The Gaming Den

FatR wrote:...and that it boils down to "things I find morally bad should be automatically ineffective (even if these things are "threats" in a game where the main solution for problems is "violence")"...

Man, I am sorry that your reading comprehension is so terrible.
I have never once brought up the Morality of threatening people. I have always posited that intimidate is a bad idea because LOGICALLY, it IS a bad idea. You could have skimmed the last few pages where I go over why I think that, but since you're too lazy to do that, I'll do it again.

Diplomacy and Intimidate can both be used to influence someone's behavior. They both take one minute to perform. They both use the same attribute as a modifier to the check. They both work more or less exactly the same. The difference is that Intimidate is designed to sabotage you. Its effects are temporary and regardless of the outcome, the relationship with your target is permanently damaged.
It's even worse in 4E where its use can potentially auto-fail in skill encounters (the DMG uses that explicitly as an example).
Conclusion: Intimidate is a Trap. Using it is bad (dumb).

fectin wrote:The thing actually preventing that is that a fighter basically can never compete with Command Undead. It wins the encounter, no save, and simultaneously makes the wizard stronger. Charm does the same thing socially. So does Glibness for a bard. These aren't high-level either; right off the bat, casters just win.

Is it that casters win or is it that non-casters lose? If you ban all of the non-caster classes the game still functions fine. If you ban all of the caster classes the game still falls apart. So I think that complaining about caster tricks is looking at the problem from the wrong way. When you're complaining about bards hogging the plot compared to your class the problem may not be the bard.

The reason why I'm unnecessarily hard on the Tomes and assorted fighter fixes is that it keeps locking people into the mentality of 'if it wasn't for those damn CASTERS I'd have my screentime back once we got into the epic levels'. Which t'aint necessarily so. For some reason, people just don't want to face the fact that the idea of having a non-magical character participating in a high-powered plot is a flat-out contradiction and no matter how much you nerf their buddies or the plot or how much cognitive dissonance you hammer into the game it cannot be made to work.


This delusion and the reactions to this delusion is so intense and persistent it's exactly why I so authoritatively declared so long ago that Fighters Will NEVER Have Nice Things. Tens of thousands of posts later, TTRPG debates have not advanced an inch towards convincing me otherwise.

FatR wrote:Some classes, though, like Barbarians - and any other "fighting man with some narrow gimmick" classes should just die.

Curiously enough, there's no reason to implement this solution at the same time as 'give Fighters and Rogues more magical item slots'. Or vice versa. One takes care of the other. Note that the Barbarian gimmick isn't narrow at low levels -- it's that the game makes their original gimmicks irrelevant or narrow without giving them new ones to compensate.

There are two parts:

1) Some caster abilities are "I win!" A spell which says "If it's Tuesday, you win" does not work 1/7th of the time. It works every time, because you use it every Tuesday and only Tuesday. Those have to go, because the problem isn't even solvable until they're gone.

2) Also, non-casters lose. After addressing part 1 though, it's a solvable problem. Tome shows this for combat and you've just described fixes for out of combat.

Wrathzog wrote:

FatR wrote:...and that it boils down to "things I find morally bad should be automatically ineffective (even if these things are "threats" in a game where the main solution for problems is "violence")"...

Man, I am sorry that your reading comprehension is so terrible.
I have never once brought up the Morality of threatening people. I have always posited that intimidate is a bad idea because LOGICALLY, it IS a bad idea.

Except it isn't. It seems I wrongly assumed you actually have a reasoning, if a faulty one, behind your argument.

Wrathzog wrote:Diplomacy and Intimidate can both be used to influence someone's behavior. They both take one minute to perform. They both use the same attribute as a modifier to the check. They both work more or less exactly the same. The difference is that Intimidate is designed to sabotage you. Its effects are temporary and regardless of the outcome, the relationship with your target is permanently damaged.

I'm aware, that Intimidate in 3.5 (and maybe 4E, who cares) sucks ass mechanically. That, however, was not what you were saying. Neither that is a justifiable state of affairs, whether from logical or balance standpoint.

