Skills: Alchemy-Disguise

Alchemy | Animal Empathy | Appraise | Balance | Bluff | Climb | Concentration | Craft | Decipher Script | Diplomacy | Disable Device | Disguise

Alchemy (Int; Trained Only)

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Alchemists combine strange ingredients in secret ways to make marvelous substances.

Check: You can make alchemical items. To determine how much time and material it takes to make an alchemical item, use the DCs listed below and the rules for making things found in the Craft skill description.

The DM may allow an alchemist to perform other tasks related to alchemy, such as identifying an unknown substance or a poison. Doing so takes 1 hour.

Use the Craft skill rules to create the following items. All the substances here have a temporary alchemical effect, usually of about an hour, unless listed otherwise. Use your imagination as to how they could be applied. Any bonuses given, such as noted under Endurance tea, are a maximum of +1.

Retry: Yes, but in the case of making items, each failure ruins the half the raw materials needed, and you have to pay half the raw material cost again. For identifying substances or potions, each failure consumes the cost per attempt.

Special: You must have alchemical equipment to make an item or identify it. If you are working in a city, you can buy what you need as part of the raw materials cost to make the item, but alchemical equipment is difficult or impossible to come by in some places. For identifying items, the cost represents additional supplies you must buy.

Animal Empathy (Cha; Trained Only)

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Use this skill to keep a guard dog from barking at you, to get a wild bird to land on your outstretched hand, or to keep an owlbear calm while you back off.

Check: You can improve the attitude of an animal with a successful check. (Your DM has information in the DMG about attitudes, including the DCs to change them.) To use the skill, you and the animal must be able to study each other, noting each other’s body language, vocalizations, and general demeanor. This means that you must be within 30 feet under normal conditions.

Generally, influencing an animal in this way takes 1 minute, but, as with influencing people, it might take more or less time.

This skill works on animals (such as bears and giant lizards). You can use it with a –4 penalty on beasts (such as owlbears) and magical beasts (such as blink dogs).

Retry: As with attempts to influence people, retries on the same animal generally don’t work (or don’t work any better), whether you have succeeded or not.

Appraise (Int)

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Use this skill to tell an antique from old junk, a sword that’s old and fancy from an elven heirloom, and high-quality jewelry from cheap stuff made to look good.

Check: You can appraise common or well-known objects within 10% of their value (DC 12). Failure means you estimate the value at 50% to 150% of actual value. The DM secretly rolls 2d6+3, multiplies by 10%, multiplies the actual value by that percentage, and tells you that value for the item. (For a common or well-known item, your chance of estimating the value within 10% is fairly high even if you fail the check—in such a case, you made a lucky guess.) Rare or exotic items require a successful check against DC 15, 20, or higher. If successful, you estimate the value at 70% to 130% of its actual value. The DM secretly rolls 2d4+5, multiplies by 10%, multiplies the actual value by that percentage, and tells you that value for the item. Failure means you cannot estimate the item’s value.

A magnifying glass gives a +2 circumstance bonus to Appraise checks involving any item that is small or highly detailed, such as a gem. A merchant’s scale gives a +2 circumstance bonus to Appraise checks involving any items that are valued by weight, including anything made of precious metals. These bonuses stack. Appraising an item takes 1 minute.

Retry: Not on the same object, regardless of success.

Special: If you are making the check untrained, for common items, failure means no estimate, and for rare items, success means an estimate of 50% to 150% (2d6+3 times 10%). Dwarves have a +2 racial bonus on Appraise checks that are related to rare or exotic items because they are familiar with valuable items of all kinds (especially those made of stone or metal).

Balance (Dex; Armor Check Penalty)

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You can keep your balance while walking on a tightrope, a narrow beam, a ledge, or an uneven floor.

Check: You can walk on a precarious surface as a move-equivalent action. A successful check lets you move at half your speed along the surface for 1 round. A failure means that you can’t move for 1 round. A failure by 5 or more means that you fall. The difficulty varies with the surface:

*Cumulative; if both apply, use both.

