What is Intimidating Presence used for?

[TripleD]

What do you use Intimidating Presence for? Not looking for theorycrafting so much as instances where you have actually used it at the table and found it useful.

Reading it as is I'm struggling to think of cases where I would use this for a few reasons:


Frightened makes characters refuse to come to closer to you. As a Barbarian this strikes me as the exact opposite of what I want enemies to do.
It takes an action to instigate and maintain. This means that unless I Frenzy, I can't attack anyone while I'm using it. Given that attacking is to a Barbarian as Peanut Butter is to Jelly, this seems like a steep trade.
The save is based off of Charisma, a stat that few Barbarians will be boosting. This isn't a knock against it's usefulness per se, just that I think enemies will have an easier and easier time resisting it as one levels, making it a less and less attractive option in combat.


Despite this, there are two cases where I think I could end up using it:


Frightened also makes enemies roll at disadvantage while they can see me. If I'm stuck or trapped, but still within sight and possessing an Action, I could use this to help my allies out.
Out of combat as a way to "power through" social situations. Granted the writing gives no hint that it is meant for anything other than combat, but I don't see any reason why you couldn't use it to get a town guard to move out of your way. Probably have some repercussions though.


These cases seem really niche to me, but I'm interested if you have seen them come up, or if I have massively misunderstood how Intimidating Presence is meant to be used.

[Sigreid]

It's best use is when facing lots of weaker opponents. By using intimidating presence you can exercise better control over how many opponents will be swinging at you per round. It's also great for creating a line in a passage that the opponents can't bring themselves to cross or effectively blocking a door.

[TripleD]

It's best use is when facing lots of weaker opponents. By using intimidating presence you can exercise better control over how many opponents will be swinging at you per round. It's also great for creating a line in a passage that the opponents can't bring themselves to cross or effectively blocking a door.

Was there an errata on how it works? The copy I have says that it only works on one creature, so how does it help you control a crowd?

[Sigreid]

Nope, we'd just skimmed over the one creature part. I think I like our way better. :smallbiggrin:

[Xefas]

It is, like the entire Berserker path, warm garbage left out in the sun to putrefy.

The downside that hasn't been mentioned yet is its incredibly short range. In addition to only affecting one target, having a 1 round duration, using Charisma for its save on a class that already wants three high stats, and having a bad, counter-intuitive effect even when it does work - it also has a range of 30 feet. Meaning you can only use it on people who you're already in range of moving and attacking.

It's all downside.

Meanwhile, the Totem Warrior is off being rad with all his awesome abilities and not taking exhaustion levels for using his class features.

[TripleD]

Nope, we'd just skimmed over the one creature part. I think I like our way better. :smallbiggrin:

Now that version I could see being useful. I'm working on a re-write to the Beserker in the Homebrew section right now, and after some feedback I got stumped on what, exactly, Intimidating Presence was supposed to do, or how it fit into the subclass as a whole.

[jas61292]

Personally, Intimidating Presence is my favorite feature of the Berserker. To me, the only real downside is the range. I absolutely love how it combos with Frenzy, allowing you to potentially permalock an opponent in fear, while still getting an attack in on them every round. And its even more effective if you pick up sentinel. Barbarians love reckless attack, but you don't always need to use it, and this provides a good instance of that. Having an opponent who can't do much but attack with disadvantage, while you are taking half damage from their attacks and slamming them back every round (hopefully with help from your friends) is just awesome.

And, of course, it has plenty of out of battle use, which is fantastic, as barbarians have little enough of that.

Honestly, I love this feature so much it makes me consider Cha to be the second most important stat for a Berserker who is going to get to level 10.

[Slipperychicken]

My party's berserker barbarian is going to get it next level, and I expect his player to try using it.


I share the same concerns expressed on this thread. The most important parts of a barbarian's job are to deal enough damage to end combats quickly, while mitigating the damage directed at them. I don't see how intimidating presence is supposed to help them do that. A barbarian is supposed to be a major source of damage-dealing in any party they're in.

I think it is worse than useless and it actually harms the party.

First, it takes actions that could be spent on damage, greatly harming the damage output of a party that is reliant on him for it.

Second, it discourages enemies from approaching and attacking the barbarian, when that is exactly what the party wants them to do. If enemies are scared of the barbarian and instead choose to attack party members who are not resistant to damage, that is bad because it means they will ultimately do more damage and to PCs who are more vulnerable.

Third, it's duration is horrible and requires the barbarian to waste his actions every round keeping it up. Fourth, the barbarian is unlikely to have a good save DC for it (as is next to useless for them), meaning that many targets will ignore its effects anyway.

Fourth, the effects, even when they land, are not good enough and are easily broken. All frightened does is prevent an enemy from moving closer to the barbarian, and give the creature disadvantage on attack rolls and ability checks against him. Affected creatures are perfectly free to walk away, start attacking the wizard or rogue, or even cast harmful spells largely without penalty. And to break the effect, all they need to do is walk away until they either hit 65 feet or break line of sight, and that is easy to do. A creature can spend literally one turn running, and then he's fine.

Fifth, it works on exactly one creature and has a horrible range.


I think that inflicting conditions like fear is better left to casters who can do it efficiently, at a higher save DC, with a better duration and range, on more targets, and without dumping the party's damage output.

[MaxWilson]

Second, it discourages enemies from approaching and attacking the barbarian, when that is exactly what the party wants them to do. If enemies are scared of the barbarian and instead choose to attack party members who are not resistant to damage, that is bad because it means they will ultimately do more damage and to PCs who are more vulnerable.

The party shouldn't want enemies to attack the Barbarian--they should want enemies to not attack anyone other than the Barbarian. Having them attack the Barbarian is a means to an end, but really it shouldn't be hard for the Barbarian to position himself against a melee enemy so that moving towards any PC requires moving towards the Barbarian, and therefore cannot be done. (Counterintuitively, this could require moving away from the enemy.)

I like Death Monks better, but at-will Fear really isn't bad, especially if you have a party with good ranged capabilities. It's just awkward from an action economy standpoint--but if Hypnotic Gaze and Banishment are both useful, then surely Intimidating Presence must be useful in the same types of situations, nicht?

