Rules for desguise checks

[Manshin]

While the particulars of a disguise check have been discussed earlier (Bluff vs. either spot, listen, or bluff...WHEN RELIVANT) this thread is to disguss a better way of exicuting it. I say, when you have a reason to check to see if you can tell someone is hiding, rather than rolling your opposed checks and comparing, you involve a neutral third party. Prefereably a DM. Have player A roll his disguiss in private mode, (which the DM can see) and then have player B roll his relevant check. The DM will then tell the person trying to see through the disguise if he is successful or not. The person wearing the disguise does not get to know. If the person doing the detecting gets a natural 20, or wins by 5 or more, not only can he tell there is a person wearing a disguise, but he has a pretty good idea of who it is. (DM descresion)

I think that would be a bit better... that way the disguised person doesnt know if he has been discovered or not, and the other person can reveal only what he wishes to reveal.

Manshin

[Talus]

Here here! Great idea. Now what to do if no DM is involved?

[Foomanchu]

very good idear! i likey...now...what if there is not 3rd party..hmmm

[DM Grizwald]

if no third party i guess we just keep doing what we've normally been doing *shrugs*

[marklar]

how exactly would these checks work? would there be modifiers to how unlikely someone would be to wear a crazy diguise? say marklar was wearing a dress(yes a dress, he's confortable with who he is as a person) and somehow someone thought it was him, how exactly would that work.

[marklar]

and now to think of it, this could involve metagaming easily...should a player see the name Marklar Woodshadow then ask a DM for these rolls and perhaps the DM is busy doing other things and not watching them and seeing that they never interacted...i'm just ranting

[ChrilWavingdark]

I know noone would do that here.

[heimdall]

It would be great if there was a DM on at all times to handle these types of situations, but in general the problems tend to surface when they are not. guidelines to behavior in the event these scenes are handled by the players in lieu of a DM's availability.

A) You have to have a valid reason to suspect a person. Keep in mind that Cormyr is a huge nation - there are tens to hundreds of thousands of NPC's that for obvious reasons we cannot add to the module. Would you really stop to interrogate anyone in passing you see wearing a hood? Unless you are a guard I would doubt this.

B) Say you DO have a valid reason to suspect someone is not who they say they are. You make your rolls (your spot vs their bluff) You win the roll. This does NOT mean you recognize who the person IS. This simply confirms your suspicion that they are NOT what/who they are claiming to be.

Now -- a barskin potion is all it takes to conceal one's features. That's it! You can get as elaborate as you like, but as long as a person doesn't speak, that is all it takes. Hence there are many times I don't recognize my closest companions until they start speaking. I treat them as any other stranger I meet until they clue me in on their identity.

A floating name above a character is NOT IC information. You can NOT recognize someone from their floating name. Play through your characters eyes. The floating names above character's heads & the names next to the portraits in the chat window are OOC infomation (and you should suck it up and just disable them on the client side)

The best way to ensure that things are kept in check is to use the gnomish log rotater. Keep a log of your interactions. If you feel a scene was played out unfairly, you can send me a PM with the log of the conversation. Take screenshots of the scenes. Send me screenshots of alledged/percieved violations.

Sometimes you may not know WHY another player knows what he does, and it may SEEM as though you have been metagamed against. Roll with whatever punches you must, do not go OOC yourself. If the situation is too much, simply take your screens and log out.

I have more to add to this, but I also have SO much to try and get done here before the end of the day at work. So, I'll be adding to this later.

[Manshin]

The disguised player uses Bluff. To detect, the detectee uses whichever skill is relevant, or chooses between those he is best at. Fore instance, if I run across someone trying to pull one over on me and they are wearing a disguise and speaking, I will choose to use my listen skill to oppose their bluff skill.... spot would be relevant, but Manshin has a good memory for voices and his eyes aren't especially good.

The three relevant skills which should apply here are "Spot" "Listen" and "Bluff" Maybe search too. Some are relevant, some are not, depending on the disguise. Obviously if they aren't speaking... listen doesnt apply. If they are completely concealed under layers of fabric with a mask, spot wouldnt be applicable. One "could" divine with these checks that the person is trying to hide something, but not who they are.

As a rule of thumb, I would say if a person is beaten by five or more, you might be suspicious of who the person is, if they are beatin by ten or more, or a natural 20, then something strikes you as familiar and you know who it is with a good amount of certaintly. The same would be true if the disguised player rolls a 1. This like everything however is up to DM discretion, and not all DMs may agree. So, dont expect consistancy.

This is a suggestion only. It could add an entertaining and new way to do this when a DM is around. When not, just do it like you ususally do.

Marklar... you think like a crook. I doubt many people would be that much of a cheater. If you really suspect, post it to the DMs, and the one who rolled the checks will put the ban on someone who cheats. HOWEVER... there are other ways to know is someone is in disguise than your opposing checks. There IS still good ol' fasion RP. If they say something stupid, or you catch them saying something that gives them away... those are valid.

Manshin

[soulfien]

Well, Garistan was attacked recently by someone when he was invisible and had stoneskin and no summons- his tale-tell familiar wasn't with him- and the PC that attacked him simply got close enough to hear him and screamed "YOU DIE! FINALLY!" and a battle ensued. I hadn't spoken a word.

