Does Anyone Take the Diplomacy Rules Seriously?

[Judging__Eagle]

Hmm; why don't you have your Diplomacy Checks degrade over time?

So, once X amount of time passes; your Diplomacy Check goes down Y amount; lets say your initial check goes down by 5 every 5 rounds, minutes, hours or days (the degredation rate starts at days for one change in diplomacy step; then hours if the target was changed 2 steps; then minutes if they were changed 3 steps and finally rounds if they were changed by 4 or more alignment 'steps').

This continutes until it reaches a state where the check is 1/2 of your initial total check or the last state of diplomacy that the target was at

That is, you can't reduce the diplomacy steps to less than what they were before; however a really good check could permenantely keep someone at a higher check than before.

So, with a check of.... 49; on a friendly person, will make them automatically friendly. It will go down 44 in 5 days, since the diplomacy step was only changed by 1 step.

The check will keep going down until either of the two occurs:

1. The target is back to Friendly again (this value is based on 15+ Hit dice + Wis Mod +/- Assosiated Risk/Reward and Association modifiers).

Or

2. The check goes down to 20.



So, end result:

You can tell the evil necromacer to stop attacking you; but in about a minute or two he'll either make a getaway, drop a silence s he isn't confused by you again and then attack you.


Seriously; Jump, Tumble and Bluff are used as 'combat' maneouvers; Diplomacy could be used as a way to temporarily convince people that you're on thier side or that they don't want to stop you from doing something.

[Brobdingnagian]

So, to sum up. You can tell a person something, and because you're uber-persuasive, they believe. Five minutes later, you're off doing it to someone else, and the first guy is like, "Wait, he got me to do what? Dammit, I'm going to kill him..."

That makes sense.

[Judging__Eagle]

Exactly.

Diplomancers get to beat off their Diplomacy Wang.

DMs get their NPCs back in their hands after a few days pass, at the most.

Also, even if you do convince someone to work for you; they could still like you when your around, but could be feeding ino to other people who intimidate them.

But that's Roleplaying and NPC-Player character development.

We dont' want that RC, do we?

[Crissa]

Why do you get all these crazy skills anyhow?

Why don't we just say the Rogue gets eight skills, and roll them as their class level and throw away this stupid point mechanism? If you have a stat bonus in int, you can spend it on int skills, if you have one in dex, you can spend it on physical skills and if you have wisdom you can spend it on charisma and sense skills.

If you want to keep the whole synergy thing, then you could have DC skills that seperate from VS skills, and so you can get Balance, then Swimming or Climbing or Local Knowledge (new place) or Language later.

Also, I'd put Reading/Writing as a dang skill. D&D treats it too dang lightly - everyone can read everything, so why have translate skills?

Personally, I hate the current Skill system. It's three systems pretending to be one, and I hate the pool of points, it's one big mess on my character sheet for no reason.

...And the skill system as is basically means someone who don't know how to swim can save someone who does if the right situational bonuses are in place - which they usually are.

That seems to be the Diplomacy problem, not Diplomacy itself - it just happens to be a skill you can steal the castle with, unlike Swimming.

-Crissa

[Brobdingnagian]

No, see, the current skill system is functional. It allows for variability in characters and a simple mechanic to perform almost any task. The problem is individual skills that are unbalanced in their usage. You can literally Diplomacy anyone into killing themselves if you're good enough. Mind you, by the time you are good enough to do that, death is really just a mild inconvenience, but that's another point entirely.

...And the skill system as is basically means someone who don't know how to swim can save someone who does if the right situational bonuses are in place - which they usually are.

What are you talking about? When are circumstantial bonuses ever in place for swimming? With a double armour check penalty (which makes sense) and the swimming DC's being just plain hard to make if you don't know what you're doing (have no ranks), and the fact that a circumstance bonus is never more than +2, and then considering the fact that if someone is swimming to the same spot as someone else, a circumstance bonus would likely apply to both of them, how do you come to the conclusion that someone who can't swim can save someone who can?

Whew. Sorry about the run-on sentence there. Anyway, point being, if you had "They can do it if they get lucky enough", I would've left it alone, because these things can happen in D&D if someone rolls well enough. Oddly, though, people can be luckier or unluckier in real life than they ever could in D&D.