[Slipperychicken]

The party shouldn't want enemies to attack the Barbarian--they should want enemies to not attack anyone other than the Barbarian. Having them attack the Barbarian is a means to an end, but really it shouldn't be hard for the Barbarian to position himself against a melee enemy so that moving towards any PC requires moving towards the Barbarian, and therefore cannot be done. (Counterintuitively, this could require moving away from the enemy.)

This is a fair point. I had just thought about it and came back to the thread hoping to make a ninja-edit to this effect. Instead I once again find myself corrected by you. Good work.

[SharkForce]

The party shouldn't want enemies to attack the Barbarian--they should want enemies to not attack anyone other than the Barbarian. Having them attack the Barbarian is a means to an end, but really it shouldn't be hard for the Barbarian to position himself against a melee enemy so that moving towards any PC requires moving towards the Barbarian, and therefore cannot be done. (Counterintuitively, this could require moving away from the enemy.)

I like Death Monks better, but at-will Fear really isn't bad, especially if you have a party with good ranged capabilities. It's just awkward from an action economy standpoint--but if Hypnotic Gaze and Banishment are both useful, then surely Intimidating Presence must be useful in the same types of situations, nicht?

hypnotic gaze is fine because as a wizard you expect to occasionally have "this isn't worth real resources" rounds and preventing an enemy from doing something is probably actually better than casting a cantrip, which is what you were probably going to do on rounds you don't cast spells in otherwise.

in contrast, it's hard to imagine a situation where you want your barbarian to sit there scaring an enemy. or at least, plausible situations. i mean, if you have an entirely melee-focused solo enemy that is trapped in a dead-end tunnel and you've got plenty of ranged attacks on other characters and the enemy is not immune to fear and actually fails the save against what is probably a low-DC effect, then i suppose intimidating presence is worth something. but how often does that really happen?

as for banishment, it doesn't require your action to sustain. so, not really comparable at all.

[MaxWilson]

in contrast, it's hard to imagine a situation where you want your barbarian to sit there scaring an enemy. or at least, plausible situations. i mean, if you have an entirely melee-focused solo enemy that is trapped in a dead-end tunnel and you've got plenty of ranged attacks on other characters and the enemy is not immune to fear and actually fails the save against what is probably a low-DC effect, then i suppose intimidating presence is worth something. but how often does that really happen?

as for banishment, it doesn't require your action to sustain. so, not really comparable at all.

You're imposing too many requirements.

1.) Entirely melee-focused enemy: not strictly necessary. Even a ranged enemy will be disadvantaged in his attacks (and ability checks).
2.) Solo enemy: not strictly necessary. Just as with Banishment, if you can take one enemy out of play, that allows the rest of the party to concentrate on the other. If there are a small number of enemies (e.g. two or three) then nullifying one enemy can be worthwhile, even if it requires one PC (Enchanter or Barbarian) to dedicate his action to keeping them out of play. It is in this sense that it's comparable to Banishment: it's only worthwhile against small groups of enemies.
3.) Dead-end tunnel: not necessary. If the enemy flees, you've still removed him from play at least temporarily. See point #2.
4.) Plenty of ranged attacks: not strictly necessary, but very helpful. Intimidating Presence is probably not worth investing real resources in if you don't have plenty of ranged firepower backing up your Barbarian. But you want ranged support for lots of other reasons anyway, not least because the Barbarian himself is melee-heavy.
5.) Not immune to fear: yes, of course. Ditto failing the save. That's true for condition you could attempt to impose: it has to be successfully imposed first. Meteor Swarm is great, but first you have to cast it without getting Counterspelled, and the enemy can't be immune to fire and bludgeoning damage. Obviously you shouldn't try to intimidate something which you know to be likely immune or highly resistant--Intimidating Presence is more something you'd use on one fire giant out of a total of three than something you'd use on an ancient red dragon. Against an ancient red dragon you're going to pull out Frenzy instead.

In short: conditions #5 is necessary, and #4 and #2 are recommended. Intimidate something if you think it will work, and if taking one enemy (mostly) out of play is actually worthwhile. Otherwise, just kill things with your axe, and when necessary, Frenzy.

[TripleD]

I absolutely love how it combos with Frenzy


Do you also ignore the exhaustion penalty for Frenzy? Just trying to get a fuller picture of how it plays.


.
Fourth, the effects, even when they land, are not good enough and are easily broken. All frightened does is prevent an enemy from moving closer to the barbarian, and give the creature disadvantage on attack rolls and ability checks against him. Affected creatures are perfectly free to walk away, start attacking the wizard or rogue, or even cast harmful spells largely without penalty. And to break the effect, all they need to do is walk away until they either hit 65 feet or break line of sight, and that is easy to do. A creature can spend literally one turn running, and then he's fine.

What I find funny is that this is one case where exploiting distance to break an effecJt isn't DM Meta-Gaming. "Run away from the thing that scared you" seems like a perfectly reasonable response.



2.) Solo enemy: not strictly necessary. Just as with Banishment, if you can take one enemy out of play, that allows the rest of the party to concentrate on the other. If there are a small number of enemies (e.g. two or three) then nullifying one enemy can be worthwhile, even if it requires one PC (Enchanter or Barbarian) to dedicate his action to keeping them out of play. It is in this sense that it's comparable to Banishment: it's only worthwhile against small groups of enemies.


Now that is a useful scenario. Two-enemy fights aren't that rare, and it would combo nicely with extra movement.

Of course positioning-wise this means you are probably going to have to go in-between the two enemies, which means if the one guy makes his Wisdom save, you are now setting yourself up for the worst sandwich of all time.

[tieren]

Compare to fey patron warlock feature fey presence, which has shorter range, but affects everything in a 10 foot cube until the end of the locks next turn, which means if they fail the save they can't break it on their turn, and the lock will get to take action the next turn on a still frightened target(s). And the save is against their normal spell DC which should be high anyway.

My gnome fey-lock can scare the crap out of your berserker barbarian, 2 of his friends, and literally the horse he rode in on.

[SharkForce]

You're imposing too many requirements.

