Sense Motive Skill

Check
A successful check lets you avoid being bluffed (see the Bluff skill). You can also use this skill to determine when “something is up” (that is, something odd is going on) or to assess someone’s trustworthiness.

Hunch
This use of the skill involves making a gut assessment of the social situation. You can get the feeling from another’s behavior that something is wrong, such as when you’re talking to an impostor. Alternatively, you can get the feeling that someone is trustworthy.

Sense Enchantment
You can tell that someone’s behavior is being influenced by an enchantment effect.

Discern Secret Message
You may use Sense Motive to detect that a hidden message is being transmitted via the Bluff skill. In this case, your Sense Motive check is opposed by the Bluff check of the character transmitting the message. For each piece of information relating to the message that you are missing, you take a –2 penalty on your Sense Motive check. If you succeed by 4 or less, you know that something hidden is being communicated, but you can’t learn anything specific about its content. If you beat the DC by 5 or more, you intercept and understand the message. If you fail by 4 or less, you don’t detect any hidden communication. If you fail by 5 or more, you infer some false information.

Epic Check
You can discern a target’s alignment and even detect surface thoughts.

Discern Partial Alignment
This use of the skill lets you discern one component of a target’s alignment. When making the check, you state whether you are trying to discern the law–chaos or good–evil component. You can’t retry the check, and you can’t use this to discern more than one component of the alignment. The target must be visible and within 30 feet of you.

Discern Full Alignment
This use of the skill lets you determine both components of a target’s alignment. You can’t retry the check. The target must be visible and within 30 feet of you.

Detect Surface Thoughts
This lets you read the surface thoughts of a single target. The target must be visible and within 30 feet of you.

Action
Trying to gain information with Sense Motive generally takes at least 1 turn.

Try Again
No, though you may make a Sense Motive check for each Bluff check made against you.

Synergy
If you have 5 or more ranks in Sense Motive, you get a +2 bonus on Diplomacy checks.