Intimidate!

[Kae'Yoss]

I think in D&D the wasp's ability to cause pain is moot. In everyday life, it's so threatening because it's one of the few creatures that dare to attack us. That makes it threatening. (That, and all the urban legends about two hornet stinks will kill a human). But a D&D hero, who is accustomed to oppose humanoids, whose weapons and can cause pain, or monsters with claws and teeth cause pain, will have no time to worry about a little bee.....

 

[LuYangShih]

I don't know. Humans have an instinctual fear of things like Wasps that doesn't really make sense, sometimes. For example, Polar Bears, which are far more dangerous, have little to no fear of Humans and will attack if a Human gets close to them. But Humans evidence little to no fear of Polar Bears themselves, and this has been the cause of several fatalities, especially in Zoos and such.


Wasps are probably the most intimidating insect out there. Them, and Mosquitoes, the really big kind. Spiders never really bothered me, for some reason. I actually played around with Black Widows when I was a kid. I figured out how to get them to come out on their web, and sometimes I'd knock them off into a glass or some other container, drop them on an ants nest and watch the carnage. I wonder if that qualifies as CE tendencies.

 

[Kae'Yoss]

I think in the zoos it's the "we're in a zoo, they are not meant to harm us, they're tame...." mentalism, I think humans will have rather more fear of a bear if they encounter him in his natural environment...

 

[Celebrim]

KaeYoss: You'd be surprised. Go to Yellowstone sometime.

Heck, go to even Great Smoky and you'll see ALOT of signs that say basically 'Be afraid of the Bears'. Those signs are up because alot of people that would never dream of intruding on the space of a wasp, will walk right up to a bear to feed it or photograph it. Maybe you are right in that they don't think that the bear will attack them, but the point is THEY KNOW the wasp will - up to the point of exagerrating in thier minds the danger posed by wasps. And isn't that the essence of intimidation?

Yes a hardened experienced warrior will be less intimided by wasps than average people, but isn't that the point? Isn't that verily the mechanic? But lets not underestimate the ability pain has to override the logic of the human mind. I know several battles of the Civil War were influenced by the presence of hornets. Hornet stings may cause relatively little damage compared to a bullet, but they are _not_ sufferable. I can very easily see a young soldier be intimidated into doing something stupid by the mere presence of a warp (read intimidation check, 'Stay Back, bub!'), much less a wasp sting (read rerolled intimidation check. 'I warned you buster! Now you want some more of this?').

 

[Kae'Yoss]

KaeYoss: You'd be surprised. Go to Yellowstone sometime.

If I ever visit the States and have the time.

Heck, go to even Great Smoky and you'll see ALOT of signs that say basically 'Be afraid of the Bears'. Those signs are up because alot of people that would never dream of intruding on the space of a wasp, will walk right up to a bear to feed it or photograph it. Maybe you are right in that they don't think that the bear will attack them, but the point is THEY KNOW the wasp will - up to the point of exagerrating in thier minds the danger posed by wasps. And isn't that the essence of intimidation?

Yes a hardened experienced warrior will be less intimided by wasps than average people, but isn't that the point? Isn't that verily the mechanic? But lets not underestimate the ability pain has to override the logic of the human mind. I know several battles of the Civil War were influenced by the presence of hornets. Hornet stings may cause relatively little damage compared to a bullet, but they are _not_ sufferable. I can very easily see a young soldier be intimidated into doing something stupid by the mere presence of a warp (read intimidation check, 'Stay Back, bub!'), much less a wasp sting (read rerolled intimidation check. 'I warned you buster! Now you want some more of this?').

That's right. Don't know whether that can be brought into the skill Intimidate (which is telling people what to do and using (subtle) threats and a lot of pretence to achieve it). The hornet justs warns and then attacks (wasps won't even bother overmuch with that warning).