Bluff checks

[USMC]

Ello,...i am a bit new to the whole RP world, and i have a quick question,...Bluff checks,..i feal i get lied to but seems as how i dont know the proper time a bluff check is needed i forget to ask,..so question is this,..when and were to use them, and what do i use to counter a bluff check,...case in point i am questioning a man about a known Cyric,.he says hes never met him,...not but 5 min. later the same guy bows to the cyric,..please get back with any thoughts on the subject,.

Ps any info on persuade would be good to
thank you kindly

[Misha Aogail]

Sad to say, our dice bags don't have a bluff option in there. The closest someone can get for bluffing is a persuade check, I believe... And I think it's either a wisdom or intelligence check made against it... I don't really remember since most of my dice checks have been against my hide ability that no one seems to be able to get through...

[soulfien]

Basically, if you ever talk tyo Torian, automatically assume she's lying

[Misha Aogail]

I don't lie! I tell half-truths! The problem is, figuring out which half is the truth...

And just remember, the more money you pay, the more actual truth I will tell. ;D

[Munroe]

I thought they had added Bluff, Appraise and Tumble to the DMFI wands? Is an older version of DMFI being used here?

[DM Justicar - Creator of FRC]

It is possible our version is outdated, but I will certainly check.

[Munroe]

I took a look for it myself and here's a nice new feature they've added IMO:

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* "Faking" Skill Roll fix
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A few people on PWs have been using macro'd text to simulate dice rolls. Now all DMFI dicerolls (pc wand driven, pc emote driven, and dm driven) will show as "CYAN". No other changes, just you will see that the color is different. I don't think players have any way to alter the text color live so this should fix the issue.

The one I found was DMFI 1.07 but the page on the Vault says it was last update March 2004, however the comments are right up until last week so that may still be newest. nwvault.ign.com/Files/scripts/data/1071337470723.shtml

[Talus]

USMC said:

Ello,...i am a bit new to the whole RP world, and i have a quick question,...Bluff checks,..i feal i get lied to but seems as how i dont know the proper time a bluff check is needed i forget to ask,..so question is this,..when and were to use them, and what do i use to counter a bluff check,...case in point i am questioning a man about a known Cyric,.he says hes never met him,...not but 5 min. later the same guy bows to the cyric,..please get back with any thoughts on the subject,.

Ps any info on persuade would be good to
thank you kindly

I too would appreciate a answer to this question, especialy now that our dice bag does have bluff.

[Munroe]

Since Sense Motive doesn't exist in NWN, you could make the check versus a Wisdom roll. However, since anyone who puts any points into Bluff is going to quickly outpace your Wisdom modifier, this isn't a very good solution.

Another option that I used elsewhere in the past was opposing Bluff or Persuade checks. Kind of a "It takes a liar to know a liar" kind of deal.

I really wish Sense Motive existed in NWN. That would be ideal. Actually, I want all the D&D skills to exist in NWN, but Sense Motive is probably the one missed most. Having the Lore skill broken back into the Knowledge skills would also be good. Oh well, here's hoping for NWN2.

[MithrilBlade]

Exactly, I personally am so tired when people as rogues/whatsoever use their insane amounts of points to bluff and then you get like 16 modifier to it.

Yay, let's look how you get 16 wisdom modifier, hm...takes 40 wisdom.
Okay so does this mean if some er midlevel rogue is able to lie to everyone, even most gods?

...This is why I am tired when people try to lie me outright for stupid things, you won't convince my character that you're Elminster if you won't act accordingly and roll incredible bluff roll.

If there would be sense motive skill I'd rather invest to that than something like discipline but it doesn't so unfortunately you just got to live with the fact that not everyone are accepting it if you lie whatever you want if you have invested to the skill.

In NWN bluff can be used if a DM posesses NPC but hardly to anything else.

[darkvoid]

Wolf said:

Since Sense Motive doesn't exist in NWN, you could make the check versus a Wisdom roll. However, since anyone who puts any points into Bluff is going to quickly outpace your Wisdom modifier, this isn't a very good solution.

