Imagine a huge scary character but doesn't talk much. Less talk more action. Just aggressive and even a tense atmosphere around him. Still low intimidation bonus or DMs should make an exception?
Well there is an option rule that says the dm may allow you to make checks using other stats for skills, with the classic example being Strength in place of charisma for intimation checks.
Otherwise, talk to your dm about it. They may be able to guide you in a way that fits with their world and the other players.
This has always been one of D&D’s big flaws - CHA is over represented in out-of-combat character interactions and characters that should be intimidating are limited a bit by having no CHA.
There are a couple ways this can be mitigated:
1. Roleplaying - If a DM is competent, they’ll roleplay an accurate response to the character that takes into account the character’s intimidating presence.
2. Do other skill checks. An athletics check to smash something might terrify an opponent, without the character ever saying a word.
3. From the DM side, give advantage on intimidate checks based on other things the character has done (including other skill checks).
4. Have someone else do the talking, while the scary character augments their intimidating check by their presence and other actions.
5. Homerule a strength based Intimidate check (STR instead of CHA + intimidate proficiency).
It is one of those things you will have to work with your individual DM to come up with a solution for, but it shouldn’t be too difficult to come up with a solution that works for you and the DM.
Similarly, when your half-orc barbarian uses a display of raw strength to intimidate an enemy, your DM might ask for a Strength (Intimidation) check, even though Intimidation is normally associated with Charisma.
Well there is an option rule that says the dm may allow you to make checks using other stats for skills, with the classic example being Strength in place of charisma for intimation checks.
Otherwise, talk to your dm about it. They may be able to guide you in a way that fits with their world and the other players.
He's got a great point.
Bending an iron bar (or ripping a book in half) is a great example of a Str (Intimidation) check.
Breaking a glass over their own head, or putting a torch out in their mouth as Con (Intimidation). This shows that they appear indestructible.
Throwing darts / daggers at a target (shouldn't count as an attack roll) as Dexterity (Intimidation) to showcase their pinpoint accuracy. Heck, doing it to a doll to show pressure points would work well too.
Or else you can do like most players and try to cheat your way through Social encounters without any rolls, because Charisma is the easiest dump stat to get around.
At our table we would give every player another skill.
We considered charisma to be how a character interacted with each other and npc's. We also gave adjustments for interacting with other races.
The extra skill was comeliness. How good looking you were to your own race.A good looking orc was only good looking to other orcs.
We have all known that guy who married the great looking girl. That 4 who got a 10+. That was not on looks but on charm/charisma. Or that great looking person who couldn't help themselves and ended up insulting everyone they talked to.
We also had a little chart for racial animosity between all the races.
Intimidation is an acting skill modified by how good or bad you look to the other character/npc/creature.
Imagine a huge scary character but doesn't talk much. Less talk more action. Just aggressive and even a tense atmosphere around him. Still low intimidation bonus or DMs should make an exception?
Imagine a deft, sneaky character but doesn't hide much. Just unassuming and even a forgettable atmosphere around him. Still low Stealth bonus or DMs should make an exception?
You want to be intimidating, get intimidation proficiency. That's how it works.
Edit for clarity: A character with low charisma and no proficiency with intimidation *isn't scary.* He might still be dangerous, but he doesn't come across as dangerous. You don't get to bypass the rules by describing your character in a way that contradicts them. You wouldn't allow a character with 8 STR and no Athletics proficiency to have an exception regarding Athletics checks just because the player describes him as a massive, ripped Olympian, right? That character isn't athletic. If they want him to be athletic they need to build him that way.
Imagine a huge scary character but doesn't talk much. Less talk more action. Just aggressive and even a tense atmosphere around him. Still low intimidation bonus or DMs should make an exception?
CHA isn't necessarily being a smooth talker. The character you described would still have a reasonably high CHA, as people pay attention to them when they walk into a room
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Active characters:
Carric Aquissar, elven wannabe artist in his deconstructionist period (Archfey warlock) Lan Kidogo, mapach archaeologist and treasure hunter (Knowledge cleric) Mardan Ferres, elven private investigator obsessed with that one unsolved murder (Assassin rogue) Xhekhetiel, halfling survivor of a Betrayer Gods cult (Runechild sorcerer/fighter)
If in real life you hang out in enough 'biker' bars you no longer pay any attention to the big scary guy wanking through the door because of the 3 dozen other scary guys already in the room.