Being Attacked while Walking a Tightrope: Attacks against you are made as if you were off balance: They gain a +2 attack bonus, and you lose your Dexterity bonus to AC, if any. If you have 5 or more ranks in Balance, then you can retain your Dexterity bonus to AC (if any) in the face of attacks. If you take damage, you must make a check again to stay on the tightrope.

Accelerated Movement: You try to can walk a precarious surface more quickly than normal. If you accept a –5 penalty, you can move your full speed as a move-equivalent action (Moving twice your speed in a round requires two checks).

Special: If you have 5 or more ranks in Tumble, you get a +2 synergy bonus on Balance checks.

Bluff (Cha)

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You can make the outrageous or the untrue seem plausible. The skill encompasses acting, conning, fast talking, misdirection, prevarication, and misleading body language. Use a bluff to sow temporary confusion, get someone to turn his head to look where you point, or simply look innocuous.

Check: A Bluff check is opposed by the target’s Sense Motive check. Favorable and unfavorable circumstances weigh heavily on the outcome of a bluff. Two circumstances can weigh against you: The bluff is hard to believe, or the action that the target is to take goes against the target’s self-interest, nature, personality, orders, etc. If it’s important, the DM can distinguish between a bluff that fails because the target doesn’t believe it and one that fails because it just asks too much of the target. For instance, if the target gets a +10 bonus because the bluff demands something risky of the target, and the Sense Motive check succeeds by 10 or less, then the target didn’t so much see through the bluff as prove reluctant to go along with it. If the target succeeds by 11 or more, he has seen through the bluff (and would have done so even if it had not entailed any demand on him).

A successful Bluff check indicates that the target reacts as you wish, at least for a short time (usually 1 round or less) or believes something that you want him to believe. Bluff, however, is not a suggestion spell. For example, you could use a bluff to put someone off guard by telling him his shoes are untied. At best, such a bluff would make the target glance down at his shoes. It would not cause the target to ignore you and fiddle with his shoes.

A bluff requires interaction between the character and the target. Creatures unaware of the character cannot be bluffed. A bluff always takes at least 1 round (and is at least a full-round action) but can take much longer if you try something elaborate.

Feinting in Combat: You can also use Bluff to mislead an opponent in combat so that he can’t dodge your attack effectively. Doing so is a miscellaneous standard action that does not draw an attack of opportunity. If you are successful, the next attack you make against the target does not allow him to use his Dexterity bonus to Armor Class (if any). Feinting in this way against a non humanoid is difficult because it’s harder to read a strange creature’s body language; you suffer a -4 penalty. Against a creature of animal Intelligence (1 or 2) it’s even harder; you suffer a -8 penalty. Against a non intelligent creature, it’s impossible.

Creating a Diversion to Hide: You can use Bluff to help you hide. A successful Bluff check can give you the momentary diversion you need to attempt a Hide check while people are aware of you.

Retry: Generally, a failed Bluff check makes the target too suspicious for a bluffer to try another one in the same circumstances. For feinting in combat, you may retry freely.

Special: Having 5 or more ranks in Bluff gives you a +2 synergy bonus on Intimidate and Pick Pocket checks and a +2 synergy bonus on an Innuendo check to transmit a message. Also, if you have 5 or more ranks of Bluff, you get a +2 synergy bonus on Disguise checks when you know that you’re being observed and you try to act in character.

Bluff Check

Climb (Str; Armor Check Penalty)

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Use this skill to scale a cliff, to get to the window on the second story of a wizard’s tower, or to climb out of a pit after falling through a trapdoor.

Check: With each successful Climb check, you can advance up, down, or across a slope or a wall or other steep incline (or even a ceiling with handholds) one-half your speed as a miscellaneous full-round action. You can move half that far, one-fourth of your speed, as a miscellaneous move-equivalent action. A slope is considered to be any incline of less than 60 degrees; a wall is any incline of 60 degrees or steeper.

A failed Climb check means that you make no progress, and a check that fails by 5 or more means that you fall from whatever height you have already attained.

A climber’s kit (page 110) gives a +2 circumstance bonus to Climb checks.

The DC of the check depends on the conditions of the climb.

*These modifiers are cumulative; use any that apply.

