Making Charisma not suck


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charisma threads need to be a banned topic.


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Shuriken Nekogami wrote:
charisma threads need to be a banned topic.

On this, I think I agree.

If a player tries to use charisma as a dump stat and then tries to argue to have the benefits of a high charisma, its a simple thing to have a private discussion with them about game balance and, if that doesn't work, to uninvite them from the table.

Debate about that really isn't necessary.


Darkwing Duck wrote:
Shuriken Nekogami wrote:
charisma threads need to be a banned topic.

On this, I think I agree.

If a player tries to use charisma as a dump stat and then tries to argue to have the benefits of a high charisma, its a simple thing to have a private discussion with them about game balance and, if that doesn't work, to uninvite them from the table.

Debate about that really isn't necessary.

the penalties of a low charisma are as written in the book

a penalty to charisma based skill and ability checks

the inability to meet prerequisites for mechanical options that require a minimum charisma score you don' meet.


Darkwing Duck wrote:


I will add to this that if GMs don't let charisma differentiate characters the way it is supposed to differentiate characters, then the fault for charisma not doing anything lies squarely on the GM's shoulders.

You seem to think that its supposed to differentiate how interesting a character is, and how much role playing the player is allowed to do with them.

It does not. That's what the player is for.

Quote:
Its like people trying to use the argument that "there is more than one way to do something" as the basis for a character concept which has an 8 strength and gets +4 to damage from strength.

If there was a skill called strength bonus then it would work that way.


you need a decent charisma if you want to take the eldritch heritage feat line.


Shuriken Nekogami wrote:
charisma threads need to be a banned topic.

There are many topics I feel should be on this list. Like Paladin code threads.


BigNorseWolf wrote:


You seem to think that its supposed to differentiate how interesting a character is, and how much role playing the player is allowed to do with them.
Depends on what you mean by 'interesting'. If you mean personality and personal magnetism, then, no, a character with low charisma, by definition, will not have a strong personality (neither a strong negative personality nor a strong positive personality) or strong personal magnetism (again, neither strongly negative nor strongly positive). That's what the part in the rule book where it says,
Quote:
Charisma measures a character's personality, personal magnetism, ability to lead, and appearance.

means.

If, on the other hand, you mean something more akin to the way that Willie Loman is interesting, then I might be able to agree with you.


Darkwing Duck wrote:


Depends on what you mean by 'interesting'. If you mean personality and personal magnetism, then, no, a character with low charisma, by definition, will not have a strong personality (neither a strong negative personality nor a strong positive personality)

If this were true, a 5 cha character would have a +0 modifier, not a -3 modifier, which is by your own logic as strong as the modifier on a cha 16 character.

Your justification for ruling it that way at your tables is thin. Your justification for telling me I'm not role playing is worse than non existent.


Odraude wrote:
Shuriken Nekogami wrote:
charisma threads need to be a banned topic.
There are many topics I feel should be on this list. Like Paladin code threads.

complaint threads pertaining to anything involving rogues or monks

complaint threads about martials wrecking a game by beiing reasonably competent

threads about stealing from the party or other forms of pvp

threads about adversarial DMs trying to kill thier players.


BigNorseWolf wrote:
Darkwing Duck wrote:


Depends on what you mean by 'interesting'. If you mean personality and personal magnetism, then, no, a character with low charisma, by definition, will not have a strong personality (neither a strong negative personality nor a strong positive personality)

If this were true, a 5 cha character would have a +0 modifier, not a -3 modifier, which is by your own logic as strong as the modifier on a cha 16 character.

Your justification for ruling it that way at your tables is thin. Your justification for telling me I'm not role playing is worse than non existent.

+1 to BNW.

Liberty's Edge

BigNorseWolf wrote:
Darkwing Duck wrote:


Depends on what you mean by 'interesting'. If you mean personality and personal magnetism, then, no, a character with low charisma, by definition, will not have a strong personality (neither a strong negative personality nor a strong positive personality)

If this were true, a 5 cha character would have a +0 modifier, not a -3 modifier, which is by your own logic as strong as the modifier on a cha 16 character.

Your justification for ruling it that way at your tables is thin. Your justification for telling me I'm not role playing is worse than non existent.

Just to make sure, because I think we are on the same page, you are still saying the player should play the charisma, they just get to define their bonuses and penalties, right?

Because that I agree with.


