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Again, official comment from the team would be nice here.
What kind of official comment are you looking for? There's no ambiguity or confusion here, you just don't like the feat. I'm not sure what could or should be said.
I think the biggest problem with scare to death is it’s one of the most combat applicable skill feats and it’s legendary.
If there was more competition it wouldn’t seem so strong IMO. It’s good but only because it can be translated to dollars and cents in terms when it comes to returns on investment.
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I agree. It is good, yes. But it requires you to critically succeed and then the target has to fail a fort save. Also it's a death/emotion/fear/incapacitation effect, is language dependent, has a range of only 30 feet AND has to target a living creature. That's a lot of opportunities for the target to not be killed.This ignores the actual issues.
# There are plenty of NPCs that aren't immune of your level or lower.
# The language-barrier is trivial to overcome
# The range is seldom a problem. You were about to fight him or her with your weapon after all.Normally a requirement to critically succeed is an effective barrier to abuse. But not in this case.
It happens several times that a merely good roll is a critical, since you get to roll your skill against a save. It's much easier to boost skill checks than, say, attacks.
And once you get in that first crit, the "confirmation roll" is often just a formality. A NPC your level or lower will often need roll significantly better than 15 to not fail that roll.
The problem here is the action cost. You only need to pay your third action - a very cheap way to get an instakill opportunity, deleting 200-300 hp right off the board.
No other third action comes even close. Heck, no FIRST action does either. Only TWO actions used by a spellcaster - and then only a couple of times a day - does come close.
And you don't even have to be a spellcaster - in fact, you're sacrificing NOTHING since you've probably enjoying the Demoralize debuff since the game started, and not dumping Charisma helps you enjoy social encounters as well.
Another way of looking at it is examining your level 15 choices. If there ever was a braindead choice it would be "taking anything else" here.
This too suggests that while Paizo for the most part managed a FAR superior balance than PF1, Scare to Death is a real, solid crack in the armor.
Again, it's not completely broken if you only consider the game as a combat simulator. It's when you...
I think if you ever used an ability like this in a social encounter or situation, the entire community that heard about it would react rather negatively to you and probably not want you ever opening your mouth around them. If you were not just using this in combat situations where lethal intent was already established but just killing people with your voice because you could, the world would and should see you as a monster.
In that regard, it is very similar to the way people look at spell casters and the narrative consequences of using abilities like this excessively should be taken into account. Great power/great responsibility, and all that.
Let's look at legendary negotiation though. A 15th level character with legendary negotiation and group impression is capable of talking down up to 25 15th level NPCs from their current course of action with a 50% (assuming a very hard level 15 DC of 39, and +5 cha mod and a +1 item or other bonus) success rate. If the NPCs are lower level, they have a better than 50% shot at it. AND it is one roll, that you can control and use a hero point on.
Legendary feats are meant to be ridiculous. Part of the problem seems to be the general over valuing of the dead condition. Killing 1 NPC is not better than potentially convincing 25 to eventually join your side. Now that shouldn't be an easy thing to do either and the GM should exercise caution in letting it be exploited too far, but by level 15 your characters should be the stuff of legend and Going all in on intimidation has pretty intense consequences for a lot of classes, like casters falling behind on casting skills, all to have one trick, that really is less of an instant win button for the game, than a powerful flavor meets mechanics ability.
From a DM perspective using this in place of your martial attacks each round because it is more efficient at killing your enemies is anti-climactic. It's pretty easy to build and coordinate for. This idea of a charisma based character shouting some intimidating words more powerful than a power word kill or finger of death is pretty lame with unlimited use is pretty lame.
The paladin in my party tries it at every opportunity against opponents that don't appear to be boss creatures, usually multiple times per round. And the party is starting to build for it hitting them with Bon Mot or some kind penalty effect first, then hitting them with Scare to Death. It takes out a lot of enemies. It's pretty damn anti-climatic.
