AMIA ARCHIVE • View topic

I would like to ask, in all honesty, if this is a dedicated RP server or not? and I would also like to know, if this server is based on PnP rules as much as can be, because I have heard it said that this server is supposed to be PnP based.

If that is the case... then why is the dicebag not used more? I have seen lately, more and more people taking the "I am invincible so there is nothing your pathetic ass can do to me, even though you are a foot taller, 100 pounds heavier and far stronger than me" Uber stance.

It is disheartening to see a character got punched, HARD in the face, and barely move their head, specifically when the attacking character has a STR of 30ish. Or if an intimidate check is rolled, no counter is rolled, and the other player just decides to pass it off as inconsequential. What good is having a dice bag, if it is only used when it benefits a character?

In PnP, I had my 17th lvl ranger/fgtr/Wildrunner get his ass stomped by a pack of 1/4 cr scavenger goblins based on the rolls. But I have seen an influx of more and more uber builds that are kicking lvl 30 toon asses at lvl 17/18. I have also seen characters, shrug off an beating, and continue on like nothing happened.

I am just ranting about this... but the more I see the uber mentality, the less I want to interact with people, and that leads to a stagnation. Frankly, it bites.

LordSithaelon wrote:

... and I would also like to know, if this server is based on PnP rules as much as can be, because I have heard it said that this server is supposed to be PnP based.

I think you heard wrong. We're... I guess I'd say "tolerant" of PnP stuff. It's certainly not part of the core mission statement, so to speak. Though I definitely agree that we'd be a richer RP environment if the server culture encouraged players to respect the dicebag mechanics.

The dice roller is cool for non-pvp interaction or stuff in Cordor where PvP is borked by the system, at least as to me as a player. Otherwise I say if it's PvP you rely on the game engine.

Dice rolling is kewl and fun, but it can be an extremely slow process to really RP a fight out in detail and I suspect that many don't have the patience for it. I certainly wouldn't want to roll out PvP in a heated situation, the idea seems anti-climatic to me.

That said, if someone randomly rolls strength and tries to slap my cheek off, I'll happily roll constitution and laugh when I get thrown 10 feet sideways.

LordSithaelon wrote:

It is disheartening to see a character got punched, HARD in the face, and barely move their head, specifically when the attacking character has a STR of 30ish. Or if an intimidate check is rolled, no counter is rolled, and the other player just decides to pass it off as inconsequential. What good is having a dice bag, if it is only used when it benefits a character

Because dice rolling kind of stupid in a lot of cases because it does not take in all factors.

Years ago a DM was over seeing a attack/event in Amia forest and it was about I believe 4-5 Scimitar Dev crit palemasters, and they rolled intimidate against me and two other who were low level players they failed and took that as good way to run away in fear, I also failed the roll but why should I be intimidated and run away.... I knew they were zero threat to me even if the dice cant reflect such.

They were IC at the time to far away to attack me before I could shape shift, and once I had shape shifted I knew could not bypass my Immunities + Damage reduction + regeneraton, so again why should I be scared of people who mathematically had zero way of harming with the scimitars they were threatening me with?....long story short I killed them all before they could summon a horde of undead in the forest to attack the grove.

If it comes to PvP with weapons drawn, thats one thing... but I mean the whole, "You pissed me off, and I will do something about it" action. Like if someone is running their mouth, and get a fist across the jaw with a crit roll, then really... there should be some roll to avoid getting knocked down... or even out cold... but the majority just shrug it off like they are Arnold Shwartswhatever in last action hero.

I know my Toon is a tough guy, and can take a hit... but hell, if a half orc comes up to me with a STR of 30+ and cracks me in the face full force... my toon is logically going to stumble back a few feet... if not fall down outright.

OOCly; everyone wants their character to be a bad ass... and many are... but with a whole server full of bad asses... whats the point of skills and dice if everyone is immune to the effects of a negative roll in the first place?

And then Cory was declared the Hero of the Forest and the little tree gnomes crowned him with a wreath of laurels. And to this day, when you hear the wind blow through the trees, all know it is the sound of the forest's heart, swooning for Skeletor.