Lago PARANOIA wrote:
Curiously enough, there's no reason to implement this solution at the same time as 'give Fighters and Rogues more magical item slots'.

Fighters and Rogues were there from the beginning and they were there for every edition... I realise that this probably is illogical grognardism, but I'm not yet ready to erase them from my image of DnD.

FatR wrote:

Lago PARANOIA wrote:
Curiously enough, there's no reason to implement this solution at the same time as 'give Fighters and Rogues more magical item slots'.

Fighters and Rogues were there from the beginning and they were there for every edition... I realise that this probably is illogical grognardism, but I'm not yet ready to erase them from my image of DnD.

I believe OD&D had no rogues, only "fighting-men". This might seem pedantic, but there's a grain of truth to the idea that rogues basically just a subclass of fighter. Additionally, I don't think that giving fighters (and rogues) powerful abilities somehow invalidates their existence. I agree that noncasting classes need something to prop them up and probably don't need 38 classes to distinguish them from spellcasters, but I also don't think that the deletion of the entire "specialized fighter" concept is in any way workable or even worthwhile.

echo

In before Shadzar.

Rogues were not a part of every edition. The term appeared in 2e; The basic rogue classes included the Thief and Bard.

Your point still stands.

In for the grognardia:
1E monks had the majority of the thief skills.
They were, in practice, a rogue class.

FatR wrote:Except it isn't. It seems I wrongly assumed you actually have a reasoning, if a faulty one, behind your argument.

Masterfully done. Not only do you wrongfully accuse me of not backing up my statements with reasoning, you refute my assertions with a total of Jack Fucking Squat. So, not only are you a foolish ass, you're a hypocrite as well.

That, however, was not what you were saying.

So, unless you're some sort of fucking mind reading wizard, you actually cannot tell ME what the INTENT of MY posts were. If you misread them or misunderstood what I was trying to say, then yeah that is my fault... but I feel like I've done what I can to try to correct that. Obviously, you still haven't figured it out and I feel fine with laying this all on you.
So, Sir, Fuck You very much. We're done, dawg.

Lago PARANOIA wrote:[*] Give characters access to a magical substrate. It's really no big deal that the barbarian or rogue career path never provides any level-appropriate powers, because around that time picking locks or yelling really hard stops solving problems that's when Green Lantern Rings and Swords of Omens start to drop.
CON: Too many to list unless asked.

I think this one is worth more of a look. You don't have to make it actual items, like Pathfinder Paladins (and many earlier things) you can give the class the ability to be better with their weapon rather than having a weapon that upgrades for some class or another. Rather than have a Monk's belt and an Amulet of Mighty Fists, you just have monks progress their bonuses faster.

The original game "balanced" fighters (not well, but tried) by including a fuck-ton of awesome swords that did things up to and including automatically disintegrating all Evil creatures with a single hit. Clerics and Wizards could not use them. You got the spells of win, or the swords of win, but not both. Even Elves had to pick just one type of win each adventure.


If Vorpal and Sharpness and Speed and Defender were Fighter properties they can only use on swords (or whatever), rather than Sword properties that only work for Fighters, only expanded out to all the things you find in extraordinarily intelligent and artefact swords too, that should fluff up as a DMF who only needs common finds to be awesome.

Well, as long as you get the fluff right, and maybe say you can only do certain things with certain types of weapon (magic, silver, Blessed, whatever, can even use that to control stacking) so it still feels "weapony", that should basically keep the DMF people happy.

Do the same with armour, so a Cleric or Fighter type can move full speed in magical armour and ignore it's encumbrance, Fighters can ignore ACP, Fighters can "walk through walls" in magic plate by breaking the wall, Fighters can turn dragon breath and elemental damage with a magic shield, ....

People are already fine with winged boots, a helm of telepathy, a cloak of shadows, and a belt of holding your pants up while carrying a spare sword and some daggers. Or they were until you had to trade it all for +1s, but boom, level appropriate Fighter, +1s are a class function.

Relevant scholarly article dealing with the logic of aggression and intimidation as it relates to social contests.