It appears goofy in the gameplay to see a PC shouting some words that kills a lot creatures easily. In the most extreme of abuse, a lvl 15 character can wander around shouting at giants killing them easily.
After seeing it in action, every Charisma character is building for this feat because it's so easy to build around.
It has the following benefits:
1. Great action economy at 1 action.
2. Can use 1 time per target an unlimited time per day.
3. Skills can reach Legendary ability with a +3 item bonus, so better than spell DCs, attack rolls, or class DCs.
4. Affected by status bonuses that affect will saves.
5. Enhanced by the heroism spell with a status bonus.
You can really push it up to get these easy kills against minion level creatures. You can even take out lower level dragons, giants, and just about any living thing you can speak to.
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As someone who doesn't like Scare to Death on a thematic level (and was against it during the Playtest), I also can't see too much of a benefit to build for it to use in place of Strikes or any other class feats you've picked up. It's an improved Demoralize if you have a lower-level enemy.
If your opponent is of lower-level, and you critically succeed against their Will DC, they then are rolling a Fort save against your Intimidation DC. While it's likely that a creature will have a low save in at least Fort or Will, it breaks down a little more once we start getting into two saves. And if you fail or succeed at the check, the target is still immune to the attempt for another minute.
I mean, yeah, it's strong and thematically - in my opinion - it's a mess, but it also seems like a fine battle tactic in the toolbox and less of constant go-to.
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From a DM perspective using this in place of your martial attacks each round because it is more efficient at killing your enemies is anti-climactic. It's pretty easy to build and coordinate for. This idea of a charisma based character shouting some intimidating words more powerful than a power word kill or finger of death is pretty lame with unlimited use is pretty lame.
As someone who ran Hell's Rebels in 2e from 15-17 with a Hellknight who took it at 15, I didn't find it that much of an issue. The player threw it down every time he thought he had a chance, and though it killed a decent number of things, he still was definitely a martial character over a Scare-to-Death character.
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An easy nerf if it is a problem at your tables is to slap the attack trait on it.
That would at least give prevent someone from devoting every action to it, and might kill it for martials entirely.
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From a DM perspective using this in place of your martial attacks each round because it is more efficient at killing your enemies is anti-climactic. It's pretty easy to build and coordinate for. This idea of a charisma based character shouting some intimidating words more powerful than a power word kill or finger of death is pretty lame with unlimited use is pretty lame.
The paladin in my party tries it at every opportunity against opponents that don't appear to be boss creatures, usually multiple times per round. And the party is starting to build for it hitting them with Bon Mot or some kind penalty effect first, then hitting them with Scare to Death. It takes out a lot of enemies. It's pretty damn anti-climatic.
It appears goofy in the gameplay to see a PC shouting some words that kills a lot creatures easily. In the most extreme of abuse, a lvl 15 character can wander around shouting at giants killing them easily.
After seeing it in action, every Charisma character is building for this feat because it's so easy to build around.
It has the following benefits:
1. Great action economy at 1 action.
2. Can use 1 time per target an unlimited time per day.
3. Skills can reach Legendary ability with a +3 item bonus, so better than spell DCs, attack rolls, or class DCs.
4. Affected by status bonuses that affect will saves.
5. Enhanced by the heroism spell with a status bonus.
You can really push it up to get these easy kills against minion level creatures. You can even take out lower level dragons, giants, and just about any living thing you can speak to.
I don’t understand what defines “kill a creature easily” means here. It requires a critical success. To have more than a 50% chance of triggering just the fort save, the creature has to be nearly trivial in how low it’s level is, like level-5 or lower. If you fail, sure, you’ve done a useful debuff...against a minion. If you are having other allies use actions to debuff minions so that you can can spend one action to have a 25% chance to one shot them, there is a good chance that your party is spinning it’s wheels against minions for debuffs that are unlikely to stack.
It seems like one of those game elements easy to over hype yourself on and then grow disappointed in how it works in play.
