(Passive) CHA
  Possessed By: Some Humans, Halflings, Stoutheart Halflings, Bards, Monks, Paladins, Rogues, Warriors, Tattoo Mystics, Community priests.
  Effects:  Diplomacy is a very broad and open-ended skill with the following possible applications:
   * Increased PCR (Passive): The total possible CR of your party -- your PCR -- is increased by your Diplomacy rating. If adding a creature to your party would cause the party's total CR to exceed your PCR, that creature won't be able to join unless you dismiss someone else. You must have a Diplomacy score above +5 for it to impact your PCR; every full +5 after the first increases the maximum possible size of your party by 100%.
   Creatures whose Personality Archetypes or alignments conflict with your own or with other members of your party have an inflated effective CR when it comes to determining their role in the calculation of PCR. This inflation is reduced by a high Diplomacy level on the player character's part. Thus, it requires an exceptional Diplomacy skill to maintain a party with both good and evil characters of any reasonable power in a stable manner.
   * Issue Request (Active): One of the possible uses for Diplomacy is the ability to give non-hostile, non-friendly NPCs requests. The creature must be intelligent, and unlike a true ally he will not cross from one map to another with the PC -- his aid is purely situational.
   Orders that can be given vary. NPCs can be asked to give the PC items that they picked up in the dungeon (this is difficult), but not items that are part of their inherent equipment. NPCs can also be persuaded to attack other creatures that are already hostile to them -- in other words, their priority of enemies can be changed.
   Perhaps the most useful order a player can give is to get an NPC to follow her. By so doing, the player can lead an NPC to other creatures that they hate -- demons vs. devils, elves vs. drow, good vs. evil, etc. -- and allow the NPC to fight the player's battles for him. Once a player has successfully used Diplomacy on a given NPC, he receives half of the experience for all the creatures that NPC kills, for the remainder of the day Diplomacy was used in. However, creatures that the player guides in this manner do not count as party members for party Hit Dice purposes -- they are still neutrals, not allies.
   Diplomacy cannot be used to give a creature orders in the same day it was used to change that creature from hostile to neutral, and every order given after the first in a single day increases the DC by +2.
   The DC for a Diplomacy check to convince a creature to do something depends on your race, the creature's race, the request given, your Personality Archetype, the creature's alignment and so forth. The one factor that always applies, however, is CR -- the target creature's CR is always added to the DC of an Issue Request check.   This function of Diplomacy can also be used to convince creatures to barter with you when they otherwise would not be willing -- dwarves will not trade with drow or orcs without an impressive check, for example.
   Storekeepers sell to anyone, but they are often more reluctant to buy wares from dungeon delvers (as opposed to trade guilds). Whether they will purchase items often depends on a character's base Diplomacy skill rating, modified by the normal social modifiers. For example, Roark Ironbeard will purchase powerful magical weapons and armour only from characters with an adjusted Diplomacy rating of +12.
   * Enlist Aid (Talking): When you ask a named character to join your party, a Diplomacy check determines if they are willing, modified by Personality Archetypes, alignment, race, etc. You only get one check against a given character in this circumstance, ever.
   Unlike most Diplomacy checks, this one cannot be modified by magical bonuses, because it represents a long-term commitment on the NPC's part.
   The DC of an Enlist Aid check is 15 + twice the affected character's CR.
   * Dismiss Ally (Talking): Conversely, the Diplomacy skill can be used to get a character to leave your party on graceful terms. When you elect to dismiss a character, they will automatically cease to be an ally and become a neutral character. The success or failure of the Diplomacy check determines if they can be added back into your party reliably at a later time. If you fail the Dismiss Ally check, you need to make the Enlist Aid check again, and if that check fails, the character is permanently closed to you as a party member as usual.
   If you succeed, you can automatically add the character in question back into your party at any time in the future, provided you have enough free PCR.
   The DC of a Dismiss Ally check is 7 + the affected character's CR, and the check does not fail on a natural one.
   * Haggling (Passive): Your Diplomacy rating is used internally by the game in calculating shop and barter prices, along with racial affinities, personality modifiers and so forth. Note that regardless of exceptional Charisma and Diplomacy, characters will still always find that there is a very steep difference between buying and selling price in Incursion. Adventurers are a very tiny, very volatile customer base, and merchants trading in magic items must allocate a massive portion of their budget to the protection and procurement of their wares.
   An average human character can expect to sell goods for 1/20th of their base price and buy them for five times their base price. A character with maxed-out Diplomacy and Charisma can expect to sell items for 1/10th their base price and buy them for 2-3 times their base price.
   More significantly, however, Diplomacy determines how much gold a merchant, adventurer or shop is willing to part with. A merchant may have 10,000 gp worse of loose cash, but being frugally smart only want to spent 3,000 gp to purchase new wares. Every point of a character's Diplomacy increases the amount of cash a merchant can be persuaded to use to purchase goods by 5%, up to an obvious maximum of the total amount of cash the merchant has.
   Forcing sellers to expend too much of their operating finances buying items from you can impact your alignment.
   * Barter for Services (Talking): In addition to buying items from NPCs, a player character can buy services -- usually the casting of spells -- from them. Spells that can be purchased from NPCs include Identify, Remove Curse, Cure spells, Restoration, and so forth, as well as certain extended protective magics like Resist Fire, Misdirection or Stoneskin.
   As with items, Diplomacy influences the price of service spells, and a Diplomacy check (DC 5/10 + caster's CR, with modifiers based on race, alignment, etc.) is required to convince a caster to sell magic to you. Arcane casters are easier to convince to merchandise their magic (base DC 5) than divine casters (base DC 10).
   * Resolve Conflict (Active): A Diplomacy check can be used to convince a hostile character to become neutral in some circumstances. The DC for this differs wildly -- it's not hard to calm down an angry goblin, but inherently evil and vicious creatures like demons can be very hard to make peace with. In some circumstances, a creature will want something -- often a bribe -- in order to stop attacking you.
   You cannot make creatures neutral to you with Diplomacy if you have already attacked them; for that, use Bluff.
   * Surrender (Active): When you choose to surrender to attacking NPCs, a fairly easy Diplomacy check is made; success causes the NPCs to accept your surrender and become neutral, taking all your gold and your best item in so doing. If you beat the check DC by 10 or more, you can reduce the amount of wealth and goods enemies take from you when you surrender.
   Returning to attack enemies you have surrendered to is an unlawful act; if the enemies aren't themselves evil, it is also an evil act.