Well, since you can put one point in a skill per level, and only one point in attributes every four levels, why not multiply what you roll by four? Could that work?

[Talus]

I been thinking about this for sometime(not that it would help much ;D) but why couldn't you use spot, search, listen or concentration as a substitute for sense motive. Wouldn't one of these skills work well. It would give a character a better chance to detect the lie, but would let those that have bluff use it more effectivly. I am not sure which would be best but I think one of them could work well. Especially now that you can emote dice rolls, you don't have to stop and grab the dice bag.

[Quadhund/Greenhouse]

I dont think multiplying dice rolls is good, but I do believe that what talus said was good.
Spot: used for seeing through disguises
Listen: hear if the person's voice cracks or has irregularities while telling a lie.
Search: Well I dont know about this one
Concentration: When trying to focus through distraction type lies "Like hey look over there at the pink elephant so I can pick your pocket." I find all these acceptable, but the only real way of seeing through a lie or sensing if there is an alterior motive to what the person is saying is through sense motive, but like detect evil, Bioware decided good guys already have too much power ;D

[Talus]

hey look everyone I had a good idea

[Misha Aogail]

Search: Searching the person's face for any sort of facial movements that may give them away as lying such as the corner of their mouth twitching, or a small vein becoming more promenient.

[Quadhund/Greenhouse]

MithrilBlade said:

unfortunately you just got to live with the fact that not everyone are accepting it if you lie whatever you want if you have invested to the skill.

Unfortunately, this is the kind of attitude that makes verbal skills like these (persuade, intimidate, and bluff) all very underrated. This is why most people dont even bother to put many ranks in it. Yes I agree that outlandish lies like, "Hey I'm the ruler of Cormyr so you better give up your life" should be ignored, but if I invest 40 skill points into bluff, I would expect to get no objection to saying, "Hey I killed Sir Donovan Brunheld. You better give me money or prepare to die."

[MithrilBlade]

Actually even I payed several points to persuade for nothing but roleplaying reasons.

IMO persuade is far more useful than bluff, intimidate is handy too (if your character is very violent and short angered I recommend taking intimidate to avoid combat).

Intimidate's opposite roll is btw NOT sense motive but level + wisdom modifier (+possible saves vs fear).
This way it's difficult to intimidate people like Donavan no matter what their imaginationary sense motive would be. Paladins (of lv3) are immune to intimidate as they are immune to fear.

Anyhow my point was not "don't take bluff, take pick pocket, it's more useful!", but that if you are for example rogue you can get so stupid amounts of skill points that "wasting" few on bluff won't be really big deal and then you can suddenly cheat anyone you want because lack of opposite skill. This is what I do not want.

[C'tair]

i heard from a friend before that spot could be used to conter bluff. i liked the idea but i see one problem with it. i can't see why rangers and weaponmasters have the chance to be very good at it, while classes who should be, like paladin or cleric, don't have the advantage of getting spot/listen as class skills.

perhaps a mix of two checks that must succeed, with concentration as a mandatory one, would make it more balanced. this would leave the rangers with an advantage, but since they don't have many battle spells, most of them propably don't have a high value in concentration.

i did not mention rogues above, 'cause it's likely that someone who's good at bluff can recognize a lie as such.

regards

[Quadhund/Greenhouse]

Ok let me post a completely plausible situation:

Say I come up to your character, and I tell you that the person standing behind you is a cyricist. Your character knows them fairly well (not great friends, but have travelled together somewhat), but you know OOC that the person IS NOT a cyricist. So you ask for a bluff check. Now my bluff skill is about 50, so you have no way of beating it (because there isnt really good skills for it). So does your character have to assume that the bluff is true, or do you ignore it completely cause OOC you know it is false.

Maybe, what we should do is cap the max number of bluff, persuade, and intimidate points so that it is reasonable for people to compete with them. Just an idea.

Also, one thing that has always been on my mind is, when does one give or ask for a bluff check? As a character that lies, do I always have to do a bluff check whenever I tell a lie? Or is it the opponent that has to ask for the skill check? And what if it is a half truth, then is there a modifier? These skills are so complicated.

