4e Initimidate - better than padded sumo?

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Josh_Kablack
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4e Initimidate - better than padded sumo?

Post by Josh_Kablack »

Am I wrong or is Intimidate one of the best schticks in the game?

Sure it's basically an Encounter power with a Cha vs Will+10 attack, and it's language-dependent - but it explicitly can be used to make a bloodied target surrender, and it explicitly can be used against multiple targets - with separate rolls for each of them.

Since your attacks are otherwise doing less than 25% damage to a target when they do hit, the chance to cause a target at 50% HP to surrender is quite meaningful, and the chance to remove *multiple* such targets from the fight is good enough to take the risk.

The obvious build to take advantage of this is the Dragonborn paladin with max Charisma, Skill Focus, and eventually the item adders and One Heart One Mind.
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Post by Draco_Argentum »

I think its a good thing, and not just because it lets you play sumo instead of the padded version. Not every humanoid should fight to the death.
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Post by Username17 »

The game is shockingly silent on what you can actually do with your captives, and weirdly minions always fight to the death while officers have a chanceto surrender.

But while I think the subsystem is incredibly counter intuitive and clunky, it's clearly the best deal in town. So much so that the dragonborn intimidation specialist is separately named: it's a "Bullysaurus" build.

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Post by Koumei »

I thought Feylocks were best for Bullysaurus, due to the Charisma-dependence and the Encounter power that gives a bonus to Intimidate. Still, Dragonborn all the way - racial bonus to it, and the Cha bonus as well.

And yes, it cuts the combat time. Probably does better than cutting it in half, since by this stage you're plinking away with shitty "At Will" powers. There is no reason not to have a Bullysaurus in the party. You could even finish a boss fight without having to take a break to celebrate Christmas*.

*At least, no more than once.
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Post by Psychic Robot »

The only problem is that Rule 0 is included in the Intimidate rules. So the DM can just say, "No," and that's that.
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Post by Talisman »

Frankly, Rule 0 should apply to Intimidate, because some enemies really are going to fight to the death. It happens in Real Life; it happens in fantasy RPGs.
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Post by Username17 »

Frankly, rule 0 should be unnecessary because any system where breaking enemy morale is a major and important subsystem should have morale classes that tell you how they'll respond to adversity. I mean seriously, a 4th edition Skeleton has animal intelligence and it is is reasonable to believe that it would surrender or flee given an opportunity to do so. It's not aligned, and the only thing that suggests that they might fight to the death is the statement that they are emotionless.

Monsters have a number that determines how brave they are, and unfortunately this is the Will save. This is tremendously unfortunate, because mighty knights have a good Fort save and it is cunning Wizards that have good Will saves.
Frankly, the entire subsystem is just plain shit. Minion groups should be targetable provided that the entire enemy force is at half numerical strength. Monsters should have established morale classes that they fit into that range from completely unbreakable (golems) to cowardly (Kobolds), and the Intimidation DC should be based on enemy level and Morale class, not on Will defense.

The fact that they just threw a DM Fiat spanner into the gears and called it done is indicative of incredibly poor planning on their part. Yet another subsystem where they just shrugged and told us to play magical teaparty instead of taking a couple of minutes to make and playtest a working component.

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Post by Talisman »

Your point is well-taken, Frank, but I believe Rule 0 is a necessary part of any RPG. Unlike a board or card game, an RPG has so many variables and possibilities that it is virtually impossible for the rules to cover them all. If you run a game for more than a couple of sessions, your players will find something to do that you have to make a judgement call on, guaranteed.
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Post by virgil »

Citing that Rule 0 can exist does not excuse its use for major aspects of the game, like breaking enemy morale, especially when the rules of Intimidate are as significant as they are in implication.
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Post by Manxome »

Yes, rule zero needs to exist in an open-ended game, to handle things not covered by explicit rules.

Therefore, any particular place in your rulebook where you write "use rule zero" is an explicit admission that you don't have rules to cover that. It's kind of like writing "this page intentionally left blank." "Use rule zero" means "these rules intentionally omitted."
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Post by MartinHarper »

The result of a successful intimidation check should not be strictly dependant on the monster (or the monster's morale class). It should also depend on who is doing the intimidating. For example, a goblin might surrender to kobolds, in the hope of being ransomed back, but will run away from zombies, who don't do parley, and will fight to the death against gnomes. Or whatever.

Another weirdness of the 4e rules is that it takes a special standard action. Surely being intimidating is something you do while fighting, not something you stop fighting to do?
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Post by CatharzGodfoot »

MartinHarper wrote:For example, a goblin might surrender to kobolds, in the hope of being ransomed back, but will run away from zombies, who don't do parley, and will fight to the death against gnomes.
That would be a matter of diplomacy, not intimidation. Zombies (and giant scorpions) don't do diplomacy anyway.
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Post by RandomCasualty2 »