1.) Entirely melee-focused enemy: not strictly necessary. Even a ranged enemy will be disadvantaged in his attacks (and ability checks).
2.) Solo enemy: not strictly necessary. Just as with Banishment, if you can take one enemy out of play, that allows the rest of the party to concentrate on the other. If there are a small number of enemies (e.g. two or three) then nullifying one enemy can be worthwhile, even if it requires one PC (Enchanter or Barbarian) to dedicate his action to keeping them out of play. It is in this sense that it's comparable to Banishment: it's only worthwhile against small groups of enemies.
3.) Dead-end tunnel: not necessary. If the enemy flees, you've still removed him from play at least temporarily. See point #2.
4.) Plenty of ranged attacks: not strictly necessary, but very helpful. Intimidating Presence is probably not worth investing real resources in if you don't have plenty of ranged firepower backing up your Barbarian. But you want ranged support for lots of other reasons anyway, not least because the Barbarian himself is melee-heavy.
5.) Not immune to fear: yes, of course. Ditto failing the save. That's true for condition you could attempt to impose: it has to be successfully imposed first. Meteor Swarm is great, but first you have to cast it without getting Counterspelled, and the enemy can't be immune to fire and bludgeoning damage. Obviously you shouldn't try to intimidate something which you know to be likely immune or highly resistant--Intimidating Presence is more something you'd use on one fire giant out of a total of three than something you'd use on an ancient red dragon. Against an ancient red dragon you're going to pull out Frenzy instead.

In short: conditions #5 is necessary, and #4 and #2 are recommended. Intimidate something if you think it will work, and if taking one enemy (mostly) out of play is actually worthwhile. Otherwise, just kill things with your axe, and when necessary, Frenzy.

1) you are giving up your action and making no attacks. if you can't at least make sure the enemy is also making no attacks, then you probably haven't made a great trade.

2) problem is, you're absolutely guaranteeing that you lose your action. there is absolutely no question of it, if you use intimidating presence, you don't get your action, there is no save for you to resist losing your action, it is just lost. the enemy gets to resist, and may even still be able to make ranged attacks anyways, meaning they don't lose their action, it just becomes less effective. that isn't a good trade the great majority of the time, even against a smaller number of opponents, and particularly since you not attacking means they'll be alive longer because their goes the primary DPR source.

3) if it isn't a dead-end tunnel, then it wasn't worth the attempt in the first place, see point 2 above. hypnotic gaze is taking the place of a *low-value* no-resource action (casting a cantrip). barbarians have *high-value* no-resource actions available (that almost nothing is immune to), and generally speaking it's hard to believe that a low DC frighten effect is worth trading away that high-value no-resource action.

4) for the action cost, you'd better be getting more out of the ability than disadvantage on the enemy's attacks, and if you don't have plenty of ranged attacks available, you're not going to get anything better than disadvantage on the enemy's attacks.

5) meteor swarm is a typically high-DC spell that hits many targets, can be used from extreme range, still has an effect if the enemy makes a save. intimidating presence is a low-DC effect, meaning you're probably at best looking at a ~50% chance of success against *anything* remotely dangerous enough that 2-3 of them pose a threat to your party.

a 50% chance of removing 1/2 of the enemy from the fight (the case with 2 enemies) is worth 25% of the enemy's actions (if they have no ranged attacks, otherwise it's worth even less than that because their action is not made to be worth nothing, but maybe 1/3 of their action, which would mean you only got around 16% of their actions, and is worth yet even less if the enemy has a save-based ranged effect instead of an attack roll), and most likely costs 25% of a typical party's actions. against 3 enemies, it is only worth 16.5% of the enemy's actions. if you're going to get better value out of it than the cost, you'd pretty much better be looking at a solo enemy with a bad saving throw. it isn't a horrifically bad idea against 2 (but not 3) enemies if they don't have a good saving throw and they don't have ranged abilities they can use... but it also isn't particularly a better trade than you getting your action and that enemy getting their action.

intimidating presence is way too niche to be worth much of anything.

[Giant2005]

It is a control ability that doesn't break on damage, can be maintained indefinitely, and your target only gets a single save. That makes it one of the most powerful abilities in the game.
If your enemy has very little ranged capabilities, you use that ability and have everyone stand near the Barbarian while he sacrifices his action to keep the target from getting closer, and they plink him to death with ranged attacks. It is basically a save or die effect to anything that has weaker ranged options than your party.

[jas61292]

Do you also ignore the exhaustion penalty for Frenzy? Just trying to get a fuller picture of how it plays.

No, but that really has no effect on Intimidating presence. Exhaustion never effects your own save DCs or anything. So long as you are not at like... 4 levels of exhaustion, defensively it is a very sound tactic. And at less than 3, there is really nothing that is effecting you at all, with regard to this strategy.

As mentioned above though, it is always important to keep action economy in mind. People often look too hard at individual action economy, and not enough at overall action economy. If you are just thinking about yourself, then giving up your action to basically force your opponent to attack you at disadvantage might not sound that attractive. However, if, say, there are only two enemies, and you are locking one of them into attacking you at disadvantage for half damage (while potentially still being able to attack back with frenzy), you are sacraficing only a small fraction of your party's overall actions in order to mostly invalidate half of the enemy team's actions. And that is a huge win in the action economy.

Simply put, as with most things in D&D, how good something looks by itself is irrelevant. What matters is how good it works in the context of your full party.

[MaxWilson]

Now that is a useful scenario. Two-enemy fights aren't that rare, and it would combo nicely with extra movement.

Of course positioning-wise this means you are probably going to have to go in-between the two enemies, which means if the one guy makes his Wisdom save, you are now setting yourself up for the worst sandwich of all time.

Well, yeah. That's why Death Monks are better at this trick than Barbarians are. The Barbarian might not even be able to maintain his Rage (can't attack, might not get damaged), but the Death Monk can scare both creatures and still Dodge with Patient Defense.

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1) you are giving up your action and making no attacks. if you can't at least make sure the enemy is also making no attacks, then you probably haven't made a great trade.

