.Even with proficiency in intimidation, I don't think it will be enough.
Edit - the character isn't ugly. She is brutal though, less talk more action kind of thing, with scary cold blooded face to enemies. Her presence is scary. Yet she has 8 Charisma.
Charisma is often incorrectly interpreted as how pretty a character is.
It's more like the presence one has in a situation; a kind of strength over the social aspect of an encounter. Someone who intimidates doesn't need to be ugly and huge. There's a character in a story who appears quite ordinary, but she carries a malicious presence that is undeniably terrifying. Look up videos about Bloody Mary in The Wolf Among Us - Episode 4: In Sheep's Clothing.
It's where a character's Charismatic talents lie that make someone entertaining, seductive, insidious, or terrifying; not necessarily tied to the character's appearance.
If the character has low Charisma, the character could easily be the prettiest person in the world but be quite a failure at social attempts to incite specific reactions from people.
Human. Male. Possibly. Don't be a divider. My characters' backgrounds are written like instruction manuals rather than stories. My opinion and preferences don't mean you're wrong. I am 99.7603% convinced that the digital dice are messing with me. I roll high when nobody's looking and low when anyone else can see.🎲 “It's a bit early to be thinking about an epitaph. No?” will be my epitaph.
As Eric points out, the best way to consider Charisma is as a person's magnetism, force of presence, and overall intensity rather than the character's affability, likeability, or attractiveness. A frightening-looking character with low Charisma would be like the nameless mafia gooks you see in movies - large, with generally frightful features, but you never really notice or care about them because they have little presence.
A character with little presence has to work harder to convince people (s)he means it when (s)he's trying to lean on them. Even a horribly frightful-looking character can lack the impact needed to convince someone he means to cause them real harm...and even an ordinary-looking middle-aged townie with very high presence can convince you with a simple look and a handful of words that not only will he look for you? He will find you. And he will kill you.
A DM is, of course, free to modify DCs or change the check from Charisma to something else, depending on a character's actions. A seven-foot musclebound strongman lifting someone off the ground with one hand by their shirt collar and threatening to rip their arm off and beat them to death with it with the other hand could get a lowered DC, advantage on the check, or change the base stat to Strength because the character is flexing their physical might more than their force of presence. A character saying "do you wanna know how I got these scars...?" could conceivably make a Constition (Intimidation) check to flex just how tough and brutal he is. And of course if you're in the midst of actively torturing an NPC, the whole game shifts. Also maybe don't be that guy, unless you have to I suppose.
The GURPS definition of Intimidation is of great help here: "The essence of Intimidation is to convince the subject that you are able and willing, perhaps even eager, to do something awful to him." That frames the attempt more squarely - 'Intimidation' is simply a more specialized form of Persuasion, where you aim to Persuade someone that you're going to make their life awful if they don't do what you want. If you lack the presence to meaningfully convince them with your words, you have to do so with your deeds. Convince someone you're willing and able to hurt them by actually hurting them, and your DM may make the attempt easier.
They may also wonder about your home life, but that's just how D&D do. Sometimes you rescue hostages in a grungy goblin cave, and sometimes you find yourself waterbording hobgoblins in the middle of the road and wondering where life went sideways.
You'd have to link to it. That said? Per your edit in the original post, it really doesn't matter. You can conceive of her as being frightening and brutal, and you may be able to convince your DM to run Intimidation off of another stat, but with a Charisma of 8, she wouldn't necessarily have that frightful presence you're hoping for. I get that you're looking for a way to make her scary and intimidating without also making her traditionally-charismatic and likeable, but one of the long-acknowleged weaknesses of 5e is that you can't really do that. Not natively, not mechanically. The best bet you'd have is using a feat to gain Expertise in Intimidation and play that up as her frightening aura, if you're not willing to jigger the stats.
