Baldur's Gate : The Sword Coast Chronicles : NWN2 Persistent World

I once rolled intimidate against a paladin, resulting in an OOC-tell: "My toon is fearless", to which I ofcourse responded: "Ah, right!"

However, my question:
A toon who is fearless, might not get scared from someone with a high intimidate, but they're not stupid, right? Anybody who is fearless, but still has some wisdom, will be wise enough to understand that it's sometimes better to walk away.

Or does being fearless equal a lack of insight into dangerous situations? As fear is a being's (human, elf, animal, etc.) way of warning the mind that they might be better off running, in order to keep themselves alive.

TL;DR
Will intimidating someone who is fearless never work by rule, or could it help the other consider that they might be better of getting away, even if it isn't out of fear?

A character immune to fear can’t be intimidated, nor can nonintelligent creatures.

http://www.d20srd.org/srd/skills/intimidate.htm

I figured that much, but that doesn't answer my question

Will it help them figure that it might be better to back off, or do they no longer have the insight in the danger of a situation if they're immune to fear?

I recommend trying diplomacy or bluff next time. The mere fact that you tried to intimidate a paladin should give him even more cause to refuse backing off in most situations IMO.


That said, the paladin or anyone else can also just ignore your skill roll if they wish to do so as you can't enforce skill rolls on players... blahblahblah, you know the story by now, we have one of those skill roll threads once a month

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I do wish to point out that this question has nothing to do with skill rolls, paladins and what is fair and what not.

Atlas, you give very good points. Especially that with an intimidate roll you make yourself look tougher than you might actually be. And that kinda does settle my question.

It means that rolling intimidate will not influence a fear immune character's decision whether or not to cross you. He will rationally decide whether or not you're worth the risk. Rolling intimidate in such a situation will not change anything in it.

Fear immunity then means that you'll judge the danger of situations, free from influence of any emotional fear others might feel, correct?

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Alright, thanks for your time
That makes a lot clear.

Fearlessnes only means you don't suffer the fear and panic effects. You can still experience the emotion and feel the need to be (overly) cautious or even anxious. But it won't apply the feared and panicked effects.

Fearless paladins can be intense worriers. But they don't panick or suffer fear effects.

Rasael wrote:Fearlessnes only means you don't suffer the fear and panic effects. You can still experience the emotion and feel the need to be (overly) cautious or even anxious. But it won't apply the feared and panicked effects.

Fearless paladins can be intense worriers. But they don't panick or suffer fear effects.

True that Thanks for the clarification!

Steve wrote:

A character immune to fear can’t be intimidated, nor can nonintelligent creatures.

http://www.d20srd.org/srd/skills/intimidate.htm

Just as I thought, Paladins are nonintelligent creatures *nod nod*

When Hoihe had his Dragon Warrior levels and still a human, I always approached his fear immunity as "Immune to fear, but not doubt and worry."

Basically, if the intimidation endangered something or someone other than himself, and it wasn't clear if He had the chance to defend them without major risk, I considered the intimidate to be effectively successful.

The above is how Pyro Valgrave's drow warlock managed to intimidate Hoihe into trying to appease the drow. If he was alone, or without an elf at least it'd likely have Endre up in a PvP between him, Bobetta and a third char vs the single drow in the UD. Due to the elf's presence and the possibility of them getting captured by the fleeing drow, the drow managed to win.

As off-topic fun aside, RPing the loss of Fear Immunity due to falling from Grace or whatever reason is always fun. Especially if coupled with fear magnifying factors.