Remember: RAW, the ability that gets used on a skill check is determined by the DM. STR is a perfectly valid ability for Intimidation.
On a related note, God I hate these skill systems, as an old-school DM. If you try to intimidate someone and it makes sense for it to work, it works.
There are a lot of things I like about 5e, but charisma making you good at ALL forms of charisma simultaneously is one of my least favorite changes they made.
I really dislike the 6 traditional stats for many reasons, and this is one of them.
The chronicles of darkness games have a nicer stat system, in my opinion. It’s 3x3. One axis is Power - Finesse - Resist, and the other is Physical - Mental - Social. They have names (strength, dexterity, stamina are the physical ones, for example), but this is the underlying concept.
Demanding people’s attention is Social Power. Being subtle is Social Finesse. And keeping cool is Social Resist. Now it’s possible to make a character that is The Center of Attention who isn’t subtle, or someone who cannot be spooked but also isn’t very good at talking to people.
If I was going to do some hacking to D&D, I would probably rip charisma out entirely. It’s half-baked and its implementation introduces a lot of un-fun problems.
That’s a cool system. I haven’t heard of that game before.
You probably have heard of it and just don’t realise it. Chronicles of Darkness was a spin-off of World of Darkness, which is the world consisting of games like Vampire: The Masquerade and Werewolf: The Apocalypse.
Chronicles includes the games Vampire: The Requiem and Werewolf: The Forsaken. The names were different, but really it’s essentially a different version of the same game. A version with more substantially different lore than normal, but fundamentally a games about vampires, werewolves, etc.
I haven’t ever really looked at Chronicles, but I have the 5e Vampire: The Masquerade Core book. While the specific stats’ names might change, the idea is the same. You have three physical, three mental, and three social stats. Each is broken down into power, finesse, and defence.
Strength, Dexterity, Stamina. Charisma, Manipulation, Composure. Intelligence, Wits, Resolve.
Even outside the game, it’s a really good system. It helps greatly clear up the ambiguity you sometimes get over Int vs Wis checks in D&D, or Wis vs Cha saving throws.
I think I’m even more interested in the system than the setting. I always end up making my own stuff anyway. I’ll have to check this out someday.
I definitely think that it’s the best system for engaging in the hobby of “how would you stat up this real person/non-RPG fictional character?” The overall mechanics of the game are very focused on telling the kinds of stories that the World of Darkness is designed for, but the basic character statting is really good and broadly applicable.
I’ve used the system itself for a lot of homebrew myself so I get the desire. I’ve also played lots of normal mortal games with the Chronicles of Darkness system without vampires or mages involved.
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Most of the times we decide spontaneously what ability to use for a certain skill. The fixed stat+skill is super annoying and breaks immersion.
The wisdom 20 / int 8 Druid not being good in medicine? … yeah maybe not good in school-medicine but knowing what herb can treat what illness is a thing of wisdom, not intelligence by default.
Then, yes, Strenght for intimidation.
Intelligence for deception - think of an elaborate network of pseudo-facts and weave them together in a complex way so the “opponent” is so overwhelmed that he just choses to believe you.
And so on so on…
I like your philosophy of trying to pick a more appropriate skill when it feels right. I need to remember that one for my next session.
I mean it’s literally the way the rules intend it. Most just get confused by the character sheet showing the most common ones.
I’m playing for 5 years with my group now and still get some confused looks when I ask for e.g. a Charisma (Investigation) check.
That’s why there is survival and medicine. And a roll has much more variation than the +2 or 3 that you are considering here.
And as always, if there are no chances or consequences for failure, don’t roll. That’s in the dmg.
least favourite changes the made
Changes? 3e, 4e, and 5e all used it like that
The scale is different. In 3e, that +5 charisma bonus is less noticeable compared to that +10 skill bonus, so specializing in a skill is more relevant.
Ah, that makes sense. It sounded like you were saying that 5e was the first to use Charisma for Intimidation, but bards being more intimidating than barbarians is a long standing (if questionable) DnD tradition.
Well you as a DM set the DC. If it makes sense to work then set it to 3 or something, or just make it free. But setting it to succeed on anything except for critical failure makes sense, since anyone can flub their grand moment.