Again though, I stress: play her as frightening and brutal and the DM will work with you. Don't just say things like "I try and scare the guard", sell the DM and the rest of the table on it. "Dracina leans forward, spears the guardsman's eyes with her own, and lets the weight of all the people she's killed, all the suffering she's caused, and all the regret she doesn't have press into her gaze. 'Take this gold piece and go buy yourself a drink,' she says, flipping a coin to the guard without breaking eye contact. 'Or don't. I don't care which you choose'." Show the woman's brutality, don't just tell it, and the DM will more than likely roll with you on it. You may not even need to roll Intimidation sometimes, depending on how well you can paint a picture of the woman's frightfulness.
.Even with proficiency in intimidation, I don't think it will be enough.
Edit - the character isn't ugly. She is brutal though, less talk more action kind of thing, with scary cold blooded face to enemies. Her presence is scary. Yet she has 8 Charisma.
If she has 8 Charisma, then her presence isn't scary. Charisma is literally a measure of presence. You dumped presence, so while your character may imagine her face as scary and cold-blooded, it's more likely to evoke laughter than screams.
There are ways to intimidate with abilities other than charisma, but using a character's presence isn't one of them.
The ability scores tied to skills are suggestions. You can roll, according to your circumstances (and your DM) other ability scores. Probably this means your character is overtly threatening in their intimidation and less plausibly deniable.
You can describe your character as looking swole and that wouldn't help with Str/Athletics checks either. What you look like isn't the same as what you are.
Think of skill checks as something you do, not as something that happens to you. You don't intimidate by standing around and having people look at you; you intimidate by glaring at them, voicing a threat, suggestively brandishing a weapon, conjuring up sibilant whispers haunting your target, etc. The ability - usually Cha for Intimidation - modifier is basically an indication of your natural talent, of how gifted you are at accomplishing a task, while your proficiency bonus is a measure of your relevant training, of the work you put in getting better at something. If your Cha is low, you probably just don't look that scary (or impressive, or approachable, or honest, or convincing, or anything else out of the ordinary). Now maybe you're wearing war paint all the time, and have lots of scars, and your teeth have been filed to be really sharp and pointy; someone with higher Cha would pull that look off better, and instantly have people convinced that's the real deal - with you on the other hand, it probably looks more like you're trying too hard. Or maybe you do look quite frightening, but somehow it doesn't inspire people to cooperate: intimidation isn't the art of looking scary, it's the art of scaring people into doing something they don't want to do. When they look at you their first instinct isn't to comply, it's to try and figure out what'll make you leave them alone without doing something they don't really want. That's not the end of the world though: for one, because you presumably have in-born qualities in other areas (maybe you're really strong, or very nimble, or you can take a lot of punishment and shrug of like a minor scrape); for another, because if you train - by picking up proficiency - you can make up for your lack of natural ability to an extent.
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Using slight exaggeration for effect, a low charisma character with a low Intimidation roll will come off like a small child in a cheap Halloween costume telling somebody they should be scared of them. Conversely, an ordinary looking character with high charisma and a good roll will be more like Christopher Walken at the end of the movie The Legend of Joe Dirt where he slips into his New York gangster accent and threatens to stab a guy to death with an ice pick.
As already mentioned by several others, just saying "my character looks scary" means absolutely nothing mechanically. If you want to get the desired results from the Intimidation skill then you need to get high results on the rolls for it, and that means not using charisma as your dump stat. Otherwise your character will be the only one who thinks they're scary while everybody else sees a poseur trying to look scary.
Whenever Kevin Sorbo’s Hercules would pick up something heavy, effortlessly bend it with his bear hands, and then casually discard it whenever rando mooks would show up to waylay him, those were Strength (Intimidation) checks.
Xena doing her sword flippy displays while ululating was making Dexterity (Intimidation) checks.
When Khal Drago nonchalantly walked onto dudes sword right before kicking his 455, he made a Constitution (Intimidation) check.
Every time The Doctor gets a cross look on his/her face and states a bunch of ominous sounding stuff to prove how clever he/she is it’s Intelligence (Intimidation) o’clock.
Remember the Grail Knight who guarded The Holy Grail for a bazillion years until the good Doctors Jones & co showed up? Remember when he made a Wisdom (Intimidation) check by simply saying “You must choose. But choose wisely, as the true grail will bring you life, and the false grail will take it from you.”
