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Message: <blockquote data-quote="Chaosmancer" data-source="post: 9541004" data-attributes="member: 6801228">Okay, but what do we mean by hesitate? Are we going to allow an intimidation check cause all of the enemies to lose their entire turn? That's a powerful ability, and I know a lot of DMs who would immediately be calling that far too powerful, because it is too easy for a level 10 bard to get a +13+1d8+5+1d4 with advantage on that sort of roll. A rogue at that level could, in theory, guarantee a result of 22. And then every fight, the DM is just waiting for them to stun the enemy side with an intimidation, giving the party a free turn. Or do we mean something else? Do we mean give every enemy disadvantage on all their attacks? I'm not saying such a thing is impossible to write a well-balanced rule for, but this is currently far beyond the scope of what a skill typically does. And would immediately make Intimidate a must-have skill for anyone who optimizes.You might be able to, but again, there is the consideration of power and HOW you intimidate them. For example, look at a classic Marvel Comic scene. Reed Richards intimidating Galactus with the Cosmic Nullifier, that the team went on a whole adventure to retrieve. In that situation... there is no intimidation roll. If you specifically went on an adventure to get the one item the BBEG fears to intimidate them with it... you've won. But, in more modern stories, we've seen people confront Galactus with "I have gathered this McGuffin power source so you should fear me!" and Galactus responds "That makes this an interesting fight instead of a murder" and begins kicking the crap out of them. Because just reaching a high level of power doesn't automatically mean you are threatening to beings that sit at the top of the food chain. A Barbarian saying "I've killed thirteen men with my bare hands" might intimidate a barkeep, or a bandit, but the lich overlord whose subjugated the countryside under his necromantic rule is as likely to go "I killed one hundred just to make this wand" as they are to be intimidated by the Barbarians' mighty thews. And the more often you show the villain as being SCARED of the party, the less of a threat they feel like. Because they are scared of you, therefore they are acknowledging you are STRONGER than them, therefore it is just a matter of starting the fight to win. And again, this CAN work, you CAN have scenes or games where you can make this work, but if you were to randomly poll 100 uses of Intimidation, the amount of them that would show the BBEG being intimidated by the party without having to have gone on a McGuffin quest... would be like 3% of them. It happens, but it is incredibly rare.</blockquote>

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