Most of the literature in this area uses less weighted terms; Coercion, psychological manipulation, compulsion, duress, etc. I'm certainly no expert, but I recognise that there is a difference between an unconscious characteristic (ie. Arseholes, People you don't fuck with ) and the deliberate application of manipulation.

tussock wrote: I think this one is worth more of a look. You don't have to make it actual items, like Pathfinder Paladins (and many earlier things) you can give the class the ability to be better with their weapon rather than having a weapon that upgrades for some class or another. Rather than have a Monk's belt and an Amulet of Mighty Fists, you just have monks progress their bonuses faster.

The original game "balanced" fighters (not well, but tried) by including a fuck-ton of awesome swords that did things up to and including automatically disintegrating all Evil creatures with a single hit. Clerics and Wizards could not use them. You got the spells of win, or the swords of win, but not both. Even Elves had to pick just one type of win each adventure.


If Vorpal and Sharpness and Speed and Defender were Fighter properties they can only use on swords (or whatever), rather than Sword properties that only work for Fighters, only expanded out to all the things you find in extraordinarily intelligent and artefact swords too, that should fluff up as a DMF who only needs common finds to be awesome.

Well, as long as you get the fluff right, and maybe say you can only do certain things with certain types of weapon (magic, silver, Blessed, whatever, can even use that to control stacking) so it still feels "weapony", that should basically keep the DMF people happy.

Do the same with armour, so a Cleric or Fighter type can move full speed in magical armour and ignore it's encumbrance, Fighters can ignore ACP, Fighters can "walk through walls" in magic plate by breaking the wall, Fighters can turn dragon breath and elemental damage with a magic shield, ....

People are already fine with winged boots, a helm of telepathy, a cloak of shadows, and a belt of holding your pants up while carrying a spare sword and some daggers. Or they were until you had to trade it all for +1s, but boom, level appropriate Fighter, +1s are a class function.

Yeah, but after a certain point it's no longer the badass fighter and more "A commoner could do this if he wore my magic items."

And that sucks.

Wrathzog, you are totally wrong about intimidation. It is used all the time. The police say "Get out of there or I'll arrest you for trespassing!", random dudes say "Put that back or I'll call the cops!", mob enforcers say "Deliver the money or your store might have an accident.", government leaders tell Ukraine "Stop torturing Yulia or we'll put sanctions on your country." And so on.

The fact is that threats of one kind or another are part of almost every single social encounter. And they work. In the current election cycle, Seventy Percent of aired ads have been negative. A negative ad is a threat about what will happen if the other guy wins. It's a powerful motivator, and it fucking runs on the fucking intimidate skill.

-Username17

CapnTthePirateG wrote:Yeah, but after a certain point it's no longer the badass fighter and more "A commoner could do this if he wore my magic items."

And that sucks.

A commoner could have been a wizard, if he chose different classes. But he didn't and he isn't.

Cry me a river.

Can't he still be a wizard if he just grabs enough scrolls?

fectin wrote:

CapnTthePirateG wrote:Yeah, but after a certain point it's no longer the badass fighter and more "A commoner could do this if he wore my magic items."

And that sucks.

A commoner could have been a wizard, if he chose different classes. But he didn't and he isn't.

Cry me a river.

Then that commoner has worked his ass off and is now a badass. The fighter is working his ass off but is useless without his items. And that sucks.

How is the fighter working his ass off in ways the commoner is not?

CapnTthePirateG wrote:
Then that commoner has worked his ass off and is now a badass. The fighter is working his ass off but is useless without his items. And that sucks.

Yes, I'm with fectin here, could you explain this a bit better, doesn't even seem to make sense trying to guess the context. Unless vaguely saying the commoner becomes a fighter, making him BA compared to other commoners, but then soon as he goes to meet adventurer-level challenges without super swag, he's useless? Otherwise, imagine even with the super swag, the commoner still lacks the inherent statistics that make him a good adventurer (HP, standard/high point attribute values, applicable RNG class bonuses).

