Intimidate checks

[McMindflayer]

I had a problem with a game a couple of nights ago that started with an intimidate check.

My players were given information that said "This guy has all the information that you need. He can get you into places, etc. You just gotta "sweet talk him"" Eseentially they were supposed to intimidate, maybe punch him in the face a couple of times. Pay him off. Whatever.

So they enter the tavern he stays at, sees the man in the back and walk over to him for a chat. It's one of those seedy bars, where you can actually punch a man out and the most that will happen is people duck their head lower.

Anyway, They talk to this man and perform an intimidate check. They fail said check. I tell them in so many words and so one of the members, the fighterish guy, draws his really big weapon and said "Run that by me again?" Now, He has already failed his intimidate check. but now he has a really big weapon drawn, admittadly the man saw it before, but now it's drawn and looks a little more menacing. So what am I supposed to do? redo an intimidate check with a +2? Or should the man stay unimpressed? Should the gaurds have been called in when they weapon was drawn? Any suggestions for the next time would be much appreciated.

[Tempest Fennac]

I would think that it would give a circumstance bonus to another check, but there is a possibility that someone might alert guards depending on how seedy the tavern is.

[mostlyharmful]

In the words of Jayne "Pain is scarey." Given these guys are armed and are clearly not pusseyfooting about it has almost passed the intimidate check area, the target ought to know that it's very likely that violence will ensue and behave accordingly, if he thinks he can take all of them on his own without a drawn weapon and with the fighter already looming over him with a whacky great sword already out then he shouldn't really be intimidated in the first place. If he doesn't think he can take them then being blaise makes No sense.

[Crow]

If you have ever heard of "The DM's Best Friend", use it.

It's a +2 or -2 modifier for either favorable or unfavorable circumstances. It can solve so many problems you will wonder how you ever lived without it.

I would give him a retry with any penalty he has for failing the first time and trying again, but give him +2 on top of everything else for favorable circumstances.

[daggaz]

Yeah, he failed the first one, so the guys' attitude towards the party has changed, in a negative way. He doesn't like them (they threatened him), AND he wasn't really scared of them. Depending on by how badly the guy failed his intim check, this could be anywhere from a net -2 to a -8 modifier that was earned, on top of anyother modifiers there were in place (racial, situational, etc etc..)

Now he is trying again, so he keeps that modifier, but this time he at least brought out a weapon. Its a +2 modifier in most circumstances. But see, if he failed really, really badly last time, it wont do much difference. And as the DM, you can actually decide that this just further pisses off the guy, so it could even feasibly be BAD to try another intim check.

In math, lets say he fails the intim check by 15 or 16 or so... I usually give a -8 modifier to future checks for this. -2 for each five he failed by, and -2 just for failing in the first place. So next time he goes up, he brings his weapon. Add a +2, bringing him up to a whopping -6 modifier to try again. Of course, if for fluff reasons the guy just _really_ isn't impressed at all, and is angry, and is likely to be enraged now, you might just change that modifier from a +2 to a -2, so now he is at -10. (think of it like trying to bully a guy out of his wallet, failing, and then coming back with a knife, except you are obviously incompetent and the guy is like 4x bigger than you and pissed off, and he just begins to pound the living xxxx out of you instead.)

The rules on social skills arent set in stone, just try to make a good guestimate with what you feel seems right, and use different levels of +/- 2 mods to help with the math.

[TheAlmightyOne]

I'd just do it as another intimidate check but with a lower DC.

But I hate when intimidate checks fail. I once broke a kobalds legs, tied him up and held a knife to his throat and another to his genitals. Then rolled a 1. same happened after I threw a shoval at our warlocks head (evil party and he killed the paladin that I was fighting so I lobbed my shoval at him) and knocked him unconscious. Rolled a 1 when i tried to intimidate him into never doing it again. Dam 1's