Muscles shouldn't improve intimidate

[Inevitability]

There's a sentiment that I've seen on these boards, and in D&D groups in general, which can be summarized as:

It's kind of silly how Intimidate is a Charisma-based skill. I mean, my half-orc barbarian dumped Charisma, so he has only +1 to intimidate, while the halfling bard has +8! Kind of silly, right? To close that gap, I'm going to let characters use their strength modifier on Intimidate rolls instead of charisma: it's the only thing that makes sense!

This shows a fundamental misunderstanding of the intimidate skill.

Intimidate is not an objective measure of scariness, it's a scariness enhancer. If a musclebound barbarian ambushes a lone CR 1/4 goblin, brandishes an enormous greatsword, and roars a challenge, we're past the point where rolls matter: that goblin is going to run away, and adding a chance of failure (a whole 40% if you set the DC at 10, 15% if you set it at 5, or 5% if you set it at 0) implies some strange things about goblin psychology.

Now if the halfling bard from the aforementioned example does it? Maybe an Intimidate check would be in place! It's plausible enough that the goblin sees someone its own size and considers its odds good enough. The halfling might need to put in effort to convince this goblin she could threaten him, and that effort is best represented with a skill check.

This isn't weird or unprecedented: sufficiently favorable circumstances should always remove the need for a check (you don't roll Persuasion to ask your spouse to pass the salt, or Nature to remember how many legs cows have). If the fighter or barbarian seems 'not scary', the issue isn't that this-or-that number on the sheet is too low: the issue is that the fighter has to roll for things that shouldn't require rolls. Similarly, in situations where rolls are necessary, the barbarian should usually be rolling against lower DCs than the bard, all based on how much of an obvious threat either character poses before any rolls are made at all.

Intimidate, the skill, is nothing but a way to convincingly add to the threat you already pose: your ability to turn that into frightening people depends on factors beyond acting skill.

(And note that I don't mean to imply that halfling bards should never be scary: I can imagine a number of monsters that the bard would find easier to intimidate than the barbarian. A werewolf is going to be more afraid of the obvious caster than some guy with an unsilvered weapon)

Thoughts?

[Thrudd]

So, if it's agreed that there is some objective measure of scariness based on physical size and strength or other factors, how do the rules represent that? Why does the scariness of the low charisma barbarian depend entirely on the DM's subjective opinion about who should be scared and who shouldn't, but the bard's ability to intimidate someone gets a mechanic and a roll?

I'd say, maybe you could take the difference in size/strength scores as a modifier to the intimidate DC, or as a guide for whether to give advantage/disadvantage when the attempt is based partly or wholly on looking big and scary and not on making threatening statements.
A 18 strength barbarian trying to scare a 8 strength goblin gets +10 to the check or the DC is -10. Perhaps reduce that modifier based on each ally present for the target of the scare attempt. ten goblins might not be intimidated as easily by one guy as would one or two alone. Two people of equal strength are a straight roll (assuming no intimidate skill proficiency).

[Dr.Samurai]

The problem is that every NPC is much more tough/brave/hard-headed than they realistically should be when facing a large muscled scarred veteran warrior. I agree with the OP that big muscled guys should be naturally menacing/intimidating. But I think a lot of DMs aren't comfortable with giving players more than what's on their sheet, so to speak. To Thrudd's point, nothing on the character sheet implies the suggestion in the OP.

[Mastikator]

That's putting the cart before the horse.

FIRST the player describes what they do and what they want to accomplish, THEN the DM asks for a dice roll with the skills and ability modifiers they decide is appropriate.

If the player says "I want to say: 'I'll break you spine like I break this steel rod if you don't stand down' and then my character uses their steel-bendy-ability to bend the sleep with their bare hands" I'd definitely say OK roll intimidation + strength to bend the steel and scare them.

A player should not ask "can I make a strength intimidation check", they should roleplay. No, you can not just make any kind of roll and expect a result, please tell me what your character is doing.

[Reversefigure4]

Intimidate is often rolled in different situations to what you've mentioned, though.

The party have a cultist tied to a chair, interrogating him about the cult's plans. Both the Barbarian and the Halfling Bard are perfectly capable of slitting his throat or breaking his fingers with a hammer. There shouldn't even be rolls required to achieve this at that point.

