AMIA ARCHIVE • View topic - Bluff / Persuade

This here is a discussion to try and perhaps find ways to make these crappy skills worthwhile.

A while ago, I replied this on a thread related to social skills and how to counter them:

Problem with social skill rolls: At the core, they could be mis-used by players to do / get whatever they want ("Give me all of your epic - rolls 20 on a +100 persuade check"). For that reason, they tend to be ignored by players and thus barely if ever skilled (since they cannot be used for the absolutely insane use these things should be used for, for good obvious reasons). On the other side of the balance, these skills need to be recognized by the DMs.

There is a small base of players that care about their characters' RP representation, and will waste points in those skills anyway.

Saya has a very decent bluff score. I chose bluff over concentration.. I chose bluff over listen.. I chose bluff over spot.. I chose bluff over a lot of stuff I could have chosen that would have given mechanical advantage to the character. However, bluff needs to be part of this character's skill sheet. So why am I penalized, on a RP server, for making choices that best serve my characters' RP? In fact, I have been in several events where listen / spot was required to be rolled left and right, and also have been in multiple fighting events with critters going hide in plain side (because everyone and their grandmothers is a shadowdancer, including kobolds). However, the number of times I have been able to roleplay my bluff and get rewarded for it have been.. well it's never happened yet. This means, that even in events, Saya's social skill has proved itself to be a waste of skill points.

At the same time, while we cannot allow anyone and everyone to just randomly harass people with bluffs / persuade / intimidate rolls, I think we should have the DMs acknowledge these skills more often when it comes to events. Not by requiring people roll these all the time, but simply by perhaps trying to recognize when a character has these skills and let the NPC react to those (I've tried to scam / lie in events before to sly my way to avoiding a fight or solve a problem, and I either got ignored, or automatically failed and the event ended up with fighting the npc anyway).

Yes, putting points in some skills net you very little advantage (lore, appraise, etc.), but in Bluff and Persuade's case, we are talking about skills that have NO use whatsoever. From memory, even in DM events I have never been in an event where I could use my bluff to solve a situation. Why is it that a character going for these skills, at the cost of other useful skills they could get, gets penalized for a RP decision on a RP server?

So I ask the questions:

- Anyone have ideas of what could these skills give, without making the user a god among men, forcing other players to do everything you want without them having a choice? (AKA, give me all of your clothes - roll persuade... talk to the hand.)

- Should they get anything?

If the discussion is good, maybe this can turn into a proper "Improving Amia" thread that could lead to somewhere...

P.S.: Parry, Intimidate, Lore, Appraise are also s***. However, they -have- uses, even if pretty lackluster in some cases.

Mostly useless skills, only useable if a DM allows em to be used and I think players can ignore the said dices.

Personally, I wonder why you'd even take them. And given the fact that there is no simple way to balancing the two/three speech skills, I don't see the problem in that. Like you said yourself, they have very limited use. Part if it, IMO, stems from the way events work, on here. I can think of a few cases where I likely could have used persuade, or bluff in a DM event. But my character stayed IC for him, and charged. And the chances of that happening in the 5-10 people in an event is rather high. It's the same reason why events seem to always follow the same few people. Certain people take charge, and others don't.
That fact alone means that 1. You need a starring role in a DM event AND 2. happen to be a character that is decent at bluff AND 3. have an event where the opponent can be reasoned with. On Amia, with the large amount of big bad evil monsters, there is, in my experience, a rather low chance of those three things happening at once. And then we have no RP basis for bluff to be relevant.

Additionally, I personally feel like you have to leave bluff and persuade in the hands of player skill. Back when I started, I could barely talk clean sentences on here, let alone any sort of 'sweet talking'. And having someone like me, back then, with a character with 38 cha and 100+ bluff and persuade breaks immersion.
Leave speaking to the player, based on the PCs stats, and don't bother going speaking skills. Or, if you do, don't expect results.
Much akin to a PC being able to learn simple skills like juggling or an intrument without being bard/without having perform. You're not an epic performer, but you can do it, even if you have no skill points invested.

Making speaking a numbers game, if anything decreases RP. It turns into 'roll a number', rather than dynamic interactions. No matter what the example, there will be exceptions. And giving players the power to enforce their rolls will lead to absolute chaos. Either we get 'persuade powerbuilds', who basically rule the world, because there is no balanced way to defend against a roll of 100, or it's meaningless. I don't think there's a middle ground.

Last edited by Mushidoz on Tue, Jan 29 2019, 1:12 AM, edited 1 time in total.

robbi320 wrote:

Personally, I wonder why you'd even take them. And given the fact that there is no simple way to balancing the two/three speech skills, I don't see the problem in that. Like you said yourself, they have very limited use. Part if it, IMO, stems from the way events work, on here. I can think of a few cases where I likely could have used persuade, or bluff in a DM event. But my character stayed IC for him, and charged. And the chances of that happening in the 5-10 people in an event is rather high. It's the same reason why events seem to always follow the same few people. Certain people take charge, and others don't.
That fact alone means that 1. You need a starring role in a DM event AND 2. happen to be a character that is decent at bluff AND 3. have an event where the opponent can be reasoned with. On Amia, with the large amount of big bad evil monsters, there is, in my experience, a rather low chance of those three things happening at once. And then we have no RP basis for bluff to be relevant.