Shuriken Nekogami wrote:
Joyd wrote:
If you impose additional penalties on charisma wildly disproportionate to its actual mechanical effect - for example if you make Cha 7 characters make a bad impression everywhere they go, even though they'll roll at least as high as the Cha 10 guy almost half of the time, and an average person looking at the actual results of their rolls wouldn't be able to tell the difference unless they were being very careful about tracking them and had a very large dataset - you're effectively imposing additional out-of-rules advantages for having a higher charisma, potentially making it "worth it" as a stat. You can make any stat important for any character by ignoring the rules for how it affects things and instead imposing much larger penalties and bonuses. For example, you might not want casters to dump strength, so you might rule that a character with 7 strength is likely to utterly fail at any strength-based task he attempts, regardless of what the goshdurn "rules" suggest the actual penalties for having 7 strength should be.
that is unfortunately what most of the people are proposing.

I actually genuinely don't hate the idea of literally doubling or even tripling ability score penalties to charisma-based skill checks to better simulate the sort of deficiencies that people independently assume charisma penalties represent. (As opposed to what they actually represent, which is an almost imperceptible difference in charisma.) So, for example, someone with Cha 8 would get -3 to charisma-based skill checks before adding in skill ranks, and someone with Cha 5 would get -9. That would synch the mechanics up much better with the effects that people defending the decision to not dump charisma because you want it for social stuff imagine it has - a person with a 7, and thus -6 to skill checks is ACTUALLY going to be making a bad impression everywhere he goes compared to a guy with 10, whereas under the current rules it's not the case. (The -2 the rules currently impose is simply too small to make a perceptible difference.)

I think that the tripled penalties is an appropriate magnitude of effect to actually make not dumping of Charisma a fairly balanced choice for characters that don't need it for anything except for skills. It's now a real flaw, instead of a penalty way too minor proportional to how much you get for doing it.

For system elegance purposes, it probably makes sense to apply the same system to every score; for example, a Wizard with 8 Str will now take a -3 to Strength-based skill checks, rather than a -1.

Note that I don't think that this is the same as essentially banning dumping stats; I think it just makes it an actual choice instead of something you only avoid if you have a special distaste for it or don't understand the system math very well. (Doubling instead of tripling the penalties would represent a middle ground.)


Shuriken Nekogami wrote:
Odraude wrote:
Shuriken Nekogami wrote:
charisma threads need to be a banned topic.
There are many topics I feel should be on this list. Like Paladin code threads.

complaint threads pertaining to anything involving rogues or monks

complaint threads about martials wrecking a game by beiing reasonably competent

threads about stealing from the party or other forms of pvp

threads about adversarial DMs trying to kill thier players.

Don't forget the occasional psionics thread...

I am glad that the anti Oriental Fantasy and firearms went the way of the dinosaurs


Symar wrote:
CunningMongoose wrote:
Symar wrote:
CunningMongoose wrote:


Also - Paladins are less MAD and Monks don't need to grunt anymore. Yeah!

How does this help Paladins, other than by giving them a better Will save and Perception?
They may spend more points in Str or Con, not having to split betweem Cha and Wis.
Why does my Paladin need points in Wisdom?

Forget it, I was still thinking about 3.5. Last time I saw a paladin around our table Pahfinder did not exist.

They are not a popular class in my group.


Joyd wrote:
Shuriken Nekogami wrote:
Joyd wrote:
If you impose additional penalties on charisma wildly disproportionate to its actual mechanical effect - for example if you make Cha 7 characters make a bad impression everywhere they go, even though they'll roll at least as high as the Cha 10 guy almost half of the time, and an average person looking at the actual results of their rolls wouldn't be able to tell the difference unless they were being very careful about tracking them and had a very large dataset - you're effectively imposing additional out-of-rules advantages for having a higher charisma, potentially making it "worth it" as a stat. You can make any stat important for any character by ignoring the rules for how it affects things and instead imposing much larger penalties and bonuses. For example, you might not want casters to dump strength, so you might rule that a character with 7 strength is likely to utterly fail at any strength-based task he attempts, regardless of what the goshdurn "rules" suggest the actual penalties for having 7 strength should be.
that is unfortunately what most of the people are proposing.
I actually genuinely don't hate the idea of literally doubling or even tripling ability score penalties to charisma-based skill checks to better simulate the sort of deficiencies that people independently assume charisma penalties represent. (As opposed to what they actually represent, which is an almost imperceptible difference in charisma.) So, for example, someone with Cha 8 would get -3 to charisma-based skill checks before adding in skill ranks, and someone with Cha 5 would get -9. That would synch the mechanics up much better with the effects that people defending the decision to not dump charisma because you want it for social stuff imagine it has - a person with a 7, and thus -6 to skill checks is ACTUALLY going to be making a bad impression everywhere he goes compared to a guy with 10, whereas under the current rules it's not the case. (The -2 the rules...

that would only further penalize martials, who are weak enough in comparison to casters, and would heavily reward sorcerers, oracles, and bards.


