| 2 people marked this as a favorite. |
I am not sure Intimidate is broken as it is, it has just become a way better option than before. What definitely needs tweaking is the fear spell: not only it is comparable to the Intimidate skill use, it is also way less useful than other spells of its level.
I playtested a 7th level party vs a 3rd level group of Ogres and one of my players utilized intimidate (with a critical success) to force one Ogre to run away until the end of it's next turn. On the next turn, it came back and the character did it again, but with no penalty.
Your party was 7th level and the ogres are only 3rd level. That's a less than trivial encounter, of course that is going to happen.
I ran a similar encounter to that with 4 5th level wizards and they destroyed the encounter taking no damage and using only cantrips. Your party is level 7, so it should be even worse, it's expected and not a problem with Intimidate (or cantrips).
Try doing it on an equal level foe or a boss, you'll feel like you're wasting your action.
The demoralize action strikes me as pretty solid right now. Also, it seems to specifically be utilizing a certain amount of personality. It is specifically a lingual thing you consciously right now, which is why tigers don't have good intimidate. But there are feats that let strength play into it.
|
I playtested a 7th level party vs a 3rd level group of Ogres and one of my players utilized intimidate (with a critical success) to force one Ogre to run away until the end of it's next turn. On the next turn, it came back and the character did it again, but with no penalty.
2 Opinions:
1) I'm not sure that a critical success on Intimidate should bestow Frightened 2 AND forced to run away. Seems like double penalty and a skill check can make battlefield control. The Fear spell is 1st level and it only forces an enemy to run away on a critical failure as well, but it is magic, while the other is a skill check that anyone can do. It reduces the specialness of Fear.
2) There are no penalties to intimidating an enemy multiple times. I would think that an enemy would steel himself against the object of his fear and the PC would get a penalty to his roll for every subsequent check. Also, since it's an action, a PC can do the same action over and over until he gets a success on the check.
I think the bigger issues are:
1.) Success gives the target Frightened 1, which for a non-spellcaster does basically nothing.
Frightened 1 gives them -1 on skill checks and saves. So you can use this to set yourself up for a +1 on a combat maneuver on an opponent (like shove or trip), or protect yourself from their maneuvers against you. These bonuses are something, but seem pretty specialized and thus may give you no benefit. It may benefit you caster ally if they go before the demoralized target and hit it with a spell that requires a save, but again this is not the most common case.
SOLUTION: Frightened should give the target a penalty on attack roles. This would fit the flavor of demoralize, and allow it to almost ALWAYS provide a tangible benefit for a non-spellcaster.
2.) Demoralize should add either a PC's Strength, Dexterity, OR Charisma modifier. A strong character should be able to demoralize through brute force. A dexterous character should be able to demoralize through a display of dexterity (think the Dread Pirate Roberts or Inigo Montoya), and a charismatic character should be able to do it through force of personality.
Even the current Intimidating Prowess feat is not sufficient to make demoralize work the way it feels like it should.
| 1 person marked this as a favorite. |
The demoralize action strikes me as pretty solid right now. Also, it seems to specifically be utilizing a certain amount of personality. It is specifically a lingual thing you consciously right now, which is why tigers don't have good intimidate. But there are feats that let strength play into it.I agree that that rules do seem to be focused on personality for intimidation, and I was making a case for strength to be the more fundamental ability score.
IRL a tiger's roar is capable of paralyzing prey and even seasoned tiger trainers can fall under its effects. It's a language that all animals (or at least mammals) understand.
Poker is a game that I think illustrates the difference between strength and charisma well.
If you have a strong hand you can choose to intimidate your opponents off the pot, because you have the confidence to know that you are strong and they will likely lose.
If you have a weak hand you can bluff (charisma intimidate) and pretend like you have a strong hand. You maybe able to deceive others into believing that you have a strong hand. This only works because strong hands exist. Strength is the more fundamental intimidation check. Charisma can be used for intimidation but only to create the illusion of threat.
Now this is a simplistic view. Ultimately each party in a conflict is assessing not just strength but threat. Its just that strength has been hardwired into in the deep dark recesses of of our fight and flight nervous systems because for eons of time strength has been the primary source of threat because Strength = damage.
That's why creatures like owlbears have a special ability to screech and make folks Frightened. This is part of why they have stopped pretending monsters follow the same build rules as PCs. Individual monsters like tigers can get appropriate abilities without needing a lot of charisma.
I haven't actually looked at the tiger Stat block to see if it gets such an ability, especially with other stuff cats seem to get, but hypothetically it absolutely could.