Additionally, I personally feel like you have to leave bluff and persuade in the hands of player skill. Back when I started, I could barely talk clean sentences on here, let alone any sort of 'sweet talking'. And having someone like me, back then, with a character with 38 cha and 100+ bluff and persuade breaks immersion.
Leave speaking to the player, based on the PCs stats, and don't bother going speaking skills. Or, if you do, don't expect results.

Making speaking a numbers game, if anything decreases RP. It turns into 'roll a number', rather than dynamic interactions. No matter what the example, there will be exceptions. And giving players the power to enforce their rolls will lead to absolute chaos. Either we get 'persuade powerbuilds', who basically rule the world, because there is no balanced way to defend against a roll of 100, or it's meaningless. I don't think there's a middle ground.

I can think of a recent event in which my character could have gone bluff, but wasn't given much of an opportunity (not trying to bash on the DM by the way, not the point at all, don't misinterpret it as it! ^^). There was a big meeting to hunt a swindler NPC, the one putting the sign says he's enemy with people Saya isn't much appreciated by, and he says the guy is about to leave his camp soon... yet people keep talking and talking.

Saya then buys a bunch of muffins and leaves everyone and goes "rogue". I walk towards the designated area, arrive way before anyone does, and I try to bluff my way with a vigil saying I was just passing by and all. I offered muffins (because Saya...) but things escaladed quickly, I get shot by 5-6 archer npc, my character's left unconscious in a tent, people arrive and bumrush everything and it evolves into a mob Killing event. My plan was to just pretend idiocy/innocence, try and meet with the higher up NPC, and ask for his side of the story... in the process probably even try to hide him in the rogue's playgroun for a private talk before anyone can come, and judge by herself if said dude was evil or not, and perhaps just lock the guy up in one of the rooms there if he is, and get to everyone if evil. Even bluffed her actual race and said she's the kind of things people cannot harm or else they get cursed just so she doesn't get killed - but she got killed regardless. Again, not bashing on the DM at all!.. He had to juggle a angry mob AND the annoying grigtouched that is Saya all by himself. Had my route been allowed a try, however, the angry mob would have killed the baddy's henchmen and gotten their "Me big me kill" event, and Saya would have had a shot at a less violent alternative.

This is just but the most recent event I can think of, but there's been others in the past where I tried to bluff it up and it was pretty much not taken into consideration.

Magic /divine classes are acknowledged and given extra RP perks (they solve everything), sneaks scout and are given more info on the event, spot and listen rolls are often called for in events, despite these skills already being mechanically incredible. Yet, bluff and persuade don't seem to get the same treatment.

My personal stance in this is similar to what you brought up actually (at least in point) - I don't want DMs to break immersion and ask for rolls, but I would rather if characters who wasted skill points could actually have a chance to put them to good use from time to time - aka, being recognized, and perhaps even open alternative venues to events that typically end up in "Me strong, me kill big bad guy".
---

I opened this thread because I'm quite curious to see if someone can come up with actual mechanical benefits (that wouldn't require haks). For example, for each 5 points in bluff or persuade, you are allowed to request a bonus +1 to... perform(?) on one of your gear. That is just an example, not the best.. However, maybe perhaps there could be a shop that's similar to that wil-o-wisp one in the yuan-ti temple (the one that requires spellcraft), but one that requires you to roll persuade / bluff to a DC that's only succeedable if you have invested X amount of base persuade or bluff..? Perhaps even just a roll to get you and your party to a small area with a mini boss that drops yellow items?..

If you pretend they don't exist then the problem goes away.

I agree with Uce here, tbh...

The example you posted, I don't know the circumstances, but if a blue half-cricket walks up to my camp, I wouldn't let it in, personally. Additionally, food always is a thing with swindler types... Poison is a rather serious deal, and while it's completely harmless in the NWN engine, there are poisons that would just outright kill you. And poisoning a muffin isn't hard.
But, as I said, I don't know what happened. In the end, it was the DMs call, because we, the players, never know all the details. Just like you can't go ahead and force rolls on the players, you can't force them on DMs.

1: It is 100% true that players can ignore anything that you roll at them. This is because all it takes is one troll to abuse it and act like a complete tosser.

2: It will always be used at the discretion of the DM's during rp and events. Personally, I think it's rather rude to try and derail an event that took hours to set up and plan, because a character can "bluff" it's way around things. This isn't so bad in PnP, however where the enjoyment of multiple somones are at stake, attempts at stealing the spotlight with clever ideas of subterfuge, coercion and anything of that sort, would make the character, perhaps the player, a major annoyance to everyone. I have to agree with Robbi on something though. A blue bug lady would be poorly recieved my most people, despite what her conversation skills are. That shit would be frightening.

One idea for each, but they are aligned to adding value to the skills within the module not Player vs Player. Also involve a bit of Dev work which I'm not equipped to determine the feasibility of:

Bluff - On approaching an NPC who runs a secret shop, behind the scenes there's a D100 roll, to determine if you Bluff the NPC into believing you are the class/alignment/whatever in question. If the roll is lower than your Bluff Base Ranks (Max 33) he opens the shop for you. If you fail you cannot Bluff the same NPC for 1 RL Week.

Persuade - On approaching an NPC Quest Giver who only provides Quests to certain alignments/races, behind the scenes there's a D100 roll, to determine if you Persuade the NPC into giving you the Quest anyway. If the roll is lower than your Persuade Base Ranks (Max 33) he offers you the Quest. If you fail you cannot Persuade the same NPC for 1 RL Week.

