"If it's pirates you are concerned with perhaps I can be of assistance!" A Half-Orc of uncommonly low height speaks out, "I have some contacts and I'd be agreeable to get in touch with them... course I might have to grease some palms and what not. Better if you don't know all the detail right?"
Lighting a pipe and adjusting his shabby Tricorn clearly sporting the holy symbol of Besmara, he continues, "My ship just arrive in port and is a bit low on supplies I could have the dock hands rush the loading but that's gonna cost extra..."
((Posted as Ausk Stormbrow, Inquisitor of Besmara. Recently Returned from the Ruby Phoenix Tourniment after a few 'detours'))
:What must be the shortest Half-Orc you've ever seen walks into the room bedecked in some bastardization of a nobles and pirates outfit. He sits, his back to a wall, and pulls a bottle of hooch from a pack. Uncorks it with his teeth and pours a generous helping for himself into a cup also pulled from the bag. Then spits the cork upon the ground.:
"Where's Guaril? I checked his store at the docks as I rolled in and its empty."
Arr-ha-harr! That be the kind of enthusiasm fer bloodletting that makes me bones feel alive again. What say ye join me merry band of sailors this Saturday? I'm sure that between the lot of us, we'll be swipin' erry 'ittle thing that ain't nailed down!
The Shadow Mastiff be at yer beck and call Admiral! Truth be I could use the time off from my first wife!
The opposites are not being safe and then on the other is FoF. The opposites are feeling safe and being in danger. FoF is the process by which you determine where you are on that scale and what action best moves you in either direction on that scale to whatever goal you are looking for(most people this is towards feeling safe).
If you want to look at the Intimidation skill in another way. When you put a point into Intimidation its not that you have become more scary. It is that through your journey you have learned what works against most people to frighten them into giving you what you want. You have a pool of knowledge to pull from to scare people into doing whatever it is you want through the threat of violence or exposure of secrets. You have experienced through many attempts at intimidation that threatening someones family that its usually more effective then threatening a persons dog. That is the Modifier, your experience intimidating in the past. The roll is to determine if whatever it is you are saying is intimidating to that person at that specific second, in turn sparking fear and forcing a FoF response.
I am saying that instead of the players having the advantage, you are negating the advantage completely. Without my heavy specialization there would be absolutely no possibility of success. Without my specialization even minor or moderate officials would be immune to the possibility of being intimidated most cases. In attempting to fix a situation that will happen maybe 0.01% of the time we will ruin the rest of the times intimidation are meant to be used.
See, it's very well possible that even with ten 5th level guards standing by, Ausk (with his cohorts) can intimidate the King...
...
Maybe Ausk has earned his reputation of ferociousness and even a King sits up and takes notice.
...
What if it's a frontier King of some small border nation... Well, clearly such a King is war-like... but he may not have a large retinue.... You may be like a giant of a man striding the earth and the earth trembles beneath you.... He might be a tough guy...
I edited it down to get the relevant bits.
So lets pretend Ausk is standing before the king of equal level and wisdom mentioned above with his ten 5th level guards around. Ausk has a standard 4 person party of one level 10, two level 11s, and one level 12.
Base Modifier for Ausk is +36. From his Allies he gets +21 because by god if Ausk is a giant of a man striding the earth and the earth trembles beneath him he would be in the company of people that are similar.
The King believes:
Target believes you are especially threatening -5(the earth trembles beneath me)
The target’s impression of you or your reputation -3(the king sits up and takes notice)
The target’s concern about personal reputation+ +5 (he is a king and is very concerned)
The target holds the top or near-the-top leadership position of entire nations or tribes +20(he is a king!)
Kings allies +20 (2x10 guards)
My new total bonuses 1d20+65
His new DC 10+11+2+5+20=48
Now lets say the King only lets Ausk in, he ends up with a +44. Well damn now there's a chance Ausk could fail(20% of the time). Lets say the King is Unfriendly, well it jumps to 45% failure, and if he is hostile Intimidation fails 70% of the time. What if the king strips Ausk of his magical enhancements because he is afraid of assassins? it jumps to 95% failure. Whats the Point of an intimidation specialist when the above scenario is not hard to carry out. Just get lots of guards, strip people down, and be hostile all the time. Intimidation skill successfully negated.
