Intimidate

Skill
Skill Class skill Skill point Skill usefulness
Skills Cross-class skill Skill rank
Passive													Active

Intimidate (Charisma)

Description

Cooldown: 6 Seconds

Activating the Intimidate skill rolls an Intimidate check against all monsters within a short radius of you. There is a -4 penalty per size category by which the monster is larger than you (which becomes a bonus if the monster is smaller). If your check beats a DC specific to that creature (supposedly 10+HD+Wisdom modifier), the creature is intimidated and the following effects are applied:

• The affected creature(s) briefly display an orange outline of the Intimidate icon over their heads.
• Your threat with the creature is set equal to the highest threat opponent.
• You gain additional threat against the creature, equal to Intimidate Skill x 200.
• For example, a successful check with a 70 Intimidate would set the character's threat to equal the highest threat plus 14,000 damage worth of threat.

Additionally, if you successfully intimidate at least one creature, you gain a 12 second buff called Intimidating Presence that provides the following benefits:

• 400% bonus to the threat generated by melee attacks
• 100% bonus to the threat generated by missile attacks and spells

Intimidate can be used on any creature that possesses any level of intelligence. Completely unintelligent monsters such as some constructs, some undead, and all vermin, are immune to social manipulation. Note that some rare monsters do not follow the normal threat mechanics.

• Class Skill for Barbarian, Druid, Fighter, Paladin, Rogue, Warlock
• See also: List of named items that increase your Intimidate

Tips

• Intimidates works rather like a "taunt" aggro skill in other MMORPGs. (However, unintelligent monsters are immune to the effect.)

• To use Intimidate well, you obviously want to be very well protected. Consider Tower Shields, Defensive Fighting, and simply holding down Shift to block. The Combat Expertise feat is a fine way to boost your AC, if you meet the Intelligence requirement. Alternatively, if the opponents are spellcasters, you might like the Resilience feat, which boosts your saving throws. See also intimitanks for extra information.

• If you can position aggroed monsters with backsides to your party, everyone effectively gets flanking bonuses on attack rolls. Because an aggroed monster attacks you, characters with sneak attack dice get to look like superstars with Sneak attack.

• Intimidate simply shifts you on top of the threat list. In order to maintain aggro of a monster, you will need to continue producing threat by dealing damage to it. Consider using threat increasing items such as those with the Incite property.

• Monks have gained the Ki Shout enhancement from the Shintao tree which uses their Concentration skill as the DC increasing their effectiveness as a Tank.

• Halflings and Gnomes suffer a -4 penalty to Intimidate due to their small size.

• The required skill ranks after all bonus for some no fail skill check targets are as follows:
  • 79 Epic Queen Lailat (Zawabi's Revenge raid)
  • 80 Elite Xy'xxy (Hound of Xoriat raid)
  • 54 Normal Suulomades (A Vision of Destruction raid)

History

• In Module 4, Intimidate was changed to no longer use an emote animation. It became nearly instant.
• In Module 7, the cooldown for Intimidate was reduced from 10 seconds to 6 seconds (same as the duration), and it was given hate generation.
• In Update 9, the emote animation was returned, the cooldown was increased to 15 seconds and Intimidate was changed to no longer force a monster to attack a player for the full duration, but instead simply grab the monsters attention, and grant a certain amount of hate and short duration +hate multiplier (and increased benefits for shield users).
• In Update 29, Intimidate has been improved:
  • Intimidate's cooldown has been reduced to six seconds.
  • If the initial Intimidate succeeds, the bonus threat is now Skill x 200. For example, a successful check with a 70 Intimidate would set the character's threat to equal the highest threat plus 14,000 damage worth of threat.
  • The threat boost provided by Intimidate now lasts for 12 seconds.
  • The threat boost provided by Intimidate for melee attacks was increased from 50% to 200%.
  • Intimidate now uses a shorter animation.
  • Intimidate's threat multiplier is 400% for melee, 100% for ranged and magic attacks.

PnP Differences

The basic effect of Intimidate is different in D&D. In the source game, you can give the targets a variety of commands/suggestions due to their temporary "attitude adjustment". In D&D, any character can attempt to use Intimidate to make enemies shaken, not just Barbarians. In D&D, fear-immune creatures are immune to intimidate. That is notably not the case in DDO.