This brings up onetwo three questions that confuses me:
When one is doing a Skill Check based on a different Ability bonus and the character has proficiency in the Skill, does the proficiency apply to the Ability bonus? I'm thinking, yes.
When one is doing a Skill Check based on a different Ability bonus and fails, I would assume the Skill Check fails but does the entire attempt fail? For example, a person tries to intimidate by bending metal and fails the DC for Intimidate but would pass a DC for bending the metal if it were a Skill Check based on Strength. What about the inverse where a Strength-based skill would fail the DC for bending the metal but Intimidate would pass the DC?
I'm thinking passing the DC for bending metal but not Intimidate based on Strength would simply bend the metal without impressing the opponent enough to intimidate the character, but failing the DC to bend the metal would fail the Intimidate regardless.
Human. Male. Possibly. Don't be a divider. My characters' backgrounds are written like instruction manuals rather than stories. My opinion and preferences don't mean you're wrong. I am 99.7603% convinced that the digital dice are messing with me. I roll high when nobody's looking and low when anyone else can see.🎲 “It's a bit early to be thinking about an epitaph. No?” will be my epitaph.
When one is doing a Skill Check based on a different Ability bonus and the character has proficiency in the Skill, does the proficiency apply to the Ability bonus? I'm thinking, yes.
When one is doing a Skill Check based on a different Ability bonus and fails, I would assume the Skill Check fails but does the entire attempt fail? For example, a person tries to intimidate by bending metal and fails the DC for Intimidate but would pass a DC for bending the metal if it were a Skill Check based on Strength. What about the inverse where a Strength-based skill would fail the DC for bending the metal but Intimidate would pass the DC?
I'm thinking passing the DC for bending metal but not Intimidate based on Strength would simply bend the metal without impressing the opponent enough to intimidate the character, but failing the DC to bend the metal would fail the Intimidate regardless.
They're ability checks, but proficiency is connected to skills (and saves, but that's besides the point here). Doesn't matter which ability is called for, if you use a skill which you're proficient in you get the bonus.
Checks are essentially separate. You can connect them if you want, or even create a skill challenge type series of checks like 4E had, but they should always simply be resolved from a common sense perspective. If you want a check to see of a PC can bend some rebar and a check to see if bending rebar intimidates some mook that's getting uppity, then logically failing to bend the rebar should prevent the intimidation check altogether (in fact, the mook might now be convinced you're a wuss). Personally I wouldn't handle such attempts like this: there can always be exceptions (like skill challenges, but they work a little differently), but it's probably better to have just one check that applies to whatever it is you're trying to achieve and not add any ancillary checks that aren't really required. If the point is the intimidation and you want to do this by bending some rebar, then just make it a Str/Intimidation check. If it fails the DM can choose whether that's because you failed to bend the rebar or because a display of strength like that just isn't going to impress your target, but that's just flavour. The point is whether you succeed in doing what you wanted to do, and you wanted to intimidate someone. Bending a bar of metal wasn't the end, it was only the means.
edit - this is for the DM to decide, but in case you might wonder why players then wouldn't always pick a way to use a skill that corresponds with their best ability ("Cha sucks, so I'll just carry bars of steel with me to bend all the time so I can make Str/Intimidation checks instead of Cha/Intimidation checks"): the DM can always decide that a particular approach is less likely to work/harder to pull off and increase the DC accordingly. A really burly, grizzled bouncer might not be cowed easily by showing off some muscle, but a flash of magic could be very scary to someone like that and either way, knowing how to be convincing is going to help with intimidation: Str/Intimidation DC 25, Int/Intimidation DC 10, Cha/Intimidation DC 15. Same situation, same goal, but different approaches and thus different difficulties (the FFG version of the L5R TTRPG uses this as a key mechanic for checks).
For the record, I think on the topic of proficiency, I would usually give leeway to a character who is proficient, depending on the task. Even if I would make a non-proficient player roll to accomplish something, I might skip having a proficient player roll at all (because failure isn't interesting or keeping with the concept of the character for that task. A trained acrobat should be able to walk across a beam without slipping. Unless there is something to make it difficult. If you want a hard mechanic (as opposed to a soft one) there is always the passive skill rule. 10+modifier.) There is no reason why such a character couldn't succeed at menial or easy attempts to intimidate automatically. Or, alternatively, use that proficiency to aid other people in attempting to intimidate. Have other people "do the talking" and have your character stand menacingly in the background.
