DMFI Dice Rolls

[GodBeastX]

LOL

I sense ... Kaldaris has had some sort of bad experience in the past relating to this particular bluff.


Good point about Bluff though, if there's no real reason to doubt what the person says, don't bother with the roll; i.e., :

-"What'd you do today"

-"Nothing" Bluff roll = 22

However, if someone is suspicious about something a charcater is saying, like if he's caught stealing and is trying to talk his way out of it, I can see certain circumstances where the roll can sensibly enter play.

"What'd you do today, Tao?"

"Look, he was wide open before I got to him! Stop putting pressure on me!"

Bluff: 2

[rustediron]

Hmm... I for one spam dice rolls, as I like them a lot.
But I see everyone's point here, though I haven't really found conversation metagaming to be much of a problem as yet.

[Xanderleo]

heheh. GBX, you had the scantily clad undiguised drow Devasha once bluff my character in the high 30s with:

"I'm just a lost moon elf!"

I have to admit, I froze for second thinking: "GAH! what the hell do I say to that?"

Fortunately, Neeravin was smarter and blew right past it without rolling, saving me the embarassment of actually trying to act out being fooled by it.

[Ash]

Hmm. Is there, or could it be implemented, that players can make a roll that is invisible to other people?

Buy some die. Use the ones you have for pnp. Download a random number generator to flip to if your NWN2 is stable enough for it.

[GodBeastX]

heheh. GBX, you had the scantily clad undiguised drow Devasha once bluff my character in the high 30s with:

"I'm just a lost moon elf!"

I have to admit, I froze for second thinking: "GAH! what the hell do I say to that?"

Fortunately, Neeravin was smarter and blew right past it without rolling, saving me the embarassment of actually trying to act out being fooled by it.

Hahahah! I remember that. You guys have no idea how much I laugh at my own retardedness when I do stuff like that. I expect a reaction of...

"Wait... Huh?!"

I just bluff retarded stuff to get some entertainment in the game.

[rustediron]

Buy some die. Use the ones you have for pnp. Download a random number generator to flip to if your NWN2 is stable enough for it.

^^
Lol, what they said.

[sparkeh]

It says very bluntly in the Player's Handbook 3.5 that these skills are intended for use against NPC's only.

It might do, but with any rule in D&D its back to our favourite mantra "Its up to the DM's discretion."

People use (and seemingly encouraged to use) skill rolls against players in Sundren and thats just the way it is.

[Kaldaris]

Within reasonable bounds, I would say, considering I've never been chastised for reacting as I choose to, despite whatever roll is thrown at me.

[Mighty_Draco]

Bluff Mod 20 = 32
Me: What are you rolling bluff for?
Him: So you don't know I'm lying.
Me: I didn't know you were lying until you told me that.

I think the important distinction here is that there's a difference between what the character knows and what the player knows. I have actually used bluff as an OOC nudge to hint to other players that I did/didn't steal anything, that way they can stop shifting through their inventory and RP

[GodBeastX]

You guys are hung up on Bluff too much. Let me show you a screenshot that helps you get an idea of how bluff can be fun:

Jaya was an evil wizard, and Sissy was a evil Sorcerer. Jaya had a safe in her bedroom that Sissy opened and peeked at her Soul Stones (They would screw each other over more than good guys alot of times, god I love being evil)



Sissy was very proud of her hair It was her favorite feature. Curse evil elves who torture you for information by trying to cut off your hair!

[ThePaganKing]

I think that sometimes you need to roll because of another post that talks about characters that are low level but act like the biggest badass around. The other day there was a guy, who was rated at moderate to me, so would have been seriously easy to Hlaine, try and intimidate him for sitting on his stump. Now, you can tell Hlaine is a red wizard and usually red wizards who wear the red robe are not noobs, so why the hell would you go tell Hlaine to get off my stump, and then when Hlaine doesn't react, to stand there for ten minutes blowing smoke in his face?

So, Hlaine rolls an intimidate roll and the other guy fails his will and finally backs off. The problem is two-fold:

1. As GBX stated, people play their characters however the hell they want and will not deviate no matter what e.g. I am not scared of anything, so I push everyone around no matter what, or, I am low level, but my background is badass, so I am gonna push everyone around and get my way.

And don't tell me the ability to click on a person and see what his rating is is big time metagaming. Reallistically, you would probably be able to tell, from their gear, their bearing, their eyes or lines on their face what "level" they are. If you show up in nice shiny new armor and a sword that hasn't even been out of the scabbard, hey, you are a noob!

