• Dettweiler@lemmy.world
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    11 months ago

    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.

    • Fushuan [he/him]@lemm.ee
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      11 months ago

      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.

        • Fushuan [he/him]@lemm.ee
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          11 months ago

          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.

          • Shiggles@sh.itjust.works
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            11 months ago

            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.

      • papalonian@lemmy.world
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        11 months ago

        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?

        • glimse@lemmy.world
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          11 months ago

          This mugger holding a gun to my head isn’t scary because he doesn’t speak eloquently so he can’t have my wallet!

        • Fushuan [he/him]@lemm.ee
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          11 months ago

          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.