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May 25, 2011 -- 12:15AM, gomeztoo wrote:

May 24, 2011 -- 11:35AM, lorika wrote:

Intimidate is not just "I'll beat you up if you don't do as I say."

True, but you might be surprised how many people treat of it as such (and how many people with PCs trained in Diplomacy but not in Intimidate try to use Diplomacy for what is really an Intimidation check, as well).  It is this 'most common denominator' use of the skill that prompted most of the early auto-failure results. Some of these could have been phrased a bit better.

I know that that is how many people view or use the skill.  But that doesn't mean the campaign should be encouraging that very narrow interpretation.  Early in the campaign the idea that "intimidate = Do X or I'll break your fingers" got reinforced by having the use of Intimidate so frequently and inappropriately result in automatic failures.  I understand that in those early adventures authors were still trying to figure out skill challenges and how they should work; people were still learning and mistakes were made, that's fine.  But by now, authors should know that automatic failures are unfun/frustrating and usually (always?) don't make sense in a skill challenge and therefore shouldn't be included as a mechanic. 

May 25, 2011 -- 12:15AM, gomeztoo wrote:

Regardless, Intimidate generally does include a threat no matter how polite you phrase it.  So in some cases, Intimidate may still 'generically' be ruled not to work or cause adverse effects (i.e with the example of Lin-Woh Chiang, above).

I suppose that depends on your definition of "threat."  Intimidation always involves making the person afraid of something/someone (not necessarily you).  But Intimidation doesn't have to involve you threatening the person with a bad result that YOU have any control over.  For example, I could Intimidate someone by saying "Don't touch that high voltage wire.  If you do, you'll have an excrutiatingly slow and painful death.  Your skin will melt off, your blood will boil, and your eye balls will fall out of your head."  In this situation, even though I am the one making the intimidate check, I have absolutely no control over the consequences of them touching the wire.  I'm not saying "If you touch that wire, I will run over to the control box and turn the electricity on to make you fry, muahahahaha!"  I'm saying "It's a bad idea to touch that wire and here's why."  Heck, I'm probably trying to be helpful to the person by informing them that bad things will happen if they touch the wire.  I'm not threatening them.  I'm pointing out negative (and completely natural) consequences of their actions.  I could have used a Diplomacy check instead: "Please don't touch that wire.  I care deeply about you and I'm concerned for your safety.  Please don't do it - for me?" 

In the example I gave in an earlier post: You could Intimidate the king by telling him all the horrible things the invading orc army will do to his country if he doesn't seek aid.  You're not threatening the king at all.  You have absolutely no control over the orc army.  It's not like you're saying "If you don't give me your land I will send my orc army in to destroy you."  You're trying to point out how serious/dangerous the situation is and how the king should follow your advice for his own benefit.  In this case you're actually trying to help the king.  It would be inappropriate for an Intimidate check to automatically result in failure.  If you fail your Intimidate check (by rolling low), that just means you weren't convincing in your argument.  Maybe the king laughs about how worried you are about something so minor.  Maybe you fail to convey to the king how deadly this invading army is, so the King dismisses the threat as trivial: "Ha!  Orcs?  We've fought orcs a thousand times.  Orcs are nothing.  Our army will easily deal with them."  Maybe your intimidate check fails because it involved something the king isn't scared of.  For example, if the King is self-centered and cold-hearted, your attempt at an intimidating speech about how the innocent peasants will suffer if this army invades won't be effective.  He doesn't care about the stupid peasants, so he's not going to be persuaded by you pointing out the horrible things the invading army will do to the peasants if he doesn't expend resources to protect them.  

Intimidation is controlling someone's actions through fear.  You don't necessarily have any control at all over the fear-causing thing itself.  All you're doing is making the person afraid - and trying to manipulate that fear in such a way that the person acts as you want them to.  If I know you're afraid of snakes, I could remind you that the jungle is full of slimy, horrible, man-eating snakes.  I'm not threatening to sneak into the jungle in the middle of the night with a huge bag full of snakes to dump in your campsite - I'm just informing you that there are snakes in the jungle and snakes are scary, so you shouldn't go into the jungle. 

