Renaissance Man
First Post
Are the benefits of the Intimidate skill too loosely defined? How do you adjudicate the results when employed by monsters against player characters? And how do your players respond?
Is Intimidate broken?
- Thread starter Renaissance Man
- Start date
Re
PC's are always allowed to play their characters as they wish. Intimidate is purely an NPC skill and has no effect upon PC's. Neither does any encounter reaction modifier.
PC's are free to roleplay.
Given this, take into account that intimidate and encounter reactions are generally left up to the DM. Personally, I don't care how lucky a PC gets, they are not going to intimidate the main enemy if I don't feel it would fit.
Intimidate is one of those skills that has it's place, but is not just a general use skill. For example, a great time to use intimidate would be when a bunch of ruffian's in a bar try to pick a fight with you. Just intimidate them into backing down without throwing a punch.
PC's are always allowed to play their characters as they wish. Intimidate is purely an NPC skill and has no effect upon PC's. Neither does any encounter reaction modifier.
PC's are free to roleplay.
Given this, take into account that intimidate and encounter reactions are generally left up to the DM. Personally, I don't care how lucky a PC gets, they are not going to intimidate the main enemy if I don't feel it would fit.
Intimidate is one of those skills that has it's place, but is not just a general use skill. For example, a great time to use intimidate would be when a bunch of ruffian's in a bar try to pick a fight with you. Just intimidate them into backing down without throwing a punch.
alsih2o
First Post
Re: Re
do you also take away their climb checks if you feel they couldn't do it? how about saying their str check doesn't open the door? do oyu put unspottable traps in?
taking away something like this is why people use cha as a dump stat. you are automatically negating part of the usefulness of every player who wants to use their best score in roleplaying situations.
your game, but i would suggest yopu rethink this.
Celtavian said:
do you also take away their climb checks if you feel they couldn't do it? how about saying their str check doesn't open the door? do oyu put unspottable traps in?
taking away something like this is why people use cha as a dump stat. you are automatically negating part of the usefulness of every player who wants to use their best score in roleplaying situations.
your game, but i would suggest yopu rethink this.
Tsyr
Explorer
Re: Re: Re
I'm not said poster, but...
If the PC has no climbing tools and is trying to climb an inverted ice face in a blizzard? Nope. I don't care if they roll a 20, they AREN'T making that.
If it's a punny lil ol mage trying to bash down a adamantite door thats wizard locked shut to boot? Nope, again, I don't care what they roll, they can't make it.
The thing is, there are always extremes where things shouldn't apply, IMHO... for example, a lone low-level PC trying to intimidate a dragon (without some REAAAALY creative roleplaying), or the general of an army with 1,000 men at his back, or an archmage inside his own uber-magicked-up tower. Things like that, no, I wouldn't allow intimidate to succeed. Yet, strangely, CHA (nor STR ;p) is NOT treated like a dump stat in my games.
I'm not said poster, but...
If the PC has no climbing tools and is trying to climb an inverted ice face in a blizzard? Nope. I don't care if they roll a 20, they AREN'T making that.
If it's a punny lil ol mage trying to bash down a adamantite door thats wizard locked shut to boot? Nope, again, I don't care what they roll, they can't make it.
The thing is, there are always extremes where things shouldn't apply, IMHO... for example, a lone low-level PC trying to intimidate a dragon (without some REAAAALY creative roleplaying), or the general of an army with 1,000 men at his back, or an archmage inside his own uber-magicked-up tower. Things like that, no, I wouldn't allow intimidate to succeed. Yet, strangely, CHA (nor STR ;p) is NOT treated like a dump stat in my games.
Furn_Darkside
First Post
Re: Re
Salutations,
I disagree. Intimidate holds an importance space like bluff, diplomacy, sense motive, and etc do in the game.
Why? Because some players are better at roleplaying an intimidating person then others. Heck, some dm's handle players trying to roleplay intimidations better then other dm's.
Should a player who is not good as that aspect of rp'ng never play an intimidating character? No, that is silly. It is the same way you don't stop your less-then-bright players from playing a wizard.
The skill allows a "fair" way of seeing if the intimidation is succesful.
Does that mean rp'ng is out the window?
No- if the player rp's an intimidation out, with or without the skill, then use give them a healthy bonus to the roll.
Would a player be able to intimidate my top bad guy?
Possibly. It depends on the top bad guy. If he has seen it all, then I may give him a healthy circumstance bonus against the intimidation. If he is unfamiliar with the character in question and is generally unuse to such treatment, then it is possible.
Could a pc intimidate a huge monster? I would allow them to try- Gandalf certainly tried with the Balrog.
Would I allow an npc to intimidate a player? Yes. What is good for the goose is good for the gander.
They can roleplay the way they want, but they had better acknowledge an intimidation the same way they better acknowledge being charmed and other rp altering affects.
The mechanic is in the player's handbook for a reason.
Respectfully submitted
FD
Celtavian said:
Salutations,
I disagree. Intimidate holds an importance space like bluff, diplomacy, sense motive, and etc do in the game.
Why? Because some players are better at roleplaying an intimidating person then others. Heck, some dm's handle players trying to roleplay intimidations better then other dm's.
Should a player who is not good as that aspect of rp'ng never play an intimidating character? No, that is silly. It is the same way you don't stop your less-then-bright players from playing a wizard.
The skill allows a "fair" way of seeing if the intimidation is succesful.
Does that mean rp'ng is out the window?