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I really haven't had any problems with balancing encounters for Scare to Death. Sure, it is a nice minion sweeper, but the thing about minions is if you're trying to build a challenging encounter out of them there will be a lot. Potentially removing them at a rate of 1 per action is nice compared to martial damage, but a couple AoE spells will often sweep the board faster.
Also, the feat has a lot of weaknesses you can work around. Language barrier, mindless enemies, and distance namely. People underestimate how big level maps can get. Scare to Death really shined when my players were dungeon crawling in cramped quarters and trying to conserve resources during a gauntlet. It was less helpful when they tackled an enemy fortress and archers started raining down arrows from the towers.
Ah the old "you CAN work around it so it can't be problematic" chestnut.
The exact same argument once had about Detect Evil spells. Why not just give the BBEG a Hat of Non-Detection and problem solved?
No, the proper way of fixing this is to... not allow automatic error-free Detect Alignment spells. And it took several decades before this was finally implemented in D&D games...! This entire line of reasoning is entirely ridiculous. If the feat is too powerful then just let us say so.
And against monstrous monsters it just isn't that overpowering. Yes, it is better than using your actual weapon, which is wonky for somebody focusing on the weapon for your entire life, but again, enough monsters are just straight-up immune.
But that leaves NPCs. Humanoids. That's hardly an insignificant category.
For the BBEG no prob since he's at least one level higher than you.
But for world-building absolutely devastating. There's a way to instakill a fellow human just with a quick "boo"? Say what?
This cheapens and devalues the entire game experience. The feat comes across as if your fellow humans are just monster tokens on a battlegame, there to be killed - so who cares if you even...
I never said I had to build around it. I ran an AP as written, and sometimes it the feat really got to shine and hilariously ended some encounters, and other times it didn't actually come up or didn't make much of a difference. A build choice thriving in sometimes but not all the time is pretty much exactly what you want from a balance point.
Honestly, it is starting to feel like the actual problem for some folks is almost entirely thematics. If you don't think someone being able to give someone a heart attack by sheer personality is cool, this feat is going to leave a bad taste in your mouth regardless of how balanced it is.
So I asked two of my players from my Hell's Rebels campaign to check their opinions on specifically Scare to Death.
The Fighter/Hellknight who had it said it was more useful than he expected due to rolling fairly high, but mainly was solid for him because his martial actions were pretty one-dimensional. He only really found it took priority over martial abilities at the start of combat, but otherwise favoured his halberd.
(A lot of his feats were passive things, with his primary weapon actions being Power Attack, Blade of Law, and Whirlwind Strike. He went heavily into reach AoOs, with Combat Reflexes and Lunging Stance.)
The Monk didn't recall it ever being a major factor in combat.
Part of this may have been affected by the fact that I threw them up against devils constantly, which generally have either good Fort/Will (or both). That makes it a struggle to both crit vs the Will and also have them fail vs the Fort.
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tbh i don't mind it, but i feel like if it really is a problem I feel like the Flourish trait would fix alot of peoples concern about spamming it. idk
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Part of this may have been affected by the fact that I threw them up against devils constantly, which generally have either good Fort/Will (or both). That makes it a struggle to both crit vs the Will and also have them fail vs the Fort.Yes, the issue is not with "monsters".
The issue is with human(oid)s.
Did you know that humanoids also have the same thing going on? Let's take the level 14 Zephyr Guard, who has +26 Fort and a Will DC of 39. A level 15 character with 20 Cha, legendary Intimidation and a +2 item has +30 Intimidation, needing you to hit a 19 on the die plus they roll 13 or lower on their Fort save. That's a 6.5% chance.
But what if they have Bon Mot on them plus the character has Heroism for a +2? That ups it to a 15 on the die, or a 19.5% chance. That's still really not that high for all the focus we've put into this.| 1 person marked this as a favorite. |
...Absolutely (the system cut off your entire quote)
The problem is that the feat single-handedly short-circuits the "duel" feature, which happens in more than one adventure.