The problem with dice rolls is, there is always a DC to see if it succeeds.

Most people i see that use a dice roll, assume it automatically succeeds without doing an opposing DC check.

Also

STOP USING PERSUADE ROLLS AS A SUBSTITUTE FOR ACTUALLY ROLE PLAYING

This is aimed at no one character in particular and generally at anyone who has ever tried to use a persuade roll to seduce anyone. Role play and make an effort. Don't bother me if you can't do that.

LordSithaelon wrote:

If it comes to PvP with weapons drawn, thats one thing... but I mean the whole, "You pissed me off, and I will do something about it" action. Like if someone is running their mouth, and get a fist across the jaw with a crit roll, then really... there should be some roll to avoid getting knocked down... or even out cold... but the majority just shrug it off like they are Arnold Shwartswhatever in last action hero.

I know my Toon is a tough guy, and can take a hit... but hell, if a half orc comes up to me with a STR of 30+ and cracks me in the face full force... my toon is logically going to stumble back a few feet... if not fall down outright.

OOCly; everyone wants their character to be a bad ass... and many are... but with a whole server full of bad asses... whats the point of skills and dice if everyone is immune to the effects of a negative roll in the first place?

Again you used a attack as a example... if they are going to attack you, they should just hostile and attack you.

I have ignored and then told people in the past who had tried dice roll attacks actions on me to attack me if they are going to attack me. Again dice rolls don't factor in everything its why dice rolls are DM only enforced because then PCs who are against each other would bitch about dice rulings 24/7.

Yossarin wrote:

And then Cory was declared the Hero of the Forest and the little tree gnomes crowned him with a wreath of laurels. And to this day, when you hear the wind blow through the trees, all know it is the sound of the forest's heart, swooning for Skeletor.

I wish tree gnomes came out and crowned me with a wreath of laurels, could have been a neat DM event item helm instead of the same helmet Skeletor has had on for the last 7 years :lol:

I will just have to settle for a dismembered wolf leg oozing with blood instead from another time when Skeletor defend Amia forest.

Yes I still have it.

corypx wrote:

Years ago a DM was over seeing a attack/event in Amia forest and it was about I believe 4-5 Scimitar Dev crit palemasters, and they rolled intimidate against me and two other who were low level players they failed and took that as good way to run away in fear, I also failed the roll but why should I be intimidated and run away.... I knew they were zero threat to me even if the dice cant reflect such.

That's not what mechanically Intimidate does in D&D anyway. Apply moral modifiers and stuff, make the PC in question shaken. There. DM has done their job. Mechanics are what I'd prefer to see in this case.

Honestly.. I guess I am a little biased against the NWN game engine. I have gaming for 21 years... and only 5 or 6 of those years have been on NWN. So I guess I prefer the originality and immagination of the game as opposed to the "What my screen says is the way it is" Aspect of gaming.

It should also be noted that Dice Rolls really aren't great for every situation that occurs between PCs.

I.E., the often cited example of an arm-wrestling match. Between a 8 STR PC and a 18 STR PC, the second PC should win, hands down. Yet, in rolling, it is far from impossible to have the 8 STR PC win... multiple times. A d20 is just too erratic for certain situations, especially between interacting PCs. You take a 93 year old with osteoporosis and have him lock hands with an Olympic weightlifter, the second guy wins... a lot more than 19/20 times. More like N/N+1, with N being any case in which the weightlifter doesn't slip and smack his head on a corner stool to later have Clint Eastwood pull his plug in a hospital bed.

So I cant say what should have happened in OPs original situation. That's more or something less to bring to a DM. But generally, don't get mad if someone doesn't want to agree to your PC judo-flipping theirs across a room because you pulled a natural 20 out of the air in a situation where the PC couldn't otherwise do so. That goes for STR and a myriad of other stats. Roleplay and rolling with the punches doesn't mean you abandon all good sense to an imperfect dice system and the notorious NWN RNG.