As said by Mark Twain, "The only difference between reality and fiction is that fiction has to be credible."

[Iaimeki]

GitP's Diplomacy succeeds at some of his specific goals, but still has the fundamental problem with Diplomacy: it's way too easy for a character to use Diplomacy to win the game. Once you have a Diplomacy check about +25 higher than your level, you expect to be able to make your level-appropriate worst enemy hand over their castle to you for a bit of dirty string. Of course, the skill system is broken: while there's a notion of what a level-appropriate skill check is, cross-classing penalties mean that many characters have skill checks which are a fraction of the level-appropriate check on the low end; and there are so many ways to push skill bonuses, on the high-end there's no reasonable limit on what skill check a devoted character can put together. However, that's not the central problem: that Diplomacy is a skill that lets you win the game is. Cheesing UMD so you can cast a blasphemy that kills Pelor outright doesn't actually make you win the game, but pushing your Diplomacy so high you can convert Hextor into your groupie does.

Fixing Diplomacy requires fixing the more serious problem: you need a definition of what Diplomacy can and can't accomplish that makes it so people can't use it to win the game. At that point, it will be no more broken than a skill like UMD, which lets you do crazy and stupid things. Improving that situation would require overhauling the skill system.

[Catharz]

Diplomacy is a really fucked-up skill. Compare to climb: Climb pits your skill at climbing against the difficulty of what you're trying to climb (the basic skill model). You can give a few base DCs based on what you want a trained (~+5) individual to be able to accomplish, and how easily. From there, any DM can hand wave how hard 'climbing up a hanging rug,' 'swinging under a rope bridge,' or 'climbing up a wall of force' is.

Bluff is also mostly an easy skill: You try to lie to someone, and they try to tell that you're lying. Modifiers apply based on what you're trying to convince them of, base on what a novice con man (~+5) should be able to accomplish against a novice detective (Sense Motive ~+5).

Of course, there are a few aspects to the bluff skill that make it more difficult. Seduction, for axample, is convincing someone that you're really into them when you're not. This is easy to adjudicate: Bluff vs. Sense Motive as always.
The hard part is adjudicating how you convince them that they're really into you. You could come up with some sort of table ('Same sex/Straight: +3 DC, Same sex/Gay: -2 DC, Married: -4 DC,' and 'Fey vs. Humanoid: -2 DC, Aberration vs. Humanoid: +2 DC, Dragon vs. Fanboy/girl: -20 DC,' etc). Unfortunately, there's no real reason that convincing someone that they're into you should be Bluff (seduction) instead of Diplomacy (romance) or Disguise (sexy makeup).

Diplomacy is just fucked up. I don't even know what the skill is supposed to do. Is it convincing people that you're telling the truth when you actually are? Is it convincing people that they like you (the other half of seduction)? Is it getting the best end of any deal?

There's a lot of weird overlap in all the interaction skills. Intimidation is Bluffing, Bluffing my sometimes be Diplomacy, Gathering Information is every other interaction skill but offscreen! Until things are straightened out, rules for Diplomacy probably won't make any sense regardless of balance.

[Hey_I_Can_Chan]

Once again I preach the word of Spycraft 2.0, the system that makes all of these d20 things come together in a reasonable whole.

'craft ditches the whole diplomacy thing and spreads it out over several skills (Impress, Intimidate, Manipulate, Networking, and even Streetwise) because interaction is more than just, "He's my friend now so I can totally fvck him over." No, it's what do you want him to do now and how do you keep him doing that?

The problem with the Dungeons and Dragons skills is that they are way too undefined and, in many cases, don't really do anything.

Skills on your character sheet are placeholders until you can get magic to replace them. And that blows.

[User3]

After reading Catharz' takes on the Bluff skill, it reminded me of this thread over at the WotC board:


[counturl=48]* linkee *[/counturl]

it started off debating the brokenness of the Glibness spell, but eventually got to be a clarification discussion on how the skill BLUFF is supposed to be used and ajudicated.