Now, to guess what I think Wrathzog is sayin, that rules wise, in 3rd edition, Intimidate is pretty much the opposite in net effect on a success. Although they both get the person to be helpful and provide aid for a time, after the effect ends, those who were coerced under Intimidate-effect are now lowered one less disposition toward you than they were prior (unfriendly usually, or hostile if already unfriendly). Whereas Diplomacy, if you fail, doesn't really quite say I don't think, usually just can't use that skill on them again, and Diplomacy doesn't have an effect timer on how long their disposition lasts, and neither does it turn them to unfriendly (or hostile if they were already unfriendly). Given, that Diplomacy seems to be open to DM fiat there, so I guess Intimidate is bit better in that the DM can't screw with you when you succeed, and it's also easier DC's to do.

In 4th edition, it's true the DMG has sample Skill Challenges for "Intimidate" to be an Auto fail skill check to try and do, which I guess most DM's just get thrown into the habit of doing. Although given, skill challenges are fiat based too, so could throw out other proposals others have said for Intimidate, like Frank saying how can use it to "inspire" found that to be an idea I had't considered before, sounds awesome. However, doesn't seem like those kind of interpretations would be obvious as written in the 3rd edition rules nor 4th edition (which has explicitly stated the description as "influence others through hostile actions, overt threats, and deadly persuasion".

So as written, seems Intimidate is only better if want an easier DC, "faster" in the sense of only needing one Intimidate check to convince them, and help given is only needed short term, as it's only matter of 30-60 minutes before they dislike you afterwards (unless keep em in your presence the entire time to keep that after timer from going off). Funnily enough, this kinda reminds of Elder Scrolls: Oblivion, where played around with NPC facial expressions to get a desired result, so they're unhappy with Intimidate, make them happy with Diplomacy! or glibness later, kinda like playing with a light switch on NPC emotions.

Anyway, seems like Wrathzog supports Intimidate being valid, like in some unrrelated "new edition" or Fantasy Heartbreaker, in part mentioning it's not so great a solution by the rules. As for his comments about it being "uncommon" or what have you, Frank and others have shown that position otherwise with the cop example it sounds like?

I could be wrong, and probably missing a couple things to have mentioned, oh well, and if so, my bad on both fronts there.

Aryxbez wrote: Now, to guess what I think Wrathzog is sayin, that rules wise, in 3rd edition, Intimidate is pretty much the opposite in net effect on a success. Although they both get the person to be helpful and provide aid for a time, after the effect ends, those who were coerced under Intimidate-effect are now lowered one less disposition toward you than they were prior (unfriendly usually, or hostile if already unfriendly). Whereas Diplomacy, if you fail, doesn't really quite say I don't think, usually just can't use that skill on them again, and Diplomacy doesn't have an effect timer on how long their disposition lasts, and neither does it turn them to unfriendly (or hostile if they were already unfriendly).

Diplomacy has a range of DCs for every disposition that result in every better disposition and one worse disposition. So there is a range of rolls that will give you "no change", but also a range of rolls that will give you a better NPC disposition and another range of rolls that will give you a worse NPC disposition. It is entirely possible to get a diplomacy check bad enough that you convert the NPC from Indifferent to Unfriendly. Although of course, you won't ever get that result, because no one is going to attempt a Diplomancy check without a positive modifier and the DC to not piss off indifferent people is literally 1.

Anyway, seems like Wrathzog supports Intimidate being valid, like in some unrrelated "new edition" or Fantasy Heartbreaker, in part mentioning it's not so great a solution by the rules. As for his comments about it being "uncommon" or what have you, Frank and others have shown that position otherwise with the cop example it sounds like?

Wrathzog actually maintains that it "makes sense" for 4e Skill Challenges to make you automatically fail at Intimidate because there is no place "in reality" for intimidation in social situations. I would think that the cop example completely sinks his stated position.

But his entire chain of logic goes like this:

• There is nothing constructive you can do by threatening people.
• Therefore threatening people should always fail.
• Therefore the skill that makes you good at threatening people should be removed from the game.

