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Message: <blockquote data-quote="Killer Shrike" data-source="post: 117633" data-attributes="member: 1829">Not at all. The half-orc would need to be confident in his abilities to even attempt to bend the iron bar. If the half-orc wasnt 'confident' in the first place, he would never be secure enough in his own capability to bend the bar in a pressure situation. All that aside, the idea of Charisma as confidence is flawed in and of itself. Charisma is savoir fair, a personal magnetism, a combined innate and developed ability to manipulate others, an understanding of interpersonal dynamix. Ive known plenty of 'Charismatic' people who were not particularly brave, confident, or secure in themselves. Great manipulators of other people, who undoubtedly have and use 'Charisma' are not necessarily strong willed or sure of themselves. In game terms, as someone else pointed out Dwarves have a Cha penalty as well, but they are not portrayed as being wishy-washy types that suffer from a lack of confidence. They suffer a Cha penalty because they are not skilled at getting along with others. They tend to be surly and insular; in short unfriendly. Intimidation is not based upon schmoozing your way thru situations; thats what Bluff is for. Nor is it about appealing to others sense of compromise and getting the most gain for the least cost risk; thats Diplomacy at work. Intimidate is confrontational. Whether you are Intimidating by situational threats 'If you dont do what I want, the organization I am a part of will make your life miserable and possibly shorter', coersion 'Do what I want or something bad will happen to you or someone close to you', personal strength of will 'Do what I say because I said to', or immediate threat 'Do what I want or Ill bend your knees the wrong way', Intimidation is always a form of confrontation. I did 5 years in the USMC, and I met plenty of people with the personalities and self-awareness of wooden posts and their sheer bloody mindedness and willingness to engage in sudden physical violence made them Intimidating. While in the Corps, I was trained in the rudiments of Interrogation and how to resist Interrogation. "Physical Coersion" is the most crude means to an end, but it is often the most effective. Most people (particularly at the lower-echelon of mental capacity) respond fastest to threat of bodily harm and overt intimidation. The rare few that are hardened against this type of coersion or those you wish to turn are worked on via more subtle means but fear of harm and the threat of violence works fastest and easiest against the majority.Now, to bring it home to game terms, if a barbarian is attempting to Intimidate an opponent and does some feat of strength or threatens the opponent with immediate violence (ham-sized fist balled up under thier nose for example) the DM could allow a Strength check to allow a +2 situational modifier to the Intimidate roll. Thats certainly one way to handle it. However, in a pre-industrial fantasy setting civilized people fear the "BARBARIANs" that exist outside of thier laws and therefore thier control, living by force of arms and strength. Barbarians are frightening because they dont play by the same rules as 'civilized' people and in fact may even be unaware of them. Barbarians do what they want with little thought to the consequences. They are prone to violence, and are as likely to kill a 'civilized' man as to trade with them. Barbarians are prone to insane rages, and will fight on even after taking a mortal wound. Whether it's true or false of a particular "barbarian" is immaterial. As long as they look the part of a wild-eyed large-thewed brute people will be unwilling to anger them and prone to heed thier threats of physical violence because it plays into thier predefined beliefs.Thus I dont think it is unreasonable to allow the Barbarian class the option to use thier Strength modifiers for Intimidate is they so choose as a class feature similar in nature to the rule that only a Rogue can hit Search checks higher than 25 to find traps, regardless of what is rolled on the dice. It's not overwhelming or unbalancing. In fact, the rules for Intimidate are already so vague and unspecified that it makes very little difference regardless. 'You may change other's behavior ' is fairly non-descriptive and open to DM interpretation.********Somebody earlier was making a differentiation between Intimidate and Scare. I would just like to point out that a targets save bonuses vs fear (if any) are added to the DC to Intimidate that person. This is a clear indication that Intimidation is based on frightening (syn. scaring) the opponent. Further, as to using fast talk and guile to assist in an Intimidation check, 5 ranks in Bluff grant a +2 Synergy bonus to Intimidate. Intimidation is founded on confronting an opponent and forcing them to do what you want via fear. Getting them to do what you want because its in thier best interests is Diplomacy, and tricking them to do what you want is Bluff.In a level system like D&D a higher level character is simply more powerful than lower level characters and therefore should have the capability to intimidate lower level characters just based on thier potential for destruction. Also, why isnt Intimidate opposed? Since its not all characters of the same level are equally likely to be Intimidated by an opponent, regardless of ability scores or even a feat like "Iron Will" which would seem to indicate a greater capacity to resist coersion. Whatever. My point is the Intimidate skill isnt very useful anyway and is totally up to the DMs interpretation, so granting Barbarians the Str v Cha option is not a big deal, IMHO.</blockquote>

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