Author Topic: Demoralizing foes  (Read 4912 times)

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LimaBeanMage

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Demoralizing foes
« on: March 06, 2010, 07:00:51 PM »
What are all of the ways to reduce demoralize from a standard action to a lesser action?

So far, I know of only Zhentarim Soldier (Fighter ACF) and BloodSoaked Intimidate.

Both are quite inconvenient for multiple reasons.

CantripN

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Re: Demoralizing foes
« Reply #1 on: March 06, 2010, 07:16:50 PM »
There's an Armor Enchantment at +5,000 Gold in Drow of the Underdark that gives +5 to Intimidate and makes it a Move Action.
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ninjarabbit

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Re: Demoralizing foes
« Reply #2 on: March 06, 2010, 10:40:34 PM »
Quickened fear spell or a quickened demormalize power.

Some feats like dreadful wrath, frightful presence, and draconic presense let off demoralizing effects when you're doing actions you normally do anyways like attackingand spellcasting.

Fell frighten metamagic feat is another one, put it on a magic missle.

kurashu

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Re: Demoralizing foes
« Reply #3 on: March 07, 2010, 02:20:09 AM »
Intimidating Strike (PHB II, p 79) is Demoralizing on crack.

Basically, you subtract a number from your attack roll, ala power attack. If you attack hits you get to make an intimidation check with the penalty you took on the attack roll as a bonus. If that works, the opponent is shaken for the rest of the encounter. Now, you can't improve on already shaken foe with this, but with someone that is shaken already is easy to improve on. This only works with a standard attack so you can't combine with a full attack or with maneuvers, but it's pretty easy to dish out damage with a single attack.

Daunting Presence (LM, p 25) allows a standard action to awe (read: render shaken) a single opponent for 10 minutes if they fail a will save (DC 10 + 1/2 Char level + Cha Mod). Again, this stops at shaken.


LimaBeanMage

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Re: Demoralizing foes
« Reply #4 on: March 07, 2010, 03:02:33 AM »
The fearsome armor enhancement will do nicely. I saw it in the thread for optimizing intimidate but I guess I misinterpreted it. I read it as a once per day 30' fear effect with a DC16 will save. And for some reason, I cannot find that thread now. I swear I that I was looking at it not but 4 hours ago, but I try finding it again and the links lead me to the terrible gleemax "Welcome back!" page.

While the other suggestions are good, I was specifically going for Intimidate + Imperious Command + Never Outnumbered; which is good enough on its own, but being able to attack the enemy after they're cowering is just icing in the cake.
« Last Edit: March 07, 2010, 03:05:03 AM by LimaBeanMage »

Tonymitsu

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Re: Demoralizing foes
« Reply #5 on: March 07, 2010, 04:43:53 PM »
The fearsome armor enhancement will do nicely. I saw it in the thread for optimizing intimidate but I guess I misinterpreted it. I read it as a once per day 30' fear effect with a DC16 will save. And for some reason, I cannot find that thread now. I swear I that I was looking at it not but 4 hours ago, but I try finding it again and the links lead me to the terrible gleemax "Welcome back!" page.

While the other suggestions are good, I was specifically going for Intimidate + Imperious Command + Never Outnumbered; which is good enough on its own, but being able to attack the enemy after they're cowering is just icing in the cake.

Attack?
Isn't a cowering enemy helpless?
You coup the poor bastard.

Akalsaris

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Re: Demoralizing foes
« Reply #6 on: March 07, 2010, 04:53:45 PM »
He'd only be cowering for 1 round without successive intimidates to keep him there, so changing it to a swift/move action is necessary if you're solo.

Anklebite

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Re: Demoralizing foes
« Reply #7 on: March 07, 2010, 04:54:42 PM »
The fearsome armor enhancement will do nicely. I saw it in the thread for optimizing intimidate but I guess I misinterpreted it. I read it as a once per day 30' fear effect with a DC16 will save. And for some reason, I cannot find that thread now. I swear I that I was looking at it not but 4 hours ago, but I try finding it again and the links lead me to the terrible gleemax "Welcome back!" page.

While the other suggestions are good, I was specifically going for Intimidate + Imperious Command + Never Outnumbered; which is good enough on its own, but being able to attack the enemy after they're cowering is just icing in the cake.

