D&D 5E Is Intimidate the worse skill in the game?

[Haldrik]

Strength (Intimidate)
= physical intimidation

Intelligence (Deception)
= a falsehood that can survive scrutiny

Charisma (Persuasion)
= charm, frighten, befriend, and empathy



I just started doing it this way, and really like it.

I made Deception Int a while ago. But now Intimidation is strictly physically imposing and credibly violent, applying Str. Persuasion is the social skill: pros and cons (formerly Cha Intimidation), being likable and influential, and reading people (formerly Wis Insight).

It works great. It is very flavorful. It is intuitive to know exactly which of the three to use, and there is no confusion. Str Intimidation is fun, is useful for nonlethal conflict resolution, and gives Fighters a nice social skill that theyre good at.

 

[auburn2]

Disagree completely in both the games I DM and the games I play. In games I play intimidation is probably the most used social skill and does not ususally end the social interaction. It could, but so could persuasion or deception.

We never use strength for intimidate. The example in the PHB makes no sense to me. Bruce Jenner is extremely strong and in his prime was arguably the top athlete in the world and nothing about him seems intimidating (then or now). Chuckie the doll on the other end of the spectrum, very intimidating despite being about 2 pounds, made of plastic and someone you could probably punt 20 yards. There is no logical reason why anyone should be afraid of a doll the size of a two year old with a machete. The reason why they are - Charisma! Chuckie knows how to scare people (or more accurately the writers do).

Also in the world of D&D it doesn't make sense to be scared of the guy with muscles when the wiry guy can hurt you just as bad and the bookworm can immolate you by pulling a ball of fire from the air. Given this you could argue there should be intimidation (dex) or intimidation (Intelligence) and then you really see the picture - it is not whether you can pound the guy to submission with your fists, slice the guy to submission with your dagger or burn the guy into submission with spells ..... it is how well you can convince him that you can do it, and THAT is why it is Charisma.

Things like the size of your muscles (Jenner) or a pile of cut up bodies behind you and stitches on your blood-stained face (Chuckie) might give you advantage on the roll or a bonus depending on your argument and exactly how you are trying to intimidate whoever you are trying to intimidate, but it is always a Charisma check IMO.

 

[Undrave]

For a mindful DM, it's more likely to enable multiple PCs to contribute to the social pillar in meaningful yet different ways instead of relying on a single face to dominate every social encounter.

Ah! The high CHA character will still dominate regardless.

In games I play intimidation is probably the most used social skill and does not ususally end the social interaction. It could, but so could persuasion or deception.

So you bully a lot of people then?

 

[Asisreo]

So you bully a lot of people then?

Is that not a valid way to play?

 

[Undrave]

Is that not a valid way to play?

Nah, it's just my experience is that DM will usually curtail excessive bullying of the NPCs after a while. I'm just surprised it's the most used social skill.

 

[pming]

Hiya!

You do not intimidate someone that you can not handle a fight with. You intimidate someone you know you'd win a fight against (or at least your character thinks they could).

Intimidation isn't just a threat. Intimidation is the art of communicating that you're superior to your opponent. It's a mercy, where you could kill them with little effort, you've decided to spare their life.

I would suggest it's not 'only' the threat of physical violence. You can Intimidate someone socially, emotionally, professionally, etc. For example, using your 'friends in high places'...say, the Lord/Lady of the land, or the Patriarch of the local Church of St.Cuthbert...to get what you want. "If you don't do X, I may just have to bring your....'indiscretions' with the bar maid. And the millers daughter. Oh, and the poor, vulnerable, Widow Larue who only just lost her husband last month! The Church doesn't take kindly to that sort of....shall we say, 'Amorous Endeavours'".

So Intimidate isn't just physical (I don't have the PHB, so not sure if it specifically says ONLY physical threats...then again, any DM should not be beholden to RAW if it gets in the way of using something to help present believability).

^_^

Paul L. Ming

 

[DEFCON 1]

This is why my amended skill list has had all the "bad" skills thus far mentioned removed. I always use the Optional Rule of Variant Ability Score + Skill and thus:

Acrobatics gone-- use Athletics [DEX] instead
Animal Handing gone-- use Nature [WIS] instead
Intimidation gone-- use STR [Persuasion] instead
Medicine gone-- use Survival [INT] instead
Sleight of Hand gone-- use Deception [DEX] instead

Then depending on the campaign I will add in other potential skills like Commerce, Warfare, Nobility, or Folklore.

As far as the Intimidation skill itself is concerned... my next upcoming campaign is going to be in Theros... and thus with the heavily-Greek inspired setting, both Persuasion and Intimidation will get a bit of a revamp. Persuasion will be used almost exclusively as philosophical debate, logical argument and rhetoric (an exceedingly important part of Greek life). Whereas Intimidation will be not only your standard threats of violence... but also your presence. How important you are, how imposing, how much your reputation precedes you, how in awe people are of you. It won't be strictly a negative reaction... but will often be quite positive and you won't even necessarily have to do anything to accomplish it. When you make a check and succeed, the people will kiss your ring and lick your boots. And you won't ever have to threaten to snap someone's neck to do it.

So this'll be one campaign where I'll be leaving both Persuasion and Intimidation in (and it only makes me wish even more that we could rename and revamp the skill list in D&D Beyond, because I'd love to rename both skills to Rhetoric and Presence instead.)

 

[Greenstone.Walker]

The difference gets a lot better if you rename Persuasion to Negotiation.

That way the solcial control skills become:
Indimidation - do what I want or something bad happens to you (which may or may not be physical - intimidation includes blackmail).
Negotiation - do what I want and something good happens (which includes bribery).

 

[robus]

I like your approach, but I would add that there is a podcast where Jeremy Crawford states that there are passive scores for all abilities/skills (not just perception/investigation) and these represent the floor for your success on a skill check. The die rolls is to see if you succeed beyond this floor. It avoids the nonsense of a highly skilled character failing at something relatively easy.

If the possibility of failure makes no sense, then why roll?

 

[Asisreo]

I like your approach, but I would add that there is a podcast where Jeremy Crawford states that there are passive scores for all abilities/skills (not just perception/investigation) and these represent the floor for your success on a skill check. The die rolls is to see if you succeed beyond this floor. It avoids the nonsense of a highly skilled character failing at something relatively easy.

I have no clue why Jeremy didn't reference the actual variant rule in the DMG called "automatic success." Not only does it contradict what he claims should be the case of the interview, it's much more elegant, especially because it's a variant and not implied to have a place in everyone's games.

Basically, if your ability score is =DC+5, you automatically succeed on your task. If you have an ability score of 16, for instance, you automatically succeed any DC of 11 or higher.

It also lets you have automatic success while you have skill/tool proficiency regardless of modifiers. So anyone with proficiency in persuasion at level 11 will always succeed a DC 15 check regardless of CHA. The only thing the scores would effect are DC's greater than 15.

I've tried it, and it's correct that the game becomes more predictable this way, but I think it might appeal to those grumps that hate having dice at their table without +23 mods to back them up.