I noticed a couple of skills like intimidating presence in the fighters guild. What is it for?

To:

A: avoid having to spend your own gold to complete quest.

B: to begin a quest.

Makes certain quests easier especially collection ones.

You can use it to get info for some quests faster. I am unsure if you can skip some steps of the quest too if you intimidate the npc.

Lets you get lunch money from the mages guild. Not really... but that would be great!

Keeps the local purveyors of spirits from watering down your ale, and ensures prompt delivery of said ale by the serving wenches.

I was able to threaten a roaming npc vendor and he set down a backpack with a nice piece of loot then sat on the ground and cried and refused to talk to me anymore.

edit - seriously, no bs