Intimidation will have the lowest Difficulty Class. However, it is also a hostile action, and there may be consequences to that.
Deception will have the next lowest. The problem here is that you might be caught in your lies. Once again, there may be consequences if they make that Insight(Wisdom) check or otherwise catch you out.
Persuasion is the most difficult way to get an NPC to do what you want them to do, the problem here is that it generally takes more time and effort to get the result you want.
I would not agree with that I think it depends on who you are dealing with.
A paladin who is used ot pain and has no fear of death may consider giving in to intimidation as a sign of weakness butr is willing to listen to reasoned arguments
A high wisdom character will be very difficult to deceive but much easier agaist a low wisdom character.
I also like the variant rule to use skill checks with different abilities. If the goliath barbarian lifts the thief off the floor and says "tell us where the diamonds are or I'll toss you over the cliff" I think that should be a strength based intimidation check.
Specific cases will always trump general rules. I wouldn't dream of suggesting otherwise. I probably should have prefaced my comment with "In general". I was trying more to illustrate the differences in the different social skills.
I don't know that the Difficult Class for a Deception attempt against a high Wisdom NPC will be higher so much as the danger of being caught out is greater.
I am also uncertain that displaying your ability to carry out a threat entirely replaces the ability to sell the idea that you are ready and willing to carry out that threat without turning a social encounter into a combat encounter instead.
Not to say I won't allow for that variant rule about different Abilities. I might. I might also let you make a Strength Check to display your power, and have that alter the Difficult Class of the Intimidate(Charisma) check that follows. I don't want to encourage people who made Charisma their Dump Stat to constantly use other stats in social interactions. You are probably going to be better off in my game if you let the Bard who knows what they are doing do the Intimidating, while the Goliath Barbarian with the 8 Charisma stays quiet.
Both skills can achieve similar results, but the DC could be different depending on the skill.
If I'm trying to get the guards to let me into a keep, I am going to likely use persuasion as my chances to intimidate them into letting me gain access will be more difficult. Now change that to convincing the local thieves' guild to stop harassing your shop owner friend, and intimidation may be an easier DC if you look like you mean business.
I'd set the DC based on the NPCs skill. Intimidation vs. intimidation (CHA), deception vs. investigation (INT), Persuasion vs. Insight (WIS). Thus the Paladin is less easily frightened, the cop is less easily lied too, etc.
I consider persuasion to be a method of getting assistance or cooperation and Charisma looks like the right stat for me.
I consider deception to be a method of bypassing a character as an obstacle and charisma or intelligence look like good stats for trying this out.
I consider intimidation to be "blowing past" an obstacle and has negative effects no matter what, unless all the witnesses are killed. Charisma doesn't sound like the best stat but I can understand it being considered, but strength and having some sort of "presence" in the face of your opponent seems to be the right measure. But ...
Since each is a different skill, you have to choose which skill(s) you plan to be proficient with so it might help the party if you let the high charisma player choose persuasion, and let a high strength player choose intimidation, just to spread out the skills the party is proficient with. Yes, strength isn't The Attribute associated with intimidation on the character sheet, but a reasonable argument can be shared to support it in many situations.
And then there is the situation itself ... Outside combat, for reasons the OP mentioned, persuasion is probably the "Go-To" method of getting some help. But once you've been caught where you're not supposed to be, deception is probably the right skill to try to use and this should be determined by the argument the player makes when they wish not to be arrested or something. Intimidation is a skill that could be used often in combat, if players thought about it, and so now you need to be proficient in a different skill.
The situation dictates which skill is being employed and this would be directly influenced by how the PC were using it. It would help the party if different members chose different skills to be proficient with, and certain skills are very thematic for RP, such as Deception for the Rogue, Persuasion for the Bard and Intimidation for the burly Fighter.
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I think Tonio had it right - we all have answers we can give because we're invested in the skill system we know, but that doesn't mean it's a good system. Pretty much all charisma-based skills achieve the same ends in ways that go beyond how other skills might overlap.
There's no reason you couldn't just have an Influence skill based on Charisma. The rogue might describe his Influence rolls as deception, the paladin would describe them as persuasion, and the barbarian would call it intimidation, the bard performance, but they all do the same thing.
