Armor can give Intimidation bonus ?

[Rashak Mani]

My Dwarven Fighter/Barbarian Rogue Gallery Link has some a fair amount of gold from his last adventures. The cleric will make a Breatplate +2 for me....

Since I will have it custom made I was thinking of putting some "art" or Decoration on the armor. I was thinking about making a dragon face and fire motif and making the face on the front of the armor intimidating. Many skills can buy items that give +2 to smithing/crafting/bowyering ... so if I paid for some scary Armor Designs shouldnt I be able to get a modicum of intimidate skill bonus ? I was thinking something like +2 intimidate.

How much would you consider giving armor this quality cost ? What and how could the intimidate bonus be used ? How long to make it ? Would you allow it as a DM ?

My great axe could also be decorated with similar motifs in order to reinforce the whole idea. Big nasty face in front Breastplate... arms with scale like armor. Gauntlet and Helmet same style and demeanor.

 

[hong]

How much would you consider giving armor this quality cost ? What and how could the intimidate bonus be used ? How long to make it ? Would you allow it as a DM ?

No automatic bonus. If you want an automatic bonus, get it enchanted, a la the demon plate armour in the DMG. If you roleplay really well, though, I might give you a +2 circumstance bonus in tight spots.

 

[Mustrum_Ridcully]

Hmm. A Breastplate of Command grants a +2 binus on any charisma chacks using skills for which charisma iskey ability.
It is a Breast Plate +2 costing 21.600 gp.
This means that a "command" enhancement is worth more than a +2 bonus, but less than a +3.

Well, I suggest not counting it as an armor enhancement, especially since you only want to bost a single skill.
A regular item that gives you a +2 bonus to any skill would cost you 2 x 2 x 20 gp = 80 gp. Not very expensive, these are the additional costs for a masterwork tool.

Okay, if you want something "expensive" you could make an item similar to the Cloaks/Boots of Elvenkind. So it would cost 2.000 gp for a +10 bonus to Intimidate. This price would be reasonable high enough to let it count as an +1 armor bonus (similar to "Sneaking" & "Hiding" Armor Enhancemens).

If you (or the DM or someone else) thinks that this is too powerful, than you probably should use the rules for Multiple Similar Abilities. Take the costs for the basic enhancement, and add for the +2 bonus to initimidate .. er that base price of 80 x 1.1 = 88 gp. .
(In other words: Give a good painter some money to do the job.)

Mustrum Ridcully

 

[Black Omega]

I'd give a bonus under some circumstances. But really the best wayarmor could give a bonus to intim without magic is to use something people know. If the Church of Bane has been abusing the local peasants, then armor with a Bane symbol will scare them to death. Even generally evil looking armor could do it, make it black, add spikes. Though any armor so evil looking as to get an intim bonus will probably also cause a penalty in dealing peacefully with people.

 

[Roland Delacroix]

The Wheel of Time RPG has masterwork stuff giving a bonus to Reputation. Reputation in turn can make you either Famous or Infamous, giving bonus' to Diplomacy and Intimidate. If you are playing a campaign where Intimidate, Diplomacy, Sense Motive, etc are important I suggest you check it out and consider adopting it to D&D. Besides being a beautifull book with a much better starting character mechanic than FR even, Wheel of Time RPG has alot of good stuff on the RP side of d20 that D&D lacks.

 

[Rashak Mani]

Roland the bonus to reputation is to both Diplomacy and Intimidation ? Or Diplomacy for famous and Intimidation for infamous ? How much is the cost of this masterwork stuff ? How much "bonus" ?

Putting the symbol of Bane or Death like stuff will certainly make an intimidating appearance and get me into a lot of trouble too... I dont want a +10 skill bonus costing magic...

My idea was more of making the armor details stand out... pressed into the metal or something like that... the word description in english is evading me just now. Together with details in engraving and so forth. Add to that some scales engraved and a dragon face (stylized) in front and the "Dragon Armor" would be complete.

The intimidation effect is not only the scary dragon semblence... its also the overall effect. After all it is magical (+2 armor) and if I can afford to waste gold on decoration, I or the armor must be quite good. Together with a very big axe with similar details.

All this I judged to be worthy of +2 Intimidate skill check vs inteligent foes. Animals and beasts dont care for status symbols.

 

[drnuncheon]

That sounds pretty reasonable. After all, armor often was[/i] decorated to look intimidating, and masterwork items can give you minor bonuses to skills without being magic.

I'dd definitely add a bit of money to the cost - a MW tool is ~50gp, so that would be a good starting pace.

J

 

[UofMDude]

I wouldn't give a bonus for just normal fancy armor. If that armor (and the wearer) was distinctive and had a "reputation" with it then it might generate one after a while, but not right away.

The only exception might be something like dragon armor. Or armor that has a helm crafted from the skull of some fearsome beast. Then I might give one in some circumstances.

Of course intimidation doesnt have to be physical so it wouldnt apply in all circumstances.

UofMDude

 

[IceBear]

Question is, can shields give the same bonus

IceBear

 

[Tom Cashel]

Armor adding to Intimidate?

Sure worked for Darth Vader....