The GM is always going to have to do some sort of adjudication here. "You have him at your mercy, so the DC is only 10." "As a cultist of Ytherg, he's been tortured many times as part of the initiations, so it's a DC25, but you get a +2 circumstance bonus because he can't fight back, and it goes up to a +5 if you know enough to threaten him with contaminating his body with salt, Ytherg's bane." Or "This works automatically." Or "This will work automatically, but torturing him will switch your alignment to evil, and a DC15 Intimidate check allows you to achieve this with just threats instead of torture".

If you're going to repeatedly alter the DC - the Barbarian is scary inherently because of his muscles and the Halfling Bard isn't, so higher DCs for the Halfling - it's much the same effect as just allowing the Barbarian to use his Str mod instead of Charisma anyway, but with the added bonus it doesn't invalidate the halfling's points spent on Intimidate.

I'm a fan of 'charisma intimidates, you can use Strength instead as a relatively cheap option you can buy' (a feat, a trait, an alternate class feature), so if somebody wants to make Trogdor the Terrifying Barbarian they can, while still making the Joker Bard scary without requiring him to invest heavily in Strength.

[animorte]

I read somewhere not too long ago (paraphrased, of course): “Intimidation is not convincing someone that you can break them in half. It’s convincing them that you will.”

Something of that nature. Essentially that your charisma allows you to seek out and utilize somebody’s nature or reaction against them. Find their fears and their weaknesses.

I personally have always been more concerned with the way people talk and act than what they look like. Not judging a book by its cover, you know.

I do believe that one’s size can certainly contribute to intimidation though.

[P. G. Macer]

Building on animorte’s point, I agree that intimidation≠being scary. The take I’ve seen and like the best is Intimidation is using fear to get what you want. If (using 5e here, as that’s the system I’m most familiar with) the hulking barbarian with a –2 Charisma modifier and a +3 proficiency bonus to intimidation (for a total skill modifier of +1) says to the bartender “Gimme your money or I’ll smash you into a pancake” and rolls low, the bartender is definitely scared, it’s just that rather than giving the brute his money, he flees in terror to summon the city guards.

Meanwhile, the 3-foot-tall Halfling bard with a total of +17 to Intimidation checks says to the bartender, “give me your money or (insert Westley’s “To the Pain” speech from The Princess Bride here)”, rolls a natural 6 for a total of 23, the bartender ponies his savings over, for though physically unintimidating, the bard applies just enough charisma to their threats to get their desired outcome.

[Psyren]

Thoughts?

You didn't specify what game you're playing, but:

- The 5e designers specifically call out "Strength (Intimidation)" as a plausible example of a skill being assigned to a different ability score (PHB 175).
- The PF1 designers created a feat for this (like they do almost everything else): Intimidating Prowess. This feat also resurfaced in Pathfinder 2e in a different form.

That's putting the cart before the horse.

FIRST the player describes what they do and what they want to accomplish, THEN the DM asks for a dice roll with the skills and ability modifiers they decide is appropriate.

If the player says "I want to say: 'I'll break you spine like I break this steel rod if you don't stand down' and then my character uses their steel-bendy-ability to bend the sleep with their bare hands" I'd definitely say OK roll intimidation + strength to bend the steel and scare them.

A player should not ask "can I make a strength intimidation check", they should roleplay. No, you can not just make any kind of roll and expect a result, please tell me what your character is doing.

This, this, this.

[Anymage]

There are two major flaws in the "barbarians should have beefy intimidation bonuses because they're big and scary" argument.

First, in our world the barbarian would be scary because being huge, ripped, and armed are all very good ways to signal that you can make good on threats of violence. The reedy dweeb who's covered in bat poop doesn't have quite the same capacity. In your average D&D world that reedy dweeb can put out a lot more hurt than the barbarian, so rational threat assessments would take that into account.

Second, the idea that someone who's scared will do exactly what the intimidator wants in order to avoid discomfort. This is only true in the simplest case like a mugging where the action is clear and immediate, and even then it's only mostly true. Scared people can do surprising things, and that becomes much more likely as soon as they're out of your presence. The huge, scary barbarian will suck at selling a protection racket. And if they try to scare someone into coming along with them, the person might well believe that they'll have better odds if they kick up a fuss here than going along with you.

