Saving throw Vs Intimidate

[Khurse]

It may (possibly is) just be me, but I think that higher level "intelligent" mobs should get some sort of saving throw against intimidate,both the skill and the actual combat mechanic. Certainly not a blanket immunity to it, but something to add a bit of a difference rather than "have we got the 80+ Intimi tank?/ Let the 70 Str ESoS
Barb beat on Horoth for a minute until he has aggro"

I know we'll probably never see things like the higher intelligence Monsters actually realize it might be better to use their wings and fly around rather than getting beaten on by 10-20 Greensteel weapons, but I like to think that maybe sometimes Horoth (for example) might decide that maybe the guy taunting them from behind the shield and massive DR wall aren't quite as important as the 10 guys beating on his back.

Basiclly I'd just like to see some sort of mechanic that says Maybe he'll keep being intimidated, but there's also a decent chance he'll use his (or her/or it's) massive intelligence to figure out maybe if he throws a maximum empowered disintegrate on one or two other guys attacking him from behind it might slow his attackers down. Or Maybe if he flies off and stomps the arcane running his orthons around, the orthons may actually participate in the fight.
Or maybe if he pays the healers a visit with some maxed out DBF's and Disintegrates , the party might have to adopt different tactics.

Could just be me (and I must admit I do not have an intimidate build) but I'd like to see some sort of challenge from some Mobs that can't really be solved with simply intimidate/gain agrro and kill mob while it pretty much tries to beat on one guy it's not really going to be able to hurt.

[blitzschlag]

It may (possibly is) just be me, but I think that higher level "intelligent" mobs should get some sort of saving throw against intimidate,both the skill and the actual combat mechanic. Certainly not a blanket immunity to it, but something to add a bit of a difference rather than "have we got the 80+ Intimi tank?/ Let the 70 Str ESoS
Barb beat on Horoth for a minute until he has aggro"

I know we'll probably never see things like the higher intelligence Monsters actually realize it might be better to use their wings and fly around rather than getting beaten on by 10-20 Greensteel weapons, but I like to think that maybe sometimes Horoth (for example) might decide that maybe the guy taunting them from behind the shield and massive DR wall aren't quite as important as the 10 guys beating on his back.

Basiclly I'd just like to see some sort of mechanic that says Maybe he'll keep being intimidated, but there's also a decent chance he'll use his (or her/or it's) massive intelligence to figure out maybe if he throws a maximum empowered disintegrate on one or two other guys attacking him from behind it might slow his attackers down. Or Maybe if he flies off and stomps the arcane running his orthons around, the orthons may actually participate in the fight.
Or maybe if he pays the healers a visit with some maxed out DBF's and Disintegrates , the party might have to adopt different tactics.

Could just be me (and I must admit I do not have an intimidate build) but I'd like to see some sort of challenge from some Mobs that can't really be solved with simply intimidate/gain agrro and kill mob while it pretty much tries to beat on one guy it's not really going to be able to hurt.

the boss has a saving value. its supposedly 10 + HD + wis mod. if anyone can beat that he brought the point across that he is more dangerous than the bard whacking away with his greataxe. thats the point.

the thing is, that does not come for free. you have to give something up to get enough intimi to be of use there...

[Khurse]

Yes, my point is having a mob with a genius (or so) level intellect try to beat on a guy whom

A) He can't hit
B) He can't damage (due to massive DR)
C) Keeps getting healed if he does manage to hurt him

is stupid.
By no means am I saying that there should be a blanket immunity, I'm just saying at some point he should go "maybe I need to change tactics, I will ignore this guy (girl/other) and go kill the healer that's keeping him up.There, now that I've hit that healer with 6 chain cast disintegrates and he's a pile of ash, maybe if I stomped that Arcane who's wailing on my troops they can help me deal with this clod who's the greatest danger to me"

[Tazarith]

Yes, my point is having a mob with a genius (or so) level intellect try to beat on a guy whom

A) He can't hit
B) He can't damage (due to massive DR)
C) Keeps getting healed if he does manage to hurt him

is stupid.
By no means am I saying that there should be a blanket immunity, I'm just saying at some point he should go "maybe I need to change tactics, I will ignore this guy (girl/other) and go kill the healer that's keeping him up.There, now that I've hit that healer with 6 chain cast disintegrates and he's a pile of ash, maybe if I stomped that Arcane who's wailing on my troops they can help me deal with this clod who's the greatest danger to me"

I think that what you're suggesting isn't exactly possible - atleast not in this stage of the game or any game for that matter. It would take alot of A.I that most online game providers wouldn't be able to justify the cost for ie. programing development, larger processing capabilities.