To defend Intimidation using Charisma, Intimidation is not about looking scary. It’s about convincing someone that you can follow through on the threat. The really strong, scary character with low charisma can flex their muscles, but the target may just not believe they have the will to turn that into violent action.
A lot of people get hung up on Intimidation = Charisma.
This comes from the idea, that you're using your charisma when speaking. "Listen, I don't want to be the one to tell you this. But the last person who spilled my drink, I slit their throat and drank the blood from the neck. Now, I highly recommend you buy me another drink since you've spilled this one."
That's going to be Charisma since you're speaking to them, with a threat.
The other side, as others have explained is the variant rule. Using Strength for example.
Same situation, you say, "I stand up, grab the chair and smash it across my forehead, then draw my sword and shield and begin pounding it against my shield, all the while staring at the human who spilled my drink."
I would say that's more strength, because you're not speaking verbally, you're showing a display of power.
And there is, as others have said - role play the situation and have the DM acts as the NPC and act accordingly, without rolls - but rather dialogue of what happens and how people react.
Also if a character has a reputation for violence, maybe get advantage on rolls, for example.
You want to be intimidating, get intimidation proficiency. That's how it works.
Edit for clarity: A character with low charisma and no proficiency with intimidation *isn't scary.* He might still be dangerous, but he doesn't come across as dangerous. You don't get to bypass the rules by describing your character in a way that contradicts them. You wouldn't allow a character with 8 STR and no Athletics proficiency to have an exception regarding Athletics checks just because the player describes him as a massive, ripped Olympian, right? That character isn't athletic. If they want him to be athletic they need to build him that way.
Your post assumes something that the OP never actually says--they never claim that they do not have an intimidation proficiency, just that they have a low bonus to intimidation. One could very well have intimidate trained, but still have a "low intimidation bonus" if their CHA is 8 or even lower. Proficiency only gets you so far and a maxed CHA character with intimidate proficiency will be some 30% more intimidating than a minimum CHA character with the proficiency. As anyone who has played the game knows, it kind of feels bad for the Barbarian with 8 Cha and Intimidate proficiency to STILL be less intimidating than the 20 CHA Bard who does not even have an Intimidate proficiency.
Further, your Athletics example is a poor one because you ignore a pretty simple reality--the game already solved your problem by providing two different skills that cover feats of physical prowess. You can build a character with 8 STR that is a ripped Olympian--they can dump STR and put points into DEX and utilize Acrobatics instead of Athletics. Sure, they are not directly equivalent skills and there are some differences--but both can be used in a lot of similar situations to solve problems.
Unlike Athletics/Acrobatics, where you have two options for a similar character, Intimidate/Deception/Persuasion are three semi-redundant skills that are all covered by the same characteristic--CHA. Want to talk to someone out of combat? Wizards only provides CHA for all three options, even though that is pretty poor game design.
The simple reality is that Wizards did a bad job with intimidate--Charisma is a perfectly fine ability to use for the skill and it is easy to justify how Charisma can be a factor in intimidation (see anyone who is scary in a cold, calculating way), but that does not change the fact that "angry barbarian with poor speaking skills" is a pretty darn intimidating presence, making Intimidate the skill that is probably most deserving of leniency with the "Variant: Skills With Different Abilities" rules.
Given how Wizards overrepresented CHA and how easy it is to justify a low-CHA intimidating character, any DM who is not willing to allow the Barbarian character with Intimidate trained to utilize either Variant Intimidate or any of the options I listed in my prior post is a bad DM.
The simple reality is that Wizards did a bad job with intimidate--Charisma is a perfectly fine ability to use for the skill and it is easy to justify how Charisma can be a factor in intimidation (see anyone who is scary in a cold, calculating way), but that does not change the fact that "angry barbarian with poor speaking skills" is a pretty darn intimidating presence, making Intimidate the skill that is probably most deserving of leniency with the "Variant: Skills With Different Abilities" rules.
