Why was morale removed from the game?

[Jeremy Ackerman-Yost]

*) And to be fair. It still is in 4E. Intimidate might be a class skill, but it is still based on Charisma that only one type of Barbarian "needs", and a Fighter has even less reason to focus on than the Barbarian.

Which works well. Even without Cha, they're going to intimidate the heck out of lower level foes in 4e. But foes around their skill level will be less impressed. The high Cha character can convince you that, though he appears the same as you or even weaker than you, he is actually incredibly dangerous. With the low Cha character, you simply get a realistic assessment. Other tough guys have seen scary looking dudes before. It's passe.

 

[Oni]

As kind of an aside, regarding the intimidate skill. I have long mulled over the idea of replacing intimidate/diplomacy/bluff with a single skill, sincerity. The thought first occurred to me when I imagined that it might be easier for someone with an outrageous bluff skill to tell a lie, than to tell the truth. But in the end, all those skills really boil down to how believable you are, but by not pigeonholing it to specific acts, like say intimidation, you can tailor its use to the individual characters. Take the scary barbarian for instance, it seems a little silly to me that he's not intimidating. If you had a sincerity skill, you could treat it as though he's genuinely frightening to most everyone, his challenge is when he needs to convince someone that he isn't a danger to them.

 

[Gentlegamer]

So, a dozen or more orcs should see four or five human warriors and choose to run away?

PCs don't have signs floating above their heads announcing "I am a 10th-level character. Ph33r."

No, but 10th level characters ought to have some fame or infamy attached to their names. A couple battle cries by the party coupled by orc recognition of identifying marks (heraldry, distinctive items, etc.) could trigger a pre-emptive retreat or surrender.*

*The PCs might even try to bluff, claiming/disguising themselves as someone with fame/infamy.

 

[rogueattorney]

I think it's pretty clear to me:

"In Combat: When the first death (on either
side, PC or NPC/monster) takes place; the
DM makes one morale roll for the remaining
creatures to see if they wish to continue."

I'm not sure which version of the rules you're looking at, but in the 1981 version of the rules, the context of the statement makes clear that the morale check is for the side that had the first death. A lot of time, with the new editions, rules were cut and pasted out of context or words were switched around that caused bigger rule changes than I believe the editor actually intended. (The most famous is probably in the RC's horribly edited combat section where "combat" replaces "melee" in a paragraph and completely changes how movement works.)

 

[Janx]

As kind of an aside, regarding the intimidate skill. I have long mulled over the idea of replacing intimidate/diplomacy/bluff with a single skill, sincerity. The thought first occurred to me when I imagined that it might be easier for someone with an outrageous bluff skill to tell a lie, than to tell the truth. But in the end, all those skills really boil down to how believable you are, but by not pigeonholing it to specific acts, like say intimidation, you can tailor its use to the individual characters. Take the scary barbarian for instance, it seems a little silly to me that he's not intimidating. If you had a sincerity skill, you could treat it as though he's genuinely frightening to most everyone, his challenge is when he needs to convince someone that he isn't a danger to them.

Perhaps Sincerity isn't the right term, since it would apply more to "being believable" in an honesty fashion. Though there's merit in that, as well (a Sincerity check).

How about a Menace check. Factor in level, reputation, Intimidate/Bluff, how much menace does a char present.

Part of this is the whole design problem of Charisma. I've long been convinced that the stats and math was based on being relative to a Human. Elves are prettier than humans, they get a bonus. Orcs are uglier than humans, they get a penalty.

Whereas my 8 CHA half-orc was a witty and convincing orator and noble statesman in the eyes of the orcs. between reputation, and the fact that orcs don't put much stock in looking pretty or fine words, it's pretty easy to have a bad CHA and not have it reflect reality...relative to orcs.

 

[Gentlegamer]

Whereas my 8 CHA half-orc was a witty and convincing orator and noble statesman in the eyes of the orcs. between reputation, and the fact that orcs don't put much stock in looking pretty or fine words, it's pretty easy to have a bad CHA and not have it reflect reality...relative to orcs.

IIRC, AD&D Barbarians has an effective Charisma to other barbarians equal to Charisma score plus experience level. Something like that could work.

 

[Raven Crowking]

In RCFG, Intimidate is a Charisma-based skill whose seconday attribute is Strength. So long as you do not have a Charisma penalty, you can use Strength freely to Intimidate.

A very simple solution, really, and one I am surprised I hadn't run across earlier.


RC

 

[Umbran]

Please stop doing the types of things to other posters that you do not appreciate being done to you. Have a nice day.

There is a big, big difference between saying, "You do not accept X", and "I'll bet you do not accept X." The first is claiming to know what another is thinking, the other is explicitly a guess that could be wrong and implicitly asking for refutation.

It would probably have been better of me to make it an explicit question - to phrase it as, "Really? Anything? Because..." But I don't claim to be perfect.

