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Message: <blockquote data-quote="Chaosmancer" data-source="post: 9540832" data-attributes="member: 6801228">If you find my arguments uncompelling, it would be nice to have that directed to me, instead of my needing to guess as to the context you are discussing under. Do you find it uncompelling to claim that Intimidation is the tactic of bullies? Do you find it uncompelling that DMs might seek a narrative consequence to a character consistently acting like a bully? Do you find it uncompelling because it is easy enough to imagine a scene with an NPC who will never matter to the plot again, and thus there would be no long-term consequences to the story? I don't particularly find my position to be extreme, because I am not considering the skill in the context of "We beat the information out of the bandit who will never even get a name because he is so insignificant to the plot". Yes, you CAN use it the skill in those circumstances, but you can use any of the social skills in that circumstance to potentially similar effect. Depending on the information you can even employ exploration skills like investigation or history checks to determine the information. But when you get to a high-stakes social situation with a long-running NPC... will Intimidation truly have no long-lasting ramifications to the plot? Could you really threaten violence on a supposed ally of the PCs again and again and again and NEVER suffer consequences for it? Seems unlikely. And yes, I will state that you cannot allow a single social check, and especially not a single Intimidation check, defeat a BBEG. This is not because it would break the game, which I don't think I have ever claimed. It would be because it would be dissatisfying. There is only a single scene I can think of where the heroes opened with an intimidation and the villain was largely defeated by that intimidation. And that is the Princess Bride. And that scene with Humperdink, while amazing, was based entirely on him being a COWARD at heart. And it is played for laughs. Imagine defeating Vecna because he was a coward and making it a comedy moment. Or Lolth. Or Demogorgon. These are not the types of stories DnD players want, by and large. They don't want the threat they've spent months gathering power and prestige to face in an epic showdown... to cave at the threat of violence against them and surrender. It would drain the energy from the game and lead to a "wait.... that's it? That's how we win?" moment that would be unsatisfying for many players. And I would say you can't defeat that sort of enemy with persuasion or deception either, but you have OTHER options for those skills. You can use them to delay the fight, to slip in unnoticed as part of a clever scheme. They are far more useable as tools than Intimidation in that sort of confrontation.</blockquote>

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