Intimidate in combat: viable?

[Dr_Ruminahui]

I know I'm a bit late in joining this party, but I have allowed my players to attempt to intimidate their opponents. The first was against a group of kobolds which the party was attempting to capture - having bloodied the remaining kobolds and taken down their leader, the paladin made an intimidate test to force the others to give up. I think he rolled like crap, but given the circumstances, I had the test succeed. I think he used a standard action, but I don't remember.

More recently, the wizard had a cloud of daggers up in the only way a number of goblin minions had of accessing the chamber. He then killed one of their allies with thunderwave, but specifically pushed the corpse into the cloud of daggers to be chopped up and intimidate the minions. With his move action, he moved in behind the cloud, more so for positional reasons, but I allowed him to use his minor for an intimidation check. Beating their will defence (I didn't impose the -15 for hostile and no shared language), he caused them to run rather than enter the room when the cloud of daggers ended.

Now, I imagine neither are examples that Old Gumphrey would be terribly happy with, as in neither case did I actually bother to strictly apply the intimidation rules but instead used rules that worked in the situation for the players and the story.

And Old Gumphrey, I think you are attributing to the posters a more extreme position than we are indeed taking. Never (that I observed) have we said that you shouldn't be able play the way you want to, rather the point has been that you can really only play that way if your DM cooperates. To which your response has been that you should be able to play that way regardless of how your DM feels.

To which Thanlis's comment of "play by the DMs rules or go home" is entirely appropriate. The rules do not support (as Nail has pointed out) the absolute position you have taken that provided you get an intimidate result of "x", that the enemies would automatically surrender. Even if they did, this is a game where DM's perogative reigns supreme, with the understanding that the intent is for the DM to excercise that perogative not on personal whim but in such a way that makes best sense for the story he wants to tell and ultimately will be the most fun for the players.

Now, from the annecdote you gave, it sounds like the way you are playing it works great for you, your gaming group, and the DM. Great and more power to you! I think that's awesome and I hope that your intimidation tactic and build continues to work for you. I think that all in this thread would agree with me, as I don't think anyone has been saying how your gaming group should run its game.

Rather, it has been you that has been stating how we should be running our games, by stating that regardless of the DM your tactic should be allowed, while at the same time inferring that if we disliked your tactic or personally would not allow it that we are a bunch of rules breaking weasels. Which, even though I had not previously posted, I found kind of offensive.

 

[IanB]

Intimidate
At-will
Standard Action - Ranged sight
Target: One bloodied creature
Attack: Charisma +5 vs Will
Hit: Target is reduced to 0 hit points

What DM would allow that in their game? At the cost of a trained skill? That's basically what the "intimidate anytime on any opponent" camp is arguing for here.

 

[keterys]

Technically it's more like

Close Burst Sight
Target: Any bloodied enemy in burst
Attack: Charisma -2 vs. Will

You do have that Will + 10 DC to look out for, and all.

I think one of the biggest problems I have with it is that Intimidate is frontloaded with all those feats and background/racial/etc bonuses, rather than scaling along with everything else.

 

[Ulthwithian]

A couple of things, here.

First, the options under Success are clearly options for the Player, not the DM. As a parallel construction, it would 'break out' as

"Success: Force a bloodied creature to surrender OR Force a creature to reveal a secret OR Force..."

Since someone cannot intentionally force something on something else, this shows that if I want to use Intimidate to make someone surrender, I can choose that.

Whether that is what happens or not is another issue altogether.

Having said that, I'll put myself down on the side of those who are more or less against the OP.

To the OP: The skill clearly states that the DC for the check is either 'Will + 10', OR 'whatever the DM says', and obviously the DM must set the DC. This means that the DM is clearly within his rights to set ALL DCs for this check at 100 or above. Would the DM be rather vengeful to do this to you? Yes.

However, by the same argument, to clearly deny the fact that the DM has this option (which you have implicitly done in more than one post by giving only the part of the DC-setting text that you want to use), you are committing the exact same error that you decry in the above reaction by the DM.