I can see valid reasons to remove Intimidate from the game (mostly revolving around folding it into Bluff or having a deeper social minigame that doesn't have skills like Diplomancy at all), but that line of argumentation does not include any of them. There are lots of constructive things you can do with threats: from getting people to not touch the Cursed Stone to convincing people that you're the person who should be sent to fight the Ogre. And having autofailures for social gambits is just extremely weird. I don't think you're going to get a lot of people signing off on that.

-Username17

Lago PARANOIA wrote: [*] Having people run multiple characters at once. The Parliament and their bureaucracy of a magical metropolis can achieve about the same level of in-game effects as Spider-Man and Sailor Moon even if they don't have phlebtonium themselves. So about the time James Bond stops individually contributing to adventures it doesn't matter because you control the entire department of MI6.

I find this a rather interesting proposal actually, is there a game like this that does something like this, that's a cooperative experience? I could even seen the collection of people used, and the group itself, are all related to one major faction, using characters out of that. Suppose additional "CON" could be that too many roles could overlap, so everyone is bit too samey?

[*] Just give non-magical characters crazy non-magical superpowers. This seems like a contradiction, but in fiction it's generally done by the story going out of its way to insist that the feats are non-magic and/or it's one of those settings where logic takes a back seat and a nonsentient sword can transform into a ginormous martial arts elephant. You can even make it so that magic is inferior to sufficiently pimped-out nonmagic; Gentou Kouken and Hokuto Ryuuken are heavily magical (complete with incantations and swirling magic symbols) and are still inferior to the similar but nonmagical style of Hokuto Shinken. Regardless, you still have to make non-magic do effects that are explicitly impossible with our normal ken of real world physics, otherwise you're just doing the first option.
CON: A lot of people will complain about your game being weeaboo and retarded. Also if magic or other phlebtonium still has a specific presence in the game it's still very hard to include non-magic and magic at the same time without making one or the other make the other obsolete. See: League of Extraordinary Heroes and Teen Titans.

Yeah, to hell with those people by crom, don't need folk who don't realize that even western culture has awesome stuff that people consider "weeabo", Greek and Norse mythologies totally had dudes doing BA things out of simply being powered on awesome. I'm not too concerned with logic with Fantasy, so long as the super awesome things can do are consistent, who cares if they come off nonsensical (like centaurs charging up stairs is a big deal to people apparently...shrugs). Also, like One Piece, didn' they still have spellcaster like characters anyway, so that could still work? Also, is there actually a source material where a sword transforms into an elephant?! (easy enough to adapt, just basically a figuring of wondrous power in weapon form, but still)

CON: Too many to list unless asked.

Much as I like Iron Man, I would find it lame to be the standard for all fighter characters (even if kinda doing that for my 4th edition game), that's what something like a "Artificer/Gadgeteer/Gadget manknight/Batman" class is for after all. So, humor me, I'm up for asking since you basically offered.

Aryxbez wrote:

Lago PARANOIA wrote: [*] Having people run multiple characters at once. The Parliament and their bureaucracy of a magical metropolis can achieve about the same level of in-game effects as Spider-Man and Sailor Moon even if they don't have phlebtonium themselves. So about the time James Bond stops individually contributing to adventures it doesn't matter because you control the entire department of MI6.

I find this a rather interesting proposal actually, is there a game like this that does something like this, that's a cooperative experience?

Ars Magica. Actually pretty terrible game system, but interesting nonetheless because of the dynamic where one player plays a Wizard and another player plays a team of assistants.

-Username17

Aryxbez wrote:

CapnTthePirateG wrote:
Then that commoner has worked his ass off and is now a badass. The fighter is working his ass off but is useless without his items. And that sucks.

Yes, I'm with fectin here, could you explain this a bit better, doesn't even seem to make sense trying to guess the context.

Yeah, I'll try. My point is that it's not the fighter's training with swords and physical fitness that's making him a badass, it's the fact that he's wearing the pimp hat of disintegration. It's like how Batman isn't badass because of his martial arts training but because of all his gadgets. If you gave a random dude the Batcave, he could probably do a pretty good job being badass. Iron Man is about Batman's level, but (AFAIK) doesn't have the martial arts training. But he's awesome because he can build his own shit.

