Diplomacy and Bluff. Anyone use them?

[BrettVe]

I have been told that these are two useless skills.

Does anyone use them? I am thinking about making a rogue so bluff might be usefull.

Do they have any benefit at all when I do not actively use them?

[Symar-FangofLloth]

Awesome skills. Whoever told you that is a munchkin min/maxer :p.
Bluff, I'm not so sure. It's annoying to use, but improved feint might be worth the feat slot. Let's you sneak attack even though they are aggro'd on you.
Diplomacy, on the other hand, is awesome for losing aggro. Forces monsters to untarget you for 6 seconds, and chase after your party members. If you don't get aggro back, they'll stay off you.

[Renegade66]

If you use diplomacy on a chest before opening the loot will be better.

j/k. old joke.

Diplomacy is nice to have for a couple reasons at least.

1) My sorc uses it all the time to get aggro off me and onto someone else in the party. It's also an AOE and casts instantaneously, which are huge advantages over Bluff. Bluff only works on one monster and it takes a couple seconds to activate.

2) Some quests are made easier with a party member who has high diplomacy. Best example is the Crucible. 20+ diplo on the bosses at the beginning will keep you from having to fight a 4th guy at the end. Also, diplo the kobold to have him drop the trap floor, so you can easily avoid falling into the drink.

[ArkoHighStar]

bluff and diplomacy are great for rogues as bluff allows for a free sneak attack, as does diplomacy

[BrettVe]

ok. Any advice for a new rogue? I would really like to be immune to traps and deal excellent damage.

[ArkoHighStar]

ok. Any advice for a new rogue? I would really like to be immune to traps and deal excellent damage.

traps are a reflex save, so a high dex is important, many rogues go with weapon finesse if they want to go with high dex for armor bonus and reflex saves, as they often sacrifice strength to get their dex as high as possible.
evasion and improved evasion are very powerful as they reduce to zero damage from aoe spells and traps. Improved evasion makes even a failed save deliver only half damage
Any rogue will do great damage if they can get off the sneak attack. There are many ways to do this. The easiest is to not worry about getting all the kills, and stick with a tank that does a lot of damage, that way he has aggro and you get free sneak attacks, having a good diplomacy can help if aggro turns on you as they will turn away for 6 seconds, if your attempt is successful. Bluff helps when taking on a target head on as you get a free sneak attack if it is successful as well.
When off tanking the key is to never out damage the tanks, because the mobs will turn on whoever is doing the most damage, subtle backstabber is a great way to mitigate this as you can reduce the perceived threat by as much as 40%.
Many rogues use low damage weapons like stat damagers to further reduce perceived damage as you do not need the extra damage from an elemental burster when you can do 7d6 dmg with any weapon.

[GeneralDiomedes]

Diplomacy is great for any Sorcerer or Bard as CC spells now draw aggro as well.

There are only two drawbacks

1. It doesn't work on everything (i.e. animals, unintelligent undead, slimes, etc. aren't affected).

2. Monsters may attack someone next you don't want getting aggro such as the Cleric.

If the tank also has Intimidate then you are talking excellent aggro management capabilities.

[Lethelyn]

Just something I've noticed - Rogues love to dual wield, and usually have atleast one, if not both, of their weapons as paralizers. Getting an paralized makes them unable to attack you back, and makes it easier for you to hit them as it drops their AC.

A helpful idea might be to try the lesser dragon mark of shadow (the one that gives you displacement). If you're meleeing alot, that 50% miss the enemies recieve chance can deffinitely help you out in some sticky situations. I've never tried it myself though, so I can't tell you how well it works.

[Ziggy]

one of my alts uses bluff at least once in every combat.

shes a rogue with improved feint.

bluff lasts about 3-6 seconds, pretty sure you need someone targeted, and its usefull to do 1 of 2 things.
1) get aggro of you and on to the "tank"
2)while soloing things that are able to be sneak attacked.