If the monster is higher level, fine, but there you wouldn't see a duel (=1 on 1).
The math of the game pretty much forces any NPC gladiator to be the same level or lower, and the anticlimax is mindshattering when the duel ends before it started (or rather, with the first action).
It's just so obvious the developer had nothing else than mindless killing of monsters in mind.
Which is a shame because gladiator duels would otherwise be something Pathfinder would do well.
Always a shame when a clumsy writer introduces a game feature that actively hinders you from writing better stories... :(
Well, it might be true that the adventure design writers who wrote the duels might not have had the high level experience enough to know that this feat could potentially one shot the encounter, but it could also be the case that having a 10% chance to one shot a single duel encounter feels about fair anyway, since by level 15 casters have a pretty decent chance of this anyway with a single spell. I mean a single high level dominate spell is going to have just as much narrative power as this, if not more, and be repeatable the following round (on a character like a sorcerer who might have it as a signature spell), only successfully happen on a single failed save. Scare to death is only going to possibly have an encounter ending effect 1 time in any duel situation, and it really isn't a good enough option that it is likely that every character or every party is going to build straight towards it by level 15. If you have an arcane or especially an occult caster, it is very likely that your party has an even more reliable single target shut down incapacitation power available to them every day.
It sounds like this happened in a campaign you were running and made the encounter feel anti-climatic in your eyes. Maybe it was for the whole table even. But it is also a pretty epic situation and I think if it happened at my table, my players would think it was incredibly awesome that it got pulled off.It would feel like a legendary event, which is about right for a character who went all in on picking it up. Another character might cloud jump away to impossible heights against the foe, or be so good at stealth that a single equal level enemy would never ever be able to find them. Especially against a single equal level foe, PF2 is designed to be able to circumnavigate an encounter in a single act or die roll relatively easily.
It is also something that adventure designers or GMs can easily "take away" if taking it away feels necessary to the plot. This is very commonly done with narrative changing effects like teleportation and divination, so you can take away your players toy for a big gladiatorial fight relatively easily, especially if the enemy knows that the player tends to use this ability often in combat. Even something like having the enemy consume a level 10 bravo's brew (for a +3 to will saves) is very likely to take the ability out of the "likely to happen" category, and those things last for an hour. Any NPC going into a fight for their life (which an equal level "dual" encounter would be for PCs and NPCs alike) would probably be willing to spend a trivial amount of their wealth to counter an instant death effect the enemy is know to use, and your enemy can even have the same ability and turn it around on the PC, although having a incapacitation spell ready for the PC is going to be about 2 to 3 times more effective based upon what save it might target. By level 15, return from the dead magic is not so rare that GMs or adventure designers really need to be pulling punches in an encounter designed to be a 50/50 situation.
I am not saying the adventure designers need to do this. In fact it is probably better they don't and they can leave it to GMs to adjust the difficulty of their campaigns to the expectations of their tables, but that is really easy to do in PF2, without even having to house rule any major changes. If you have intelligent enemies that have been tracking the progress of the party, and rumors would spread of the knight who frightens people to death, the party might even enjoy learning that their enemies fear them enough to start taking certain precautions against them, especially in duel type encounters that are meant to have some narrative weight and not just be a fight against a bunch of lower level minions (when the power will more likely see use).
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The feat respectively its requirements could easily be modified in order to cater to any thematics issues and still be effective in combat.
For example, take a look at Barbarian Rage and associated Rage feats. By RAW there are a lot of things a Barbarian character can't do when there are no enemies around and a lot of crazy things he can do if there are.
Similar restrictions could be imposed on StD to avoid showing your "warface" at the diner table or in a back alley.
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Level 15 gladiators in an arena don't exist anyway. Like, that's prettt much trying to book Hercules and Beowulf for a weekly gig.
