Bluff and Lore rolls

[TheKai]

Good morning,

Hoping to get some help with this question.

When someone rolls a bluff roll, what would be the counter roll to that? Intelligence? Wisdom? When they roll say a 22? What skill or ability is used to see if they successfully bluffed your character?

Lore rolls. When characters are chatting IC and a topic comes up that my character never new about IG (but I do OOC) what would the general DC to beat to see if your character knows it?

[Nomster]

When someone rolls a bluff roll, what would be the counter roll to that? Intelligence? Wisdom? When they roll say a 22? What skill or ability is used to see if they successfully bluffed your character?

Sense Motive. Nothing else

http://www.d20srd.org/srd/skills/bluff.htm
http://www.d20srd.org/srd/skills/senseMotive.htm

There are different modifiers to take into account. It is not a "I rolled 30 Bluff and you rolled 25 Sense Motive, I rolled higher so I win!" which is why really, if you are using it seriously, a DM should be present to set a proper DC.

[Moltrazahn]

In situations where Intimidate, Taunt, Bluff and Diplomacy is concerned.. i always advise people to let the skill reflect -your character- and not let it act as a justification of getting away with what is being said.

Example:

Za'than says: "I am a god!"

*Rolls 75 bluff*

You then emote: "Za'than truly sounds convincing in what he says"

Alternatively.

Za'than says: "Im am a god!"

*rolls 3 bluff*

Emote: "Za'than dont sound convincing at all"

-

If you do like this, then you dont -god-emote- other characters reaction, or force them to acknowledge you. You just let the social skill reflect your Characters ability to sound legit. They can then decide how to respond, based on what is said, and... if they are so inclined, how high the roll was. Still, remember that unless a DM asks for it, you can lie your pants off without rolling anything, when your just rping with other people.

[Styxwash]

Social skill rolls should never stand on their own, they need a proper reasoning and thought behind it, backed up by meaningful dialogue.

If there's no DM overseeing the situation, players should just agree on what counters what and so forth, pref. before rolling I suppose, if the possible consequences are serious and have impact on a character.

[Considerate_]

Example:

Za'than says: "I am a god!"

*Rolls 75 bluff*

You then emote: "Za'than truly sounds convincing in what he says"

I agree with what you say, the only addendum I'd chose to make would be to change the emote into:

*Za'than truly seems convinced of what he says*

Being able to bluff someone, as you say, doesn't mean they believe what Za'than is telling them. It means they believe Za'than believes in what he's telling them.

There's a big difference in my eyes





As for lore checks, a high Lore skill doesn't mean you know everything. Personally I think it should reflect either your characters interest or profession. A wizard with a lore of 75, could be well versed in the history of magic and all things arcane.

Whereas the same wizard wouldn't know diddly about the local lore of Baldur's Gate or its trade-relations with Amn.

Whereas a warrior with a lore of 5, who was raised in Baldur's Gate, would know considerably more on that particular subject, than the high lore wizard.



I hope that helps at least clarifying some points, if not answering them

[TheKai]

Those are some very good insights and great help. Thank you!

[blue_penguin]

Social skill rolls should never stand on their own, they need a proper reasoning and thought behind it, backed up by meaningful dialogue.

If there's no DM overseeing the situation, players should just agree on what counters what and so forth, pref. before rolling I suppose, if the possible consequences are serious and have impact on a character.

I agree. If the player puts no effort at all behind the reasoning of their character's lies or tales then I simply won't acknowledge the roll.

(Unless I'm playing a character with low wisdom or intelligence or both, of course.)

[Nomster]

I did not have much time to write about Lore earlier so will add to some points already said. What Considerate said is right, a high Lore character does not know everything there is to know. I notice that people... well, people use a lot of skills wrong. When it comes to Lore, many think a high skill investment = knows everything!

The big difference in the Lore skill in Nwn2 and PnP is that in PnP Lore is made into fields where points are invested in, whereas in Nwn2 all those fields have been made into one big skill.

http://www.d20srd.org/srd/skills/knowledge.htm

Also look at the DCs for lore, you do not need 100 Lore to answer a super difficult question. A high Lore skill rather represents that you are very knowledge... in different areas.