It should be pointed out that it's pretty easy to add a Strength (Intimidation) check to your character sheet in DDB as a Custom Skill
Rollback Post to RevisionRollBack
Active characters:
Carric Aquissar, elven wannabe artist in his deconstructionist period (Archfey warlock) Lan Kidogo, mapach archaeologist and treasure hunter (Knowledge cleric) Mardan Ferres, elven private investigator obsessed with that one unsolved murder (Assassin rogue) Xhekhetiel, halfling survivor of a Betrayer Gods cult (Runechild sorcerer/fighter)
"When deciding whether to use a roll, ask yourself two questions: Is a task so easy and so free of conflict and stress that there should be no chance of failure? Is a task so inappropriate or impossible — such as hitting the moon with an arrow — that it can’t work? If the answer to both of these questions is no, some kind of roll is appropriate."
Intimidating an average person when you're an adventurer is so easy and so free of conflict and stress that there should be no chance of failure. But let's say there is a chance of failure, for some reason. Maybe they work for a dragon. An ancient red dragon rolls Intimidation with a +6 modifier. A proficient character with only 8 Charisma can still beat that, certainly. The DC for a challenge of "Moderate" difficulty is 15. You might not be as good as the Bard. You can still do the thing.
Now here's the really important part.
Violence is available to every PC in roughly equal measure. Any PC can turn an NPC into a bloody pulp in about 12 seconds, whether they're muscly, scrawny, or fat -- for Intimidation to mean something, it can't just be a reflection of how dangerous you are. It's also not a passive rating of how scary you look. If it was, almost every monster would be great at it, and they're not. It's a skill. More specifically, it's an interpersonal skill.
Violence is available to every PC in roughly equal measure. Any PC can turn an NPC into a bloody pulp in about 12 seconds, whether they're muscly, scrawny, or fat -- for Intimidation to mean something, it can't just be a reflection of how dangerous you are. It's also not a passive rating of how scary you look. If it was, almost every monster would be great at it, and they're not. It's a skill. More specifically, it's an interpersonal skill.
The basic goal of intimidation is not 'be scary', it is 'get people to do what you want by being scary'. There are a lot of things NPCs can do that respect you being scary but are still not useful to the party. Like running away and getting reinforcements.
No one is actually arguing with you ChoirOfFire that it cannot be a social skill - they are just trying to actually help the OP, rather than doubling down on an incorrect interpretation of RAW.
Here is the reality - the OP is not asking for anyone to pontificate on why Intimidate is a CHA check, they are merely asking what can be done about it, since, objectively, the game de facto forces you to take CHA as a stat, even if it does not make sense for your character. That is bad game design and the OP wants to know what alternatives there are.
Within RAW, there are alternatives - alternate skill checks, using other skills to get advantage or lower a DC (at DM discretion), etc. That is what the OP wants to know, and that is what others have actually done to be helpful. Doubling down on answering a question the OP did not actually ask is neither helpful nor a correct statement of RAW.
Just to roll with your example, feel free to walk into any biker bar you want - somewhere everyone could turn you into a bloody pulp. Then tell me who you find more intimidating - the guy who colourfully explains how he is going to beat you up, or the guy who breaks a pool cue and grunts unintelligibly.
That’s exactly why the game allows you to roll different checks to get advantage (which keeps it CHA, but provides uses for other skills like Athletics) or the like. It’s why it allows you to use variant skill checks. So, while, yes, you are correct that it makes sense for intimidate to be a CHA check (which literally no one is arguing doesn’t make sense), it ALSO makes sense and is within RAW for the OP to talk with their DM and come up with other options, rather than sycophantically saying “nope.” Provided their DM is competent, there are solutions available under RAW - and that’s what the OP actually wants, not an unasked for lecture on why something is what it is.
Here is the reality - the OP is not asking for anyone to pontificate on why Intimidate is a CHA check, they are merely asking what can be done about it, since, objectively, the game de facto forces you to take CHA as a stat, even if it does not make sense for your character. That is bad game design and the OP wants to know what alternatives there are.
Just as Strength is the ability score the game uses to move heavy things, Charisma is the the ability score the game uses to move people. I would absolutely let a player convince me to let them roll Intelligence (Athletics) to use geometry and angles and leverage to lift above their weight class, but let's not pretend it's bad game design for the game to say "if you want to lift things, invest in Strength." It doesn't really matter what the OP is asking. If what they're asking assumes a premise that many people disagree with, it's neither fair nor reasonable to complain about "pontificating" when people dispute that premise.
