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

[Crimson Longinus]

That's because the DCs correspond to dozens of things.

A DC 30 door could be dwarven steel or duergar steel or psyweb or glamorgold or giantstone or magmawrought or infernal bronze or demon brass.
You'd need a whole page to list them all the types of door.
Your DM would suppose to determine the what it is.

You don't need to list everything, but you should list some examples as benchmarks to make consistent extrapolation easier.

But for how "creative" people claim they are, they can't create reasons why an ifrit sultan's vault is harder to crack than the mayor of Dirttown's chest.

Of course it is trivial to create such reasons. But I still think that if you're starting from the DC and then inventing fiction to justify that DC you're doing it in the wrong way around.

 

[UngeheuerLich]

Yeah, we'll never agree if your core issue is the half-level bonus. Having the half-level bonus was, IMO, one of the best features of the system, not something bad. The skill challenges came out half-baked to start with, I'll certainly grant you that, but that's not the skill system in its entirety--that's one specific, albeit important, application that got corrected.


No, they weren't.

They were.

This is a straight-up falsehood, often repeated but simply false.

This is how they were structured.

4e has plenty of fixed DCs for things.

A few.

It just also provides guidance for how to pick appropriate DCs when there isn't already a predefined one.

Then look up the AC for monsters...
Plate armor? Leather? Does not matter. Soldiers have AC dependend on monster level.

The only thing falsely assumed is that characters can't face challenges under or above their own CR. But actually using Monsters above or under was really winky as there was too much scaling in different areas (AC, to Hit, HP). So the function was not linear dependent on the level difference but cubic.

So back to skills. Yes, there were explanations that you should narrate the different DCs differently. But in the end, expectation was that your DC or AC is jist a function of your level. See skipp challenges table.

And believe me, coming from AD&D and 3e we really tried to make it work for us. But it just did not. And part of that reason is the scaling level bonus.

Unlike 3e and 5e, where levelling up actually does make you become worse, not better?

No, it does not. DCs are fixed.
If you use it correctly, this does not occur.
But to be fair: 4e seemed to work for you. 5e works for me in that regard.

For 3e, it has taken me years to understand that the idea is to not ever increase the DC.

I'd need to actually see it, but to put it bluntly, I straight-up don't believe that.

Weren't you around at that time? There were a few people who did remove that bonus and it seemed to work well. To be fair here: I did not test it back then as I had given up on the system. But those who tried it seemed to like it.
Actually my assumption is that 5e's bounded was partly inspired by those ideas. Or was it vice versa? I don't remember the exact timeline. 12 years ago...

On a sidenote: don't you believe me that that was a thing or don't you believe people who tried it and posted positive things about that? One is more rude than the other one.

 

[Minigiant]

Of course it is trivial to create such reasons. But I still think that if you're starting from the DC and then inventing fiction to justify that DC you're doing it in the wrong way around.

You're not inventing the fiction per se.

The DCs are higher because you go to high level locations with tougher and smarter NPCs with more magic, prowess, and resources.

You were supposed to go Normal Material -> Elven/Dwarven/Dragon -> Fey/Shadow -> Inner/Elemental > Outer/Divine/Hells -> Godly


You don't have to justify the Demon Princes being surrounded by high DC. You are in the last 3 layers of Hell.

 

[UngeheuerLich]

You're not inventing the fiction per se.

The DCs are higher because you go to high level locations with tougher and smarter NPCs with more magic, prowess, and resources.

You were supposed to go Normal Material -> Elven/Dwarven/Dragon -> Fey/Shadow -> Inner/Elemental > Outer/Divine/Hells -> Godly


You don't have to justify the Demon Princes being surrounded by high DC. You are in the last 3 layers of Hell.

This is exactly what is wrong about 4e skill system. It starts from the wrong side. You have a DC for a certain level and need to come up with reasons. I prefer it the other way around.

What would have been the problem connecting DC to normal material, elven/dwarven/dragon, fey/shadow, outer/divine/hells etc and just give a DC and an expected level range?

The result is the same, but it feels correct now.

In the 5.24 DMG you cam see how it can be done wothout creating a disconnect.

Look into the trap/hazard section. You find a damage list by level. And you fond hazards with a static DC that are deadly for low level parties but only a nuisance later.

Edit: just to be clear. I have played and liked 4e for quite a while. And I have really tried up to come up with reasons for the DCs. The failing were not the numbers, but the presentation and organization.
You probably coupd take the 4e steucture and redress it and it will be accepted by the larger audience. Actually if you just look at 5e, you will find many 4e elements hidden under things that lool like 3e at the first glance.

 

[Minigiant]

What would have been the problem connecting DC to normal material, elven/dwarven/dragon, fey/shadow, outer/divine/hells etc and just give a DC and an expected level range?

Yes
D&D DMs don't like being told what to do.

That's the problem.

That's why Intimidate is the worse skill in 5e.
You can't tell DMs how to make Intimidate good.

 

[UngeheuerLich]

Yes
D&D DMs don't like being told what to do.

That's the problem.

Nah. It is rather that DM's like a bit of simulationism.
Actually it sounds more arbitrary for players if the DM has only DC per level guidelines. Because description does not matter.

That's why Intimidate is the worse skill in 5e.
You can't tell DMs how to make Intimidate good.

It is "the worst", not "the worse".

"Worst" is a superlative. That comes after "the". "Worse" is the comparative as in "4e skills are worse than 5e ones".

 

[FrozenNorth]

I think it depends how you evaluate the uselessness of skills.

Deception, Intimidate and Persuasion all pretty much do the same thing using the same attribute, so it is rarely useful to be skilled in all of them.

Knowledge of Nature is split between the Nature Skill, Animal Handling and Survival. Meanwhile, knowledge of magic, the planes, 1/3 of the monster manual is all combined in the Arcana skill.

History is a good skill, though poorly named. If it was called Society, it would see more use for information about the different Humanoids that adventurers interact with.

But by my lights, the worst skill is Performance. Already niche in the best of times, tool proficiencies means it isn’t necessary when playing a musical instrument, and if you are impersonating someone, you may as well go with Deception.

 

[Minigiant]

Nah. It is rather that DM's like a bit of simulationism.
Actually it sounds more arbitrary for players if the DM has only DC per level guidelines. Because description does not matter.

The players don't care.

Again is the older DMs who don't want to told what they have to put in D&D to make it work and the younger DMs who won't read it.

It's the books potentially saying "Intimidate is a skill. You have to create a reason why a PC would use Intimidate over Persuasion or Deception to balance the skills and let every PC roll in social situations sometimes." and...

DMs: @#$% you I won't do what you tell me!

 

[MuhVerisimilitude]

Intimidation is a trash skill. It's useless. It doesn't do anything. It has no rules.

If you want to play a fighter who intimidates people, play a bladesinger and use the fear spell.

 

[Shadowdweller00]

Hmm. I would say that Intimidate is probably the least used skill in my games. Part of that being because I mostly don't bother thinking about it. And another part being because pushing people around far more often elicits hostile reactions than Persuasion or Deception.

Probably would help me if someone were to brainstorm some effective, unique, and balanced ideas for using the skill. And then disseminated them.