[soulfien]

Quadhund said:

but if I invest 40 skill points into bluff, I would expect to get no objection to saying, "Hey I killed Sir Donovan Brunheld. You better give me money or prepare to die."

You couldn't even CATCH Donovan Brunheld!

I hate bluff and persuade.

I don't care if you have 100 points in bluff, if I have evidence to the contrary, you are not going to convince me. Well told lies are no more convincing than an unconfirmed truth. Remember that.

Also, persuade will not convince someone to do something they normally would not do. You can't make an evil person repent, nor can you make a paladin steal... not even with 300 points. Also, one scenario for you...

I had a druid with a wisdom of 32 (lvl 13, items, and owl's insight). His beloved and he were going to go fight giants and his beloved had hired on a PC to join us. He rolled his really high persuade to increase the price we paid him and my druid rolled wisdom and reminded him that he was only a loremaster and wouldn't be doing a lot of the fighting. A small debate broke out that his 40 Lore beat my 11 wisdom modifier and it lasted about 5 minutes before he gave up.

This is why I hate these skills.

[soulfien]

Oh, another question... are we going to RP a Bluff or Persuade check of 50?

If you think about it, the amount of work you're putting into a roll that high would require that you and your target are standing there while you debate with him for hours. I think it would be more along these lines than telling them "I just killed Donovan Brunheld, give me all of your money" and walking away with a full purse.

If someone knows Donovan, it's going to take some convincing. Will the person stand there and listen to you debate? Or will he simply walk away to confirm it? Or will he just draw swords and go at it due to you pestering him?

Something to think about...

Perhaps these rolls should only be made when the person you're talking to is in the position to and is willing to hear you out...

[Quadhund/Greenhouse]

I dont know how his lore came into play, but I think if he rolled a relatively decent persuade, you should have had to pay him more. Now thinking about it more, in RL, I could practice lying, A LOT. And if I became so good at it, not even the most "wise" person would be able to see through it. Only people who knew me very well, or people that had some kind of previous knowledge (know that I had told a lie before) would be the only ones to suspect me. Take the movie "Catch me if you can", NO ONE suspected that kid of anything. He was just that good. Yes I agree that perhaps you cant persuade a paladin to not be a paladin anymore, but you should be able to persuade them that something may not be entirely evil. And why can't my character lie about being elminster? Has your character met elminster? Does he know what elminster looks like? If your character knows some truth prior to the bluff, that the bluff contradicts, yes i would never expect you to accept the bluff. However when people say they wont accept outlandish lies, are they talking about their characters or themselves? Because I think it is a load of bull if you use OOC knowledge and see that little dice roll and have reason to suspect a person IC! IMO you are limiting yourself a lot in terms of roleplay if you never allow your character to be lied to.

[soulfien]

he didnt roll his lore- he rolled persuade- and high persuade, but he was only a loremaster- I.E. he wanted to come along and lend a few magical protections while running away when the giants got too close.. In other words, we'd be protecting him and letting him study the giants up close....

For this we weren't paying him any more than we had promised.


My druid's 32 wisdom was enough for me to decide that his persuasion attempt had failed


Oh, on another note- I think even Elminster would have to convince me that he's Elminster simply because my PC doesn't think he'll ever meet him

People lie to my PC all the time... But blatent lies that are told badly don't work. Most PC's simply RP it and I demand that anyone who tries rolling a bluff RP it and try and convince me.

Bluff in itself is a way to cheat at RP. Roll the dice and let it rollplay for you?

[Talus]

Soulfien said:

Bluff in itself is a way to cheat at RP. Roll the dice and let it rollplay for you?

Well I disagree. Part of Roleplaying is play characters that have skills that you don't. Bluff and like skills are a way to show skills that I the player don't necassarily possess, and if I am not a persuasive person I am not going to be all of sudden just because I am roleplaying.

[soulfien]

But certainly you can provide SOME statements to back up what you are rolling for! Or do you simply make the claim, roll the dice, and expect to be believed?