There are a few posts in the thread by the poster who goes by the name "Dereliction" that are really worth reading. He really has a good take on how to use Bluff in the 3.5 d&d game.

[RandomCasualty]

1173314360[/unixtime]]
Also, even if you do convince someone to work for you; they could still like you when your around, but could be feeding ino to other people who intimidate them.

But that's Roleplaying and NPC-Player character development.

We dont' want that RC, do we?

Roleplaying and chracter development? Are you kidding?

Your NPCs have no character development, they're all spineless craptards who happen to go along with the first semi-slick talker who comes along. Then when some halfling with a big intimidate score comes along, your great wyrm is shaking in fear.

What possible character development can you have if all your NPCs are ridiculously stupid yes-men and cowards?

Sorry, but I generally prefer heroic fantasy, as opposed to a game where Sauron wets himself and pathetically hands over the One ring without a fight because Frodo happened to speak in a scary voice.

[Judging__Eagle]

Well, if Frodo could do that, he's no longer Frodo.

He's the intimidating-focused equivalent of Sauron (who is best known as an item crafter, spell caster and general).

So, if the Sauron-equivalent of scaring people faces Sauron, I'd expect him to be scared.

Let's call the class Social Engineer, and that's their thing, they get people to do what they want them to. Via their own training and experience and no magic.

[tzor]

I’m curious as to what people think the diplomacy rules actually do “as written.” Looking at the SRD they seem more on the weak side than on the powerful side.

I see two issues here, the first being what it does. “You can change the attitudes of others (nonplayer characters) with a successful Diplomacy check.” Changing attitudes does not mean the person blindly follows whatever the person says. The most extreme attitude helpful says “Will take risks to help you.” Of course one does need to really define what a “risk” is. (Now there the epic diplomacy but just getting a person from helpful to fanatic is as difficult as getting someone from hostile to helpful.)

The second issue involved the DC and the lack of opposition. Brobdingnagian mentioned that he had “a Rogue who gets 49 regularly on his Diplomacy checks.” By the SRD what exactly does that mean? Well the DC to get an unfriendly to helpful is 40 at least by the SRD. But wait, there’s a slight problem. “Changing others’ attitudes with Diplomacy generally takes at least 1 full minute (10 consecutive full-round actions).” I think it’s fair to say that if anyone let’s a unfriendly person talk to them for one full minute he’s effectively throwing both his saving throws, common sense aside. “A rushed Diplomacy check can be made as a full-round action, but you take a -10 penalty on the check.” So the DC is actually 50 not 40 and the guard is merely friendly.

Now what if the creature is hostile? Assuming you are not trying to spend 10 rounds talking to a hostile creature and are taking the “rushed” full turn action you basically hand that creature an attack of opportunity.

So going by the SRD alone I don’t think it really is all that powerful. Too many people pace assumptions on diplomacy that are too powerful. I think the Giant’s modifications are based on assumptions that the skill does more than the SRD says and that he wants it to do more than the SRD says it does.

[Judging__Eagle]

Well, if the DC was 50 not 40, then he wouldn't make the check.

Instead his check is 39 compared against a Hostile target which makes them Friendly.

His next round, me makes an other rushed check of 39 vs DC 20 (friendly to helpful).

The thing is, most of this relatively high check is b/c of the Eberron Rogue's first level racial substitution ability.

You lose Trapfinding in order ot take 10 with any social skill.

Seriously, trapfinding. Not Trapsense, trapfinding.

Then people claim that the class is broken after you give up the most important rogue class feature.

In our large group it's broken since we also have a changeling ninja who's the trapfinder, but whatever; his 1st level of rogue he got Social Intuition since he already had Trapfinding from his ninja levels and was losing nothing.





So, if we have a lvl 7 character who took 1 level of changeling rogue, and a level of marshall, and a level of bard we get:

10 Taking '10'
10 Skill ranks
+5 Charisma Modifier (18 start, +2 item?)
+5 Motivate Charimsa, Marshall aura

+3 Circlet of Persuasion

+2 5 ranks in Bluff
+2 5 Ranks in Sense Motive
+2 5 Ranks in knowledge (Royalty and Nobility)

=39

Where are you getting 49 from man?