This isn't really the case. What you need to evaluate is whether the reduction in enemy offense is worse than the reduction in PC offense. Let's say you're in a 10th level party up against a single Fire Giant (Medium fight). Let's say further that the lowest AC in your party is, oh, 15 (to pick a somewhat-realistic number). As a Barbarian, you're probably at least 25% of the party's damage output; let's call it 35% for sake of argument. If Intimidation succeeds against the Fire Giant's Wisdom +2 save, how much does that reduce the giant's damage output by?

Without fear, the giant makes two greatsword attacks at +11 for 6d6+7 each. That's an average of 49.70 points of damage including crits.
With fear, the giant makes one boulder attack at +11 with disadvantage for 4d10+7. That's 21.01 points of damage, a 57% reduction in damage.

Not to mention the other effects of controlling enemy movement: the Fire Giant is now limited to the amount of ammunition it has on hand ("A monster carries enough ammunition to make its ranged attacks. You can assume that a monster has 2d4 pieces of ammunition for a thrown weapon attack, and 2d10 pieces of ammunition for a projectile weapon such as a bow or crossbow."), and your squishiest guy can seek partial cover more easily because the enemy's movement is restricted. If the softest target is now AC 17, damage drops further to 16.37 points per round.

If there were two giants, it would be iffier: they go from (49.7*2) to (49.7 + 21.01) points of damage, which is only a 28.8% reduction in damage. In that case it really matters whether the Barbarian really is doing 35% of the party's damage or not.

[PoeticDwarf]

What do you use Intimidating Presence for? Not looking for theorycrafting so much as instances where you have actually used it at the table and found it useful.

Reading it as is I'm struggling to think of cases where I would use this for a few reasons:


Frightened makes characters refuse to come to closer to you. As a Barbarian this strikes me as the exact opposite of what I want enemies to do.
It takes an action to instigate and maintain. This means that unless I Frenzy, I can't attack anyone while I'm using it. Given that attacking is to a Barbarian as Peanut Butter is to Jelly, this seems like a steep trade.
The save is based off of Charisma, a stat that few Barbarians will be boosting. This isn't a knock against it's usefulness per se, just that I think enemies will have an easier and easier time resisting it as one levels, making it a less and less attractive option in combat.


Despite this, there are two cases where I think I could end up using it:


Frightened also makes enemies roll at disadvantage while they can see me. If I'm stuck or trapped, but still within sight and possessing an Action, I could use this to help my allies out.
Out of combat as a way to "power through" social situations. Granted the writing gives no hint that it is meant for anything other than combat, but I don't see any reason why you couldn't use it to get a town guard to move out of your way. Probably have some repercussions though.


These cases seem really niche to me, but I'm interested if you have seen them come up, or if I have massively misunderstood how Intimidating Presence is meant to be used.

It's pretty bad, but something to do without a weapon or something. You can scare a strong enemy (with a low save) while your team fights some minions first (they have crowd control and blasting probably). Sitll, due to the stat and fluff it isn't really good, but at least a barbarian can do something different

[Giant2005]

Well, yeah. That's why Death Monks are better at this trick than Barbarians are. The Barbarian might not even be able to maintain his Rage (can't attack, might not get damaged), but the Death Monk can scare both creatures and still Dodge with Patient Defense.

I think the Barbarian version is far superior.
The Monk version has two serious drawbacks:
1. Your targets get a save every round, which makes it much less reliable.
2. It affects your friends, and occasionally terrifying your friends has some serious consequences that apply even outside of battle - I sure wouldn't want to be friends with someone that I was terrified of.

[Grey Watcher]

It's best use is when facing lots of weaker opponents. By using intimidating presence you can exercise better control over how many opponents will be swinging at you per round. It's also great for creating a line in a passage that the opponents can't bring themselves to cross or effectively blocking a door.

Man, the "affects all within range" version just sounds so much cooler and cinematic. Not to mention making more in-universe sense.

By RAW you get: "Imma be really scary. To that one guy. No, not you next to him, you're fine. Just you, one guy."

But with this variant, you get that iconic scene where the Barbarian licks the blood off her axe, causing all the little goblins to flee in terror. All that's left is the one troll, ready to go one-on-one with the axe-swinging madwoman before him. She smiles and mutters "Perfect" before launching herself at him.

Yeah, I definitely like the latter version better.

[SharkForce]

It is a control ability that doesn't break on damage, can be maintained indefinitely, and your target only gets a single save. That makes it one of the most powerful abilities in the game.
If your enemy has very little ranged capabilities, you use that ability and have everyone stand near the Barbarian while he sacrifices his action to keep the target from getting closer, and they plink him to death with ranged attacks. It is basically a save or die effect to anything that has weaker ranged options than your party.

you mean, if your ONE enemy that has no allies (or only extremely weak allies) is either incredibly unlucky or has terrible wisdom saving throws?

because we're talking about a control ability that isn't even on the barbarian's third-most important attribute, and probably only isn't the least important because intelligence manages to be equally irrelevant in class features and less likely to come up because a lot of DMs don't make use of intelligence-based skills very often.

as i said below, a 50% shot at preventing 50% of the enemy's actions (which is about as good as you're going to get) is worth about 25% of the enemy's actions (less if they have ranged abilities at all). and the barbarian's action will frequently be 25% of the party's action resources.

your action for an enemy's action would be great if it was guaranteed. if this was an intimidate check opposed by an enemy's skill check of just about any kind, then it would be great. if the DC was strength-based, it would be pretty good. as a charisma based saving throw DC against a wisdom saving throw, it's not great on a barbarian.

there are too many factors that would make it not a good ability in too many situations. in the perfect dream scenario, sure it's pretty good. and while it doesn't break on damage, it can be trivially broken on the enemy's turn most of the time, and they're not likely to fail the ability again if you try to use it again.

it just isn't very good.

