A long needed census, diplomacy skill counters

Something none of us are very clear on, what skills can we use to defend against a bluff, persuade, and intimidate check. No, this is not that bothersome mechanically, but RP wise its a pain, we need a set of skills we can use to counter it during RP. As this is not a suggestion to the server itself, but a census we need to decide for those that choose to use the skills. Also skills cannot be countered by ability scores, this is foolish to think as the modifiers added to the roll are far too low to be countered, not to mention that ability scores ADD to skills. I have looked and the only counters that exist documentally do not exist in NWN so we need our own system and choices to counter them.

These are my ideas on the matter:

Bluff counter-Spot (spot signs that they are lying), Lore (would go into what one knows to be true or not)

Persuade counter - discipline (one steeled enough to not give in to their ego), concentration (to concentrate on resisting their charm)

Intimidate counter - concentration (to concentrate and not give into the fear), Discipline (steel oneself and not back down when threatened)

These are my thoughts, 2 counters for each, usually used by one type of class or the other to resist these skills being used on them, any thoughts? I NEED your feedback on this, and if you honestly don;t care about this subject then it would be morally correct to not use the skill yourself if you do not expect it to be properly countered. We cannot scramble and bumble over deciding every time we run into this problem, it ruins immersion and interrupts RP.

I'm for spot vs bluff and discipline vs persuade/ intimidate. I remember using spot on another server (or trying to, as they didn't agree on it >.< ) as I thought well people have tells for when they're lying, so someone who is good at noticing things may spot a gesture that throws suspicion on what that person is saying. If Discipline can be used to ignore taunts, I can see it being used to ignore persuasion and intimidation- especially intimidation.

Lore could work, in the way that you must know someone is lying when you know red dragons exists and someone is telling you the opposite, but for some bluffs I'm not sure how Lore would work...
"So you can get in, get the treasure and then open the gate for us, while we're distracting the guards?"
"Of course, I'd never leave a buddy behind! (Bluff: He's going to get the treasure and scarper- why share the loot?)"
"Hmm.. *Rolls Lore* Ah, but my keen knowledge of rogues leads me to believe you are going to scam us by running away with the loot as we do all the work"
"Then why hire me knowing that?!"

Sure, the buddy could have thought up a better reason as to why he had lore that would throw doubt on the rogues bluff, but lore isn't just knowledge- such as knowing someone well enough to know when they're likely bluffing. Lore is common knowledge (Or there abouts) Stuff you can learn from hear-say or researching. I would say Lore could be used as a counter example in some situations, when some one's bluff could be dispelled by knowledge like Lore, such as in the red dragon example, but this could still cause issues. Sometimes the player doesn't have as much lore as their character. So the player see's someone is bluffing so they roll a lore check. They win. Okay... Now what? The player doesn't have much lore OOCly so they're not sure how their Char could see through this bluff. You could send a Tell to the bluffer, asking about what they lied about and the actual truth, but this can cause conflicts when the other player doesn't feel that is good RP or that a lore check would have helped.


Concentration again seems more of a situation based roll. Concentration seems to be rolling against distractions, so if the char is focusing on something and another char is trying to persuade/ intimidate them from doing so, concentration seems like a good counter roll. It could work in other situations too, it's just that I think discipline is a better roll in more situations.


It would help balance things out if we can all agree on these two roll checks so different classes have different chances, but it's also true some skills only have one counter skill (Taunt and discipline, I think?)

I know there are gaps as well but each has their flaws in a sense, i chose the best skills that i saw to counter and chose them, gave my reasons, and put them here. While Lore and Concentration are not perfect, You can not simply expect all mages to be gullible and egotistical to fall for a bluff or persuade, and discipline and spot are also not in their range of skills, I chose the 2 best skills i found that make sense, maybe not in all situations, but they make sense.

Since Intimidation is something that has to do with fear and scarin another one *mostly at least* I would recommend using a Will-throw for it, since all fear effects go to will.

Otherwise, well yep Bobby is right we need a fix on that.

Valerion while you have a good point, unless you are a paladin your saves will never be high enough to properly counter a skill check, even for paladins it is a stretch.

That's not really much of an excuse. There's something called Wisdom, an ability which you can pump up to improve your will save!

Yes at the cost of everything else, that doesn;t work, and even that does not send the saves high enough to counter, not even close.

I think we need a guide as to what rolls do what for rp. I have noticed that both dms and players have different notions on what says what.

A set of roll saves that fits this world. Also remember too many of us, myself included never really played with the rolling of the dice save factor as often.

Also what everyone should remember, the Characters cannot be milk giving egg laying woolpigs as we like to say in germany.
Every character is good at something, and bad at something aswell, so one should not complain about weaknesses in their defenses, or other points, you put your points where you want, but never should complain that this may leave them weak against some other odds that may occur.

Not implementing that someone is complaining about that particular fact! I just can't find other words for that so early in the morning.

Valerion wrote:...Characters cannot be milk giving egg laying woolpigs as we like to say in germany...

I would love to know the German word for that!

Be well. Game on!
GM_ODA

Eierlegende Wollmilchsau
egglaying, wool milk pig (sod/hog)

Egg-laying milk-giving woolpigs (sods/hogs)
Eier-legende Milch-gebende Wollsäue

I bid you good luck on pronouncing that.