I played a low charisma character for a while. It's pretty fun. I think people forget to embrace their weaknesses in games like this. Flaws add a lot of character to a ... character. Additionally, +1 isn't a bad modifier for a dice roll, especially when you consider a typical bonus for that level is rarely +5.
It won't matter if your character isn't hyper-optimal if your group isn't hyper-optimal. Don't worry about it so much.
If I'm not mistaken, intimidation is tied to charisma because it's not so much about looking intimidating, but how you influence the other person. Persuasion, performance, deception and intimidation are all about influencing other people.
The charisma comes into play not to reflect what you can actually do to them. But how you can make them feel. Say you're making a threat, it's about your ability to make that person feel like you can and will make good on it. It's not about whether you could crush their skull between your fingers but making them think you can.
Even a physically weak character might have magical skills, or social/criminal connections, that could lend themselves to intimidating someone. Like a gnome crime boss who isn't physically imposing but has the city guards and thugs all under his payroll and if you cross him, bad things will happen to your loved ones, as an example.
For the record, I think on the topic of proficiency, I would usually give leeway to a character who is proficient, depending on the task. Even if I would make a non-proficient player roll to accomplish something, I might skip having a proficient player roll at all (because failure isn't interesting or keeping with the concept of the character for that task. A trained acrobat should be able to walk across a beam without slipping. Unless there is something to make it difficult. If you want a hard mechanic (as opposed to a soft one) there is always the passive skill rule. 10+modifier.) There is no reason why such a character couldn't succeed at menial or easy attempts to intimidate automatically. Or, alternatively, use that proficiency to aid other people in attempting to intimidate. Have other people "do the talking" and have your character stand menacingly in the background.
I played a low charisma character for a while. It's pretty fun. I think people forget to embrace their weaknesses in games like this. Flaws add a lot of character to a ... character. Additionally, +1 isn't a bad modifier for a dice roll, especially when you consider a typical bonus for that level is rarely +5.
It won't matter if your character isn't hyper-optimal if your group isn't hyper-optimal. Don't worry about it so much.
Yeah. I don't always call for a roll.
If a task should be trivial for a given character, I won't have them roll. If the task is outside the realm of plausibility, I won't call for a roll. Rolls don't need to apply to all situations, but simply where there is a gray area where it's not trivial, but still plausible to pull off.
It is best to not look or think to deeply about skills (among other things) when it comes to D&D. I know real people that can stand in the corner of the room and be completely terrifying, but they couldn't sing, dance or be charming to save their life, like wise I have known "theater kids" that can sing, dance or be as charming as the day is long, but couldn't scare a pair of bunny slippers. You could say it is all in the proficiency but even that isn't quite right since stats tend carry more weight at 1st level than a +2 proficiency bonus does. D&D is a game and requires game mechanics. Game mechanics as simple as 5e rarely simulate real life well.
There's nothing wrong with asking if the DM is ok to switch this character's Intimidation to say strength to represent the "flex" this character likely poses when intimidating. It's ok.
Everyone is not wrong when citing the truth that CHR isn't how nice or pretty you are, it's more like force of will (which is why it is the source stat for Sorceror and Warlock magic). However, most of the skills associated with CHR are more social grace oriented, so it's hard in the base mechanics to build a character who is "imposing" by physical presence but also literally anti-social (when it comes to finer negotiation/persuasion, performance etc.).
If you look at the Dragonborn's Frightful Presence feat, that's defautl bound to CHR. However the feat gives a +1 ASI to STR/CON/CHR. I think implicit in there is an acknowledgement that the fearful capacity of a Dragonborn's lineage isn't always or at least entirely about the aforementioned "force of will" that CHR represents.
Intimidation is one of those areas where the mechanics specifity breaks a bit, rather than seeing it as a broken game, I see it as another instance of the needs for the game's granted wiggle room on stuff like this.
