I have a young Brawler who I am building for Intimidate. My question revolves around the Enforcer-Hurtful-Cornugon Smash feat chain.
With Enforcer, I get the ability to Intimidate after a successful non-lethal attack which will leave the target Shaken for a number of rounds equal to the damage dealt. Then, with Hurtful I can make a single melee attack against the target that was the victim of my successful Intimidate.
My question is specifically pointed at the Cornugon Smash aspect. It allows me to Intimidate as a free action an opponent that I just successfully hit with a Power Attack. Why would I need to Intimidate again?
Assuming I did 7 points of damage with my initial strike and was successful with my Intimidate the target is now Shaken for 7 rounds. If I am not gaining an extra attack using CS what is the benefit?
Am I missing something or would Cornugon Smash simply replace one of the prior feats? Personally, I feel Enforcer is much better because of the duration of the Shaken condition, and Hurtful appears to be what gives me the additional attack.
Help a Brawler out! What am I misunderstanding?
If Cornugon Smash is "useless" in this chain, then it will allow me to go:
Enforcer
Power Attack
Hurtful
Boar Style
Intimidating Prowess
Belier Bite (think thats it)
RAW seems to read that you would get two separate intimidate checks to demoralize. You would need to intimidate again because they are separate abilities, even if they are caused by the same action.
The benefit would be that you get two chances to intimidate your opponent. If you fail the first check, you get another chance, and if the second one succeeds you would still get your hurtful attack.
Yes, the duration of enforcer makes it better than cornugon smash for intimidating, you just have to deal nonlethal damage.
For other feat ideas, somebody who likes to intimidate and use unarmed strikes could like the nightmare feats. You need some way to cast darkness, but there are various races that can do that.
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Cornugon Smash is useful when you want to do lethal damage and still get a free Intimidate. Against intelligent Undead, for example, or an intelligent Construct or other creature that is immune to non-lethal damage. Some GMs will rule that Demoralize is a mind-effecting effect, and therefore Undead are immune, but that's not called out in the rules anywhere I'm aware of. There are other threads that argue that point.
Personally, I would say that if you're happy dealing non-lethal damage a majority of the time, you don't need Cornugon Smash. If you run into something like an intelligent Undead, that's what Martial Flexibility is for. Use it to pick up Cornugon Smash.
As far as Cornugon Smash and Enforcer stacking on the same attack series, they don't, so it's only if you really want to be covered for lethal or non-lethal attacks that you need both.
Enforcer is nice early, but you may as well retrain it away later if you pick up Cornugon Smash (a bit more reliable even if the duration is shorter)
Enforcer is nice early, but you may as well retrain it away later if you pick up Cornugon Smash (a bit more reliable even if the duration is shorter)
Hence the one level dip in thug rogue. Just consistently deal 4 or more damage.