Using Intimidate to avoid combat?

[Mixt]

On one end you have a highly intelligent monster, or mooks, or just some random thugs.

On the other end we have the spellcaster with +43 to Intimidate.
First thing that happens, turn into a giant dragon and roar in their faces while rolling an Intimidate check.

Giant snarling dragon roaring in your face (Something about circumstance bonuses) and a +43 bonus to Intimidate.

Combat averted as the enemies basically piss themselves and run away screaming.

Problem is, this tends to leave the rest of the party with nothing to do since all the enemies keep running in the other direction screaming their heads off.
And before anyone says "Mindless monsters don't get scared" the vast majority of the enemies here are of the humanoid variety, with a small number of highly intelligent monsters.

So the questions here are.
1) How do you deal with someone who does that all the goddamn time, leaving the rest of the party with nothing to fight, without resorting to enemies that are incapable of fear?
2) Does anyone else have experience with this sort of thing? As in, have you or anyone you know ever tried to solve all your problems by scaring your foes into submission?

And before anyone asks, no, i am not the DM, i'm just asking on his behalf.

[legomaster00156]

One word: Dragonslayers.

[The Glyphstone]

Well, there's following the rules first - Intimidate in combat only makes someone Shaken, and it only lasts for 1 round, so unless he can take multiple standard actions in a turn, he'll never make them run away.


Failing that, you can always use the 'Bad Boss' reasoning - the mooks or thugs are slaves and minions of someone else, whose punishment for returning alive and unsuccessful is worse than death no matter how scary the enemy is.

[Provengreil]

yep, people that wanna try to kill dragons will fight anyway. other solutions:

-no loot. if nobody died, you gain XP but no gp because all the loot went running off in different directions. and we all know how bad being too far under your gp value is.

-enemies that know the PC's trick. they believe(for better or worse) that the intimidate is really just a bluff, and fight anyway(maybe with a penalty of some sort...shaken, perhaps?). not all the time, but a recurring villian would know this for sure.

-fearless but also intelligent enemies. sentient undead, paladins if the party is evil, etc. again, let the intimidate work sometimes, but sometimes it won't.

the best solution would be talking to the player, i think. he's overshadowing the party and not letting them do anything, which is frankly bad form.


As for having experience with this sort of thing, I really can't say i do, but i can say that a +43 to a skill sounds a bit like a one-trick pony thing. i hate DMing for those because you either let the player use an I win button, or have him be rather useless, which is often followed by complaining. If you can't talk him out of doing this, i'd say play up the immunity thing enough that he's forced to branch out. recurring enemies get their hands on fearless golems, clever enemies trick them into fighting a ooze somehow, and join mid combat, idk.

[Traab]

Dragon boy steps on a stone trigger, walls drop down trapping him alone in a room. Hidden doors open, and 50 adamantine golems or some other construct type creature that has no ability to feel fear walk out and crush him like a bug. Dm informs him that if he rolls another intimidate character or a diplomancer, rocks will start falling with depressing regularity.

Honestly, I dont understand the mind set of players who do things like this. It would be neat as a once in awhile trick, or as a trump card to help escape a tpk scenario, but to cheese the hell out of your character so much that you do one thing over and over to insta win? Its like putting in a god mode code on a video game. Sure for about 15 minutes its awesome, but then you get bored and have ruined the game.

Plus there is the added disadvantage of dealing with player reactions. In a video game, if you put in a cheat code, thats it, in D&D if you do something like that, the dm has the ability to stop it, but if he does, the player starts crying about the mean old dm targeting him because suddenly all the monsters are undead, or enthralled, or mind controlled, or are some other method of not feeling fear. But the dm has no choice. Its either make the game stupid and pointless for everyone else, or break your one trick pony that is ruining the game for everyone. So basically, by making a character like this, you are forcing conflict between the players and the dm.

[valadil]

I have no objection to someone playing a character who tries to avoid lethal combat. What I do object to is using the same tactic repeatedly.

Have the enemies tried intimidating the PCs? It sounds like the wizard starts talking smack and then the enemies run away. What happens if an enemy also tries to intimidate?

If the enemies are intimidated, where do they run to? I don't really care about wandering monsters, but what about the assassins the BBEG sent to slay the PCs. They go back empty handed and tell the BBEG about the badass dragon they saw. BBEG still wants the players dead, so he sends something tougher that won't be intimidated as easily. I've seen this happen in literature more often than gaming, but if the players act like they're tougher than they are, eventually they'll get in over their heads.