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wait two months and show up on that same forum with a 1 action cantrick with the same effect on the same level and ask what people think. You will see very different responses from the same people who think the feat is perfect.
Would said cantrip require you to be Legendary in intimidation and key exclusively off of Charisma?
If it did, it's probably going to be some kind of niche Focus Cantrip that treads the same ground as Scare to Death, and would never be added to the game.
If it didn't, it would be an overpowered ability that outshines Scare to Death and would never be added to the game.
Do you honestly think Cantrips and LEGENDARY SKILL FEATS should be equivalent?
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I'm not here to no bad wrong fun people, but I am still baffled people play the game in away where they would use the same action every single turn like this. I mean I get it's the most optimal but I do feel like, it's not just the dm but also the players to make the game thematic and engaging. I am just not used to the kind of play where people would keep using that ability. Or like white room logic where somebody could kill somebody just by scaring them, and people using this to destroy whole villags of npcs? is that how people play the game? Do people generally go around waving their big end game abilities on commoners? Is that the intended state of play?
When you are legendary, you get legendary abilities, The high end of that I see would be like somebody with legendary athletics being able to hold the world so Atlas can take a brief break. I see legendary almost on mythic level of pf1e (with the exception being that mythic could be given at any level in pf1e). I could see it having the flourish trait or map, but I don't think it needs it all too much.
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wait two months and show up on that same forum with a 1 action cantrick with the same effect on the same level and ask what people think. You will see very different responses from the same people who think the feat is perfect.Would said cantrip require you to be Legendary in intimidation and key exclusively off of Charisma?
If it did, it's probably going to be some kind of niche Focus Cantrip that treads the same ground as Scare to Death, and would never be added to the game.
If it didn't, it would be an overpowered ability that outshines Scare to Death and would never be added to the game.
Do you honestly think Cantrips and LEGENDARY SKILL FEATS should be equivalent?
legendary in arcana or the skill that makes sense for class and intelligence is a much worse attribute in the game.
I think no 1 free action should have the same result of a 2 paid action.
So you are suggesting the creation of a special focus cantrip that require a wizard have legendary training in arcana, and have roughly the same effect as a fear spell, but having an extra effect that triggers off of a critical success on a skill attack roll, that also grants a save, and be limited to enemies your level or lower (occasionally 1 higher) and only be usable 1 time against any specific foe?
Or if you are suggesting a level 1 cantrip that is one action and has the potential to outright kill a lower level foe, then I would certainly object to it.
I think there might be space for the first example design-wise, perhaps if witches ever get special higher powered Hexes for higher level play, but I doubt it would be that appealing an option and it runs counter to the way those kinds of things are being handled thus far. You could certainly homebrew it though for a high level adventure if you wanted.
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With Scare to Death, you'll have roughly 15% chance to kill a target on average. Which means that you won't even kill 10% of the creatures you'll meet with it.
Clearly, it's strong, even overpowered I agree with that.
But is it imbalancing everything to the point of screaming? I don't think so.
If I was a designer I would certainly tune it down slightly.
If I was DMing at high level, I won't do anything against it.
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Also, Legendary in Arcana gives you access to maxed multiclass spellcasting. Legendary in Intimidation notably does not.
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I really don't understand why Scaring NPCs to Death is more of an issue than stabbing them with a sword. If they're lowish level compared to the Barbarian, he or she could probably destroy them in one round either way.
As someone who doesn't like Scare to Death on a thematic level (and was against it during the Playtest), I also can't see too much of a benefit to build for it to use in place of Strikes or any other class feats you've picked up. It's an improved Demoralize if you have a lower-level enemy.
If your opponent is of lower-level, and you critically succeed against their Will DC, they then are rolling a Fort save against your Intimidation DC. While it's likely that a creature will have a low save in at least Fort or Will, it breaks down a little more once we start getting into two saves. And if you fail or succeed at the check, the target is still immune to the attempt for another minute.