It's not much but then these skills have nothing now and a little is better than nothing.

Uberuce wrote:

If you pretend they don't exist then the problem goes away.

This do not really add anything to the topic. Issues do not disappear if you ignore them. Unless you mean the whole, one can ignore a roll on the social skills?

EDIT:

And oh, to push the topic about the blue bug, I do not agree. People on Amia seen so much shit it should not suprise them and literally everyone in events is over lvl 30. Its not supposed to be that way I hear, that power level is not so high, but I have a hard time to immerse myself with a bandit who can knock the teeth out of a hardened lvl 30 in engine, warrior who killed a dragon and a demi god, and yet they are scared by some blue fey touched bug with muffins? I can buy they do not trust her but on the other hand, most people are so chummy and careless with who they socialize with or hire help from.

On the topic of weird Saya walking by.. First question she was asked is "Just.. what the heck are you?", and the first reply she gave is "Oh I'm fey, the kind that give horrible curses if attacked". The fact she's "scary" to some, added with such words, with her saying she's pure fey AND that she gives curses should be enough to deter the attackers right? (that npc didn't attack her either, it's a spawn of 4-5 others that did).

As for what Thunderbrush said... Maybe it's just me seeing the concept of events different, but to me, an event shouldn't have a scripted immovable outcome. You give a setting, you have an idea in mind, but then it should be up to players what happens next. You present the players with a situation, and given how they react, you should expect the eventuallity that your event will derail from the established scenario. But.. that's a different topic.

----

I don't think it's fair to say "Let's ignore these skills entirely and keep them 100% useless!". Some idiots take them (because it's a RP server and those are RP skills that should be on the character to best represent them), ... and that should be encouraged to be honest. I understand I am biased in this, but I don't think what I personally suggested is actually unjustiable or inconsiderate..

Good ideas Maglorine, that's what I'm looking for here.

Mushidoz wrote:

On the topic of weird Saya walking by.. First question she was asked is "Just.. what the heck are you?", and the first reply she gave is "Oh I'm fey, the kind that give horrible curses if attacked". The fact she's "scary" to some, added with such words, with her saying she's pure fey AND that she gives curses should be enough to deter the attackers right? (that npc didn't attack her either, it's a spawn of 4-5 others that did).

As for what Thunderbrush said... Maybe it's just me seeing the concept of events different, but to me, an event shouldn't have a scripted immovable outcome. You give a setting, you have an idea in mind, but then it should be up to players what happens next. You present the players with a situation, and given how they react, you should expect the eventuallity that your event will derail from the established scenario. But.. that's a different topic.

----

I don't think it's fair to say "Let's ignore these skills entirely and keep them 100% useless!". Some idiots take them (because it's a RP server and those are RP skills that should be on the character to best represent them), ... and that should be encouraged to be honest. I understand I am biased in this, but I don't think what I personally suggested is actually unjustiable or inconsiderate..

Good ideas Maglorine, that's what I'm looking for here.

Sure, but lets t urn the table. Being an RP server, people should RP how they lie or persuade.

I just imagine how a very evil tiefling cleric of (insert evil god or demon lord) rolls so high on persuade, he persuade the paladin to make him a member of the knights he follow cause he rolled so high...Rolling can also destroy RP and the fantasy-realism of the realm we play in.

So if you want to use these skills, you have to develop a relationship with each player you want to use them with and not be a dick with them. Establish a baseline with that player which you cannot abuse and the player feels comfortable with. After all, if you want to use social skills, you have to be social. Even then though, you could also use them to improve the rp of others, or even challenge the player just enough not to completely destroy the character, though to keep them on their toes. Again though, this all depends how well you establish yourself as a good player in the eyes of the other players.

There are a handful of personality checks with NPC's and I agree that there should be more. Most of my characters are Cha based

I actually made a character once that was all based on them...was sort of hoping for a politician type character, though due to the same server rules, it just wasn't really viable on a day to day playing basis. I hope you didn't take my response as vitriolic, as it wasn't the intent. The problem with these skills, is that you can handily get them over 100, as you can with any other skill. The problem is, there is no way to counter roll this, barring a nat 20. Mags had some good points, I just don't see a server event resolved (In most cases..it could still happen) with a bluff, intimidate ect..

I also agree that with trusted people in a social setting these skills can be fun if used responsibly and within reason. Though, don't expect them to appreciate it for very long, when you have a persuade check of d20+ 60 and will is the only thing that will save them.

thunderbrush wrote:

There are a handful of personality checks with NPC's and I agree that there should be more. Most of my characters are Cha based

I actually made a character once that was all based on them...was sort of hoping for a politician type character, though due to the same server rules, it just wasn't really viable on a day to day playing basis. I hope you didn't take my response as vitriolic, as it wasn't the intent. The problem with these skills, is that you can handily get them over 100, as you can with any other skill. The problem is, there is no way to counter roll this, barring a nat 20. Mags had some good points, I just don't see a server event resolved (In most cases..it could still happen) with a bluff, intimidate ect..

I also agree that with trusted people in a social setting these skills can be fun if used responsibly and within reason. Though, don't expect them to appreciate it for very long, when you have a persuade check of d20+ 60 and will is the only thing that will save them.

You do not roll a save against a skill, or a stat against skills.

