Perhaps during a conversation with certain npcs those of selfish and evil bent could negotiate some kind of price up front before a job. This would seem a natural way to do business for the typical shady employer and sellsword. With the current ratio of players and dms this isnt necessary now, however I think it would add some flavor as the server grows. Perhaps a pc could make a relevant skill check against the duegar foreman to see if he was open to negiotate something before seeing results. If successful, another roll to see if the duegar will increase his reward, if beaten by 10 or more, a small percentage up front. If one of these fails by 10 or more, the foreman is insulted and will pay you less than he originally intended. Id rather see something like this rather than "there is trouble down the well, I will pay you xx coins to make it better." I bet that duegar would pay my stupid dwarf less when he makes a skill check in conversation and figures him for a rube. Im in favor of seeing skills used primarilly for rp with pc's and dm's also being used in a broader sense on the server. I think that things like this would be a nice touch when dms have to spread their loving attentions over a wider player base.

would this interest anyone else?

Its interesting, but getting paid gold up front is pretty exploitable actually.

While persuading someone to pay more gold isn't exactly evil either, just good sense if you're low on supplies.

I really like the idea. I usually end up putting points into thing like bluff and persuade with some of my characters and rarely get to use them. Maybe appraise could also be used? I think its a good way to encourage non-combat oriented skills.

On a side note, I think the dms are doing a fairly good job with skills in general. I like being asked to roll for things, and find that I am asked quite often. When the server goes live, this may not be the case, so some scripted checks might be a good idea.

Oroborous While persuading someone to pay more gold isn't exactly evil either, just good sense if you're low on supplies.

If it's a persuade check, yeah. If it's an intimidate, then it's probably evil, and bluff is probably chaotic.

Personally I'd see it as more of an appraise check, silly as that sounds.

But I like this idea.

That is definately a persuade skill, trying to gert more money... but it could be a bluff if you're telling them why you're so super-qualified.

I think that's a great idea, but money up front does seem far too exploitable. Also, money up front from the foreman doesn't make that much sense anyways- there's no merchant nearby and the foreman is not gonna let you walk away with HIS gold and your promise to return. Other than that, all for it!

Appraise has to do with assessing the value of something, though perhaps a character appraise check cold be made to open new conversation options.

Example.

"I'll pay you 50 gold to go kill those demons."

Appraise roll, character beats the DC

"Demons? No way, I need at least 400. We're talkin' DEMONS, not little mephit beasts."

This method will also let you tie in more skills, which I would think would be more favorable, but I dunno.

That's still persuasion.

Hehe, why not many options? A persuade, bluff, intimidate, appraise...

Persuade = Making someone think your train of thought, Intimidate = Scaring them into doing what you want Bluff = Lieing. Appraise = How much something is worth

... why would it be anything other then Persuade?

In the end, I imagine any of them could work reasoning.

You might intimidate someone into giving you extra coin, or you might persuade them. It'd be nice seeing multiple options per quest giver with varying DCs depending on who they are. (For example, I imagine a frail goblin will respond much more to Intimidation than he will persuasion)

The downside however, is that people will end up likely metagaming these and then having whomever has the highest bluff/persuade/etc end or take up the quest. I think you could very well experience something akin to "Okay, who's persuasive who wants to hand her the beetle guts?"

I think it's something that should be implemented, though.

Bluff, Persuade, Intimidate all make sense.

Appraise makes no sense. You appraise merchandise so you know how much its worth. Unless you purchase the Quest Giver, you can't appraise him.

Mmm, I suppose so. I see appraise as something complimenting your quest giver.

"Oh! I like your watch! Verryy snazzy!" Quest Giver: Really? Thanks. So the reward totals down to 500. [While normally it's 400] "Why thank you! Stay classy!"

Also, it gives more use of an RP use to that skill.

But after all, I'm no expert at D&D.

You already use appraise everytime you buy something.

Saying "Your watch is snappy! Pay me more money!" is persaude or maybe bluff--depending on if the watch is snappy. However, I'm not sure why anyone would pay you more for realizing they have a snappy watch.

Spot check vs Gold watch :roll:

I guess I'm reading the suggestion a little different than everyone else. I don't think he was suggesting that the questgiver actually pay the party in advance, just that they negotiate the rate for doing the quest before hand, instead of after.

Personally, I really like the idea. I have some new functions going in that will make this easier to implement as well. I've always planned for intimidate, persuade, and bluff to have some kind of use on a wide variety of quests. It's just in the beginning, we went a little more bare bones on many things just trying to get content in, and get everything working. There are a number of changes that should be coming that will include things like this.

I guess I've always thought of the negotiations coming after the group does the quest, but I'll really consider negotiating before. I'm just worried that it will get abused, since I can see a number of ways to exploit it, even without the money being up front, and getting around those exploits will make things a lot more complex to code. Putting the negotiations after the quest instead of before takes away a lot of the exploit potential, since there isn't as much free will there.

Oroborous Saying "Your watch is snappy! Pay me more money!" is persaude or maybe bluff--depending on if the watch is snappy. However, I'm not sure why anyone would pay you more for realizing they have a snappy watch.

Well, the idea was that the person would get flattered and might toss in a small bonus or something. Whatever.

I think adding bluff, intimidate and persuade with bluff having chaotic points (maybe) and intimidate having evil points (maybe) would be best. That gives people more incentive to use their skill points on these skills, and makes people like bards infinitely more valuable to a party intent on questing.

The only way I can see appraise fitting into the situation is determining the value of the task at hand, but then again, saying "That's not worth 500 gold, doing that is worth 1000" doesn't in any way give someone more incentive to pay you that amount. They could simply disagree with you and you're powerless to make them see things your way.

Even putting this feature in at the end of the quest to prevent exploits would good.