Talk:Intimidating Brute (3.5e Feat)

Balance Concerns

I'm not sure this feat is rogue level. It's a 5th level feat that gives you a 1/combat maybe make someone shaken and a skill ability modifier swap that is already suggested in other wotc material. Shaken is an okay debuff at this level, but this feels overly limited. Would you be open to increasing it to 1 per opponent (and an opponent can only be affected targeted once per day, regardless of success or failure) as a swift action and disallowing effect from stacking with other fear effects? - TarkisFlux 02:53, November 14, 2009 (UTC)

The part that made it rogue level was its ability to stack with other things--that was its whole point, to stack fear effects quickly. That make a bit more sense for its level of power? --Ghostwheel 01:00, November 16, 2009 (UTC)

I can see you wanting to keep it stackable, but once per combat feels fighter level. I think you'd be better off with some sort of limited once per opponent setup even if the effect is stackable, just making it less likely to go off to make up for the ability to use it a lot more often. Swift action to take 7 on the check (it's non-standard, but fits in existing structures nicely and keeps it from getting out of hand) or move action to take 10 on the check or something maybe? Just tossing things out really, I haven't thought those through much. And if you're not down or don't want to see it move in that direction, that's fine too. - TarkisFlux 01:58, November 16, 2009 (UTC)

Ratings

TK-Squared likes this article and rated it 3 of 4.

I was umming and ahhing to favour this or not. It's not that it's not alright; it's just that it's a little weak for a feat to my tastes. But, it gives what Intimidate should be anyway. The demoralizing as a free action is decent, but it's limited to once per encounter and by what you can do it to. The combination of the two is a mediocre feat, but if there's houserules that solve the Strength/Intimidate issue, then the feat falls flat on it's face. But, I'm not to judge based on houserules, I expect. It hits Fighter balance point and is kind of useful.