D&D (2024) Rogue's Been in an Awkward Place, And This Survey Might Be Our Last Chance to Let WotC Know.

[Yaarel]

You don't need to be the face guy (=put points in Charisma) to "persuade" people to cooperate. You don't need to be eloquent or witty in order to threaten people with extreme amounts of pain unless they do what they're told.

Charisma is both Charm and Frighten. Highly charismatic people do both.

Some ways of being charming can be to be eloquent. But the "silent type" can also be charismatic. Compare Clint Eastwood.


I see eloquence and wit as Intelligence. Albeit, to express Intelligence in an artistic esthetic way that a crowd would enjoy applies Charisma Performance.

I use Performance for various efforts to check for artistic appeal. For example, painting a photorealistic painting involves Dexterity Sleight for technical precision, Perception to depict perspective, lighting, and so on accurately, and Charisma Performance for the overall artistic appeal to please crowds. High scores in all checks, especially Performance, can represent a potentially valuable painting. Artists generally need to gain fame thus higher tiers before they can monetize artwork in this way, tho a wealthy person might patron an artist early on.

 

[Yaarel]

Persuasion is "when you attempt to influence someone or a group of people with tact, social graces, or good nature."

Threats are intimidation.

When cynical, I tend to characterize it as:

Persuade = play on the targets desires
Intimidate = play on the targets fears

One needs to be able to read the person or the crowd, which is why I prefer Insight (Empathy) to be one of the social skills that define Charisma.

 

[Maxperson]

Manual dexterity (fine motor skills) is different from body agility (gross motor skills).

Hand-eye coordination is manual dexterity. Twirling is manual dexterity.

Parkouring is agile strength.

None of that matters. You are just confusing things with trying to turn every different kind of muscle use into strength. The game appropriately separates out muscles that produce agility into dex, and muscles that produce stamina and physique into con, because that simplifies things. It gets super confusing when you try and say that strength, which is commonly understood here in the real world to mean body building strength is also agility, which we here in the real world commonly understand to mean muscles that produce speed and NOT strength.

WotC is never going to go out of their way to confuse millions of people when they can just leave it the way that it is and everything is fine.

 

[Maxperson]

If the gymnasts are doing iron crosses, pommel horses, etcetera, then yes, obviously, they are extremely strong.

But not one of them is anywhere close to being as strong as the lightest weight category of body builder.

 

[UngeheuerLich]

I let the player choose between Strength and Charisma.

You don't need to be the face guy (=put points in Charisma) to "persuade" people to cooperate. You don't need to be eloquent or witty in order to threaten people with extreme amounts of pain unless they do what they're told.

I understand intimidation is a kind of "presence", but requiring you to put points in Charisma means you become good at lots of other stuff. And you shouldn't need to be good at holding speeches or smooching the ladies just to be able to physically intimidate people.

Therefore, I think the best solution, game mechanics wise, is to allow Strength for Intimidation checks. It allows the Warrior archetype to pull off intimidation which suits that niche.

While I generally agree that different attributes should be usable with different abilities scores by default, I don't think every situation should result in intimidade(cha) or athletics(dex) just because of any archetype.

At that point we could just remove ability scores, as every archetype always uses their best stat to do things. And this would be ok for me.
But I don't like it putting everything an archetype should be able to do on a single main stat. This removes choices as there is often only a single viable choice.

I'd rather decouple skills from stats in genreal. And attack bonus would also not be determined by stats.

STR and DEX will be used to determine which weapons and armor can be worn. CON and WIS determine how you resist physical and menral challenges and exploration situations. CHA and INT will determine how you approach social and knowledge challenges.

But since this will not happen I'd try a different approach to rationalize why archetypes don't always use their best stats.

One needs to mentally decouple stats from the archetype and look more at the skill portion. The fighter is not good at intimidating because of his str. It is because he is proficient or even expert in the skill intimidation.
And he can now second wind to give his threat some extra oomph.
If they are also charismatic, they are just a little bit more convincing.

Other archetypes that are not experts and don't have the new sexond wind solely rely on their charisma.

 

[Pauln6]

While I generally agree that different attributes should be usable with different abilities scores by default, I don't think every situation should result in intimidade(cha) or athletics(dex) just because of any archetype.

At that point we could just remove ability scores, as every archetype always uses their best stat to do things. And this would be ok for me.
But I don't like it putting everything an archetype should be able to do on a single main stat. This removes choices as there is often only a single viable choice.

I'd rather decouple skills from stats in genreal. And attack bonus would also not be determined by stats.

STR and DEX will be used to determine which weapons and armor can be worn. CON and WIS determine how you resist physical and menral challenges and exploration situations. CHA and INT will determine how you approach social and knowledge challenges.