The big, scary barbarian should absolutely be able to play up being scary when the time is right. Scaring off opponents is totally in his bag. (Except insofar as using a resource-free skill to have an opponent quit the field of battle can be questionably balanced in encounters, but that's about balance instead of thematics.) And scaring bad guys into talking should be an option, even if it isn't necessarily ideal. Having mechanical ways to represent all this is totally cool. The issues are that there's a lot more behind proper intimidation than just making the other guy mess his pants, and that the creepy death cleric should also be able to play into similar scariness despite not having a high Str mod.

[Duff]

I'd suggest those who feel the need for strength based intimidate have (or are) GMs who are relatively reluctant to give big circumstance bonuses.
Some GMs are more willing to make decisions than others.
Some need more things written down than others.

[Liquor Box]

. The reedy dweeb who's covered in bat poop doesn't have quite the same capacity. In your average D&D world that reedy dweeb can put out a lot more hurt than the barbarian, so rational threat assessments would take that into account.

Maybe, if they have some sort of magical ability. But the person being threatened doesn't know that. In most worlds only a small proportion of the population is a wizard. Where there are obvious visual queues that the obviously big an well musceled character is dangerous to your average townsperson.

So not that far removed from the real world. In the real world the reedy dweeb might be carrying a gun that can hurt more than the tough guy giving you a clip round the ears. But it's not visible, depending where you are most people don't carry guns, and so people are much more likely to take the chance.

[Duff]

Maybe, if they have some sort of magical ability. But the person being threatened doesn't know that. In most worlds only a small proportion of the population is a wizard. Where there are obvious visual queues that the obviously big an well musceled character is dangerous to your average townsperson.

So not that far removed from the real world. In the real world the reedy dweeb might be carrying a gun that can hurt more than the tough guy giving you a clip round the ears. But it's not visible, depending where you are most people don't carry guns, and so people are much more likely to take the chance.

This. Once the guano hits the mana, its a different story

[Dr.Samurai]

There's a fatal flaw in the "muscles shouldn't improve Intimidation" argument, and that is the conflation of proficiency in Intimidation with the Charisma ability score. Invariably these arguments will talk about how the barbarian "doesn't know" how to use his muscles properly to scare someone else into doing something because they dumped Charisma, and this of course ignores the fact that the barbarian in fact has a *focus* in intimidation and therefore is actually quite familiar with how to scare people into doing what they want.

If we assume a barbarian (or other strong person) with Proficiency in Intimidation, all talks about "doesn't know how" should be thrown out the window. If the barbarian does something to demonstrate their strength, a Str(Intimidation) check is absolutely appropriate. If the person the barbarian is intimidating might be averse to violence or unable to defend themselves against a towering muscled warrior, then no demonstration is probably needed but for the very visual appearance of the barbarian's giant muscles and frame.

If it's a seasoned guard or something, sure, make a demonstration to see if Strength will intimidate someone used to violence. But for many applications, a strong person proficient in Intimidation should just be able to use Strength.

[Tanarii]

For some reason in these discussions the defenders of Str = scariness always have the go-to example be a Half-Orc barbarian with a great axe / sword. In other words, Strength = scary size.

What if it's a Str 20 3ft 1in 32lb female Gnomish Ranger in a breastplate? Sure, she's heavily muscled for her race, and she's dual wielding War Picks. But she's not a 6'6" 380 lb Half Orc. Why are they both getting +5 to intimidate from Str again?

Especially when both of them have no ability to project presence in a way that gets others to do what they want, Cha 8 with a -1 penalty.

Keeping in mind that Intimidate isn't used to scare folks. It's getting them to do what you what you want.

That said, I allow variant ability scores for checks specifically for Str (Intimidate)? Why? Because most players expect it to work, and it's not worth the table arguments.

[Thrudd]

For some reason in these discussions the defenders of Str = scariness always have the go-to example be a Half-Orc barbarian with a great axe / sword. In other words, Strength = scary size.

What if it's a Str 20 3ft 1in 32lb female Gnomish Ranger in a breastplate? Sure, she's heavily muscled for her race, and she's dual wielding War Picks. But she's not a 6'6" 380 lb Half Orc. Why are they both getting +5 to intimidate from Str again?

Especially when both of them have no ability to project presence in a way that gets others to do what they want, Cha 8 with a -1 penalty.

Keeping in mind that Intimidate isn't used to scare folks. It's getting them to do what you what you want.

