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

[Chaosmancer]

A bouncer convinces people in line not to try to push through and wait their time will harden their hostility? Intimidating a pickpocket to they leave the square will likely just make them affraid of meeting up with the PCs. You are making sweeping declarations that don't fit many uses of the skill.

Sure, but my character isn't working as a Bouncer, and I don't particularly think that frightening of a pickpocket while walking through the market is going to have campaign ramifications. Like, deception to convince a noble that you are the long lost heir to the kingdom can reshape an entire campaign, and deception does stuff like this all the time. Intimidating a rando doesn't alter the course of the campaign with the same intentionality.

Sure, just like someone who later figures out they were deceived might do the same. There are repercussions, as long as they are reasonable. Just like an NPC may decide never to mess with the people who scared them so.

But they need to figure out you lied. Those you intimidate do not need to figure anything out. They know what you did.

 

[MGibster]

I'm going to do something I've never done before in my life. I'm going to quote the DMG because I think it has something useful to say.

The rules of the game are meant to provide a fun game experience, not to describe the laws of physics in the world of D&D, let alone the real world.

I'm going to apply this to skills as well. They're not really meant to be a realistic way to describe how smithing, animal handling, or even survival actually work. Like all the other rules, the skills are meant to provide a fun experience rather than an accurate portrayal of even how things work in a D&D world. Does it make sense that a high level character who has never been in a smithy has +10 on his check? No. But how often do high level D&D characters who have never been in a smithy before suddenly need to craft something?

 

[clearstream]

A threat is intimidation. A lie is deception. What we have above is something that is both. It would be punitive to have the player roll twice for the check, so I would just allow the player to pick which one he is using since both apply.

I don't think deception should trump intimidation or vice versa.

I'm suggesting just one check. Possibly you're still focused on character performance? To me the clearest consequences lie with faking (or not) the circle.

If the conversation pointed more naturally or interestingly to consequences connected with the creature made "hesitant" by the possibility the circle were real (in this case untested, or perhaps the hesitation is "dare I test?") then that could work too.

The point I was making was: one test, at the point that the group best perceive interesting consequences. We're agreed at least as ti the former.

 

[Horwath]

how to simply integrate Intimidate into persuasion:

you can take advantage to Persuasion check by intimidating the target.
If the check fails you suffer "X" penalty for fail check.

as penalty:
Vendor can raise prices by 20% or more or simply refuse to sell you stuff.
Guards can be called.
You could get false information from the target.
target could simply attack you on the spot or arrange and ambush later.
word of mouth spreads and most people will not like you, especially if it's a small community.

 

[clearstream]

While the Platonic ideal of the game says that the check only happens if the DM finds the resolution to be in question, the reality of the situation is a little messier. You, as the player, cannot know when you pick which skills to be proficient in when the DM will rule in a specific circumstance. So, when considering the skill, you need to consider actively choosing to use the skill, to judge if it is worth taking.

(Emphasis mine.) That’s not quite right: per RAW the resolution must contain consequences that matter.

And when you are in the moment, if Intimidation isn't something you have picked to be a skill you have... you are less likely to attempt to intimidate someone. Unlike in physical situations, where you may declare "Crap! I tackle the guy!" and get asked to make an athletics check [yes I am aware that this is now an attack, using a classic example] when you are in a social situation, you are less likely to be in a corner and reacting. Intimidation, Persuasion, and Deception are very proactive skills, used when you are trying to alter a situation intentionally, not investigating or dealing with a physical obstacle.

And this all plays into the perception of this skill, because you have to consider when you would use it. And unlike all the other social skills, you will not be trying to use it the instances where the social pillar is the most exciting and game changing.

If Athletics "isn't something you have picked to be a skill you have" can you say how it works to declare "crap I tackle the guy!" and yet the same is not true of Intimidation in some equally clutch social situation? It seems as if one would have to be committed to a weaker effect or worse consequences... but why? What motivates that?

 

[Maxperson]

I'm suggesting just one check. Possibly you're still focused on character performance? To me the clearest consequences lie with faking (or not) the circle.

If the conversation pointed more naturally or interestingly to consequences connected with the creature made "hesitant" by the possibility the circle were real (in this case untested, or perhaps the hesitation is "dare I test?") then that could work too.

The point I was making was: one test, at the point that the group best perceive interesting consequences. We're agreed at least as ti the former.

More than likely I wouldn't have time to think it through well enough to figure out it was two tests. I like to keep the action moving rather than stop to think too long about what was said.

What I'd likely do is go with whatever the player said when he described what he was doing. If he told me he was going to try and trick the enemy into thinking the circle was real, it would be deception. If he told me he was going to try and threaten the creature to get it to back down, I'd ask for intimidation.

 

[clearstream]

how to simply integrate Intimidate into persuasion:

you can take advantage to Persuasion check by intimidating the target.
If the check fails you suffer "X" penalty for fail check.

as penalty:
Vendor can raise prices by 20% or more or simply refuse to sell you stuff.
Guards can be called.
You could get false information from the target.
target could simply attack you on the spot or arrange and ambush later.
word of mouth spreads and most people will not like you, especially if it's a small community.

