Zadam said:
Surely a huge hulking half orc threatening to rip your arms off unless you give him all your gold is an intimidating thing.
I think that this is where all the confusion comes in. Yes, a huge hulking half-orc threatening to rip your arms off unless you give him all your gold is an intimidating thing, but Intimidation is not the art of making people afraid.
I'll let that sink in for a moment.
Intimidation is the art of getting people to do what you want them to do even if they don't want to.
So, the huge hulking half-orc threatening to rip your arms off unless you give him all your gold might well inspire fear. But it won't necessarily inspire cooperation. The half-orc may well inspire fear, but people who are afraid often act irrationally - they become defiant, they become aggressive, they flee in terror, they become petrified with fear, the faint away, they begin screaming, and so forth. None of these things are necessarily what the half-orc intended for them to do, which is for them to hand over the money without any fuss.
Consider the situation. A nobleman is out for a night on the town. The half-orc shifts his axe and grunts in barely intelligible gutteral language, "Heel da govner, pony up ya jank irrre ill shift you limb from frame!" Does the nobleman:
a) Laugh disdainfully secure in his niave sense of superiority that such a ruffian would never dare harm one of such a high station?
b) Draw a rapier and say, "Begone villian!"?
c) Does the noble insult the half-orcs language, unaware of what the half-orc is trying to communicate, "Pardon me, but you will have to address me in the King's tongue. I have no idea what you are trying to say."?
d) Pee in his pants and collapse to the ground in a shrieking mass?
e) Turn and flee in cold terror?
f) Attempt to intimidate the half-orc in responce, "I am the Baronette de Arapatan, fool. If you harm even a hair on my body, you'll never sleep in peace again. My families diviners and necromancer's will hunt you down. They'll place such a large bounty on your head that every sorcerous assassin in five hundred miles will come looking for you. Why in the name of Hades do you think I'm walking around at night without a bodygaurd you imbecile? Because noone else in this city is stupid enough to pester me! Now move aside!!"?
g) Nervously give up the money while muttering, "Please don't hurt me."
It entirely depends on the half-orcs force of personality.
Consider A New Hope when R2D2 is playing chess. It's Han who says, "That's because droids don't pull people's arms out of their sockets when they lose. Wookies have been known to do that." and successfully intimidates C3PO. It's
not the fact that Chewy is belowing with rage. At most, all having a big hulking brute around does is give you a circumstance bonus on your intimidation checks - and in that case its
looking mean and strong that is far more important than actually
being mean and strong.