How about some combats where you actually do have to kill the enemy? Most games have a MacGuffin or two. Instead of putting it in a dungeon, put it in the bad guy's pocket. If the players scare him away, they can't retrieve it without a fight.

Finally, if it gets really bad you could always rewrite the intimidate rules. The bonus per size category looks like it was written for trolls talking down to humans. Or even dragons talking down. But they probably didn't think about polymorphing into a dragon for purposes of an intimidate bonus.

I'd consider writing up an intimidate chart that uses margin of success to determine how intimidated someone is. I'd also consider giving a bonus based on size of group. Intimidating five individuals shouldn't be the same difficulty as intimidating a five person group.

[legomaster00156]

Valadil has good ideas. In addition, make sure that the big, tough, no-fear monster is something with some decent saves and Spell Resistance... but have it weak to a few tactics that other characters could pull off quite easily.

[prufock]

1) Follow the rules. Unless you've left some things out, this doesn't work the way you think it does.

Intimidate to demoralize only makes characters shaken. They take a penalty, but do not run away. You can only demoralize one creature that you threaten in combat, without use of feats/skill tricks/class features to change that. It takes a standard action unless built to avoid that.

Assuming you mean to stack the dragon's frightful presence on top of demoralizing, you don't get (Ex) special qualities with anything less than Shapechange without some feat/class ability combinations. If you have 9th level spells MOOKS should not be a problem. Also there's a will save, as there is with most fear effects.

Shaken only lasts one round. Other fear conditions usually only last until they can't perceive you any more.

2) Well, I'm playing a Sorcerer/Dread Witch/Nightmare Spinner/Mage of the Arcane Order right now, with a +61 to intimidate, the ability to use fear effects on things normally immune, Fell Frighten, and the skill trick to demoralize several creatures at once, along with all the other goodies associated with those classes. I stack fear effects to escalate. My bread and butter is making people ascared.

The DM deals with this by giving us multiple enemies that are spaced out, buffing will saves, using high-HD enemies (the ability to overcome fear immunity has a cap), using story elements that interfere with the intimidate tactic, and so on.

If the player isn't using a Dread Witch build, there are many ways to get morale buffs (bard, Heroism) or immunity to fear (paladins, Mind Blank). Debuffing the character using intimidate works as well (Feeblemind, Touch of Idiocy).

Of course the DM does complain from time to time that my character is hard to handle. Not just the fear effects, but because I opted for versatility in my late-level spell selection - Greater Shadow Conjuration, Limited Wish, Polymorph Any Object. I also have a few handy items. But we're playing at 19th level - we should be difficult to handle.

[NOhara24]

As a DM, my solution would be this.

"The party of humans you are facing had their hometown razed by a dragon. They're not only unafraid of dragons as a whole, you just gave them +5 to Attack Bonuses and Saves for the duration of the fight."

It's not telling him "No, don't ever do that again." but at the same time, it would give him a reason to think twice. Although, this could be something that you were hoping he would just stop doing. In that case, just have it lead to combat no matter what. Example:

Last session my character rolled a ~35 on an intimidate check against a group of guards (humanoid) that we were supposed to retrieve stolen goods from. The DM actually said that because I rolled so high, they took my character offering them a body massage as an act of aggression vs. attempting to avoid combat by way of trying to scare them off.

(Explanation as to why offering a massage can be intimidating - my character wields a Large Full Blade. Engraved on it, in pink, is the text "Who wants a body massage?" If anyone has watched the redubbed GI joe clips...you know what I'm talking about.)

[Grendus]

If you're facing CR appropriate enemies with a +41 intimidate modifier, they shouldn't be scared spitless by a mere dragon. Presuming 'giant' means 'Huge' in terms of size, the caster has to be level 19 and using Shapechange to turn into a Young Adult Red Dragon. That's the lowest hit die huge sized dragon I could find.

This is no more game breaking than diplomancy. If you can turn into a 'huge dragon', there are more useful things you could be doing with your spells than intimidation.

[Chaos rising]

This player that turns into a dragon, is it an illusion or are they literally becoming a dragon when they perform their intimidate check? If it's an illusion then dragonslayers wouldn't work, as the player could just "turn" into something else menacing instead of a dragon.