Since you can’t move to avoid a blow while climbing, enemies can attack you as if you were stunned: An attacker gets a +2 bonus, and you lose any Dexterity bonus to Armor Class. You also can’t use a shield.

Any time you take damage while climbing, make a Climb check against the DC of the slope or wall. Failure means you fall from your current height and sustain the appropriate falling damage.

Accelerated Climbing: You try to climb more quickly than normal. As a miscellaneous full-round action, you can attempt to cover your full speed in climbing distance, but you suffer a –5 penalty on Climb checks and you must make two checks each round. Each successful check allows you to climb a distance equal to one-half your speed. By accepting the –5 penalty, you can move this far as a move-equivalent action rather than as a full-round action.

Making Your Own Handholds and Footholds: You can make your own handholds and footholds by pounding pitons into a wall. Doing so takes 1 minute per piton, and one piton is needed per 3 feet. As with any surface with handholds and footholds, a wall with pitons in it has a DC of 15. In the same way, a climber with a hande axe or similar implement can cut holds in an ice wall.

Catching Yourself When Falling: It’s practically impossible to catch yourself on a wall while falling. Make a Climb check (DC = wall’s DC + 20) to do so. A slope is a lot easier to catch yourself on (DC = slope’s DC + 10).

Special: A character with 5 or more ranks in Use Rope gets a +2 synergy bonus on checks to climb a rope, a knotted rope, or a rope and wall combination.

Someone using a rope can haul a character upward (or lower the character) through sheer strength. Use double your maximum load (see Carrying Capacity, page 141) to determine how much a character can lift.

Halflings get a +2 racial bonus on Climb checks because they are agile and sure-footed.

Concentration (Con)

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You are particularly good at focusing your mind.

Check: You can make a Concentration check to cast a spell despite distractions, such as taking damage, getting hit by an unfriendly spell, and so on. You can also use this skill to maintain concentration in the face of other distractions or on other things besides spells, such as eavesdropping on a conversation despite distractions from other people.

The table below summarizes various types of distractions that cause you to make a Concentration check while casting a spell. "Spell level" refers to the level of the spell you’re trying to cast.

Retry: Yes, though a success doesn’t cancel the effects of a previous failure, which almost always is the loss of the spell being cast or the disruption of a spell being concentrated on.

Special: A character with the Combat Casting feat gets a +4 bonus to Concentration checks made to cast a spell while on the defensive.

Craft (Int)

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You are trained in a craft, trade, or art, such as armorsmithing, basketweaving, bookbinding, bowmaking, blacksmithing, calligraphy, carpentry, cobbling, gemcutting, leatherworking, locksmithing, painting, pottery, sculpture, shipmaking, stonemasonry, trapmaking, weaponsmithing, or weaving.

Craft is actually a number of separate skills. For instance, you could have the skill Craft (trapmaking). Your ranks in that skill don’t affect any checks you happen to make for pottery or leatherworking, for example. You could have several Craft skills, each with its own ranks, each purchased as a separate skill.

A Craft skill is specifically focused on creating something; if it is not, it is a Profession.

Check: You can practice your trade and make a decent living, earning about half your check result in gold pieces per week of dedicated work. You know how to use the tools of your trade, how to perform the craft’s daily tasks, how to supervise untrained helpers, and how to handle common problems. (Untrained laborers and assistants earn an average of 1 silver piece per day.)

However, the basic function of the Craft skill is to allow you to make an item of the appropriate type. The DC depends on the difficulty of the item created. The DC, your check results, and the price of the item determine how long it takes to make the item. The item’s finished price also determines the cost of raw materials. (In the game world, it is the skill level required, the time required, and the raw materials required that determine an item’s price. That’s why the item’s price and DC determine how long it takes to make the item and the cost of the raw materials.)

In some cases, the fabricate spell can be used to achieve the results of a Craft check without your needing to make the check. However, you must make an appropriate Craft check when using the spell to make articles requiring a high degree of craftsmanship (jewelry, swords, glass, crystal, etc).

A Craft check related to woodworking in conjunction with the casting of the ironwood spell enables you to make wooden items that have the strength of steel.

