How easy should it be to Intimidating a mage?

[gooderguy]

I had an interesting situation occur in a game yesterday. a powerful 7LP NPC Rogue Wizard was in a Fight with 4 4LP PC characters. she had a bunch of mooks occupying the PCs long enough to get her Philospher's Perch spell off. she also had Eldritch Shield and Turn Aside the Blade cast. (she was ambushing the PCs during a prayer ritual)

this left her with effectively 3 Will because she was sustaining 3 spells. really, i was mostly having her toy with the NPCs (perhaps my mistake). she was effectively out of melee range, and the one PC mage's puny shards spell was barely hitting her Eldritch Sheild. she was throwing white lightening down at them a couple of times, fairly easily passing her tax test. then one of the PCs had the idea to intimidate the mage, cuz he knew systematically she had only 3 will left.

this kind of caught me by surprise. here's this powerful mage, and it was easy for him (with help from the other PCs) to intimidate this powerful sorceress, who herself had Aura of Fear. sure, she passed her steel test, B8 Steel on 4 hesitation, but it seemed too easy, and she could have easily failed her steel test and fallen from the ground.

is it really that easy to intimidate a powerful mage? do the will dice used for
sustaining spells really lower the obstacle to intimidate her? also, something i just thought of ... does her hesitation change because her will is lowered? if so, it seems fairly easy to intimidate a mage sustaining more than one spell.

i need to know, cuz i'm sure they'll encounter her again. she's one of my major NPC antagonists.

[Kublai]

Does the book have no clarification?

I don't think the sorcerer loses those dice in those terms. I think it's just for spell-casting and sustaining purposes. So to Intimidate him, the Ob would still be 7. The hesitation would remain the same.

[luke]

Jonathan, I'm fairly certain you handled that situation correctly. Imagine that the magic makes the wizard susceptible to distraction.

[stormsweeper]

Does the book have no clarification?

I don't think the sorcerer loses those dice in those terms. I think it's just for spell-casting and sustaining purposes. So to Intimidate him, the Ob would still be 7. The hesitation would remain the same.

They lose them to all Will tests. I think it's fair to say that the obstacle for social skills is reduced (although I wouldn't increase hesitation).

I think I would require the intimidating guys to be in lunging distance, but otherwise it sounds fine.

[gooderguy]

okay, so hesitation remains the same, but the social test obstacle is less. i guess hesitation doesn't change with steel tests it wouldn't change with any other kind of will disadvantages.

wow. good thing to expect next time. intimidating my wizards. never would have forseen that. my players are too damn crafty.

[Dwight]

There is an Ob modifier for Intimidation. Given your descripition of the circumstances, IMO the +1Ob to the Intimidation threat should probably have applied.