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I also feel like any PC beyond, like, level 5 is going to inherently be able to threaten ordinary people no problem. Like, at a certain point you probably shouldn't even have to roll. You could kill every person in the tavern without question. But at that point why do you *need* to intimidate ordinary people? Why are ordinary people still the obstacles standing between you and your goals? They're not, right? At that point you're intimidating ogres, devils, stuff like that. And if that's the case then I don't think being really muscular or tough looking is gonna be enough. You're gonna need to have a knack for it.
I also feel like any PC beyond, like, level 5 is going to inherently be able to threaten ordinary people no problem. Like, at a certain point you probably shouldn't even have to roll. You could kill every person in the tavern without question. But at that point why do you *need* to intimidate ordinary people? Why are ordinary people still the obstacles standing between you and your goals? They're not, right? At that point you're intimidating ogres, devils, stuff like that. And if that's the case then I don't think being really muscular or tough looking is gonna be enough. You're gonna need to have a knack for it.
I wouldn't agree with that.
A group of adventurers go into a tavern and one says he will kill everyone if they don't tell them the location of the BBEG. The PC has to not only convince the commoners that he is capable of killing them but that he will, this might be influenced by the groups reputation but in essence comes down to whether the people in the tavern (or at least those that know where the BBEG is) are more scared of the BBEG or the adventurer making the threat.
I also feel like any PC beyond, like, level 5 is going to inherently be able to threaten ordinary people no problem. Like, at a certain point you probably shouldn't even have to roll. You could kill every person in the tavern without question. But at that point why do you *need* to intimidate ordinary people? Why are ordinary people still the obstacles standing between you and your goals? They're not, right? At that point you're intimidating ogres, devils, stuff like that. And if that's the case then I don't think being really muscular or tough looking is gonna be enough. You're gonna need to have a knack for it.
I wouldn't agree with that.
A group of adventurers go into a tavern and one says he will kill everyone if they don't tell them the location of the BBEG. The PC has to not only convince the commoners that he is capable of killing them but that he will, this might be influenced by the groups reputation but in essence comes down to whether the people in the tavern (or at least those that know where the BBEG is) are more scared of the BBEG or the adventurer making the threat.
Is that a scenario you've ever encountered? That seems really strange to me. Strange and boring.
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.Even with proficiency in intimidation, I don't think it will be enough.
Edit - the character isn't ugly. She is brutal though, less talk more action kind of thing, with scary cold blooded face to enemies. Her presence is scary. Yet she has 8 Charisma.
Charisma is often incorrectly interpreted as how pretty a character is.
It's more like the presence one has in a situation; a kind of strength over the social aspect of an encounter. Someone who intimidates doesn't need to be ugly and huge. There's a character in a story who appears quite ordinary, but she carries a malicious presence that is undeniably terrifying. Look up videos about Bloody Mary in The Wolf Among Us - Episode 4: In Sheep's Clothing.
It's where a character's Charismatic talents lie that make someone entertaining, seductive, insidious, or terrifying; not necessarily tied to the character's appearance.
If the character has low Charisma, the character could easily be the prettiest person in the world but be quite a failure at social attempts to incite specific reactions from people.
Human. Male. Possibly. Don't be a divider.
My characters' backgrounds are written like instruction manuals rather than stories. My opinion and preferences don't mean you're wrong.
I am 99.7603% convinced that the digital dice are messing with me. I roll high when nobody's looking and low when anyone else can see.🎲
“It's a bit early to be thinking about an epitaph. No?” will be my epitaph.
I think it will be the difference between "Ew, gross!" and "OMG please don't kill me!"
As Eric points out, the best way to consider Charisma is as a person's magnetism, force of presence, and overall intensity rather than the character's affability, likeability, or attractiveness. A frightening-looking character with low Charisma would be like the nameless mafia gooks you see in movies - large, with generally frightful features, but you never really notice or care about them because they have little presence.
A character with little presence has to work harder to convince people (s)he means it when (s)he's trying to lean on them. Even a horribly frightful-looking character can lack the impact needed to convince someone he means to cause them real harm...and even an ordinary-looking middle-aged townie with very high presence can convince you with a simple look and a handful of words that not only will he look for you? He will find you. And he will kill you.
