D&D 5E Is Intimidate the worse skill in the game?

[Warpiglet-7]

what do you want to roleplay?

not all charctera would use persuasion to get their way. As in life, it gets you further in civilization.

but I don’t want my hypothetical mad dog barbarian to discuss options during high tea. I imagine him breaking things with his bear hands or howling like a beserker to make someone retreat.

intimidate is a discreet skill with flavor. If you want to leave threats with implication and measured language, you can do that too.

for my blade pact warlocks, I like persuasion or deception to be paires with intimidate.

5e skills are so easy to choose having both is not a big issue.

 

[Bacon Bits]

I agree with Animal Handling; I could also agree that Sleight of Hand is very situational. But history comes up all the time in my games. I'd even go as far as say that it's one of the skills that come up the most. It's a reliable way for my players to access internalized knowledge.

I think your DM can make you roll it, but more than any of the other knowledge skills it suffers from the fact that if you fail your roll the DM probably still has to tell you something anyways.

Plus History is too easily abused as a way to punish the player for not knowing what the character almost certainly would. Like if it's vitally important to know Lady Jessica is the bound concubine of Duke Leto, you're going to have to learn that whether or not you roll a 20 or a 2. And if you grew up on Calladan or Arrakis, you should just know that crap without needing to roll. Sure, you might use it to gatekeep access to knowledge that Jessica had Bene Gesserit training, but it's often just not reasonable to hide information behind die rolls.

 

[Minigiant]

A lot depends on the DM, but arguably Intimidate is the one skill that you can succeed on your check and still make things much worse. It also doesn't help that a lot of the types of characters that end up with Intimidate are ones that don't exactly have sparkling personalities and high Charisma.

But Intimidate is the one skill where you can spend the least on a success.

With Persuasion, Performance, or Deception, you can more likely to have to do something for the other party.
With intimidate, you can get 100% of the benefit if you want more often.

 

[Undrave]

I'm glad my random thought generated discussion!

But Intimidate is the one skill where you can spend the least on a success.

With Persuasion, Performance, or Deception, you can more likely to have to do something for the other party.
With intimidate, you can get 100% of the benefit if you want more often.

So you're saying it's a high-risk high-reward kind of skill?

I disagree that you always get 100% of the benefit, because intimidated people might not offer you the best help, and they'll remember that moment more too. Using Intimidate will damage your relationship with the NPC.

 

[Warpiglet-7]

I'm glad my random thought generated discussion!



So you're saying it's a high-risk high-reward kind of skill?

I disagree that you always get 100% of the benefit, because intimidated people might not offer you the best help, and they'll remember that moment more too. Using Intimidate will damage your relationship with the NPC.

You are right.

however, I do not think all skills need to be created equal! I believe intimidate helps to show a common feature in fiction. Making others fear your power is a tried and true scene in fiction.

I think a great success could mean that the victim is too scared to challenge you in the foreseeable future!

further, what if someone is already hostile to you? Intimidating might have a higher success rate than trying to radically change someone’s opinion if they already hate you.

I think it has a place!

 

[Guest 6801328]

I do think that the Cha skills seem to be more granular than other skills. Deception, Persuasion, and Intimidation are all different things, but climbing and swimming and jumping are all the same?

Hmmm.

 

[Li Shenron]

"Intimidate": To make timid or afraid; to cause to feel fear or nervousness; to deter, especially by threats of violence.

It doesn't necessarily boils down to the last case. It could be summarized as "to make someone believe that something bad will happen to them if they don't do as you say". It doesn't mean YOU will be causing that bad thing. So a failure doesn't have to always provoke violent response.

Which if you think about, is practically what the majority of professional politicians do.

So next time the PCs want to make someone afraid of something (whether it is them or not) consider Intimidation instead of always Persuasion.

 

[Undrave]

You are right.

however, I do not think all skills need to be created equal! I believe intimidate helps to show a common feature in fiction. Making others fear your power is a tried and true scene in fiction.

I think a great success could mean that the victim is too scared to challenge you in the foreseeable future!

further, what if someone is already hostile to you? Intimidating might have a higher success rate than trying to radically change someone’s opinion if they already hate you.

I think it has a place!

I do think the action of INTIMIDATING someone has place in the fiction, I question wether that its place is enough to warrant an entire skill dedicated to it, is all. Especially as that's often the most prevalent CHA skill on the class and background list of fighter types.

 

[toucanbuzz]

Maybe Intimidate should have been rolled into Persuasion and just be a way to go about it and be left to the DM, like a lot of thing in 5e...

1. Is it necessary having 3 separate skills for getting people to do what you want? Probably not. Let's just simply it all to Manipulate (Cha) with optional rules to substitute an ability score when it appears appropriate.
2. Otherwise, Intimidate is solid for certain targets. The hardcore gangster who tortures and kills for a living probably responds best to what he knows rather than a politician's promises. Personally, I don't roll these types of checks unless I have no idea how the target would respond. You tell the Emperor to hand over his crown, it won't matter how good your d20 roll is.
3. As to Animal Handling and Sleight of Hand, all depends on your campaign I suppose. Instead of useless, they're really situational and DM dependent. Last session, in my Dark Sun game, a player tried to leap on a kank (domesticated ant mount) and make it go. Had him make a roll (success) and he remembered you need to tap on its antennae to spur it to action. Sleight of Hand comes up for wizards (heavily hated and hunted in the setting) to try and hide their spellcasting and make it look like something else, such as psionics or elemental clerical magic. In our campaign, these skills can matter IF the DM provides a diverse set of opportunities for them to be utilized. Doesn't always mean players will. I can put out a kank for my players to ride, but I cannot lead them to water...or something like that.

 

[Dausuul]

It's almost always a bad idea unless you're dealing with someone you're ready to fight.

That doesn't make it a bad skill. Lots of stuff in D&D is a bad idea unless you're ready to fight. Fireball is not generally helpful in peaceful social interactions.

I mean, which would you prefer: Actually fight an enemy, expending a bunch of limited resources and risking death, or Intimidate them into backing down and giving you what you want?

What about a "the king's man are on their way, if you don't share information with us and let us help you, you'll hang by the morrow". I'd say that most DM would ask for persuasion roll, but I would classify that as intimidate.

As would I. In fact, I'd be rather surprised at a DM who called for a Persuasion check in that scenario.