That said, I allow variant ability scores for checks specifically for Str (Intimidate)? Why? Because most players expect it to work, and it's not worth the table arguments.

It's used to get them to do what you want by scaring them. Also, a 20 Str gnome is equally, mechanically as strong as a 6'8" goliath with 20 str, not just in relation to the rest of her race (as ridiculous as that is, even for a fantasy world). She isn't just the strongest of gnomes, she's the strongest of all PC races. So she might be short, but she'd have ridiculous huge muscles, like the kid in "Kung Fu Hustle" who Stephen Chow doesn't want to fight lol. So I'd say, yeah, if she's trying to threaten someone with her muscles, she gets the same +5 as a large character. Unless we make a rule that incorporates the character size into the attempt as well- like being small gives you disadvantage on physical intimidation attempts against larger targets, or you only get half your strength score applied, or something. Also, you don't need an ability to project your presence when you're built like young Arnie. You don't even need to intend to threaten anyone for people to be threatened, sometimes. But that's the point of this whole discussion - since there isn't a rule (in 5e D&D, which we're clearly talking about), every DM just decides whatever they want, and players have no way to reliably know whether or how physical presence will account into their intimidation attempts.
A definite rule/mechanic wouldn't be to help DMs who don't want to make their own rulings- it's to give the players reliable expectations about how their character's physical presence, as defined by their physical stats, can affect social interactions.

[King of Nowhere]

I'd suggest those who feel the need for strength based intimidate have (or are) GMs who are relatively reluctant to give big circumstance bonuses.
Some GMs are more willing to make decisions than others.
Some need more things written down than others.

so, you mean that instead of letting you add your STR modifier to intimidate when the situation calls for it, the DM should instead give you a circumstance bonus roughly equal to your STR modifier.
it's basically the same thing, isn't it?

[Duff]

so, you mean that instead of letting you add your STR modifier to intimidate when the situation calls for it, the DM should instead give you a circumstance bonus roughly equal to your STR modifier.
it's basically the same thing, isn't it?

I wouldn't say should so much as could

And then the difference is a matter of taste/comfort. Do you, as a GM, like giving circumstance bonuses liberally and generously or do you need a compelling case to give a +1 bonus that isn't written in the rules

[Tanarii]

It's used to get them to do what you want by scaring them. Also, a 20 Str gnome is equally, mechanically as strong as a 6'8" goliath with 20 str, not just in relation to the rest of her race (as ridiculous as that is, even for a fantasy world). She isn't just the strongest of gnomes, she's the strongest of all PC races. So she might be short, but she'd have ridiculous huge muscles, like the kid in "Kung Fu Hustle" who Stephen Chow doesn't want to fight lol.

Does she? Maybe gnome and halfling and possibly even elf muscles don't bulge to give them their strength. They'd almost have to have something else going on, since one with Str 10 and 1/5 the weight of a human has normally proportioned muscles for their height, yet is just as strong. So one with Str 20 should be at most just as muscular, or even less muscular, than a human with the same strength. Not more.

This leaves aside the real counter argument to the idea of Strength (Intimidation): if you're just standing there showing muscles, you aren't using the application of physical force. Which is what a Strength check is used for. So it can't be a strength check.

[Dr.Samurai]

For some reason in these discussions the defenders of Str = scariness always have the go-to example be a Half-Orc barbarian with a great axe / sword. In other words, Strength = scary size.

Yes, because that's how that works.

What if it's a Str 20 3ft 1in 32lb female Gnomish Ranger in a breastplate? Sure, she's heavily muscled for her race, and she's dual wielding War Picks. But she's not a 6'6" 380 lb Half Orc. Why are they both getting +5 to intimidate from Str again?

But the PHB says that a demonstration is in order. So if the gnome ranger crushes a helmet or bends a sword blade... would that not be intimidating if they're trying to intimidate you?

Especially when both of them have no ability to project presence in a way that gets others to do what they want, Cha 8 with a -1 penalty.

Oh, there's that fatal flaw again. Don't forget the proficiency in Intimidation.

Keeping in mind that Intimidate isn't used to scare folks. It's getting them to do what you what you want.

Yes, by intimidating them lol.

That said, I allow variant ability scores for checks specifically for Str (Intimidate)? Why? Because most players expect it to work, and it's not worth the table arguments.