LordSithaelon wrote:

Honestly.. I guess I am a little biased against the NWN game engine. I have gaming for 21 years... and only 5 or 6 of those years have been on NWN. So I guess I prefer the originality and immagination of the game as opposed to the "What my screen says is the way it is" Aspect of gaming.

yeah I have been gaming for as long, but it does not change the fact that when your playing a different game/setting the rules change a bit.

Your last bit of the statement is kind of off, why should if someone invests in a ability that functions in a certain way that would counter/effect what they are doing but the we have no dice or way to reflect that for others to see other then if they attack us to see that you view it as unoriginality and having a lack of imagination.

Also what ones screen says is the way it is because not everyone has played PnP... not everyone has the ton of booklets to go with it, again its why dice RP is only enforce when a DM is around to help give guidance/explain and oversee it in a unbiased way because you cant expect people to know anything that does not come with the game itself and that game is NWN.

Quote:

B1. You cannot expect that players own any DnD materials. The NWN box doesn't list it below "requirements' and neither do the signs in the Entry. If you want to use rules/spells/skills that are not in the sources mentioned in the post above you MUST make sure the involved player agrees with using those rules. You also must make sure every participant is aware of the rules appropriate to the situation, and has read the skill/spell descriptions, and is aware of possible counter-spells and/or counter-skills, so that they can react correctly to what your character is attempting to do.

If you are in a fight and you tell your position to people by allowing scrying, for example, and you didn't inform the enemy you can be accused of metagaming when your saviours suddenly rush in, buffed and all.

Not only am I used to the imaginative and creative aspect of RP... I guess I am also used to the "Anything and everything can happen in game" aspect of rolling with the punches gaming as well.

LordSithaelon wrote:

Not only am I used to the imaginative and creative aspect of RP... I guess I am also used to the "Anything and everything can happen in game" aspect of rolling with the punches gaming as well.

As am I, but again this is where the DM come into play with being the unbiased overseer of RP to make sure everything is above board and to make rulings in case something is iffy.

corypx wrote:

its why dice RP is only enforce when a DM is around to help give guidance/explain and oversee it in a unbiased way

Uhm ... no... myself and Sith have rolled dice before without our 'resident DM' present. We don't have to be monitored because we are rational fair mature adults. We shouldn't need a babysitter.

His point, I believe, is that other players don't /need/ to heed the dice rolls unless told otherwise by a DM under our current ruling - which is what our stance is on the matter to my knowledge. You are more than free to roll them between another or other consenting players to your hearts desire however, yes!

I'll reiterate my point. Keep the dice roller out of PvP. I love the dice roller when it comes to skill checks and other specific uses like any sort of PvP occurring in places like Cordor where you're basically all screwed into being one giant super party. But other than that it's all very silly. If you want to fight another player use the game engine and leave it at that. Yes, your build might have a one up if you can use the dice roller simply because Grapple Rules are weird, but this isn't PnP D&D, it's Neverwinter Nights. If I wanted to play a PnP game I'd look for a server that disables the engine completely and just uses a dice roller for every single thing.

MyOwnDestiny wrote:

corypx wrote:

its why dice RP is only enforce when a DM is around to help give guidance/explain and oversee it in a unbiased way

Uhm ... no... myself and Sith have rolled dice before without our 'resident DM' present. We don't have to be monitored because we are rational fair mature adults. We shouldn't need a babysitter.

Please read the full context of the message and quote the full thing to get a better idea of the message,

corypx wrote:

Also what ones screen says is the way it is because not everyone has played PnP... not everyone has the ton of booklets to go with it, again its why dice RP is only enforce when a DM is around to help give guidance/explain and oversee it in a unbiased way because you cant expect people to know anything that does not come with the game itself and that game is NWN.

Quote:

B1. You cannot expect that players own any DnD materials. The NWN box doesn't list it below "requirements' and neither do the signs in the Entry. If you want to use rules/spells/skills that are not in the sources mentioned in the post above you MUST make sure the involved player agrees with using those rules. You also must make sure every participant is aware of the rules appropriate to the situation, and has read the skill/spell descriptions, and is aware of possible counter-spells and/or counter-skills, so that they can react correctly to what your character is attempting to do.