I also hate the DnD criticals. First, they don’t apply to ability checks if you’re playing by the book, so the point is moot here. Second, why is someone very skilled at something just as likely to crit as someone unskilled? Pathfinder 2E does it great where you need to be over/under the AC/DC by 10 or more for a crit. Someone very good at something will critically succeed more often with that skill than someone very bad, who will critically fail more often. In fact, someone particularly skilled may not even be able to critically fail a check that’s trivial for them. The fact that a master still has a 1/20 chance to critically fail trivial things in the DnD rules isn’t ideal.
There are abilities and gear that lower your crit requirement, but usually only by 1, so 5% higher chance of crit. I agree that your crit chance should go up as you get better, but only in relation to the skill of your opponent. Like I’m sure Bruce Lee could punch me exactly where he wants to 100% of the time, but not so much against Donny Yen. The pathfinder system sounds smart.
It’s definitely possible for people who have mastered things to critically fail. How many times have you drunk water in your life? Millions of times? But every rare once in a while you mess it up so bad that you put water into your windpipe. That’s a critical failure. But the chances of it happening when you’ve mastered something should certainly be far lower than 5%.
I agree that your crit chance should go up as you get better, but only in relation to the skill of your opponent.
Conveniently, that’s also how Pathfinder does it.
I can’t remember when I last failed to drink. Maybe I’m an overgrown halfling and get to reroll 1s
I was going to mention the feats that change crits in DnD 5E but I felt that was getting too far into the weeds. The fact of the matter is you skill doesn’t really matter for crits in 5E. Maybe you decrease the requirment for a crit by 1, but let’s say you have that and great weapon master. Shouldn’t that -5 to hit effect your chance to crit? You’re going all in on power, so you lose precision. Why are the odds exactly the same? It just doesn’t make sense. The crit system is half baked and doesn’t really work, and then your throw in advantage and disadvantage and the system is really flawed. Pathfinder 2E seems to have figure this all out, but the new version of DnD (5.5E, or whatever they call it) doesn’t seem to try to fix it.
Critical success and failures are by the book.
They are an optional rule in the Dungeon Master Guide on page 242.
They are as optional as Multiclassing and Feats.
Well, the rule as stated there is a recommendation to possibly change “exceptional rolls” to have different effects. It talks about rolling a 1 and 20, but I’d say DMs should probably just use the Pathfinder option of getting 10 points higher or lower than the DC. It just makes so much more sense, although the advantage/disadvantage system doesn’t really work for this as well as the Pathfinder system, which actually adds to your roll.
At the end of the day, everything in the book is a guide. You should throw parts away that don’t work and add things that do. Regardless though, the rules of Pathfinder 2E need a lot less modification to work as you’d expect.
I don’t play PF2E, but I checked out the crit rules a couple of months ago and rolling a nat 1 or 20 was still accounted for. From memory, doing that or succeeding / failing by 10+ brought you down or up a degree of success, and those degrees were:
- Crit fail
- Fail
- Succeed
- Crit success
So if the DC was 25, you rolled a nat 20, and your result was a 16-24, you would succeed. If your result had been a 25 or higher, you’d have critically succeeded.
If the DC was 10 and you rolled a nat 1, you didn’t necessarily critically fail. If your result was a 20 or higher, you’d still succeed (since you were over by 10); on a 10-19, you’d fail; and on a 9 or lower you’d critically fail.
If you rolled a nat 2-19, though, the impact of the over by 10 / under by 10 would be more noticeable. Vs a DC 15, you would crit fail if your result was 5 or lower and crit succeed if your result was 25 or higher.
Like I said, I haven’t played with the PF2E system, but my impression is that it would be a big improvement over 5e’s current system without suffering the same issues that most homebrew crit systems run into. It makes critical successes and failures more believable. It encourages DMs to prepare outcomes for the higher degrees of success / failure due to them having a higher chance of occurring. It makes it less likely for crit failures to happen to highly skilled characters.
And, as a fringe benefit, it also means that you can have almost impossible DCs that are possible only for the most skilled, and even then, only when they’re lucky (like a DC of 40 in a game where the highest bonus you can reasonably get is +11-+19, such that only a nat 20 by someone with such a bonus can succeed).
