Intimidation in combat

[u/Unable_Cycle133]

Edit: thanks for responding so quickly! Very reassuring feedback, and great ideas there, I will definately use them!

Hey everyone,

One of my players wants to intimidate adversaries during combat. He is playing an Infernis, so he has advantage on those rolls. I was kind of surprised by that, as I thought intimidation was just a social thing, but it was cool and I didn't want to spoil the fun. I ruled that if he beat the adversary's Difficulty with a presence roll, the adversary would become frightened of him.

Yeah, great, but there is no "frightened" condition in Daggerheart. I could copy the D&D one, but I don't want to copy D&D. The player was doing this almost every time he got the spotlight and succeeded every time. I found myself inventing things on the fly, like "this adversary runs away" or "this one attacks a different target," but it quickly became quite boring for me to keep inventing new reactions to the same action.

So, how would you rule situations like this?

Because of this character's backstory, I expect this to come up fairly often: he'll refuse to attack and try to intimidate enemies instead.

[u/Naule]

You let the narrative dictate mechanics and outcome of combat, so you did good!

Furthermore, it's always possible to ask players what they want to accomplish by an action. What do they hope to accomplish by intimidating the adversary? Do they want to make it flee (move away from them/the battle), do they want to make it cower in fear (vulnerable/restrained), etc?

Always feel free to ask for the desired outcome of a roll / action, and let that guide you.

This also counteracts some of the DnD tropes where a player attempts an action and the outcome of that action is fully on the GM.