15.11 Persuasion
The Persuasion skill is one of the most nuanced, and the most difficult to resolve by simply rolling a die and checking the result. For social skills like Persuasion, you need to have a good understanding of what your players enjoy about in-game social interactions. Some players enjoy speaking in-character, and want to be rewarded for good role-playing that matches their character. This should be generally encouraged where possible, because good role-playing can be fun for everyone.
However, other players may struggle to speak compellingly as their character, or may simply dislike it. No one would require that a player must demonstrate superhuman intelligence to play a wizard, or exceptional strength to play a barbarian. For the same reasons, you should not require your players to personally have great social skills in order to play a socially adept character! It’s completely fine for a player to say “my character tries to persuade them”, without saying every word that their character says, as long as it’s still clear what the objective of the persuasion is. You can also encourage players to give it their best shot at speaking in character, and make it clear that NPCs will react as if the character was far more eloquent than the player.
15.11.1 Persuading Groups
Creatures often make decisions together, rather than individually. For example, in a king’s court, a player generally cannot simply influence the king alone; his trusted advisors must also be persuaded. There are two ways that you can represent this: competing Persuasion checks, or shared defenses. One way would be to have the players make a competing Persuasion check against the advisors, with the highest result determining the king’s decision. Alternately, you can have the king and his advisors all collectively treat their defense against the player’s Persuasion attempt as the highest value among any individuals within the group. In general, competing Persuasion checks makes more sense for loose-knit associations, while shared defenses makes more sense for tight-knit groups.
15.11.2 Specific Persuasion Modifiers
The Persuasion skill has unusually large circumstantial modifiers compared to other skills. This is because the social context surrounding any given persuasion attempt is of critical importance, and only a GM can reliably determine that. There are example modifiers unique to the Compel Belief and Form Agreement tasks listed in the tables below.
| Believability |
Difficulty Modifier |
| Expected to be true (“Nothing interesting happened while I was on patrol”) |
-5 |
| Plausible (“The mayor is too busy to see you now.”) | +0 |
| Unlikely (“That bloodstain was just an accident I had with a razor.”) | +5 |
| Extremely unlikely (“Your neighbor is secretly a werewolf.”) | +10 |
| Virtually impossible (“That crime was committed by my identical twin, not me.”) | +15 or more |
| Incentive | Difficulty Modifier |
| Extremely beneficial (“You have an uncle who died and left you his inheritance.”) |
-5 |
| Somewhat beneficial (“That dress looks lovely on you.”) | -2 |
| No particular impact (“I’m busy.”) | +0 |
| Somewhat detrimental (“You can’t come with us to the party.”) | +5 |
| Extremely detrimental (“Your brother is a murderer.”) | +10 or more |
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| Risk vs. Reward |
Difficulty Modifier |
| Fantastic: The reward for accepting the deal is very worthwhile; the risk is either acceptable or extremely unlikely. The best-case scenario is a virtual guarantee. Example: An offer to pay 10gp for directions to the well-known local tavern. |
-10 or more |
| Good: The reward is good and the risk is minimal. The target is very likely to profit from the deal. Example: An offer to pay someone twice their normal daily wage to spend their evening in a seedy tavern and later report on everyone they saw there. | -5 |
| Favorable: The reward is appealing, but there’s risk involved. If all goes according to plan, though, the deal will end up benefiting the target. Example: A request for a mercenary to aid the party in battle against a weak goblin tribe in return for a cut of the money and first pick of the magic items. | -2 |
| Even: The reward and risk more of less even out; or the deal involves neither reward nor risk. Example: A request for directions to a place that isn’t a secret. | +0 |
| Unfavorable: The reward is not enough compared to the risk involved. Even if all goes according to plan, chances are it will end badly for the target. Example: A request to free a prisoner the target is guarding for a small amount of money. | +5 |
| Bad: The reward is poor and the risk is high. The target is very likely to get the raw end of the deal. Example: A request for a mercenary to aid the party in battle against an fearsome dragon for a small cut of any non-magical treasure. | +10 |
| Horrible: There is no conceivable way that the proposed plan could end up with the target ahead or the worst-case scenario is guaranteed to occur. Example: An offer to trade a broken sword hilt for a shiny new longsword. | +15 or more |
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