Here is the reality - the OP is not asking for anyone to pontificate on why Intimidate is a CHA check, they are merely asking what can be done about it, since, objectively, the game de facto forces you to take CHA as a stat, even if it does not make sense for your character. That is bad game design and the OP wants to know what alternatives there are.
Just as Strength is the ability score the game uses to move heavy things, Charisma is the the ability score the game uses to move people. I would absolutely let a player convince me to let them roll Intelligence (Athletics) to use geometry and angles and leverage to lift above their weight class, but let's not pretend it's bad game design for the game to say "if you want to lift things, invest in Strength." It doesn't really matter what the OP is asking. If what they're asking assumes a premise that many people disagree with, it's neither fair nor reasonable to complain about "pontificating" when people dispute that premise.
Thanks. I feel like I'm losing my mind on these forums sometimes. The six ability scores are six different scores for a reason. Some of them are low and some are high for your character, and that determines what they're good at. If it was gonna be "use whatever is best for you," why have six? Just have one, and tell players to flavor it however they want to.
Everybody would benefit from being able to shoot a crossbow with extreme accuracy. Should I be locked out of that just because I dumped Dexterity? YES.
By the way, the "dumped STR for INT" method of lifting things is the block and tackle. Costs a single gold piece and leverages scientific principles to dramatically increase the weight you can lift.
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Imagine a huge scary character but doesn't talk much. Less talk more action. Just aggressive and even a tense atmosphere around him. Still low intimidation bonus or DMs should make an exception?
Like this guy
Well there is an option rule that says the dm may allow you to make checks using other stats for skills, with the classic example being Strength in place of charisma for intimation checks.
Otherwise, talk to your dm about it. They may be able to guide you in a way that fits with their world and the other players.
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"Play the game however you want to play the game. After all, your fun doesn't threaten my fun."
This has always been one of D&D’s big flaws - CHA is over represented in out-of-combat character interactions and characters that should be intimidating are limited a bit by having no CHA.
There are a couple ways this can be mitigated:
1. Roleplaying - If a DM is competent, they’ll roleplay an accurate response to the character that takes into account the character’s intimidating presence.
2. Do other skill checks. An athletics check to smash something might terrify an opponent, without the character ever saying a word.
3. From the DM side, give advantage on intimidate checks based on other things the character has done (including other skill checks).
4. Have someone else do the talking, while the scary character augments their intimidating check by their presence and other actions.
5. Homerule a strength based Intimidate check (STR instead of CHA + intimidate proficiency).
It is one of those things you will have to work with your individual DM to come up with a solution for, but it shouldn’t be too difficult to come up with a solution that works for you and the DM.
There is an option in the basic rules: Variant: Skills with Different Abilities
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He's got a great point.
Bending an iron bar (or ripping a book in half) is a great example of a Str (Intimidation) check.
Breaking a glass over their own head, or putting a torch out in their mouth as Con (Intimidation). This shows that they appear indestructible.
Throwing darts / daggers at a target (shouldn't count as an attack roll) as Dexterity (Intimidation) to showcase their pinpoint accuracy. Heck, doing it to a doll to show pressure points would work well too.
Or else you can do like most players and try to cheat your way through Social encounters without any rolls, because Charisma is the easiest dump stat to get around.
In the group the I play in, we use Strength (Intimidation) for trying to look menacing.
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At our table we would give every player another skill.
We considered charisma to be how a character interacted with each other and npc's. We also gave adjustments for interacting with other races.
The extra skill was comeliness. How good looking you were to your own race.A good looking orc was only good looking to other orcs.
We have all known that guy who married the great looking girl. That 4 who got a 10+. That was not on looks but on charm/charisma. Or that great looking person who couldn't help themselves and ended up insulting everyone they talked to.
We also had a little chart for racial animosity between all the races.
Intimidation is an acting skill modified by how good or bad you look to the other character/npc/creature.
Imagine a deft, sneaky character but doesn't hide much. Just unassuming and even a forgettable atmosphere around him. Still low Stealth bonus or DMs should make an exception?
You want to be intimidating, get intimidation proficiency. That's how it works.