"The goal of intimidation is to bring the target to a crucial balance of safety and fear. The higher the success, the more perfectly you have achieved this goal. However, if you fail this check by 5 or less, you successfully threaten the target, but fail to achieve balance. Instead you trigger "Fight or Flight". At the GM's discretion, the opponent will either attack with all its resources to meet the threat it believes you pose or will flee as decorously and/or speedily as required by the target's nature. If you fail this check by 6 or more, the target attempts to deceive you or otherwise hinder your activities."
My biggest problem with your expanded rules on intimidate is the passage above. The crucial balance of safety and fear is an unreliable system because if you are at a balance between safety and fear you're not being intimidated. Safe means secure from danger, harm, or evil. If a person is attempting to extort me by threat of violence or exposure then how am I safe? By complying to their demands I will eventually become safe, but when they are in the act of extortion I am afraid of whatever the results will be of non compliance. Which is when Fight of flight enters into it. I will fight if the goals of the intimidater are not compatible with my own goals and I believe I can control the situation. I will flee if the goals are incompatible and I cannot out maneuver the person. If neither of these are possible I will submit. There are exceptions.
Putting that aside, when a person rolls an intimidation check its to see how Intimidating they are being, not let me frighten you just enough so that you will do what I say, but not enough that you run screaming through the streets at the mention of my name. You roll your intimidate check, compare against their resistance, and find out their response. Sometimes that response will be pissing themselves and then their immediate submission to your will, other times they will call guards to come hack you to pieces so they don't have to be afraid of you anymore, and sometimes that will be running away from you.
The way I picture the 'balance' approach is trying to shoot an arrow at a target and NOT hit the bulls eye or the Outer ring. It doesn't work mechanically or theoretically. The bulls eye on a target is the I win button, the closer you get to that center the more you win and after a point of specialization(2-3 feats) if you aren't hitting the perfect center 90% of the time or better then you've done something wrong. Punishing a player for specializing in a skill by reworking the skill so it doesn't work is not even close to being a good solution. That is a lot like in the middle of a game of chess saying "oh darn your bishops are too powerful so instead of going in a diagonal until they hit a boarder or a piece they can only move a maximum of 3 squares."
Moving on.
To prevent a player from ruining encounters you don't need an elaborate excuse. Chances are the player knows he shouldn't be intimidating a king(or other such foolishness). Chances are he knows it will end poorly for his character. The person in my opinion is trying to push you into letting them get away with things they know are not quite kosher. Rule Zero is there for a reason, its so that you don't have to come up with elaborate modifications to standing mechanics. If the player ends up Intimidating too many things or getting too ridiculous with his intimidation(Like Ausk's level of Face melting intimidation skills) increase the DC from 10 to 15 or allow the npc to add in any bonus to fear effects he might have on him. After all its a fear inducing skill. A simple fix but doesn't require a rewrite of the skill. Seriously though, if any player cant take a no once in a while they should be playing a different game.
The problem is that you have two DCs for the same skill and quite a few modifiers that have to be taken in to account for both sides. Intimidate when it comes down to it is based off the fear whether in or out of combat, fear that the PC will do X to them if they don't do Y. It doesn't matter how many guards you have. Intimidate works off that spark of fear in or out of combat. The responses to that fear might be to put the guards upon them or fight, give the object of fear whatever they want, or to run away as fast as possible. In the end all the modifiers would still be in place in or out of combat. A person who believes they can't be intimidated because they have 20 guards around wont be shaken.
I believe there are better ways to 'fix' the intimidation for peoples games then to overhaul a system. A DM saying it doesn't work is an acceptable solution as long as its reasonably justified, see Rule Zero. "No, you can't intimidate the King. He immediately calls in additional guards and warns you further attempts will be met with deadly force." That is much better then figuring out a laundry list of modifiers.
You know it! Did I mention Ausk is a Pirate? Yeah... Ownage!
jupistar wrote:
Seriously, though, the guards are not necessarily going to jump in nor are they going to necessarily be unintimidated, realistically. It depends on those guards and their orders and policies. It depends on the group. Again, I turn your attention to my thinking here:
If you want to intimidate a whole group of people, there's a separate mechanism for that.
I like the concept that intimidating a group of people would cause it to be more difficult, but lets really look at that mechanically. For those people who didn't go look at the link.