I personally like the fact that people honor these skills tbh, especially in the case of rogue-like characters or jobs (rogue, bard, SD, Assassin, burglar, spy etc etc etc). The major dilemma comes up when people roll it and it is without any attempt to frame some RP around the said dice roll. The other issue is usually the fact that they roll without notifying the DMs.

There are occasions when the DMs actually ask for a persuade/bluff roll which could quite possibly save the PCs from a violent encounter. As a DM I tend to count in skill synergies. In the case of bards, i do count perform as a social skill too that could potentially contribute to such rolls. Also I count bluff as a contributor to the persuade skill and vica versa.

I kinda hope that one day we could also use some of these skills for mechanical benefits. Either in regular mechanical NPC interactions (like in the case of the desert caravan dude) or in the case of certain feats (for example: A possible modification of the Dirty fighting feat where bluff could be a contributor.).

That is the story of the very distant future though.

Just so we're clear, as I am not sure everything was read..

- I agreed with Robbi (and myself, since I already brought that in the opener) --> You cannot just roll these skills and justify anything and everything. I said the skills should amount to something and be taken into consideration, but I also said we can't roll those to become social gods. My point is not "We should be allowed to roll and get everything we want just cause of a number!", my point was "It'd be nice if we could be allowed alternative / have the skill taken into consideration when roleplaying." If my character has 20 base bluff invested in that pointless skill, it'd be cool if once in a while, when I lie about something, that the npc in front of me actually consider what is said.

ANyway yeah, would be nice to have some mechanical advantage too. Special areas, access to special shops, etc.

I hope none will get offended if I use Arelith's solution to some of those skills. Consider it a bunch of stuff to ponder about.

Personally, I can't any of them being used at will by PC, but it'd be nice for them to have at least some use, especially if that would make people think a bit before the typical skill dump.

Just a few examples:

Bluff : You can conceal your identity completely. Your name will vanish and be replaced with a name of your choosing. (everything is made via. chat commands). People roll Bluff when they inspect you and if they win the roll, your disguise is broken.
Search : Everytime you search a dead body, or any form of loot actually, you roll a search roll. If you succeed, you get additional values.
Lore : An absolute pain in the ass not having on Arelith - every item you find is unidentified. There are no fixed gold drops, so you have to collect gems, jewelry and all that and without lore, it's such a pain to port out and port in due to full inventory of unidentified items - so people invest in it, at least a bit.
Parry : Parry - Parried attacks have +5 AB and damage bonus equal to half the parry skill up to 20 ranks, and 1/4 beyond 20 ranks. Skill bonus from items count. Parry is a toggled mode, like the modified (Improved) Expertise. Note: A character may only parry a number of attacks per round equal to the number of attacks per round available to the character.

So yeah, I think it is possible to create some sort of fluff for those skills, but as I said - no use on will, because many people (me included) will not go with the flow if someone roll persuasion 113 on me.

You do not roll a save against a skill, or a stat against skills.[/quote]

Roger, however it's pretty much skill against skill and the vast majority of the player base at current, especially with the amount of min/maxing done won't have said skills invested. So, the vast majority of people would be better off using an appropriate save, which in this case would be will...or a flat d100

thunderbrush wrote:

Roger, however it's pretty much skill against skill and the vast majority of the player base at current, especially with the amount of min/maxing done won't have said skills invested. So, the vast majority of people would be better off using an appropriate save, which in this case would be will...or a flat d100

Perhaps, but we should not put seeds into such a way of rolling, A save is rolled against spells and abilities, a stat against a stat or doing something physical like moving a body or remembering something, perhaps the later a wisdom check. Doing will saves on bluff or a rolling flat d100 is also very odd. What I mean with seed is growing such an enviroment where you can substitute lack of building for such or random dices rolls. I think it is best kept for NPCs when one roll social skills.

We all know Terri Rage used to roll Skill against Save.

We all know what happened to Terri rage.

Lets not do something like Terri rage again, please. It hurts my heart to see the "New and improved" Formula for Terri Rage every fucking time.

Honestly, there's no good way to roll skill versus anything other than a skill, due to the fact that you can go up to over 100 in a skill. And essentially, that is what makes it so hard to balance things like persuade. Persuade versus persuade means that basically one character will always destined to win, because they're more invested. Now, you might say that's a fair thing, but on the level skilms tend to be done, I'd find it pretty lame. RPing, and PvP don't always give you the same outcome, but skill versus skill, in most cases will, because one character will have over 70 persuade, and the other will have zero. And natural 20s don't apply to skills. Mr. 70 will win every single persuade attempt. Especially, we have three of those skills. A fighter type would have a really hard time, because tumble is -needed- to level, disc is nice to have, and then he'd have to get persuade, intimidate, and bluff to have any sort of chance against someone with those skills.

I really don't see a way to have it be fair. Even a flat d100 can be won every time, if you have 110 persuade.

That said, having some NPCs in the world react according to persuade/bluff could be cool.

robbi320 wrote:

Persuade versus persuade means that basically one character will always destined to win, because they're more invested. Now, you might say that's a fair thing, but on the level skilms tend to be done, I'd find it pretty lame. RPing, and PvP don't always give you the same outcome, but skill versus skill, in most cases will, because one character will have over 70 persuade, and the other will have zero. And natural 20s don't apply to skills. Mr. 70 will win every single persuade attempt. Especially, we have three of those skills. A fighter type would have a really hard time, because tumble is -needed- to level, disc is nice to have, and then he'd have to get persuade, intimidate, and bluff to have any sort of chance against someone with those skills.

