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

[Crimson Longinus]

My own experience, and the agreement of others who have seen the same pattern, and the advice I have encountered across the web, and the adventures I've read.

Maybe I and the several people I've spoken to who agreed about this have all had a weird and biased sample. But it's what I've seen, over and over and over again. I've had exactly two 5e DMs that didn't do this, and the first was technically a D&D Next DM, giving the playtest rules a shot.

If you want to quibble that anecdotes aren't data, fine. Whatever. We can only argue based on our experience. My experience is that the skill system in 5e sucks in large part because people use it in a really really sucky way that strongly resembles how skills were used in 3e or--more likely--PF1e. Because I strongly suspect that that's exactly what happened here. People who knew 3e very well defected to Pathfinder, and thus continued doing things exactly as they had, until 5e came along. They then switched back and ran it exactly as they had run 3e because the two systems are, in most ways, extremely similar if not damn-near identical. Skills are one of the few places where they differ....but I have not seen a shred of evidence that the culture-of-play for 5e is different from the 3e one when it comes to skills.

The fact that BG3 actually threw genuinely reasonable skill DCs at the player almost flabbergasted me. The vast majority of checks you make in the first area, the coast where you crashed? They're 10 or less. Some are as low as 5. Only one 5e DM I've ever had has done that--namely, Hussar.

So there probably is not much point in arguing what is "typical" though I'd like to point out that to me a lot of your 5e experiences you have recounted seem highly atypical.

But you are certainly correct, that how the GM runs the skill system will have huge impact on the functionality. And this is why I have been saying forever, that the game should have better advice on how the skills are meant to be used as well as a good amount of example DCs that help the GM to set the difficulties in reasonable and consistent manner.

 

[Bae'zel]

Once a DM thinks they know what they're doing They start ignoring all DM advice.

Hm then I do not relate to "normal" DMs because I always leave room for learning new techniques. I watch those videos, read other game rules and read forums specifically to pick up new ways to DM. I have my personal style, but there's always room for improvement.

And yes I've read the DMG. The one from 2014 and the newest one. And the original AD&D one with the charmingly awful random harlot table.

 

[Bae'zel]

I'd make it a feat choice. +1 to any one stat of preference, and you can pick one skill power for each point of Proficiency bonus you have. As your Proficiency score increases, you may pick additional skill powers. That's a feat that will be useful whether you take it at 4 or at 19.

This is a great idea. I'm gonna do some homebrewing over the holidays. Cheers for the advice.

edit: see? sEeEeeE? I like to pick up new ways to do things and I'm in my 40s!! GASP

 

[Crimson Longinus]

I mean, so many people complain about 4e skill challenges but when you ask them to explain what a skill challenge is they explain it wrong which proves that they never read the rules on skill challenges, ran them like 3e, and then ran into the problems the rules that they skipped would have solved.

Nah. If people cannot explain how skill challenges are supposed to work, it proves they did read the rules, as WotC couldn't explain them either. It took them several attempts until they made even some sense and the explanation was still really bad.

 

[EzekielRaiden]

They were.

You can keep saying that all you like. The books explicitly say otherwise. I'm going to believe them over you.

This is how they were structured.

No, it isn't. The page you are referring to is when the DM has to INVENT a new DC for something that didn't already have one. It is not for deciding whether the wooden door in front of the players is a level 30 wooden door or a level 2 wooden door. Because, even in the 4e DMG, doors had specific, defined DCs (4e DMG page 64):

Strength Check to...	DC
Break down wooden door	13
Break down reinforced door	16
Break down barred door	20
Break down iron door	23
Break down adamantine door	27
Break through force portal	30
Force open wooden portcullis	21
Force open iron portcullis	28
Force open adamantine portcullis	35

So you are just, straight-up, wrong.

A few.

Nope.

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

And? Creatures in 5e have AC dependent on their CR. That means diddly-squat for the skills system, which is what you specifically spoke about.

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.

No. There wasn't a problem with that at all. The books even recommended occasionally--with care--using challenges eight or more levels above the party, with the understanding that doing so made for incredibly deadly challenges that the party most likely could not defeat. It also, very explicitly, said to use a range of different kinds of fights.

All of which still has jack-all to do with the skills system, which is what you said you were talking about.

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.

ABSOLUTELY THE HELL NOT.

You keep saying this. I've read the book. It explicitly, repeatedly rejects what you're saying. It includes MANY fixed DCs for various types of things. You are simply, straight-up, WRONG.

You have turned page 42--which is for improvising, meaning, for things where THERE ISN'T ANY DC YET--into the one and only source of DCs. That is false. It is straight-up, objectively false.

Would you like me to dig up more of the DCs from the 4e DMG? I'd be happy to do so. It also has tables for things like the AC and HP of various objects. The PHB also lists some DCs for generic actions, such as picking a generic lock (varying only by the tier in which the adventure appears, in other words, exactly like what you were told earlier where a genie-lord is going to have tougher locks than a local baron), finding information in a settlement (varying only by how hostile/alien the settlement is, absolutely nothing to do with level), and sleight of hand (fixed DC 15, albeit with situational modifiers.)

Your thesis is simply, straight-up wrong. The books explicitly say so.

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.

Nnnnnnope. DCs are never--N E V E R--a function of a character's level. They are a function of:

• the encounter's level (which you, the DM, are always free to decide...but you are given advice for what generally makes enjoyable encounters)
• the individual target's level, if relevant (which, again, you are always free to decide)
• general tier
• whatever material the object is made of, if there's a predefined DC for it
• a fixed number, in a few cases

Your premise remains false. I literally just looked it up to confirm.

