Hi all,
Some background:
Normally when you attempt to Demoralize a target, if it doesn't understand the language you're speaking, you’re not speaking a language (i.e. roaring or yelling incoherently), or it can’t hear you, you take a –4 circumstance penalty to your check to demoralize it.
Intimidating Glare allows you to demoralize with a look, so when you demoralize this way, you don't take the -4 penalty to your check if your target doesn't understand your language. Mechanically Demoralize loses the auditory trait and gains the visual trait when you demoralize this way.
Battle Cry allows you to attempt to demoralize an observed foe when you roll initiative.
My question is, if I have both Intimidating Glare and Battle Cry, I don't take the -4 penalty with Battle Cry if my target doesn't understand my language, correct? In other words, is the "you can yell a mighty battle cry" portion of the Battle Cry description essentially turned into flavor text if you also have Intimidating Glare?
I think this is the way they interact but wanted to check the wisdom of the boards.
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I'd expect variance on that one. The rules and flavor text seem a bit at odds, but I'd personally say you need to actually Cry for Battle Cry and not allow intimidating glare to apply.
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I'd be inclined to have them interact. Battle Cry is written from the perspective of the baseline rules, but I wouldn't hold that perspective as binding. With Glare, you can glare instead of shouting whenever you Demoralize.
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Captain Morgan and GM OfAnything,
Thank you for your responses. While I was hoping there would be an unambiguous "of course they interact" set of responses, your posts demonstrate this isn't one of those cases. I'll have to discuss with my GM to make sure we are in alignment on if and how they interact.
I feel like Battle Cry ends up being a really difficult feat to actually use - it happens when you roll initiative and doesn't say anything about extending the range of the Demoralize - so as written it would appear that it would only work if you happened to be rolling initiative against an enemy that was already within 30 feet of you at the very start of the battle. This almost never happens. Also as written a battle cry wouldn't involve you speaking anything coherent, so you'd take the -4 penalty for not speaking in a language with the demoralize action.
However, I feel like the intention was probably to allow you to make an attempt on any observed foe (that presumably can hear you) without the language penalty given that this is the "Master in Intimidation" feat. Honestly that's how I'd treat it, but it's probably going to be GM interpretation. Otherwise I can't even remember the last time the group and enemies were already within 30ft when initiative was being rolled - pretty much none of the scenario encounters ever are set up that way.
Given that a 'cry' is definitely not speech, by a strict reading of the RAW, the -4 penalty would always apply. On the other hand, barring legendary Intimidation skills, you can use the feat but once in a given battle.
Therefore, I personally find it reasonable to not apply the -4 penalty (but also see a certain other discussion about scary bears). Likewise, the '[you] Demoralise an observed foe' wording seems to indicate that the 30' distance limit also does not apply.
Basically, while the demoralise action has the language and distance limitations, the Battle Cry feat has not. This is in line with many other skill feats, that remove or mitigate limitations of base skill uses, like Pickpocket.
It is unfortunate, however, that the Battle Cry feat does not call this out explicitly.
Then again, given that the feat provides essentially free actions, maybe it is balanced to have them suffer the -4 penalty. After all, this is the same chance of success a character merely Trained in Intimidation would have with a regular use of the Demoralise action.
The 30' distance limitation also seems to be needlessly punishing for something that does not involve language that needs to actually be understood. But then again, maybe this is supposed to be used in ambush situations only.
I'd say they interact. Battle Cry says "you can yell a mighty battle cry and Demoralize" with a capital D. So you use the skill action Demoralize. And Intimidating Glare modifies that skill action.
The way I read it, without Intimidating Glare you take the -4 penalty on Battle Cry and with it yo don't. RAW, Battle Cry also looses the auditory trait with Int. Glare... which runs against it being a cry. Either it gets then reflavored as a Battle Glare or you keep the auditory trait but still lose the -4 penalty.
The 30 ft. range also seems to stay. So you might want to control when initiative is rolled. Either build your Battle Cryer sneaky or deceiving, unexpectedly bursting into violence during social scenes. :)
EDIT: On second thought, I'd say you don't neccessarily shout gibberish when using Battle Cry. You "yell a mighty battle cry" which can maybe be "For Goruuuuuum!" and if the target speaks your language they know what's coming and you don't take a penalty.
Is anyone really taking Battle Cry without first taking Intimidating Prowess anyway?
