I have yet to find a useful purpose for the intimidation option of persuasion. Is there a real use for it, or is it just there for decoration? (And another way to lower someone's disposition toward you).

I think that Intimidation has the effect of temporarily increasing a character's
disposition towards you, only to lower it afterwards. I also think - I am not sure -
that a strong but non-charismatic character is more likely to be successful with
intimidation than with flattery.

EDIT:Verbatim from the manual:

PERSUASION
Successful persuasion depends on your Speechcraft skill for Admire, Taunt and
Intimidate, and on your Mercantile skill for Bribe.

(page 42)

...looks like I was wrong

But that still doesn't really answer what it's for........


This is the only use I have found for it:

I try to sell something to a merchant at a way too high price, and I click the "Sell" button like 25 times. Anytime after I close that window, if I try to barter with the same merchant, he says something to the effect of "I don't do business with people like you." I bribe him with 1000 gold, and I can trade with him again...

I'm just wondering if I can get people to run from my godliness if I have sufficient speechcraft skills. That might be fun.

No, you can't get people to run just through being good at persuasion.

As for traders not liking you when you fail at lowering the price, simply leave the conversation with them and then restart it. Any penalties/bonuses caused through barter are wiped clean when you leave the conversation, so the 1000 gold wasn't really necessary.

Yeah, that's what I thought it was too...

But at some point I tried that and it didn't work.... Patch? Mod? Plugin? No one knows....

Ummm just to answer your question, you use Intimidation as an alternate route to raising disposition. It's like Admire, because it gives you the same result as far as I know.

-val

Correct Valdir, the difference is that with Admire the disposition generally stays high, with intimidation it drops below what it had started out at.

Actually, there is one more difference -- intimidation relies primarily on the PC's level instead of Speechcraft.

well it scares people so you dont have to bother with a bribe and you can save yourself money.
if you have a high bounty or reputation then you have more chance of doin it successfully.
only problem is the person will not like you after you finish talking to them.
and it is easier to do than admire.
bribe is as successful in raising the persons attitude to you but its a lot cheaper.

Another good idea badly implemented. In theory, intimidation should depend on the balance of power between player character and NPC; a Level-50 character who just happens to be head of the Fighters Guild, wearing Daedric armour and waving an enchanted sword around in a meaningful manner should intimidate at least 90% of all NPCs. In practice, even street musicians and peddlers usually refuse to be intimidated. My experience has been that a quick bout of bribery (at the 100 gp level) makes NPCs cooperative nearly all the time - and the effect is permanent.

Intimidation seems pretty useless to me from what you all have said. By the time your character reaches a high enough level to be effective at intimidation, you'll probably have more than enough gold to use 1000 drake bribes all the time, which is much more effective and permanent. Oh well.