If you are in a fight and you tell your position to people by allowing scrying, for example, and you didn't inform the enemy you can be accused of metagaming when your saviours suddenly rush in, buffed and all.

If you look I prefaced it with the example of not everyone knows PnP rules as its not part of NWN, so its the reason why dice rolls and PnP are only "ENFORCED" when a DM is doing it to over see it is done correctly like making sure all parties are informed of what they may need to know, and then I followed it with the postings by the DMs that states that basic idea with a example from them.

Rigela wrote:

His point, I believe, is that other players don't /need/ to heed the dice rolls unless told otherwise by a DM under our current ruling - which is what our stance is on the matter to my knowledge. You are more than free to roll them between another or other consenting players to your hearts desire however, yes!

That's more or less what I was trying to say but did not come out as clear.

But that also goes back to my other points of power gaming....

What is the point of RP if others just disregard what you are doing? To me, it just makes me want to oocly tell them to get bent, and it also takes away from my gaming fun, just because someone wants to be the big bad ass.

The way I see it is.. if we are all old enough to play this game, then we should be able to roll dice without a DM present to enforce the rolls... otherwise it becomes cry baby "I didnt like that so I am not gonna go along with it because my character should not suffer that embarrassment". Just my opinion.

You would find many people actually don't whinge and throw a fit when you use dice rolls in role play. BUT, you can't walk up to a fully seasoned adventurer and simply go "grr!" after rolling intimidate, then get annoyed when they don't run away in fear.

666WaysToHell wrote:

You would find many people actually don't whinge and throw a fit when you use dice rolls in role play. BUT, you can't walk up to a fully seasoned adventurer and simply go "grr!" after rolling intimidate, then get annoyed when they don't run away in fear.

No rofl... I am not suggesting that my character walk up and give someone the Dwayne Johnson "Rock" eyebrow and then they piss themselves automatically. But, after RP that is heated, and confrontational... if a character rolls an intimidate skill check with a twitch in their eye... I dont think it should be disregarded because the other player does not want their character punked.

What I am advocating is.. the Dice rolls are there to add flare to the RP... but there are quite a few people that dont want to have flare... they want to have a bad ass impervious to everything toon... and That is just boring.

I ran into the same sorta thing with my now retired hin, Lyle. If his Sally was singing, he could belt out a hundred intimidate, combined with a 6-8 line description to go along with it. Not everyone responds, but in my experience, most people do at least react. And not everyone responds to intimidation the same way, for an example.

Bobo_Underhill wrote:

I ran into the same sorta thing with my now retired hin, Lyle. If his Sally was singing, he could belt out a hundred intimidate, combined with a 6-8 line description to go along with it. Not everyone responds, but in my experience, most people do at least react. And not everyone responds to intimidation the same way, for an example.

If someone came at me with a 100+ roll I'd at probably have the decency to respond to it. Though if it's a Hin it better be damn terrifying. That being said, my characters have two reactions to fear: Run away or nuke it.

Lyle was pretty damned scary.

LordSithaelon wrote:

The way I see it is.. if we are all old enough to play this game, then we should be able to roll dice without a DM present to enforce the rolls... otherwise it becomes cry baby "I didnt like that so I am not gonna go along with it because my character should not suffer that embarrassment". Just my opinion.

Sadly that'll always be a part of online gaming. People want to play the big hero/big villain, and ain't nobody gonna make their characters look weak in any way. I will say though, that more often than not, if the RP is there as well, people will react to rolls. If you play it off well enough, you might not even have to roll at all, depending on the character in question.

Intimidate - Roleplay it. If you can't intimidate my character through your RP, do not expect that my character will cave (unless you have a Terrifying Rage barbarian)

Appraise - Generally I gladly accept appraise rolls and I allow them to influence my RP when haggling.

Bluff - I will try to counter it with my listen roll, and as long as the bluff itself is reasonable to a degree, I'll go with the flow.