Also, you have to be willing to roleplay it some at least. You cannot simply let the dice assume that the PC stood there for that long a time while you debated for an hour or two.

[Manshin]

I do not know of anyway to do this ingame, but there should probably be DC modifiers. I.e. if someone is telling you a lie that is hard to swollow, it should be much more difficult for them to bluff you. "I am Drizzt!" says the smelly halfing. And I rolled a 32 bluff, so you believe it.
Personally, I think their are some things you either beileve or you dont. I dont use die rolls to decide if I believe someone or not. Unless I know OOC info, which I hope to the gods that I do not. (Please dont tell me anything OOC.) I am with Hroth on the Spot Listen etc.. stuff.
What about disguises though, this is based off a bluff check? Shouldn't it go off perform or something? Oh, and are the disguise masks they sell magical or something, because I havent seen to many convincing rubber masks. Or perhaps they are intended simply to represent a diguise is being worn, in which case, Torian could easily wear one, dispite the lack of female masks.

[darkvoid]

The way I see it is that you should play your character, not your rolls.

If you walked up to my char and said, "I killed Donovan Brunheld, give me all your gold!" He wouldn't be too impressed because he's never met Donovan Brunheld, and never heard of him. But my char would be impressed by that big ole sword you've got poking him in the neck with.

On the other hand, someone may be a good fighter and not be too concerned with the fact that the guy's got a sword, but he's heard some rumors that Donovan's been killed by someone, and so he hands over his gold on that account.

You may play a char that is a coward, or is naive, or doesn't have much experience in the real world, (i.e. a pally that's been raised in the cloister all his life and is just now getting to the real world). these types of chars would be ALOT more likely to be persuaded or bluffed.

But if you're playing a no-nonsense yype char, like a rogue or an older pally or older any character, he would be less likely to accept the bluff.

Bluff and persuade is also something alot of people shouldn't put alot of points into. The skill points reflect what you're good at, or what you've been trained at. If you're a rogue and you lie alot, then you could put alot of points into it. But a wizard that has a bluff skill of 25 and has only told lies on a few occasions really hasn't merited that many points.

I think there are far too many factors to take into consideration when it comes to lying and persuading to solve it simply with a roll check.

[TwistedVision]

As far as Bluff, Persuade and the like are concerned for the most part all you need to do is RP as usual. As your skill level can just be used to gague how good you are at it. If you want to lie but have no points at all in bluff for example then you would lie badly... maybe add in an emote for people to pick up on: *rubs arm uncomfortably*, *shuffles feet and smiles weakly* or *eyes dart around*

You can ask players via tells to make rolls to guide the conversation, just to see how well they are doing compared with you. You don't need to roll constantly just a couple of rolls will show how things are going.

Also, remember that on some checks that will have situational modifiers. Claiming that you are the ruler of Cormyr for example would most likely give you about a -20 on your check, i.e. unless you really know what you're doing everyone will laugh at you. If you know someone VERY well indeed then you likely get anywhere between a +5 to a +15 bonus to see through their way of deceipt.

My best advice though is still just RP your skill levels... and if you don't have it, RP it too.

[Talus]

Soulfien said:

But certainly you can provide SOME statements to back up what you are rolling for! Or do you simply make the claim, roll the dice, and expect to be believed?

Also, you have to be willing to roleplay it some at least. You cannot simply let the dice assume that the PC stood there for that long a time while you debated for an hour or two.

Most defenitely. But lets sayg my character slick guy Joe, lies to you his skill and technique will be much better than what i schlub at computer will come up with. That is what these skills represent. Now to also state I don't think I have used any of these skills in play. Yes my character has all of these to a certain level. But the reason I have never used them is because I don't know exactly how to in play. That is what I am trying to dicover. A effective yet fair way to use these skills. Not letting the dice do my RP, but to bettter reflect my character.

[soulfien]

It should be noted that when you use these skills in single player, they are only to swing the conversation one way or another, not to walk up to someone and proclaim to them you rule the earth therefor they must bow to you.

Let's not go overboard with these skills. I'm not going to believe that some halfling is Drizzt even if he rolls an 80 on his skill.