A related approach that I can think of for those committed to strong consequences for Intimidation would be to leverage having those in mind and balance with strong effect.

Frex where negotiating might reach a price that would be accepted, threatening gets it at the price you've chosen to pay (maintaining the apparatus of coercion, whatever that is.) Or where a creature can be simply "unwilling" to do X, they may be "hesitant" about accepting a cost (coercion).

RAW suggests that one test for a skill is -- are groups readily able to imagine consequences for failure? Where the answer is yes, that's a pro, not a con. Some criticisms in this thread appear to amount to -- Intimidation risks making our play interesting! If that is the concern, speaking to the G consideration in RPG one might focus on  effect... the cost (if that is what one finds oneself committed to) ought to be validated by the leverage afforded in the play.

 

[EzekielRaiden]

No, if I'm roleplaying intimidating someone, neither Pesuade nor Deceive can be used. If you are talking about taking a non-intimidation approach, then it's falling outside the use of intimidation as a skill, so that's not relevant for the discussion.

It is relevant, because that's what people do--they sub out Intimidate for something else. There are few to no situations in D&D where Intimidate is absolutely mandatory, no other option could possibly get the job done, in part because most DMs (correctly!) understand that having one and only one solution to a problem is a Bad Idea.

A bouncer convinces people in line not to try to push through and wait their time will harden their hostility? Intimidating a pickpocket to they leave the square will likely just make them affraid of meeting up with the PCs. You are making sweeping declarations that don't fit many uses of the skill.

It's not me making these sweeping assertions. I would not run it this way. It is, however, something I've seen both personally and second-hand, many, many times.

AH, I understand it. They ACTIVELY PENALIZE use of the skill in an ANTAGONIST MANNER as DM.

Yes, then under any such red-flag-never-play-with DM, any skill or feature they determine to explicitly twist and contrive to put in place the worst possible consequences (such as freeing a prisoner who wouldn't otherwise be freed) will be a bad one to choose, but not because the skill is bad but because the DM is bad and actively penalizes you for using it.

But that's the problem. I've had DMs where this was the one and only thing they did particularly badly. In every other way, they were fine. Not amazing, not great, just fine. But this one skill, for whatever ungodful reason, trips up so many DMs.

Sure, just like someone who later figures out they were deceived might do the same. There are repercussions, as long as they are reasonable. Just like an NPC may decide never to mess with the people who scared them so.

In my experience, this is not the repercussion most DMs choose. A lie being discovered may or may not make someone hate you. Intimidating them nearly always does, because now they want to "get even" or whatever. Persuasion essentially never causes people to hate you (though if you persuade by promising something and then fail to deliver, that might cause it--but the fact that you used Persuasion is not the problem.)

Which happens with any social skills used to get information from that criminal. I have to thank you for so many great examples showing how intimidate and other social skills can have the same reactions from NPCs and therefore it isn't the worst skill. It's really useful that it's your own examples.

Your sarcasm does you no favors and I won't be responding to this section beyond this sentence.

Yes, we've already discussed how a DM actively going after any use of a skill or feature is a problem of the DM, not of the skill. So again, irrelevant. Though I have to say, you are surrounded by a collection of really toxic DMs. I'd only play 4e with them, as it seems that's the place they aren't.

So you're saying that only what the books say matters, yes? One cannot ever blame a pattern of bad DMing from a variety of DM sources on the books, yes?

I just want to be clear as to where our lines are. Because I have had far too many discussions now where the books are sacrosanct up until they become a problem, and then it's the DM that is sacrosanct up until the DM becomes a problem, so you fall back on the books, etc., etc. ad nauseam.

So: If the books don't say to do this, then even though many, many DMs do do it, that cannot ever be the fault of the system, it is exclusively the fault of those bad DMs. Is that correct? Are we agreed that what the books actually say is what matters, and not how DMs actually use any given thing?

 

[clearstream]

What I'd likely do is go with whatever the player said when he described what he was doing. If he told me he was going to try and trick the enemy into thinking the circle was real, it would be deception. If he told me he was going to try and threaten the creature to get it to back down, I'd ask for intimidation.

Traditionally GMing advice has focused on approach. 5e "consequences resolution" implies I think that players ought to focus as much on stakes.

If the consequence of failure they prefer is that they cannot rely on the circle, then it's Deception. If what they prefer is that the creature remains their foe, Intimidation.

What some folk have described as a punitive success, I see as one possible consequence of failure: the creature does what they want, but harbours resentment. Success means it does what they want and is too humbled, afraid or in awe to want to undermine them.

 

[Crimson Longinus]

Regarding "but if I bluff about why I'm scary isn't it deception?" This might happen, though it happens way more often with persuasion. Convincing someone might often involve presenting your case in the best possible light in a way that contains exaggerations, omissions or even outright lies. But it is far from clear at what point something should become deception. For this reason, I simply eliminated deception as a skill. It is not needed, and once it is gone, we no longer need to police whether the thing the character says is strictly true. If you try to incite trust it is persuasion, if you try to incite fear i is intimidation. Simple!