So by RAW, I think Battle Cry only works at a 30 foot range and if you have Glare it would remove the -4 language penalty. Personally, I think that is kind of silly and would probably reverse those. It is a BATTLE CRY. And I think that's a better trade: what's the point of ignoring the -4 penalty if you rarely get to roll in the first place?
Is anyone really taking Battle Cry without first taking Intimidating Prowess anyway?Probably. Why shouldn't they?
Yeah, lots of characters have high charisma but low strength an can't take Prowess. Prowess is also in a really weird place for barbarians because they need to spend a class feat to utilize Demoralize in the first place, but doing so gets you Glare and not Prowess. And Prowess basically makes Glare into a dead feat... They should probably still get Prowess but I can see it leaving a bad taste in the mouth.
So by RAW, I think Battle Cry only works at a 30 foot range and if you have Glare it would remove the -4 language penalty. Personally, I think that is kind of silly and would probably reverse those. It is a BATTLE CRY. And I think that's a better trade: what's the point of ignoring the -4 penalty if you rarely get to roll in the first place?
Is anyone really taking Battle Cry without first taking Intimidating Prowess anyway?Probably. Why shouldn't they?Yeah, lots of characters have high charisma but low strength an can't take Prowess. Prowess is also in a really weird place for barbarians because they need to spend a class feat to utilize Demoralize in the first place, but doing so gets you Glare and not Prowess. And Prowess basically makes Glare into a dead feat... They should probably still get Prowess but I can see it leaving a bad taste in the mouth.
I think Glare still has a place - there's a lot of creatures you cannot arguably "physically menace" where Prowess wouldn't remove the language penalty but Glare would. A lot of the creatures you couldn't share a language with are probably things like large animals or elementals that it'd be questionable if you'd physically menace them without being under the effect of an Enlarge or something of the sort.
Personally I think Prowess should have bumped the range of Demoralize up, making it a logical chain of skills into Battle Cry. As it stands I love the idea of Battle Cry but as written it's not fun to invest so much to get an ability that can never trigger. I really wish they'd worded this more like Battle Medicine where instead of saying to take the specific action, it said to treat the DC like you were taking a Demoralize action.
What kind of wimpy battle cry is only effective from 10 yards away?
Prowess should easily go with intimidating glare.
Talk with anybody ( given the possibility and the situation, obviously ) and roll if needed ( deception or diplomacy ) once they disagree with you, you simply go with prowess + glare and that's it.
Eventually, let a party member deal with negitiations, and jump with an extra bonus if things goes wrong
A: we need you to bla bla bla ( roll failure )
B: I don't think so
C: Prowess + glare
B: ok ok sorry i'll do it.
If you're talking to someone you probably don't need to worry about the language barrier penalty in the first place, though. And I think polite conversation is really the only time you can't physically menace someone, as I understand that to be a pretty broad term. And even then, it would probably need to be a scenario with witnesses who would note you physically menacing someone.
If you're talking to someone you probably don't need to worry about the language barrier penalty in the first place, though. And I think polite conversation is really the only time you can't physically menace someone, as I understand that to be a pretty broad term. And even then, it would probably need to be a scenario with witnesses who would note you physically menacing someone.Prowess should easily go with intimidating glare.
Talk with anybody ( given the possibility and the situation, obviously ) and roll if needed ( deception or diplomacy ) once they disagree with you, you simply go with prowess + glare and that's it.
Eventually, let a party member deal with negitiations, and jump with an extra bonus if things goes wrong
A: we need you to bla bla bla ( roll failure )
B: I don't think so
C: Prowess + glare
B: ok ok sorry i'll do it.No, even with a language barrier.
imagine a shark and his thug.
Even if the former talks with his interlocutor, and the thug doesn't understand a word, then once his partner tells him
"he seems not to cooperate... try you"
the thug simply goes with physical menacing.
and there are plenty of situations where to use this.
Not only is that a pretty niche situation, I don't think it actually works. Pretty much all Intimidation uses in social situations are Coerce, not Demoralize. Glare doesn't work with Coerce. Prowess applies to both Demoralize and Coerce, but the bit about "ignore the penalty for not sharing a language" can only be referring to Demoralize because Coerce doesn't have that penalty in the first place. Instead, Coerce has the linguistic trait, which means it just doesn't work if the target doesn't understand the language you're using. Which makes sense, because Coerce is giving someone an order and they need to understand said order to follow it.
I'm actually not sure if the rules have any accommodations for using a translator in this context, but I'm inclined to think the translator needs to make the roll for Intimidation or Diplomacy, and the person feeding them words can aid or possibly provide a Follow the Expert bonus.