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Message: <blockquote data-quote="I'm A Banana" data-source="post: 9777165" data-attributes="member: 2067">This is part of what makes me very suspicious of the D&D skill system.How your character is defined and how they interact with the world? That's HUGE. That's a question that should be answered by your CLASS, the most significant mechanical choice you're making when you are building a character. THAT should define them and how they interact with the world. D&D's skill system in all of its iterations (even as proficiencies in 2e) feels less designed to be definitional, and more designed to be supplemental. Most of what you do is Wizard, but then you're also maybe sneaky and stealthy, so now you can do a bit of hiding (even if hiding is MOSTLY a Thief thing). Or, you're a Fighter, but here's something you can do when you're not putting swords in things (you can now also know history!). It's a way to round out you character with what they know and can do outside of their big mechanics. Which is genuinely a useful thing, just...not a great home for everything that's been thrown into it over the years.Intimidation tends to be a trap because DMs tend to resist things that just end their carefully planned encounters with a single die roll. You can't just roll well and have the necromancer-king piss himself, I had a whole fight planned out. No, of course the king doesn't react well to your insinuation that you're going to kick his ass if he doesn't do what you say, why is this the way you're deciding to try and contribute, Joe Pesci? Yes, of course the threat of violence is going to make things violent, and no, threatening torture ISN'T a good way to get information. It's very binary, and honestly making it a skill is mostly just giving people an opportunity to be disappointed that their skill isn't working very well. It also gives players a sort of misanthropic skill that doesn't feel very heroic to use very often.IMO, the best use for an intimidation mechanic in a typical D&D dungeon crawl is as a way to avoid fights. Successfully intimidate the goblins, they'll leave you alone instead of trying to pick you off. It's kind of a way to force an early morale check. And of course it is easier on weaker creatures and "dumber" creatures.So kind of like 4e's combat application, but maybe we give "intimidating" people a special trait that says when a character tries to intimidate foes, they need to roll a WIS save or flee.But to make an apple pie from scratch you must first invent the universe, and to allow a character to intimidate a group of grunts out of a fight you must first invent a version of D&D that isn't precious about its fights. Intimidation isn't very useful when you're up against something that isn't already hostile, so it's not a great fit for the Interaction gameplay. Maybe some niche uses where the hostile parties have a reason to not immediately break into a fight, but that's not an every session kind of situation in D&D. In the cinematic, narrative-heavy style that D&D is often played in, there's not a good opportunity to do an actual intimidation.</blockquote>

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