In my experience, Intimidate is vastly
overused in social/roleplay interactions and severely underused in
combat. Many players choose to intimidate NPCs in situations where
intimidate is close to an automatic fail. A look at published
modules and their automatic fail situations can give us some
examples: intimidating a noble while in his court and in the presence
of his guards; intimidating a prisoner in front of his crew when they
have lost all hope of leaving prison alive; intimidating someone who
is willing to be a martyr for his cause. In essence, people that
have too much to lose or, in the alternative, nothing left to lose,
are very hard and in some instances impossible to intimidate. You
could probably Bluff them out of their life and soul, but today's
topic is Intimidate in combat so let's stick to it.
During combat, a player can use his
standard action to Intimidate one or more opponents that are
bloodied. It is an opposed check against the enemy's Will. However,
it is by no means an easy check. If the target of your Intimidate is
already bloodied – which is a requirement – it is safe to say it
is hostile to you, and hostile targets gain a +10 to their Will in
this situation.
Intimidate in combat can be a high risk
gamble. Yet, its reward can be quite sweet:
Success: The adventurer forces a bloodied monster to surrender, gets a monster to reveal a secret, or cows a monster into taking some other action. This skill is not mind control, so a cowed monster is unlikely to take any action that would cause immediate harm to himself.Rules Compendium, p. 148.
Attempting
to Intimidate a monster means you exchange your attack for your
Intimidate attempt. This is not a bad thing. A recently bloodied
monster can take anywhere from 3 to 5 rounds to kill. If your
Intimidate check is successful, combat ends right then and there,
with the monster's surrender.
Intimidate
is not limited to just one target, either. You can attempt to
Intimidate all bloodied enemies that are able to see and hear you.
You must roll against each individual monster's Will separately but
this is not bad, either. It is like getting the opportunity to
attack several monsters in the same round without even having to
worry about your weapon's range, as long as the monsters can see and
hear you.
Think
about what this means. Your group of 5 adventurers is fighting 7
monsters. After a few rounds, four of them are bloodied, three are
not. This fight still has a long way to go. On your turn, you
decide to Intimidate the four monsters that are bloodied. Let's say
you are only successful against two. The result is that those two
monsters surrender to your party, right then and there. The odds
have now changed drastically in your party's favor. The players that
were focused on attacking those monsters that surrendered can now
switch to the remaining mobs. Combat length has thus been shortened.
Intimidate
does not work against all monsters. Monsters immune to fear cannot
be intimidated. However, the important thing is to remember that
when you are in combat, you have options that go beyond sword, spell
and arrow. Use them wisely for quicker combat resolution.
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