[Giant2005]

you mean, if your ONE enemy that has no allies (or only extremely weak allies) is either incredibly unlucky or has terrible wisdom saving throws?

because we're talking about a control ability that isn't even on the barbarian's third-most important attribute, and probably only isn't the least important because intelligence manages to be equally irrelevant in class features and less likely to come up because a lot of DMs don't make use of intelligence-based skills very often.

as i said below, a 50% shot at preventing 50% of the enemy's actions (which is about as good as you're going to get) is worth about 25% of the enemy's actions (less if they have ranged abilities at all). and the barbarian's action will frequently be 25% of the party's action resources.

your action for an enemy's action would be great if it was guaranteed. if this was an intimidate check opposed by an enemy's skill check of just about any kind, then it would be great. if the DC was strength-based, it would be pretty good. as a charisma based saving throw DC against a wisdom saving throw, it's not great on a barbarian.

there are too many factors that would make it not a good ability in too many situations. in the perfect dream scenario, sure it's pretty good. and while it doesn't break on damage, it can be trivially broken on the enemy's turn most of the time, and they're not likely to fail the ability again if you try to use it again.

it just isn't very good.

Sure. If you dump Charisma, then any Charisma ability you have is going to be crap. The same is true of any character that uses Charisma.
Its main flaw is the fact that is comes too late to be built around. If you are sure that you are going to be level 10 extremely fast, then it is a great ability and well worth investing Charisma for. Ordinarily you are right though - I wouldn't build for something that arrives so late in the game.

[N810]

After 14 levels I have only used it 2 or 3 times,
I would rather it let me recover exhaustion on a short rest or something like that.

[SharkForce]

Sure. If you dump Charisma, then any Charisma ability you have is going to be crap. The same is true of any character that uses Charisma.
Its main flaw is the fact that is comes too late to be built around. If you are sure that you are going to be level 10 extremely fast, then it is a great ability and well worth investing Charisma for. Ordinarily you are right though - I wouldn't build for something that arrives so late in the game.

if you dump charisma? it's only 5th place in importance of attributes for a barbarian because most DMs will have required int checks come up slightly less often. without that, it would be tied for last place.

barbarians already want strength (for attack and because their class has a bunch of strength-oriented features) dex (for AC and saves), con (for hit points and saves), and wisdom (for perception and saves) before they want charisma or intelligence. if you're not dumping charisma, you're probably doing so at the expense of being a much more effective barbarian in general.

[SaintRidley]

it'll probably be useful when I make my pro wrestler character. Don't want to be getting into too many handicap matches, brother.

[jas61292]

if you dump charisma? it's only 5th place in importance of attributes for a barbarian because most DMs will have required int checks come up slightly less often. without that, it would be tied for last place.

barbarians already want strength (for attack and because their class has a bunch of strength-oriented features) dex (for AC and saves), con (for hit points and saves), and wisdom (for perception and saves) before they want charisma or intelligence. if you're not dumping charisma, you're probably doing so at the expense of being a much more effective barbarian in general.

This is just silly. Its a core ability of the berserker, and it needs charisma. THAT is why you don't dump charisma. If you don't take a stat for your ability, of course that ability is bad. But basically ignoring its existence and then complaining when you dumped its stat is silly.

Honestly, I see no reason not to take it as your second highest stat. Strength you need, of course, but who cares about Dex? You are recklessly attacking anyways and are going to be hit. Con is obviously necessary for everyone, but you already have a ton of HP, and there is no reason it can't also be secondary. And wisdom... well, you don't want it to be terrible, but its not exactly necessary. It that stat that you always would like to have, but takes a back seat to anything you actually need for your class, which includes Charisma.

[Osrogue]

Compare to fey patron warlock feature fey presence, which has shorter range, but affects everything in a 10 foot cube until the end of the locks next turn, which means if they fail the save they can't break it on their turn, and the lock will get to take action the next turn on a still frightened target(s). And the save is against their normal spell DC which should be high anyway.

My gnome fey-lock can scare the crap out of your berserker barbarian, 2 of his friends, and literally the horse he rode in on.

No, he can't. That's a funny image though, but Berserkers don't have to worry about fear or other dangerous mental effects after level 6. So you'd just be entering the melee range of a barbarian.

I think the shocked look on the warlock's face after the barbarian smacks him with an axe is funnier.

[MaxWilson]

I think the Barbarian version is far superior.
The Monk version has two serious drawbacks:
1. Your targets get a save every round, which makes it much less reliable.
2. It affects your friends, and occasionally terrifying your friends has some serious consequences that apply even outside of battle - I sure wouldn't want to be friends with someone that I was terrified of.

Heh. Considering the personal habits and interests of Death Monks, I think it's safe to believe that you'll be terrifying your friends with or without making use of that ability.

BTW, "targets get a save every round" is a wash, because those who succeeded before ALSO have to re-save. If there are 10 targets and each one has a 30% chance to save, then 7 of them will be afraid each round--unless the ones who fail their saves run off on their turns, in which case they are out of the combat for at least two rounds (one to Dash away, one to Dash back) and perhaps permanently.

If the Barbarians's fear were an AoE, he would likewise be scaring 7 of the 10 targets each round, exactly the same as the monk. But of course, it's not AoE, so really he only scares 0.7 targets.

The monk's version is better.

================


Man, the "affects all within range" version just sounds so much cooler and cinematic. Not to mention making more in-universe sense.

By RAW you get: "Imma be really scary. To that one guy. No, not you next to him, you're fine. Just you, one guy."

But with this variant, you get that iconic scene where the Barbarian licks the blood off her axe, causing all the little goblins to flee in terror. All that's left is the one troll, ready to go one-on-one with the axe-swinging madwoman before him. She smiles and mutters "Perfect" before launching herself at him.

Yeah, I definitely like the latter version better.

You are persuasive, sir.

================


as i said below, a 50% shot at preventing 50% of the enemy's actions (which is about as good as you're going to get) is worth about 25% of the enemy's actions (less if they have ranged abilities at all). and the barbarian's action will frequently be 25% of the party's action resources.

There's something wrong with your accounting. You're computing that 25% as if it's a guaranteed loss of 25% of the party's action resources; but you're discounting the effect by 50% based on 50% chance of success. But the Barbarian will not continue expending effort for no effect--there's only a 50% chance he will continue consuming actions after the first round.

In short, your method of counting is only accurate for a one-round combat.

[Giant2005]

if you dump charisma? it's only 5th place in importance of attributes for a barbarian because most DMs will have required int checks come up slightly less often. without that, it would be tied for last place.

barbarians already want strength (for attack and because their class has a bunch of strength-oriented features) dex (for AC and saves), con (for hit points and saves), and wisdom (for perception and saves) before they want charisma or intelligence. if you're not dumping charisma, you're probably doing so at the expense of being a much more effective barbarian in general.