[BrettVe]

Just something I've noticed - Rogues love to dual wield, and usually have atleast one, if not both, of their weapons as paralizers. Getting an paralized makes them unable to attack you back, and makes it easier for you to hit them as it drops their AC.

A helpful idea might be to try the lesser dragon mark of shadow (the one that gives you displacement). If you're meleeing alot, that 50% miss the enemies recieve chance can deffinitely help you out in some sticky situations. I've never tried it myself though, so I can't tell you how well it works.

As far as I know that will take two feats to get.

Plus the displacement will only last 30 seconds to 1 minute. I guess though it would be useful to use when you realize your are in trouble.

[Spisey]

If you also work on a rogues UMD skill, you can very easily be able to use displacement and blur scrolls or even 10th level blur wands that last for about 10 minutes! Scroll use is a very viable option to help self-buff and defend. It's always good to have a sneaky rogue be able to rez a Cleric with minimal aggro.

[Renegade66]

ok. Any advice for a new rogue? I would really like to be immune to traps and deal excellent damage.

My rogue "Anklebiter" deals out a ton of damage and typically gets top kill count if you're into keeping track of that.

1) Get all of the sneak attack damage enhancements.
2) Get the sneak attack to-hit enhancements (maybe not the last one).
3) Get the flanking to-hit enhancements.
4) Get the aggro reduction enhancements (reduces aggro by 40%).
5) Get a Treason from the reaver raid for use in your offhand. This will reduce your aggro another 20%, so you're at a total aggro of 40%. This allows you to start attacking earlier and get the kill before taking aggro and losing all your massive damage. Treason also is Keen and has sneak attack +3 which isn't bad.
6) Use a high dmg weapon in your primary hand. I use a +5 acid of pure good.

I use a lot of divine power clickies too to help with the to-hit. If you do the math, you'll see that your dmg, per swing is unreal and with practice you can wade in and not get smoked.

One other thing I did that I don't regret is taking Repeating Crossbow feat and improved crit ranged. You get three quick sneak attack hits from range (within 30 feet). I also use disruption, smiting, banishing, cursespewing, destruction and paralyzing repeaters as the situation demands.

[Symar-FangofLloth]

one of my alts uses bluff at least once in every combat.

shes a rogue with improved feint.

bluff lasts about 3-6 seconds, pretty sure you need someone targeted, and its usefull to do 1 of 2 things.
1) get aggro of you and on to the "tank"
2)while soloing things that are able to be sneak attacked.

Improved Feint- is it an instant AoE like diplomacy and intimidate, or what? Haven't ever taken it because I'm unsure what it does.

[Ziggy]

Improved Feint- is it an instant AoE like diplomacy and intimidate, or what? Haven't ever taken it because I'm unsure what it does.
its an instant AOE like diploamcy. if you swing your weapon once, thats how long it takes to activate, because it generates an attack swipe(that doesnt roll to hit, its the FEINT)

however bluff and IF are on seperate timers.:D

[Symar-FangofLloth]

Nice, totally worth it, huh? Hmm, wonder if my new WF rogue has feats to spare to grab it.

[Ziggy]

Nice, totally worth it, huh? Hmm, wonder if my new WF rogue has feats to spare to grab it.
well its worth it to that one character.

a 2 paladin/rest rogue split, with a starting 16 charisma. Her UMD is pretty good as well right now.

The only thing that stinks is fighting undead, cause then i cant bluff them or sneak attack them.:(

[Targitaj_Silverskin]

i am use bluff:cool:

[KaKa]

Bluff is awesome. You can trick anyone with a decent bluff and get away with whatever you want because Sense Motive isn't in the game :p.

But seriously yes bluff and diplomacy are useful. I tend to find diplomacy more useful then bluff and there are a few instances where chatting with an NPC and having these skills comes in handy. But in the end you do not have to max ranks on these in the end for it to be useful.