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Message: <blockquote data-quote="Christian" data-source="post: 3133042" data-attributes="member: 381">That's because you're still thinking of the word 'intimidate' instead of the game concepts behind the effects of the Intimidate skill, within the D&D context. The idea is to use credible threats to get an opponent to react predictably in the way that you want. On the 'credible threat' side, bear in mind that in the D&D universe, the raging barbarian could be a 1st-level character, and the halfling a 20th-level rogue. And if the halfling has that many ranks in Intimidate, he probably is pretty high-level, and can do some scary stuff if you cross him. And on the 'create a predictable reaction' side, the articulate character can manipulate the target's emotions much more effectively. The frightened character's reaction to the raging barbarian might be to grab his wand of fireball in panic and empty it in that direction, which is probably not the reaction the bruiser was hoping for. The halfling might be able to rapidly convince him that this is a Really Bad Idea (TM). On these lines, I often think of the 'chess' game between Chewbacca and R2-D2 in the original Star Wars movie (you know, before they ruined the whole thing with sequels and special editions and stuff). Big, strong, dangerous Chewie failed his Intimidate check against the droids spectacularly. After which Han rolled about a 34. "Oh ... I suggest a new strategy, Artoo."In fact, that's often how I envision the use of Intimidate in a party context. (Don't your adventurers usually have a party? <img src="https://cdn.jsdelivr.net/joypixels/assets/8.0/png/unicode/64/1f642.png" class="smilie smilie--emoji" loading="lazy" width="64" height="64" alt=":)" title="Smile    :)"  data-smilie="1"data-shortname=":)" /> ) The little halfling with the Intimidate ranks can use his raging barbarian friend as the credible threat, to amusing effect. "Hold on, Thog! Don't you remember what happened last time? Buying Speak With Dead spells is expensive, and gold pieces don't grow on trees, you know! ... C'mon, buddy, please tell us what we need to know. I don't know how much longer I can talk him down! And you would not believe how hard it is to get internal organ stains off of this doublet!"</blockquote>

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