The flavor of how you use your skill is supposed to come from the player - for example when a Wizard makes a religion check he can describe it as dry recitation of detached research, but a cleric might describe their religious knowledge arising from passionate practice and faith - they achieve the same goal, but can be described differently. You don't have a "Religious Research" and "Religious Training" skills because one skill can cover both approaches.
When you really stop to look at it objectively, it's kind of a weird setup seemingly designed to hold your hand by restricting the ways you're meant to roleplay through class proficiencies. "You are a Warlock which must be evil and edgy so you don't like to persuade people." "You are a cleric so you would never think of intimidating someone (Oh but here's the Death domain which basically makes you the Grim Reaper)."
I'm not saying it's broken - obviously everyone here has made it work - but I think it really could be a lot better considering it's the primary mechanic of an entire third of the game according to their "3 pillars" declaration.
And yes, at the end of the day Intimidation is straight-up worse than Persuasion. It's just Persuasion-but-they're-mad-at-you-afterwards. I woud be extremely skeptical if anyone claimed that they gave out negative consequences for successful Persuasion checks as readily as they might for Intimidation. Even when you succeed you might just be making more trouble for yourself.
I just want to say that with almost any sentence in DND trying to tell someone to do something can use persuasion, deception or intimidation by changing anywhere from like 1-15 words.
just tell the DM "I want to deceive" "I want to persuade" "I want to intimidate" before your sentence then change a few words to make it match. Some examples could be: I want to persuade him to let me buy this item for 1 gold coin instead of 10. I want to deceive him to let me buy this item for 1 gold coin instead of 10 by saying it would be more profitable for him. I want to intimidate him into letting me buy this item for 1 gold coin instead of 10 by threating his life. obviously some DMs wouldn't allow this but I would assume a lot of them would.
Edit: my current dm pretty much says to roll persuasion for pretty much anything that could use intimidation, persuasion or deception. for example I might try to tell a blatant lie to someone and unless I ask if i can use deception or say I want to deceive him 10/10 times he will tell me to roll persuasion.
I just want to say that with almost any sentence in DND trying to tell someone to do something can use persuasion, deception or intimidation by changing anywhere from like 1-15 words.
just tell the DM "I want to deceive" "I want to persuade" "I want to intimidate" before your sentence then change a few words to make it match. Some examples could be: I want to persuade him to let me buy this item for 1 gold coin instead of 10. I want to deceive him to let me buy this item for 1 gold coin instead of 10 by saying it would be more profitable for him. I want to intimidate him into letting me buy this item for 1 gold coin instead of 10 by threating his life. obviously some DMs wouldn't allow this but I would assume a lot of them would.
Edit: my current dm pretty much says to roll persuasion for pretty much anything that could use intimidation, persuasion or deception. for example I might try to tell a blatant lie to someone and unless I ask if i can use deception or say I want to deceive him 10/10 times he will tell me to roll persuasion.
I can only speak for the table I play at; none of this would work. Using your example, *how* do attempt to pay only 1gp? Just stating you are doing something without any context just seems sloppy. You interact with the NPC, and the DM determines if you can make a skill check, what the check is, and the difficulty. The players don't get to dictate what type of roll (though they can certainly try).
Why would anybody prefer Intimidation over Persuasion? They both use Charisma, they can be used to achieve the same goals, but one has a greater potential for problems (Intimidation). Sure, they have different flavor, and thematically one might be more appropriate than the other, but it seems to me that Intimidation is strictly worse than Persuasion.
None's worse or better, they're just two very different ways to attempt to influence people. Intimidation involve threats, hostile actions, and physical violence, while Persuasion involve tact, social graces, or good nature. Being violently intimidated can leave a more sour taste than being gracefully persuaded though so in some case it may be more sensible to use one, or have other consequence to use the other.
I get what the OP is saying and I could see having just one “influence” or “social” skill that covers all three.
“tell me what I want to know or someone’s going to be missing a couple thumbs “
”listen, friend, tell me what I want to know and I can make it worth your while.”