I'm referrencing to the diplomacy charts at d20srd.org in this next part.

It doesn't matter anyway, since with a rushed check he can get someone hostile to indifferent (29 vs 25) and then from indifferent to friendly (29 vs 15) and then from friendly to helpful (29 vs 20).

So, 18 seconds, versus a minute (60 seconds) and even in a minute he couldn't go from hostile to helpful (since it's a DC of 50).

So, it can be done pretty fast; and there are no rules for how long this lasts.

I took a look at the Epic Usages of Diplomacy and noted that the Fanatic entry lasts 1 day per point of Charsima modifier that you have.

After that it changes to it's initial state before it became fanatic, or indifferent if no state was put before that.

So, you could chane someone from hostile to indifferent (that lasts your cha mod in days); then indifferent to friendly (again, your cha mod in days); and finally friendly to helpful (again, your cha mod in days).

Meaning that you have your cha mod in days before they come around to wanting to kill you.

If of course they are always around you and you are layering on the diplomacy every day; then of course they will remain that way.


Which makes sense.


Really charismatic people work best in one on one contact with others; if they can maintain the contact the relationship improves over time.

If they relationship isnt' maintained, then the relationship suffers as time passes.

[tzor]

If you are using the hypertext d20 SRD (which was what I also used) you will note that under the label of try again it reads:

Optional, but not recommended because retries usually do not work. Even if the initial Diplomacy check succeeds, the other character can be persuaded only so far, and a retry may do more harm than good. If the initial check fails, the other character has probably become more firmly committed to his position, and a retry is futile.

So the abiliy to take someone from level 1 to level 2 and the later from level 2 to level 3 is optional but not reccomended. I would highly reccomend following the not reccomended. It makes for a better game without having to rewrite the rules as much.

[Maj]

The problem I have with the Diplomacy rules is the same problem I have with a large portion of the skills in D&D - they don't scale based on level, nor do they reasonably approximate what a specialist character is able to do, so the fixed DCs are hopelessly low.

[Judging__Eagle]

Yeah, but the no retry's rule seems focused on one thing:

You Failed or you will probably fail.


If you don't fail; that is, succeed in changing the target's perceptions, then they're at a new state than they had before.

Since there is now a new relationship, you can try against their new alignment.


The optional rule is if you fail to change their relationship step with repsect to yourself.

The reason that they state to not re-try is simple "because retries usually do not work....and a retry may do more harm than good".

If you know for a fact that you can not fail; why would you stop doing something?


Seriously, if you have a lvl 7 character with a BaB of... +3 to +4; you know they're not meant to do combat.

With no spellcasting aside from level 0 bard spells; you know for a fact that they're not going to cast spells.

Meaning whatever they remain good at they will use all the time.

Since it's what they're good at.

Telling a peson who invests very heavily in being good at diplomacy (at the expense of everything else) that they can't be a diplomat because you don't want him to be diplomatic is like telling the fighter that he can't attack in melee since you don't want him to attack and kill people or telling the cleric that you don't want him to turn undead b/c you want the undead to threaten or harm the party.


Maj, try the giant in the playground rules for diplomacy; then throw in diplomatic step-change decay (1 day per point of Cha mod to move from the last state to either indifferent or the initial state). Meaning that the checks are harder to make versus tougher creatures and moreso if they're creatures that don't like you.

Also, so long as you never fail by 10, you can always re-try and haggle. Since you know, people actually do haggle in real life.

The DCs start with a baseline of 15 + Hit Dice + Wis mod +/- 0/2/5/7/10 [relationship ex: Spouse/best friend/Cleric of the same diety as you/Guy you sell looted armour & weapons to/Stranger/Town guard that knows your a drunk/Cleric of a diety that hates your diety/Guys who know you're personally going to thwart them (evil warlord)/Arch-Rival (guy whose family you killed)] and +/- 0/5/10 [risk/reward ratio ex: pay for info that everyone knows/give someone 1st dibs of loot if they help with a raid vs a weak enemy/ask for directions to a place that isn't a secret/ask a guard to be lax in their duty for a tiny bribe which will prolly get them fired/offer some poor lands for a castle]. Personally, the dirt string for a castle should be -20, not -10.

