Improving Intimidate

[barsoomcore]

Just splitting this off from the "Improving Diplomacy" thread.

Intimidate should allow you to make bargaining checks of itself, but where the relationship to the other person doesn't matter. And maybe reward doesn't matter -- it's a new chart that's based solely on the risk of the action you're trying to get them to do.

So the Difficulty is 15 + level + Wisdom + risk modifier:

-10: No risk, no chance that the target will be punished or suffer because of the desired action.
-5: Slight risk of being discovered doing something not very serious.
0: Either slight risk of being discovered doing something moderately serious, or moderate risk of being discovered doing something not very serious
+5: Real risk of moderate punishment or suffering
+10: Obvious and unavoidable risk of serious punishment or suffering

And each time you use Intimidate on a target, their relationship with you worsens -- maybe there's a Charisma or Diplomacy check against a Difficulty of (pulls numbers out of thin air) 10 + target's level to avoid lowering the target's relationship with you by one category.

The Shadow responded with:

Hmm. This has potential. Let's try to go a little further... I have a somewhat different proposal.

I think we still need two scales, as with Diplomacy. But they have a different meaning.

Instead of the relationship with the person, it's the relative power level and willingness to inflict harm. (Or at least the victim's *perception* of such - this is where Bluff can come in.) Call it "advantage". I don't care how risky or unrisky the action is, a third-grader is not going to Intimdate Darth Vader.

The advantage scale goes:

Hosed (+10): The victim is convinced that if they disobey you, you can and will cause them dire harm with relatively little effort.

Disadvantaged (+5): The victim is convinced that if they disobey you, they will likely come out the worse for it.

Even Odds (+0): The victim thinks they are evenly matched with you.

Upper Hand (-5): The victim thinks they can probably take you if you try anything.

Bemused Snickering (-10): The victim is convinced that you have no chance of doing them harm.

Note that the harm doesn't *have* to be physical hurt to the victim. A guy might be Bemusedly Snickering at the thought of you beating him up, but all of a sudden go to Hosed when you point out that you have his children in a safe place... which will remain safe only as long as he cooperates.

(Perhaps, as with Diplomacy, there's a +2/-2 modifier based on previous history, only this time it's a history of previous conflict. If you've whipped a guy handily many times in the past, he's going to feel a little shaky even if he thinks he has you completely under his thumb this time.)

Then there's the Risk scale. Unlike the others, I don't think there's much of a positive end here. That is to say, if you're proposing something very low risk, they aren't necessarily falling all over themselves to do it.

Low Risk (+0): The victim doesn't see any big downside to what you're ordering him to do.

High Risk (-5): The victim sees the strong possibility of serious trouble coming to him if he obeys you.

Mortal Risk (-10): The victim believes that he has a high chance of suffering terrible harm if he obeys you.

I considered the possibility of a "Whatever (-5)" category, where you order the victim to do something they want to do anyway, but it occurred to me that many people resent being ordered to do something even if they do want to do it.

Otherwise, this works a lot like Diplomacy. You propose a "deal", and they take it or not.

It would then be easy to have an equivalent of Befriending - call it Terrifying. Basically, if you Terrify the guy, their perception of advantage goes in your favor by one, until finally they feel completely Hosed and can be easily cowed into doing whatever you want, though probably not to the point of certain death.

I'm tempted to say that it should be harder to Reputation-Intimidate people in groups than, say, Reputation-Bluff people in groups... but perhaps that's already taken care of with the advantage scale. One 1st level minion is likely to feel Hosed against an adventurer, but an army of 10,000 1st level minions is likely to feel a lot more confident.

And then I said:

The reason I didn't include a "Scared" scale is because that's the function of the Intimidate skill -- making people believe that if they don't do what you tell them to do, things will go poorly for them. Having a second modifier due to your scariness is double-dipping. Intimidate IS your ability to scare people.

To which:

barsoomcore: Your point is well taken, but I would respond that for the version of Intimidate I posted, the skill is no longer exactly the ability to scare people, but the ability to get them to do what you want. In fact, one amusing result of a failed Intimidate check in which you held a massive advantage might be the victim is SO scared of you that they're reduced to incoherent babbling and you can't get anything out of them. "B-b-b-batman!"

Much like our new Diplomacy skill is not so much about getting people to like you, as about getting them to accept a deal.

Of course, the new Diplomacy does have a Befriending mechanic, and I did propose a similar "Terrifying" mechanic for Intimidate. *That* is definitely scaring people, but for the long term. It's how you break people's will and make them your minions.

For either of our versions, I wonder if we need a special bonus (5 or so) for the case in which the Intimidater has legitimate authority over the person he's ordering around. I mean, a sergeant giving an order to a private is not using Diplomacy, to be sure! But he's also not exactly *scaring* him into obeying (although the consequences of disobeying can indeed be severe). There's an extra oomph from the fact that the private is duty-bound to obey.