In the future I can see it, but not now and certainly not with this game as it is currently.

[MarkusWolfe]

The way I look at this is 'Fine, maybe the bosses should have really high saves against intimidate, but anything that isn't as boss should have much lower saves. I'm talking between 40-50 here.'

[Nospheratus]

A 200k hp mob that regens 20% of his hps when someone dies going after the healers makes the quest nearly impossible...

I'm not saying it wouldn't make sense, but i don't think it can be made like that.

Perhaps if the cleric draws agro with the healing... In that case, the hate tank would need to generate a lot of hate and in the end i think it wouldn't make a difference from what we have now.

[EKKM]

The problem with that suggestion is it invalidates a lot of builds. An endgame capable intimtank gives up a LOT to achieve those figures. If the best mobs in the game just ignore it what's the point of building it?

If it was only once for a given boss I could see implementing something like that adding some excitement to the game so I'm not completely against the idea. I just want to emphasize that it should not be a save against intim, more of every 20-30 seconds attack some random character, a healer or the "real" aggro leader.

[Impaqt]

Intelligence has little to do with being intimable.

the "Tank" has been a staple of MMO's since the introduction of the MMO. in DDO that "Tank" takes many more forms, but the result is often the same. Whether you are using Intim or or Damage to hold aggro makes very little difference.

Regardless, there are many different tactics used on raid boss's every day. many successful runs without using any sort of Intim and even without having a dedicated "hate tank"

[dkyle]

Adding a Save to intimidate makes intimitanks non-viable. Intimidate is already borderline, thanks to lag-induced buginess. A 5% or higher failure rate no matter is an unacceptable risk, when hate tanking is much more reliable.

There's a roll involved in succeeding in intimidating already. That's enough.

[grodon9999]

Intelligence has little to do with being intimable.

the "Tank" has been a staple of MMO's since the introduction of the MMO. in DDO that "Tank" takes many more forms, but the result is often the same. Whether you are using Intim or or Damage to hold aggro makes very little difference.

Regardless, there are many different tactics used on raid boss's every day. many successful runs without using any sort of Intim and even without having a dedicated "hate tank"

But let's face it, MMO tactics are ********. I think that's what the OP is getting at. The mobs are obscenely stupid and the "tactics" in this game are all based on exploiting that stupidity. What "Devil General" is going to punch one nearly un-killable guy while 8 others stab him in the back?

You'd NEVER see this in an PnP game, but then again Horoth wouldn't have 200k HP either. The game is balanced around the mobs being dumb.

[krud]

Intimidate gets a d20 roll added to it, which in practice works like a saving throw in reverse. Adding a saving throw would put two d20s into the equation. You could always keep the intim score static, and give the mob the d20 roll for save. That would accomplish exactly the same thing, but add a lot more die rolls when intimidating multiple mobs.

no need to give a save.

now, if it gave diminishing returns like it bluff does, that would be interesting. Perhaps make the failure penalty very small for dumb mobs and greater for more intelligent mobs.

[voodoogroves]

Yes and no, you could see it in PNP, it depends on the DM.

The Intimidate DC is a check. Maybe it doesn't scale right, maybe it needs a modifier to the DC based on the damage ratio of other folks wailing on the beastie, but it doesn't need a win/lose save.

We're talking 80, by the way, not 30. 80.

[OGREhalfling]

What the OP suggested is just not possible, given how MMORPGs operate. It might be possible in DnD rpgs and its spinoffs, and is always present in PnP (any half competent DM will be able to designate aggro).