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ciretose wrote:
Just to make sure, because I think we are on the same page, you are still saying the player should play the charisma, they just get to define their bonuses and penalties, right?

The player should play the charisma.

There are many ways to play a low charisma. The stats set the penalties no matter what they do. (baring a +2 circumstance bonus for a good line)

-The wallflower: in social situations they clam up and stay in the background

-The stammerer: Its.. h. hard. t.. to tt. take so. .someone.. se seriously. wh. when they're mumblingandtalking down to their *looks down and talks to shoes*

-The clueless: Oh hi! congratulations on your baby. What.. you're not pregnant? OH.. you're a male dwarf...

-Brutal honesty: It aint the dress thats makin ye look fat its the fat thats makin ya look fat.

-Foot in mouth: Hey, you wana check out my sword? I mean.. this one here, in my belt. In the sheath. .. I keep making this worse don't I?

If an actual diplomacy roll is called for the dice should decide how it goes, with a possible +2 bonus if the player is making a good (in character) case for their point.


I am glad that the anti Oriental Fantasy and firearms went the way of the dinosaurs

Don't be silly, we love dinosaurs


BigNorseWolf wrote:
Quote:
Just to make sure, because I think we are on the same page, you are still saying the player should play the charisma, they just get to define their bonuses and penalties, right?

The player should play the charisma.

There are many ways to play a low charisma. The stats set the penalties no matter what they do. (baring a +2 circumstance bonus for a good line)

-The wallflower: in social situations they clam up and stay in the background

-The stammerer: Its.. h. hard. t.. to tt. take so. .someone.. se seriously. wh. when they're mumblingandtalking down to their *looks down and talks to shoes*

-The clueless: Oh hi! congratulations on your baby. What.. you're not pregnant? OH.. you're a male dwarf...

-Brutal honesty: It aint the dress thats makin ye look fat its the fat thats makin ya look fat.

-Foot in mouth: Hey, you wana check out my sword? I mean.. this one here, in my belt. In the sheath. .. I keep making this worse don't I?

If an actual diplomacy roll is called for the dice should decide how it goes, with a possible +2 bonus if the player is making a good (in character) case for their point.

these all work much better than tripling the impact of charisma penalties.

Silver Crusade

Dragonamedrake wrote:
RPing CHA has to be one of the hardest parts of DnD. After all its your characters personality.

I'm going to say this is the second hardest part. The actual hardest part, and I say this in full cynicism, is getting others to let you RP CHA.

It has been my experience, over dozens of parties where I've run Cha-primary characters (and was explicitly asked to play the party's Face in many of these cases; not too hard when your favorite class is Sorc), that anywhere from one person to the entire rest of the party won't let you. Any time diplomacy, bluff, etc. might be called for, someone is going to interpret their Cha 7-8 as "immediately gets in everyone's face, constantly confronting and intentionally angering them with blatantly aggressive words and actions. Good luck rolling Diplomacy as this PC or PCs go(es) out of their way to pick extra fights. They'll even interrupt your rolls if you try to beat them to it by getting ahead of them to try negotiations." Every. Single. Time.

It is extremely frustrating. Pointing this out to them rarely does any good, and I am gradually losing interest in bothering with the Cha stat in any way.


Celestial winged pony wrote:
I'm going to say this is the second hardest part. The actual hardest part, and I say this in full cynicism, is getting others to let you RP CHA.

Role playing 5 cha characters isn't much of a stretch for some of us.


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BigNorseWolf wrote:
Celestial winged pony wrote:
I'm going to say this is the second hardest part. The actual hardest part, and I say this in full cynicism, is getting others to let you RP CHA.
Role playing 5 cha characters isn't much of a stretch for some of us.

