There are a number of feats like Cornugon Smash, Dreadful Carnage, and Intimidating Prowess that help a character make Intimidate checks to demoralize opponents. This causes them to become Shaken.
"A shaken character takes a –2 penalty on attack rolls, saving throws, skill checks, and ability checks."
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How useful is it to make an enemy shaken?
Is -2 on all rolls worth investing feats in?
Does the utility change at low, mid, or high levels?
If you've played a character who uses intimidate to demoralize, what was your impression?
Combined with Dazzling Display to demoralize all enemies and Shatter Defenses to exploit the shaken condition, it's actually quite good :)
Or if you otherwise have a way to make a free Intimidate check somehow, Enforcer for example.
Otherwise, I don't think using a standard action for it for a -2 is work it.
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It's pretty solid, although it can backfire horribly against opponents who are immune to fear and/or mind-affecting effects.
Thug rogue and Cornugon Smash are pretty good. Dazzling Display is usually pretty important, and the order of the cockatrice cavalier gets his at level 2 for free, and as a standard instead of full-round.
-2 is great early, useful later on when combined with sickened or other simple things like entangle, grappled, prone, etc.
It's important to note the build is specialized enough that if the character is not getting an opportunity to use it a lot, it's a big waste of resources.
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Intimidation is hard to resist. If you even focus a little bit on it, you'll almost always beat the necessary target.
It's like giving your spellcasters Greater Spell Focus in all schools, and giving Dodge twice to everyone.
Intimidation is hard to resist. If you even focus a little bit on it, you'll almost always beat the necessary target.
That's one of the reasons I considered this route. Few monsters have high Wisdom modifiers, and the roll to demoralize seems quite easy.
It's like giving your spellcasters Greater Spell Focus in all schools, and giving Dodge twice to everyone.
That's a good way of looking at it! The party I'm with is Paladin(me), Rogue, Oracle, Witch. I'm sure the Witch will be forcing a lot of saving throws, but I should check with the Oracle player. If the Oracle is also forcing a lot of saves, -2 saves gets better.
If you are a Fighter the Dazzling Display/Shatter Defenses tree becomes even better with Deadly Stroke (stacking Con bleed, YAY!).
But that said, Intimidate is a beast. I personally have built several character around it, one of which I can't wait to play. the only thing to note is that unless you specialize you may never get more than 2-5 rounds of the Shaken condition out of it before you have to repeat the process.
Imagine a ftr 16 (2 weapon warrior), rog 4 wielding 2 whips and the whip mastery and TWF chains. He can grapple people with his whips and also has the Enforcer(for a free intimidate & extra rounds against individual opponents)/Dazzling Display/Shatter Defenses/Deadly Stroke feats and the Critical Focus/Bleeding Critical/Blinding Critical/Sneaking Precision feats.
The way he's built, he averages 3+ hits a round for about 60 DPR, base. Add in the fact that I can stack on the Bleeding Critical (which stacks with itself) and Blinding Critical feats with the 2nd sneak attack in any given round, and he's a beast. His weapons don't deal too much damage, but his DPR increases every round he hits!
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Since I'm ona cavalier kick it should be noted that one fo the best intimidate monkeys around that you can ask for is an order of the cockatrice cavalier.
They get dazzling display for free at 2nd level and gain a bonus to attacks against demoralized targets. This practically means that they always ahve maxed out intimidate and shatter defenses at 6th level. IF you really want to go nuts then grab Cornugon smash and power attack as well. When you toss a mountless cavalier archetype on it then you've got a recipe for one scary bastard.
SO cant you just intimidate a single foe during combat? what action does that count has?
SO cant you just intimidate a single foe during combat? what action does that count has?
Standard. But when given a choice between intimidating one guy and intimidating every guy in 30ft which would you choose?
Alternatively theres thigns like enforcer and cornugon smash which let you intimidate when conditions are met for it as a free action.
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Also a barb rage power that lets you do it.
I picked it up, and at higher levels when I have nothing else to do will end a full attack with an intimidation.
It went well in character, I would turn some foe into a pasty red slurry with my power attack maul all while reciting epic barbarian poetry (that was my equivalent of foaming at the mouth had no in game effect) and then stare at the next guys and say your next. I had 14 cha, and intimidating prowess, so my bonus was high enough to liquify the bowels of even a demon.
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To take an example one step further along from the OP.. I'm kind of not sure about Shatter Defenses. I mean.. sure if you have sneak attack bonuses the feat obviously has good synergy/is a worthwhile pick.
But Shatter Defenses only makes the foe flat-footed to YOUR attacks.. so w/o yourn own sneak attack, who cares? The party rogue certainly doesn't..
I mean, it's not useless.. lowering AC is always good.. but is it worth a feat choice? Especially when it's only lowering AC for SOME of your attacks?
