About the DC of skill checks.


Advice


I've just started a game. Of course, early on simple checks will be low enough to pass. But how would you scale or say determine, the DC as the party goes up with their lvl?

Say, early on, the party of lvl 1 can roll a sense motive against a merchant. (Maybe he wants to scam them over prices)
But when they reach say lvl 4, where would one set the DC on skill checks of the social skills for convincing or sense motive on, example, a prominent figure? (either a person in power or a special named NPC)


For Sense Motive you tend to use it against an opposed Bluff check - so it depends on how skilled and charismatic the person trying to deceive them is (plus the luck of a d20).

Liberty's Edge

Matthew Downie wrote:
For Sense Motive you tend to use it against an opposed Bluff check - so it depends on how skilled and charismatic the person trying to deceive them is (plus the luck of a d20).

This.

DCs are as listed, which means as you go up in level you get progressively more ridiculous at things with set DCs...but most things have scaling DCs to some extent (identifying a magic item with Spellcraft is DC 15 + Caster Level, so 16-35, for example), though even with those, you eventually hit the point where it's pretty easy if you focus on that skill.

The real challenges are opposed skill checks. Can you sneak up on a Dragon? Well, that's your Stealth vs. his Perception (and Dragons have killer Perception). Can you tell if that guy is lying? Depends on how good a liar he is. And so on and so forth. You rapidly leave random merchants in the dust if you focus on Sense Motive...but the mayor might well be higher level or have invested more in his ability to lie. And to spot lies and manipulation.


1st, thanks for the replies.

But do you want to give away if they are lying?

Grand Lodge RPG Superstar 2012 Top 32

GM Chyro wrote:

1st, thanks for the replies.

But do you want to give away if they are lying?

If your plot requires the protagonists to succeed/fail at something in order to progress properly, then an RPG is probably not the best medium in which to tell your story.


I always write down the modifiers for things like Bluff, Sense Motive, Perception, Stealth, Linguistics and so on and make those rolls for the players out of their sight. It takes a degree of trust, but it helps create tension and eliminate metagaming if the players have no more information than the characters.

Sovereign Court

Pathfinder Battles Case Subscriber; Pathfinder Maps, Starfinder Adventure Path, Starfinder Maps, Starfinder Roleplaying Game, Starfinder Society Subscriber; Pathfinder Roleplaying Game Charter Superscriber

I came up with this little chart a few years a go that I use for things like Sense Motive checks.

Degree of Certainty
d6 + Wis modifier
1 = no idea
2 = not very certain
3 = somewhat certain
4 = fairly certain
5 = very certain
6 = absolutely certain

Then "translate" the player's d20 skill check roll suing the chart below, where the first column is the actual d20 roll, and the next columns are the player's Degree of Certainty. Add the player's skill check modifier the translated number.

d20. 1... 2... 3... 4... 5... 6
1..... 10. 1... 1... 1... 1... 1
2..... 3... 7... 7... 2... 2... 2
3..... 1... 15. 5... 9... 4... 3
4..... 13. 10. 8... 3... 3... 4
5..... 18. 5... 4... 8... 7... 5
6..... 17. 8... 10. 7... 5... 6
7..... 20. 13. 9... 15. 6... 7
8..... 14. 17. 12. 11. 10. 8
9..... 5... 18. 18. 4... 12. 9
10... 16. 16. 3... 5... 8... 10
11... 19. 3... 6... 6... 9... 11
12... 9... 19. 19. 13. 13. 12
13... 15. 4... 2... 17. 11. 13
14... 7... 11. 15. 12. 16. 14
15... 2... 14. 16. 14. 14. 15
16... 8... 6... 13. 10. 15. 16
17... 6... 9... 15. 18. 18. 17
18... 11. 12. 14. 16. 17. 18
19... 4... 2... 11. 19. 19. 19
20... 12. 20. 20. 20. 20. 20

The chart doesn't actually change the odds of making a given skill check, it just masks to a greater or lesser degree what the roll was, so a player who rolls a 19 can't automatically feel like her Sense Motive check is right on, just 'cause she rolled high (or wrong just 'cause she rolled low). Players with higher Wis are going to be better able to judge the accuracy of their attempts.