”hey, your buddy Sam wants you to tell me this information. I will keep it between us friends”
So these could be covered by rolling intimidation, persuasion, or deception. Or by rolling “influence”
And just like any other skill, the DM could use alternate ability scores for the roll depending on how you RP it.
However, I think they ended up having these separate skills to keep it from a “one skill take all” face skill that you take so you get everything in one proficiency. The same argument could be made for a “physical” skill which includes athletics and acrobatics. Or a “knowledge” skill the combines arcana, nature, history, religion, etc.
I get what the OP is saying and I could see having just one “influence” or “social” skill that covers all three.
“tell me what I want to know or someone’s going to be missing a couple thumbs “
”listen, friend, tell me what I want to know and I can make it worth your while.”
”hey, your buddy Sam wants you to tell me this information. I will keep it between us friends”
So these could be covered by rolling intimidation, persuasion, or deception. Or by rolling “influence”
And just like any other skill, the DM could use alternate ability scores for the roll depending on how you RP it.
However, I think they ended up having these separate skills to keep it from a “one skill take all” face skill that you take so you get everything in one proficiency. The same argument could be made for a “physical” skill which includes athletics and acrobatics. Or a “knowledge” skill the combines arcana, nature, history, religion, etc.
Exactly! If one skill covers all possible cases, you are essentially eliminating skills and just rolling your stat check with proficiency. Boiling down all uses to one skill is removing the need to skills in the game.
Now at our table, if you only had Intimidation you would look to leverage that skill in most interactions because it gives you the best bonus. But if the encounter calls for Deception or Persuasion and you try to force a different skill check; you can do it but you would likely be at Disadvantage and at best the difficulty is higher by more than your proficiency bonus.
There is one other ingredient in this that could matter if the DM wishes ...
While all three Charisma skills are attempting to obtain something, what is the risk to the PC for using either of these in a given situation?
An intimidation attempt may cause the "victim" to go seek help whether it is successful or not. A guard, after being intimidated, goes to his watch commander and says, "Hey some guy ..."
A deception attempt may buy the PC some time until the "Victim" knows they were deceived. But once they know, they tell other people. "Hey, you know that guy that came in here about an hour ago? Yea, he said the commander told him to send a squad over to the south gate and give him a hand with something. Yea, except the commander just rode in from the south gate, and his orderly said they have been out all morning."
A persuasion attempt gone wrong could end badly. "Hey, see that guy over there, in the blue vest? Yea, him. He just tried to get me to let him into the storeroom. You know we can't let anyone in there."
So while the front end desire to get something for nothing is pretty consistent, the back end consequences can be different. On the one hand, persuasion is less likely to damage (severely) a relationship. Deception and Intimidation would definitely damage a relationship. Intimidation may work well if the target has no allies that they might run to. Deception might work the best, but only for a time, until the target realizes they have been deceived. Then they are upset at having been taken advantage of but not scared of what you might do when confronted about it.
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I would not agree with that I think it depends on who you are dealing with.
A paladin who is used ot pain and has no fear of death may consider giving in to intimidation as a sign of weakness butr is willing to listen to reasoned arguments
A high wisdom character will be very difficult to deceive but much easier agaist a low wisdom character.
I also like the variant rule to use skill checks with different abilities. If the goliath barbarian lifts the thief off the floor and says "tell us where the diamonds are or I'll toss you over the cliff" I think that should be a strength based intimidation check.
Specific cases will always trump general rules. I wouldn't dream of suggesting otherwise. I probably should have prefaced my comment with "In general". I was trying more to illustrate the differences in the different social skills.
I don't know that the Difficult Class for a Deception attempt against a high Wisdom NPC will be higher so much as the danger of being caught out is greater.
I am also uncertain that displaying your ability to carry out a threat entirely replaces the ability to sell the idea that you are ready and willing to carry out that threat without turning a social encounter into a combat encounter instead.
Not to say I won't allow for that variant rule about different Abilities. I might. I might also let you make a Strength Check to display your power, and have that alter the Difficult Class of the Intimidate(Charisma) check that follows. I don't want to encourage people who made Charisma their Dump Stat to constantly use other stats in social interactions. You are probably going to be better off in my game if you let the Bard who knows what they are doing do the Intimidating, while the Goliath Barbarian with the 8 Charisma stays quiet.
