Diplomacy Skill

Diplomacy (Cha)
Use this skill to persuade the Twi’lek chamberlain to let you see his master, to negotiate peace between feuding Ewok tribes, to haggle a good price for a droid, or to convince the Rodians who captured you that they should ransom you back to your friends instead of delivering you to Jabba the Hutt. Diplomacy includes etiquette, social grace, tact, subtlety, and a way with words. A skilled character knows the formal and informal rules of conduct, social expectations, proper forms of address, and so on. This skill represents the ability to give the right impression, to negotiate effectively, and to influence others.

Check: You can change others’ attitudes with a successful check. In negotiations, participants roll opposed Diplomacy checks to see who gains the advantage. Opposed checks also resolve cases where two advocates or diplomats plead opposing cases before a third party.

Diplomacy can be used to influence a GM character’s attitude. The GM chooses the character’s initial attitude based on circumstances. Most of the time, the people the heroes meet are indifferent toward them, but a specific situation may call for a different initial attitude. The DCs given on the accompanying table show what it takes to change someone’s attitude with the use of the Diplomacy skill. You don’t declare a specific outcome you are trying for; instead, make the check and compare the result to the table below. For example, attempting to change the attitude of a hostile clone trooper fails on a result of 19 or lower; on a result of 20 or higher, the trooper’s attitude changes.

Attitude Means Possible Actions
Hostile Will take risks to hurt you Attack, interfere, berate, flee
Unfriendly Wishes you ill Mislead, gossip, avoid, watch suspiciously, insult
Indifferent Doesn’t much care Socially expected interaction
Friendly Wishes you well Chat, advise, offer limited help, advocate
Helpful Will take risks to help you Protect, back up, heal, aid
Initial Attitude New Attitude New Attitude New Attitude New Attitude New Attitude
Hostile Unfriendly Indifferent Friendly Helpful
Hostile 19 or less 20 25 35 45
Unfriendly 4 or less 5 15 25 35
Indifferently - Less than 1 1 15 25
Friendly - - Less than 1 1 15

When using Diplomacy to haggle a price, each side makes a Diplomacy check. For every 5 points that you beat your opponent’s check by, you can adjust the sale price by 5% up or down (your choice) from the market value (from Equipment or established by the Gamemaster). A GM character almost always agrees to the new price, but a player’s character is never required to buy or sell at a specific price, even if he or she fails the opposed Diplomacy check.

A Note on Haggling: The prices for standard items given in Equipment represent the result of a reasonable negotiation. You shouldn’t haggle over mundane items. You should only haggle over prices when it’s significant to the mission – you’re arguing over the price of every meal, your GM can and should ask you to move on to more interesting things.

Retry: Generally, retries don’t work. Even if the initial check success, the other character can only be persuaded 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.

Special: Charisma checks to influence GM characters are generally untrained Diplomacy checks.

You can take 10 when making a Diplomacy check, but you can’t take 20.

A character with the Bureaucratic Flair feat gets a +2 aptitude bonus on Diplomacy checks.

A character with the Peacemaker feat gets a +2 aptitude bonus on Diplomacy checks.

A character with the Trustworthy feat gets a +2 aptitude bonus on Diplomacy checks.

Time: Diplomacy is at least a full-round action. The GM may determine that some negotiations require a longer period of time.

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