How Useful is Intimidate?

Corwin of Amber · Feb 25, 2011

I have a +4 modifier to Intimidate due to a class feature, but the rest of my build does not give any support to the intimidate skill.

Is it viable to simply put max ranks into it without any supporting feats?

Sekhmet · Feb 25, 2011

I'd put Intimidate as the lowest on the conversational skills. In the core 3.x books, it is very unimpressive.

Corwin of Amber · Feb 25, 2011

Sekhmet said:
I'd put Intimidate as the lowest on the conversational skills. In the core 3.x books, it is very unimpressive.

I was thinking about the combat use of the skill, we have a diplomacy/bluff expert already. I do see your point, though.

Sekhmet · Feb 25, 2011

The Shaken effect is nice, and obviously helpful (occasionally) to your Wizard/what-have-you, but I wouldn't put it above any of the other skills you might want (jump, craft, what-not).
If you have the skill points, by all means do it. Not many monsters, and fewer players have enough ranks of Intimidate to really fight back against a good modifier.

Dandu · Feb 25, 2011

Intimidate is useful in combat only if you support it. ie using Imperious Command and Never Outnumbered, you can force people to cower.

Barbarians with Intimidating Rage are greate for this since the enemy must be intimdiated until your rage runs out.

Unsupported, however, it means you spend your turn inflicting a small penalty on the enemy. You're probably better off just doing your regular thing for that turn.

TanisFrey · Feb 25, 2011

Look in Complete Scoundrel, there is a skill trick letting you Intimidate all opponents within a given distance from you. Once you meet the skill requirements it will cost you 2 skill points to learn and is useful once per combat or once every 10 minutes.

StreamOfTheSky · Feb 26, 2011

If it had a way to last over 1 round, it might be more useful. Otherwise, it's pretty weak without other support. If you can tag team with a caster and stack it with a fear spell, it could mean some AoOs and removing a foe from combat for a round, though.