DC of 10 (for really easy questions), 15 (for basic questions), or 20 to 30 (for really tough questions).

DMs may of course change the DCs, that is only a general guidelines from PnP.


Many people in Candlekeep and quite a few out of it, divide up their Lore skill as if they had invested in several different fields. Even so, some fields encompass very large areas. If I were to make one for my main character, it would probably look something like this. You can guess the high and lows

Arcana - Yeah, magic!
Architecture and engineering - You say there is more to building a house than putting up four walls and roofing?!
Dungeoneering - I quite like being in civilized areas, thank you.
Geography - I can pinpoint where all the good wines come from!
History - I can tell when a loaf of bread becomes stale.
Local - I know too much of everyone's dirty little secrets.
Nature - There is a world outside?
Nobility and royalty - Good to know who to suck up to.
Religion - Better know which priests should never heal me...
The planes - I had a one way ticket once and it did not quite pan out. I rather like Toril, don't you?

You can your own field of knowledge, one of the popular ones are Forbidden Knowledge.

Forbidden Knowledge - Shush, I don't know anything.

[TheKai]

I did not have much time to write about Lore earlier so will add to some points already said. What Considerate said is right, a high Lore character does not know everything there is to know. I notice that people... well, people use a lot of skills wrong. When it comes to Lore, many think a high skill investment = knows everything!

The big difference in the Lore skill in Nwn2 and PnP is that in PnP Lore is made into fields where points are invested in, whereas in Nwn2 all those fields have been made into one big skill.

http://www.d20srd.org/srd/skills/knowledge.htm

Also look at the DCs for lore, you do not need 100 Lore to answer a super difficult question. A high Lore skill rather represents that you are very knowledge... in different areas.

DC of 10 (for really easy questions), 15 (for basic questions), or 20 to 30 (for really tough questions).

DMs may of course change the DCs, that is only a general guidelines from PnP.


Many people in Candlekeep and quite a few out of it, divide up their Lore skill as if they had invested in several different fields. Even so, some fields encompass very large areas. If I were to make one for my main character, it would probably look something like this. You can guess the high and lows

Arcana - Yeah, magic!
Architecture and engineering - You say there is more to building a house than putting up four walls and roofing?!
Dungeoneering - I quite like being in civilized areas, thank you.
Geography - I can pinpoint where all the good wines come from!
History - I can tell when a loaf of bread becomes stale.
Local - I know too much of everyone's dirty little secrets.
Nature - There is a world outside?
Nobility and royalty - Good to know who to suck up to.
Religion - Better know which priests should never heal me...
The planes - I had a one way ticket once and it did not quite pan out. I rather like Toril, don't you?

You can your own field of knowledge, one of the popular ones are Forbidden Knowledge.

Forbidden Knowledge - Shush, I don't know anything.

Thats a very interesting approach to it. And one I think I will develop for my toon. And thank you for the Lore DC. Thats a good basis to roll against, which I think I'll use. The hardest part for me, Ill admit, is separating what my character knows and what I know. I've read almost every Forgotten Realms novel so I have scatterings of information here and there. I guess what I need to think about is stuff like "Would an Elf from secluded Evermeet hear about Thay?" That kind of thing. It would be easy to connect that knowledge IG (I have a huge imagination) but I want to stick to some semblance of realism and not get the "eye rolls of death"

Thank you everyone, especially Nomster. Once again, this place rocks.

[Lokki]

Sense Motive. Nothing else

http://www.d20srd.org/srd/skills/bluff.htm
http://www.d20srd.org/srd/skills/senseMotive.htm

There are different modifiers to take into account. It is not a "I rolled 30 Bluff and you rolled 25 Sense Motive, I rolled higher so I win!" which is why really, if you are using it seriously, a DM should be present to set a proper DC.

I would expand on this to say that sense motive is the counter roll to know that someone is trying to bluff you. Not necessarily the counter roll to know that what they are saying is a falsehood.