Discipline - Can be used for more than just resisting Knockdown. If someone is torturing you.. or tempting you.. or doing anything where the discipline could be applied in RL, do it.

Hide/MS - Enforced mechanically, but can also be used as Sleight of Hand.

Spot/Listen - Enforced mechanically, but Spot can be used to see certain details and Listen can be used to counter Bluff.

Search - Not just for traps. Anything that can be "found" can be "searched". Use it wisely.

Perform - Also can be used as Bluff afaik, but I imagine that in this case it would be countered by Spot rather than Listen.

Taunt - mechanically enforced

Tumble - Many DM in events request reflex saves in situations where something should be avoided. I'd use tumble instead.

================================================================================

Grapple - Some players will argue that by having Freedom on an item or as a spell will ward them against grappling. The others will tell you that they cannot be grappled because of their Epic Dodge. Rest of the time it's just like in PnP and most people will participate. Touch attack vs Touch AC > Grapple vs Grapple.

I think my oppinion is best served with an exemple here:

Harold the mage is talking with some friends near the gate of Bendir Dale. A woman walks up and the following emote follows *Plays a song* along with a perform roll well over a 100. Harold remarks its a nice song but doesnt look behind him.

In this effort breeds response. If the bard uses 4 words to describe the song I as player simply am not enthralled regardless of the roll and neither is my toon. Amia is about roleplaying and not rollplaying.

Had the bard emotes about stringing up the lute and then made a moving emote about the lovely song which filled the air, merging perfectly with the late autumn gold on the trees then Harold would have reacted quite differantly and likely heaped praise on the bard.

Even with a much lower roll and much effort a low level bard would get praise (Unless its a very low roll then it might be amused chuckles, wincing or encouragement) and some coin to continue the good work. Heck, even without a roll I could roll with it but I would appreciate a roll regardless.

Having said that, rolls are very situational and I think case by case judgement works best unless a DM is present as asks for it.

My feelings on dice rolls:

Use them, but RP as well. Even if you only RP it a little do it. Don't substitute rolls for all of the RP. If you are trying to be persuasive, act it out a little in RP. Same with anything else. Rolls are good for when your character is good at something but you are not. People forget that. But you can't just do and roll and be done with it.

It's like with certain RP. I suck at it so I make do with my character's skillset (usually with DMs) and it goes fine. People are understanding of things so long as you don't just roll and fob it as being done.

Hudson wrote:

I think my oppinion is best served with an exemple here:

Harold the mage is talking with some friends near the gate of Bendir Dale. A woman walks up and the following emote follows *Plays a song* along with a perform roll well over a 100. Harold remarks its a nice song but doesnt look behind him.

In this effort breeds response. If the bard uses 4 words to describe the song I as player simply am not enthralled regardless of the roll and neither is my toon. Amia is about roleplaying and not rollplaying.

Had the bard emotes about stringing up the lute and then made a moving emote about the lovely song which filled the air, merging perfectly with the late autumn gold on the trees then Harold would have reacted quite differantly and likely heaped praise on the bard.

Even with a much lower roll and much effort a low level bard would get praise (Unless its a very low roll then it might be amused chuckles, wincing or encouragement) and some coin to continue the good work. Heck, even without a roll I could roll with it but I would apprechiate a roll regardless.

Having said that, rolls are very situational and I think case by case judgement works best unless a DM is present as asks for it.

I completely agree with that in this regard... but what I am referring to is a situation where two characters get into a heated argument that lasts for an hour... point and counter points made... veiled threats, and outright threats made, tempers flare the whole nine... and one character with a rep for being something uses an intimidate check, rolls a 20 plus a modifier of 32 for a total of 52; while the other player just does not bother rolling and tells character A to "go away peasant". That is what I find annoying... and I have seen it happen quite a few times.

Edit**: and while I am at it... Charisma does not Equate to Comliness.... it helps, but does not mean your 22 CHA having elf is a goddess to be worshipped.

There's a longstanding tradition that players don't have to abide by another players rolls. If a DM says so (or asks for a roll) then it has to be.