That is all true if you are building a traditional naked Barbarian. However that is far from the only way to build a Barb.
If were playing a game where I could expect to get this ability in a reasonable amount of time (like we were starting at level 10), then obviously the stat priorities would be different.
I'd limit Dex to 14, Strength would be my first priority, Charisma second, and Con third.

[Tanarii]

There's something wrong with your accounting. You're computing that 25% as if it's a guaranteed loss of 25% of the party's action resources; but you're discounting the effect by 50% based on 50% chance of success. But the Barbarian will not continue expending effort for no effect--there's only a 50% chance he will continue consuming actions after the first round.

In short, your method of counting is only accurate for a one-round combat.It also fails to account for the Barbarians less than 100% chance to succeed in follow up actions. Unless you want to account purely for DPR, in which case a Barbarian will almost certainly be more than 25% of a 4 member parties DPR.



Honestly, I see no reason not to take it as your second highest stat.

That is all true if you are building a traditional naked Barbarian. However that is far from the only way to build a Barb.
If were playing a game where I could expect to get this ability in a reasonable amount of time (like we were starting at level 10), then obviously the stat priorities would be different.
I'd limit Dex to 14, Strength would be my first priority, Charisma second, and Con third.
Almost no one is going to do this. Cha will be (at best) tied with Dex at 14 for most Barbarians, but usually it will be 12 or lower. Assuming a Standard array, for any race that doesn't have either +1 Dex / +2 Cha or +2 Dex / +1 Cha (Half-Elf or Lf Halfling), it will be the 4th stat, at 12. And it's not going to get any ASI.

If you roll stats and get uber-high stats, it might be a different matter.

[Giant2005]

Almost no one is going to do this. Cha will be (at best) tied with Dex at 14 for most Barbarians, but usually it will be 12 or lower. Assuming a Standard array, for any race that doesn't have either +1 Dex / +2 Cha or +2 Dex / +1 Cha (Half-Elf or Lf Halfling), it will be the 4th stat, at 12. And it's not going to get any ASI.

That is a self-fulfilling prophecy.
The ability sucks for you because you think it sucks. To those that value the ability, it won't suck because they will actually have the Charisma to support it.

[Tanarii]

That is a self-fulfilling prophecy.
The ability sucks for you because you think it sucks. To those that value the ability, it won't suck because they will actually have the Charisma to support it.

It not a self-fulfilling prophecy so much as not intentionally unoptimiaizng your Barbarian. Ie optimizing your barbarian to be better at one rather lackluster ability and worse at the entire rest of his class role.

Regardless, my point was simpler: almost no one will do it. It may be a nice little bonus for the few that choose to, but they'll be in a vast minority.

[jas61292]

It also fails to account for the Barbarians less than 100% chance to succeed in follow up actions. Unless you want to account purely for DPR, in which case a Barbarian will almost certainly be more than 25% of a 4 member parties DPR.



Almost no one is going to do this. Cha will be (at best) tied with Dex at 14 for most Barbarians, but usually it will be 12 or lower. Assuming a Standard array, for any race that doesn't have either +1 Dex / +2 Cha or +2 Dex / +1 Cha (Half-Elf or Lf Halfling), it will be the 4th stat, at 12. And it's not going to get any ASI.

If you roll stats and get uber-high stats, it might be a different matter.

Seriously, I don't get this at all. Who cares about having 14 Dex? Your AC is mediocre, you will be recklessly attacking, and one of your major goals should be to be drawing attacks away from your allies, since you take only 50% from all physical attacks. I mean, sure, if I had the stat points for it, I wouldn't mind having 14 Dex, but that is like one of the absolute lowest priorities.

Sure, if you are thinking of yourself in isolation, Dex is good, but if you are, you are failing to understand D&D. In a team, the lockdown ability of Intimidating Presence is actually really useful in any combat involving a small number of opponents. As Giant2005 said, you are making it a self fulfilling prophecy by ignoring its value and the value of Charisma.

[Tanarii]

Seriously, I don't get this at all. Who cares about having 14 Dex? Your AC is mediocre, you will be recklessly attacking, and one of your major goals should be to be drawing attacks away from your allies, since you take only 50% from all physical attacks. I mean, sure, if I had the stat points for it, I wouldn't mind having 14 Dex, but that is like one of the absolute lowest priorities.Reckless attack already draws attacks away from your allies. There's no reason to give away free hit points on top of that.

But sure, call it 5% greater damage taken for 5% chance greater sticking Intimidating Presence. Dex 12 and Cha 14 instead of Dex 14 and Cha 12.


you are failing to understand D&DYour tendency to use hyperbole is noted. :smalltongue: (I do to, so this is just poking some fun.)

[jas61292]

Your tendency to use hyperbole is noted. :smalltongue: (I do to, so this is just poking some fun.)

Oh, of course. Hyperbole, in at least some situations, can be a fantastic device for making a point. You just need to be careful of when, and how often you do so.

Though, my use here does get at something that really does bug me about a lot of "optimization" posts all around the internet. People have a tendency to think of characters being optimized in isolation, only thinking about team role if absolutely necessary. An ability to take or do more damage, or get more actions or whatever for yourself always sounds great, but making a sacrifice of those things to improve the overall quality of the team is generally the more "optimized" thing. But people don't usually look for that.

Now, that is not surprising in the least. Just as people love looking at burst damage even when it is not always the best measure of power, people love looking at personal strength, even when it is not that important. Its just human nature. But that doesn't mean it is the best way to look at things.

[SharkForce]

There's something wrong with your accounting. You're computing that 25% as if it's a guaranteed loss of 25% of the party's action resources; but you're discounting the effect by 50% based on 50% chance of success. But the Barbarian will not continue expending effort for no effect--there's only a 50% chance he will continue consuming actions after the first round.

In short, your method of counting is only accurate for a one-round combat.

there's nothing wrong with my accounting. if the barbarian stops using the ability, the enemy gets to keep all their actions too. if the barbarian succeeds, the enemy can potentially make use of their action (ranged attacks, etc) and just walks away unless they're in a dead-end tunnel, the ability runs out, and we're right back to the barbarian needing to spend an action for a 50% chance to actually do anything at all, having negated one enemy turn with one of his own.