If the transformation dragon is all they can do, I would have a high level dragon slayer show up in town, not immediately attacking them. Then have NPCs talk about how said dragon slayer, and how he is looking for the large dragon that has been appearing at random around the area. If a hint like that doesn't work, then you have given them fair warning and are justified in throwing said slayer at them.

Edit: Or, you said that the enemies the group was facing were highly intelligent monsters or humans? Then have them track the party and sneak attack them, wearing magic items that protect from intimidate or are effective against dragons. It only makes sense that a foe would take steps to nullify an opponents strengths, and this way you can show that scaring an enemy away is a temporary solution and will only result in them coming back better prepared and with the element of surprise.

[Hiro Protagonest]

Your player convinced you he gets a circumstance bonus for turning into a dragon? And can make them flee with one standard action? And it works on all of them at once?

Have fleeing creatures join their allies in the next room if you continue to put up with this.

[Cespenar]

Only mooks should be afraid of such a tactic anyway.

Have the bad guys send their "elite troops" or whatever their equivalent is, and job done.

If the guy is using that to scare bandits or other low level mooks only, he's doing right. The party shouldn't waste time with such encounters anyway.

If the enemies are "intelligent", however, simply let them retreat and observe the group from afar. They should at some point note that the dragon is just a transformation, not the genuine article, and then take the according action.

[Mixt]

The dragon is a illusion, a rather elaborate one at that.


The reasoning behind the opponents having a panic attack goes like this.
1) You are about to attack the party, thinking that this shouldn't be so bad, after all, the last few groups your boss wanted dead went down with minimal effort, why would these guys be any different?

2) Next thing you know there's a big fire-breathing lizard roaring in your face.
Shock factor is a bitch like that.

3) OHSHIZDRAGONRUN!

And so the mooks keep fleeing in terror.


The problem is that about 80% of all encounters are mooks, bandits, or other little things meant to wear us down through sheer numbers before the big stuff shows up.
So he's basically hogging 80% of the encounters for himself with that trick.
Darn it, leave something for the rest of us!

This also means that we only get loot from the remaining 20% of the encounters, which causes problems even though those 20% give significantly more loot by virtue of being elites or bosses.

Sure, it won't keep working forever, since the higher-ups are bound to start informing people of this trick and telling the mooks to not fall for it, but spreading that around may take a while, as in, several more weeks of in-game time before everyone knows about it, due to lack of magical long-distance communication in the setting and the sheer size of the organization.

Me: Dude, you need to stop doing that.
DM: Yeah, you are supposed to be killing these guys and taking their stuff...or beat the stuffing out of them and force information out of them, not send them screaming in terror.
Him: But it's funny watching the incompetent fools tripping over each other while trying to get away!
Me: You realize that this is gonna come back to bite us in the ass once they realize what you are doing right?
Him: Eh, we deal with it when we get there, besides, they are incompetent mooks, what's the worst they could do?

When "The Big Stuff" shows up though, he reverts to blaster mode.
He seems to realize that "The Big Stuff" is not going to fall for it, probably because he already tried it on one of them and failed miserably.

DM: The Bandit King is not amused.
Two rounds later.
DM: He is attempting to strangle you to death, make a fortitude save.

...I probably could have explained this better in the first post
I blame my abbysmal Wisdom and Charisma scores!

[Hiro Protagonest]

Tell the DM that the most logical thing for them to do is have the mooks run to their allies, take out backup ranged weapons, and have double (or all) the number of mooks in the nest encounter, all firing arrows at the party from 100 feet away. And if the wizard takes out a good number of them with a blast spell while the rest of the party is taking out bows, the DM says "after watching a fireball take out a lot of their allies and seeing everyone but the guy without armor taking out bows, they put 2 and 2 together and all fire at the wizard".

[Treblain]

Real dragons should show up, angry at the wizard for daring to pose as one of them. They form an alliance with the bad guys, which provides you with challenging enemies and ensures that the enemy armies are no longer intimidated by dragons, since they know that the dragons are on their side.

[Emmerask]

Real dragons should show up, angry at the wizard for daring to pose as one of them. They form an alliance with the bad guys, which provides you with challenging enemies and ensures that the enemy armies are no longer intimidated by dragons, since they know that the dragons are on their side.