When casting the spell minor creation, you must succeed at an appropriate Craft check to make a complex item, such as a Craft (bowmaking) check to make straight arrow shafts.

All crafts require artisan’s tools to give the best chance of success; if improvised tools are used instead, the check is made with a –2 circumstance penalty. On the other hand, masterwork artisan’s tools provide a +2 circumstance bonus.

To determine how much time and money it takes to make an item:
1. Find the item’s price. Put the price in silver pieces (1 gp = 10 sp).
2. Find the DC listed here or have the DM set one.
3. Pay one-third the item’s price in raw materials.
4. Make a skill check representing one week’s work.

If the check succeeds, multiply the check result by the DC. If the result x the DC equals the price of the item in sp, then you have completed the item. (If the result x the DC equals double or triple the price of the item in silver pieces, then you’ve completed the task in one-half or one-third the time, and so on.) If the result x the DC doesn’t equal the price, then it represents progress you’ve made this week. Record the result and make a check for the next week. Each week you make more progress until your total reaches the price of the item in silver pieces.

If you fail the check, you make no progress this week. If you fail by 5 or more, you ruin half the raw materials and have to pay half the original raw material cost again.

Progress by the Day: You can make checks by the day instead of by the week, in which case your progress (result x DC) is in copper pieces instead of silver pieces.

Creating Masterwork Items: You can make a masterwork item (an item that conveys a bonus to its use through its exceptional craftsmanship, not through being magical). To create a masterwork version of an item on the table below, you create the masterwork component as if it were a separate item in addition to the standard item. The masterwork component has its own price (300 gp for a weapon or 150 gp for a suit of armor) and DC (20). Once both the standard component and the masterwork component are completed, the masterwork item is finished (Note: The price you pay for the masterwork component is one-third of the given amount, just as it is for the price in raw materials).

Repairing Items: Generally, you can repair an item at the same DC that it takes to make it in the first place. The cost of repairing an item is one-fifth the item’s price.

Retry: Yes, but each time you miss by 5 or more, you ruin half the raw materials and have to pay half the original raw material cost again.

Special: Dwarves have a +2 racial bonus on Craft checks that are related to stone or metal, because dwarves are especially capable with stonework and metalwork.

Decipher Script (Int; Trained Only;Bard, Rogue Only)

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Use this skill to piece together the meaning of ancient runes carved into the wall of an abandoned temple, to get the gist of an intercepted letter written in the Infernal language, to follow the directions on a treasure map written in a forgotten alphabet, or to interpret the mysterious glyphs painted on a cave wall.

Check: You can decipher writing in an unfamiliar language or a message written in an incomplete or archaic form. The base DC is 20 for the simplest messages, 25 for standard texts, and 30 or higher for intricate, exotic, or very old writing.

If the check succeeds, you understand the general content of a piece of writing, reading about one single page of text (or its equivalent) in 1 minute. If the check fails, the DM makes a Wisdom check (DC 5) for you to see if you avoid drawing a false conclusion about the text. (Success means that you do not draw a false conclusion; failure means that you do.)

The DM secretly makes both the skill check and (if necessary) the Wisdom check so you can’t tell whether the conclusion you draw is true or false.

Retry: No.

Special: If you have 5 or more ranks in Decipher Script, you get a +2 synergy bonus on Use Magic Device checks related to scrolls.

Diplomacy (Cha)

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Use this skill to persuade the chamberlain to let you see the king, to negotiate peace between feuding barbarian tribes, or to convince the ogre mages that have captured you that they should ransom you back to your friends instead of twisting your limbs off one by one. 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 others the right impression of oneself, 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 when two advocates or diplomats plead opposite cases in a hearing before a third party.

Retry: Generally, retries do not work. Even if the initial check succeeds, 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 NPCs are generally untrained Diplomacy checks. If you have 5 or more ranks in Bluff or Sense Motive, you get a +2 synergy bonus on Diplomacy checks. These bonuses stack.