A DM is, of course, free to modify DCs or change the check from Charisma to something else, depending on a character's actions. A seven-foot musclebound strongman lifting someone off the ground with one hand by their shirt collar and threatening to rip their arm off and beat them to death with it with the other hand could get a lowered DC, advantage on the check, or change the base stat to Strength because the character is flexing their physical might more than their force of presence. A character saying "do you wanna know how I got these scars...?" could conceivably make a Constition (Intimidation) check to flex just how tough and brutal he is. And of course if you're in the midst of actively torturing an NPC, the whole game shifts. Also maybe don't be that guy, unless you have to I suppose.
The GURPS definition of Intimidation is of great help here: "The essence of Intimidation is to convince the subject that you are able and willing, perhaps even eager, to do something awful to him." That frames the attempt more squarely - 'Intimidation' is simply a more specialized form of Persuasion, where you aim to Persuade someone that you're going to make their life awful if they don't do what you want. If you lack the presence to meaningfully convince them with your words, you have to do so with your deeds. Convince someone you're willing and able to hurt them by actually hurting them, and your DM may make the attempt easier.
They may also wonder about your home life, but that's just how D&D do. Sometimes you rescue hostages in a grungy goblin cave, and sometimes you find yourself waterbording hobgoblins in the middle of the road and wondering where life went sideways.
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I edited for you to see the character.
You'd have to link to it. That said? Per your edit in the original post, it really doesn't matter. You can conceive of her as being frightening and brutal, and you may be able to convince your DM to run Intimidation off of another stat, but with a Charisma of 8, she wouldn't necessarily have that frightful presence you're hoping for. I get that you're looking for a way to make her scary and intimidating without also making her traditionally-charismatic and likeable, but one of the long-acknowleged weaknesses of 5e is that you can't really do that. Not natively, not mechanically. The best bet you'd have is using a feat to gain Expertise in Intimidation and play that up as her frightening aura, if you're not willing to jigger the stats.
Again though, I stress: play her as frightening and brutal and the DM will work with you. Don't just say things like "I try and scare the guard", sell the DM and the rest of the table on it. "Dracina leans forward, spears the guardsman's eyes with her own, and lets the weight of all the people she's killed, all the suffering she's caused, and all the regret she doesn't have press into her gaze. 'Take this gold piece and go buy yourself a drink,' she says, flipping a coin to the guard without breaking eye contact. 'Or don't. I don't care which you choose'." Show the woman's brutality, don't just tell it, and the DM will more than likely roll with you on it. You may not even need to roll Intimidation sometimes, depending on how well you can paint a picture of the woman's frightfulness.
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If she has 8 Charisma, then her presence isn't scary. Charisma is literally a measure of presence. You dumped presence, so while your character may imagine her face as scary and cold-blooded, it's more likely to evoke laughter than screams.
There are ways to intimidate with abilities other than charisma, but using a character's presence isn't one of them.
The ability scores tied to skills are suggestions. You can roll, according to your circumstances (and your DM) other ability scores. Probably this means your character is overtly threatening in their intimidation and less plausibly deniable.
You can describe your character as looking swole and that wouldn't help with Str/Athletics checks either. What you look like isn't the same as what you are.
Think of skill checks as something you do, not as something that happens to you. You don't intimidate by standing around and having people look at you; you intimidate by glaring at them, voicing a threat, suggestively brandishing a weapon, conjuring up sibilant whispers haunting your target, etc. The ability - usually Cha for Intimidation - modifier is basically an indication of your natural talent, of how gifted you are at accomplishing a task, while your proficiency bonus is a measure of your relevant training, of the work you put in getting better at something. If your Cha is low, you probably just don't look that scary (or impressive, or approachable, or honest, or convincing, or anything else out of the ordinary). Now maybe you're wearing war paint all the time, and have lots of scars, and your teeth have been filed to be really sharp and pointy; someone with higher Cha would pull that look off better, and instantly have people convinced that's the real deal - with you on the other hand, it probably looks more like you're trying too hard. Or maybe you do look quite frightening, but somehow it doesn't inspire people to cooperate: intimidation isn't the art of looking scary, it's the art of scaring people into doing something they don't want to do. When they look at you their first instinct isn't to comply, it's to try and figure out what'll make you leave them alone without doing something they don't really want. That's not the end of the world though: for one, because you presumably have in-born qualities in other areas (maybe you're really strong, or very nimble, or you can take a lot of punishment and shrug of like a minor scrape); for another, because if you train - by picking up proficiency - you can make up for your lack of natural ability to an extent.