Well the game was designed around the idea that humans ranged between 3-18. D&D wasn't meant to simulate mental handicaps of a particularly debilitating fashion, just as it wasn't meant to simulate physical handicaps of particularly debilitating fashion. No one seems to ask at what point do you become a paraplegic for having low physical stats. It's equally as stupid to try and attribute mental illness or various syndromes to mental ability scores. Those things would be separate animals altogether.


BigNorseWolf wrote:
Darkwing Duck wrote:


Depends on what you mean by 'interesting'. If you mean personality and personal magnetism, then, no, a character with low charisma, by definition, will not have a strong personality (neither a strong negative personality nor a strong positive personality)

If this were true, a 5 cha character would have a +0 modifier, not a -3 modifier, which is by your own logic as strong as the modifier on a cha 16 character.

Your justification for ruling it that way at your tables is thin. Your justification for telling me I'm not role playing is worse than non existent.

A -3 Charisma mod doesn't mean that the character is responded to negatively. Intimidation, for example, creates a negative response. But, a -3 mod makes it harder to achieve that negative response.

Read the description for the Charisma attribute modifier. It says,

Quote:


You apply your character's Charisma modifier to:

Bluff, Diplomacy, Disguise, Handle Animal, Intimidate, Perform, and Use Magic Device checks.
Checks that represent attempts to influence others.
Channel energy DCs for clerics and paladins attempting to harm undead foes.

Pay careful attention to the line that says, "Checks that represent attempts to influence others". Note that what it does NOT say is "Checks that represent attempts to POSITIVELY influence others".


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I see these arguments that charisma sucks all the time but have never really understood them. My groups Band of Bards, 5 players all playing bards, would walk into dungeons frought with peril and danger only to walk out with more groupies than we knew what to do with...

And, yes, all of us where playing with maxed out charisma...we also never saw intelligent humanoids again...


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Kitsune Knight wrote:

I see these arguments that charisma sucks all the time but have never really understood them. My groups Band of Bards, 5 players all playing bards, would walk into dungeons frought with peril and danger only to walk out with more groupies than we knew what to do with...

And, yes, all of us where playing with maxed out charisma...we also never saw intelligent humanoids again...

Muahahaha. All bards. That's awesome. More inspire courage than you know what to do with, I'm sure! What a sweet party that would be. :D

I think a really great party would be Ranger + Paladin + Bard + Cleric + Magus + Wizard (I dig 6 person parties, probably due to my Baldur's Gate fandom :P).


Dragonamedrake wrote:
RPing CHA has to be one of the hardest parts of DnD. After all its your characters personality.

The GM can help with this. If the PC has a low charisma, regardless of the player's charisma, then the GM can treat anything the PC does to influence a social interaction as mostly ineffectual and prone to undesired faux pas. If the PC has a high charisma, regardless of the player's charisma, then the GM can treat anything the PC does to influence a social interaction as mostly effectual. This means that when a player with a high charisma PC is trying to be disruptive and the low charisma character with him is trying to have a successful communication, then the social communication is most likely to end in disaster.

Of course, its not a black and white thing because we're not comparing a character with 0 Charisma to a character with 100 Charisma, so the GM has to adjudicate that. The Charisma mods and skill points help with that adjudication.


Ashiel wrote:
Kitsune Knight wrote:

I see these arguments that charisma sucks all the time but have never really understood them. My groups Band of Bards, 5 players all playing bards, would walk into dungeons frought with peril and danger only to walk out with more groupies than we knew what to do with...

And, yes, all of us where playing with maxed out charisma...we also never saw intelligent humanoids again...

Muahahaha. All bards. That's awesome. More inspire courage than you know what to do with, I'm sure! What a sweet party that would be. :D

I think a really great party would be Ranger + Paladin + Bard + Cleric + Magus + Wizard (I dig 6 person parties, probably due to my Baldur's Gate fandom :P).

Yeah, our DM had to turn it into a zombie apocolypse game just to get us to even enter combat. Otherwise we would just charm our way through everything.

Usually we end up with 5 players simply cause our DM sets the limit at that. It ends up being easier to manage. Otherwise, he would end up with up to 8 or more people, which he has run before but it wasn't a pretty/pleasant experience.

So...yeah...Charisma to me ends up being like everything else in the game. AMAZING when its time is ripe, but in line otherwise. I suppose it is like the Nova of ability scores in that respect.


Darkwing

From diplomacy

If you fail by 5 or more, the character's attitude toward you is decreased by one step.