That is all true if you are building a traditional naked Barbarian. However that is far from the only way to build a Barb.
If were playing a game where I could expect to get this ability in a reasonable amount of time (like we were starting at level 10), then obviously the stat priorities would be different.
I'd limit Dex to 14, Strength would be my first priority, Charisma second, and Con third.

you could do that, but it's pretty unoptimized to unspecialize in something you're going to use regularly so that you could specialize in something that is almost never a good use of your action.

and for the record, setting dex to 14 and saying it's going to be your *fourth* most important stat... yeah, not happening. your fourth-highest attribute is not going to be a 14 unless you rolled for attributes and got stupid lucky. a 14 means it was probably your second or third most important stat. you know, right in the area i said it would be.

as for reckless attacks meaning you should ignore AC... i couldn't disagree more. if you have a 40% chance to get hit regularly, reckless attack turns that into a 64% chance. if you have a 50% chance of getting hit normally, reckless attack turns that into a 75% chance. if you have a 60% chance of getting hit, reckless attack turns that into a 84% chance. a +2 AC is shifting your chance to get hit by nearly the same amount under enemy advantage (near the middle of the die) as it is without enemy advantage. if it's worth anything for anyone else, it's worth something to your barbarian. also, you never know when something will give the enemy disadvantage and cancel out their advantage.

even if we go out to the ends of the spectrum, a 70% chance to get hit turns into an 91% chance of being hit while an 80% chance turns into a 96% chance, which makes it equal in value to +1 AC if your enemy didn't have advantage, and is still pretty worthwhile. (and if your AC is so bad that you're more likely to get hit than that, your effective HP is probably not as much better than the wizard as you think it is). this all assumes you're wearing medium armour, of course. again, you're not plausibly getting 14 dex on an array or point buy character as your fourth-most important ability, and it's only happening on rolls if you rolled ridiculously well.

as for berserker ignoring all dangerous wisdom-based conditions... eh, not so much. charm and frighten is a lot of conditions, but wisdom can also protect from sleep, confusion, curses, slow, things that deal psychic damage with a rider (vicious mockery, phantasmal killer/weird), and a handful of mind control effects that do not apply the charmed status (a variety of spells, typically they compel one specific action, like command or tasha's uncontrollable hideous laughter). also the hold person/monster spell, and polymorph. it resists a lot of unpleasant things, and it's certainly better to have immunity than to only rely on a +2 save bonus (or whatever). immunity to fear and charm (only while raging, but still better than no immunity) is great, but there's still quite a few extremely unpleasant things that can happen to you if you dump wisdom. and of course, there's a lot more things that can happen if you dump wisdom and are not currently raging (say, because someone used a command spell to make you flee for the round, which you aren't immune to, causing you to drop your rage).

i'd much rather have some extra chance that an eyebite isn't going to put me to sleep, or a symbol won't stun me for a minute, than be marginally better off in the unlikely event that there is one non-trivial enemy that has a terrible wisdom save and no immunity to fear (and no ability to disregard the effects, such as being able to strike from surprise and then teleport away) right in front of me. no, eyebite and symbol aren't *that* common, but if there's a single enemy with a terrible wisdom save and no immunities facing the party, odds are that it was already a trivial encounter. giving up specialization in *actual* core aspects of the barbarian (like being able to shrug off damage because of high constitution, or deal more damage because of high strength, or amazing synergy with great weapon mastery) so that i could use the ability in the extremely limited scenarios where it's better than just hitting things with an axe doesn't sound great to me.

[Mellack]

The Oathbreaker gets what I think is a much better version of this power. Comes active at 3rd level. Gets everyone who you choose within 30 feet, and lasts a minute. Downside is only once per short rest, and still a short range. Still not great, but seems better than the barbarian one and much sooner.

[TripleD]

First off, thanks for all the replies and comments.

Based on the suggestions here, I came up with a re-tooling of Intimidating Presence that I call "Tough Customer". I made it as part of my general re-write of the Beserker:

-----------

Tough Customer
Starting at level 6, you may expend one rage in order to add your CON modifier to any Intimidation attempt for one minute. Any creature which fails a WIS check (or Insight check, at the DMs discretion) against your Intimidation is now Frightened. At the end of said minute, you may expend an additional rage: any Frightened creatures attempt another WIS check. Upon success they are no longer Frightened, otherwise they remain Frightened for an additional minute.
Any creature which succeeds on a WIS check is immune to Tough Customer for 24 hours.

------------

The basic idea is: "rage for social encounters". It gives you a way to use the mechanic when you are stuck in town, or just in a situation where your rages would normally be sitting unused.

Tying it to a skill check does two things:

If you have proficiency in Intimidation the skill will continue to grow, even if you don't use any ASIs to increase CHA
It sends a subtle hint that this is meant more for out-of-combat than in


I made CON the bonus because I see rage as more of an expression of vigor and energy, but the case could be made for STR instead.

Bumped the level you get it from 10 to 6 because it feels like it would be more useful in that tier.

This is still usable in combat. It requires an action to Frighten a creature, via an Intimidation check, but it is free to maintain and has no save-per-turn. But it does burn through rages, a very limited resource that you need for combat in general, so that acts a discouragement from making it a go-to action all the time.

Things get a bit goofy at level 20, with unlimited rages, but in a way it makes sense that your epic-level Beserker could theoretically keep the entire world permanently afraid of them.

[Giant2005]

Tough Customer
Starting at level 6, you may expend one rage in order to add your CON modifier to any Intimidation attempt for one minute. Any creature which fails a WIS check (or Insight check, at the DMs discretion) against your Intimidation is now Frightened. At the end of said minute, you may expend an additional rage: any Frightened creatures attempt another WIS check. Upon success they are no longer Frightened, otherwise they remain Frightened for an additional minute.
Any creature which succeeds on a WIS check is immune to Tough Customer for 24 hours.


That is a little bit OP.
You can't give the Barb a control ability that lasts a minute from one failed save without some form of opportunity cost. Either the Barb needs to give up his action each round to maintain it, or the victims need to get a fresh save each round.