It's there because if we had to abide by all rolls, people could just roll skills and not RP and force you to abide by it (or if there are other factors as to why you wouldn't, see cory's example). So it's easier to not police it.

LordSithaelon wrote:

... and while I am at it... Charisma does not Equate to Comliness....

It actually does, though. It's kind of skeevy that the game gives us a numerical measure of how pretty we are, but it's defined pretty inarguably in both PnP and NWN that Charisma is a measure of (among other things) physical attractiveness. A character with 22 Charisma really does get to describe herself as drop dead gorgeous, and it even gets to be true.

I still say they need to bring back the comliness option for beauty as compared to Charisma.... because dammit... being charasmatic does not necessarily mean you are gorgeous, and if you are gorgeous, you can still be a beat down tool.... History is filled with these examples.

I don't think any numerical measure of physical attractiveness is needed at all. Let everyone play their movie stars and lingerie models, if they like. It's kind of meaningless anyway, in a setting with however many dozens of different species. I mean, I don't care how sexy your half-orc is. Not ever going to happen.

Liz wrote:

I don't think any numerical measure of physical attractiveness is needed at all. Let everyone play their movie stars and lingerie models, if they like. It's kind of meaningless anyway, in a setting with however many dozens of different species. I mean, I don't care how sexy your half-orc is. Not ever going to happen.

ROFL... bad images... bad bad images

u wot sum awrk bby?

Rollplay is amazing when everyone is on board. Daniel once had a over an hour rollplay with Weston (for those who remember him) and Wolf when he got captured during his short lived Banite days. It takes time but you can account for everything if you really want to. In this example Dan had epic dodge which is not counted for by the bag but with some OOC chat in the mix you can account for anything. Ditto for when, I believe, Yoss or Tommie over saw his attempted escape from Kohl. He failed cause the DM accounted for rules not included in the dice rolls.

Point is if you have a group of people that is willing to go the extra mile for the epicness the dice bag can make your normal RP into Dream Coin worthy RP

Agreed rp can be epic using dice. Truth is though most dice roll combat is long and drawn out but for non-lethal combat in a non-pvp area it still can be fun. A good idea is to send a tell first to the player and see if they'll go along with non-lethal combat. That usually keeps anyone from loosing face or just being ignored completely.

Best thing to do once it's agreed on is go step by step just like in pnp with that possibly -infamous- request that most table top players worry about...
-Roll initiative lol high roll wins obviously thus the encounter begins.
-next never god emote....if you want to try and show what your toon is -trying- to do. State it that way....
*-attempts- to reach out grab so and so's shirt collar(or arm or whatever)* thats called a grapple if some of you don't know. You can find the rules for all this elswhere under Non-Lethal Combat Rules. Thats something else. When you decide or request to use pnp(pen and paper aka Tabletop) rules. It's a good idea to actually -know- the rules ahead of time. lol

Something I'll do also using the dicebag is to get some kind of input from other players mainly for certain skills like spot or listen, show ac(including the reason for it) with a quick ooc request in talk channel to see what they would notice or what would happen, like subtle nuissances in a characters demeanor or expression that maybe not everyone would see. Or trying to hit someone in the head with a tomato lol. Go by the rolls and send tells to individual players including, brief, information on what their toons notice or a sporting player would go along with the whole tomato thing and use an emote describing how the tomato completely bursts open causing juice to cover their toons face and pieces flying everywhere and so on you could even roll for splash too if you want to see who else may have been caught in it. Just cross your fingers and hope it wasn't that short and stalky and -grumpy- dwarf that just watched a piece land in his favourite mug of dwarven stout...bad day heh. Just adds a bit of color to the roleplay mainly and gives an opportunity to make the rp more indepth and not so visually structured as it is in the game mechanics and on the screen.