In other words, I like my heroes to have internal abilities that make them heroic - like wizards are awesome because they study and learn and can inherently warp reality. What people WANT from fighter is a dude who can take his physical training and buffness and beat people in nonmagical ways. What people actually get is a dude who needs magic pimp gear to survive because his actual abilities are useless.

I agree with Capn here. If I spend my life training to be awesome, and then a commoner can pick up my gear and do my job because my gear is the only thing that matters, then I feel pretty bad about training for my whole life.

That sort of scenario is dumb and should not exist.

Frank wrote:Wrathzog, you are totally wrong about intimidation. It is used all the time. The police say "Get out of there or I'll arrest you for trespassing!", random dudes say "Put that back or I'll call the cops!", mob enforcers say "Deliver the money or your store might have an accident.", government leaders tell Ukraine "Stop torturing Yulia or we'll put sanctions on your country." And so on.

Holy shit man, I never said that Intimidation is never used. Look at it again:

Me wrote:Generally speaking, people don't go around threatening authority figures...

I had a qualifier attached to that statement. It's important because it keeps me out Never territory. I usually don't speak in absolutes. I understand that there are always exceptions and I've experienced enough on-line debates to understand that speaking in absolutes is a bad idea.

Now go to the second part of the statement where I bring up its use against Authority Figures, as in someone or something that is regarded as exercising control over others.
Let's look at all of your examples.
The Police? Definitely an Authority Figure.
Random Dude? Invoking an Authority Figure.
Mob Enforcer? They represent an Authority (the mob).
A Government? Actually, I think this lays outside of the scope of what an intimidate check constitutes, which is a threat on a personal nature, rather than a political one. But still, it's one authority to another, lesser authority.
So, none of your examples actually pertain to what I actually said... every single one of them is coming FROM an authority figure.

Aryxbez wrote:Anyway, seems like Wrathzog supports Intimidate being valid

I like you man. I like the way you roll. Not jumping to conclusions and being calm and analytical.
But yeah, I do support the existence of Intimidation as a social option. I just want the rules to be clear that it only works in very specific situations. Primarily you need to possess the perception of having the Power and the Intent to make your target's life miserable if they don't do what you want.
The second aspect comes down to your target's personality type. Alpha-Types aren't likely to bow down without an obvious and considerable show of force. A Beta-Type, on the other hand, is going to be far easier to impress.

If we rewind back to The Duke scenario (which honestly won't work outside of heroic tier), the party is reporting TO the Duke and then asking for His help. The Duke holds the power in this relationship. Not only that, but he's obviously narcissistic (I don't have the book, but I'm pretty sure that making a successful history check involves you retelling him his favorite story about himself), which means he's probably not going to react well to being threatened.
On top of all that, if you think to an insight check, you find out that using intimidate results in an auto-failure. This isn't some random booby trap, it actually fucking makes sense if you take the time to step back and analyze the situation.

Aryxbez wrote:Much as I like Iron Man, I would find it lame to be the standard for all fighter characters (even if kinda doing that for my 4th edition game), that's what something like a "Artificer/Gadgeteer/Gadget manknight/Batman" class is for after all. So, humor me, I'm up for asking since you basically offered.

It's not so much that I hate the idea of this class in abstract so much that I hate the idea of this concept being used to enable grognard denial. Because you know that even if Conan needs his Sword of Omens, Phoenixfire Armor, Hermes Sandals, and Dragonzord Whistle they'll go out of their way to downplay it. The same thing already happens with Batman when he needs that extra gadgetry boost to do his faux-badass feats.

Personally, I think the best combination would be to have this class in combination with a Transcendental Warrior like Gilgamesh or Rob Lucci. Because James Bond -> Batman -> The Engineer (Team Fortress 2 version) -> Samus Aran -> Iron Man -> Doctor Doom -> The Engineer (Authority version) actually makes an extremely smooth progression of advancement for a gadgeteer hero. Probably smoother than any fictional archetype.