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Using slight exaggeration for effect, a low charisma character with a low Intimidation roll will come off like a small child in a cheap Halloween costume telling somebody they should be scared of them. Conversely, an ordinary looking character with high charisma and a good roll will be more like Christopher Walken at the end of the movie The Legend of Joe Dirt where he slips into his New York gangster accent and threatens to stab a guy to death with an ice pick.
As already mentioned by several others, just saying "my character looks scary" means absolutely nothing mechanically. If you want to get the desired results from the Intimidation skill then you need to get high results on the rolls for it, and that means not using charisma as your dump stat. Otherwise your character will be the only one who thinks they're scary while everybody else sees a poseur trying to look scary.
Intimidation is one of the Skills most compatible with the variant rules for using skills with different abilities:
(https://www.dndbeyond.com/sources/phb/using-ability-scores#VariantSkillswithDifferentAbilities)
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This brings up
onetwothree questions that confusesme:When one is doing a Skill Check based on a different Ability bonus and the character has proficiency in the Skill, does the proficiency apply to the Ability bonus? I'm thinking, yes.
When one is doing a Skill Check based on a different Ability bonus and fails, I would assume the Skill Check fails but does the entire attempt fail? For example, a person tries to intimidate by bending metal and fails the DC for Intimidate but would pass a DC for bending the metal if it were a Skill Check based on Strength. What about the inverse where a Strength-based skill would fail the DC for bending the metal but Intimidate would pass the DC?
I'm thinking passing the DC for bending metal but not Intimidate based on Strength would simply bend the metal without impressing the opponent enough to intimidate the character, but failing the DC to bend the metal would fail the Intimidate regardless.
Human. Male. Possibly. Don't be a divider.
My characters' backgrounds are written like instruction manuals rather than stories. My opinion and preferences don't mean you're wrong.
I am 99.7603% convinced that the digital dice are messing with me. I roll high when nobody's looking and low when anyone else can see.🎲
“It's a bit early to be thinking about an epitaph. No?” will be my epitaph.
They're ability checks, but proficiency is connected to skills (and saves, but that's besides the point here). Doesn't matter which ability is called for, if you use a skill which you're proficient in you get the bonus.
Checks are essentially separate. You can connect them if you want, or even create a skill challenge type series of checks like 4E had, but they should always simply be resolved from a common sense perspective. If you want a check to see of a PC can bend some rebar and a check to see if bending rebar intimidates some mook that's getting uppity, then logically failing to bend the rebar should prevent the intimidation check altogether (in fact, the mook might now be convinced you're a wuss). Personally I wouldn't handle such attempts like this: there can always be exceptions (like skill challenges, but they work a little differently), but it's probably better to have just one check that applies to whatever it is you're trying to achieve and not add any ancillary checks that aren't really required. If the point is the intimidation and you want to do this by bending some rebar, then just make it a Str/Intimidation check. If it fails the DM can choose whether that's because you failed to bend the rebar or because a display of strength like that just isn't going to impress your target, but that's just flavour. The point is whether you succeed in doing what you wanted to do, and you wanted to intimidate someone. Bending a bar of metal wasn't the end, it was only the means.
edit - this is for the DM to decide, but in case you might wonder why players then wouldn't always pick a way to use a skill that corresponds with their best ability ("Cha sucks, so I'll just carry bars of steel with me to bend all the time so I can make Str/Intimidation checks instead of Cha/Intimidation checks"): the DM can always decide that a particular approach is less likely to work/harder to pull off and increase the DC accordingly. A really burly, grizzled bouncer might not be cowed easily by showing off some muscle, but a flash of magic could be very scary to someone like that and either way, knowing how to be convincing is going to help with intimidation: Str/Intimidation DC 25, Int/Intimidation DC 10, Cha/Intimidation DC 15. Same situation, same goal, but different approaches and thus different difficulties (the FFG version of the L5R TTRPG uses this as a key mechanic for checks).