I mean, yeah, it's strong and thematically - in my opinion - it's a mess, but it also seems like a fine battle tactic in the toolbox and less of constant go-to.
At 15th level with Legendary proficiency, a +2 item, and a 20 charisma, the intimidation skill is +30 before penalties or bonuses. That is a DC 40 will save on a critical success.
A caster with a 20 caster stat, master proficiency, and no additional bonuses obtainable is DC 36.
Difference being a lvl 15 caster has 2 lvl 8 spells and doesn't even have access to Power Word Kill at that lvl. A Scare to Death character can try once per target with 1 action. Toss on a lvl 6 heroism and a frightened or Bon Mot penalty, you have a very good chance of killing an equal or lower level character with 1 action.
From a DM perspective using this in place of your martial attacks each round because it is more efficient at killing your enemies is anti-climactic. It's pretty easy to build and coordinate for. This idea of a charisma based character shouting some intimidating words more powerful than a power word kill or finger of death is pretty lame with unlimited use is pretty lame.As someone who ran Hell's Rebels in 2e from 15-17 with a Hellknight who took it at 15, I didn't find it that much of an issue. The player threw it down every time he thought he had a chance, and though it killed a decent number of things, he still was definitely a martial character over a Scare-to-Death character.
So you didn't find it anti-climactic for the Hellknight to be yelling some intimidating words at someone and killing them outright while your casters are unloading spells and the martials are swinging their sword and doing less against these same minions?
You don't have to be a Scare to Death character and I never implied as such. Scare to Death is very easy to build for. Building for Scare to Death doesn't require you to sacrifice anything. Intimidate is extremely useful. It can be built to be used without requiring a language with a glare even against higher level creatures. Intimidate just becomes that much better with Scare to Death. It makes the already great Intimidate skill even better for no real sacrifice as boosting intimidation is a good idea.
Yall are really overvaluing the effectiveness of burning all your actions to kill a group of mooks. By level 15 Arcane or Occult casters can have Phantasmal Calamity, which those same level -2 or more enemies have just as much chance at crit failing, and they'll do damage in addition to disabling every enemy in a 30-foot burst rather than slowly doing it one at a time
Sure, a Scare focused level 20 Fighter can casually walk through town murdering everyone one by one. But he could also do that with just pinching people too, and even that's unnecessary because the Wizard just destroyed the entire settlement with a single Meteor Storm, and the Druid killed all the refugees in the neighboring village with Cataclysm.
Not sure why you are comparing a limited resource spell to an unlimited use skill.
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So you didn't find it anti-climactic for the Hellknight to be yelling some intimidating words at someone and killing them outright
This is why people are coming to the conclusion that this is a personal problem for you, rather than a problem with the feat.
"yelling some intimidating words" is a failure on your part to describe what a Legendary intimidation skills feat is and what it means in world.
Start from a group of NPCs in a tavern whispering about a legendary warrior who the bards say can kill his foes with a look and a word. A person so terrifying you would do well to never cross them or they could stop your heart without lifting a finger. Extrapolate from there what that would actually look like, and describe it appropriately.
It's not merely some schmuck saying something random and their enemies dropping cartoonishly. It's a person who has trained in intimidation to such an extent that they know how to bring to bear their force of will to exert nearly unimaginable mental pressure, using only their demeanor and their voice.
If you can't make it narratively satisfying to your table, then you should consider banning it in the same way that some tables ban guns. It's just not your thing.
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It’s definitely got a much higher chance of critting than spells do, considering it’s a proficiency level above spells and has an item bonus. I’ve definitely found this feat to be very very strong against the numerous level-2 enemies found in APs. For instance, looking at 17th level, we’ll assume one is up against a level 15 creature with moderate fort and will.