No, it does not. DCs are fixed.
If you use it correctly, this does not occur.

Except "use it correctly" creates the problem I described in my post above, where either optimized experts blow checks completely out of the water, or you actually challenge the optimized experts and now the un-Proficient party members are screwed. Because that's the problem. The math still DOES expect higher DCs for higher-level characters! But now any skill you were bad at, you never, EVER get better at. You are stuck being just as awful at stealth at level 20 as you were at level 1.

In other words: you get worse over time. The game still gets harder!

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

So the experts breeze through every check. That's not a solution. That's deciding which horrible thing you're okay with facing. It also means you're literally rewriting 5e, so that the skill DCs never increase, meaning you aren't even using 5e's skill DCs either! You've reinvented THIS system and called it the same, but apparently reinventing 4e's system was beyond the pale. Double standard, much?

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.

I was not much of an active poster on these forums when 5e was being playtested.

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...

Almost certainly the other way around.

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.

Neither. I don't believe that the effect achieved the results you're claiming it did. I believe those people were happy; I'm almost certain that they were happy for exactly the same reason you are happy with having DCs that literally never ever change: you have capitulated to the fact that experts will always become stupidly over-the-top excellent at skill checks, flying head and shoulders over the DC, in order to have skill DCs that don't horrendously punish people who aren't optimized for them.

 

[EzekielRaiden]

Hm then I do not relate to "normal" DMs because I always leave room for learning new techniques. I watch those videos, read other game rules and read forums specifically to pick up new ways to DM. I have my personal style, but there's always room for improvement.

And yes I've read the DMG. The one from 2014 and the newest one. And the original AD&D one with the charmingly awful random harlot table.

In fairness to Minigiant, I have found this to be the case with many, many DMs as well.

The worst cases are the ones where it IS a new DM, but they've decided they already know more than enough and can completely ignore advice from anyone else. That precise thing is what led to at least two TPKs (well, one "all but one party member killed" and one TPK), where I had tried to caution the DM against the possible problems they might run into and actively geared each respective character to forestall possible issues.

It's one of the big reasons why I'm pretty severely unsympathetic to the "DM Empowerment" crowd and anyone who seriously uses the phrase "player entitlement." DMs being overtly and explicitly resistant to advice, suggestions, or concerns, no matter how mildly and congenially phrased, has been a repeated experience of mine with 5e, far more than any other TTRPG I've ever played.

 

[EzekielRaiden]

Nah. If people cannot explain how skill challenges are supposed to work, it proves they did read the rules, as WotC couldn't explain them either. It took them several attempts until they made even some sense and the explanation was still really bad.

Really? I found it perfectly intuitive the first time, as did my favorite 4e DM--who only picked up the game after the D&D Next playtest had begun, because the books were cheap and he was curious. All of his prior experience was pre-3e. He ran the best skill challenges I've ever played, co-equal with my second-favorite 4e DM (who, sadly, decided to focus his time on non-TTRPG pursuits.)

 

[Maxperson]

Thread title. All this talk about alternate ability use on skills brought up the old 'use STR for Intimidate' and it got me thinking about Intimidate and how is SUCKS.

Animal Handling is a pretty close second because more DM and players forget how important it would actually be in a pre-steam society and make it far too situational... but I still think Intimidate is worse.

The reason is that Intimidate will usually make things worse in 75% of the time you try to use it to force someone to do something. If you fail you usually shut down the entire social encounter right then and there, and even if you do succeed, that NPC is probably gonna hate you for quite a while. It's almost always a bad idea unless you're dealing with someone you're ready to fight.

At best it can be used to make enemies surrender and cut down the 'mopping up' phase of combat? But usually the DC isn't gonna be easy, and how can you trust someone who would do or say anything so you don't kill them?

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...

Anyway, discuss!

I don't agree with some of this. If you watch movies and TV shows, intimidate is often used to back down an unruly neighbor so that the neighborhood can build defenses against incoming threat. The neighbor will often fall in line and become productive, without hating the PCs. Other times it's used to stop a fight and during the subsequent dialogue, it's discovered that they really aren't enemies and can be friends/allies/acquaintances. There are lots of ways to use intimidation without screwing things up.

I've seen PCs use it as a swagger in a bad side of town to keep roughs from bothering them as they walk by. I've seen it used against an opponent in an in-fiction game to unnerve him and cause him to make mistakes. It wasn't a threat of harm, but simply a stare or something to throw him off of his game.

 

[Maxperson]

I find the skills work just fine most of the time. But like many other games, social skills are just a bit more complicated in play. I don't care how high your character's Persuasion roll is, that lich isn't going to turn over a new leaf and devote his unlife to running an animal shelter or becoming headmaster of a magical academy for children who were orphaned at the hands of his relentless, unholy horde of monsters. Likewise, I don't care how well a lich rolls on his Persuasion roll, he's not going to convince PCs of the health benefits of eating orphaned children.

Social skills don't work on PCs. The players get to decide whether to believe someone or not. If you look at the social skill section of the DMG it only talks about PC uses on NPCs. Crawford also confirmed that the intent was for them not to work against PCs.

 

[GMMichael]

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

They're just victims of the in-house drive-by.

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

I smell hyperbole. That being said, intimidate is persuasion, and should be included in that skill.

I have never been able to figure out why it's like this.

The problem is, almost everyone runs 5e skills as though it were 3e. You can't use skills for a thing unless the books explicitly say you can: Anything not permitted is forbidden.

I blame Acquisitions Incorporated. And/or the 5e WotC staff that carried over from 3e, some setting the tone from the top. Old habits die hard, after all.