In any case; if we use that and look at say, a situation that occured with Brodingagin's changeling rogue Zero.

Zero wanted to convince a hill giant that attacking us was probably a bad idea and that it should work for us.

So, DC: = 15 + 12 + 0 + 2 [it had been kiling ppl for a while now] + 0
= 29

With a rushed check he just makes check to keep himself from being attacked.

Of course, the giant attacks the rest of the group and launches a boulder at Zero anyway.

We beat the giant up; kill his dire wolf pets and then convince him that he's part of our tribe since we beat him up.

Then again, our group of player really hates having to kill monsters that have surrendered or that we've beaten. Heck, if it wasn't for the undead-hating healer we probably would have had the mummy we captured later in the adventure taken back home as a prisoner instead of being executed by the cleric.

We've already ruined the world's largest dungeon game once by conscripting everything that we meet that we can reason with into joining us and finding an exit out of the dungeon.

The Eberron game was sort of the same, except that we've got the equivalent of Nazis (Emerarld Claw or Lord of Blades agents) to kill.

The game that I ran ground to a halt in the middle of a D&D equivalent to Stalingrad where the PCs led Gnomish refugees and their Warforged troops to reclaim thier acient undermountain city.

Up until that point however, they had killed a goblin warchief and taken their rights as rulers over the goblins and used the goblins to populate the fields around a keep that they had purchased early on in the campaign.

They had established trade relations with a shadowy organization that used all sorts of magical equipment to build a trade outpost on land leased from the heroes. They had freed kobolds from orcish slavery, but deicided to keep them on as henchmen, servants and workers.

Later, before they were able to help the Gnomes establish the first toehold into their original underground stripmine (ful of adamantine veins) they met up with an Orge Magess and after killing her and her Mountain Troll henchman, they were able to coerce the remaining orc mercenaries and their wartroll captain into working for them.

[RandomCasualty]

1173748951[/unixtime]]Well, if Frodo could do that, he's no longer Frodo.

He's the intimidating-focused equivalent of Sauron (who is best known as an item crafter, spell caster and general).

So, if the Sauron-equivalent of scaring people faces Sauron, I'd expect him to be scared.

Sauron is pretty damn intimidating, I mean he's the freaking dark lord, basically a god. I don't believe intimidation should be a standalone skill to the point where you can totally suck at everything, but people are scared at you because you put a flashlight under your face and talk all spooky.

Honestly, I'd prefer to think the warrior who crushes a guys skull with his bare hand or the wizard who just turns a wall into dust is scarier than some halfling social expert.

As far as major NPCs being scared like that, I don't really buy it. This is heroic fantasy. Sure, you can scare the pants off some orcs and that's fine. But your big bad guy is supposed to be... well a freaking bad ass. The story loses a lot of value if he suddenly turns out to be a total pussy cowering in a corner.

Yeah, maybe if the guy is known to be a coward, and is supposed to be a Lex Luthor type of villain sure, but you shouldn't have some god of darkness quaking in his boots when you haven't even done anything but talk up a good game. At that point, your master villain turns into a pushover and your adventure pretty much doesn't feel epic anymore. It's just comical and stupid.

Let's call the class Social Engineer, and that's their thing, they get people to do what they want them to. Via their own training and experience and no magic.

But as I've been saying, it's a crappy concept. It's counter to a team game, because presumably you're traveling with people who want to fight and your entire schtick involves avoiding fights. So you prevent all your other PCs from doing what they're specialized at.

Not to mention, it's not particularly balanced when you get to the level where you've got armies of guys on a moments notice or you can convince merchants to give you all their items for free.

Really, diplomacy needs to have limits. Negotiation is a secondary skill, not a primary character focus, and should be treated as such.

[Judging__Eagle]

Hmm, yeah.

The whole 'prevention of fights' is mostly why he's going to remake as a RoW fighter.

6 levels of having someone able to make us avoid all of our fights got to be annoying for everyone.

And DMs that say they like RP like. They dont' want RP they want the PCs to act as characters in their story. They want hack and slash and cut scenes. So, no RP.