Can I just say that I'm tired of reading people's character bios and seeing that their characters are, for all intents and purposes, a sexy beast only to find out that said character has like a CHA of 10 and no gear for said stat? I don't know about you but as a guy who has a character with a charisma of 18 or higher I'm a little tired of this trivializing of physical appearance. Our stats are representations of our characters, not arbitrary numbers put there to give us the powerbuildingz

bobofwestoregonusa wrote:

Can I just say that I'm tired of reading people's character bios and seeing that their characters are, for all intents and purposes, a sexy beast only to find out that said character has like a CHA of 10 and no gear for said stat? I don't know about you but as a guy who has a character with a charisma of 18 or higher I'm a little tired of this trivializing of physical appearance. Our stats are representations of our characters, not arbitrary numbers put there to give us the powerbuildingz

Actually I generally take it like this with regards to Cha (and all abilities really).

Attractiveness (Physical): My characters good looks equate to a +4 Cha Modifier
Attractiveness (Vocal): My character sounds like Fran from the Nanny -2 Cha Modifier
Perceived Force of Personality: He's pretty damned Forceful +1 Cha Modifier
Actual Strength of Personality: His perceived FoP is just a front for a weak, selfish personality -2 Cha Modifier
Leadership: He's a good leader, no Paladin perhaps but qualified +1 Cha Modifier
Personal Magnetism: He's not a dynamic individual and makes few friends -1 Cha Modifier

etc etc etc etc etc

I put a lot of thought into how to Roleplay my ability distribution with regards to how I distributed those abilities.

Quote:

I don't know about you but as a guy who has a character with a charisma of 18 or higher I'm a little tired of this trivializing of physical appearance

And your not trivializing the hours I, and many others, spend developing characters. The bio description represents essentially what you see, it isn't representative of how a character is actually played.

SRD wrote:

Charisma measures a character’s force of personality, persuasiveness, personal magnetism, ability to lead, and physical attractiveness. This ability represents actual strength of personality, not merely how one is perceived by others in a social setting.

And that's me having broken my last taboo and engaged in pontificating about Charisma.

My take with dice rolling is that inherent NWN system really doesn't work well mechanically. Many skills don't have real counters, and some counters are really unfair - it's fair more easily to max out intimidate with gear than for example will save (that is usual counter I believe). You can easily gear yourself to 100+ in most of skills, so any kind of balance is out of the window.
And honestly, after my toon hears someone make a perform check over 100 for 1000th time, he/she's not really going to be impressed anymore. Or a barbarian trying to intimidate him. It might work on newcomer fresh from boat, but on someone more experienced? Nah.

There's actually a specific check to counter intimidate which ends up being reasonably balanced, except for the whole skillmod stacking of magic items bit. It's under special rolls.

I just forget about bluff rolls and assume my character is skeptical of EVERYONE and automatically assumes no one will believe what he says.

to the OP: I do not see the dicebag as a cure for UberGodmode play. In fact it's often the cause. I regularly risk respawn by being overtly hostile to goblins and orcs...I make a point of getting in faces BEFORE numbers have been tossed which reveal the imbalance of the face-off. Going straight to dice reveals the relative levels of those involved, and the higher level invariably sees no threat.

The other thing I have a problem with: What does it mean when you successfully intimidate me?

YOU DO NOT PICK WHAT IT MEANS.

You are not in a position to understand anyone's character enough to decide what she does when intimidated. Normal human reactions to being intimidated include running away, yes, but they also include sudden inexplicable flattery, fighting like a cornered rat, and many others. Don't think your natural 20 means you decide how I react.

INFLUENCE IS NOT DOMINATION.

bobofwestoregonusa wrote:

Also

STOP USING PERSUADE ROLLS AS A SUBSTITUTE FOR ACTUALLY ROLE PLAYING

This is aimed at no one character in particular and generally at anyone who has ever tried to use a persuade roll to seduce anyone. Role play and make an effort. Don't bother me if you can't do that.

Anyone who tries to seduce me with dice, can screw their dice instead of me. Or get some kind of treatment like this:

"Wow, high roll! It worked. We totally do it. Let me roll now...*4*...awwww, too bad for you, it was no good. You are laughed out of the inn and ridiculed for your lack of prowess in bed. Better luck next time!"

