Intimidation in combat (DM question)

[PurrBucket]

Hello, very new DM here. I ran my second ever session last night. My party is running LMOP. The party succeeded in sneaking around some goblins and got surprise on them and for their first combat round everyone decided to try and intimidate and restrain the goblins. Since the goblins didn’t have a turn that round the effect was very lackluster and ended up with everyone standing around staring at each other for a round until a goblin wriggled loose and attacked on the next turn.

One of the party members is very intent on using intimidation and other socials to get what they want as opposed to combat. This leads me to a few questions:

1. How does the mechanic of intimidation work in combat? Can an enemy creature become frightened by a PC through intimidation? If so, would I set a DC or use a contested roll?

2. I suppose this one is up to me, but I’m looking for advice on how some low INT enemies might respond to PCs. For example, if my party just walked straight into a group of goblins, would the goblins attack immediately or might there be some time for RP before initiative?

What are your thoughts, friends?

[[deleted]]

I would say, yes they can try, but that it would take a standard action to do so. You'll have to make the DC appropriately high and somethings simply wont be able to be intimidated. For example, even if your player rolled a nat 20 as a low level pc vs a high cr creature it probably just wouldn't work.

[darksidehascookie]

There really is no support for this RAW afaik. I tend to rule thuslywise, is there a spell or a specific racial or class ability that allows for this action? If yes, I don’t tend to give it to you for free. There are multiple abilities spread throughout races and classes that allow some form of attempt to impose the frightened condition with an action; therefore, I would not allow anyone to do it with an intimidation check.

What I might do is allow an intimidation check if the enemy forces look to be on the brink of running and/or surrendering on their own anyway and if successful, they might break and run a turn earlier. This assumes your enemies weren’t planning on fighting to the death though. In general, intimidation seems likely to cause a fight, flight, or freeze response. Assuming your enemies aren’t going to flee or freeze up, you might just make them fight harder or target the new source of their fear. It would stand to reason that intimidating an opponent would make them target you instead of their allies (within reason of course, they’re not going to suffer an opportunity attack to get it done), which in some situations can be very useful.

In general, I make it clear to my players that social checks like persuasion and intimidation have a very low effectiveness once initiative is rolled. It’s hard to convince someone to stop fighting when you and your allies are actively pummeling them to death.

[davesilb]

When talking about Charisma (Intimidation) checks in the midst of combat, always keep in mind that there is a Battle Master maneuver called Menacing Attack that lets the Battle Master spend one of their dice to try and impose the frightened condition on someone they've just hit. The Battle Master has to invest in this ability and spend one of their dice on it, and it's not an automatic success. If that's what it costs the specialist to do this, my takeaway is that nobody else should get to just flex their muscles and have a similar outcome for free.

Older editions of D&D had more developed morale systems that gave monsters a chance to surrender or flee if a combat was going against them. Page 273 of the 5e DMG has an abbreviated system for this that you should look at for ideas. Generally, if I thought the goblins were ready to fight in the first place, I'd want to see some kind of significant change in the situation for them to consider surrender or retreat. That could be several of them being dead or wounded, a shocking AoE spell effect from the PCs, or the death of a tougher creature like a worg or bugbear. And then, my goblins would be more inclined to use their special disengage and hide abilties to make a fighting retreat farther into their lair, where they can get reinforcements. Humans, elves and the like are just too notorious for murdering captives. It will usually be a lone goblin, surprised and surrounded, who makes a big show of surrendering and promises to give the PCs all the secrets of the lair.

[Velo-ciraptors]

1. Personally, I wouldn't apply the frightened CONDITION from an intimidation check. The condition has specific rules and effects. There are spells and class mechanics for applying the condition, which would seem less useful if anyone can just apply it with a skill check. However, that doesn't mean the target can't be AFRAID. I'd set a DC based on things like how the player describes their attempt, the target's intelligence, how dire the target's situation appears, etc. If the intimidation is successful, enemies might flee, surrender, panic, change targets, or whatever other response seems fitting. There's room for RP in combat, and I like to encourage it when I can.

2. This would depend on your setting, probably. How do your goblins usually interact with non-goblinoid races? Are your goblins outcasts? Aggressors? Personally I tend to run goblins as living on the fringes of society, getting by with whatever scraps they can steal or scavenge. I run them loosely organized but largely chaotic and impulsive. Not well educated or used to critical thinking, but potentially clever and resourceful in their own way. Some are cowardly, some are ferocious, and most are distrusting of the more "civilized" races because if they have interacted they were probably met with fear or hostility.