Black and white, clear as crystal with no sophistry or word twisting. That negative modifier on Charisma is more likely to get you a strong negative reaction.


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Actually, there is no charisma. There is an almost entirely different stat that we call charisma for stupid legacy reasons.

How do we know it's not really charisma? Real charisma frequently goes down as young idealists become old and jaded. The stat falsely called charisma always goes up with age. We know it has nothing to do with appearance for the same reason: the component attributed to appearance would go down with age and any mental component would be static if it didn't also go down.

The stat that effects:
the ability of clerics to channel raw positive or negative energy
the ability to use magic without careful preparation
the ability to manipulate magic items
the durability of undead who lack con scores
most SLAs that don't derive from wizard, witch, monk, or cleric class features.

And incidentally people seem to subconsciously react to the magicalness of others because we have to key the social skills off of something.


BigNorseWolf wrote:

Darkwing

From diplomacy

If you fail by 5 or more, the character's attitude toward you is decreased by one step.

Black and white, clear as crystal with no sophistry or word twisting. That negative modifier on Charisma is more likely to get you a strong negative reaction.

As for being in "black and white, crystal clear", the description under Charisma that I posted earlier is as "black and white, crystal clear" as you can get and its directly relevant - not buried in some skill, but actually directly under the attribute description. Diplomacy is a narrowly focused application of Charisma. To examine the social effect of Charisma through skills, you have to look at the gestalt of all social based skills. You have to balance Intimidation against Diplomacy against Bluff. That's where you err. Because failing by 5 or more in Diplomacy means that you are trying to get a reaction, but failing - the same way that failing in Intimidate means that you are trying to get a reaction, but failing. If you have a socially ineffectual character trying to get you to look the other way when he robs a bank, of course you're going to react negatively. If, on the other hand, that socially ineffectual person does nothing, he'll just blend into the faceless crowd (until he tries to blend into the faceless crowd, then he'll make some faux pas).


Darkwing Duck wrote:


As for being in "black and white, crystal clear", the description under Charisma that I posted earlier is as "black and white, crystal clear"

Your squeezed your interpretation out of the technically that the implied positive reaction wasn't explicit, so therefore it absolutely had to be the complete opposite. Your conclusion could charitably be called murky.

Its not the basis to ignore everything else in the game but a three sentence blurb and it definitely doesn't give you the right to accuse me of not role playing because I don't follow your completely arbitrary "logic".

A low strength makes you memorably bad, not average, with a melee weapon. A low dex makes you absolutely horrible at navigating china shops: you will remember both the person who pulled the jackie chan and the person who knocked down half the store. A low con makes your hacking cough, hemophilia and allergies stand out, a low int makes you stand out, not blend in, in history class, and a low wisdom is more memorable than an aver... ooo squirrel.

And a low Cha does not mean you get to just hide and blend in to the background. It doesn't get a non reaction it gets a BAD reaction. People don't just NOT notice you they do notice you , cross to the other side of the street , hold tightly on to small children and keep the torches and pitchforks handy.

Quote:
To examine the social effect of Charisma through skills, you have to look at the gestalt of all social based skills. You have to balance Intimidation against Diplomacy against Bluff. That's where you err. Because failing by 5 or more in Diplomacy means that you are trying to get a reaction, but failing - the same way that failing in Intimidate means that you are trying to get a reaction, but failing.

So you think if the level 8 barbarian with a 24 strength and 5 charisma picks a peasant up by the neck and slams him against the wall for an intimidate he gets "No reaction" ? The peasant just dangles there saying "Meh.. whatever.. you're the third murderous hobo this week..."

I say he can't get the right reaction. Specifically he can't make the peasant function as if friendly because the peasant is too busy wetting themselves and is so scared that they tell the barbarian what they think they want to hear. The barbarians lack of tact and knowing how far to push someone made him go too far.

If you fail this check by 5 or more, the target attempts to deceive you or otherwise hinder your activities.


Atarlost wrote:

Actually, there is no charisma. There is an almost entirely different stat that we call charisma for stupid legacy reasons.

How do we know it's not really charisma? Real charisma frequently goes down as young idealists become old and jaded. The stat falsely called charisma always goes up with age. We know it has nothing to do with appearance for the same reason: the component attributed to appearance would go down with age and any mental component would be static if it didn't also go down.