What are people's objectives while playing ddo? having fun hacking stuff, making your own build work and feeling satisfaction and getting all the uberest loot in the game are a few of these objectives.. Given how unrewarding being a healer already is in this game, what you are suggesting will just make being a healer that gets killed from healing too much sound even less attractive.

Giving a save to intim.. the very notion of that is laughable.. I swear i have played with less than 100 intimitanks on thelanis and less than a fifth of them are decent enough to be able to intim suulo on elite vod/tod without fail. Given how little people understand how difficult it is to make a intimitank work endgame i would say giving saves to intims will break the whole mechanic.

PS: intimidate checks are given saves on a regular basis in PnP, given the states of pcs and npcs psyches and other mitigating circumstances, if you want changes to intim, i'd rather the devs give a thought to intim getting bonuses from str, such as half str bonus to intim checks (and forgoing cha bonus), since it makes sense that a brutish barb is intimidating enough from all the bulging muscles.

[Impaqt]

But let's face it, MMO tactics are ********. I think that's what the OP is getting at. The mobs are obscenely stupid and the "tactics" in this game are all based on exploiting that stupidity. What "Devil General" is going to punch one nearly un-killable guy while 8 others stab him in the back?

You'd NEVER see this in an PnP game, but then again Horoth wouldn't have 200k HP either. The game is balanced around the mobs being dumb.

Actually, its more balanced around mobs bing unwise.

[Angelus_dead]

But let's face it, MMO tactics are ********. I think that's what the OP is getting at. The mobs are obscenely stupid and the "tactics" in this game are all based on exploiting that stupidity.

Intimidate means you trick the enemy into making a mistake.
An intimidate score of 80 means you are superhumanly good at tricking enemies like that.

There are many problems with the Intimidate gameplay in DDO, but the core concept is justifiable.

[MrWizard]

the for/against here, especially when talking about PnP versus this game leaves out one simple fact.....

1) we repeat these quests a gazillion times.


I guarantee any raid in this game when first attempted by level appropriate characters did poorly or completely wiped regardless of hate, intim, or any other kind of tanking.

it is only because we continually do the same quest 100-600 times that we have some kind of method that seems boring (and is).

No matter what is changed or how it is changed it will not make any difference because we will learn a new boring way after 2000 of us run it another 600 times each.

And then someone will want to change something that made it boring.


to make it not boring would be to just do it once or twice and not do it again.

leave intim alone, it is not broke and not used much anyway (at least correctly).

[Jaid314]

Intimidate means you trick the enemy into making a mistake.
An intimidate score of 80 means you are superhumanly good at tricking enemies like that.

There are many problems with the Intimidate gameplay in DDO, but the core concept is justifiable.

indeed. bear in mind that for the pen and paper game, you can do ridiculous things with a +80 to a skill check. you can swim up a waterfall. you can literally animate a rope. you can instantly detect something as an illusion. you can instantly identify magic potions and many other magic items simply by looking at them. you can 'pick pocket' a living being of your own size into a location 10 feet away without anyone noticing. there is actually a chance that you can read people's minds. you can turn random people into your very own fanatic followers. you can train an animal from scratch in one hour. you can squeeze through a space up to 2 inches square. you can use suggestion at will. you can walk on water.

so no, really... i don't see any major problems with being able to intimidate the general of the devil armies. it's at least as plausible as being able to balance so well you can stand on water.

also, there's the other side of things... it really bothers me when people complain about intimitanks. allow me to put it bluntly: you get to whine about that when YOU are the healer who spends 10 major mnemonic potions so that everyone else in the raid gets to make a profit while you take a massive loss. until then, you should have no say in the matter unless you are the one handing those major pots to the healers in the raid. especially since odds are good that you with your dps build have put a miniscule fraction of the amount of effort into it as that high-AC, high-DR, high-intimidate character. it's not like they just woke up one morning and decided to be a tank. i've ran with maybe 2-3 people who build these characters, and i wish i could say that i had ran with a whole lot more, because it changes the raid from "everyone with spell points is sucked dry and has to burn a few 20k plat potions (or real money) so that everyone else gets a chance at the loot without spending anything" to "nobody had to burn hundreds of thousands of plat in order to make this raid enjoyable for everyone else". tell you what.... you wanna know what it feels like to be a healer? every time you see the cleric in your raid's SP bar go up from almost 0 in the middle of a battle, go buy a vendor trash item from the 15k plat weapon vendors, and then drag it out of your inventory and destroy it when the raid is done. odds are good that you wouldn't do this for the healer's benefit, but the healer probably does it for your benefit all the time.

sheesh. and people wonder why sometimes it's hard to find healers.

