My party is about to enter the Grimlock caverns in TFoE, and the Krenshar's scare ability has me a bit bewildered.
From the SRD, Krenshar:
"Scare (Ex or Su): As a standard action, a krenshar can pull the skin back from its head, revealing the musculature and bony structures of its skull. This alone is usually sufficient to scare away foes (treat as a Bluff check with a +3 bonus).
Combining this scare ability with a loud screech produces an unsettling effect that works like a scare spell from a 3rd-level caster (Will DC 13 partial). A creature that successfully saves cannot be affected again by the same krenshar’s scare ability for 24 hours. The shriek does not affect other krenshars. This is a supernatural, sonic mind-affecting fear effect. The save DC is Charisma-based."
What's confusing me is the Bluff check to scare away intruders, without the screech. What's with the Bluff check? What's the DC, or what is it opposed by? Assuming a character fails this mythical Bluff check, what happens? Do I tell them "you are scared?" Are there game rules somewhere to cover this? Am I reading too much into this, and should just calm down and have the damn thing screech and not worry about it?
How have other DMs handled this in their own campaigns?
Shidara
Very confused recovering rules-lawyer
It's a pretty poorly written ability. I'd ignore it and just use the Will save.
I suspect the "bluff" check is an error. It works better if it's an intimidate check. But generally, I think the creatures would lead with their screech--if you're going to try to scare someone you pull out all the stops on the first try, because the second try is far less likely to succeed.
Incidently, you should consider carefully the positioning of the Krenshars in this encounter--I ran it as written and it was completely ineffective. The krenshars should hide near the wall opposite the cliff, and reveal themselves only when the PCs approach the cliff, hopefully forcing one to fall off.