
st00ji |
my players can be fairly ruthless with this kind of thing as well.
i like to start by roleplaying it out a bit.
in general if they have one guy left alive out of however many, he is going to be fairly co-operative - unless he has some reason to be obstinate. i'll often have prisoners tell what they know, or some truth sprinkled with lies in exchange for some kind of promise from the PC's - letting him go etc.
if the guy in question has reasons not to speak, thats when the dice come out. ad hoc bonuses/penalties applied as i see fit. ultimately if they fail their intimidate check, whatever is keeping their mouths shut (fear of master, kids held hostage etc) is more powerful than whatever the PC's are doing.
'please... he has my son!'
(chance to convert the PCs here - swear to rescue my son and i will tell you what i know)
'horgus will do far worse to me if i talk!'
etc.
if things devolve to actual torture, the aforementioned 'tell them what they want to hear, regardless of the truth' comes in handy.
if the PCs make wild threats and follow them through...
well, actions have consequences.
interrogations are a great way to drop the PCs info/plot hooks on anything you like!

Khrysaor |
Bluff can replace intimidate, diplomacy can replace intimidate, performance acting. You can give them a circumstance bonus on these checks based off of what's happening. Even though the bad guy gets a bonus when you threaten and fail, cutting off a finger will quickly change the tune.
Using intimidate in this regard is trying to influence attitude to coax information. It states in the skill that a fail by 5 or more illicits an attempt to deceive or hinder you. A counter bluff vs your PCs sense motive. Make sure sense motives are a standard on intimidates cause even if they succeed there's no reason they should believe it without one.
Failing too much means they need to wait an hour for the DC to reset.

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[QUOTE="Drakir2010"
The way I was playing it led to an escalating series of threats and follow-throughs, along with the continuing need to get creative on how we're going to threaten a guy whose family are all dead and has no arms, legs, eyes or nose and is covered head to toe with brands from a red-hot poker.
You threaten to let him live. As a side bonus you future intimidation checks in the area will get a bonus.

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Another thing to keep in mind during interrogations is that even a successful Intimidation check won't force an NPC to say something he simply won't reveal.
The fanatic cultist on a suicide mission was taken alive? Fine, doesn't matter. He won't reveal his master's identity even under torture. He'd literally rather die.
Is torture where we're really going with this? Fine.
Intimidation can make a prisoner TALK. Heck, any brute with a pair of pliers can do that. It takes a skilled interrogator to tell what's talk to make the pain stop and what's the truth. Profession/Torturer skill check in the making here.. but that takes days/weeks to get the info. And see above.. sometimes the GM may fairly fiat that the info will just never be gotten, no matter whether you roll a 20 or not.

koul |

One thing to remember is, that intimidation is the threat of torture or dire consequences, actual torture doesn't really need a roll from the PCs, but a Will save from the victim (Perhaps allow the players a Heal check or Profession (Torturer)check to pnalize the save).
To intimidate someone, you threaten him and hope that he is afraid enough to talk, if not you have either the opportunity to try another intimidate attempt, stop this or follow through with your threat which leads to the will save.
Intimidate is there that you don't need to torture.

BigNorseWolf |

One word on how to deal with this...
MINIONS.
Or well, in slightly more detail
You don't tell your minions everything. You tell them exactly what they need to know and nothing more, because you know if they get picked up by the.. ahem.. heroes... the heroes are going to torture, intimidate, charm, mind read... you get the drill.
Another trick is to make the intimidation roll in secret. You see the problem with torture isn't getting the person with broken fingers to tell you something, the trouble is to get them to tell you the truth, rather than what the think you want to hear so that you'll stop breaking their fingers. Yes, you're a big scary adventurer who can scare people into wetting their pants with or without ranks in intimidate. The problem is scaring people TOO MUCH