Intimidate ..too good?

[LowSpine]

How about:

Use Intimidate To Force Surrender.

The target must be bloodied.
The DC is the number of HIT POINTS the target has. (or maybe + Will Defence)

If the target is higher level it may make save to run away rather than surrender. The target will run away for 1 round, but may continue the fight after that time if it wishes or continue to run.

Use Intimidate To Route.

The target must be bloodied.
The DC is the number of HIT POINTS the target has.

The target runs away for this encounter.

 

[Derren]

How about:
No rule to force enemies to surrender by a skill check, DMs decide by common sense?

 

[LowSpine]

How about:
No rule to force enemies to surrender by a skill check, DMs decide by common sense?

Common sense? Like that's ever going to happen.

Besides, quantify common sense. What mechanic does that modify.

 

[wickederror]

Finding the most extreme example, mathematically and applying it in a way that the rules clearly do not intend is not a way of demonstrating that the use of this skill is broken. The use of Intimidate vs. Will is a guideline, a rule-of-thumb. There will be players whose fun is had in trying to exploit loopholes in the rules, but in this case the loophole DOES NOT EXIST.

This along with DM Fiat as an answer, which is a solution that seems to be considered laughable with the prior system.

Welcome to the optimization complaints about 3.5 4th edition.

 

[hong]

This along with DM Fiat as an answer, which is a solution that seems to be considered laughable with the prior system.

Welcome to the optimization complaints about 3.5 4th edition.

What's wrong with DM fiat to keep the optimisers in line?

 

[Derren]

What's wrong with DM fiat to keep the optimisers in line?

Whats wrong with writing rules which don't require DM fiat to unbreak?

 

[hong]

Whats wrong with writing rules which don't require DM fiat to unbreak?

I believe the line "cry moar" is rather apposite when it comes to issues of wanting hard numerical rules for human interaction.

 

[Derren]

I believe the line "cry moar" is rather apposite when it comes to issues of wanting hard numerical rules for human interaction.

Hm Intimidate vs. Will -> Surrender sounds like a pretty hard rule for human interaction. So we have that already. Maybe less rules would have been better in this case (like I said in my post just on the previous page).

 

[hong]

Hm Intimidate vs. Will -> Surrender sounds like a pretty hard rule for human interaction. So we have that already.

So perhaps it would be apposite to cry less.

Maybe less rules would have been better in this case (like I said in my post just on the previous page).

And reconciling that with said hard numerical rule, put in place to satisfy those who would cry moar, is where that "DM fiat" bit comes in.

 

[alanpossible]

Doing the maths...

My first thought was that intimidate was too powerful, but then I looked at an alternative attack.

Let's consider a Human Fighter. We max her strength to 18, and with her racial adjustments that gives her a strength of 20 (+5). For her feats, we'll pick weapon focus (+1 damage) and power attack (-2 attack, +3 damage). She gets +1 to attack rolls on a particular weapon type.

Now let's give her a longsword. From what I can determine, this can be used two-handed to deal an extra point of damage and has a proficiency bonus of +2. Thus, her basic attacks are on +6 and she deals 1d8+10 damage.

A suitable opponent for our Paladin is a first level monster. Since I have kobold stats from KotS, I'll pick out a 1st level kobold - a slinger with AC 13 (will 12) and 12 hitpoints at bloodied. We'll assume it's exactly bloodied.

My odds of hitting the kobold, even with a basic attack is 14/20. If I hit it, my odds of killing it are 7/8.

So even on a basic attack without any equipment and when a suitable foe has been exactly bloodied (it's actually likely its hitpoints will be lower than that), my chances of killing it are 0.6125.


Intimidate seems fine to me, under these circumstances. With the correctly built character, you can cause a bloodied opponent to surrender, with high probability.
But with a correctly built character, you can kill a bloodied opponent with a similar or higher probability.

The issue of whether it affects multiple opponents or not is easy to deal with - you get a listen check penalty every x squares away from the source of a noise. There are huge penalties for trying to hear someone over the noise of a battle and most opponents are probably trying to concentrate on someone else (those people they are fighting). I doubt anyone would even hear the intimidation. Even if they did, I'd be inclined to start adding penalties for distance/difficulty of hearing.