For example, player w/ Sense Motive +6 and a Wis mod +2. Rolls d6 and d20. Gets a 2 and a 9. 2 +2 = 4, fairly certain. On the "fairly certain" list, a 9 translates to a 4 +6 = 10. "He seems to be telling the truth, and you feel fairly confident about your assessment."

I know, it's an extra step, and not worth it if it rarely happens in your games, but if players are all the time trying to meta-game by saying "9 +6 = 15, good roll, if there's anything there I woulda' seen it," and you want to toss some uncertainty into it, this is an easy way to do it.

Note: This also works for when a player rolls a 2 on Perception, "You don't see any traps." Followed by, "Okay guys, I rolled bad, there's a trap."

Liberty's Edge

GM Chyro wrote:

1st, thanks for the replies.

But do you want to give away if they are lying?

If the PCs not seeing through their lies is really important to the plot...well, there are a whole lot of ways to make a character a good liar. You can do a 1st level Human with +17 Bluff if they really focus on it. And if they roll a 1 and the PCs roll a 20? Well, that's the way it goes sometimes...


Stuff to think about indeed.

Jiggy wrote:
If your plot requires the protagonists to succeed/fail at something in order to progress properly, then an RPG is probably not the best medium in which to tell your story.

No, i don't intend to make it that difficult, there'd be ways around to find out relevant info too. But if NPC X declares "i haven't seen/heard topic Y", would it be more suitable to ask for the dc and spoiler the results, or let it up to the players, rolling a bluff vs their sense motive afterwards?

Since sometimes the hint for "make a sense motive" isn't given away and left to the players' whim to do so.

Liberty's Edge

GM Chyro wrote:

No, i don't intend to make it that difficult, there'd be ways around to find out relevant info too. But if NPC X declares "i haven't seen/heard topic Y", would it be more suitable to ask for the dc and spoiler the results, or let it up to the players, rolling a bluff vs their sense motive afterwards?

Since sometimes the hint for "make a sense motive" isn't given away and left to the players' whim to do so.

Generally, if they don't make Sense Motive rolls (which is their choice) they don't get info like "He's lying."

This trains players to make Sense Motive rolls real quick.

Grand Lodge RPG Superstar 2012 Top 32

If this is for a PbP, then you might consider having a "Secret GM Stuff" spoiler in every single post you make, so that the players are used to seeing it. Then make any Sense Motive (or other) checks for them as needed (they'll be none the wiser that a check was even made) and then give out info to individual players (via PM or spoilers with their names on them) as appropriate.


I don't think this has been fully crunched, but from what I've seen Sense Motive doesn't scale even close to what bluff can.


Generally my advice is: DON'T scale the DCs of skill checks as players level up. This can be excruciatingly hard to do as a GM, but I still think it's the best option.

For example, the DC of the diplomacy check to make the King/Queen accept your proposal should be based on the strength of your proposal, not how high level you are. Say it's a pretty good plan, you might set the DC at 15 because the King/Queen have learned to be cautious of the advice of strangers. That's the DC. That's the DC whether they're level 2 or level 20.

You want to bluff the level 1 bar bouncer into letting you in. He's big and tough but not too bright, he's got a rank in Sense-motive though (he wont let just ANYONE in) and probably found a way to make it a class skill, maybe he's a rogue. So his opposed sense motive might be somewhere in the area of +3 if he has a negative WIS mod. Again, his opposed check should be about +3 whether the party is level 2 or level 20.

Now if there is a good reason that said NPC might have better stats than by all means, if instead of the bouncer at "The Lucky Dumpling" the NPC is the King's personal bodyguard, they might have a significantly higher WIS score and be higher level.