I like it, maybe not the form alliance part, that would depend on the villain but yeah the dragons maybe really pissed about some lowly human wizard using their reputation ^^

[prufock]

The dragon is a illusion, a rather elaborate one at that.

The reasoning behind the opponents having a panic attack goes like this.
1) You are about to attack the party, thinking that this shouldn't be so bad, after all, the last few groups your boss wanted dead went down with minimal effort, why would these guys be any different?

2) Next thing you know there's a big fire-breathing lizard roaring in your face.
Shock factor is a bitch like that.

3) OHSHIZDRAGONRUN!

And so the mooks keep fleeing in terror.

This is a DM call and thus a DM problem. As said before, the rules don't work that way. Also, if it's an illusion the mooks should be getting a will save.

[Geddoe]

As a DM, my solution would be this.

"The party of humans you are facing had their hometown razed by a dragon. They're not only unafraid of dragons as a whole, you just gave them +5 to Attack Bonuses and Saves for the duration of the fight."

Ah, the good ole "cheat until they fall in line" option.

[The Glyphstone]

Ah, the good ole "cheat until they fall in line" option.

Exactly. The player is cheating, and the DM keeps falling in line.

[Eldan]

And this is why there needs to be a high level variation of Intimidate where if you beat the DC by like 20 or 30 points, they become more than just shaken.

[Geddoe]

Exactly. The player is cheating, and the DM keeps falling in line.

I'd be more likely to attribute it to ignorance of the rules rather than intentional cheating. It is also possible that it happens during the pre-fight banter, and it is just the way they choose to respond to out of combat intimidation.

[The Glyphstone]

I'd be more likely to attribute it to ignorance of the rules rather than intentional cheating. It is also possible that it happens during the pre-fight banter, and it is just the way they choose to respond to out of combat intimidation.

Rules ignorance maybe, but out-of-combat intimidation also takes a full minute, so it can't be that either.

[Gavinfoxx]

Well, there are rules regarding how to use Intimidate to do stuff. It's great at ending combats...

http://brilliantgameologists.com/boa...p?topic=3809.0

Have you actually read the Intimidate handbook, which talks in detail about what Intimidate does and does not do and how to do it?

You should perhaps consider following more of the rules on Intimidate, perhaps.

Tell the player that you are going to be following the rules of Intimidate much much more closely, and say that you will give him the chance to adjust his character if it dramatically nerfs his theme; alternatively, he could use some of the things which are rules in the game which interact with his theme to allow him to do the things he has been doing, provided he does it within the rules of the game, with retraining if needed.

[Xuc Xac]

Last session my character rolled a ~35 on an intimidate check against a group of guards (humanoid) that we were supposed to retrieve stolen goods from. The DM actually said that because I rolled so high, they took my character offering them a body massage as an act of aggression vs. attempting to avoid combat by way of trying to scare them off.

"You succeed so much that you fail" is a jerk DM tactic. Don't do that.

[RS14]

Well, there's following the rules first - Intimidate in combat only makes someone Shaken, and it only lasts for 1 round, so unless he can take multiple standard actions in a turn, he'll never make them run away.

The rules are meant to model a plausible world in which many NPCs behave in a plausible manner for humans in a similar situation. If they fail to deliver a plausible model, they are inadequate and should be altered at the DM's discretion, with appropriate warning to the players.

People often run away in real world combat. People only rarely stick around when it is obvious that they will die, or even when it is obvious that they are likely to die.

Yet intimidate does not within RAW provide for characters fleeing combat, except by magical effects! Instead they stay in a combat they are suddenly less capable in! They can't even attack properly due to fear, yet they stay to die? Why? Do they not have goals of their own? Survival, for one? Do they not act to achieve those goals, rather than passively responding only to player actions?

To take an extreme case, I think you will agree that a typical commoner can reasonably be expected to flee from a hostile adult dragon. Yet a rule focused approach would have him merely shaken.

So some combatants should flee from this scenario. Which should not?

Combatants who are highly motivated. If they believe in their cause and will die for it. If they believe they will be resurrected after death. If they would rather die than see their honor tarnished. Combatants who want to die. Combatants who will face immediate execution if they flee, or worse.

Combatants who do not believe they will die. Combatants who believe they can kill a dragon. Combatants who recognize the dragon as an illusion or otherwise trickery. Combatants too stupid to believe a dragon a threat. Combatants who believe they can inflict some damage in combat before withdrawing. Combatants who believe they will be able to inflict damage before surrendering safely.