Same goes for bull**** hide checks to be honest. Anyway, as I pointed out several times, let's just not even roll at all when it comes to persuade / bluff.. I know at least I am personally hoping for solutions / ideas that don't require skill rolls or haks (even if that hiding your identity thing from Arelith seems pretty fun!) or at least rolls that do not include players vs players.

Idea's not to give persuade / bluff characters a way to be godlike, it's just to give them -SOMETHING-, even if said something it just recognition in events

Hide/MS is a super heavy Investment and the characters using it have it as their main feature. They rely on Hide/MS MS in most things they do.

Yes I am annoyed sometimes at how bullshit Hide/MS sometimes is, but its the best NWN can do, I have thought a lot about it, and I can't come up with any solution that wouldn't completely kill Sneaks just like it happened with Barbs.

The original terry rage was broken..

The new version is a lot more balanced. You have to remember it ticks every round, in an aoe, and lasts long enough for you to kill most PC's and standard mobs if it procs.

Mushidoz wrote:

robbi320 wrote:

Persuade versus persuade means that basically one character will always destined to win, because they're more invested. Now, you might say that's a fair thing, but on the level skilms tend to be done, I'd find it pretty lame. RPing, and PvP don't always give you the same outcome, but skill versus skill, in most cases will, because one character will have over 70 persuade, and the other will have zero. And natural 20s don't apply to skills. Mr. 70 will win every single persuade attempt. Especially, we have three of those skills. A fighter type would have a really hard time, because tumble is -needed- to level, disc is nice to have, and then he'd have to get persuade, intimidate, and bluff to have any sort of chance against someone with those skills.

Same goes for bull**** hide checks to be honest. Anyway, as I pointed out several times, let's just not even roll at all when it comes to persuade / bluff.. I know at least I am personally hoping for solutions / ideas that don't require skill rolls or haks (even if that hiding your identity thing from Arelith seems pretty fun!) or at least rolls that do not include players vs players.

Idea's not to give persuade / bluff characters a way to be godlike, it's just to give them -SOMETHING-, even if said something it just recognition in events

I think the solution is to have more use for it in DM events with logical outcomes. Not rolling 100 and think you can convince the bad guy to kill themself or convince a devil to forfeit the contract someone signed because he is a "good guy" in reality.

freaxxshow1338 wrote:

Hide/MS is a super heavy Investment and the characters using it have it as their main feature. They rely on Hide/MS MS in most things they do.

Yes I am annoyed sometimes at how bullshit Hide/MS sometimes is, but its the best NWN can do, I have thought a lot about it, and I can't come up with any solution that wouldn't completely kill Sneaks just like it happened with Barbs.

There was a reason why True Seeing could see stealthed in vanilla NWN, cause stealth is not working like it does in the PnP version, you're stealthing, not going invisible.

In a perfect world, we could roleplay everything and roll dices without twats abusing it but there always be such people in any community, just not the NWN one and im not saying anyone on Amia work this way.

The issue with persuade & bluff is that they aren't implemented properly in the game.

Persuade isn't a skill in DnD. Assuming they are going for a variant of Diplomacy. (NPC uses only)
Bluff CAN work against players, but you get an opposed sense motive check, sense motive isn't a skill in NWN. Also Bluff has combat uses. Without sense motive it can't be emulated properly, which is why people gravitate to "default" to roll listen or spot vs bluff, which is flawed and has other issues.

However all of this doesn't really matter because the policy on rolls on Amia has always been that it is an opt-in kind of thing. Unless it's a DM demanding a roll, you are free to ignore rolls and not make your own. If anyone berates or belittles you for that choice, then feel free to report them to us so that we can review the situation, same way you can if they do it for any other reason.

I'll reiterate, these things are OPT-IN, not MANDATORY. Because of that, people are free to make rolls as they wish, to represent what they wish. It's up to everyone else if they want to go along with that or not. This has been done in the past as well, if people feel it makes sense that they roll bluff instead of persuade or intimidate, they do that, if they feel they shouldn't make a roll to bluff, they don't. It's all up to the playstyle and preferences of an individual player.

All that out of the way, I don't know what can be done to make persuade a worthwhile skill, but I think that bluff should get a feint option similar to taunt's taunt, as it's in the skill's original abilities from PnP. (FYI, Taunt also isn't a skill in PnP, same as persuade. They gave taunt the same ability that Bluff's feint option has, more or less. Homebrewn variant stuff.)

Gravemaskin wrote:

The issue with persuade & bluff is that they aren't implemented properly in the game.

Persuade isn't a skill in DnD. Assuming they are going for a variant of Diplomacy. (NPC uses only)
Bluff CAN work against players, but you get an opposed sense motive check, sense motive isn't a skill in NWN. Also Bluff has combat uses. Without sense motive it can't be emulated properly, which is why people gravitate to "default" to roll listen or spot vs bluff, which is flawed and has other issues.

However all of this doesn't really matter because the policy on rolls on Amia has always been that it is an opt-in kind of thing. Unless it's a DM demanding a roll, you are free to ignore rolls and not make your own. If anyone berates or belittles you for that choice, then feel free to report them to us so that we can review the situation, same way you can if they do it for any other reason.

