Intimidate/Very Low Charisma=Awe?

[Zweischneid]

Someone tried to give an explanation as to why dwarves take a -2 hit to Charisma. It may apply here.

We dig dig dig dig dig dig dig in our mine the whole day through
To dig dig dig dig dig dig dig is what we really like to do
It ain't no trick to get rich quick
If you dig dig dig with a shovel or a pick
In a mine! In a mine! In a mine! In a mine!
Where a million diamonds shine!

We dig dig dig dig dig dig dig from early morn till night
We dig dig dig dig dig dig dig up everything in sight
We dig up diamonds by the score
A thousand rubies, sometimes more
But we don't know what we dig 'em for
We dig dig dig a-dig dig

Heigh-ho, Heigh-ho
Heigh-ho, Heigh-ho
Heigh-ho

Chorus
Heigh-ho, Heigh-ho
It's home from work we go
(Whistle)

Heigh-ho, Heigh-ho, Heigh-ho

(Chorus)

Heigh-ho, Heigh-ho
(Whistle)

Heigh-ho, Heigh-ho
Heigh-ho, Heigh-ho
Heigh-ho, Heigh-ho
Heigh-ho hum

(Chorus three times)

Heigh-ho (until fade)

 

[gfunk]

But I also remember (this relates to the Can Poison Kill thread) that 1st edition had it so that very low charisma scores could actually scare the daylights out of people--thus, the Cthuhlu Elder Gods all had like Charismas of -7.

Just somehow seems that Charisma scores could be related to the power to Awe or Scare characters. Have I missed something in the new rules?

From Legends and Lore (p. 7):
"In certain instances, some divinites are so loathsome and repellant as to actually have negative charisma. This applies only to truly ghastly divine beings . . . as with awe power [for really high Charisma] even if a person were to be given negative charisma through some terrible curse or change, he or she would not acquire the horror ability. The reaction of the average creature to a hypothetical non-divine being with a negative Charisma would be a desire to kill it immediately."

 

[Quasqueton]

I actually think that low charisma characters should be mostly neutral, boring and blah, with maybe a little irritating and unpleasant thrown in. A low charisma half-orc should look kinda pathetic and a little bit stupid; an inbred hick of some kind. The character's rage might not be apparent until it is too late; up until he attacks he looks like a big, fat loser who is drooling a little, and maybe talking to himself.

A big scared half-orc that actually is intimidating should be assigned a high charisma.

Many of the responses in this thread do my heart good. I am so glad that so many people are pointing out the falicy that so many other people seem to have about Charisma. I have seen so many Players dump their PC's Charisma and then play the character as a forceful personality. Played properly, a 6 Charisma brute will not be so quick or able to project himself (shouting, smashing, glaring) enough to intimidate anyone. Projecting one's self is a property of Charisma, and a 6 Charisma half-orc would be more likely to seem oafish instead of brutish.

There is a dwarf monk in my campaign that has 6 Charisma, but 7 ranks in Diplomacy (total of +5 modifier). He tries to be the voice of reason and morale. We he speaks (and gets a good Diplomacy check), it is not so much like he is the shining orator, but it is more like you hear a reasonable point on the subject and it clicks in your mind, without really realizing or thinking on who spoke it.

He has 0 ranks in Intimidate (-2 total mod), so when he steps into one of his martial arts stances for a fight (even turning forward the scarred side of his face), enemies don't really see him as a serious threat. But the human rogue/fighter (10 Charisma, but +9 intimidate mod) with paired kukries beside the dwarf looks downright scary---he's the one enemies are wary of.

Quasqueton

 

[Staffan]

The best example of a tiny person intimidating rough and tough characters is in Indiana Jones and the Raiders of the Lost Arc. That little creepy nazi in the glasses manages to make you scared even as he hangs up his coat.

That's one of my favorite movie uses of Intimidate. The other is in The Princess Bride, when Westley is paralyzed and yet manages to scare away the evil prince with his talk about fighting "to the pain".

 

[Viktyr Gehrig]

Half-Orc PCs should get a racial trait that allows them to use their Str or Cha for their ability modifier for Intimidate.

Give them a racial +2 bonus to Intimidate. It compensates for the Charisma penalty, and gives the the same +1 bonus that their +2 bonus to Strength would give them, under your system-- while still penalizing a would-be scary half-orc for neglecting his Charisma.

It's one of my several house rules for half-orcs.

 

[Squire James]

The example I like to use is something like this:

A charismatic halfling and an uncharismatic half-orc walk into a bar without money. Both of them intend to Intimidate the barkeep into giving them a free drink.

The halfling convinces the barkeep that he has a dozen guys like "Bruticuss" here ready to pounce on him if the halfling doesn't get a free drink. He gets the free drink.

