Bluff

Ability Score Ego

You can use words and actions to create distractions, misdirect your opponents, tell convincing lies, and pass along secret messages.

Diversion

As a move action, you can use Bluff to create a diversion. Your Bluff check is opposed by the Sense Motive check of the creature you are attempting to beguile. If you succeed, you can either attempt the hide task of Stealth as if you had cover or concealment, or you gain a +10 bonus to perform the palm an object task of Sleight of Hand (your choice). Occasionally, your Bluff check might be opposed by several creatures (for instance, if you are on a crowded space station promenade in such cases, the GM might decide to roll several Sense Motive checks, and you succeed only against creatures with Sense Motive results lower than your Bluff result.

Fast-Talk

You can attempt to tell a lie to a target so quickly that it goes unquestioned. Doing so requires half the normal time to convince the target, to a minimum of one standard action, but in doing so you take a –10 penalty on your Bluff check.

Feign Harmlessness

It’s often useful to attempt to convince your enemies you are no threat to them.

Check: You attempt to convince your target you are harmless through your actions and posture. If you are at least one size category smaller than your target and have taken no effective offensive actions that your target has seen, you gain a +5 circumstance bonus on this check. Even if you have proven yourself capable of dealing damage, an effort to present your previous success as a one-time fluke takes only a –10 penalty on the check.

Action: Taking steps to appear harmless requires a full-round action, though a GM may require more involved Bluff attempts to take longer.

Retry? You can attempt to feign harmlessness to the same target again, but each previous failed check increases the DC to convince your target by 5. This increase resets after 1 hour has passed.

Feign Injury

Whenever you are dealt damage, you can make a Bluff check as an immediate action to convince foes you have been injured to a different extent than you truly have been, opposed by a Sense Motive check. You can appear to be uninjured, mildly injured (with more than half your total hit points remaining), significantly injured (reduced to less than half hit points), disabled (at 0 hit points), dying (at negative hit points), or dead. For each step away from your true condition you pretend to be, you suffer a cumulative –2 penalty on your Bluff check. If you pretend to be dying or dead, you must fall prone accordingly (a free action).

Feint

As a standard action, you can use Bluff to feint in combat, enabling you to treat your opponent as flat-footed for your next attack against it before the end of your next turn. The DC of this check is equal to either 10 + your opponent’s total Sense Motive skill bonus, or 15 + 1-1/2 × the opponent’s CR, whichever is greater. You can’t feint against a creature that doesn’t have an Intellect score, and you cannot take 10 or take 20 on a Bluff check to feint.

Deceive or Lie

You can use Bluff to deceive someone or tell a convincing lie. A quick, simple lie in combat is part of combat banter; otherwise, telling a lie is at least a full action, but it can take longer if the lie is elaborate, as determined by the GM. If the creature is suspicious or attending carefully to your lie (as per the detect deception task for Sense Motive), the check is opposed by the Sense Motive check of the creature you are lying to; otherwise, the DC of this check is equal to 10 + the creature’s total Sense Motive skill bonus. If you succeed, the creature you are lying to believes you are telling the truth, at least until confronted with evidence to the contrary. The GM may determine that some lies are so improbable that it is impossible to convince someone they are true.

The DCs for Bluff checks to lie are adjusted based on the target’s initial attitude toward you (see Diplomacy) as well as other circumstances determined by the GM (such as the plausibility of the lie).

Pass Secret Message

You can use Bluff to pass a secret message to an ally without others understanding the message’s true meaning. Doing so in combat is part of combat banter. The DC of this check is 15 for simple messages and 20 for more complex messages, as determined by the GM. Those overhearing the message can attempt an opposed Sense Motive check to learn the gist of the message. You cannot take 20 on a Bluff check to pass a secret message.

Quick Secret Message: You can attempt to deliver a secret message in no more time than it would normally take to deliver openly, but you take a –10 penalty on your Bluff check for doing so.

Perform Inconspicuous Action

You can avoid drawing attention to yourself when performing conspicuous actions such as picking up an object in a museum where handling the exhibits is frowned upon but not a matter of grave concern, or closely studying someone across a room at a party.

Action: You attempt the Bluff check as part of performing the action you wish to render inconspicuous. Normally, you must take twice as long as normal to perform the action in order to make it inconspicuous. A standard action becomes a full-round action completed just before the start of your next turn and a free, immediate, move, or swift action becomes a standard action.

Check: Your Bluff check is opposed by observers’ Sense Motive checks. You can’t attempt the check if your very presence is suspicious (which you could prevent by altering your appearance with the Disguise skill).

Suggest Course of Action

You can use Bluff and Diplomacy together to make a request of a creature, without it even realizing you have made the request.

Check: You can gradually coax a target into thinking a suggestion is entirely its own idea, making the creature more likely to act on the idea than if you had suggested it outright. You discuss topics subtly relevant to the request, asking leading questions and narrowing the scope of the conversation so that the target eventually decides to take a specific action you have led it to.

You first attempt a Bluff check to convince the target that your request was actually its idea. This is always treated as far-fetched circumstances, resulting in a –10 penalty on the check. If successful, you then attempt a Diplomacy check to make the request of the creature, treating its attitude toward you as indifferent for this single request (regardless of its actual attitude).

Action: Planting the notion and then coaxing a target into suggesting the notion himself each require at least 1 minute of continuous interaction. This can be difficult to arrange with a hostile or unfriendly creature.

Modifiers

With sufficient ranks in Bluff, you earn the following.

• 5 Ranks: The penalty to Bluff a creature after a failed check is halved unless you failed by 5 or more.
• 10 Ranks: You take no penalty to Bluff a creature after a failed check unless you failed by 5 or more.
• 15 Ranks: Creatures magically attempting to read your thoughts, detect your alignment, or reveal when you are lying must attempt a caster level check (DC = 11 + your ranks in Bluff ) or the effect reveals nothing.
• 20 Ranks: As a full-round action, you can make a suggestion (as the spell, maximum duration 1 hour) to a creature within 30 feet (Will negates, DC = 15 + your Ego modifier). A creature that saves against your suggestion is immune to further uses of this effect for 24 hours, and whenever the suggested creature is specifically confronted with proof of your manipulation, it receives another saving throw. This is an extraordinary mind-affecting compulsion.