I'll reiterate, these things are OPT-IN, not MANDATORY. Because of that, people are free to make rolls as they wish, to represent what they wish. It's up to everyone else if they want to go along with that or not. This has been done in the past as well, if people feel it makes sense that they roll bluff instead of persuade or intimidate, they do that, if they feel they shouldn't make a roll to bluff, they don't. It's all up to the playstyle and preferences of an individual player.

All that out of the way, I don't know what can be done to make persuade a worthwhile skill, but I think that bluff should get a feint option similar to taunt's taunt, as it's in the skill's original abilities from PnP. (FYI, Taunt also isn't a skill in PnP, same as persuade. They gave taunt the same ability that Bluff's feint option has, more or less. Homebrewn variant stuff.)

I gonna assume I may point out to people they are rolling the wrong die check in return? Aka not stat against skill, skill against save and such?

Why are we talking about rolls still? You don't roll persuade or bluff against other players - that's it.

There was a thread about that (viewtopic.php?f=4&t=90617&hilit=social), this one here isn't meant for that.

So are you asking on how you could use the points put into these skills for mechanical advantage?

Should be a discussion on how to give something back to persuade / bluff investment, because using persuade / bluff rolls against other players is very obviously dumb and not something that should be done.

Or whether bluff / persuade investment should be laughed at because "fuck roleplayers investing in roleplay skills on a roleplay module".

Mushidoz wrote:

Should be a discussion on how to give something back to persuade / bluff investment, because using persuade / bluff rolls against other players is very obviously dumb and not something that should be done.

Or whether bluff / persuade investment should be laughed at because "fuck roleplayers investing in roleplay skills on a roleplay module".

As I stated before, my personal opinion is there is nothing TO be given back to players taking that kind of investment. As when it is taken they are acknowledging what it is used for. Which, as stated by the link you gave, not a guaranteed use on players. It is meant for the use of roleplay, particularly against NPCs and other notions.

If you take the skills knowledgeably you've accepted what it is meant to be used for. Which is not players.

Bear in mind, Mushidoz, that just because the skills can only be used against NPCs, it doesn't mean that it will work the way you are attempting to use it in every situation involving NPCs. I have seen Bluff and Persuade work against plenty of NPCs in events, but they were always appropriate situations. And other situations, it doesn't matter how high you roll, the orc demon is not going to suddenly change his ways and marry the cute aasimar paladin who thinks he'd be happier for it.

That's just an extreme example.

The point is, maybe you've been unlucky with trying to use it in situations where it just couldn't work with those particular NPCs. Or perhaps the way you went about using it simply wouldn't work. In any case, I know for a fact that the DMs do allow the skills to work, but it doesn't automatically mean it's a viable option for every NPC interaction. And I don't think it should be, personally.

Earlier in the thread I provided an example of a situation in which bluffing was attempted. I never rolled the skill or anything (nor was I asking for it), but I think that situation was a good example of a scenario in which bluff could have been acceptable.

In I don't know how many years I've been here, I have -never- been able to have any impact on an event using bluff. Sorry, never happened. If you have been in such before, cool, but it's never happened to me, and I never ever seen anyone in an event managing to bluff and get a different scenario to an event either. I have however seen plenty of sneaking to get information, listen to hear stuff that others wouldn't notice (or just plain fighting against the millions of hide in plain side mobs that are spawned in some events), search to find stuff that is hidden (or 100+ dmg traps lying around), lore to know what is going on, etc. This seems to me like what you experienced is an exceptional scenario, and that the norm is that those skills are f**** useless in 99% of scenarios.

I have however seen and been in several events in which bluffing or persuading changed a "let's kill raaaawwwrrrr" event into a diplomatic / social / somewhat pacifist venue.... on other modules in my Nwn carreer - sometimes on modules I didn't play on for long.

---

Just to be clear, I am not looking into having a fighting style widget that relies on bluff / persuade to deal 10000 dmg aoe, or a skill check that turns an army against its leader. What I am looking for here are, for example, the following (JUST AN EXAMPLE):

- Remove the pirate / chest from the sahuagin area that already have an epic boss.
- Locate the pirate / chest in Khem's ambush area, the one with a giant ship.
- Make it so that part of the map is no longer a random ambush area.
- Have the desert riders ask you for a bluff / persuade check to get you and your party to that area, with a high enough score that you actually cannot just wear 1000+ items to get there on your own.

That is only an exemple. It'd be akin to needing open lock / disarm trap to access an otherwise dangerous map. It wouldn't require scripting. It wouldn't destroy the server balance in any shape or form. It would give a purpose to bluff / persuade checks.

I remember one time, I believe we were trying to find two runaway lovers who had booked passage with some pirates, or something... I honestly hardly remember the situation, since it's like two years ago, almost... But we looked for some information on them, and, lo and behold, we traveled to the island they were staying on. Once there, there was a typical mexican standoff between the adventurers, which included a few definetely evil characters who seemed to actively try to start a fight.

And, after a while of talking, it happened. Persuade was rolled, and the pirates granted us an audience with the couple. The whole deal was resolved peacefully, and we skipped a large fight because we decided to talk to those pirates.

