Also I thought perception is something the DM asks for, not the players. Players can roll Insight if they want. But perception is always DM controlled, I thought.
@YoFrodo That's the case for passive checks for sure, but I can't seem to find that in the PHB directly.
At my table everyone is free to suggest what skill they might try to use to accomplish something (unless I request something anyway) and I veto or agree, depending on how good their RP-reasoning is or how hare-brained the scheme is.
Insight. Your Wisdom (Insight) check decides whether
you can determine the true intentions of a creature, such
as when searching out a lie or predicting someone’s
next move. Doing so involves gleaning clues from body
language, speech habits, and changes in mannerisms.
To me this still isn't the same as a lie detector, especially if they never met the character before. That twitch in the eye? Maybe they just got allergies.
Insight would help you determine if its allergies or lies. Yeah it’s not a lie detector but if you roll a 25 it should be doing basically the same thing.
@ReadyUser31 I mean, kind of, but the whole body language to identify liars thing is pretty much debunked by now.
What's a tell with someone might not be for someone else.
I much prefer my party squirm under "You're sure they're not being entirely truthful." over "Yeah, they're lying."
@Glatorius See, I'll remain of the opinion that if there's a specific feat. or spell that achieves what you're trying to do with a skill check, then that skill check does not do it without that feat. or spell.
Otherwise that feat. or spell would be entirely pointless and the basic skill check way overpowered.
@Glatorius Honestly, that's good to know insofar that I can use it to help convince my party to switch to pathfinder at some point. Though, I don't know if I would like to play it like that.
The problem for me is mainly that they'll simply take it as "so they lied about this thing!" while the character might be lying but they just don't know about what exactly.
I prefer the mystery of "They look uncomfortable and red in the face" over "Yeah, no, they're totes lying."
@Imperor Ah, I get that. Having certainity about an NPCs "real" intentions via a dice roll can be awkward if there is no in-universe explanation to know those.
After you comment, I looked up PF2s version of Sense Motive again and they seem to be on your side. 🙂
If you succeed at the check you only know "They look uncomfortable and red in the face".
Only on a critical success you have your "Yeah, no, they're totes lying" ...I think in that case, the player and GM can work out together, how.
@Glatorius Yeah, I like to fully reward critical rolls as best as possible. They should always be a highlight and that can be spotting a bold faced lie - maybe even through some simple cop-out like divine intervention or the character having some piece of information that they only then connect and realize it cannot be the truth. That sort of thing.
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