I was just looking at Hrmchnd;s Game Machinations and noticed the formula for intimidation. That caused me to wonder...

I've used intimidation long ago, and it never gained me a thing except a raise in speechcraft occasionally. The intimidated subject never gave me anything I wanted, or paid me off, or told me anything I wanted to know. Thinking of that, it seems that intimidation is either broken or useless. Is that correct, or am I missing something?

I've been wondering something along the same lines. "Why use Intimidate?" Is the choice between Admire and Intimidate solely for roleplaying purposes or is there any actual difference in how its handled for quests?

Does the Intimidate formula differ from the Admire formula at all?

I'm not certain I follow all the ins and outs of intimidate, but maybe you'll have a better grasp of it. Here they are:

Admire:target1 = max(iPerMinChance, target1)roll 100, win if roll <= target1c = int(fPerDieRollMult * (target1 - roll))x = max(iPerMinChange, c) on success, c on fail;***************************************************************Intimidate:target2 = max(iPerMinChance, target2)roll 100, win if roll <= target2if roll != target2:    r = int(target2 - roll)else:    r = 1    if roll <= target2:    s = int(r * fPerDieRollMult * fPerTempMult)    flee = max(iPerMinChange, s)    fight = min(-iPerMinChange, -s)c = -abs(int(r * fPerDieRollMult))if success:    if abs(c) < iPerMinChange:        x = 0, y = -iPerMinChange    else:        x = -int(c * fPerTempMult), y = celse fail:    x = int(c * fPerTempMult), y = c

[Edit] I see that apparently fight or flee could be the result of intimidate, but I've never had either one of those results either...

From what I can tell, it's a holdover from D&D. It might be a bit easier to intimidate, but I'm not sure of that. Not that it matters when admire works so well as it does. Personally, I think it's underutilized though. Since Bethesda didn't do much with it, it would seem there is a fertile ground for modders to make use of it. That is to say, unique quest responses, as some vanilla content does with other persuasion options (like bribe in one of Habassi's quests). Maybe even editing for the original quests to make more use of it?

From my experience, Intimidate can instantly move the disposition of the NPC in question up to 100 if you make a successful roll, but only for the duration of that conversation. After it is done, the NPCs disposition will drop to abysmal levels.

...Unless you're talking about a mod I have never heard of, in which case I have no idea either.

I can see there is flee there. But flee parameters are so low, that specific AI behavior can not be seen in Vanilla. I wonder if Wakim's improvements change that too(or its successors).

This is my experience with intimidate as well.

however I've only ever had this on the xbox (way back when it first came out) and I have had any success with the PC version

I only use the PC version, and I don't believe I've ever seen the disposition go up, only down when intimidate is used. Of course, since I gave up on intimidate long ago, I haven't used it very often...

I've never played any version but the PC version, and I have successfully made the Intimidate roll on several occasions. It's not very reliable though, which is to say; it's not reliable at all.

This is what I've always noticed with intimidate. Admire raises the character's disposition permanently, while intimidation is slightly easier but only raises it for one conversation.

Here's something interesting on this subject...

I've been testing intimidate using trunksbomb's modTESTchargen. the PC has all abilities and skills set at 100, though it is level 1.

So, even with personality and speechcraft set at 100, intimidate success was not a foregone conclusion. Minor NPCs were fairly easy with success usually within 5 or 6 attempts, but guards were still very hard, with success perhaps 1 in 20 attempts.

Here's the interesting part though... success didn't take the disposition to 100, but it did increase disposition 10 points on the average, with some exceptions going as high as 14 points of increase. However, it never, not once, paid off.

That is to say that after two failed attempts, the increase was always less than the decreased disposition resulting from the failed attempts. I can only suppose that the chance of success and resulting increase is also tied to level as well as abilities and skills. I have no idea at what level you would have to be or what your personality and speechcraft would have to be to get

Given that, I would say that intimidate is only useful to higher level characters and should be avoided by lower levels.