If they wanted RP, they'd know how to deal with a social engineer. Which, frankly is hard snce you have to know how to do that yourself.

[Brobdingnagian]

Where are you getting 49 from man?

Sorry, typo.

Also, RC. Okay, you want a boss who can't be intimidated? Easy. Add immune to fear effects to his special qualities. And also keep in mind that the combat effects of Intimidate are absolutely worthless at mid-high levels. Oh no, I'm shaken, I get a -2 to attack rolls and skill checks, big whoop.

Now onto the big issue.

Combat should not be the primary focus of D&D. Combat is the primary focus of FF and WoW. The primary focus of D&D is gaming. If you're running a combat game, then you should just outright disallow skills like diplomacy and bluff entirely. Anything that is allowed in a game should be something that a person can specialise in and still be useful. If I were running a campaign where all anyone wanted to do was fight, I'd just assign them level appropriate gear and run them through the encounters, disallow all interaction skills (Intimidate, Bluff, GI, Diplomacy, and Sense Motive), Knowledge skills, Proffession skills, Perform skills, and probably movement skills (Climb, Jump, and Swim, if there's not going to be anything over the water).

HOWEVER.

Playing a game of D&D is not supposed to be straight combat. It's supposed to be equal parts combat and social interaction. Therefore, it's only fair that a character can specialise in social interaction. After all, the Barbarian can fight great, but he'll probably get ripped off in the market. He specialises in one half of the game, so someone should be able to specialise in the other half.

It's a story told by everyone, and sometimes, people actually enjoy a story where one of the characters can talk his way past almost anything, and where the main villain, having heard of this person by reputation and being extremely intelligent, has a silence spell ready at all times, just in case.

I'd argue more, but I have to go to work.

[tzor]

The real problem with diplomacy is that most people try to make it what it clearly is not. Unless you are talking epic diplomacy success in diplomacy doesn’t guarantee that the character will get what he wants. Yes even your best friend can tell you “no.” The guy, who thinks of you like the son he never had, can still tell you “no.”

I won’t get into what D&D is supposed to be about. I’ve played since first edition AD&D and I’ve seen the game radically changed with the advent of non weapon proficiencies. I will say that there is a significant problem with non combat related social interactions. The game is generally divided into two modes; there is the detailed six second round combat mode and there is the general more laid back non combat mode. Whole debates are focused around when it is appropriate to go from one mode to another.

Non combat is vague and doesn’t deal with minute to minute details. Gather information is an example of a non combat skill. It just assumes you go out somewhere and talk to people. Skills like diplomacy are pseudo-combat situations which assume a combat like interaction but outside of formal combat. It is less the skill being broken or poor than the whole mode of interaction not clearly being defined within game terms that is the cause of most problems.

[TarlSS]

Honestly, yeah, no diplomacy doesn't work in the game. It's the only skill that has pretty much unbounded potential.

Really, instead of winning over people, it should mean that person is really good at making -arguments-. Sophistry, Speechcraft that sort of thing. I think that would fulfill the negotiation purpose of the skill. Haggling, Legalese, etc. Diplomacy should measure your persuasiveness in terms of academics- a good essay isn't going to turn a Conservative Republican into a democrat or anything like that.

The entire idea of a rule that allows a character to 'charm' NPCs is pretty ridiculous because there's just no good way to write something like that- it should purely be an interaction between the DM and the Player.
Just leave it in the abstract.

As to respond to Brobdingnan,
I'm afraid that you are wrong. You can play with as little social interaction as you like. Many games in fact, do away with it. Social Interaction is a much bigger part of White Wolf games like Vampire because those games have a setting and system that promotes it. D&D does not.
Most of D&D in fact, promotes asskicking. The fact that D&D carries over by SYSTEM, rather than a SETTING, means that while your froofy social interaction meanderings can change and it will still be D&D, the fundamental asskickingness and style of asskicking will in fact, remain the same.

The D&D SYSTEM is one composed of combat and only combat. The only rules that exist, by and large exist solely for their application in combat.
Note how rules on overland travel, spotting, hiding, non-combat movement and anything dealing with NONCOMBAT applications are sparse, poorly written, and difficult to find.