Edit for clarity: A character with low charisma and no proficiency with intimidation *isn't scary.* He might still be dangerous, but he doesn't come across as dangerous. You don't get to bypass the rules by describing your character in a way that contradicts them. You wouldn't allow a character with 8 STR and no Athletics proficiency to have an exception regarding Athletics checks just because the player describes him as a massive, ripped Olympian, right? That character isn't athletic. If they want him to be athletic they need to build him that way.
Intimidation isn't the ability to be scary. It's the ability to get what you want by being scary.
Let's say you're trying to get past a guard with intimidation
CHA isn't necessarily being a smooth talker. The character you described would still have a reasonably high CHA, as people pay attention to them when they walk into a room
Active characters:
Carric Aquissar, elven wannabe artist in his deconstructionist period (Archfey warlock)
Lan Kidogo, mapach archaeologist and treasure hunter (Knowledge cleric)
Mardan Ferres, elven private investigator obsessed with that one unsolved murder (Assassin rogue)
Xhekhetiel, halfling survivor of a Betrayer Gods cult (Runechild sorcerer/fighter)
If in real life you hang out in enough 'biker' bars you no longer pay any attention to the big scary guy wanking through the door because of the 3 dozen other scary guys already in the room.
Anyone remember Mongo?
To defend Intimidation using Charisma, Intimidation is not about looking scary. It’s about convincing someone that you can follow through on the threat. The really strong, scary character with low charisma can flex their muscles, but the target may just not believe they have the will to turn that into violent action.
A lot of people get hung up on Intimidation = Charisma.
This comes from the idea, that you're using your charisma when speaking. "Listen, I don't want to be the one to tell you this. But the last person who spilled my drink, I slit their throat and drank the blood from the neck. Now, I highly recommend you buy me another drink since you've spilled this one."
That's going to be Charisma since you're speaking to them, with a threat.
The other side, as others have explained is the variant rule. Using Strength for example.
Same situation, you say, "I stand up, grab the chair and smash it across my forehead, then draw my sword and shield and begin pounding it against my shield, all the while staring at the human who spilled my drink."
I would say that's more strength, because you're not speaking verbally, you're showing a display of power.
And there is, as others have said - role play the situation and have the DM acts as the NPC and act accordingly, without rolls - but rather dialogue of what happens and how people react.
Also if a character has a reputation for violence, maybe get advantage on rolls, for example.
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Your post assumes something that the OP never actually says--they never claim that they do not have an intimidation proficiency, just that they have a low bonus to intimidation. One could very well have intimidate trained, but still have a "low intimidation bonus" if their CHA is 8 or even lower. Proficiency only gets you so far and a maxed CHA character with intimidate proficiency will be some 30% more intimidating than a minimum CHA character with the proficiency. As anyone who has played the game knows, it kind of feels bad for the Barbarian with 8 Cha and Intimidate proficiency to STILL be less intimidating than the 20 CHA Bard who does not even have an Intimidate proficiency.
Further, your Athletics example is a poor one because you ignore a pretty simple reality--the game already solved your problem by providing two different skills that cover feats of physical prowess. You can build a character with 8 STR that is a ripped Olympian--they can dump STR and put points into DEX and utilize Acrobatics instead of Athletics. Sure, they are not directly equivalent skills and there are some differences--but both can be used in a lot of similar situations to solve problems.
Unlike Athletics/Acrobatics, where you have two options for a similar character, Intimidate/Deception/Persuasion are three semi-redundant skills that are all covered by the same characteristic--CHA. Want to talk to someone out of combat? Wizards only provides CHA for all three options, even though that is pretty poor game design.
The simple reality is that Wizards did a bad job with intimidate--Charisma is a perfectly fine ability to use for the skill and it is easy to justify how Charisma can be a factor in intimidation (see anyone who is scary in a cold, calculating way), but that does not change the fact that "angry barbarian with poor speaking skills" is a pretty darn intimidating presence, making Intimidate the skill that is probably most deserving of leniency with the "Variant: Skills With Different Abilities" rules.
Given how Wizards overrepresented CHA and how easy it is to justify a low-CHA intimidating character, any DM who is not willing to allow the Barbarian character with Intimidate trained to utilize either Variant Intimidate or any of the options I listed in my prior post is a bad DM.
