You can make outrageous or untrue statements seem plausible. This skill encompasses conning, fast-talking, misdirection, prevarication, and deception through body language. Use a Bluff to sow temporary confusion, get someone to turn his head in the direction you point, or simply look innocuous.

You can use a Bluff to send and understand secret messages while appearing to be talking about something else entirely.

Check: A Bluff check is opposed by the target’s Sense Motive check when trying to con or mislead. Favorable or unfavorable circumstances can weigh heavily on the outcome of a bluff. Two circumstances can work against you: if the bluff is hard to believe, or if the action that the bluff requires the target to take goes against the target’s self-interest, nature, personality, or orders.

If it’s important, the GM can distinguish between a bluff that fails because the target doesn’t believe it and one that fails because it asks too much of the target.

A successful bluff check indicates that the target reacts as you wish, at least for a short time (usually 1 round or less), or the target believes something you want her to believe.

A bluff requires interaction between the character and the target. Targets unaware of the character can’t be Bluffed.

Feinting in Combat: You can also use Bluff to mislead an opponent in combat so that he can’t dodge your attack effectively. If you succeed, the next attack you make against your opponent ignores his Dexterity bonus to Defense, thus lowering his Defense score. Using a bluff in this way against a creature of animal intelligence (1 or 2) imposes a –8 penalty on the check. Against a non-intelligent creature, feinting is impossible.

Feinting in Starship Combat: With a successful Bluff check, you mislead another starship so that it can’t dodge your attack effectively. This check is opposed by the target pilot’s Sense Motive check. If you succeed, the next attack your starship makes against that target ignores its pilot’s Dexterity bonus to Defense (if any), thus lowering the target’s Defense score. You cannot use this tactic against a ship that’s flying on autopilot.

Special: If you have the Starship Feint feat, you gain a +2 bonus to your Bluff check to feint in starship combat.

Creating a Diversion to Hide: You can use a Bluff to help you hide. A successful Bluff check gives you the momentary diversion you need to attempt a Hide check while people are aware of you.

Seduction: You can use Bluff to convince members of the opposite sex to believe that your romantic intentions are sincere (assuming that they aren’t). You make a Bluff check opposed by the target’s Sense Motive. Success allows you to persuade him or her to do a small favor for you, such as looking the other way when you do something suspicious, or providing you with information that is meant to be secret. This form of seduction is only temporary; this use of Bluff is not the way to another person’s heart. It only ensures their complicity for a short time.

Sending a Secret Message: You can use Bluff to send and understand secret messages while appearing to be speaking about other things. The DC for a basic message is 10. Complex messages or those carrying new information have DC’s of 15 or 20. Both the sender and the recipient must make the check for the message to be successfully sent and understood.

Anyone listening in on a secret message can attempt a Sense Motive check (DC equal to the sender’s Bluff check result). If successful, the eavesdropper realizes that a secret message is contained in the communication. If she makes the check by 5 or more, she understands the secret message.

Try Again?: Generally, a failed Bluff check makes the target too suspicious to be allow another Bluff attempt in the same encounter. For feinting in combat, however, you may try again freely.

Special: You can take 10 when making a Bluff check (except in combat), but you can’t take 20.

Time: A bluff takes at least 1 full-round action but can take much longer if you try something elaborate. Using Bluff as a feint in combat is an attack action.