<Insert clever signature here>
Both skills can achieve similar results, but the DC could be different depending on the skill.
If I'm trying to get the guards to let me into a keep, I am going to likely use persuasion as my chances to intimidate them into letting me gain access will be more difficult. Now change that to convincing the local thieves' guild to stop harassing your shop owner friend, and intimidation may be an easier DC if you look like you mean business.
I'd set the DC based on the NPCs skill. Intimidation vs. intimidation (CHA), deception vs. investigation (INT), Persuasion vs. Insight (WIS). Thus the Paladin is less easily frightened, the cop is less easily lied too, etc.
Extended Signature
I consider persuasion to be a method of getting assistance or cooperation and Charisma looks like the right stat for me.
I consider deception to be a method of bypassing a character as an obstacle and charisma or intelligence look like good stats for trying this out.
I consider intimidation to be "blowing past" an obstacle and has negative effects no matter what, unless all the witnesses are killed. Charisma doesn't sound like the best stat but I can understand it being considered, but strength and having some sort of "presence" in the face of your opponent seems to be the right measure. But ...
Since each is a different skill, you have to choose which skill(s) you plan to be proficient with so it might help the party if you let the high charisma player choose persuasion, and let a high strength player choose intimidation, just to spread out the skills the party is proficient with. Yes, strength isn't The Attribute associated with intimidation on the character sheet, but a reasonable argument can be shared to support it in many situations.
And then there is the situation itself ... Outside combat, for reasons the OP mentioned, persuasion is probably the "Go-To" method of getting some help. But once you've been caught where you're not supposed to be, deception is probably the right skill to try to use and this should be determined by the argument the player makes when they wish not to be arrested or something. Intimidation is a skill that could be used often in combat, if players thought about it, and so now you need to be proficient in a different skill.
The situation dictates which skill is being employed and this would be directly influenced by how the PC were using it. It would help the party if different members chose different skills to be proficient with, and certain skills are very thematic for RP, such as Deception for the Rogue, Persuasion for the Bard and Intimidation for the burly Fighter.
Cum catapultae proscriptae erunt tum soli proscript catapultas habebunt
I think Tonio had it right - we all have answers we can give because we're invested in the skill system we know, but that doesn't mean it's a good system. Pretty much all charisma-based skills achieve the same ends in ways that go beyond how other skills might overlap.
There's no reason you couldn't just have an Influence skill based on Charisma. The rogue might describe his Influence rolls as deception, the paladin would describe them as persuasion, and the barbarian would call it intimidation, the bard performance, but they all do the same thing.
The flavor of how you use your skill is supposed to come from the player - for example when a Wizard makes a religion check he can describe it as dry recitation of detached research, but a cleric might describe their religious knowledge arising from passionate practice and faith - they achieve the same goal, but can be described differently. You don't have a "Religious Research" and "Religious Training" skills because one skill can cover both approaches.
When you really stop to look at it objectively, it's kind of a weird setup seemingly designed to hold your hand by restricting the ways you're meant to roleplay through class proficiencies. "You are a Warlock which must be evil and edgy so you don't like to persuade people." "You are a cleric so you would never think of intimidating someone (Oh but here's the Death domain which basically makes you the Grim Reaper)."
I'm not saying it's broken - obviously everyone here has made it work - but I think it really could be a lot better considering it's the primary mechanic of an entire third of the game according to their "3 pillars" declaration.
And yes, at the end of the day Intimidation is straight-up worse than Persuasion. It's just Persuasion-but-they're-mad-at-you-afterwards. I woud be extremely skeptical if anyone claimed that they gave out negative consequences for successful Persuasion checks as readily as they might for Intimidation. Even when you succeed you might just be making more trouble for yourself.