No- if the player rp's an intimidation out, with or without the skill, then use give them a healthy bonus to the roll.
Would a player be able to intimidate my top bad guy?
Possibly. It depends on the top bad guy. If he has seen it all, then I may give him a healthy circumstance bonus against the intimidation. If he is unfamiliar with the character in question and is generally unuse to such treatment, then it is possible.
Could a pc intimidate a huge monster? I would allow them to try- Gandalf certainly tried with the Balrog.
Would I allow an npc to intimidate a player? Yes. What is good for the goose is good for the gander.
They can roleplay the way they want, but they had better acknowledge an intimidation the same way they better acknowledge being charmed and other rp altering affects.
The mechanic is in the player's handbook for a reason.
Respectfully submitted
FD
Tsyr
Explorer
I think he meant that it only EFFECTS NPCs, not that it can only be USED by NPCs.
His wording may have been a bit poor at first, but the "has no effect upon PC's" and the next part about any reaction modifier both seem to suggest that he simply meant that PCs are only intimidated if they want to be.
His wording may have been a bit poor at first, but the "has no effect upon PC's" and the next part about any reaction modifier both seem to suggest that he simply meant that PCs are only intimidated if they want to be.
Intimidation
So a low-level lone PC can't intimidate a dragon? Not even a 3HD white hatchling?
Also, I don't believe a '20' is an automatic success when making a skill check. That means you are free to set extremely high DCs, and if the PCs can't reach them then they can't succeed at the task, but simply saying "NO you can't do it" seems a little, I dunno, mean.
Besides, the Intimidate skill has a clearly defined DC of 10 + target HD. If I'm a 1st-level character, have an 18 Cha and 4 ranks in Intimidate, and I try to scare the 3rd-level main villain of the adventure, and roll a 15 on my skill check for a total of 15+4+4 = 22, then he darn well better be intimidated!
Similarly, if the bad guy makes an intimidate check on a PC and succeeds, I don't force the PC into certain courses of action, but he had darn well better act intimidated. This is a role-playing game right? If the player isn't playing his role (in this case, scared) then he shouldn't expect to get any XP awards for good role-playing that evening.
Tsyr said:
So a low-level lone PC can't intimidate a dragon? Not even a 3HD white hatchling?
Also, I don't believe a '20' is an automatic success when making a skill check. That means you are free to set extremely high DCs, and if the PCs can't reach them then they can't succeed at the task, but simply saying "NO you can't do it" seems a little, I dunno, mean.
Besides, the Intimidate skill has a clearly defined DC of 10 + target HD. If I'm a 1st-level character, have an 18 Cha and 4 ranks in Intimidate, and I try to scare the 3rd-level main villain of the adventure, and roll a 15 on my skill check for a total of 15+4+4 = 22, then he darn well better be intimidated!
Similarly, if the bad guy makes an intimidate check on a PC and succeeds, I don't force the PC into certain courses of action, but he had darn well better act intimidated. This is a role-playing game right? If the player isn't playing his role (in this case, scared) then he shouldn't expect to get any XP awards for good role-playing that evening.
Tsyr
Explorer
You know what I meant
Some groups I play in use the "20 is automatic success" rule, others do not. So there are times when just saying "no" is the only way to (Technicly) stop something from happening. But really, I have to ask: What's the difference between making a check so high that a player has no chance, even on his best roll, of making it... and just telling him that its an impossible task for him?
It depends. I don't even USE the Intimidate skill against players... It's up to a player to decide, IMHO, if their character would be intimidated. And many times players are, it's not (amongst a good group) just "You don't scare me!". But if I WERE to use the skill against players, then yes, I would hope they would act intimidated.
alsih2o
First Post
tsyr, i think the part of the point you are missing is the one about set d.c.'s for intimidate...if you ignore these d.c.'s you have to realize that you are offsetting the balance of power.
a 1st lvl char with 18 cha (imho) CAN intimidate a huge ogre...thats the point of the skill. an 18 cha is an awesome power, near hypnotic!(exclamation point for emphasis, not anger
)
that kind of awesome force of personality is hard to ignore.
if you are d.ming it is your call to say that rule is out the door, but i would be sure to tell players before they roll up a character.
as cwd pointed out- Besides, the Intimidate skill has a clearly defined DC of 10 + target HD. If I'm a 1st-level character, have an 18 Cha and 4 ranks in Intimidate, and I try to scare the 3rd-level main villain of the adventure, and roll a 15 on my skill check for a total of 15+4+4 = 22, then he darn well better be intimidated!
i think that is very important...if a person has a high enuf cha to manipulate the forces of magic, i think they deserve the opportunity to the rules translation of a shot.
a 1st lvl char with 18 cha (imho) CAN intimidate a huge ogre...thats the point of the skill. an 18 cha is an awesome power, near hypnotic!(exclamation point for emphasis, not anger
)that kind of awesome force of personality is hard to ignore.
if you are d.ming it is your call to say that rule is out the door, but i would be sure to tell players before they roll up a character.
as cwd pointed out- Besides, the Intimidate skill has a clearly defined DC of 10 + target HD. If I'm a 1st-level character, have an 18 Cha and 4 ranks in Intimidate, and I try to scare the 3rd-level main villain of the adventure, and roll a 15 on my skill check for a total of 15+4+4 = 22, then he darn well better be intimidated!
i think that is very important...if a person has a high enuf cha to manipulate the forces of magic, i think they deserve the opportunity to the rules translation of a shot.
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