Flickerdart
2013-04-10, 02:36 PM
Diplomancers. Irritating, huh? And yet it's important to allow silver-tongued diplomats to talk down armed mobs. So what's a guy to do?
I would like to take a note from the system used in Crusader Kings 2, where a duke might admire and adore you, but that will not stop him from raising levies against you if he wants your title or another of your vassals has pressed him into their faction.
Enter: the opinion score. The opinion score augments the attitude spectrum (from Hostile to Fanatic) and is meant to determine whether or not people will actually do what you command. The opinion score is necessarily simple, because trying to figure out these things on the fly can be somewhat difficult. When trying to get a character to do something, use the following modifiers.
Base Reluctance: Everybody is a little bit selfish. The opinion score starts out at -1.
Attitude towards you: The creature's attitude towards you; -2 for Hostile, -1 for Unfriendly, 0 for Indifferent, 1 for Friendly, 2 for Helpful, 3 for Fanatic.
Attitude towards boss: Everyone owes fealty to someone. Use the inverse of the modifiers above (a creature that is Unfriendly towards their boss adds +1 to the opinion score). This modifier only applies when what you want the creature to do contradicts orders from above. A creature subject to no one, such as a king, always has a -2 in this category because they resent being told to do stuff.
Power: A commoner standing up to a knight will be inclined to obey, even if the knight doesn't threaten him, but a duke won't be intimidated even by high-level PCs while his guard is at his side. Add 1 to the score for every 2 points of CR difference between the PCs and the creature and its allies.
Circumstance: The DM may impose a +2 to -2 circumstance modifier based on factors like relationships between factions you and the target belong to, requests you've made of the target in the past, and so on.
If the total opinion score exceeds 0, the creature will accept your order and execute it (even if reluctantly). If the score is 0 or lower, the creature is not going to help you. It may want to, but social obligations still require that it refuse.
Take Alice, an experienced diplomat (Expert 3). She can, after a minute of conversation, convince a guy off the street (Commoner 1) to do something for her even if he had other things to do (because her Diplomacy gets his attitude to Friendly, and Alice's power means that he is just a little intimidated). But no amount of begging will get her to convince a guard (Warrior 1) to let her in to the evidence locker - even if her diplomacy means he is Helpful towards her, the three other guys in his squad serve as a reminder of his authority, and his respect for his commander puts the final opinion score at 0. In order to convince him to budge, Alice would need to either get him Fanatic towards her, or bring along some muscle of her own. Even fanaticism won't help if the guardman's opinion of his commander is stellar - he would be willing to die for Alice, but betraying the commander's trust is off limits. Likewise, after he's let her access the locker once, the circumstance modifier gives a -1 penalty and Alice is no longer able to ask him for another favour (such as letting her speak to a prisoner kept in solitary confinement) without doing him a favour in return or some such.
Alternatively, random ogres on the road, though they are hostile, will still clear off when Sir Bob the 20th level paladin demands it without him needing to make any check at all.
I would like to take a note from the system used in Crusader Kings 2, where a duke might admire and adore you, but that will not stop him from raising levies against you if he wants your title or another of your vassals has pressed him into their faction.
Enter: the opinion score. The opinion score augments the attitude spectrum (from Hostile to Fanatic) and is meant to determine whether or not people will actually do what you command. The opinion score is necessarily simple, because trying to figure out these things on the fly can be somewhat difficult. When trying to get a character to do something, use the following modifiers.
Base Reluctance: Everybody is a little bit selfish. The opinion score starts out at -1.
Attitude towards you: The creature's attitude towards you; -2 for Hostile, -1 for Unfriendly, 0 for Indifferent, 1 for Friendly, 2 for Helpful, 3 for Fanatic.
Attitude towards boss: Everyone owes fealty to someone. Use the inverse of the modifiers above (a creature that is Unfriendly towards their boss adds +1 to the opinion score). This modifier only applies when what you want the creature to do contradicts orders from above. A creature subject to no one, such as a king, always has a -2 in this category because they resent being told to do stuff.
Power: A commoner standing up to a knight will be inclined to obey, even if the knight doesn't threaten him, but a duke won't be intimidated even by high-level PCs while his guard is at his side. Add 1 to the score for every 2 points of CR difference between the PCs and the creature and its allies.
Circumstance: The DM may impose a +2 to -2 circumstance modifier based on factors like relationships between factions you and the target belong to, requests you've made of the target in the past, and so on.
If the total opinion score exceeds 0, the creature will accept your order and execute it (even if reluctantly). If the score is 0 or lower, the creature is not going to help you. It may want to, but social obligations still require that it refuse.
Take Alice, an experienced diplomat (Expert 3). She can, after a minute of conversation, convince a guy off the street (Commoner 1) to do something for her even if he had other things to do (because her Diplomacy gets his attitude to Friendly, and Alice's power means that he is just a little intimidated). But no amount of begging will get her to convince a guard (Warrior 1) to let her in to the evidence locker - even if her diplomacy means he is Helpful towards her, the three other guys in his squad serve as a reminder of his authority, and his respect for his commander puts the final opinion score at 0. In order to convince him to budge, Alice would need to either get him Fanatic towards her, or bring along some muscle of her own. Even fanaticism won't help if the guardman's opinion of his commander is stellar - he would be willing to die for Alice, but betraying the commander's trust is off limits. Likewise, after he's let her access the locker once, the circumstance modifier gives a -1 penalty and Alice is no longer able to ask him for another favour (such as letting her speak to a prisoner kept in solitary confinement) without doing him a favour in return or some such.
Alternatively, random ogres on the road, though they are hostile, will still clear off when Sir Bob the 20th level paladin demands it without him needing to make any check at all.