Arguably MORE optional as this rule does not appear in the PHB, but fair enough. To me, using crits on ability checks messes with game balance too much and challenges verisimilitude. But, to each their own.
Also you can just give advantage if it’s such an obviously threatening situation.
That should easily make up for the lost + in Charisma modifier.
If you try to intimidate someone and it makes sense for it to work, it works.
I can see making a CHA save for the victim, but (IMO) the DC should come from the situation, not the PC stats.
IMO players should feel like badasses. Rolls are for when they’re doing something the hero in an action movie might fail at. This doesn’t mean that the game shouldn’t be challenging, but rather that the players should feel challenged by powerful foes, not by mooks. Thus I think the solution is simply not to require a roll when an ordinary person would have the skills to succeed with certainty. The barbarian would automatically succeed (at least on the surface level) in this situation.
I would only require a roll if:
- The intimidator isn’t obviously frightening or dangerous. The halfling bard would have to roll unless he’s scarier-looking than the average halfling.
- The intimidator is trying to be subtle. The barbarian would have to roll if he doesn’t want to make a scene in public.
- The intimidator is trying to get the target to stay intimidated even after the target is not in immediate danger. The barbarian would have to roll if he doesn’t want the guard to run for help as soon as the barbarian is out of sight.
- The target is unusually resistant to intimidation. The barbarian would have to roll if he’s threatening a fanatic unafraid to die.
- The target might tell a convincing lie. This is the fun case, because a failed intimidation roll will look like a successful roll until the barbarian walks right into a trap.
Can I play at your table?
I legitimately had someone try to argue to me that Kermit the Frog was more intimidating than King Shark.
Also, I like having every skill be floating and see what fun stuff people can come up with. I would recommend Intelligence (Acrobatics) if you’re ever going to make a conspiracy and need to do some mental gymnastics.
I legitimately had someone try to argue to me that Kermit the Frog was more intimidating than King Shark
Guess it would depend on the situation. Renegotiating my contract with Kermit would be intimidating. Dude has been in the business for decades. I’d have to fight hard if I wanted top billing.
legitimately had someone try to argue to me that Kermit the Frog was more intimidating than King Shark.
They probably owed him money. I feel bad for them. I would not want to be indebted to that ruthless aquatic muppet.
I know it would be an oddity but intimidation has always been a saving throw. If the NPC can withstand the intimidation attempts feels a lot better then if a PC can successfully attempt to present an intimidation scenario
And what’s the DC? That doesn’t seem to affect the actual issue of how values are scaled.
Same value it’s just rather than sneezing part way through your intimidation or halving spinach in your teeth almost 50% of the time you attempt to intimidate, you just have people with mental fortitude not do be intimidated by your given scenario
Ok, here is my point: being able to crush a neck is strength. Being believable that you will crush your victim’s neck is charisma. Of course you can torture someone. that is strength. threatening someone with torture is charisma. You have to be believable to be threatening. And that’s charisma.
My beginner opinion (I’m in the middle of my first campaign ever) is…that doesn’t make sense. Big muscles are a weapon and if someone is threatening me with a weapon, being scared has nothing to do with their charm.
Like would you be more threatened by the 140lb doorman with charm or the 240lb bouncer who just glares at you?
I think that’s because you’re thinking about it with your body and your experience.
Someone with a different body and different experiences might see that 240lb bouncer and think:
Another guy they hired to be dumb muscle. I’ve dealt with his type before; wouldn’t hurt a flea without permission. Would probably cry right after, too. But the little guy… his eyes are saying he’ll do it. He’ll enjoy watching the big guy crush my windpipe. And big guy? If the little guy tells him to, he won’t hesitate.
“H-hey, we’re all friends here. T-Tell you what, I’ll tell you what you want to know, and you can tell big guy here he’s got nothing to worry about.”
If you take the right perspective, you can make almost any skill check make sense.
That’s the dumbest argument you could make. “The little guy is intimidating because he could tell the big guy to attack” just means the big guy is the threat, not the little guy. Imagine the little guy on his own and ask if he’d be as much of a threat at the big guy on his own. Even if he tried to hurt you, how much harm could he do?