Intim bonus = 17+8+6+3= +34
Spell DC = 17+6+6+10=39
Moderate save for a level 15 = +26
Chance to kill from scare to death = .45*.8 (you roll 12+ then opponent rolls 17 or less)=36%
Chance to kill from Weird = 0.15*.6 (opponent rolls 3 or less, the rolls 12 or less)=9%
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So you didn't find it anti-climactic for the Hellknight to be yelling some intimidating words at someone and killing them outrightThis is why people are coming to the conclusion that this is a personal problem for you, rather than a problem with the feat.
"yelling some intimidating words" is a failure on your part to describe what a Legendary intimidation skills feat is and what it means in world.
Start from a group of NPCs in a tavern whispering about a legendary warrior who the bards say can kill his foes with a look and a word. A person so terrifying you would do well to never cross them or they could stop your heart without lifting a finger. Extrapolate from there what that would actually look like, and describe it appropriately.
It's not merely some schmuck saying something random and their enemies dropping cartoonishly. It's a person who has trained in intimidation to such an extent that they know how to bring to bear their force of will to exert nearly unimaginable mental pressure, using only their demeanor and their voice.
If you can't make it narratively satisfying to your table, then you should consider banning it in the same way that some tables ban guns. It's just not your thing.
Agreed. Don't forget that putting so much into Charisma means something too. Charisma is force of personality. Page nineteen in the book: 'Charisma measures your character’s personal magnetism and strength of personality. A high Charisma score helps you influence the thoughts and moods of others.' There's debates about whether Charisma should be A Thing but in this game it is, and someone that charismatic, and who has invested resources into it, at fifteenth level, is going to leave their mark.
Of course now I want to see Scare to Death on a fun-loving gnome who just wants a beer and a good time. But then again ... is that what a fun-loving gnome who just wants a beer and a good time would do anyway?
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At 15th level with Legendary proficiency, a +2 item, and a 20 charisma, the intimidation skill is +30 before penalties or bonuses. That is a DC 40 will save on a critical success.
Well, let's take a look at average level 14 and level 13 enemies then to see how this stacks up. I'll use the Gamemastery Guide rules for the enemies and plot out High, Moderate, and Low saving throws. I'm not doing this as a snark, I've typed this out before sitting down with the numbers. The numbers could support this idea. As always, I'm a bit of a visual learner, so I'll create some charts that should help.
In these charts, the Will save is plotted first, with Red outcomes being undesirable (Critical Failure, Failure, and Success). Green outcomes are Critical Successes. After that, the creature's Fortitude save is plotted against our DC 40 Intimidation. This time, Red is still our undesirable outcome (in which the creature rolls a Success or a Critical Success). Green is our desired outcome (in which the creature rolls a Failure).
Let's start by looking at a level 14 opponent. Let's take a look at one with a moderate Will save and a moderate Fortitude. Something of a baseline.
Against our weaker opponent, we have a 21% chance of killing them. Honestly, I don't think that's too bad. There's still that nearly 80% chance that they're left alive and our trick won't be working on them again. Not bad as a third action, I feel. You can bump these numbers with some Bon Mot (Yes, I contemplated making further charts to illustrate the effects of Bon Mot or various status effects, but that seemed like more work for little return, especially once we start getting into the success chance of the Bon Mot itself.)
Now the thing is, matched saving throws are a bit rare. You're more likely to find a foe with a moderate Will and a low Fortitude (25.5% chance) or a moderate Will and a high Fortitude (16.5% chance).
Alternatively, there are enemies with low Will saves, which become much easier to Scare to Death. And by the converse, high Will saves barely seem worth it if it weren't for the frighten effect.
I actually don't need to talk too much about these. You've pretty much figured out what I'm doing here with the charts and such. So I'll drop them right here!