And now you're all caught up. Jump in, folks!

[barsoomcore]

I remain convinced that a "Scared" scale is duplicating the very quality that one's Intimidate rank is meant to represent. And fundamentally, when it comes to risk, I think that if you ask someone to do something that is zero risk to them, they'll most of the time just do it, so it ought to be almost always successful.

So a 1st-level person (with a, say +5 on Intimidate) ought to be able to get another 1st level person to do something of zero risk most of the time. If the Difficulty is 16 (15 + level), then our Intimidator will only succeed at getting other folks to do something that they perceive is of zero risk to them 45% of the time (an 11 or better).

I don't think that's reasonable. With a -10 for zero risk, they succeed 95% of the time (a 1 or better to beat a Difficulty 6). Something of moderate risk now rises up to the 45% mark, which seems more reasonable to me.

So I feel that a -10 to +10 scale is more appropriate.

[ValhallaGH]

I don't think that's reasonable. With a -10 for zero risk, they succeed 95% of the time (a 1 or better to beat a Difficulty 6).

Correction. They succeed 100% of the time, barring any automatic failure house rules for skill checks.

Personally, I dislike a system that jumps from "risk of moderate" to "unavoidable serious" in the same interval it was using for "slight" to "moderate". Using +10 for "unavoidable moderate or risk of serious" and saving +15 for "unavoidable and serious" (or even +20 for the things that are scarier than any guy intimidating the target).
+20 Difficulty says "this circumstance makes it nearly impossible to succeed" without actually making it impossible. I think that's good for situations like "You, peasant, go post this heretical document on your house front so that the entire town can see it." One of those "serious punishment, unavoidable, and unable to be mitigated" situations.

[barsoomcore]

They succeed 100% of the time, barring any automatic failure house rules for skill checks.

Hm, right. Is that too much? Maybe "Zero risk" should only be a -5? But then we lose the pleasing symmetry...

I dislike a system that jumps from "risk of moderate" to "unavoidable serious" in the same interval it was using for "slight" to "moderate". Using +10 for "unavoidable moderate or risk of serious" and saving +15 for "unavoidable and serious" (or even +20 for the things that are scarier than any guy intimidating the target).

Yep, no debate here. You are correct.

[ValhallaGH]

They succeed 100% of the time, barring any automatic failure house rules for skill checks.

Hm, right. Is that too much? Maybe "Zero risk" should only be a -5?

No, no. Most folk, when told to do something that they can't get in trouble for doing, or 'bad things' will happen to them, will go along. It should be a pretty easy sell, to the point that it's practically automatic. For this one hypothetical case it is automatic, which may be too much as a narrator. If it is then the Narrator needs to re-evaluate the situation and all appropriate modifiers.

[The Shadow]

I remain convinced that a "Scared" scale is duplicating the very quality that one's Intimidate rank is meant to represent. And fundamentally, when it comes to risk, I think that if you ask someone to do something that is zero risk to them, they'll most of the time just do it, so it ought to be almost always successful.

Hmm. I'm not sure that I see what I posted as a "scared" scale. More like a "consequences of disobedience" scale.

ie, there are two sorts of risk involved here:

What is the risk if I do as I'm told? and

What is the risk if I *don't* do as I'm told?

I don't care how scary you are, you're going to find it a lot harder to Intimidate a king surrounded with his guards than some private guy in his home. Because the private guy in his home knows he has no real way of stopping you from hurting or killing him, if you're determined to do it, while the king has protection.

What your Intimidate ranks are doing is *convincing* the guy that you are in fact willing, able, and eager to hurt or kill him, despite all the fallout which might (or might not) come to you over it.

In other words, my advantage scale is not so much about, "How scary is this guy" as "If push comes to shove, what do I think is likely to happen to me if I cross him" as opposed to "What do I think is likely to happen to me if I obey." Your Intimidate ranks are all about putting across that push IS going to come to shove - like, off a cliff. :)

So a 1st-level person (with a, say +5 on Intimidate) ought to be able to get another 1st level person to do something of zero risk most of the time. If the Difficulty is 16 (15 + level), then our Intimidator will only succeed at getting other folks to do something that they perceive is of zero risk to them 45% of the time (an 11 or better).

By threatening them? A lot of people will clam up and tell you to shove off. Or call the cops.

With our new Diplomacy, suppose you offered the deal, "Do this zero-risk thing for me in exchange for my thanks" to a 1st level guy. If the zero-risk thing isn't too troublesome, most of the time that will be an Even deal, or DC 16, assuming no Wis bonus.