But since this will not happen I'd try a different approach to rationalize why archetypes don't always use their best stats.

One needs to mentally decouple stats from the archetype and look more at the skill portion. The fighter is not good at intimidating because of his str. It is because he is proficient or even expert in the skill intimidation.
And he can now second wind to give his threat some extra oomph.
If they are also charismatic, they are just a little bit more convincing.

Other archetypes that are not experts and don't have the new sexond wind solely rely on their charisma.

Level Up deals with this by granting expertise in certain fighter skills as class features.

 

[CapnZapp]

While I am more flexible than some with this, I don't think a blanket "player chooses" is right for our games. It really depends on what you're doing. Sure, if you're intimidating them with a threat of pain or death, then strength works. But if you're intimidating them with embarrassment or leaking their secrets or something other than direct physical harm, I just don't see how strength can be the right ability score for that situation.

Sure, but this distinction doesn't mean much in practical play. Lemme explain:

If you play a brutish Fighter, and your DM tells you you need to use Charisma if you threaten to leak their secrets, you... simply switch to threatening them with bodily harm if that allows you to use an ability score you're actually good at. You might have wanted to play mind games, but then you realize that's not what you do well, so you instead rip off the arms of the other prisoner to show the target what you're capable off, or something.

Of course, then there's the greater question of "what type of character and personality do I want to play?"

If you dump Charisma, there you have your answer. You're simply not going to cajole answers out of people. You have to make them so scared of you they tell you what you need to know, which can be an unsavory business.

You made that choice, not in the moment, but back when when you put 8 into Charisma and 18 into Strength.

But at least now the game offers you a choice.

Imagine a game where Charisma is the only possible ability score for Intimidation skill checks. This game becomes a game where the traditional fighter gives up on Intimidation altogether, because who takes a skill you're going to suck at? More importantly, it doesn't feel especially realistic. And it sets a bad precedent that the only people good at Intimidation are also good at entertaining at the local tavern and romancing the ladies.

Intimidation just isn't a good fit for a "Charisma-only" solution.

It makes plenty of practical sense to allow Fighters to use Strength for Intimidation checks, since that signals to players that Intimidation is one of the skill you might want to pick up for your Fighter, with no need to become "charismatic" in general.

 

[Horwath]

one way to allow STR for intimidation and to penalize dumping CHA and still hope you will be good intimidation is that you must hit the target with at least your unarmed attack to demonstrate your strength directly.

CHA intimidation is subtle and veiled,
STR intimidation is literal assault, low skill torture.

 

[CapnZapp]

Charisma is both Charm and Frighten. Highly charismatic people do both.

Sure.

I'm not arguing you shouldn't be able to use Charisma for Intimidation.

I'm arguing Charisma shouldn't be the only stat you can use for Intimidation.

Spoiler: More details

You shouldn't need to be charming in order to get information out of unwilling prisoners.

If there was a way to project fear as a regular fighter (not using magic) then that might be a solution. If "physical presence" or "sheer size" was a thing, I could have used that.

But those things just aren't a thing in D&D. So I suggest the next best thing:

The Strength ability.

 

[CapnZapp]

When cynical, I tend to characterize it as:

Persuade = play on the targets desires
Intimidate = play on the targets fears

You also need to consider whether the action is voluntary or not.

If you try to intimidate a local prince or something, and this person thinks there is a choice to give in or not give in, (perhaps you're in his court where he thinks he's safe) then yes, you probably need Charisma. Likewise if you're interrogating, say, a ghost, where you simply don't have any physical threats to make.

But in many practical cases, when you have collected a bunch of goblins, and the DM asks you to roll Intimidation DC 12 for a goblin to spill the secrets about the local dungeon, then obviously Charisma should not be your only recourse.

In this case, answering questions isn't a choice. Your only choice is between:

a) answering straight away and being rewarded with, if not outright freedom, then at least a quick death (since players seldom care for the hassle of taking prisoners)
and
b) witnessing the gruesome deaths of your fellow goblins and then experiencing extreme pain and terror yourself... before revealing the secrets anyway.

This doesn't mean the players are psychopaths. It just means the goblins' info is what stands between the PCs and progressing on their quest, and that most groups don't take the game that seriously, so just let us make that Intimidation check, dispose of the goblins, and move on to the next part of the adventure.

Since D&D doesn't offer an especially deep psychological study of its heroes, I think Strength is the best option, since it is the one Ability most correlated to sheer bulk and physical prowess. In simple terms, if you have an average Strength, you simply won't be the kind of hulking brute that a goblin would instinctively fear.