[MaxWilson]

That is a little bit OP.
You can't give the Barb a control ability that lasts a minute from one failed save without some form of opportunity cost. Either the Barb needs to give up his action each round to maintain it, or the victims need to get a fresh save each round.

Doesn't necessarily need to be "each round". It could be "each round, under certain conditions" like the Fear spell.


3rd-level illusion

Casting Time: 1 action
Range: Self (30-foot cone)
Components: V, S, M (a white feather or the heart of a hen)
Duration: Concentration, up to 1 minute

You project a phantasmal image of a creature’s worst fears. Each creature in a 30-foot cone must succeed on a Wisdom saving throw or drop whatever it is holding and become frightened for the duration.

While frightened by this spell, a creature must take the Dash action and move away from you by the safest available route on each of its turns, unless there is nowhere to move. If the creature ends its turn in a location where it doesn’t have line of sight to you, the creature can make a Wisdom saving throw. On a successful save, the spell ends for that creature.

You could use the exact same condition for this ability (re-checks when not in line of sight) and it would be fine.

Saving throws might be better than Intimidation checks though, lest Expertise/Bardic Inspiration shenanigans become a thing to bypass legendary resistance and frighten ancient dragons/etc. I know that Swashbucklers get to bypass Legendary Resistance with Panache, so if you really like your rewritten Intimidation you could keep it based on that precedent, but fear is a stronger control effect than Panache is (includes movement prohibitions and disadvantage on ability checks). So, be forewarned that checks are easier to min/max than saves are. If you really want barbarians to be potentially capable of scaring ancient dragons, then great, go to town with this.

[TripleD]

That is a little bit OP.

I was worried about that. The original version was just a bonus to Intimidation; kept it purely social. But then someone in the Homebrew section pointed out that the ability to impose "Frightened" is the only status-change ability that the Beserker gets, so cutting it out meant leaving it with damage dealing as the only way to deal with situations.



You can't give the Barb a control ability that lasts a minute from one failed save without some form of opportunity cost. Either the Barb needs to give up his action each round to maintain it, or the victims need to get a fresh save each round.

Good point. I've added a means, as per Max Wilson's suggestion, for the enemy to break the condition. I would like to avoid framing this in "rounds" though; doing so kind of implies that it's a combat ability, while I'd like it to stay out-of-combat as much as possible. There may be no way around that though, and I may be reading too much into the wording.



Doesn't necessarily need to be "each round". It could be "each round, under certain conditions" like the Fear spell.


I like that idea a lot. It "feels" right, and adds a mechanic to break the fear. Here's how I see it working:

Tough Customer
Starting at level 6, you may, as an action, expend one rage in order to add your CON modifier to any Intimidation attempt for one minute. Any creature which fails a WIS saving throw (or Insight check, at the DMs discretion) against your Intimidation check is now Frightened until the end of said minute. If the creature moves out of line of sight they are no longer Frightened.
Any creature which succeeds on a WIS check is immune to Tough Customer for 24 hours.

Still feels like a social skill, but adds a means to break it.



Saving throws might be better than Intimidation checks though, lest Expertise/Bardic Inspiration shenanigans become a thing to bypass legendary resistance and frighten ancient dragons/etc. I know that Swashbucklers get to bypass Legendary Resistance with Panache, so if you really like your rewritten Intimidation you could keep it based on that precedent, but fear is a stronger control effect than Panache is (includes movement prohibitions and disadvantage on ability checks). So, be forewarned that checks are easier to min/max than saves are. If you really want barbarians to be potentially capable of scaring ancient dragons, then great, go to town with this.


Good advice. Especially the part about the swashbucklers; I am not familiar with that subclass.

I feel like if any creature should be capable of scaring an ancient dragons, it should be a high level Beserker. I have changed it to a saving throw though, so that Big Bads will have the option of using Legendary Resistance against it.

The condition you described, that Bard/Barbarian will get a much stronger use out of this ability than pure Barbarian, to the point where skill contests can be automatically won, does worry me. I want to keep it a skill check so that, with proficiency, the Barbarian will continue to get better at it despite being in a skill governed by a stat they normally dump. That and it just feels right; what else should "Intimidation" be used for if not cowing people?

Here's how I find the numbers break down at level 20:


Class Combination
Intimidation via Tough Customer


Barbarian 20
+13


Bard 14/Barbarian 6
+17


Barbarian 17/Bard 3
+19


Barbarian 19/ Rogue 1
+19



This assumes that the build is primarily Barbarian with a CHA score of 10 and maxed out CON.

Multi-classing shows a huge number jump. But it does deny you access to unlimited rages and Primal Champion (+4 to STR and CON with a max of 24), both of which are very nice capstones. I feel like its a decent trade-off if you want to make a build that is centered around frightening people.

[MaxWilson]

Good point. I've added a means, as per Max Wilson's suggestion, for the enemy to break the condition. I would like to avoid framing this in "rounds" though; doing so kind of implies that it's a combat ability, while I'd like it to stay out-of-combat as much as possible. There may be no way around that though, and I may be reading too much into the wording.

The artificial (and modal) distinction between combat and non-combat is an artifact of the cyclic initiative system. If you toss cyclic initiative in favor of something more simultaneous and organic, you can blur the distinction between combat and noncombat action declarations in a way that may satisfy the aesthetic you seek.

I've had combats that last for hours of game-time, like a WWI battle--long enough that one of the PCs actually had time to stabilize on his death saves and then wake up at 1 HP (a couple of hours later), while the other PCs spent the whole time playing Mexican Standoff with a Spirit Naga waiting to see who would blink first (i.e. attempt an action that left them vulnerable to massive counterattack from everyone else). It was a little silly because you probably can't really stay in combat, hair-trigger mode for that long without going psychotic, but also fun, and definitely illustrated a case that blurred the distinction between combat and non-combat: instead of declaring actions on a round by round basis, everyone just declared an action/intention, and the DM (me) told them what happened over the course of the next several hours, which is exactly how things happen outside of combat too. Nobody asks the PCs every six seconds to re-declare a "walk forward" action while they are travelling--you just go until something changes the situation.