You're saying you can instead offer the Intimidate deal, "Do this zero-risk thing for me in exchange for unspecified bad things NOT happening to you," and that it should work almost automatically? Really?

[iwatt]

With our new Diplomacy, suppose you offered the deal, "Do this zero-risk thing for me in exchange for my thanks" to a 1st level guy. If the zero-risk thing isn't too troublesome, most of the time that will be an Even deal, or DC 16, assuming no Wis bonus.

You're saying you can instead offer the Intimidate deal, "Do this zero-risk thing for me in exchange for unspecified bad things NOT happening to you," and that it should work almost automatically? Really?

Maybe a middle ground is appropriate. I remain unconvinced that a zero-risk offer should only work 25% of the time, as in your Diplo example. I also think the Intimidate is set a little low.

The Shadow, I believe what Barsoomcore is saying that it's the actual Intimidate check that does the convincing of whether you can deliver or not.

Though I do think their should be situational modifiers thrown in, which is where you're going I believe. For example:

Loneliness
Target alone: -5 DC
Target surrounded by neutrals +0 DC
Target surrounded by allies: +5 DC

So your King would get a benefit, and the girl walking alone down the dark alleyway wouldn't.

Confort Factor.
Target out of his element: -5 DC
Target in his element: +5 DC

So for example, a preppy guy walking alone down a dark parking lot in the bad side of town would be very easy to scare, while the self same preppy guy will be harder to intimidate if he is caught in his gentleman's club with his gin and tonic at hand.

I can't think of any additional modifiers.

[barsoomcore]

This is starting to work better for me.

Your comment on matching the numbers with Diplomacy is a good point, Shadow. I guess the better measure is that if you take 10 you ought to be able to succeed if you're pretty good, all other things being equal. So perhaps we don't need the negative modifiers for low-risk situations.

And I like iwatt's suggested comfort level modifiers. Let me try putting something together with all this for us to review. I prolly won't get to it tonight, though, so stand by.

[The Shadow]

Your comment on matching the numbers with Diplomacy is a good point, Shadow. I guess the better measure is that if you take 10 you ought to be able to succeed if you're pretty good, all other things being equal. So perhaps we don't need the negative modifiers for low-risk situations.

It's also possible that our Diplomacy DC's are too high for Even deals. Perhaps we need to adjust the base DC down by 5, and then make Unfavorable and Horrible deals 5 points worse. (We really only need to make those sorts of deals hard to do. I don't mind Diplo guys convincing people to do things that look even or good - we need to make it hard to convince people to do things that look bad!) Though that does get rid of the pleasing symmetry...

And I like iwatt's suggested comfort level modifiers. Let me try putting something together with all this for us to review. I prolly won't get to it tonight, though, so stand by.

I think that if you follow iwatt's modifiers far enough, you'll get something that looks a lot like my advantage scale, actually. Though I'm certainly open to new suggestions about how to depict it or something like it.

[iwatt]

I think that if you follow iwatt's modifiers far enough, you'll get something that looks a lot like my advantage scale, actually.

Heh, considering they were based on yours.

Regarding the diplomacy base DC, I'll take it back to that thread.

[barsoomcore]

I think that if you follow iwatt's modifiers far enough, you'll get something that looks a lot like my advantage scale, actually. Though I'm certainly open to new suggestions about how to depict it or something like it.

To me the difference is that iwatt's modifiers are about the target's current level of comfort, without reference to YOUR impact. Your impact is communicated via your Intimidate check.

[barsoomcore]

Okay, here's the new Intimidate skill. Let me know what you think. Have I captured our ideas correctly?

[iwatt]

Look's good, but you're missing the description for the Combat Intimidate though you kept the Power Intimidate Challenge. Seems confusing. The way I see it, ther's three things you can do with Intimidate:

- Scare them during combat (Shaken, Frightened, etcc.)
- Scare them into acting a certain way (what we've been codifying here)
- Feinting in Combat

Your writeup seems to imply there only is the 2nd and third uses, except for the Power Intimidate Challenge.

[barsoomcore]

Your writeup seems to imply there only is the 2nd and third uses, except for the Power Intimidate Challenge.

Actually, the scare in combat effect is rolled into feinting. If you click through to the Feint action you'll see that a successful feint allows the player to choose whether to deny the target a Dex bonus or cause them to be shaken. Power Intimidate applies only to the shaken effect.

[iwatt]

Your writeup seems to imply there only is the 2nd and third uses, except for the Power Intimidate Challenge.

Actually, the scare in combat effect is rolled into feinting. If you click through to the Feint action you'll see that a successful feint allows the player to choose whether to deny the target a Dex bonus or cause them to be shaken. Power Intimidate applies only to the shaken effect.

Excellent! In my arrogance I didn't even check it assuming your rules could not be superior to mine

I like how you included Shaken.