Bruticuss, on the other hand, smashes a large fist on the bar, yells loudly, and demands the drink. The barkeep is certainly scared, but he's too busy being scared to do anything useful. Like fetch the half-orc a drink, for instance.

With one quiet word from the halfling, Bruticuss gets his drink. The half-orc whispers to him, "You said the same thing I did! Why didn't he get me my drink before?"

The halfling just smiles and replies metagamicly, "Because *I* didn't use Charisma as my dump stat!"

 

[MadBlue]

The example I like to use is something like this:

A charismatic halfling and an uncharismatic half-orc walk into a bar without money. Both of them intend to Intimidate the barkeep into giving them a free drink."

Gotta be a pretty charismatic Halfling to overcome the -4 penalty to intimidation he has for size (assuming the bartender is medium-sized). More likely, the Halfling has Ranks of Intimidate up the wazoo. If the Half-Orc put the same skill points into Intimidate as the Halfling did, he would have gotten a free drink too.

People tend to make too much of an issue of the fact that Charisma is the ability associated with the Intimidate skill, especially when giving examples. You never hear things like "a Halfling and a Half-Orc jump into a river. The Halfling flounders in the water and sinks like a stone, while the Half-Orc takes to the water like a fish" simply because the Halfling gets a penalty to Strength. Basically, how well a character swims has more to do with the Ranks they have in Swim than with what their Strength score is.

The classes that Half-Orcs are most likely to take, Barbarian, Fighter and Rogue, all have Intimidate as a class skill, so there's nothing stopping the average Half-Orc character from being more intimidating (and he's already more intimidating than (and to) the average Halfling character based on relative size).

In any case, IMC, I give Half-Orcs a +3 racial Bonus to Intimidate, which nets them a +2 bonus - the same bonus Half-Elves get to the skills they use for their preferred method of social interaction. I figure while both races are "outsiders" to their parent races, Half-Elves tend to use a diplomatic approach to get whet they want, while Half-Orcs tend to take a more brusque, yet still effective, approach.

 

[JackGiantkiller]

In my current campaign, I've removed the Charisma penalties from Dwarves (they lose Dex, like FR Gold Dwarves) and from Half-Orcs (They get shafted by the rules enough as it is) and I simulate their social problems with a -2 Diplomacy/+2 Intimidate. Neither race gets along well with others, but they are both scary. Done.

 

[Amaroq]

No problem. The orc scares the beejesus out of me too. Doesn't mean he was able to "intimidate" me in game terms (turn his attitude to friendly for some time). Basically, a low Cha Orc either scares me so much I see no point in helping himout cause I know the maniac's going to kill me anyway. The paladin intimidates me with the suggetsoin of a terrible fate awaiting me if I don't repent and help him out.


So it's all in how you handle it.

I'd second that. It's all in how you imagine it / describe it.

One of my favorite 'low charisma' characters was a PC drow with a 6 Charisma. On the surface, wandering around human lands, and the player chose to play him as exceptionally intimidating (as we mean the word in common usage). Every other phrase out of his mouth seemed to include an implied threat (which he-the-character didn't mean to imply).

This didn't give him the game effects of 3.x Intimidate: certainly, no NPC treated him as 'friendly' as a result; he wouldn't get the free drink hypothetically mentioned above, in fact the innkeeper would be likely to tell him that the inn was full even if he had rooms free. He would wind up in conflicts which the 'average' character would have been able to avoid, even though the character was ostensibly trying to avoid it. Likewise, none of his opponents were demoralized in combat - in fact, to the contrary, they were more motivated to eliminate him, so that they wouldn't feel a need to 'watch their backs' for the rest of their life.

Which all struck me as fine interpretations of a negative Charisma modifier, and would be equally applicable to a half-orc, a human, or whomever.

It made for a tremendously fun character for the player to play, and for me to GM.

Flip-side, I've been playing a high-charisma female character in a campaign recently. Rather than playing her with the 'attractive' stereotype, I've explicitly described her as large-boned, rather plan of face, and scarred from numerous fights... but she's somehow extremely likeable; she's just very friendly, understands how people think, and she's sympathetic and considerate. All the PC's like her, even when there are conflicts between the party-members; and she gets along with strangers quickly and readily as well. Sometimes too well: she can be too trusting.

Could she Intimidate in the 3.x sense of the word? Absolutely: in combat, she is frighteningly effective and could be demoralizing. But even better might be the 'treat target as friendly' version: I could imagine one of the other members of the party 'explaining', to a so-intimated creature. "She genuinely doesn't want to kill you. No, she will if she draws her sword, don't get me wrong: you wouldn't have a chance. Just keep co-operating: you'll stay on her good side, and she'll let you live."

It's all in how you imagine it.

 

[HeavyG]

We dig dig dig dig dig dig dig in our mine the whole day through
To dig dig dig dig dig dig dig is what we really like to do
(...)

I prefer

"Gold, gold, gold, gold, gold, gold..."