Moderate Will save opponents
Low Will save opponents
High Will save opponents
The chance of outright killing a target can shrink dramatically based on that second saving throw, something that finger of death doesn't suffer from. Some of these conditions just aren't going to be coming up, too often - like a 50% chance to kill a low Will/low Fortitude level 13 opponent - but when they do, I do wonder if it's the best option. I think that Scare to Death is a very powerful skill feat, no doubt, but I strongly doubt that it's ever optimal in a way that would require playstyles to form around it.
Again, really good. Legendary good, but I think it's just another tool in the kit.
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It’s definitely got a much higher chance of critting than spells do, considering it’s a proficiency level above spells and has an item bonus. I’ve definitely found this feat to be very very strong against the numerous level-2 enemies found in APs. For instance, looking at 17th level, we’ll assume one is up against a level 15 creature with moderate fort and will.
Intim bonus = 17+8+6+3= +34
Spell DC = 17+6+6+10=39
Moderate save for a level 15 = +26
Chance to kill from scare to death = .45*.8 (you roll 12+ then opponent rolls 17 or less)=36%
Chance to kill from Weird = 0.15*.6 (opponent rolls 3 or less, the rolls 12 or less)=9%
I'm not sure how much this works as a direct comparison as weird is a multi-target spell and lacks the incap trait. It also directly does damage and has way higher range. While the comparison is helpful for the "double rolls," it's ignoring the fact that weird's biggest benefit isn't that it kills, but that deals a ton of damage to a (potentially) ton of creatures while frightening them.
DF was on the money with comparing it to finger of death (sort of, because that's still more of the HP threshold thing). Phantasmal killer, likewise, has more going for it than directly killing someone. Their critical success/failure is secondary. Perhaps that's how I'm viewing Scare To Death as well, which is an upgraded Demoralize with a potentially powerful critical success. Versus more powerful foes, however, you're better off sticking with just plain ol' Demoralize.
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A lot of math, look those charts over, but basically he said ' I think that Scare to Death is a very powerful skill feat, no doubt, but I strongly doubt that it's ever optimal in a way that would require playstyles to form around it.Again, really good. Legendary good, but I think it's just another tool in the kit.'
Interesting, and pretty likely. And from an RP view, if your barbarian has used those two earlier actions to chop up one or two enemies, scaring to death may be a feasible thing. 'Oh dear Lamashtu, that gnome just ATE Grognar the Invincible to death! Hold it together hold it together OH NO SHE'S LOOKING AT ME OH NO OH *urk* *thud*'
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So you didn't find it anti-climactic for the Hellknight to be yelling some intimidating words at someone and killing them outright while your casters are unloading spells and the martials are swinging their sword and doing less against these same minions?From a DM perspective using this in place of your martial attacks each round because it is more efficient at killing your enemies is anti-climactic. It's pretty easy to build and coordinate for. This idea of a charisma based character shouting some intimidating words more powerful than a power word kill or finger of death is pretty lame with unlimited use is pretty lame.As someone who ran Hell's Rebels in 2e from 15-17 with a Hellknight who took it at 15, I didn't find it that much of an issue. The player threw it down every time he thought he had a chance, and though it killed a decent number of things, he still was definitely a martial character over a Scare-to-Death character.
Doing less? Hardly. It wasn't terribly common to hit the crits he needed to actually trigger it. Also it's only useful against living things your level or lower, which was a large limiting factor. Those things that were tended to be devils, which - surprise - usually have Fort or Will as their strongest save.
Not to mention you're saying "some intimidating words" as though it's not in the same class as:
- convincing someone you've been in their lives all along (Reveal Machinations)
- dropping from orbit and landing without any issue (Cat Fall)
- casually relax without any food or water in temperatures colder than the Arctic (Legendary Survivalist)
- move so slowly that you're invisible to the eye (Legendary Sneak)
- operate on someone to cure cancer in an hour (Legendary Medic)
- be able to completely impersonate someone in 6 seconds (Quick Disguise)
- wriggle through a tunnel barely large enough for your head as fast as people can run (Quick Squeeze)
These are the types of feats you're competing against.