Attack?
Isn't a cowering enemy helpless?
You coup the poor bastard.
or: demoralize as move, attack as standard; rise and repeat. if you happen to be solo.  belt of battle to toss in a coup de grace as needed.
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Negative Zero

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Re: Demoralizing foes
« Reply #8 on: March 07, 2010, 05:37:52 PM »
Or take the feat (...or is it a weapon ability? I think it's a feat.) that lets you CDG as a standard.

Littha

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Re: Demoralizing foes
« Reply #9 on: March 07, 2010, 06:48:14 PM »
Would 5 levels of Dread necromancer help?

Surreal

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Re: Demoralizing foes
« Reply #10 on: March 07, 2010, 06:54:47 PM »
Look up the fear handbook on these forums.
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LimaBeanMage

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Re: Demoralizing foes
« Reply #11 on: March 07, 2010, 11:45:33 PM »
The fearsome armor enhancement will do nicely. I saw it in the thread for optimizing intimidate but I guess I misinterpreted it. I read it as a once per day 30' fear effect with a DC16 will save. And for some reason, I cannot find that thread now. I swear I that I was looking at it not but 4 hours ago, but I try finding it again and the links lead me to the terrible gleemax "Welcome back!" page.

While the other suggestions are good, I was specifically going for Intimidate + Imperious Command + Never Outnumbered; which is good enough on its own, but being able to attack the enemy after they're cowering is just icing in the cake.

Attack?
Isn't a cowering enemy helpless?
You coup the poor bastard.
or: demoralize as move, attack as standard; rise and repeat. if you happen to be solo.  belt of battle to toss in a coup de grace as needed.

That's actually what I was shooting for. I didn't want to make demoralization overly powerful with the coup de grace standard action because my DM knows me to be an optimizer and is a little paranoid with what I do from time to time. A skill check followed by an insta-kill (more or less) will definitely grab his attention.

Though, I was a bit fuzzy on how cowering is considered helpless. Would someone mind elaborating on that?

Namely, I'm confused when cowering/stun specifically state what happens to their dex/AC and helpless already has a condition as having 0 Dex. In my mind, losing dex bonus (if any) does not equal having 0 dex; which means they still have a non 0 dex score and are not helpless.

Tonymitsu

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Re: Demoralizing foes
« Reply #12 on: March 08, 2010, 01:24:44 AM »
Huh... wow...

I guess it never really actually says a cowering target is helpless, it just heavily implies it.


Cowered is "frozen with fear", but mechanically just makes you flat-footed with an additional -2 to AC.

Helpless, in addition to the conditions listed, also says "or otherwise completely at the opponents mercy".
Mechanically, you treat Dex as 0, and +4 to melee attack (but nothing for ranged attacks for some reason).  Ironically they still have their Dex so without the little "rogue's can sneak attack clause" you technically couldn't sneak attack a helpless target.


So yeah, DM fiat apparently whether you can coup a cowering target or not....

LimaBeanMage

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Re: Demoralizing foes
« Reply #13 on: March 08, 2010, 02:08:39 AM »
Yeah, it does seem like this would be a DM call, unless someone has hard evidence from another book and not the SRD.

If I were DM, from RAI here, I would say that a coup de grace is not possible. Simply for the dex bonus fact. Cowering characters technically have a dex score and wouldn't fall under the "completely at your mercy" clause.

In my mind, I can see a cowering person still moving around, relatively speaking with the terms "frozen with fear", but still not a "place knife at the neck and pull" kind of target.

Tonymitsu

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Re: Demoralizing foes
« Reply #14 on: March 08, 2010, 02:31:08 AM »
Yeah, it does seem like this would be a DM call, unless someone has hard evidence from another book and not the SRD.

If I were DM, from RAI here, I would say that a coup de grace is not possible. Simply for the dex bonus fact. Cowering characters technically have a dex score and wouldn't fall under the "completely at your mercy" clause.

In my mind, I can see a cowering person still moving around, relatively speaking with the terms "frozen with fear", but still not a "place knife at the neck and pull" kind of target.

Other way around... helpless targets have a Dex score... it's just considered zero.

Cowering targets are considered flat-footed.

LimaBeanMage

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Re: Demoralizing foes
« Reply #15 on: March 08, 2010, 03:18:21 AM »
My mistake on the wording there, I was kind of counting a score of 0 to be no score at all. I get easily turned around when I use no score and no bonus in the same context.