Yeah, it's the same reason bars hire big muscly guys as bouncers and not small scrappy jiujitsu masters, even though the latter may be much more likely to inflict harm and defend the bar than the former. If you deny how reality works at your table I can imagine the arguments get lengthy indeed.

[Dienekes]

For some reason in these discussions the defenders of Str = scariness always have the go-to example be a Half-Orc barbarian with a great axe / sword. In other words, Strength = scary size.

What if it's a Str 20 3ft 1in 32lb female Gnomish Ranger in a breastplate? Sure, she's heavily muscled for her race, and she's dual wielding War Picks. But she's not a 6'6" 380 lb Half Orc. Why are they both getting +5 to intimidate from Str again?

Especially when both of them have no ability to project presence in a way that gets others to do what they want, Cha 8 with a -1 penalty.

Keeping in mind that Intimidate isn't used to scare folks. It's getting them to do what you what you want.

That said, I allow variant ability scores for checks specifically for Str (Intimidate)? Why? Because most players expect it to work, and it's not worth the table arguments.

If you want to help me design a game where the 32 lb gnome couldn't dream of ever becoming 20 strength, I'd be down. Always seemed ridiculous to me. Leverage doesn't work that way.

Don't think it goes with most games (such as 5e's) streamlined design though. So, yeah. In a game with less granular rules, I'm fine with letting some of these weird edge cases pass to make the system work.

Also, a 3 foot tall person who can literally bend steel in their hands does sound pretty scary when they have their hands on me. Provided of course I've seen them bend steel with their hands.

[Quertus]

As a strong CaW player, I generally approve of the notion in the OP, that a sufficiently telegraphed threat should obviate the need for a roll in certain circumstances. From a CaW perspective, I think that this has the right of it:

The party have a cultist tied to a chair, interrogating him about the cult's plans. Both the Barbarian and the Halfling Bard are perfectly capable of slitting his throat or breaking his fingers with a hammer. There shouldn't even be rolls required to achieve this at that point.

The GM is always going to have to do some sort of adjudication here. "You have him at your mercy, so the DC is only 10." "As a cultist of Ytherg, he's been tortured many times as part of the initiations, so it's a DC25, but you get a +2 circumstance bonus because he can't fight back, and it goes up to a +5 if you know enough to threaten him with contaminating his body with salt, Ytherg's bane." Or "This works automatically." Or "This will work automatically, but torturing him will switch your alignment to evil, and a DC15 Intimidate check allows you to achieve this with just threats instead of torture".

And I seem to have lost the supporting quote on this one, but I also agree that the results of the roll isn’t how scary you are, but how well you leverage fear to get what you want.

That's putting the cart before the horse.

FIRST the player describes what they do and what they want to accomplish, THEN the DM asks for a dice roll with the skills and ability modifiers they decide is appropriate.

If the player says "I want to say: 'I'll break you spine like I break this steel rod if you don't stand down' and then my character uses their steel-bendy-ability to bend the sleep with their bare hands" I'd definitely say OK roll intimidation + strength to bend the steel and scare them.

A player should not ask "can I make a strength intimidation check", they should roleplay. No, you can not just make any kind of roll and expect a result, please tell me what your character is doing.

So, first, making the choice to use intimidation is roleplaying - the roleplaying is in making the choice. What you’re describing is more “acting”. Don’t get me wrong, acting (especially good acting) adds to an RPG, but it shouldn’t be seen as so obviously, intrinsically mandatory as roleplaying. They’re not called AGs, after all.

Second, even bad acting adds to the game, because it adds more color and more details, yes, but it also detracts by obfuscating the correct path at times. For example, if the highly skilled intimidator’s PC uses

Westley’s “To the Pain” speech from The Princess Bride

that’s one thing. However, what if the player is so inept, they instead use

Uh, betray us, and I will fong you, until your insides are out, your outsides are in, your entrails will become your extrails I will w-rip... all the p... ung. Pain, lots of pain.

what then?

My answer is, it doesn’t matter what they say, a 30 on the roll is a 30 on the roll. Period.

However

It matters what they say. Saying that they’ll… checking… threaten to contaminate a cultist of Ytherg with salt gives a circumstance bonus, for example. Whereas threatening the cultist with physical pain (which is what both Westley and Wat did) gives a penalty / sets the DC high.

Point is, the details matter, not the delivery.

