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Message: <blockquote data-quote="awesomeocalypse" data-source="post: 5079765" data-attributes="member: 85641">How do you handle it when characters who are untrained in intimidate threaten someone they could clearly destroy into doing what they want? For example, Johnny the Wizard is 8th level, with 8 charisma and no intimidate training. Statistically, he's a nebbishy geek who isn't even slightly intimidating. However, being an 8th level wizard, he is fully capable of blowing the average peasant/merchant/whatever into kingdom come.  Johnny is interacting with said average peasant/merchant/whatever, and says, "do what I say, or I'll kill you." DM rolls intimidate, and Johnny gets like a 7--by the numbers, he's not scaring anyone. Mr. Peasant Merchant says, "hell no, nerd." Johnny shoots his leg off with a magic missille. Then says, "okay, now do what I say, or I'll kill you." Now, either Mr. Peasant Merchant, now a broken, sobbing shell of a man, does what Johnny wants, as he "realistically" would. Or, to maintain the integrity/usefulness of intimidate as a skill, he becomes irrationally, suicidally brave, calls Johnny's "bluff" and gets blown the hell up.   Whats the best way to handle a situation like this? Do you just give massive situational modifiers and/or autosuccesses any time the PCs threaten someone they could easily kill with violence? And if so, then really, isn't intimidate almost useless except if you're attempting to intimidate a king or someone extremely powerful? I mean, sure, there are situations where outright threatening violence might not be feasible, but for a mid-to-high level party hanging out in a fairly mundane locale (i.e. characters who have essentially no reason to fear or respect any of the authority figures in said locale), threatening violence can easily become the go-to mode of social interaction (and yes, I'm aware that this is why the DMG suggests moving paragon campaigns to sigil or other super-fantastical locations, but I've never been a fan of that, either as a player or a DM, precisely because I like the idea of pcs who become the most powerful people in a given area).</blockquote>

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