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Proposal: Background Benefits
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<blockquote data-quote="KarinsDad" data-source="post: 5126611" data-attributes="member: 2011"><p>My take:</p><p></p><p>I think this feat is overly potent and problematic.</p><p></p><p>1) Any game option that allows a re-roll gives the equivalent of +3.25 to the roll. The average roll of a single D20 is 10.5, the average of best of two D20 is 13.825. So right off the bat this feat is slightly more powerful than Skill Focus Intimidate.</p><p></p><p>2) This feat also gives a +2 to initiative, so it is solidly more useful than Skill Focus Intimidate.</p><p></p><p>3) This feat does not give a feat bonus. So, the average +3.25 here (and often a lot more) stacks with Skill Focus Intimidate. It also stacks with powers that give power bonuses and with items that give item bonuses.</p><p></p><p>4) Intimidate is an iffy skill to begin with. Any bloodied foe can be Intimidated into surrendering with a die roll, it doesn't matter if the bloodied foe is at 200 hits out of 400 or 1 hit out of 400. It's a backhanded way of doing a lot of damage without actually doing a lot of damage and the only range limit is line of sight and hearing.</p><p></p><p>A once in a blue moon Intimidate success in combat is ok, but any player rolling the dice twice per skill check will be making an awful lot of those rolls in many encounters. I cannot imagine a player taking this feat and not using Intimidate a lot.</p><p></p><p>Such a PC could easily intimidate 1 or 2 NPCs (or more) per encounter. Intimidate can also be used against multiple foes with a single standard action. Say it's against 3 bloodied foes. The odds with 6 dice rolls of NOT taking out at least 1 of them is really pretty slim, even with the +10 Will for hostile foe. And the out of combat use of the skill (e.g. for Skill Challenges) with non-hostile NPCs will be very large. Intimidate is the equivalent of old school Area Effect Save or Die except that there is a D20 opposed check roll instead of a save. With all of the potential other bonuses in the game system, this is extremely problematic. We're not talking adding a few more points of damage per attack, we're talking doing the potential equivalent of over a hundred hit points of damage with a single standard action. The only time this will probably not work in a multi-foe encounter is if the PC cannot speak the language of the foes.</p><p></p><p>Intimidate when used in combat is a skill that can directly take out foes, significantly overcome combat challenges, and result in fewer resources per encounter being used. As such, its use and potential abuse should be carefully controlled. I don't think we should disallow the options for it that we already have here, but adding new and better ones shouldn't happen.</p><p></p><p></p><p>I'm not sure why WotC started adding in feats that allow 2 skill rolls instead of 1, but mathematically it's extremely problematic.</p><p></p><p>Personally, I dislike the character concept of Intimidate cheese and I don't think we should encourage players to do it.</p><p></p><p>There are also over 1100 heroic level feats, I don't see the need to have a special Eberron house rule to allow a single feat in for a single PC. An intimidating PC can already be created without making him even more potentially uber with this feat.</p><p></p><p>And, the benefit of this house rule proposal is not really for everyone like most other house rule proposals (although other future or redesigned PCs could use it if it is approved), it's for just a single PC where there are already hundreds and hundreds of other options.</p><p></p><p>I also happen to think that we shouldn't be adding Forgotten Realms material to Eberron.</p><p></p><p>Just my 22 cents.</p></blockquote><p></p>
[QUOTE="KarinsDad, post: 5126611, member: 2011"] My take: I think this feat is overly potent and problematic. 1) Any game option that allows a re-roll gives the equivalent of +3.25 to the roll. The average roll of a single D20 is 10.5, the average of best of two D20 is 13.825. So right off the bat this feat is slightly more powerful than Skill Focus Intimidate. 2) This feat also gives a +2 to initiative, so it is solidly more useful than Skill Focus Intimidate. 3) This feat does not give a feat bonus. So, the average +3.25 here (and often a lot more) stacks with Skill Focus Intimidate. It also stacks with powers that give power bonuses and with items that give item bonuses. 4) Intimidate is an iffy skill to begin with. Any bloodied foe can be Intimidated into surrendering with a die roll, it doesn't matter if the bloodied foe is at 200 hits out of 400 or 1 hit out of 400. It's a backhanded way of doing a lot of damage without actually doing a lot of damage and the only range limit is line of sight and hearing. A once in a blue moon Intimidate success in combat is ok, but any player rolling the dice twice per skill check will be making an awful lot of those rolls in many encounters. I cannot imagine a player taking this feat and not using Intimidate a lot. Such a PC could easily intimidate 1 or 2 NPCs (or more) per encounter. Intimidate can also be used against multiple foes with a single standard action. Say it's against 3 bloodied foes. The odds with 6 dice rolls of NOT taking out at least 1 of them is really pretty slim, even with the +10 Will for hostile foe. And the out of combat use of the skill (e.g. for Skill Challenges) with non-hostile NPCs will be very large. Intimidate is the equivalent of old school Area Effect Save or Die except that there is a D20 opposed check roll instead of a save. With all of the potential other bonuses in the game system, this is extremely problematic. We're not talking adding a few more points of damage per attack, we're talking doing the potential equivalent of over a hundred hit points of damage with a single standard action. The only time this will probably not work in a multi-foe encounter is if the PC cannot speak the language of the foes. Intimidate when used in combat is a skill that can directly take out foes, significantly overcome combat challenges, and result in fewer resources per encounter being used. As such, its use and potential abuse should be carefully controlled. I don't think we should disallow the options for it that we already have here, but adding new and better ones shouldn't happen. I'm not sure why WotC started adding in feats that allow 2 skill rolls instead of 1, but mathematically it's extremely problematic. Personally, I dislike the character concept of Intimidate cheese and I don't think we should encourage players to do it. There are also over 1100 heroic level feats, I don't see the need to have a special Eberron house rule to allow a single feat in for a single PC. An intimidating PC can already be created without making him even more potentially uber with this feat. And, the benefit of this house rule proposal is not really for everyone like most other house rule proposals (although other future or redesigned PCs could use it if it is approved), it's for just a single PC where there are already hundreds and hundreds of other options. I also happen to think that we shouldn't be adding Forgotten Realms material to Eberron. Just my 22 cents. [/QUOTE]
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