Edit: as far as strength to intimidate is generally concerned, keep in mind that a GM can always have someone become frightened by a display of physical might. If I'm a bandit and just saw the barbarian cut down two of my buds with one Sweep, you can bet I'm gonna be cowed. But the demoralize action is pretty specifically you NOT attacking and instead taunting the foe. And there's a feat that gives you a bonus when you can physically menace the target and have more than 16 strength.
| 2 people marked this as a favorite. |
Personally, I believe people confuse Intimidate with Demoralise way too much.
Intimidate is meant to be a conversation where you realise scary stuff will happen if you don't comply. It's an offer you can't refuse.
Demoralise is meant to be the very quick, scary, thug-on-the-docks way of letting you know you're already in trouble. It's the wrong guy at the wrong time.
Intimidate fits perfectly with Charisma and shouldn't involve Strength.
Demoralise fits perfectly with Strength and shouldn't involve Charisma.
It'll never happen.
I had the barbarian in my group last night use demoralize a lot, and versus equal level opponents he was fairly successful.
I did find it odd that PF1 vermin could suffer from being demoralized, and with a lower will save were at much more risk of fleeing.
SOLUTION: Frightened should give the target a penalty on attack roles. This would fit the flavor of demoralize, and allow it to almost ALWAYS provide a tangible benefit for a non-spellcaster.
Frightened
You’re gripped by fear and struggle to control your nerves. The frightened condition always includes a value. You take a conditional penalty equal to this value to your checks and saving throws. Unless specified otherwise, at the end of each of your turns, the value of
your frightened condition decreases by 1.
It affects all checks, including attacks.
I did find it odd that PF1 vermin could suffer from being demoralized, and with a lower will save were at much more risk of fleeing.
He should have gotten a -4 on the check (he doesn't speak their language), making it much harder to get a critical success.
Barbarian raging gives Intimidating Glare so all he had to do was look at them as it removes the language barrier.
Mind you, on the other hand I do appreciate giving characters more options than just attacking.
|
|
SOLUTION: Frightened should give the target a penalty on attack roles. This would fit the flavor of demoralize, and allow it to almost ALWAYS provide a tangible benefit for a non-spellcaster.Frightened
You’re gripped by fear and struggle to control your nerves. The frightened condition always includes a value. You take a conditional penalty equal to this value to your checks and saving throws. Unless specified otherwise, at the end of each of your turns, the value of
your frightened condition decreases by 1.It affects all checks, including attacks.
I didn't think "checks" were attacks. Anyone have evidence to support this?
|
| 3 people marked this as a favorite. |
I ran Doomsday Dawn Part 3 last night and intimidate is definitely too powerful.
The Paladin had maxed out intimidate and had the feat to allow it to be not language based.
For his third action he was constantly making people scared and on quite a few occasions he caused enemies to run away. Admittedly, he was a little lucky on the rolls but with a +14 or 15 on the roll not THAT lucky.
Its just too powerful for the third action a round.
I suggest that you get Bolstered against it after you've been intimidated. Makes sense that the same person can't keep saying "Boo" to you :-)
The Barbarian in my pale mountain adventure was quite successful at making foes run away, even an ankheg. I don't mind imposing the higher Frightened level, but also imposing Fleeing should probably require a skill feat. Or maybe happen only if you get another successful Intimidate against someone already at Frightened 2, or critically successful against someone already at Frightened 1.
| 2 people marked this as a favorite. |
I think if you are going to tweak intimidate by getting rid of the fleeing condition (or feat locking it) and/or bolstering enemies against it, it really needs to be a longer lasting penalty. It's a great use of an action, but a one round debuff isn't THAT good. As is, it is entirely possible to reap very little benefit from it. If the opponent acts just after the creature who demoralized it, for example, no one gets a chance to exploit those save or AC penalties.
I suggest that you get Bolstered against it after you've been intimidated. Makes sense that the same person can't keep saying "Boo" to you :-)
I agree, they should make this change.
| 1 person marked this as a favorite. |
It's still a lot stronger than all other manouvers, as it suffers no penalty as it is.
I'm leaning towards "2 actions" more than bolstered. Makes it still useful, but not the default third action of every round.
I didn't think "checks" were attacks. Anyone have evidence to support this?SOLUTION: Frightened should give the target a penalty on attack roles. This would fit the flavor of demoralize, and allow it to almost ALWAYS provide a tangible benefit for a non-spellcaster.Frightened
You’re gripped by fear and struggle to control your nerves. The frightened condition always includes a value. You take a conditional penalty equal to this value to your checks and saving throws. Unless specified otherwise, at the end of each of your turns, the value of
your frightened condition decreases by 1.It affects all checks, including attacks.
There's also a post floating around from Mark that clarifies it as such. Armor Class is a special kind of DC, and attack rolls and saving throws are checks.