There's plenty of examples of the skill being useful, and even more where talking skips you a large fight.
Then, as was said, there's plenty of events where the planned course is fighting. It might seem weird, but no matter how large you skilms are, if you're making a plot around a heretic, using your skills to turn him to a normal faith... ruins the event.
It sounds contrary to RP, but different people have different hopes from events. I enjoy DCs. I enjoy some light banter during Wave and Serpent events. But I find it difficult to do some serious problem solving on Alex in a large party of goodies in them. Which is why I tend to almost shut down during those events. I don't stop RPing, but I don't enjoy massive events, where there's ten players, about as many summons, and anything resembling a conversation fails withing the second sentence.
Then again, that's what I feel like many guild events are. Running in, expecting the entire event to revolve around me is a mistake I used to make, and I got hella salty about it. But there's nothing to do about it other than to accept how it is.

I'd suggest you do the same about the social skills. There's nothing social to having a club to beat over a DMs head, forcing any planning they may have made oit of the window because you invested in some skills.

Try doing that with stealing. Next time you see a guild event, go up to the person who's hiring you and try to steal the epic loot out of his pocket. DM is gonna be like 'Uh, no, you can't just have a free loot, and skip the event, just because you invested in a useless skill'.

I know it's just an example; but restricting content from players because they didn't invest in certain skills is a horrible idea. We already have enough locked doors. Implementing this only serves a small percentage of players, and on an average day, Myself and a few others play in a timezone where we are on our own. Large changes like this upset the server balance. I'm still comfortable with convo skills being kept between players or adjudicated by the DM's in events. Please try to understand that this is like demanding horses, just because you invested points in ride. Any time you implement MAJOR game changing mechanics, you are creating work, and a chain of rebuilds.

This is only an example, but.. how would that be major again? That would be one epic boss, out of how many again? By that logic, the Omnimental being locked behind a door offsets the server balance? This is tied to another subject.. but, in my opinion, the pirate and chest needs to be changed anyway - way too easy to access, not that powerful, and already in an area that has an epic boss. But yeah, different subject.

While just an example, I think it's quite the perfect one (a perfect example), as it solves other issues at the same time, without breaking anything. It doesn't give more epic loots in total (still need to get a 5% roll like all other bosses), it doesn't give an unfair advantage to bluff/persuade users, etc. It gives them something back in-game, as all skills should. There is content my character doesn't have access to and that yours might. Jimbo Jim the pyjama-wearing shadowdancer with 200 hide and move silently gets to act cool in pretty much all events AND can use his hide to play hide in seek against everything and everyone. Bob the Bluff Bro however only gets a use in event every 2 years.. IF he's lucky, in the right event, in the right time zone... and gets to save 25 gold when using the desert caravan. How is that fair or acceptable exactly?

I know you do stage things sometimes. perhaps you could use those skills with a dm to get things you need to make your performances better.

Saya's not bard anymore.. and she transitioned from stage to "street" in that now she creates scenarios / stories and have people unwillingly be "actors" of them. I -needed- to have bluff on Saya if I wanted to have a more faithful RP representation of the character, what she does and what she is. I just find it innapropriate that bluff / persuade is 100% useless on Amia... on a RP server.

Mushidoz wrote:

Saya's not bard anymore.. and she transitioned from stage to "street" in that now she creates scenarios / stories and have people unwillingly be "actors" of them. I -needed- to have bluff on Saya if I wanted to have a more faithful RP representation of the character, what she does and what she is. I just find it innapropriate that bluff / persuade is 100% useless on Amia... on a RP server.

But, as many people have stated from personal accounts, it's not 100% useless. Accounts from people in this very topic have both seen it used, and used it themselves to actual effect.

One of which gave an example from "two years ago" to support his claim that DMs do ask for it. Don't pretend like bluff / persuade is the top skill that all DMs and their mothers will call for in every events - it isn't. I joined in 2012 according to the forum, and I have --NEVER-- been in an event in which it has had an impact. We are now in 2019. Are there anecdotal situations in which maybe a DM did a somewhat private event and actually took bluff / persuade into account? Possibly. But those are .. yeah, anecdotes.

On the other hand, I have been in multiple events in which hide skills, listen skills, disciple, concentration and even lore were asked for, whether it was because the NPCs were using stuff that mechanically required these skills to do anything, or they provided RP boons (like getting extra info, scouting, etc.)

By the way, you also have people on this very same thread saying "Ignore those skills, just RP it out and never put points in those". If they really had an impact, that wouldn't be something people say.

When I play a character that is trying to lie successfully (in other words, bluff) the onus is on me as a player to come up with something that is appropriate for my character to say and compelling with respect to the context that they're saying it in. If I can't do that to the extent that other players will decide "hey, my character would believe that, I guess Kindlegem pulled it off!" then there isn't any recourse besides accepting that my character failed to tell a convincing lie in that particular situation and the consequences of that failure being the direction in which the narrative continues (even if it is frustrating for me as a player). It is problematic to ask other players to change their own character's level of skepticism or their character's perspective based on the result of a die roll, especially when, as other people have pointed out, an opposed skill such as sense motive does not exist in NWN.

The same can be said for persuasion being used on NPCs, if I want my character to be able to persuade an NPC to change their mind, I as a player need to think of something that is appropriate for my character to say that is capable of believably convincing the NPC at the overseeing DM's discretion.

As for your experience of never having had an opportunity to use bluff or persuade in a DM event to effect a change, you need to recognize that you as a player are not involved in every event and not cognizant of everything that goes on during an event, even when your character is involved in that event. That means you need to give the other players in this thread the credibility they deserve when they say that these skills are impactful in events.