Disable Device (Int; Trained Only)

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Use this skill to disarm a trap, jam a lock (in either the open or closed position), or rig a wagon wheel to fall off. You can examine a fairly simple or fairly small mechanical device and disable it. The effort requires at least a simple tool of the appropriate sort (a pick, pry bar, saw, file, etc.). Attempting a Disable Device check without a set of thieves’ tools carries a –2 circumstance penalty, even if a simple tool is employed. The use of masterwork thieves’ tools enables you to make the check with a +2 circumstance bonus.

Check: The DM makes the Disable Device check so that you don’t necessarily know whether you’ve succeeded. The amount of time needed to make a check and the DC for the check depend on how tricky the device is. Disabling a simple device takes 1 round (and is at least a full-round action). Intricate or complex devices require 2d4 rounds. You also can rig simple devices such as saddles or wagon wheels to work normally for a while and then fail or fall off some time later (usually after 1d4 rounds or minutes of use).

Disabling (or rigging or jamming) a fairly simple device has a DC of 10. More intricate and complex devices have a higher DC. The DM rolls the check. If the check succeeds, you disable the device. If the check fails by up to 4, you have failed but can try again. If you fail by 5 or more, something goes wrong. If it’s a trap, you spring it. If it’s some sort of sabotage, you think the device is disabled, but it still works normally.

*If the character attempts to leave behind no trace of the tampering, add 5 to the DC.

Retry: Yes, though you must be aware that you have failed in order to try again.

Special: Rogues (and only rogues) can disarm magic traps. A magic trap generally has a DC of 25 + the level of the magic used to create it. For instance, disarming a trap set by the casting of explosive runes has a DC of 28 because explosive runes is a 3rd-level spell.

The spells fire trap, glyph of warding, symbol, and teleportation circle also create traps that a rogue can disarm with a Disable Device check. Spike growth and spike stones, however, create magic traps against which Disable Device checks do not succeed.

A rogue who beats a trap’s DC by 10 or more can generally study a trap, figure out how it works, and bypass it (along with his companions) without disarming it.

Disguise (Cha)

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The effort requires at least a few props, some makeup, and 1d3 X 10 minutes of work. The use of a disguise kit provides a +2 circumstance bonus to a Disguise check. A disguise can include an apparent change of height or weight of no more than one tenth the original.

The character can also impersonate people, either individuals or types, so that, for example, the character might, with little or no actual disguise, make the character seem like a traveler even if the character is a local.

Check: The character's Disguise check result determines how good the disguise is, and it is opposed by others' Spot check results. Make one Disguise check even if several people make Spot checks. The DM makes the character's Disguise check secretly so that the character is not sure how good it is. If the character doesn't draw any attention to him or herself, however, others do not get to make Spot checks. If the character comes to the attention of people who are suspicious (such as a guard who is watching commoners walking through a city gate), the DM can assume that such observers are taking 10 on their Spot checks.

The effectiveness of the character's disguise depends in part on how much the character is attempting to change his or her appearance:

Disguise Modifier
Minor details only +5
Disguised as different sex -2
Disguised as different race -2
Disguised as different age category -2*
Disguised as specific class -2

*Per step of difference between character's actual age category and disguised age category (young [younger than adulthood], adulthood, middle age, old, venerable).

If the character is impersonating a particular individual, those who know what that person looks like get a bonus on their Spot checks (and are automatically considered to be suspicious of the character, so opposed checks are always invoked).

Familiarity Bonus
Recognizes on sight +4
Friends or associates +6
Close friends +8
Intimate +10

Usually, an individual makes a check for detection immediately upon meeting the character and each hour thereafter. If the character casually meet many different creatures, each for a short time, check once per day or hour, using an average Spot bonus for the group. For example, if a character is trying to pass for a merchant at a bazaar, the DM can make one Spot check per hour for the people she encounters using a +1 bonus on the check to represent the average of the crowd (most people with no Spot ranks and a few with good Spot skills).

Retry: A character may try to redo a failed disguise, but once others know that a disguise was attempted they'll be more suspicious.

Special: If the character has 5 or more ranks of Bluff, the character gets a +2 synergy bonus on Disguise checks when the character knows that the character is being observed and the character tries to act in character.

Skills: EscapeArtist-IntuitDirection | Skills: Jump-Ride | Skills: Scry-WildernessLore

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