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

[Blue]

It's not me making these sweeping assertions. I would not run it this way. It is, however, something I've seen both personally and second-hand, many, many times.

Excellent! I assume you don't actively DM in ways you don't like. And you just said you don't change what was going to happen to punish a player for using Intimidate instead of a different skill.

So we both agree that a DM changing what would happen just to punish Intimidate is the sign of a bad DM. Therefore, that's not a problem with the skill itself, but rather with the DM.

 

[clearstream]

Regarding "but if I bluff about why I'm scary isn't it deception?" This might happen, though it happens way more often with persuasion. Convincing someone might often involve presenting your case in the best possible light in a way that contains exaggerations, omissions or even outright lies. But it is far from clear at what point something should become deception. For this reason, I simply eliminated deception as a skill. It is not needed, and once it is gone, we no longer need to police whether the thing the character says is strictly true. If you try to incite trust it is persuasion, if you try to incite fear i is intimidation. Simple!

I see Deception as principally about getting another creature to believe something that is (in the fiction) false.

For me the lense of consequences separates each skill quite well. To lie and be caught out suggests different lines of consequence than unsuccessful negotiation.

 

[EzekielRaiden]

Excellent! I assume you don't actively DM in ways you don't like. And you just said you don't change what was going to happen to punish a player for using Intimidate instead of a different skill.

So we both agree that a DM changing what would happen just to punish Intimidate is the sign of a bad DM. Therefore, that's not a problem with the skill itself, but rather with the DM.

What if it is a problem of the books, and how the books guide the players and DMs?

 

[CreamCloud0]

Given performance is such a niche low-voted skill i wonder if you could integrate it into deception, as a more general capacity to act, be that for deceit or entertainment.

 

[MuhVerisimilitude]

Excellent! I assume you don't actively DM in ways you don't like. And you just said you don't change what was going to happen to punish a player for using Intimidate instead of a different skill.

So we both agree that a DM changing what would happen just to punish Intimidate is the sign of a bad DM. Therefore, that's not a problem with the skill itself, but rather with the DM.

It's a problem with the skill because the skill doesn't explain how it's actually supposed to work.

 

[Minigiant]

Two scales.

Level and difficulty

One Scale.

The DC.

Your level determines how difficult it is.

I don't remember right now but I think it was 65% success on level with your primary and 45% on level for your tertiary.

Up or down 5% per 2 levels

The issue is that the DMG didn't display over and under level DCs and DMs didn't do them.

 

[Blue]

What if it is a problem of the books, and how the books guide the players and DMs?

If the guidance in the books in bad, that should be pretty easy to quote. I'm listening.

 

[Blue]

It's a problem with the skill because the skill doesn't explain how it's actually supposed to work.

I just read the information about the various charisma skills, it's from the 2014 PHB as that's what was in grabbing distance. Intimidate has just as much information about how it works as the other social skills. It's describes in a narrative way that goes with roleplaying.

So is your position that all of the social skills are equally bad? (And please stay on topic of what you brought up - the information the book says how the skill works, not some other reason Intimidate is bad.)

 

[Maxperson]

Traditionally GMing advice has focused on approach. 5e "consequences resolution" implies I think that players ought to focus as much on stakes.

If the consequence of failure they prefer is that they cannot rely on the circle, then it's Deception. If what they prefer is that the creature remains their foe, Intimidation.

The 5e approach is not for the players to pick a consequence that they prefer. The 5e approach is for the DM to call for rolls only if there is a consequence for failure. He decides if there is one and what it is, at least by default.

In the example you give, there is a consequence for failure with both intimidation(not necessarily hate or dislike) and deception.

I'm not saying the way you suggest above is wrong or bad, but it's just not the default 5e approach to DMing.

What some folk have described as a punitive success, I see as one possible consequence of failure: the creature does what they want, but harbours resentment. Success means it does what they want and is too humbled, afraid or in awe to want to undermine them.

That is a possibility, yes. I tend to look at who the NPC/creature is when making that decision. A devil or demon will likely harbor resentment regardless, while a human or angel could easily not harbor any. It depends on circumstances, personality, the PCs, etc.

 

[MuhVerisimilitude]

I just read the information about the various charisma skills, it's from the 2014 PHB as that's what was in grabbing distance. Intimidate has just as much information about how it works as the other social skills. It's describes in a narrative way that goes with roleplaying.

So is your position that all of the social skills are equally bad? (And please stay on topic of what you brought up - the information the book says how the skill works, not some other reason Intimidate is bad.)

You assume that since they have the same amount of rules and descriptive text they are equally good. This is, obviously, not true. If the text is not the same text then the rules are not the same and as such they can be read and interpreted differently by different GMs.