If anything, what you’re describing isn’t the little guy succeeding on intimidation. It’s the little guy using the help action to give the big guy advantage, and it seems the big guy really needed it.
Absolutely, Charisma (Intimidation) checks make sense, but you can’t threaten them with simple bodily harm. You have to threaten them socially, or with a nearby weapon, or something along those lines.
No, the little guy would stab you if they feel like it. They see the big guy as a weapon.
Turns out the charmless brute really likes killing people.
How would you know in this situation that the big guy is a gentle giant and not a murderous giant? Not every big guy is automatically a nice guy.
Charm is necessary when the threat that you are using to intimidate isn’t real or the victim doesn’t think you’d pull through.
If you are tied to a wall and some uncharismatic weakling threatens you with a knife, the threat is very real after that guy starts punching holes in your arms.
Tbh, if a big guy pins someone to a wall and chokes them, the situation is not anymore about how intimidating the big guy is, but about whether the victim is prepared to die for the cause.
On the other hand, charisma-based intimidation makes a lot of sense in e.g. blackmail situations.
So I’d say, strength-based intimidation doesn’t require a dice-roll since it only depends on the victim.
And charisma-based intimidation only applies for situation, where the victim doesn’t know whether the threat is real.
I think I’d have to hear the DM say that was the situation before I could buy that logic
Just have them roll a strength based intimidation check.
How threatening is some big muscled guy with a high pitched voice?
In a world with magic a bard could be pretty intimidating.
intimidating the Ben Shapiro analogue NPC
“Talk, or I’ll make out with you. And neither of us want that.”
“Let me try something.” My lizardfolk barbarian begins casually eating fingers directly from the prisoner’s hand.
“Wow, Hathis, you must really want that information.”
Up to the wrist now. “Information?”
Pretty sure a normal goon would be intimidated by a barbarian. However, bigger physical strength is not always more intimidating: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9U1FVjRRlXY
This is why I allow players to swap skills/stats for checks, if it makes sense in the situation. In this case, they could replace the charisma stat with strength for the intimidation check.
Stats I understand, but if your character isn’t trained in intimidation, they shouldn’t really be able to improvise those intimidating phrases or scenes the player is role playing. That’s why I prefer to roll first and rp after.
I don’t think you need to go to bard college to demonstrate you can rip a man in half.
Why would you go to bard college? Pick intimidation as a skill on character creation, pick a background that has it because it makes sense, pick a feat that grants intimidation if your character practices or tries to intimidate people regularly.
As always, the DC of the roll changes depending on your actions. If you perform something super scary with your axe or whatever depending on the enemy the DC of the rill will get lowered, obviously.
Do you need to roll a check to open the door every morning? Some things can just happen, unless you’re specifically going for a goofy “hehe he slipped out of my fingers” type of game.
but if your character isn’t trained in intimidation,
How does one “train in intimidation”? The 20 str dragonborn barbarian with a giant halberd on his back needs to write sentences to learn how to look scary? Will they be taught by their 8 str gnome bard with a flower in his hair how to show someone he means business?
This mugger holding a gun to my head isn’t scary because he doesn’t speak eloquently so he can’t have my wallet!
You… Don’t need charisma to look scary. Having the intimidation skill trained makes the difference between being a strong character that looks stupid and a strong character that looks menacing.
All your examples are verbal intimidation, when I made clear that I don’t mind using strength for intimidation. How does one train in intimidation? Well, having a background of being a mob, warrior, anything that usually partakes in intimidating people, and then training 5he skill on character creation. If your character has been actually training the skill, maybe you can talk to the DM to swap some skills around or pick a feat that let’s you train it.
If your character focuses on being the master of the halberd, all it looks is like a stupid soldier. Yeah, with a +5 to intimidation because muscles big, but it really doesn’t compare to the +9 that someone with experience/training in intimidation would have due to proficiency.
…no, no, I totally get it, this makes perfect sense actually. The bard could hurt my feelings, which is way worse! I’ll take the tall buff person choking me 👀
I’m suddenly reminded of the comedian who called out an audience member for wearing a shirt that said, “Don’t bully me, I’ll cum :(“