[Phhase]

I actually made a thread about this topic a while ago, and gave some examples (quoting my OP below) about how any skill could be applied to Intimidate...and how the difference between success and failure (despite nonetheless being an impressive demonstration of the skill in use) could be chalked up to, well, Charisma.

It's a popular houserule to allow one to roll Intimidation with Strength rather than Charisma. After all, brawn is spooky, right? However, I contest that allowing one to roll Intimidation with Strength should logically translate to being able to roll Intimidation with any skill. For a rough example:

Strength: *Menacing flex* "You hard enough to face me?"
Dexterity: *Impossibly quick weapon draw and flourish* "Don't blink."
Constitution: (Chugging something poisonous or otherwise dangerous) "Tastes like me mums' apple cobbler."
Intelligence: "All it takes is a single incision in your spine, and you'll never move again." (Aside: I know Medicine is a Wisdom skill, but it really ought to be an Int one, or at least split into Int and Wis branches)
Wisdom: (Sherlock Scanning) "That ring on your finger's pretty shiny. It's new isn't it? Bags under your eyes. You just had a kid with your newlywed, didn't you? Be a shame if they were orphaned."

But the thing is, it's about how you sell it. You can be as strong or as wise or a quick as you want but if you don't know how to apply that to intimidation, there's every chance you might not stick the landing, as such:

Strength: *Menacing flex* "You're nowhere near as hard as me." (PHRASING!)
Dexterity: *Impossibly quick five-finger fillet* "Impressed?" (Good job, you failed to stab yourself. Incredible.)
Constitution: "Wanna know how I got this scar? Rat bite. Wound went septic and they had to operate." (The scar may be impressive, but the story, it's not exactly the picture of valor)
Intelligence: Beholdyourfatecreaturesofdarkness!Yourdemiseisatha ndforIweildarcanepowerbeyond
yourfeeblegoblinreasoning! (Zzzz...)
Wisdom: (Sherlock Scan) "Crumbs in your mustache. Sauce at the corner of your mouth. Lettuce in your teeth. You just ate at Taco Bell, didn't you? Be a shame if you shat your pants in combat." (An uncanny deduction, and logically an actual risk, but like. Come on.)

...and so, "selling it," that's...Charisma, isn't it? Kronk is definitely buffer than Darth Vader in the traditional muscley sense, but Vader is clearly more menacing.

Now, of course, I can hardly deny that you could use another skill to SUPPLEMENT Charisma for the purposes of an Intimidation check (I just gave some examples, after all), so I'd be interested in hearing propositions on how to create a kind of Synergy Bonus mechanic.

That said, I think in the vein of 3.5, effective RP based of the synergizing skill ought to allow one to roll a skill check with it to potentially allow a +2 to the intimidate roll.

[GeoffWatson]

Intimidate isn't just scaring someone. It's scaring them in a way so they do what you want them to do.

Sure, the OP muscled barbarian can scare a goblin. But what does the scared goblin do?
Getting the goblin to run away would be easy.
But what if the barbarian wanted the goblin to surrender quietly? A failed Intimidate could have the goblin running away while screaming loudly.
What if the barbarian wanted the goblin to tell him some secrets? A failed Intimidate could have the goblin crying and babbling incoherently.

[Phhase]

Intimidate isn't just scaring someone. It's scaring them in a way so they do what you want them to do.

Sure, the OP muscled barbarian can scare a goblin. But what does the scared goblin do?
Getting the goblin to run away would be easy.
But what if the barbarian wanted the goblin to surrender quietly? A failed Intimidate could have the goblin running away while screaming loudly.
What if the barbarian wanted the goblin to tell him some secrets? A failed Intimidate could have the goblin crying and babbling incoherently.

Of course. These are just examples, not meant to be comprehensive. edit: (ah, sorry, was a bit quick on the draw. I now see this was probably directed at the OP).

[Thrudd]

Does she? Maybe gnome and halfling and possibly even elf muscles don't bulge to give them their strength. They'd almost have to have something else going on, since one with Str 10 and 1/5 the weight of a human has normally proportioned muscles for their height, yet is just as strong. So one with Str 20 should be at most just as muscular, or even less muscular, than a human with the same strength. Not more.

This leaves aside the real counter argument to the idea of Strength (Intimidation): if you're just standing there showing muscles, you aren't using the application of physical force. Which is what a Strength check is used for. So it can't be a strength check.

