this post was submitted on 26 Nov 2023
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I think that's because you're thinking about it with your body and your experience.
Someone with a different body and different experiences might see that 240lb bouncer and think:
Another guy they hired to be dumb muscle. I've dealt with his type before; wouldn't hurt a flea without permission. Would probably cry right after, too. But the little guy... his eyes are saying he'll do it. He'll enjoy watching the big guy crush my windpipe. And big guy? If the little guy tells him to, he won't hesitate.
"H-hey, we're all friends here. T-Tell you what, I'll tell you what you want to know, and you can tell big guy here he's got nothing to worry about."
If you take the right perspective, you can make almost any skill check make sense.
That's the dumbest argument you could make. "The little guy is intimidating because he could tell the big guy to attack" just means the big guy is the threat, not the little guy. Imagine the little guy on his own and ask if he'd be as much of a threat at the big guy on his own. Even if he tried to hurt you, how much harm could he do?
If anything, what you're describing isn't the little guy succeeding on intimidation. It's the little guy using the help action to give the big guy advantage, and it seems the big guy really needed it.
Absolutely, Charisma (Intimidation) checks make sense, but you can't threaten them with simple bodily harm. You have to threaten them socially, or with a nearby weapon, or something along those lines.
No, the little guy would stab you if they feel like it. They see the big guy as a weapon.
Turns out the charmless brute really likes killing people.
How would you know in this situation that the big guy is a gentle giant and not a murderous giant? Not every big guy is automatically a nice guy.
Charm is necessary when the threat that you are using to intimidate isn't real or the victim doesn't think you'd pull through.
If you are tied to a wall and some uncharismatic weakling threatens you with a knife, the threat is very real after that guy starts punching holes in your arms.
Tbh, if a big guy pins someone to a wall and chokes them, the situation is not anymore about how intimidating the big guy is, but about whether the victim is prepared to die for the cause.
On the other hand, charisma-based intimidation makes a lot of sense in e.g. blackmail situations.
So I'd say, strength-based intimidation doesn't require a dice-roll since it only depends on the victim.
And charisma-based intimidation only applies for situation, where the victim doesn't know whether the threat is real.
I think I'd have to hear the DM say that was the situation before I could buy that logic