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DM Resources Editorial Skill Challenges

Intimidate is Not the Torture Skill

How often does a player at your table want to do something – in character – that is morally apprehensible and blatantly evil? It doesn’t happen often in my games, but it does seem to come up every once in a while. When it does and the action is questioned by the DM or the other players, the player whose character is taking the action usually says something like, “I would never do this, but my character has no issue with it.” I realize that fantasy RPGs provide an escape from reality and you can play any kind of character you want, but I think it’s important to know where to draw the line.

Over the years I’ve come to realize that there are some things that are deemed acceptable in the context of D&D even thought most players would never condone or support such actions in real life. For example, slavery in the context of D&D isn’t usually seen as a big issue. Killing is also given tremendous latitude if the creature or person on the other end of the sword is evil. Theft is perfectly acceptable and is essentially what the majority of adventurers do to earn their loot. I guess it really comes down to the context of the situation and the justification for these actions. If killing an entire tribe of Orcs will make the nearby city safer for “civilized people” then the act of genocide is seen as acceptable and even heroic.

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Player Resources

Adventuring With A Sub-Optimal Party (Part 4)

Strikers are flashy and deadly, cunning and dangerous and every adventuring party needs one. Strikers are the damage dealers of 4e D&D and most parties have at least two of them. Ideally, one striker attacks from range and the other melee. The striker’s ability to dish out a lot of damage keeps combat moving at a good pace and protects the party from burning through too many healing surges and other resources. In short, combat ends sooner when there are strikers on hand. But what happens when an adventuring party doesn’t have representation from this essential role?

This is the fourth article in our series on adventuring with non-standard adventuring parties. Be sure to read the installments on parties without a leader, defender or controller. Our final installment focuses on the absence of the striker in the adventuring party and the adjustments that need to be made by the remaining party members to survive.

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Player Resources Skill Challenges

Skill Focus: Intimidate

Mastering the Intimidate skill is difficult, probably more so than any other skill in the PHB. Intimidate is availabe to 12 classes (as shown in our Skill Matrix by Class) making it the most widely available skill (along with Athletics and Endurance). If you’re playing a class like the Fighter where you have very few skills to choose from, Intimidate is a very popular choice.

Despite the large number of PCs who take training in Intimidate, it’s a skill that has very limited uses. Using Intimidate during a skill challenge often counts as an automatic failure. If not, then you usually get only one try with Intimidate. In a perfect scenario a successful Intimidate check brings you one step closer to accomplishing the objective of the skill challenge. If you fail it can make future checks more difficult and count as one more strike. So it’s important to know when to use Intimidate and when to rely on a different skill.