Sense Motive Skill

[Havoc]

Those who play Dungeons & Dragons and the like know what this skill is about. For those who don't know, in short the skill is a counterskill to Bluff. This skill showed up in Temple of Elemental Evil, but not in Neverwinter Nights games.

 

We don't know how player mechanics will work, but we hear about feats, skills and others. I'm here to tell this: do not forsake social skills, especially Sense Motive. Why?

- First of all It's a anti-bluff skill. ("YOU LIE!")

- You can sense the emotions of people you talk to. ("This guy is angry at me. If I want him on my side, I need to calm him.")

- Behavior check ("That man acts strangely from the begining. Maybe he's planning something?")

- Like behavior check but detecing magic, like if somebody is dominated or charmed. ("He's got a hollow look. He's mind controlled!")

- Detecting a secret message. ("They're talking about the weather... wait... they're spies! They're communicating using some kind of secret code!")

And the last: - Sensing what dialog option would affect our team and how. For example, if we say this thing, will it affect our cleric faith? And how much?

[septembervirgin]

I love Sense Motive and Innuendo as skills. These hearken back to the game Wizard's Realm (by Mystic Swamp), the first role-playing game that had casual usage social skills (except perhaps Arduin Grimoire which had just about everything).

 

I think that maybe there will be a skill like Empathy, Sense Motive, Innuendo -- a generalized language/psychology/chatting skill.

[Moonlight Butterfly]

Yeah I really like these, I think there was a sense alignment spell in some of the games? That was useful.

 

I really like your Sense Motive though.

[eimatshya]

I think this would be a great addition to the dialogue system, assuming skill checks are used during dialogue. If so, a character with a high sense motive skill could get extra dialogue options to reflect his/her hightened awareness.

Edited September 20, 2012 by eimatshya

[Elerond]

I think this would be a great addition to the dialogue system, assuming skill checks are used during dialogue. If so, a character with a high sense motive skill could get extra dialogue options to reflect his/her hightened awareness.

 

Like in Fallouts (1&2) when you have high perception you can detect thing and bring them along to conversations. Like in Modoc where you can see that shop keeper is stressed and ask about that and found out that his son is missing.

[grotbag]

Counterskills in dialogue, whatever their nature, would be a lot of fun, and hopefully break down the instinctive urge amongst players to click on the Persuade option every time for insta-benefit.

 

Oh, so you think you've tricked that old merchant into revealing where his treasure's hidden? Too bad you weren't perceptive enough to gauge his reaction, so you didn't realise he'd successfully sensed your motive and he knew what you were up to all along. Now you're going to get acid flung in your face when you try to open that empty chest.

 

 

Just depends on how much work they want to put into the dialogue system, I suppose.

Edited September 20, 2012 by grotbag

[Luckmann]

Yeah I really like these, I think there was a sense alignment spell in some of the games? That was useful.

I assume that was sarcasm.