Sure...so how do you represent the effect of physical stature and presence on social situations where it's relevant? Just standing there showing your muscles also wouldn't make sense as a charisma check. It makes more sense to use the strength attribute for that than anything else, since at least that is related in some way to your physique and stature. Maybe having a certain amount of strength in excess of your target and/or being a size larger grants advantage on checks, being a size smaller and having less relative strength grants disadvantage? It's still a charisma check to represent how good you are at "selling" the accentuation of your menacing physique or choosing the proper stance/facial expression to cause intimidation?

Whatever one comes up with, I don't see any way around passive physical features being decisive or at least very influential in attempts at physical intimidation.

[False God]

Intimidation isn't always about being scary. But what qualifies as being scary depends on the listener, and what a person believes is scary is more dependent on them than the intimidator.

One of older game designs biggest flaws was tying specific ability scores to specific stats, implying that whatever this skill is, it is always (or 99% of the time) based off this stat, which just isn't a good representation of reality and doesn't provide good variety for the game.

This problem has a solution: decouple stats from skills. It doesn't matter what you think is intimidating. It doesn't matter what I think is intimidating. It matters how the player wants to go about being intimidating and how the NPC reacts to it.

[Abracadangit]

My rationale for allowing Intimidation checks to be made with Strength is that without making allowances like this (at least in 5e, I can't speak for other systems), virtually everything in the social pillar is gated behind Charisma. Combat's got a lot of neat cross-ability play going on -- Dex adds to AC, Con adds to HP, Int/Wis/Cha are spellcasting stats for various classes, etc. But if you're just going off the abilities suggested on the character sheet for social, it's Cha skills all the way down. Add in the fact that Cha is the go-to dump stat for a lot of martials, and you've effectively boxed those characters out of being effective in most social situations/encounters, which bothers some people.

My one issue with the "bending the steel bar to Intimidate" example is what's stopping said character from carrying a steel bar with them everywhere they go, so they can proc Strength (Intimidation) whenever they want, right. At that stage, let's just make social mini-feats for everyone that work like Samurai's Elegant Courtier (add your Wis bonus on top of Cha whenever you roll Persuasion) plus one or two fun ribbons, and then people can play the character the way they'd like to play without worrying about being locked out of the whole social pillar. There can be a Strength (Performance) for people who want to play showy wrestler/carnival strongman types, an Intelligence (Deception) for manipulative spymasters, a Wisdom (Persuasion) for monks and druids with a calming zen presence, and so on.

Of course I know that's never gonna happen -- it's a bridge too far for their hands-off approach to social stuff -- but players in my games have enjoyed the homebrew options. In conclusion, I don't allow Strength (Intimidation) specifically because I think big muscles correlate to being intimidating, but I do it because a) Intimidation thematically meshes well with buff warrior types, as opposed to Deception for tricky types and Persuasion for spiritual/scholarly types, and b) I want everyone to feel capable of contributing to social situations in a meaningful way.

[Tanarii]

Yes, because that's how that works.

Except it isn't, as my gnome example demonstrates.

Yeah, it's the same reason bars hire big muscly guys as bouncers and not small scrappy jiujitsu masters, even though the latter may be much more likely to inflict harm and defend the bar than the former. If you deny how reality works at your table I can imagine the arguments get lengthy indeed.

You claim reality, after immediately using the same flawed argument that high Str score = scary size.

[Pex]

The point of using Strength to intimidate is not roaring or flexing. It's breaking something or otherwise physically altering such as bending a metal bar. Strength is used for combat, so showing off strength implies the ability to harm - the intimidation. It's non-verbal.

[Anymage]

I'm curious how we can go the other way here and give people what they want.

Someone playing your archetypal barbarian wants their character to be scary, to be able to get other people to back down in a confrontation and maybe be able to do things like interrogate enemies through cowing them. All viable things for a character to do, and a limited subset of the things that full intimidation proficiency can do. The charismatic mob boss is better at directing how fear manifests and has a better chance of making the fear persist over long term behaviors, but that's likely not what the barbarian's player is looking for.

How would you give the barbarian their time to shine and a chance to engage in socialization in a specific niche, without necessarily letting that spill over into other categories. For bonus points, how would you let the death cultist cleric or another scary character have a similar shtick if they can't fall back on a high STR mod to do the heavy lifting?