Aren't your examples of where hide, spot, etc were useful just as much anecdotes as Jes' statements? I can do the same as you and say every time one of my characters tried to sneak, they were spotted immediately. Because that is my experience with sneaking, personally. I've had people tell me it was useful, but I never experienced it myself. That said, I don't automatically assume that my fellow players aren't telling the truth, and believe them when they say it has uses, if you RP it well enough.

Because that is what you're doing right now. Multiple people have said 'it is useful, in cases where it makes sense, is RP'd and isn't used to derail events'. And every example is dismissed as an anecdote from a while ago, and general statements are dismissed like 'I never experienced it'. I've heard there's people living in a place called 'brazil'. And even though every example of someone who lives there is an anecdote, and I've never interacted with anyone face-to-face who came from brazil, doesn't mean brazil doesn't exist.

So stop mistrusting your fellow players. In the experiences of multiple players, they have uses in events. That said, political/social events are more commonly held in factions, ans random beat'em-up style events are common outsude of factions, so maybe that is a reason your mileage varies from others. Another reason might be that you've simply been unlucky with a) the DM, b) the fellow players, c) the amount of knowledge the NPC had, or a myriad of other possible reasons.

Honestly, social skills like bluff and persuade really only work in DM events where the running DM says they do, and depending upon the situation. Period. (and even then, you likely have to say SOMETHING the NPC would respond to, not just anything random with a skill check and BOOM)

I think the issue you're running into here with the way these skills are handled versus other skills (e.g. Hide/Discipline/Concentration) is the ways in which they have an effect. For most other skills it's an either OR situation. You either get knocked on your butt, or your discipline allows you to brace yourself, You either hide successfully or get spotted immediately. There's a ton of grey areas that come with social interactions that make boiling it down to a single skill check inaccurate and unfun.

Now before you say "Well, they either believe me or not! With my Bluff score!" not so fast; Social interactions have so much more nuance than an either or situation. For instance, despite rolling a 9001 bluff, it's very unlikely you're going to convince a person that they're not wearing pants. Extreme example, but it highlights the point I'm getting to; when you're trying to be a liar, or persuasive individual, usually it comes down to WHAT you say (the text you type) rather than HOW you say it (your skill roll) Sure, your character might be adept at manipulating their tone of voice and acting a certain way (bluff, perform, persuade) but much more often than not, it depends on what the person you're talking to values/thinks/wants/perceives in relation to what you say to them for anything to be more convincing or not.

What I'm trying to get at here; this is where player skill and creativity has to come in. It's no fun for someone to say "well, I have max bluff, therefore can fool anybody with any statement." No, the player should needs to have the OOC creativity to come up with something clever. Crafting an elaborate ruse is fun, great storytelling, and amazing to see pulled off; but that requires player creativity. What is the plan? How does it work? Who will it affect? Where will this take place? When will this happen?--The onus is on the player to come up with something compelling--Why? Because it involves a narrative. Does it require a creative narrative to be able to use the spot skill... Not saying it can't but... Uh.. "I TRAINED MUH EYES TO SEE GUD" pretty much sums it up.

I guarantee you that ANY storyteller is not very enthusiastic about having to derail their event because someone rolled an absurd skill check to avoid or derail a large part of their event. Not all, of course, but you shouldn't feel entitled to ANY sort of deus ex machina level ability to change events just because of a skill check.

TL;DR. I have to be blunt. NO ONE should expect their own perceived glibness to win out more often than not just because of a skill check, or even writing ability. Sometimes some people don't react to you in a way you expect or are prepared for, despite your best efforts. Some people won't respond to you in a way that you are able to manipulate. That's just it. To expect a roll to manipulate a social interaction in a setting where we want to tell stories is... Well, meta-gamey and [personally, I find] unfun to deal with.

That said; in player-player interactions; if people WANT to honor these skills, then they can, but are not beholden to. If DMs want you to use these skills instead of coming up with a convincing lie, then they can, but are not beholden to; it's entirely in the context of the situation.

Don't take any of this the wrong way, honestly, I get where the frustration is coming from. I really do, but it needs to be understood that this is an apples-to-oranges situation.

Also, (pet peeve) Hide/MS are not broken. Dedicated Spotters will always win out eventually. Not to mention they have an easier time gearing for it.

./deadhorsebeatingcessate
./endrant

You all just rolled super low on your bluff by making these postings. *Shifty eyes*

The skills are useless because far too many people powergame their ego in the same manner they pvp and refuse to go along with anything you do. Their egos are too fragile to let them lose in a social situation.

I know from a lot of experience. All you need to do is try playing a con-man.

Laura has maximised persuade. I have no fucking clue how she'll use it being a Neutral Evil cleric of an undead god. It's not a position that requires many diplomacy checks. :lol:

but some people consider her one of the scariest PCs on Amia.

Elwyn on the other hand, I RP her with the idea of the Paragon/Renegade system from the ME trilogy. (Obviously she's maximised renegade

) and is badass because of it.

Richard_Edmund wrote:

Laura has maximised persuade. I have no fucking clue how she'll use it being a Neutral Evil cleric of an undead god. It's not a position that requires many diplomacy checks. :lol:

Example.

Bluff / Persuade - On Social Skills

Who is online