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Yes its possible, I have a Half Orc Thug that is pretty much the same.
Things to remember.
- He needs to spend a whole round intimidating; not a move action or standard action. This takes him out of the fight for a round.
- It only affects those within 30' at the start and end of the attempt, so while he is powerflexing with his sword they can walk up and start smacking on him. He's not fighting defensively or hitting back that round, he's too busy channeling Schwarzenegger.
- If he scares them to the point of Frightened, they tend to run AWAY, making the party have to split up and chase and everyone ends up everywhere. One round later the opponents are no longer scared or shaken.
-If he just makes the shaken they are suffering a minor debuff for several rounds. A third level player can otherwise just colour spray or cast sleep or a whole range of spells that do the same thing.
So yes it is a good debuff, but no it isn't a win button.
- He needs to spend a whole round intimidating; not a move action or standard action. This takes him out of the fight for a round.
- It only affects those within 30' at the start and end of the attempt, so while he is powerflexing with his sword they can walk up and start smacking on him. He's not fighting defensively or hitting back that round, he's too busy channeling Schwarzenegger.
Dazzling Display is a full-round action, not a spell with a 1 round casting time. On his initiative, he takes a full-round action to use the feat and intimidate enemies within 30'. This happens right away, similar to taking a full-round action to make a full attack.
- If he scares them to the point of Frightened, they tend to run AWAY, making the party have to split up and chase and everyone ends up everywhere. One round later the opponents are no longer scared or shaken.
They may act normally but do not lose their fear condition once they get out of sight of the cause of fear. If the duration is continuing and the intimidating character is seen again, they will suffer the penalties of being frightened again.
They may act normally but do not lose their fear condition once they get out of sight of the cause of fear.
Actually, it says "out of sight (or hearing)", which could be a very long distance...
I was always under the impression that fear effects from Intimidate didn't stack. So you couldn't move them from shaken to frightened with Enforcer.
I was always under the impression that fear effects from Intimidate didn't stack. So you couldn't move them from shaken to frightened with Enforcer.
They're not stacking in this case. It's a class feature of the Thug archetype: "In addition, if the target is shaken for 4 or more rounds, the thug can instead decide to make the target frightened for 1 round."
Should he roll poorly and his opponent(s) are instead only shaken for three rounds, he then attacks them for nonlethal damage using enforcer, easily beating the DC, and can add as much as 7 to 18 rounds of the shaken condition to them . . . effectively making an individual target frightened for 7-18 rounds
The above sentence looks very much like they are trying to stack the demoralize effects from the enforcer with the initial effects from the Dazzling Display, maybe I misunderstood there intent.
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You are misreading the Thug Frightened ability. When he converts 4+ rounds of shaken to frightened they are only frightened for 1 round and when that wears off so does the shaken effect.
Frightening (Ex): Whenever a thug successfully uses Intimidate to demoralize a creature, the duration of the shaken condition is increased by 1 round. In addition, if the target is shaken for 4 or more rounds, the thug can instead decide to make the target frightened for 1 round. This ability replaces trapfinding.
You trade in all your rounds of shaken to get 1 round of fear.
It's a nice trick and I use it myself but skipped the dazzling display. It's easier to charge and Cleave to break up the front line heavies and then spread the attacks around to selectively fear the targets I want out of the way by splitting attacks.
Those frightened opponents should be running into the next room and alerting re-enforcements. Heck, they ought to be running around the entire building/dungeon alerting re-enforcements.
Should he roll poorly and his opponent(s) are instead only shaken for three rounds, he then attacks them for nonlethal damage using enforcer, easily beating the DC, and can add as much as 7 to 18 rounds of the shaken condition to them . . . effectively making an individual target frightened for 7-18 roundsThe above sentence looks very much like they are trying to stack the demoralize effects from the enforcer with the initial effects from the Dazzling Display, maybe I misunderstood there intent.
Good point. I agree that Enforcer and Dazzling Display shouldn't stack, but Enforcer should trigger the Thug ability.
Good point. I agree that Enforcer and Dazzling Display shouldn't stack, but Enforcer should trigger the Thug ability.Should he roll poorly and his opponent(s) are instead only shaken for three rounds, he then attacks them for nonlethal damage using enforcer, easily beating the DC, and can add as much as 7 to 18 rounds of the shaken condition to them . . . effectively making an individual target frightened for 7-18 roundsThe above sentence looks very much like they are trying to stack the demoralize effects from the enforcer with the initial effects from the Dazzling Display, maybe I misunderstood there intent.
I concur.
The Thug ability is plenty useful, one round of frightened is great for tactical purposes. If you have a non-Intimidate way of keeping a group shaken, you can even stack the Frightening ability with it to make them panicked and force them to drop items.
It is strong, and there are ways around it though. One of the easiest would I think be things that are immune to fear and mind effecting abilities, if the Dazzling Display/Thug and all that stuff comes into play.
Advanced Ghouls and Ghasts won't be too terribly frightened. Nor would constructs, plants, thing explicitly immune to fear, etc.
Might be fun to scare the guy who is scaring everybody!
You know what's really great about this idea? Undead are immune to non-lethal damage too.
I think it's time for your players to battle a necromancer or nest of vampires.
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Thank you for your good points, everyone. I didn't know some of that, so that makes sense.
The player in question was using Dazzling Display as a standard action, but he wasn't scaring monsters "away" so much as "into" the rest of the party. It was pretty effective, but I guess it will be harder for him to do that now, though.
What I still don't get is if Intimidate stacks with itself. Some people have said it doesn't, but some say it does, and the rules don't seem to indicate either one, other than to say in general that fear effects stack?
Is there a consensus on Intimidate stacking with itself? I think that would make all the difference for us. :)
P.S. And, yes, we know about Thug trading ALL shaken rounds for one round of frightened. We were doing that one right, at least. XD
Intimidate is the only fear effect that doesn't stack with itself (it used to but was found to be too strong so an errata was released that changed it).