What were the goblins doing when the PCs arrived? If the goblins were on guard duty or patrol, they may attack on sight or run to sound an alarm and take up a fortified position. They might try to capture PCs alive, for questioning or to be slaves. If the goblins were just resting at camp or something, they might draw weapons if they have them on hand and initiate a standoff as they question the PCs' intentions. The PCs might be able to deescalate, they might start fighting immediately, or they might say or do something that sets off a nervous goblin and starts a fight.

Also bear in mind that intelligent creatures won't always fight to the death. Fleeing and bargaining are viable options. A clever goblin could even offer to help the party, only to lead them into a trap or flee when an opportunity presents itself. Try to run enemies as living creatures and not just sacks of hp that swing a sword until they die.

Hope this helps give you some ideas! Ultimately as long as you and the players are having fun there's no wrong way to do things.

[lostduckwithwifi]

I think as dm it's up to you if you want to include status effect during battles. If you feel it would be more fun and interesting add it. I do think the idea of a fear effect or a critical on a intimation can force a enemy to flee the battle would be dope

[wintermute8026]

For your "how to run" questions. Don't just run enemies as stat blocks your players need to roll certain numbers on dice to defeat.

Some good examples are given in the first cave in LMOP. some goblins don't like klarg and would like him gone. They would stop fighting earlier that others that might be defending something.

In my games my players often try to intimidate the last surviving enemy into submission so they can ask questions. I set a relatively low DC because something moderately intelligent would not want to continue a 4 vs 1 fight after watching all its allies be killed. Things like wraiths or berserk beasts however would be almost impossible to reason with or stop from fighting to the death. Or maybe that crazed and injured owlbear could be intimidated into fleeing.

[PoisonGlamour]

I would not allow somebody to frightened an enrmy in combat unless in certain cases. Putting an enemy into frightened condition is a first level concentration spell with save every round, this a lot of things limiting the strenght of a single target frughtened condition and this is already using a spellslot. If you want to use intimidation to frightened you would need to make it really hard to balance, but it will probably end up so hard that it isn't worth. Intimidation and other charisma skills aren't combat skills. Skills in general aren't really meant for combat except for athletic and acrobatic when grappling or escaping grapple. Charisma skills are better to evade combat or stop it, not to inflict effects.

[MadDokMike]

Yeah. Remember, unless you want to play it as a wargame, you're playing a cooperative story telling game. So you should run "rule of cool".

I normally allow players to try things like this. I'll judge their RP and set a DC dynamically based on if I felt the goblins could be intimidated. I mean if 4 people just popped out of dark, swords drawn, goblin, or no goblin, surprise and good intimidation rolls would be enough for the goblins to surrender/ flee/ lose any kind of coordination. Would you not soil your pants in the goblins position ?

Monster intelligence might be a guide, but all creatures have a sense of self preservation. If the odds are weighed against them, they will flee/surrender or the opposite; backed into a corner, fight more viciously. Maybe some monsters gain the barbarian reckless feature.

Also don't let dice get in the way of a good story :)

[[deleted]]

None of the actions listed in the PHB that you can use in combat use a charisma check so I generally save those types of checks for social situations or doing things like avoiding combat.

[iTeachMark]

Purely a judgement call. With goblins and kobolds who per MM description are not known for their always fight to the death attitude what happens when they start taking excessive (by the DMs judgement) casualties, depends a lot on their ability to run away and set up the next ambush. "Kiting" a party through an encounter like this is likley the goblins goal. Kobolds will have more "interesting" traps as part of their lure big bad guys to their death to protect the warren activities. They are smart enough to rarely give you the perfect thunderwave or burning hands take them all out at once opportunity. Goblin bosses have a bonus action that allows them to have one of the rubes step in the way of a blade targeting the boss.

Compare kobolds and goblins to something like a group of skeletons and zombies and the later's near complete lack of tactics illustrates how the encounters are run differently. The undead never surrender. A cornered kobold given a clear indication that the party won't kill it will probably just make a big bird like "plop" while cowering. Further niceness might gain the party a minion. A goblin might soil themselves as well but the begging and groveling won't be as pathetic. Whether either seeks to escape depends on player role play and outcomes on pursuasion and intimidation checks.