Roleplaying an Intimidation build with High Str / Int and Low Cha

[modicasolis]

I wanted some advice on how to play this character.

He's got 21 STR, 16 INT, and 7 CHA.
He's got Intimidating Prowess and the Bruising Intellect trait.

He's built to Intimidate, but through his Intelligence and Strength, not through his Charisma.

So how does this character play out? I had the idea that he was so smart that he would cut people down with his words, exposing and digging into their weaknesses. But that seems more the realm of high WIS, not high INT.

Mainly, I need help figuring out how this kind of character would intimidate people besides simply using his muscle. Any ideas?

[Deadmanwalking]

Have you seen the BBC series Sherlock? Because it's like that. He totally has Bruising Intellect, and uses it regularly.

It's cutting words, yes, but combined with this sheer contempt that as being of your pathetic intellect would even dare to stand in the way of something like him.

It's very effective since he actually is smarter than people and they know it. It does not win any friends.

[modicasolis]

I haven't. My model for comparison was something like...what's a good example...maybe like Spock? But more intimidating?

The problem is he's also a Cavalier (Inspiring Commander, Order of the Staff) so I'm trying to work in why people want to follow him or what it is about him that inspires people to greatness.

[Chris P. Bacon]

My suggestion is that your character leads and inspires by action and by deed more than words or manipulation. He's physically imposing and obviously competent: lots of people would follow a man who is not only well educated, but able to bench press a horse.

He may be a man of few words, but when he does choose to speak you can be that what he has to say is powerful and cuts to the point. He may be brutally honest, but ultimately fair, and people can respect that.

A guy like that probably doesn't have many close friends, but that doesn't mean he doesn't have devout followers who are ready to listen to him and confident enough in his ability to follow him into battle.

[far_wanderer]

As an alternative: I played a character with very similar stats a few months ago, and the direction I went was that he tried very hard to be pleasant and charming, but always ended up accidentally threatening or insulting everyone, not just the people he tried to intimidate. This was usually by calling attention to his physical prowess at inappropriate times, but sometimes he was just uncomfortably blunt.
As an example, the party was once foolish enough to let him be the one to make first contact with a little girl we found crying in the attic of a haunted house. His opening line was "Hi there, I'm Michael. My friends and I probably aren't here to kill you." In his head, we weren't there to hurt her, but she might turn out to secretly be an evil ghost (she was) and it was important to cover all the possibilities.
He was smart enough to know that he had a problem, but he still felt that he should try to be polite and friendly and never noticed his slip-ups until it was too late.

[Fomsie]

Have you ever watched the show "Dexter"?

One episode stands out in particular where Dexter is confronting a child abusing step father. He combines his physicality with his scientific knowledge of anatomy to persuade the man to get out of the picture. In his case, he gives the guy a beat down by striking nerve clusters, solar plexus, liver and kidneys, causing the pain and side effects while explaining to him that the strikes are the type that don't leave visible damage and scientifically explaining exactly what each strike is doing and why.

The idea of a physically imposing character who is highly intelligent can combine the two by not only being physically scary, but then very cooly and clinically explaining exactly the type of pain he is capable of inflicting.

[modicasolis]

Fomsie, that was the idea that I had come up with too, making him similar in some ways to Dexter.

Most find him forgettable and unassuming. Some find him unnerving, due to his detached demeanor. He has little in the way of people skills and sees people mostly for their usage, not for their personality or their friendship.

But yeah, he could certainly be capable of describing to his foes how exactly he will break their bones or crush their army. To a demon, he can pull on his vast knowledge of demons to explain exactly what he's going to do to them.

Some find it cocky. Until he acts and they realize he wasn't bluffing, not in the slightest.

[Vamptastic]

He sounds kind of like Batman, actually.

[modicasolis]

Batman doesn't exactly inspire people, though. Except for inspiring fear, I guess.

Actually, the best analogue I can think of is Bean from Ender's Game but slightly less smart and significantly stronger.

[Kazaan]

I picture it sort of like a big, burly guy doing a rap battle with their opponent for which their opponent is woefully unprepared for. He all of a sudden starts rapping insults to his opponent interlaced with thinly veiled threats and flexing the whole while and the opponent is, understandably, confused because rap battles aren't supposed to exist in the context of this fantasy world.

[Vamptastic]

modicasolis wrote:

Batman doesn't exactly inspire people, though. Except for inspiring fear, I guess.

Tell that to every single Robin, Batgirl, Justice League and Outsider member.