Finally, I must say also that if you would come to my game and tell me how I must run the game, you would be leaving my game quite rapidly.

Regarding the Intimidate rules, I think it should be a Fear effect and should have appropriate modifiers as such. (Hellfire Blood Tieflings should get a +1 on it, Halflings should get a +5 against it, etc.)

 

[Nail]

First, the options under Success are clearly options for the Player, not the DM.

Given that we're talking about actions the affected monster could take, that can't be correct. The player doesn't determine monster actions.

For example, if a player successfully uses Diplomacy on a monster, does the player determine what the monster does as a result? Bluff and other skills follow this same format.

Regarding the Intimidate rules, I think it should be a Fear effect and should have appropriate modifiers as such.

If we're talking house rules, it seems reasonable to me that an Intimidate check should get the player no more than if she used an At-Will power successfully. A skill check is used far too easily and often for it to be at the "Daily Power" or "Encounter Power" level.

 

[77IM]

I think that we, as a people, need to move past the debate about whether or not the DM can modify a DC or apply circumstance bonus/penalties to a check. Clearly the DM can do this; it's required for the game to work right. In fact the DM can override any specific rule, including such rules as "Force a bloodied foe to surrender."

The more interesting question is whether the DM should do this...

-- 77IM

 

[Dr_Ruminahui]

I have no problem with the DM allowing such, provided it matches the appropriate tone for his campaign and his players. The OP's recounting of his own experience with his group is a perfect example of this (though, to be fair, I'm assuming that his DM and the other players are as into it as he is).

That said, I don't believe the DM should be shackled to the rules. If it doesn't work for the party/campaign, then he should place limitations on it. Likewise, if some opponents are more/less likely to run away/surrender, I fully support him tweaking the modifiers. Likewise, I have no problem with the DM both allowing it in circumstances which the rules don't allow (minions, last standing foe who isn't yet bloodied, as examples) or flat out disallow it (BBEG for example). Likewise, I have no problem with the DM throwing more difficult encounters at the party based on the assumption that the party is likely able to end the fight early.

Personally, I think its a very interesting build and so long as the party is cool with it, I have no problem with it provided that in certain circumstances it just doesn't work. Indeed, one of my main problems with it is that it gets worse and worse as the players level. The other main problem is having the rest of the party feel like they are just warm-up hitters, but if the party doesn't feel that way, great.

That said, while I think the player can say what he is attempting to achieve, that may not be the result, even on a successful roll. For example, the opponents may not surrender if there is an open avenue of escape - they would run instead. However, I wouldn't normally penalise the player for rolling successfully - even if the plot required the baddies to stay and fight, I would give them some sort of negative for hanging around in the presense of a successful intimidate check.

 

[Flipguarder]

My DM is currently attempting to decide whether or not he will let me use the intimidate skill to goad people into attacking me.

I think we should talk about that now...

 

[Dr_Ruminahui]

I would allow, but with bluff rather than intimidate - to me bluff seems the skill to use if you want to try to piss someone off.

Though, I might allow intimidate in certain circumstances, if the player made a convincing case. If I did, I imagine there would be a penalty as compared to using bluff. Although I can't imagine the circumstances of such at this very moment, it might very well be possible that there may be situations where intimidate would be easier to use.

 

[77IM]

I allow it. It's somewhat subjective. In fact here is my house rule:

Intimidate can be used to taunt people by making an Intimidate check vs. Will defense. The exact effects of success are up to the DM, based on the target's personality, the situation, and the creativity of the taunt issued. If you fail, you can't retry against the same target for the rest of the encounter.​

In general, I allow a successful Intimidate to cause the target to attack the character in preference to other characters, as long as it's a tactically sound option. If the check succeeds by 10 or more, or the target is tactically stupid to begin with, then the target attacks the character even if it's tactically disadvantageous to do so.

I rationalize Intimidate as a taunt for two reasons. One, you can make yourself seem more threatening, and hence a high-value target. Two, for goading to be effective, you need to respect the person doing the goading, and I generalize Intimidate to the skill for commanding respect.

-- 77IM