It should be pointed out that it's pretty easy to add a Strength (Intimidation) check to your character sheet in DDB as a Custom Skill
Active characters:
Carric Aquissar, elven wannabe artist in his deconstructionist period (Archfey warlock)
Lan Kidogo, mapach archaeologist and treasure hunter (Knowledge cleric)
Mardan Ferres, elven private investigator obsessed with that one unsolved murder (Assassin rogue)
Xhekhetiel, halfling survivor of a Betrayer Gods cult (Runechild sorcerer/fighter)
Here's what the DMG has to say on checks.
"When deciding whether to use a roll, ask yourself two questions: Is a task so easy and so free of conflict and stress that there should be no chance of failure? Is a task so inappropriate or impossible — such as hitting the moon with an arrow — that it can’t work? If the answer to both of these questions is no, some kind of roll is appropriate."
Intimidating an average person when you're an adventurer is so easy and so free of conflict and stress that there should be no chance of failure. But let's say there is a chance of failure, for some reason. Maybe they work for a dragon. An ancient red dragon rolls Intimidation with a +6 modifier. A proficient character with only 8 Charisma can still beat that, certainly. The DC for a challenge of "Moderate" difficulty is 15. You might not be as good as the Bard. You can still do the thing.
Now here's the really important part.
Violence is available to every PC in roughly equal measure. Any PC can turn an NPC into a bloody pulp in about 12 seconds, whether they're muscly, scrawny, or fat -- for Intimidation to mean something, it can't just be a reflection of how dangerous you are. It's also not a passive rating of how scary you look. If it was, almost every monster would be great at it, and they're not. It's a skill. More specifically, it's an interpersonal skill.
The basic goal of intimidation is not 'be scary', it is 'get people to do what you want by being scary'. There are a lot of things NPCs can do that respect you being scary but are still not useful to the party. Like running away and getting reinforcements.
No one is actually arguing with you ChoirOfFire that it cannot be a social skill - they are just trying to actually help the OP, rather than doubling down on an incorrect interpretation of RAW.
Here is the reality - the OP is not asking for anyone to pontificate on why Intimidate is a CHA check, they are merely asking what can be done about it, since, objectively, the game de facto forces you to take CHA as a stat, even if it does not make sense for your character. That is bad game design and the OP wants to know what alternatives there are.
Within RAW, there are alternatives - alternate skill checks, using other skills to get advantage or lower a DC (at DM discretion), etc. That is what the OP wants to know, and that is what others have actually done to be helpful. Doubling down on answering a question the OP did not actually ask is neither helpful nor a correct statement of RAW.
Just to roll with your example, feel free to walk into any biker bar you want - somewhere everyone could turn you into a bloody pulp. Then tell me who you find more intimidating - the guy who colourfully explains how he is going to beat you up, or the guy who breaks a pool cue and grunts unintelligibly.
That’s exactly why the game allows you to roll different checks to get advantage (which keeps it CHA, but provides uses for other skills like Athletics) or the like. It’s why it allows you to use variant skill checks. So, while, yes, you are correct that it makes sense for intimidate to be a CHA check (which literally no one is arguing doesn’t make sense), it ALSO makes sense and is within RAW for the OP to talk with their DM and come up with other options, rather than sycophantically saying “nope.” Provided their DM is competent, there are solutions available under RAW - and that’s what the OP actually wants, not an unasked for lecture on why something is what it is.
Just as Strength is the ability score the game uses to move heavy things, Charisma is the the ability score the game uses to move people. I would absolutely let a player convince me to let them roll Intelligence (Athletics) to use geometry and angles and leverage to lift above their weight class, but let's not pretend it's bad game design for the game to say "if you want to lift things, invest in Strength." It doesn't really matter what the OP is asking. If what they're asking assumes a premise that many people disagree with, it's neither fair nor reasonable to complain about "pontificating" when people dispute that premise.
Thanks. I feel like I'm losing my mind on these forums sometimes. The six ability scores are six different scores for a reason. Some of them are low and some are high for your character, and that determines what they're good at. If it was gonna be "use whatever is best for you," why have six? Just have one, and tell players to flavor it however they want to.
Everybody would benefit from being able to shoot a crossbow with extreme accuracy. Should I be locked out of that just because I dumped Dexterity? YES.
By the way, the "dumped STR for INT" method of lifting things is the block and tackle. Costs a single gold piece and leverages scientific principles to dramatically increase the weight you can lift.