Note how all combat relevant statistics of any class go up automatically as they level, while social interaction skills do not. In fact, they are lumped solely into four optional, poorly explained skills: Bluff, Diplomacy, Disguise and Sense Motive. That is where all the mechanics of social interaction go into, along with a few spells. That's not even four pages worth.
So really, 'diplomancers' should not be mechanically viable because they simply do not fit with the system.

The real division here is not Combat vs Non-Combat, but rather "Fluff vs Crunch". Crunch is Combat, Fluff is Social Interaction. Social Interaction is where all your setting crap flies in- whether you're in a democratic nation or not, the type of people there are, who you're talking to and what they look like...blah blah blah blah blah.

None of those factors have any systematic numerical values assigned to them like every aspect of combat does, so how can you expect a fair result when running it through a 'system' that's barely complete? Hell, the current Diplomacy system doesn't account for the fact that Diplomacy must have at least TWO parties involved, so BOTH party's statistics should have some impact on the result. But the fact is, at a high enough level, the current system becomes a onesided mess.

So if you want a STORY about a guy that can talk his way out of anything, and still provide a good game? Then get a DM willing to provide that STORY, because that's his department.
The DM supplies the fluff, adjucates the social interaction, and provides the social interaction, period.
The only reason you'd need the system to provide guidelines is in case of disagreement.
The system as written unfortunately, results in an automatic "I win" for the player in question, leaving the DM unable to raise the difficulty of a task without resorting to fiat. Which of course, leaves you at base one, arguing about the problem in question. Useless.

If you cannot get a DM that will provide for a campaign that allows a for socially interactive heavy (at the expense of combat heavy) character, then, no, you cannot expect to play such a character, because the D&D system as written cannot support it.

[RandomCasualty]

1173974924[/unixtime]]
If they wanted RP, they'd know how to deal with a social engineer. Which, frankly is hard snce you have to know how to do that yourself.

Nah, social engineers are not RP. And here's why. Lets reverse the tables.

DM: "The king talks to you for a minute and is quite persuasive. You realize you must accept his quest for the good of the kingdom."

PC:"Yeah but I'm chaotic evil. I don't give a rat's ass about this kingdom or it's people! I'm not accepting anything."

DM: "Nope, he rolled a 78 on his diplomacy check, you do anything he wants regardless of your alignment, personality or anything else. "

Yeah, that sounds real big on roleplaying.

[RandomCasualty]

1173988161[/unixtime]]

It's a story told by everyone, and sometimes, people actually enjoy a story where one of the characters can talk his way past almost anything, and where the main villain, having heard of this person by reputation and being extremely intelligent, has a silence spell ready at all times, just in case.

Yeah, that's exactly the kind of stupidity I'd like to avoid.

Where all the NPCs are inherently pushovers and have to shield themselves under a freaking cone of silence to avoid being convinced of anything.

That's not roleplaying at all, that's having NPCs with no inherent free will or personality who just sit there and do what they're told like robots.

[Catharz]

1174090194[/unixtime]]

1173988161[/unixtime]]

It's a story told by everyone, and sometimes, people actually enjoy a story where one of the characters can talk his way past almost anything, and where the main villain, having heard of this person by reputation and being extremely intelligent, has a silence spell ready at all times, just in case.

Yeah, that's exactly the kind of stupidity I'd like to avoid.

Where all the NPCs are inherently pushovers and have to shield themselves under a freaking cone of silence to avoid being convinced of anything.

That's not roleplaying at all, that's having NPCs with no inherent free will or personality who just sit there and do what they're told like robots.

"LALALALALALALALALA! I CAN'T HEAR YOU!!!"

[Brobdingnagian]

Okay, so tell me this.

At level 15, your wizard goes into a castle, dominates the king, and gets his whole country, and keeps it because he then orders the former king's execution.

Your fighter goes, kicks the king's butt with a teddy bear on a stick, and does the same to anyone else who would challenge him, netting himself a kingdom.

Your rogue, who has been specialising in diplomacy, can't do sweet crap all because you want people to fight.

See previous statement about combat oriented campaigns, then go play Final Fantasy.