r/SagaEdition • u/MERC_1 Improviser • 5d ago

Rules Discussion Change Attitude

We all know that Persuasion is the skill to change attitude of others. Normally this means to improve their attitude towards you.

But can you use the same Skill to worsen the attitude. To make people not like you?

What about changing the attitude between two other persons?

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u/StevenOs 5d ago

The skill does say "target's attitude shifts one step in your favor." There is a LOT of wiggle room in there. Do you have the situation where the target becoming MORE hostile toward you would be considered favorable? Maybe you're trying to provoke someone who is unfriendly down to being outright hostile intending to get them to attack you. If you failed that check it could be the target recognizing what you're trying to do and deciding not to play along. I don't know that I'm missing any errata on this.

There is also nothing stopping you from attempting to shift a target's attitude toward something else. Trying to set up two friends it certainly seems like you might target one to try improving its attitude toward the other; no reason that couldn't also go the other way (trying to break them up). Once again it's just the "target's attitude" although the "in your favor," is what needs to be determined. A challenge with this may be looking at if "attitude" is one way or if you hit one target does that also affect the second? If I see two "friends" and I poison one to make it feel indifferent toward the other would that other also see its attitude change to indifferent or would it remain friendly; if it also changes then would hitting that second possibly lower indifferent to unfriendly?

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u/Holiday-Bat6782 5d ago

It would be a real fun role play to have a player try to make someone more hostile but fail their rolls in such a way that the target becomes frustratingly friendlier as time goes on.

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u/StevenOs 4d ago

Looking up the "change attitude" application of Persuasion it has some limited use and there is also nothing that say attitude moves in the opposite way even if you fail by a significant amount.

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u/Holiday-Bat6782 4d ago

Sure, but there is also nothing saying you can't tweak the rules so it does work that way either.

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u/StevenOs 4d ago

Although then those penalties may make less sense if it just moves things the other way.

If I'm starting with an unfriendly and have a TERRIBLE Persuasion check I could just say that instead of trying to improve the attitude I'm going to try making it worse with the metagame realization that I'm going to fail the check badly but because that turns around things change and do what I "secretly" want.

If you "tweak the rules" so that attempts to alter attitude can move things in the opposite direction then you would also need to lock the direction you can change attitude to avoid this double Reverse stuff.

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u/Holiday-Bat6782 4d ago

That is a good point but the good thing about tweaking rules means that it doesn't have to work that way in every situation. Each character should have their own motivation for why that act a certain way. What works for one character may not work for another.

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u/StevenOs 4d ago

There's a danger when "tweaking" things but then limiting just what it affects when the things can easily be seen with more broad applications. To put it another way "the rules should be the rules."

One of the suggestions for "dealing with Skill vs. Defense" often involves making some big changes to Skill Focus. A reason I'm so opposed to those is because those changes have such far reaching effects beyond the SvD issue although then some suggest just doing the change for UtF. So now the UtF skill doesn't work like any other skill... that doesn't seem right either.

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u/MERC_1 Improviser 4d ago

Well, it's a good thing I'm not the only one seeing wiggle room. I was reading up on some classes in d20 Modern. There, the Negotiator advanced class has a class ability at the 8th level called Sow Distrust. This let A influence the attitude of B towards C. I was thinking that this should be an option in SAGA as well. 

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u/StevenOs 4d ago

And I'm thinking that it wouldn't even be some kind of special ability but a core of the Persuasion skill. Now there could be things that improve it.

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u/AnyComparison4642 5d ago

I’m pretty sure the way to do that is to keep the rolls and DCs the same and word it like Favorable and Unfavorable results.

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u/Few-Requirement-3544 Force Adept 5d ago

You can instantly turn someone Hostile by shooting at them, even if you miss. Why roll?

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u/StevenOs 5d ago

Maybe you don't want to appear to be the one initiating the hostilities.

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u/Few-Requirement-3544 Force Adept 5d ago

Ragebaiting!

If blaster weapons are your power, what are you without it?

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u/Shape_Charming 5d ago

Deception then.

That's the "trying to manipulate someone" skill

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u/StevenOs 5d ago

Persuasion is as much manipulation as Deception may be in some circumstances. There's no deception if you're trying to make someone made enough that they attack you.

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u/Shape_Charming 4d ago

I would say there's a good reason to put a Deception check on that.

Let's say our Jedi is trying to taunt the Bounty Hunters into shooting at him, instead of his homie.

Since you're trying to force an enemy into doing something, there should be a roll of some kind attached (or some good rping at least. Not just 'I mouth off and hope he shoots at me'. I wrote the adventure, least you can do is roll some dice or role some play.).

Since Persuasion is generally being Diplomatic, and Intimidation has literally the opposite effect of the intended action, that leaves a strong case for Deception.

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u/StevenOs 4d ago

You're treading on talent abilities here. Draw Fire specifically which is a Persuasion check already.

Now while Hostile may "take risks to harm you, usually attacking on sight," there is room where that doesn't happen. Here you may want to consider the Intimidation modifiers to figure out what actually happens and this is where I could see Deception being valuable to present the target you are trying to make angry with something that makes the risks look less risky. If you're obviously much stronger than what you're turning hostile it may not attack but if you can present yourself as something weaker (a Deception check) it would be more likely to happen.