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For the record, I think on the topic of proficiency, I would usually give leeway to a character who is proficient, depending on the task. Even if I would make a non-proficient player roll to accomplish something, I might skip having a proficient player roll at all (because failure isn't interesting or keeping with the concept of the character for that task. A trained acrobat should be able to walk across a beam without slipping. Unless there is something to make it difficult. If you want a hard mechanic (as opposed to a soft one) there is always the passive skill rule. 10+modifier.) There is no reason why such a character couldn't succeed at menial or easy attempts to intimidate automatically. Or, alternatively, use that proficiency to aid other people in attempting to intimidate. Have other people "do the talking" and have your character stand menacingly in the background.
I played a low charisma character for a while. It's pretty fun. I think people forget to embrace their weaknesses in games like this. Flaws add a lot of character to a ... character. Additionally, +1 isn't a bad modifier for a dice roll, especially when you consider a typical bonus for that level is rarely +5.
It won't matter if your character isn't hyper-optimal if your group isn't hyper-optimal. Don't worry about it so much.
Yeah. I don't always call for a roll.
If a task should be trivial for a given character, I won't have them roll. If the task is outside the realm of plausibility, I won't call for a roll. Rolls don't need to apply to all situations, but simply where there is a gray area where it's not trivial, but still plausible to pull off.
It is best to not look or think to deeply about skills (among other things) when it comes to D&D. I know real people that can stand in the corner of the room and be completely terrifying, but they couldn't sing, dance or be charming to save their life, like wise I have known "theater kids" that can sing, dance or be as charming as the day is long, but couldn't scare a pair of bunny slippers. You could say it is all in the proficiency but even that isn't quite right since stats tend carry more weight at 1st level than a +2 proficiency bonus does. D&D is a game and requires game mechanics. Game mechanics as simple as 5e rarely simulate real life well.
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There's nothing wrong with asking if the DM is ok to switch this character's Intimidation to say strength to represent the "flex" this character likely poses when intimidating. It's ok.
Everyone is not wrong when citing the truth that CHR isn't how nice or pretty you are, it's more like force of will (which is why it is the source stat for Sorceror and Warlock magic). However, most of the skills associated with CHR are more social grace oriented, so it's hard in the base mechanics to build a character who is "imposing" by physical presence but also literally anti-social (when it comes to finer negotiation/persuasion, performance etc.).
If you look at the Dragonborn's Frightful Presence feat, that's defautl bound to CHR. However the feat gives a +1 ASI to STR/CON/CHR. I think implicit in there is an acknowledgement that the fearful capacity of a Dragonborn's lineage isn't always or at least entirely about the aforementioned "force of will" that CHR represents.
Intimidation is one of those areas where the mechanics specifity breaks a bit, rather than seeing it as a broken game, I see it as another instance of the needs for the game's granted wiggle room on stuff like this.
Jander Sunstar is the thinking person's Drizzt, fight me.
I also feel like any PC beyond, like, level 5 is going to inherently be able to threaten ordinary people no problem. Like, at a certain point you probably shouldn't even have to roll. You could kill every person in the tavern without question. But at that point why do you *need* to intimidate ordinary people? Why are ordinary people still the obstacles standing between you and your goals? They're not, right? At that point you're intimidating ogres, devils, stuff like that. And if that's the case then I don't think being really muscular or tough looking is gonna be enough. You're gonna need to have a knack for it.
I wouldn't agree with that.
A group of adventurers go into a tavern and one says he will kill everyone if they don't tell them the location of the BBEG. The PC has to not only convince the commoners that he is capable of killing them but that he will, this might be influenced by the groups reputation but in essence comes down to whether the people in the tavern (or at least those that know where the BBEG is) are more scared of the BBEG or the adventurer making the threat.
Is that a scenario you've ever encountered? That seems really strange to me. Strange and boring.