 synergy bonus to gambling "checks".

 

[Woas]

I was in this evil campaign run by a friend of mine. I rarely get to play cause I enjoy DMing so much.
Everyone else in that game was some type of pure combat character. Little to no roleplaying ability since many of us did not understand how to roleplay evil very well other than to slaughter kittens and puppies.

Except me. I made a gnome wizard, special school divination and also used illusion spells. I used a Profession: Gambler instead of Preform check however. I basically funded the entire party because we were based in a very large trading empire with many port cities. I would use illusion magic to alter my apperance and then use divination magic to read everyones minds and figure out what cards they had, or other divination spells to figure out where the wheel would stop on etc. I was the dirties player in town! I would leave and come back a week or so later with a new face and travel to the other towns and clean them out and make my rounds back and forth.
I also did this once to a loan-shark in game. Changed into someone else to hide my identity and borrowed a large sum of platnium from him, only to 'skip town' and return under my normal face.

 

[CombatWombat51]

I always thought it'd be nice to see a decent mechanic for gambling, but I'm not sure if I like the idea of it being a skill. Certain forms of gambling does involve skill, but there's only so much one can know about it. I dunno, I could be trying to apply too much Real World logic.

/slight hijack
Woas, that .sig is so cool. I wanna say it's from Star Tropics, but I could be remembering wrong, or even not have the game's name right for the one I'm thinking of.