What Class?
Intimidate is a rather odd skill in that it relies on Charisma, but most of the classes that can take Intimidate as a class skill don't tend to have Charisma as a priority. Generally speaking, they tend to be the sort that can back up a threat with violence or other forms of discomfort.
- PC Classes
- Barbarian, Fighter, Rogue.
- NPC Classes
- Aristocrat, Expert (sometimes), Warrior.
- Prestige Classes:
- Assassin, Blackguard.
To state the bleeding obvious, Intimidate works best when you have a high Charisma and a number of related skills and feats, just to improve your skill check. If an Intimidate check fails, things tend to go worse than a failed Diplomacy check. Not only do you fail to get your own way, but you've also showed your hand and set your would-be victim against you. If you're going to do it, try to make sure it'll go well — as a consequence Rogues and Blackguards tend to be best at intimidation.
Rangers are a bit of an odd choice — Intimidate's a cross-class skill for them — but it can work pretty well for them, when you take into account their favoured enemy abilities. (You know what I'm like — you know what I'll do to a gnoll if he pisses me off. Now I know what you're thinking; have I fired twenty arrows or only nineteen? And in all the excitement I've kinda forgotten myself…
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Skills
In the d20 system, the most important attribute to a bully is Charisma. If you can get the other person on your side, you've won half the battle. Fortunately, you don't need to know many skills when you're a bully — which means you can force other people to do the work for you.
- Bluff
- This is only listed as the first skill to take because I list the skills alphabetically. Why take Bluff? You guessed it — synergy bonuses. 5 ranks in Bluff gets you a +2 synergy bonus on Intimidate checks. Unfortunately, for most PC classes that have Intimidate as a class skill, Bluff is a cross-class skill. Just buy your 5 ranks in this case. You'll get your synergy bonus by level 7. Mind you, if you've read Pants on Fire! you know that already, don't you?
- Diplomacy
- If intimidation doesn't work, you might need to smooth over the damage. Best to have this, just in case. Unless of course you're a barbarian, in which case you've got better things to learn.
- Intimidate
- No shit, Sherlock! You need Intimidate. Max it out. If you're going to be a bully, make sure you've got 'em scared of you.
- Perform (act)
- This might seem like rather an odd choice. There are no synergy bonuses or anything, and it has no effect on Intimidate checks whatsoever. I'm just recommending it if your character's a theatrical director.