Combatants who cannot flee.

But a mook who does not want to die, for his cause or otherwise; who believes he will die if he fights; and who can flee, should flee or surrender. That is what rational humans do. To say "the rules don't provide for it" is a cop-out that doesn't enhance the plausibility of the game.

Now flight certainly shouldn't just be a matter of rolling high enough on intimidate. There's only so much you can say to make someone flee; most if it will come down to circumstances most of the time.

What it comes down to is yes, dragons are scary, and yes, it's a nice trick that should work on a lot of people. But there are reasons why the world isn't ruled by wizards pretending to be dragons. The trick isn't so scary after the first time it gets hit with a dispel and word gets around. The trick isn't so scary if you're prepared for dragons. The trick isn't so scary if you even *believe* it's a trick.

Even if they do believe it, there are lots of things scary to dragons, and if you're at a level where your wizard can pretend to be one all the time, it's not unreasonable to demand that their foes should be able to get access to some of those things, given some time. Alips, dragon hunters, dragonbane weapons, elemental spellcasters, and spellcasters generally; confined spaces, etc. Expect them to buff their troops with rings of evasion, elemental immunities, etc. Even if they believe they will be facing a dragon, going into battle knowing what to expect and with gear and other preparations for it (even if it will ultimately be ineffective against the party) should give enemies a great deal of confidence which may allow them to resist panic.

Putting lots of counter-dragon gear in loot is also just a nice touch, as it shows a level of thought and autonomous behavior on the part of enemies, and helps to make them something more than stat-blocks.

[Dr.Epic]

So the questions here are.
1) How do you deal with someone who does that all the goddamn time, leaving the rest of the party with nothing to fight, without resorting to enemies that are incapable of fear?

Set the DC really high. Have like 50 guys attack them. The NPCs will be too cocky with their superior numbers to think one guy who can intimidate well can take them on. Or a really powerful dragon. One of those would surely be thinking there's no way a bunch of adventurers can take him on.

[dps]

The dragon is a illusion, a rather elaborate one at that.


The reasoning behind the opponents having a panic attack goes like this.
1) You are about to attack the party, thinking that this shouldn't be so bad, after all, the last few groups your boss wanted dead went down with minimal effort, why would these guys be any different?

2) Next thing you know there's a big fire-breathing lizard roaring in your face.
Shock factor is a bitch like that.

3) OHSHIZDRAGONRUN!

And so the mooks keep fleeing in terror.


The problem is that about 80% of all encounters are mooks, bandits, or other little things meant to wear us down through sheer numbers before the big stuff shows up.
So he's basically hogging 80% of the encounters for himself with that trick.
Darn it, leave something for the rest of us!

This also means that we only get loot from the remaining 20% of the encounters, which causes problems even though those 20% give significantly more loot by virtue of being elites or bosses.

Sure, it won't keep working forever, since the higher-ups are bound to start informing people of this trick and telling the mooks to not fall for it, but spreading that around may take a while, as in, several more weeks of in-game time before everyone knows about it, due to lack of magical long-distance communication in the setting and the sheer size of the organization.

Me: Dude, you need to stop doing that.
DM: Yeah, you are supposed to be killing these guys and taking their stuff...or beat the stuffing out of them and force information out of them, not send them screaming in terror.
Him: But it's funny watching the incompetent fools tripping over each other while trying to get away!
Me: You realize that this is gonna come back to bite us in the ass once they realize what you are doing right?
Him: Eh, we deal with it when we get there, besides, they are incompetent mooks, what's the worst they could do?

When "The Big Stuff" shows up though, he reverts to blaster mode.
He seems to realize that "The Big Stuff" is not going to fall for it, probably because he already tried it on one of them and failed miserably.

DM: The Bandit King is not amused.
Two rounds later.
DM: He is attempting to strangle you to death, make a fortitude save.

Well, in light of this post, it sounds like the problem is going to self-correct to me.

[NOhara24]

"You succeed so much that you fail" is a jerk DM tactic. Don't do that.

Granted, he told me later that combat with that particular group of people was a scripted event, it was just a matter of how it was initiated. To his credit, they were "shaken" for the first round of battle, per the rules.

[Gavinfoxx]

Show the fear using character the fear handbook, with regards to get them to COWER and be slaughtered, not to flee...