On "Cheating"

The DM cannot cheat. He controls the game, and the rules. Granted, in a shared campaign like LFR, it's wise to stick to the rules as written lest you lose your players and never get invited to judge again, but interpreting the rules a certain way when there is no clarification isn't cheating. That's the job of the DM.

As I have repeatedly stated before, despite all the naysayers, this is a grey area until I'm shown something official and binding to the contrary.


On RAW and RAI
If I'm being accused of violating RAW, I would love to know in what language my interpretation isn't correct in reading the power directly.

Trigger: You would make a Diplomacy check

Effect: You make an Intimidate check in place of the Diplomacy check.

When I'm reading as written, I see the italicized words and anayze that as having the Intimidate skill replace the Diplomacy skill.

If I were to write a power where you used your Intimidate modifier for a Diplomacy check, I would write it like so:

Trigger: You attempt a Diplomacy check

Effect: Make an Intimidate check and use the total as the result of your Diplomacy check.

As for RAI - I don't pretend to be telepathic. But for the sake of argument, I think the flavor text - "Why waste time with diplomacy when threats can get to the heart of the matter?" - shows the intent pretty clearly.

 

On the Intimidate skill

I disagree with assertions that the Intimidate skill isn't interpreted loosely enough. Here's the Compendium description of Intimidate:

An adventurer can make an Intimidate check to influence others through  hostile actions, overt threats, or deadly persuasion.

I looks to me like the ONLY use of the Intimidate skill is to make others afraid of you, either through physical intimidation or threats. If you're trying to convince people to do things because of outside threats, that's either Diplomacy (if the threats are real) or Bluff (if they're not).

Also important to the skill is a consequence of using it, and the reason why auto-failure should be a viable result:

        Target  Becomes Hostile: Whether or not the check succeeds, using this skill  against a monster usually makes it unfriendly or hostile toward the  adventurer.

If the intent of the skill challenge is to get the target on your side, obviously making them unfriendly or hostile is a setback to your objective. It's recoverable though, because your allies can cover for your rudeness and end up winning the skill challenge anyways.

I'll even provide an example from one of my adventures:

Spoiler: Show

Again, the question isn't if the power is worth taking. I don't think it is, when you don't know how your DM would rule. Not every power has to be worth taking, just ask people in CharOp how many useless powers there are out there.

 

May 25, 2011 -- 8:12AM, gomeztoo wrote:

What factors here is that in the Prospect the PCs are not of sufficient power yet to use that against her.

You're missing Lorika's point.  Lorika is trying to say that the threat behind the intimidate check does not have to come from the PCs, and it doesn't have to be physical violence.

So given that, why is she immune again?

May 25, 2011 -- 11:46AM, kilpatds wrote:

Lorika is trying to say that the threat behind the intimidate check does not have to come from the PCs, and it doesn't have to be physical violence.

I feel we are focusing too much on a (very) specific example, with (very) specific circumstances.

Gomez

May 25, 2011 -- 12:02PM, gomeztoo wrote:

May 25, 2011 -- 11:46AM, kilpatds wrote:

Lorika is trying to say that the threat behind the intimidate check does not have to come from the PCs, and it doesn't have to be physical violence.

I feel we are focusing too much on a (very) specific example, with (very) specific circumstances.

Gomez

Really?  I didn't think we were focusing on this example at all.  You specifically mentioned Lin-Woh twice before anyone else said anything about her.  Then Keithric made a single comment and kilpatds made a single comment about her.  I wouldn't consider 2 posts in a 68-post-long thread (~2% of the posts) to be "focusing."  (Dead horses have certainly been beaten in this thread, but that is not one of them...)