what is the difference between the intimidate keyword and balon's abbility?

I know that if the defenders cant count their str, it is an unopposed challenge and it is resolved immediately, so why does it mater if they can participate or not? seems to me like Balon is not as good as i thought

with intimidate, the chars can still participate and add their useful text to the challenge like deadly or renown or any other ability they may have. With balon, they cant even be declared in the first place.

Also remember that intimidate effects your own characters, Balon doesn't.

But i have seen in the rules that unopposed = auto resolve

meaning, some things cannot be triggered, such as ICE, lethal counterattack, red vengence and so on…

am i wrong?

you have read wrong

dcdennis said:

please explain me then

Sorry, I am not sure what you mean by "autoresolve". Unopposed as the attacker means you win the challenge, claim 1 power for your house(for winning Unopposed), and allows you to trigger effects for winning unopposed. No where does it say the challenge is over and you can't trigger any effects.

Where did you read that?

Ire said:

Oh k … , we have been playing this wrong for the last 2 years.

i too am curious about the genesis of this confusion. I took a look around the core rules doc and faq and cannot find anything that even remotely suggests that if no defenders are declared that the subsequent action window is skipped.