Intimidating:
The DC of this check is equal to 10 + the target's Hit Dice + the target's Wisdom modifier + half the total Hit Die of the opponent's allies in support/immediate vicinity that the opponent believes will give support
In my above example lets say Ausk w/o feats is intimidating the creature I mentioned. Chances are a creature like that is the end encounter in a scenario. He will likely have friends or action economy would out pace him easily. Lets say he comes with 3 buddies all level 8, so we add 4 for each of them for a total of +12 modifier to that intimidate check. Now It adds up to 45 DC for intimidate check meaning I'd have to roll a 23... Making it impossible and intimidate a waste of skill points for most encounters as I rarely come up against single npc encounters.
Even specialized the way Ausk actually is (+36 intimidate), I'd be forced to roll a 9 to meet the DC but what would be the point of becoming specialized in intimidate if there is a 40% chance I'd fail whenever I go to intimidate? Rolling that 9 means the target becomes shaken for 1 round. Rolling a Natural 20 means that creature would be shaken for 3 rounds. Making Intimidation a weak skill and without specializing probably not working except in rare occasions.
Hey. I am a level 11 Half-Orc Inquisitor of Besmara. You know, the Pirate Queen! Odd choice I've been told. Really fun though. I intimidate everything I can! I have a minimum roll of 37 Intimidation. Over powered? Yes. Under powered? Yes.
From the pfsrd website:
Demoralize:
Demoralize
You can use this skill to cause an opponent to become shaken for a number of rounds. This shaken condition doesn’t stack with other shaken conditions to make an affected creature frightened. The DC of this check is equal to 10 + the target’s Hit Dice + the target’s Wisdom modifier.
Success: If you are successful, the target is shaken for one round. This duration increases by 1 round for every 5 by which you beat the DC. You can only “threaten an opponent this way if it is within 30 feet and can clearly see and hear you. Using demoralize on the same creature only extends the duration; it does not create a stronger fear condition.
Fail: The opponent is not shaken.
Demoralize Action
Demoralizing an opponent is a standard action.
Influence Attitude
You can use Intimidate to force an opponent to act friendly toward you for 1d6 × 10 minutes with a successful check. The DC of this check is equal to 10 + the target’s Hit Dice + the target’s Wisdom modifier.
Success: If successful, the opponent will:
give you information you desire
take actions that do not endanger it
offer other limited assistance
After the intimidate expires, the target treats you as unfriendly and may report you to local authorities.
Fail: If you fail this check by 5 or more, the target attempts to deceive you or otherwise hinder your activities.
Influence Attitude Action
Using Intimidate to change an opponent’s attitude requires 1 minute of conversation.
Try Again
You can attempt to intimidate an opponent again, but each additional check increases the DC by +5. This increase resets after one hour has passed.
Special
Larger or Smaller than Target You gain a +4 bonus on Intimidate checks if you are larger than your target, and a –4 penalty on Intimidate checks if you are smaller than your target.
Feats If you have the Persuasive feat, you gain a +2 bonus on Intimidate skill checks. If you have 10 or more ranks in Intimidate, the bonus increases to +4.
Race A half-orc gets a +2 bonus on Intimidate checks.
Lets go through why its overpowered. Makes people give you the information you want, and can keep them from doing minor things like moving or throwing a lever. Lets not forget that demoralize effect either!
The under powered bit. It takes feats to be a skill worthwhile! Without my current feats I would have a staggering +21, so if I'm playing against creatures with a CR of relative to mine with zero wisdom bonus I should intimidate them regularly. Now then lets imagine I'm fighting something larger then I am. I get a -4 to that roll. Let us now imagine that we are fighting something a few CR above my level, has a wisdom bonus, and is larger then I am. Level 15+10+4(wis)+4(size)=33 DC... so now I'd have to roll at least a 12, at least 1 better then an average roll.
Lets forget all that though. Comparative to other skills diplomacy, disguise, or bluff. This is on par power wise with those skills if you are specialized into those skills. After all if you have +25 in diplomacy make someone friendly, and then diplo them into following you to kill a dragon isn't that just as disruptive to game mechanics as technically you could do that to an entire town with a sufficiently high diplomacy?
One thing people keep seeming to come around to is the PC intimidating a bureaucrat with knights and guards around. Part of intimidating is making either an overt or veiled threat. If a PC is making a threat against a person with guards, the guards are there to protect against threats. Wouldn't the guards remove that threat either by tossing the PC out on his butt or jumping immediately into combat? Either way Intimidation wont work...
Hmmm, sounds like someone is compensating for other "shortcomings". ;)
Don't be talkin' such foolishness bout the Cap'n or I'll beat ya till that ol' sea hag they call yer mother wont recognize ya! ((Intimidate check of 44, roll of 15, +29 in skills))