Also, this:

Don't quote me on this. But I'm fairly certain social rolls are not meant for player interaction. They're more a guideline for DMs on NPC reactions or just a numeric value to compute AI reactions against if you will.

Personally I just treat them as any emote. Ignoring them is bad but expecting someone to aimlessly abide to rolls is godmodding.

I love that somebody finally started this topic. LordSithaelon's opinion on that is, sadly, pretty accurate.

Let's take skills like Intimidate, Bluff and Persuade. You can't emote EVERYTHING that is included in these skills like voice tone, subtle gestures. And even if you manage to do that very neatly, the other character may or may not NOTICE the mastery of the performance. I personally have used dice rolls only a few times already for bluffing mostly, it always involved larger amount of roleplay. What I usually got was no reaction at all. Just roll the fucking spot/listen guys and see what happens.

bobofwestoregonusa wrote:

STOP USING PERSUADE ROLLS AS A SUBSTITUTE FOR ACTUALLY ROLE PLAYING

So let's put my skill points into persuade, it will be so awesome when... OH WAIT, I AM NEVER GOING TO USE IT.

This is just ridiculous. Though I agree that it shouldn't be a substitute for actual roleplay. There is no counter roll for persuade anyway, if someone's arguments were poor, just treat it like his roll must be much higher to impress your character. There are people who can sell every shit thanks to their appearance and body language. This is what persuade skill stands for.

Unfortunately for the OP's argument, it's stated multiple times throughout the core PnP that "social skills" (bluff, diplomacy, intimidate, perform, etc) do not affect PCs whatsoever and they are free to roleplay in reaction however they see fit. Such skills are merely for NPC interaction. Otherwise one jerk with a geeked persuade score would pretty much rule the server using their persistent charm others abililty (ie, opening their mouth). So yeah, it's almost like they forsaw "rollplaying" on other PCs in the player's handbook and killed it immediately.

And as for charisma, I don't care what WotC's writeup says. Personal attractiveness is not a measure of a stat score because it's subjective. charisma is force of personality, end of statement. Bob the Barbarian who has a fetish for fat women doesn't care if your frigid elf princess has 30 charisma, you're not what he likes. And no kobold sorcerer, regardless if their charisma is 50 or 3, is ever going to be sexy to anyone other than kobolds.

Not to mention associating beauty and charisma is utter nonsense since it ignores reality utterly and creates unrealistic situations. If beauty is charisma, you're telling me people don't exist in the world that are what most people would agree to be beautiful, but have personalities that make people shun them? Also, people most find ugly cannot ever be witty, charming people? All it takes to prove those statements is leaving the house and walking around your neighborhood. In the case of your charming elf princess with 30 charisma... why the blue layer of the hells would a typical hetero woman find herself attracted to her? Even T$R had the good sense to never state "charisma = beauty" because they understood that's one hell of a "derp" statement. Heck, they made it painfully clear with plain language charisma is *not* a measure of beauty or physical attractiveness because that is *subjective*.

So yes, believe it or not, screaming bad charisma means you can't look good says a lot more about your roleplay limitations than whoever you're talking about. Bad charisma does however mean that no matter how nice that guy looks, him trying to convince the local Duke to lend him money or men is going to have a very hard time indeed.

When I was a DM, I had set DC rolls for NPC interactions if people chose to use Persuade or Intimidate or Bluff. So they most certainly had a use and still have the potential to have a use if other DMs do the same thing.

But do note something mentioned in the Announcements that areas will gradually be incorporating the skills you invest points in into interactive elements. As far as interacting with other players goes? Well, like the other say, don't expect anyone to play by the rules of your dice, especially when they don't have perfect counters.

My summarisation after reading this thread:

Dice rolls shouldnt be used as substitute of rp; they should be used to enhance rp in a non binding manner unless a DM asks for it.

Hudson wrote:

My summarisation after reading this thread:

Dice rolls shouldnt be used as substitute of rp; they should be used to enhance rp in a non binding manner unless a DM asks for it.

Yep, that's the server stance on it

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