My homebrew subclasses (full list here)
(Artificer) Swordmage | Glasswright | (Barbarian) Path of the Savage Embrace
(Bard) College of Dance | (Fighter) Warlord | Cannoneer
(Monk) Way of the Elements | (Ranger) Blade Dancer
(Rogue) DaggerMaster | Inquisitor | (Sorcerer) Riftwalker | Spellfist
(Warlock) The Swarm
I just want to say that with almost any sentence in DND trying to tell someone to do something can use persuasion, deception or intimidation by changing anywhere from like 1-15 words.
just tell the DM "I want to deceive" "I want to persuade" "I want to intimidate" before your sentence then change a few words to make it match.
Some examples could be:
I want to persuade him to let me buy this item for 1 gold coin instead of 10.
I want to deceive him to let me buy this item for 1 gold coin instead of 10 by saying it would be more profitable for him.
I want to intimidate him into letting me buy this item for 1 gold coin instead of 10 by threating his life.
obviously some DMs wouldn't allow this but I would assume a lot of them would.
Edit: my current dm pretty much says to roll persuasion for pretty much anything that could use intimidation, persuasion or deception.
for example I might try to tell a blatant lie to someone and unless I ask if i can use deception or say I want to deceive him 10/10 times he will tell me to roll persuasion.
I can only speak for the table I play at; none of this would work. Using your example, *how* do attempt to pay only 1gp? Just stating you are doing something without any context just seems sloppy. You interact with the NPC, and the DM determines if you can make a skill check, what the check is, and the difficulty. The players don't get to dictate what type of roll (though they can certainly try).
None's worse or better, they're just two very different ways to attempt to influence people. Intimidation involve threats, hostile actions, and physical violence, while Persuasion involve tact, social graces, or good nature. Being violently intimidated can leave a more sour taste than being gracefully persuaded though so in some case it may be more sensible to use one, or have other consequence to use the other.
I get what the OP is saying and I could see having just one “influence” or “social” skill that covers all three.
“tell me what I want to know or someone’s going to be missing a couple thumbs “
”listen, friend, tell me what I want to know and I can make it worth your while.”
”hey, your buddy Sam wants you to tell me this information. I will keep it between us friends”
So these could be covered by rolling intimidation, persuasion, or deception. Or by rolling “influence”
And just like any other skill, the DM could use alternate ability scores for the roll depending on how you RP it.
However, I think they ended up having these separate skills to keep it from a “one skill take all” face skill that you take so you get everything in one proficiency. The same argument could be made for a “physical” skill which includes athletics and acrobatics. Or a “knowledge” skill the combines arcana, nature, history, religion, etc.
EZD6 by DM Scotty
https://www.drivethrurpg.com/en/product/397599/EZD6-Core-Rulebook?
Exactly! If one skill covers all possible cases, you are essentially eliminating skills and just rolling your stat check with proficiency. Boiling down all uses to one skill is removing the need to skills in the game.
Now at our table, if you only had Intimidation you would look to leverage that skill in most interactions because it gives you the best bonus. But if the encounter calls for Deception or Persuasion and you try to force a different skill check; you can do it but you would likely be at Disadvantage and at best the difficulty is higher by more than your proficiency bonus.
There is one other ingredient in this that could matter if the DM wishes ...
While all three Charisma skills are attempting to obtain something, what is the risk to the PC for using either of these in a given situation?
An intimidation attempt may cause the "victim" to go seek help whether it is successful or not. A guard, after being intimidated, goes to his watch commander and says, "Hey some guy ..."
A deception attempt may buy the PC some time until the "Victim" knows they were deceived. But once they know, they tell other people. "Hey, you know that guy that came in here about an hour ago? Yea, he said the commander told him to send a squad over to the south gate and give him a hand with something. Yea, except the commander just rode in from the south gate, and his orderly said they have been out all morning."
A persuasion attempt gone wrong could end badly. "Hey, see that guy over there, in the blue vest? Yea, him. He just tried to get me to let him into the storeroom. You know we can't let anyone in there."
So while the front end desire to get something for nothing is pretty consistent, the back end consequences can be different. On the one hand, persuasion is less likely to damage (severely) a relationship. Deception and Intimidation would definitely damage a relationship. Intimidation may work well if the target has no allies that they might run to. Deception might work the best, but only for a time, until the target realizes they have been deceived. Then they are upset at having been taken advantage of but not scared of what you might do when confronted about it.
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