Ugh. I've just looked into Pathfinder 2e feats and skills, but only scratching the surface. I decided to start with
Intimidate because it's very easy to mess a skill like that up, and it's car-crash bad.
There are two basic uses of Intimidate - Coerce and Demoralize, and they both have the Auditory, Concentrate, Emotion, and Mental tags (and both can be used untrained) - and Coerce has Exploration (i.e. it takes time) and Linguistic. Both Emotion and Mental are fair enough (you can't intimidate something without a mind).
But the others?
- Concentrate? "An action with this trait requires a degree of mental concentration and discipline." So if someone has a hangover and a toothache they might not be able to concentrate enough to coerce?
- Auditory? "... An action with the auditory trait can be successfully performed only if the creature using the action can speak or otherwise produce the required sounds." So the fighter can't flick blood off his blade and glare after a particularly brutal kill to attempt to demoralise? And somehow you must be able to speak but they don't have to hear you if you want to demoralise someone? Now this is looking like a spell to me - you need the magic words but they don't have to hear them.
- Linguistic? (Coercion only) "An effect with this trait depends on language comprehension. A linguistic effect that targets a creature works only if the target understands the language you are using." So you're telling me that (without a feat) I need to share a language to make the kobolds I've let live start digging? Handing them a pick, pointing at the seam of ore, and putting my hand threateningly on my sword won't get the point across?
And Demoralize is pretty terrible as a use of an action too - it inflicts Frightened 1 - which gives the target -1 to all checks and DCs for one round. Even Bull Rush is generally better.
And then I looked up the first level feats for Intimidate. Remember these are all optional abilities to add to the skill that cost resources:
- Group Coercion (L1) - may coerce more than one target when coercing (how many depends on your level of training). If I'm a Master Intimidator how do I also need to spend a feat to do this?
- Intimidating Glare (L1) - may glare to demoralize people. If you do replace the auditory tag with the visual one and you don't get penalties for not sharing a language. Um what? If I'm skilled at intimidation I need to spend an actual feat to be able to intimidate someone with my attitude?
- Quick Coercion (L1) - you can coerce in a round instead of a minute but not in combat. That's a pretty weak feat - but I can see it as going above and beyond something the skill should do for you.
- Intimidating Prowess (L2) - Requires STR 16 and gives +1 to intimidate checks or +2 if you have a STR of 20+. Also you don't need to share a language to demoralize. Well that's weak-sauce.
- Lasting Coercion (L2) - Coerce has for some arbitrary reason a hard-coded cap of one day for how long it works. This feat (and not skill) raises it to one week, or a month if your skill is legendary although provides no extra bonus.
That's three feats that should just be folded in with intimidation skill (group coercion, intimidating glare, and lasting coercion), one that's a flat +1 if you are strong or +2 if you are very strong rather than e.g. using your strength rather than charisma modifier to intimidate people.
It's also five feats you can spend on Intimidation and that don't work for anything but Intimidation by level 2.