(someone said over in the CO forum I should move this post here, as i have no idea how to del the other post forgive the double post in 2 diffrent forums)
Ok maybe a few of you might of seen me post about this once or twice before with my current game but its proving more difficult to get the DM and myself on the same page.
Basic summery. I’m playing a dragonborn Bahamut paladin (he’s been petrified for a few thousand years and he comes from a much different society of justice.) Its my way of Rp’ing the fact that he is a little more say judge dread at times then total holy stick up the bum paladin. In his time society did not tolerate dishonor to the clans and truly evil deeds were punished without mercy. (were talking murdering people and say dark demonic magic with sacrifices sort of bad not the steal a loaf of bred kind)
I’ve taken every advantage I can for intimidate. I’m a char based paladin. +5 on my stat bonus, +5 for skill being trained, + 4 for intimidation of the dragon feat. There’s a few more things I can’t remember but the total comes out to 19 and I have a utility power that lets me bump it +5 for one check.
So my base is 19 and I have a possible 24 base at lv 3
I’ve even subbed out my dragon breath for dragon fear
Ok on to the problems im having.
How I’ve wanted to play it and how the rules say have been to very different things and I’ve excepted that and have moved on.
The problem is my Dm really just hates the fact that the system allows me to get my skill that high so early on. He literally can’t throw anything at me that I can’t fail at under this one skill outside of combat and even in combat the +10 the creatures get at this lv brings them up to a will save that I can easily meet or blow right by unless I roll a 1 or a 2. Even if he hit me with a lv 10 DC hard check its almost impossible for me to fail. And this really bothers him because he can’t keep me from getting what I want without just being the bad Dm and saying no you can’t do that.
Now keep in mind I am actually not abusing this skill and have no intention to do so anytime soon. How I have come to play this off is the fact after my character’s prettification spell was broken and he found himself out of place and with a slight case of memory loss. (Big epic plans in backstory if we ever get that high enough in lv) He’s come to realize his force of will against others is scary powerful. All he has to do is look at someone and growl angrily for them to wet there pants. In one case it was so bad he actually made a (very evil person mind you) Loose his sanity for a while from being scared witless. ( I rolled a 20 )
I’m very reserved about this and I actively roleplay the fact that I don’t put myself at the fore front at first always. For example we were stopped in the stables one time by guards who thought we had killed the town’s mayor because we had just arrived the night before. I let the cleric sweet talk us through with diplomacy first and it worked. Had that failed I probably would of stepped in then with as much pomp and bluster as a paladin can muster about how he dare question a knight’s honor such as mine. Blah blah and so on. The root of it is I actively let party members do these things first unless I’m pissed off and something very evil and even then I’ve tried very hard to keep it in check.
Now to the heart of the problem that brought all this up in last nights game.
We meet a caravan on the road carrying large barrels of unmarked wine. We are heading to a far out town in search of some clues about a huge plague that has hit the city we started in. 100’s have died others are insane and bleeding from the eyes before they die. Very bad stuff, my character has a note we intercepted from a currier detailing some of the plans and hinting at others. One thing was a second shipping coming soon of something from somewhere. I didn’t peace it together until I caught the caravan leader lying to me with an insight check. Sticking that clue together I questioned the barrels of wine and a very (princess bride scene later of a plague tainted cup of wine) I smash the leader into the barrels and were in a knock down fight with his hired thugs. I wanted the leader alive, I made this very clear and shouted it to the other party members in the fight. Holy light smash and several dead thugs later as the barbarian and ranger took them out the leader was trying to get away from me. I was rolling badly just then, I missed on two charges and even on my action point attack.
I was trying to get him down to bloodied status to force him to surrender. The Dm was trying very hard to keep him out of party hands. Long story short with a few shouted commands from me, the monk reeled him back with one of his magic items. The guy tried to run again and the monk got a OA and after the dmg was tallied up the DM said the guy had died and while I guess he didn’t hear me when I told him about this weeks ago he had forgotten that a player can choose to deal none lethal dmg for his attack. This totally threw him off and he was like what and I had to show him the rule again. Our monk is very very green when it comes to the table he just likes to punch things and eat lol. (Anime fan) So I asked him seriously in character sense I had been shouting and bellowing to take him alive would you have remembered that or been so excited by the heat of combat that you would of bashed his skull in regardless. He said honestly he would of remembered and even the Dm agreed then it was fine for it to be non-lethal but I could tell he was very unhappy. He did not want this guy in party hands and I asked him at the table why he looked so grumpy. He grumbled how all I had to do now was threaten the guy and everything I wanted to know would be given cause he can’t stop me.
(This is not what happened and the end result was a very fun skill challenge interrogation and the Dm even apologized at the end for getting grumpy and we all told him to not worry about it)
Basically I let the other party members get a crack at him first. The monk tried food and water first but eventually was breaking toes and the ranger was having fun twisting an arrow back and forth in this guys thigh. Our dwarven barbarian was morning the loss of all that tainted plague wine and didn’t feel like joining in lol. They got some info out of their methods but he was not breaking him or getting much a lot of info. Finally the others gave up. I had stuck my sword in the fire during all this and had just been watching and re-reading the letter we had found with what little info we knew. I had a really good Rp scene that that even the DM admitted was amazing. I had taken my sword out of the fire, the thing was red hot and I channeled my divine strength power into it. Turning the blade hot white with heat and my gods faith. Walking towards him slowly I described how the light of justice burned in my eyes and so forth.
I won’t go into every detail but I was very adamant about how I did this. This was a creature that would of brought death to thousands with his plague wine. My character had no pity and we talked with that burning blade just near enough to blister his skin slightly as I whispered the failings of his kind. The sword tip being pressed in a few key spots as he mouthed off even to me when I got the bright idea when he passed out on us. When he woke I made the bluff check telling him how this has been going on for days now. (really 2 hours maybe) And how it can keep going for weeks. All I have to do is pray to my god and his faith in me restores you back to the living. Telling me what I want to know and it will stop all this. That’s pretty much when I got everything out of him and broke him utterly. I hit a nat 20 on my bluff check and another 35 on the second intimidate check. The whole thing ended with me driving the white hot blade through his heart, he died screaming madly of angels and gods. It was pretty awesome personally.
This brings me through to the whole point of this long winded post.
How does intimidate exactly work in combat. Is it just a +10 modifier to his will save because he hates me or does that stack with the -10 to my skill check because its made in combat. It’s a little confusing in the rules. Do I really have a -10 on myself and a +10 on the monster or npc or just one or the other.
How does intimidate work outside of combat.
Am I really just that stupidly scary and the Dm has no power to stop me if I really want to scare someone out of his mind because my skill is already easily meeting paragon level skill checks at lv 3
I could really use the help here because its causing me frustration and I can see the frustration in my Dm’s eyes. He doesn’t want to just tell me no you can’t and I can more than understand if he feels powerless to stop me at every turn under this skill.
I want this to be a very defining point of my character but I don’t want it to come at the cost of my Dm’s sanity.
Helpfull advice on how to RP this other ways would be very helpfull to.