Am I not thinking creatively enough to see the value?
To take an example one step further along from the OP.. I'm kind of not sure about Shatter Defenses. I mean.. sure if you have sneak attack bonuses the feat obviously has good synergy/is a worthwhile pick.
But Shatter Defenses only makes the foe flat-footed to YOUR attacks.. so w/o yourn own sneak attack, who cares? The party rogue certainly doesn't..
I mean, it's not useless.. lowering AC is always good.. but is it worth a feat choice? Especially when it's only lowering AC for SOME of your attacks?
Am I not thinking creatively enough to see the value?
If it lowers the AC by even 1, it's done the work of Weapon Focus, one of the most universally recognized "good feats to have".
I have a character with the Enforcer feat and a Merciful weapon. I haven't found it enormously useful, but it's nice that it doesn't cost an action to use.
lowering AC is always good.. but is it worth a feat choice? Especially when it's only lowering AC for SOME of your attacks?
If you have sneak attack, yes this will almost always be useful, but even if you don't it will be useful against any opponent with a Dex or Dodge bonus to AC. Most fighters will have some Dex to take advantage of Armor Training, spellcasters need Dex and/or the Dodge feat to have any real AC, and monks are essentially boned by this as if they loose these bonuses they have just lost all their monk AC too. Ranged characters you can get to are also pretty messed up too.
Granted, there are exceptions to this, such as your lumbering giant with no Dex wearing full plate on top of his nat AC, but against most NPC's it's still something.
Short of it is, if there is something special you can do against a flat-footed opponent, this feat ROCKS, otherwise it is more situational but still good, just not worth taking blindly.
Short of it is, if there is something special you can do against a flat-footed opponent, this feat ROCKS, otherwise it is more situational but still good, just not worth taking blindly.
Eh, in the cavalier example you are already ignoring prerequisites for dazzling display and already get bonuses to demoralizaed opponents plus a bonus feat at 6th level. In my mind it turns into a "Why the hell not" feat.
lowering AC is always good.. but is it worth a feat choice? Especially when it's only lowering AC for SOME of your attacks?If you have sneak attack, yes this will almost always be useful, but even if you don't it will be useful against any opponent with a Dex or Dodge bonus to AC. Most fighters will have some Dex to take advantage of Armor Training, spellcasters need Dex and/or the Dodge feat to have any real AC, and monks are essentially boned by this as if they loose these bonuses they have just lost all their monk AC too. Ranged characters you can get to are also pretty messed up too.
Granted, there are exceptions to this, such as your lumbering giant with no Dex wearing full plate on top of his nat AC, but against most NPC's it's still something.
Short of it is, if there is something special you can do against a flat-footed opponent, this feat ROCKS, otherwise it is more situational but still good, just not worth taking blindly.
When unarmored and unencumbered, the monk adds his Wisdom bonus (if any) to his AC and his CMD. In addition, a monk gains a +1 bonus to AC and CMD at 4th level. This bonus increases by 1 for every four monk levels thereafter, up to a maximum of +5 at 20th level.
"These bonuses to AC apply even against touch attacks or when the monk is flat-footed. He loses these bonuses when he is immobilized or helpless, when he wears any armor, when he carries a shield, or when he carries a medium or heavy load."
ofcourse many monks have a fairly high scores in dex as well, but I am sure there are better victims to be found.
"These bonuses to AC apply even against touch attacks or when the monk is flat-footed. He loses these bonuses when he is immobilized or helpless, when he wears any armor, when he carries a shield, or when he carries a medium or heavy load."
Darn! I should have caught that! *facepalm*
Oh well. Just more proof that I'm not infallible.
I have a character with the Enforcer feat and a Merciful weapon. I haven't found it enormously useful, but it's nice that it doesn't cost an action to use.
my group hated me when they ran into a group of slavers with Merciful Truncheons and were all Rogue (thugs).
Whap! for 8 non-lethal, oh he made his intimidate check, look you are shaken for 8 rounds, well make that shaken for 4, frightened for 1, oh also I did non-lethal damage, you take an additional -2 on top of all that...oh and you're considered flat-footed to him because of Shatter Defense...WHAP! take 22 non-lethal...rinse, repeat, que thrown dice.
I have a character with the Enforcer feat and a Merciful weapon. I haven't found it enormously useful, but it's nice that it doesn't cost an action to use.my group hated me when they ran into a group of slavers with Merciful Truncheons and were all Rogue (thugs).
Whap! for 8 non-lethal, oh he made his intimidate check, look you are shaken for 8 rounds, well make that shaken for 4, frightened for 1, oh also I did non-lethal damage, you take an additional -2 on top of all that...oh and you're considered flat-footed to him because of Shatter Defense...WHAP! take 22 non-lethal...rinse, repeat, que thrown dice.
Least they're not sap adepts.