Seems also worth noting that the Fleeing condition isn't always a boon. A critical success sent a flying enemy further away from safe ground in my games, and even with fly the barbarian could barely keep up with it to chase it down. It definitely indirectly contributed to his death there.
An enemy that flees instead of fights is also more likely to bring in reinforcements, which is one of the worst things that can happen to a party in my experience.
I'm not entirely sure if these corner cases are things the skill should be balanced around, but they are real drawbacks.
| 3 people marked this as a favorite. |
I believe that, as written, Demoralize is problematic on several levels:
1. There's no penalty for failure, which means you can spam combat with it until you hit a critical failure. ("I didn't scare them last time, but this time things will be different because reasons!")
2. The effect doesn't last long enough, so you end up spamming combat with it to make it useful.
3. The critical failure still has no downside, other than bolstering the opponent for 10 minutes.
4. It only costs one action, so you can spam combat with it (see #1 and #2)
This really needs to be redone from scratch. The target should be affected for more than one round, should be bolstered whether you succeed or fail, and on a critical failure you should be frightened (try demoralizing a grizzly bear some time, and tell me how that works out). I'd even suggest it should be two actions, not one.
I think a 1d4 round cooldown on Intimidate in general would be sufficient to help prevent most abuse for this without being unreasonable or needing to rework the whole thing.
This would reduce the MMORPG feel, but it does nothing for whether or not it's reasonable. Right now, the action has very little upside and zero stakes.
| 2 people marked this as a favorite. |
I believe that, as written, Demoralize is problematic on several levels:
1. There's no penalty for failure, which means you can spam combat with it until you hit a critical failure. ("I didn't scare them last time, but this time things will be different because reasons!")
2. The effect doesn't last long enough, so you end up spamming combat with it to make it useful.
I would suggest that it gives Frightened 1 and the frightened level can't be reduced as long as the creature can sense you. That way it would encourage the enemy to run and hide for a turn but not be as strong as a true fear effect.
A crit success would set the frightened level at 2 so that a creature would need to run away for longer. They would then become bolstered once the frightened condition fell off.
| 1 person marked this as a favorite. |
Bolstering a target against a scary person makes no sense. It's like Jason from Friday the 13 chopping your friend in half and you are only scared for 3 to 6 seconds. That is silly.
You aren't scared forever. The idea that you can keep spooking the same target over and over and over with a 1-round effect until that check fails is even sillier, and it wastes actions.
So far I found initimidate to be overly powerful in combat, since it does not suffer MAP and is pretty much everyone's best third action (you can make mooks flee and weaken bosses, mobs can weaken PCs and bosses can OH MY GOD disable half the party sometimes).
At the same time, I found that facing a massive dragon and being scared of it for... oh I don't know, six seconds? Is a bit silly. So let's say I believe Intimidate to be too good, and Frightened too little (it's strong, but doesn't feel real).
Watch closely:
Demoralise in combat is moved to a 2-action activity.
This is to introduce a higher cost to the manouver, keeping it strong and useful but less effective if you want to cast spells, move-attack, or use it twice in a turn.
The Frightened condition changes to "Unless specified otherwise, at the end of each of your turns, the value of your frightened condition decreases by 1 if you end your turn further away from the source of your fear. If you cannot sense a source, you cannot reduce this condition for 1 minute."
This strengthens the condition, making it last longer on creatures but creating the very real feeling of wanting to get the hell away from the very scary thing. This is a direct buff to most fear-based spells and should be taken into account in a more detailed change by whoever wanted to pick this up. It additionally gives a bit of "fear of the unknown" flavour for enemies that lurk in the dark.
Fighter's Improved Bravery changes to "your turn ends. Reduce the Frightened condition by 1"
Paladin's Aura of Courage changes to " whenever you become frightened, reduce the condition value by 1 (to a minimum of 0). At the end of your turn, reduce the value of the frightened condition by 1 for you and all allies within 10ft."
This allows for Paladins and Fighters to maintain their iconic image of courageous, fearless fighters, allowing them to press the attack despite their fear and never backing down from a challenge. It makes the abilities feel epic and maintains their power.
Note that yes, removing Frightened now costs an action, however Demoralising also costs two actions, so they can be on the same level.
|
|
As for the detail on the whole "keep scaring over and over"
it isn't like you're peeing your pants scared
With a properly maxed out character Crits are pretty easy to get. When the same supposedly tough enemy runs away several times in a fight it does start to get really silly.
Note - That isn't theory crafting. Happened in Part 3 of Doomsday Dawn. One character kept spamming Intimidate checks EVERY round (not blaming him, it was a very effective tactic). Rolled slightly higher than expected but not absurdly so. In the final fight the Big Bad ran away at least 4 times (I know he ran out of Mirror Images. Don't remember if there was another run away or not).