 

[pawsplay]

Well, let's take on our "verisimilitude" hat on. Should there really be a way to play a hulking creature wielding a two-handed axe larger than yourself that wrestles polar bears and dragons to death and can probably rip out your arms out if he wanted that is not intimidating? I mean, he got the muscles, he got the rage, he got the kills, he good the blood stains and scars.

Not really. Picture him played by Barney Fife, but with muscles. Do I have the ability to incinerate him with a fireball? If so, why would I find him intimidating? I would consider him dangerous. Dangerous is not the same as intimidating. Guns are scary. If I hand a gun to my four year old son, he becomes very scary and I become scared, but that doesn't make my son intimidating.

If a character is simply scary and that causes people to run away or try to kill them, that's not intimidation. That's people making the expected, rational choices. Intimidation is used to convince people to do something other than what their natural reaction would be. In Willow, Willow tries to intimidate someone with a magic acorn. It doesn't work, even though we later find out that the acorn is terrifying powerful. People just don't believe him. Intimidation is John Constantine staring down gods and demons, with little more than hunch and grim expression, and making those eldritch things hesitate. Intimidation is "The Gambler" holding a guy at bay with a gun that may or many not be loaded, or the Dread Pirate Roberts starting down Humperdinck while all but paralyzed.

For a hulking barbarian to be intimidating, he would have to be able to cow a city council into meeting his demands (rather than scaring them into hiring a bounty hunter), cause wizards to quake in their boots (rather than reaching for the sulphur and bat dung), and sit down at a game of chess and make the other person briefly terrified that the barbarian is actually a chess-master underneath all that polar bear fur and scars.

Intimidation is a short, unassuming guy starting down that barbarian without even blinking, and the barbarian halts because, if that guy's not scared, why not? And it certainly doesn't depend on Strength. An orc is generally not at all intimidating, because I would never be tempted for a moment to think I can appease the orc. My impression of the orc is probably that he is stupid, dangerous, and unsubtle. Therefore, while I might be afraid of an orc, if I were about to have to fight him, I would not be intimidated, because my first reaction would not be to be cowed, but to figure out some way to kill it or escape. If I meet an orc in the marketplace, I might be somewhat intimidated if we get into an argument over the last pie, but the orc's Strength is probably less of an issue than my belief about whether the town watch is nearby. A soft-spoken halfling with a razor could be as intimidating, or more intimidating, in such a situation.

Are cows intimidating? Dump trucks?

The disconnect comes when someone expects their hulking axe dude to not merely be scary, but intimidating, based on their image of the character. They want an ability they actually have to budget for. Once your Intimidate is maxed out, it hardly matters what your Cha is, and if you want to be truly terrifying, take Daunting Presence of Skill Focus (Intimidate) if you are playing 3e. The reason this is so is because it is very easy to imagine a character who is strong, deadly, and wielding an axe who is basically not intimidating at all. He seems like an oaf... until we have evidence of his terrifying prowess, he doesn't seem like a threat, he seems like a yokel with an axe.

A silence spell isn't intimidating, but it could be terrifying for a wizard. That's why singling out Strength is just poor game design. It is only one of several possible factors that might apply. However, Charisma always applies. If you don't convey at least some sense of confidence, you will never be as intimidating as someone who oozes self-aware menace.

 

[Jeremy Ackerman-Yost]

EDIT: Pawsplay wins at timely posting.

In RCFG, Intimidate is a Charisma-based skill whose seconday attribute is Strength. So long as you do not have a Charisma penalty, you can use Strength freely to Intimidate.

A very simple solution, really, and one I am surprised I hadn't run across earlier.


RC

I think you have a core assumption slightly out of place.

Strength isn't inherently scary. Fighting skill is.

I'm a big guy with a bare minimum of martial arts background. I certainly have less fighting experience than the average person/humanoid who would actually fight a D&D player character, and I still am not intimidated in the slightest by someone with large muscles.

Long reach? Scary if they look competent, otherwise less so. Quick? Definitely a worry, even if I otherwise can't tell anything about them. Quick and smart? I'd rather fight 2 big guys than one wiry-looking guy who has a brain, especially if he can get his hands on a weapon. Big guys are only really a worry if there's going to be grappling involved or there's no room to maneuver (which are really the same thing, most of the time).

IMO, if you're trying to model human behavior.... Big, strong guys should get a bonus to intimidate people who don't know anything about fighting. Experienced fighters... not so much. I'm not even legitimately experienced and I have better things to go on than the sheer size of a guy.

In a d20-style game, something to do with BAB would be a more realistic way to model that than strength. That's probably the best way to do it. If you want to be really "realistic", then intimidate or bluff checks to look more or less impressive than you are should be modified by BAB in some way, as well, in addition to charisma.

4e sort of handles it indirectly with the automatic bonus to your skills just by leveling. An experienced fighter doesn't need to try to look impressive to untrained people or low skill people. Automatic bonus to your intimidate will handle that. But if he wants to trick another experienced fighter into thinking that he is more skilled than he is... that takes some bluffing, not just muscle flexing. Skilled fighters aren't going to be impressed.