For example If a con tries to sell a character a shoddy wooden sword as a legendary blade. The character's high sense motive roll will tell them that the con is full of it and trying to pull one over. However the character's high weapon smith roll could tell them that the sword is in fact poorly made and completely crappy. Perhaps the character has high lore and can tell that the sword is not magical at all (I normally would say spellcraft but Lore identifies in NWN2).

Sure I would say the character shouldn't know that they were being had unless they pass the sense motive, instead thinking the con was mistaken, or perhaps was conned himself. But I would say it is a disservice to a character to forget that they are a person with skills and knowledge just because they were bluffed.

This is of course not considering epic bluffing which I'm still not sure how is handled on this server. With people bluffing for 60+ they would be able to essentially mind control people that cannot roll a sense motive over 50.

[Normandy]

DnD also has modifiers for different situations where a bluff is attempted which increase or decrease the DC. The inherent difficulty of the bluff, the willingness the other person has to believe you (or not), whether it's your first attempt at it or there were other failed attempts, the likelihood of what you're trying to have others believe, etc. And that's only for one possible use of bluff which is to tell a complex lie (you pretty much don't need to roll bluff for mundane lies at least when not under pressure), there are other uses of the bluff skill which have nothing to do with knowingly uttering a factually false statement, that is, lying.

One thing to note, is that the player's hand book states explicitely that player characters can only influence the attitudes of npcs with skill rolls and not other pcs. It's in the description of diplomacy skill which leaves no doubt about that one, but not of bluff skill so it's a case of YMMV I guess.....

[ShineDown]

Sense motive is useful for important situations but I've seen it used awfully several times. The same can be said for bluff.

When using sense motive it's important to have a point. Almost anyone in the game can introduce themselves as Joe Blackernathy and get away with it. You'd use sense motive if you just met Joe Blackernathy and another guy comes up and introduces himself using the exact same name.

Just wanted to point this out because proper context in how the skill should be used hasn't been mentioned.

[TheKai]

I like that. Thank you ShineDown.

[Archaos]

I think that you should not roll-play between players. I am against using skills or ability checks between people without DM supervision.

In PnP, I think you only use skill checks against NPCs, not against your party or other PC players.
Why? Because without DM supervision it can be abused.

-Bard: Fighter, you should stand before that dragon.
-Fighter:..Eh, no thanks.
-Bard: *Rolls 50 Diplomacy* No, you should really stand before that dragon and protect me.
-Fighter: ...Okay.
-*Fighter dies*

That's just one example and such checks can force PCs in a PW to do stuff against their characters or will because they lost the roll without any serious Roleplay.

I'm not sure if that rule is enforced here but in other PWs, you're not forced to respond to skill checks or roll-play by other players, unless asked by a DM in an event.

I think that's the best thing you could do, since this is a role-play server and not a roll-play server.

[Normandy]

We may be drifting slightly from the point here, but Archaos is right. This is what the Player's Handbook says:

Hidden: show

DIPLOMACY (CHA)
Use this skill to persuade the chamberlain to let you see the king, to
negotiate peace between feuding barbarian tribes, or to convince the
ogre mages that have captured you that they should ransom you
back to your friends instead of twisting your limbs off one by one.
Diplomacy includes etiquette, social grace, tact, subtlety, and a way
with words. A skilled character knows the formal and informal rules
of conduct, social expectations, proper forms of address, and so on.
This skill represents the ability to give others the right impression of
oneself, to negotiate effectively, and to influence others.
Check:You can change the attitudes of others (nonplayer
characters) with a successful Diplomacy check; see the Influencing
NPC Attitudes sidebar, below, for basic DCs. (The Dungeon Master’s
Guidehas more information on influencing NPCs.) In negotiations,
participants roll opposed Diplomacy checks, and the winner gains
the advantage. Opposed checks also resolve situations when two
advocates or diplomats plead opposite cases in a hearing before a
third party.

Basically it's against the rules of DnD to use this on another player character. If you do it, you're breaking the rules. If a DM asks you to do it, he has the power to because DMs can change anything in the game but everyone should be aware that you're entering house rule territory with that.

What we all should do is make some effort to think up some decent arguments related to the rp situation at hand and use them instead of clicking on a virtual dice roll and expect others to comply.