Curse that charisma!

[Kahuna Burger]

2. An assassin has infeltrated a castle and is looking for Master Chen, lord of the mannor. He dispatches a guard, but is stumbled upon by the captian of the guards. The assassin pulls the sword from the guard, and gestures at the maid. "Take me to master Chen's quarters," he says, "or die."

In addition to anything else, here we run into a problem with resolving intimidate. Say the captain of the guard completely believes his intent, and his ability to kill him if he doesn't do what he says. Does it automaticly follow that he does what he says? He is the captain of the guard after all. He has obtained this position not just by skill or senority, but by dedication and risking his life many times. Confronted with an assassin in his master's castle and the choice between going along and maybe living, and opposing and definitly dying, who is really to say that he will go along? (certainly if he was a PC and the DM says 'and you show him to the chambers' the player could rightly pitch a fit.) It may well be the completion of his life's work to raise the alarm and die in this very fashion.

To tie this back in, this may well be where the cha vs skill ballance of the intimidate becomes useful, but I'm unsure. Mostly, this just caused another intimidate related thought in my mind, which is not well addressed in the rules - So you're intimidated, what now? My best guess is that in cases like this we should take a page from the bluff rules and introduce situational modifiers based on how outside of acceptable the intimidate 'request' is.

Kahuna Burger

 

[Barak]

To me, it would depend on the effect he's trying to achieve with his intimidate. If he's trying to make a bunch of mooks run away instead of attacking, then yeah, I'd let him substitute STR for CHA, assuming some display of STR or something.

If they captured a mook and are trying to get info, then no, CHA it is and remain. Basically, the prisoner probably just won't believe that the dwarf won't just hurt him afterwards anyway, plus he asks his questions all messed up. He'll probably believe the sorcerer. Especially if the dwarf does an "aid another" action with his own intimidate first..

"See, I can ask the questions, or my friend there.. " Points to dwarf ripping bodies apart like so many phone books "Can ask them. It's up to -you-, really."

 

[Darklone]

To me, it would depend on the effect he's trying to achieve with his intimidate. If he's trying to make a bunch of mooks run away instead of attacking, then yeah, I'd let him substitute STR for CHA, assuming some display of STR or something.

Welcome to the point of the discussion. What we tried to express was that a guy with Cha as dump stat wouldn't be able to scare some mooks away without using violence (or many Intimidate skill ranks).

 

[Barak]

Hmm yes, having read the thread, it's understood. And my point was that yes, scaring them away would be possible with a "display" (which, by the way, doesn't necessarly means ripping one of the mook apart. Grinning and chopping a small nearby tree in one blow would be more then enough, or, if the PCs are well-known, no display might really be necessary. Just taking a step in their direction could be enough, sorta like The Rock in the preview for Walking Tall). Interrogating a mook, on the other hand, makes some communication necessary, and then STR doesn't apply.

 

[Thanee]

A low Cha character is weak-willed, unsure and probably shy. Such behaviour would not really be appropriate in most cases, unless at least some ranks in intimidate are learned, I suppose.

Bye
Thanee

 

[rangerjohn]

The only thing is the racial penalties don't match the definitions of the attributes. Your telling me ALL dwarfs and half-orcs are not forceful in thier beliefs. Ugly and gruff yes, not forceful? Doesn't match any dwarf or most half-orcs I've read about.

 

[James McMurray]

Forceful? Yes. Effective at changing attitudes towards friendly? Rarely.

Mumbling incoherently about how you'd shave someone's beard off if they have one isn't likely to get the desired response. Intimidate works great as a Charisma based skill using circumstance modifiers. Swapping it to Strength based means devaluing charisma for fighters even more than it already is (at least in a standard hack-and-slash dungeoneering campaign).

 

[Epametheus]

The only thing is the racial penalties don't match the definitions of the attributes. Your telling me ALL dwarfs and half-orcs are not forceful in thier beliefs. Ugly and gruff yes, not forceful? Doesn't match any dwarf or most half-orcs I've read about.

True enough. The Cha penalty is supposed to reflect those two races being hard to get along with; it isn't supposed to reflect the inherently beefiest PC races being pushovers. I think a Cha penalty indicating "offensive" instead of "forgettable" works fine.

Skills ranks are far more important than the actual relevant stat in those skills, though. A L1 barbarian with 8 Cha and 4 ranks has a +3 intimidate check. The L1 sorcerer with an 18 Cha and two CC ranks only has a 3 point lead on the check. By L4, the sorcerer's lead would only be by 1 point or so, and by L8 the barbarian would have a better intimidate check than the sorcerer, simply due to ranks. Part of why charisma is a dump stat is that you can get around the only mechanical penalty associated with it by spending enough skill points.

A bard would actually be the most intimidating of them all, which in itself is funny -- the bard can easily intimidate people who by all rights would mop the floor with him, since he's just a bard.

 

[Pielorinho]

Shy, possibly, Thanee, but not necessarily weak-willed or unsure. A low-charisma character may simply be very quiet, may see no need to interact with other people, or even see much need to interact with the world outside themselves.

In a recent campaign, we had two characters with very high wisdoms and low charismas. One character, a druid, held up his end of any conversation with grunts; when it was time for him to speak, he did so plainly, without any flattery or diplomacy, and he generally expected folks to shoot down his ideas, and was therefore very pessimistic even in the middle of offering a suggestion. Another character, a monk, was just very quick to take offense and to offer offense: he was wise in many ways, but when it came time to deal with a shopkeeper, he was as likely to get himself banned from the store for cussing the shopkeeper out as he was to actually make a purchase. Eventually he learned to ask the sorcerer to handle his financial negotations for him .

Neither character was weak-willed, and they were only unsure of themselves in certain circumstances.

Daniel

 

[rangerjohn]

That's another thing if charisma if belief in self, then how does any adventurer have a low charisma. It's a dangerous world and the hero believes he can make a difference, or at least a profit from venturing into the unknown. If low charisma is what the rules imply then most dwarves and half-orcs would be quivering in thier caves like kobolds.