So, yeah... invisibility works too people... nothing to "spot".

[Talus]

manshin said:

The disguised player uses Bluff. To detect, the detectee uses whichever skill is relevant, or chooses between those he is best at. Fore instance, if I run across someone trying to pull one over on me and they are wearing a disguise and speaking, I will choose to use my listen skill to oppose their bluff skill.... spot would be relevant, but Manshin has a good memory for voices and his eyes aren't especially good.

The three relevant skills which should apply here are "Spot" "Listen" and "Bluff" Maybe search too. Some are relevant, some are not, depending on the disguise. Obviously if they aren't speaking... listen doesn't apply. If they are completely concealed under layers of fabric with a mask, spot wouldn't be applicable. One "could" divine with these checks that the person is trying to hide something, but not who they are.

As a rule of thumb, I would say if a person is beaten by five or more, you might be suspicious of who the person is, if they are beaten by ten or more, or a natural 20, then something strikes you as familiar and you know who it is with a good amount of certainly. The same would be true if the disguised player rolls a 1. This like everything however is up to DM discretion, and not all DMs may agree. So, don't expect consistency.

This is a suggestion only. It could add an entertaining and new way to do this when a DM is around. When not, just do it like you usually do.

Marklar... you think like a crook. I doubt many people would be that much of a cheater. If you really suspect, post it to the DMs, and the one who rolled the checks will put the ban on someone who cheats. HOWEVER... there are other ways to know is someone is in disguise than your opposing checks. There IS still good ol' fashion RP. If they say something stupid, or you catch them saying something that gives them away... those are valid.

Manshin

One note, skill checks are not auto fail or succeed. 1's and 20's don't success or failure guarantee.

[Laurk]

Well... they should be. And since this is one skill which isnt run by the game engine, I say in this case, they are auto fail, auto succeed. Of course, if you NEED a twenty to beat the other players check, then it doesnt count as knowing who they are. Likewise, if failing on a roll of 1 still beats their check with modifiers, then they dont know who you are, but are suspicious as if they had beat you buy a roll of less than five.

A little random chance of disaster is what makes this fun. You never know if the person you are fooling happened to just get plain lucky.

[DM Grizwald]

"The best way to ensure that things are kept in check is to use the gnomish log rotater. Keep a log of your interactions. If you feel a scene was played out unfairly, you can send me a PM with the log of the conversation. Take screenshots of the scenes. Send me screenshots of alledged/percieved violations. "

How do you keep these log thingys?

[Talus]

laurk said:

Well... they should be. And since this is one skill which isnt run by the game engine, I say in this case, they are auto fail, auto succeed. Of course, if you NEED a twenty to beat the other players check, then it doesnt count as knowing who they are. Likewise, if failing on a roll of 1 still beats their check with modifiers, then they dont know who you are, but are suspicious as if they had beat you buy a roll of less than five.

A little random chance of disaster is what makes this fun. You never know if the person you are fooling happened to just get plain lucky.

I guess it seems strange to me to make one set of skillls work differently than the rest. I do realize that skills are the only thing that work this way within the rest of the game, but to me it makes it easier to just remember skills work differently no matter if the engine rolls it or I do. But I am forgetful and lazy so that probably explains why i think it should work that way

[heimdall]

clarkgrizwald said:

"The best way to ensure that things are kept in check is to use the gnomish log rotater. Keep a log of your interactions. If you feel a scene was played out unfairly, you can send me a PM with the log of the conversation. Take screenshots of the scenes. Send me screenshots of alledged/percieved violations."

How do you keep these log thingys?

frc.proboards37.com/index.cgi?board=general&action=post&thread=1134961214"e=1134961214&page=1

That pretty much sums it up.

[Spooks]

*shrug* in DnD it's like that. 20 isn't auto-succeed, 1 isn't auto-fail. A reason is that WotC made it so that certain monster and PrC's can take 10 on certain skill checks because they are THAT good at the skill. So if there was an auot-fail/succeed then it would seem broken when certain things never ran the risk of failure if they always took 10.


But that's DnD not NWN... and the NWN engine is MUCH more flawed.

[Manshin]

Well.. .that may be the rules.. but dont forget the biggest rule of D&D. The DM is in charge and can modify and change as he/she likes. House rules. Also, taking 10 only works when you have plenty of time and are not under pressure, like a threat or distraction. No one is so good that they can just take 10 when under pressure. You can't take 10 on opposed checks. Though it does say that a 20 is not automatic success and a 1 is not automatic failure, I think in the case of "Opposing checks" like the one we are talking about, it probably ought to be. Because it means that NOONE is unfailable. And it always keeps a bit or risk involved when you are among the enemy.

Maybe other skills are not that way, but thats because we have no control over what the engine does. This is something that if people wish, can be made to suit. In my PnP games, Everything has a chance of failure and success, and I dont see why this should be any differant.

I suppose we could do a vote.

[Quadhund/Greenhouse]

Manshin you are right, dms do have the final say. But as a player i would be quite distraught over one dm telling me one thing and another saying something completely different. So it is not really a community vote that needs to take place, but rather the dms must come to a concensus about how skill checks work.

And this is a fine suggetion about disguise.