2. This is a game and not all of us can type quickly, correctly, or well in English, and a lot gets lost in translation with typed words. Therefore, people with very high charisma and great diplomacy skills are not going to be able to type out a long winded speach about how we should love everyone eloquently and have everyone believe it. That to me would be harder to keep up with if someone actually had to type in some impassioned plea. Remember, not all of us in real life have great lying capability or diplomacy, or intimidate..........so, you try your best with the typed word and if necessary, use a roll to back it up. That way, the noob can't just say, fuck you I am going to do what I want against you 20 level juggernaut.

Now, it does have to have its place and be at least believable, but I think the rolls are important to the game.

[rustediron]

besides, where would d&d be without the dice?

[Kangleton]

I think that sometimes you need to roll because of another post that talks about characters that are low level but act like the biggest badass around. The other day there was a guy, who was rated at moderate to me, so would have been seriously easy to Hlaine, try and intimidate him for sitting on his stump. Now, you can tell Hlaine is a red wizard and usually red wizards who wear the red robe are not noobs, so why the hell would you go tell Hlaine to get off my stump, and then when Hlaine doesn't react, to stand there for ten minutes blowing smoke in his face?

So, Hlaine rolls an intimidate roll and the other guy fails his will and finally backs off. The problem is two-fold:

1. As GBX stated, people play their characters however the hell they want and will not deviate no matter what e.g. I am not scared of anything, so I push everyone around no matter what, or, I am low level, but my background is badass, so I am gonna push everyone around and get my way.

And don't tell me the ability to click on a person and see what his rating is is big time metagaming. Reallistically, you would probably be able to tell, from their gear, their bearing, their eyes or lines on their face what "level" they are. If you show up in nice shiny new armor and a sword that hasn't even been out of the scabbard, hey, you are a noob!

2. This is a game and not all of us can type quickly, correctly, or well in English, and a lot gets lost in translation with typed words. Therefore, people with very high charisma and great diplomacy skills are not going to be able to type out a long winded speach about how we should love everyone eloquently and have everyone believe it. That to me would be harder to keep up with if someone actually had to type in some impassioned plea. Remember, not all of us in real life have great lying capability or diplomacy, or intimidate..........so, you try your best with the typed word and if necessary, use a roll to back it up. That way, the noob can't just say, fuck you I am going to do what I want against you 20 level juggernaut.

Now, it does have to have its place and be at least believable, but I think the rolls are important to the game.

I agree with a lot of this, but there is still a problem.

A character that is designed to be a smooth talker, is NOT going to be the best fighter. That means he will be at a lower level for a longer time, probably, since he can't go out and gain massive amounts of experience at his liesure. What this ends up equating to, is that the guy who is better at killing ogres is the one who wins the dice rolls. Even if the dice roll has nothing to do with killing ogres. Skill points are gained through levels, and levels are gained through experience, and experience is gained through killing (this is not an opportunity for you to stand up and declare that you level only through RP experience. I don't care. Pat yourself on the back knowing that this doesn't apply to you then. You don't need to publicize it).

Point is, the grinding machines are the ones that win the dice rolls, whereas some of the greater character concepts, revolving around entirely non-combat oriented feats and skills, are left at a terrible disadvantage when it comes to doing what they were designed to do, which shouldn't even have anything to do with holding a weapon.

It just isn't fair, and the consequence of it is that the non-fighting types have to start fighting, just so that they can learn to use their ability to AVOID a fight, with a conversation. Killing big things with even bigger weapons doesn't make you diplomatic. For purpose of intimidation, it could make sense... but even then, it can be argued that it is very possible, and common, that people can appear intimidating even when they can't back up their words.

Level 3's SHOULD be allowed to appear intimidating, if their entire art is deception and charismatic talking... but rolls take that away, and the only way to stop it is to go out and get a huge wad of experience in a short amount of time, so that your character can actually defend their choice of where they sit against those that otherwise would just slaughter you with dice rolls that you can't compete against due to poor, unrelated combat proficiency.

[GodBeastX]

I disagree with the above. Killing orcs does get you smooth talking skill. See if you kill them and don't RP, then yes, you're just killing them. But if you're with different parties all the time, interacting with people, and smooth talking your way through Orc camps and enemies to get to their boss or get out of trouble, hells yeah you'd be good at smooth talking while you grind. (Not to be confused with a Grinder, the act of grind is to kill to get exp, the state of a grinder is one who specializes in grind)

[sparkeh]

I think its a very narrow view to see XP as just a return on monster killing. Fair enough, mechanically it is, but I think we should view it as a more abstract concept than that. It should recognise the overall experience, or learning, of an adventurer as he has more adventuring time. A seasoned adventurer will have travelled with others he can learn from, seen how others who are smooth talkers or intimidatators operate and picked something up from them.

The low level char has had little of this regardless of the char concept and the 'I'm a smooth talker so I should just win' attitude. Putting points into a skill is a decision to take that char in a certain direction but does not mean that the char that doesn't, definitely has no experience of it, especially for the conversation skills.