Try to set the DCs based on the situation and the NPCs involved (if any) and not at how good the PCs are at overcoming such challenges. Otherwise you only make their skill ranks meaningless as the DCs get harder as they level up. You also will run into another problem: At high level the party bard will still be able to talk his way past anything, but your party Barbarian won't even have the slightest chance, even if their proposal/cover story is a very good one.

Liberty's Edge

MattR1986 wrote:
I don't think this has been fully crunched, but from what I've seen Sense Motive doesn't scale even close to what bluff can.

Eh. Bluff has a handful of items that increase it, plus Glibness, that there aren't equivalents for. But...you can easily design such items, and while Glibness is pretty ridiculous there are some spells that boost Sense Motive, too.

Bards (and anyone else who manages to get Glibness) can lie pretty well to almost anyone, and people who focus on Sense Motive are effectively impossible to lie to, barring Glibness, and not pushovers even counting it.


Glibness is nice, but discern lies and the like is pretty easy to thwart


GM Chyro wrote:


Say, early on, the party of lvl 1 can roll a sense motive against a merchant. (Maybe he wants to scam them over prices)
But when they reach say lvl 4, where would one set the DC on skill checks of the social skills for convincing or sense motive on, example, a prominent figure? (either a person in power or a special named NPC)

I generally don't scale for level. A 4th level PC should have a somewhat easier time telling if the basic merchant is lying about something when put to a direct question. However, what exactly is the nature of the lie? And will a discerning PC be able to figure out exactly what it is or merely that the merchant isn't telling the whole truth.

For example, there are market places in which haggling is the normal custom. Any PC with good investment in sense motive will detect virtually everybody as lying - so what good does it do? Everyone knows the haggling game involved misrepresentation of the true cost and the circumstances of the merchant and buyer both. That said, you could use it to feed information to the player "He's asking for this price but you get the impression he might accept much less."[/b] or "He's asking for this price, but you get the impression that's a just a wild attempt to see how high you'll go and he's not really firm about it."

And don't forget that Bluff comes with modifiers. If the lie is plausible or, better, if the PCs really want to believe him (and who wouldn't want to believe him if he's selling you something really good, right? You want to believe he's selling you a vorpal axe of wounding at cost, don't you?), you get to add +5 to his bluff check, making it that much harder to see through.


I'll take everything here into consideration.
Thanks for the replies.

Bill Dunn wrote:
For example, there are market places in which haggling is the normal custom.

Actually, for the campaign there's a homebrew feat named haggler. Increased gp when selling stuff, provided they pass a low diplomacy or bluff. :)

Sovereign Court

I agree with the other people: don't arbitrarily make things harder just because the PCs go up a level. As a player that feels like the GM is just cheating, moving the goalposts.

"It used to be DC 20 (or so) to get Joe Bouncer to let you in, but now that I've put skill points in it, because I wanted to be better at that, it's suddenly DC 30. Those skill points were a waste."

Instead, at some point the PCs just become the biggest fish in the local pond. People will notice that, and look to them to deal with the big problems. Likewise, the local small pond will start to feel small, and you can see a bigger more exciting pond over there. But in that pond the other fishes are also bigger...

===

As for asking for Sense Motive checks. Explain once or twice to your players that it's up to them to call for checks. If they don't trust something, they can just roll Sense Motive and tell you the result.

Meanwhile, you Take 10 for the NPC's Bluff all the time, so there's no dice rolls to make your players more suspicious than they already are.

If they meet the DC but the NPC wasn't lying, they now know for sure he's okay. If they fail the DC but the NPC wasn't lying, tell them they're not really sure - the NPC seems sincere, but they're just not entirely certain.

If they meet the DC and the NPC is lying, they've caught him. If he's lying and they fail, then they're just not sure - just like if they fail the check and he's not lying.

Oh, and while you're not cheating with the DCs, that doesn't mean you tell them the DC. It'll take them a couple of checks before they figure out what number they need to beat.

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