[Chai]

In PnP its an opposed roll off. A person trying to bluff has to roll their skill off -vs- the targets sense motive skill.

A person trying to intimidate has to roll their intimidate skill + cha mod -vs- the target getting 1d20 + character level or Hit Dice + target’s Wisdom bonus + target’s modifiers on saves against fear.

In DDO, instead of coding it this way, they just assigned mobs / traps a static value, and the character has to beat that value in order to successfully pull off the skill check. Its still an opposed roll, but the mob just has a score you need to beat for intimidate, which remains the same each try.

Technically they do have a chance to resist it, so a save is not required.

[Chai]

indeed. bear in mind that for the pen and paper game, you can do ridiculous things with a +80 to a skill check. you can swim up a waterfall. you can literally animate a rope. you can instantly detect something as an illusion. you can instantly identify magic potions and many other magic items simply by looking at them. you can 'pick pocket' a living being of your own size into a location 10 feet away without anyone noticing. there is actually a chance that you can read people's minds. you can turn random people into your very own fanatic followers. you can train an animal from scratch in one hour. you can squeeze through a space up to 2 inches square. you can use suggestion at will. you can walk on water.

so no, really... i don't see any major problems with being able to intimidate the general of the devil armies. it's at least as plausible as being able to balance so well you can stand on water.

also, there's the other side of things... it really bothers me when people complain about intimitanks. allow me to put it bluntly: you get to whine about that when YOU are the healer who spends 10 major mnemonic potions so that everyone else in the raid gets to make a profit while you take a massive loss. until then, you should have no say in the matter unless you are the one handing those major pots to the healers in the raid. especially since odds are good that you with your dps build have put a miniscule fraction of the amount of effort into it as that high-AC, high-DR, high-intimidate character. it's not like they just woke up one morning and decided to be a tank. i've ran with maybe 2-3 people who build these characters, and i wish i could say that i had ran with a whole lot more, because it changes the raid from "everyone with spell points is sucked dry and has to burn a few 20k plat potions (or real money) so that everyone else gets a chance at the loot without spending anything" to "nobody had to burn hundreds of thousands of plat in order to make this raid enjoyable for everyone else". tell you what.... you wanna know what it feels like to be a healer? every time you see the cleric in your raid's SP bar go up from almost 0 in the middle of a battle, go buy a vendor trash item from the 15k plat weapon vendors, and then drag it out of your inventory and destroy it when the raid is done. odds are good that you wouldn't do this for the healer's benefit, but the healer probably does it for your benefit all the time.

sheesh. and people wonder why sometimes it's hard to find healers.

If this comes down to healer discussion, I will say that if you need to drink 10 majors in a raid, either youre doing it wrong, or they are doing it wrong.

If someone has an 80 skill check in PnP, the DM is doing it wrong. I dont roll with pun pun, sorry.

DDO is its own entity, and is designed on the premise that players will min max to get their skill to a value where it doesnt fail. Pen and paper is not. I love playing with players who think it is, and they can just metagame past anything that tries to attack their weak spots by covering it up with a buff spell. Much entertainment is had by the rest of us at the table during those sessions.

[EKKM]

If this comes down to healer discussion, I will say that if you need to drink 10 majors in a raid, either youre doing it wrong, or they are doing it wrong.

If someone has an 80 skill check in PnP, the DM is doing it wrong. I dont roll with pun pun, sorry.

DDO is its own entity, and is designed on the premise that players will min max to get their skill to a value where it doesnt fail. Pen and paper is not. I love playing with players who think it is, and they can just metagame past anything that tries to attack their weak spots by covering it up with a buff spell. Much entertainment is had by the rest of us at the table during those sessions.

There is epic in PnP as well and I believe (hope!) that is what he is referring to.