MartinHarper wrote: Another weirdness of the 4e rules is that it takes a special standard action. Surely being intimidating is something you do while fighting, not something you stop fighting to do?
When someone is trying to kill you, often times the idea of surrender doesn't even come up. You're just fighting for your life. If however the enemy gives you the option to surrender, you may do it.
Therefore, any particular place in your rulebook where you write "use rule zero" is an explicit admission that you don't have rules to cover that. It's kind of like writing "this page intentionally left blank." "Use rule zero" means "these rules intentionally omitted."
Sometimes a situation is so special case or complex that general rules just don't work for it. I think diplomacy, intimidation and other social encounters all fall into that category. There's a lot of stuff you care about for intimidation. Some things, like if the target feels you'll kill him anyway if he surrenders are situational and not something that can be easily generalized.
Last edited by RandomCasualty2 on Tue Aug 26, 2008 2:02 am, edited 1 time in total.
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Post by Psychic Robot »

Zombies aren't mindless in 4e. So maybe they can be intimidated.
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Post by Draco_Argentum »

No way is morale a special case/too complex. Its pretty easy to come up with a system, I think we can all do that in a minute or two. Its also not something where there really need to be many modifiers. You're clearly bad-ass and willing to kill. If a condition has come up where you make a morale check its looking bad for the person taking the check. It makes little difference if its looking bad because a giant is beating the crap out of you rather than a gnome. Its still someone doing a good job of trying to kill you.

Flee/surrender/continue hostilities are the three options for the enemy. Make a check: failure indicates running. If that is impossible default to the surrender, if both are impossible fight on.
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Post by Voss »

Fuck, 1st edition had goddamn morale rules. It isn't hard- nor should it be the exception. Most intelligent creatures don't fight to the death, despite years of CRPGs telling people otherwise. There can certainly be exceptions, but humanoids that can't be intimidated should be a rare thing, particularly if you've just gutted several of their friends.
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Post by MartinHarper »

Surrendering could be about diplomacy, but it could also be about intimidation. 'Surrender or die!' is intimidation. A negotiated peace treaty is diplomacy.

Zombies might not do diplomacy or intimidation, but people still run away from zombies, and a good morale subsystem should handle that.
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Post by CatharzGodfoot »

MartinHarper wrote:Zombies might not do diplomacy or intimidation, but people still run away from zombies, and a good morale subsystem should handle that.
That gets into the interesting realm of self-determination and social skills. For example, there's almost never anything stopping you from running away from a combat whenever you like. Similarly, no rule keeps you from telling the arch-villain all of your secrets even if he fails an intimidation check. You can give free lodging to people who fail to be appropriately diplomatic.

With this in mind, there should be two fundamentally distinct systems governing behavior. Sometimes, people will run away from zombies because (1) they don't want to be killed and (2) they stand to gain little from killing the flesh-eating monstrosities. Other times, people will run away from the zombies because zombies are really scary, and even the bravest are overcome by the supernatural aura of undeath.

The interaction of rationality and mind-affecting abilities is where things get sketchy.
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Post by Draco_Argentum »

The main point of morale rules is to assist the DM with self determination. We can easily work in the Su stuff to unify the systems. I don't think having a separate way of tracking supernatural fear helps the game.
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Post by CatharzGodfoot »

Draco_Argentum wrote:The main point of morale rules is to assist the DM with self determination. We can easily work in the Su stuff to unify the systems. I don't think having a separate way of tracking supernatural fear helps the game.
I think you're missing my point. You need to deal with both actions based on choice and forced actions, not "Su" and "not Su".
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Post by Draco_Argentum »

Thats what morale is for though. The check determines that whatever circumstance caused the check has resulted in the people who fail deciding to surrender/run. Thats the point of morale checks, they provide a mechanic that tells the DM when an NPC has decided to stop fighting.
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Post by CatharzGodfoot »

Draco_Argentum wrote:Thats the point of morale checks, they provide a mechanic that tells the DM when an NPC has decided to stop fighting.
Does that small loss of DM control really improve them game? I think it's obvious that such a morale system would be a terrible thing to force on players. Why is it a good thing to force on DMs?
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Post by angelfromanotherpin »

The big problem is not that there is no morale structure – it's that the game has real difficulty handling enemies that run away. From the DM's perspective, it can feel like handing the PCs unearned xp; conversely, the players are strongly encouraged to run down every last opponent for the change in their pockets.

I played through the introductory model, and at one point we came through the goblin chief's secret escape tunnel and found him sleeping. Everyone agreed that the correct course of action would be to coup-de-gras his fat ass, fling his severed head on the ground before his men, and watch them run off into the sunset. High fives, beers, all round.

Except that we wanted the cash and xps from ganking the other goblins. So lame.
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Post by Username17 »

CatharzGodfoot wrote:
Draco_Argentum wrote:Thats the point of morale checks, they provide a mechanic that tells the DM when an NPC has decided to stop fighting.
Does that small loss of DM control really improve them game? I think it's obvious that such a morale system would be a terrible thing to force on players. Why is it a good thing to force on DMs?
I disagree. How can anyone have any meaningful bravery related abilities if morale doesn't affect them in the first place?

No one complains that their warhammer legions run, why should they be offended that their knights or wizards run if their morale falters?

The game would be better all around if the expectation was that people fought for a while and then one side or another broke and ran away. The fact that paladins and golems fight to the death should be scary and interesting, not a default assumption for every weasely thief or goblin brigand.

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Post by CatharzGodfoot »

Why not operate under the default assumption that nothing wants to die, and leave the rest to specific exceptions and the tea party?
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