Eh, the aging penalties and bonuses are a stupid legacy thing (and an example of pompy LSM attempts at "realism" being clumsily injected without respecting how the game actually works) and not really a great way to judge what anything is or means. The most commonly cited example of the aging effects being a total farce is that Perception (formerly Spot and Listen) actually IMPROVES as you get super old.


Joyd wrote:
the aging penalties and bonuses are a stupid legacy thing (and an example of pompy LSM attempts at "realism" being clumsily injected without respecting how the game actually works) and not really a great way to judge what anything is or means. The most commonly cited example of the aging effects being a total farce is that Perception (formerly Spot and Listen) actually IMPROVES as you get super old.

Obligatory OOTS Comic on the matter


Shuriken Nekogami wrote:
you need a decent charisma if you want to take the eldritch heritage feat line.

Wondered when someone would mention this. With a high enough charisma and this feat chain you can add up to +12 to a melee character. Seems like a nice bonus that affects something other then social stats. If you want a mental stat to add to physical pursuits then I think you are asking a bit much.


BigNorseWolf wrote:
And a low Cha does not mean you get to just hide and blend in to the background. It doesn't get a non reaction it gets a BAD reaction. People don't just NOT notice you they do notice you , cross to the other side of the street , hold tightly on to small children and keep the torches and pitchforks handy.

I have a pretty low charisma IRL and I can't say I've gotten this reaction from people.


Meophist wrote:
BigNorseWolf wrote:
And a low Cha does not mean you get to just hide and blend in to the background. It doesn't get a non reaction it gets a BAD reaction. People don't just NOT notice you they do notice you , cross to the other side of the street , hold tightly on to small children and keep the torches and pitchforks handy.
I have a pretty low charisma IRL and I can't say I've gotten this reaction from people.

Pretty sure BigNorseWolf is talking about charisma in the 3 to 6 range. Scores in this range would have habits that would cause people to shy away or react openly to you like picking your nose and eating it or a hardcore evasion of general personal hygiene. These would be mental quirks that a being of such low charisma would have. You may feel you have a low charisma but would probably be average if you garner no reaction so 8 to 12.


I didn't read all those posts so please don't mind if it came up:

There are some neat feats the have cha as prereq. But if you feel cha is too weak I would add it as a prereq for other feats.


Hemit Flintlocke wrote:


Pretty sure BigNorseWolf is talking about charisma in the 3 to 6 range. Scores in this range would have habits that would cause people to shy away or react openly to you like picking your nose and eating it or a hardcore evasion of general personal hygiene.

ermm right. Of course. Completely hypothetically. I don't get those sorts of reactions....

*whistles innocently*


Hemit Flintlocke wrote:
Pretty sure BigNorseWolf is talking about charisma in the 3 to 6 range. Scores in this range would have habits that would cause people to shy away or react openly to you like picking your nose and eating it or a hardcore evasion of general personal hygiene. These would be mental quirks that a being of such low charisma would have. You may feel you have a low charisma but would probably be average if you garner no reaction so 8 to 12.

I would put my charisma at around 3, actually. I got a few points in Diplomacy, but I'm still well below the average. A have a few... problems when engaging people socially; my general volume of speech is a few levels lower than the norm, it took me years to learn to actually speak towards people than away, I was often misunderstood and have had difficulty expressing my view properly. Generally, however, I didn't make enemies, although few friends. I went more unnoticed than hated.

I think that's more like how extremely low charisma would be like. A 7 would only be somewhat low, in my view.

Liberty's Edge

Meophist wrote:

I would put my charisma at around 3, actually. I got a few points in Diplomacy, but I'm still well below the average. A have a few... problems when engaging people socially; my general volume of speech is a few levels lower than the norm, it took me years to learn to actually speak towards people than away, I was often misunderstood and have had difficulty expressing my view properly. Generally, however, I didn't make enemies, although few friends. I went more unnoticed than hated.

I think that's more like how extremely low charisma would be like. A 7 would only be somewhat low, in my view.

3 is literally the lowest humanly possible. What you describe is more in the 6-7 range, IMO.

Bear in mind that most likable or charming people probably actually have at least a rank or two in Diplomacy and likely it's a class skill for them as well, that's a +5-+7 right there, and that's not even counting things like Feats. A +0 Diplomacy score (like that of someone with Cha 6 and two ranks, but no class bonus) sounds about right for the reaction you describe people having toward you.


Deadmanwalking wrote:
3 is literally the lowest humanly possible. What you describe is more in the 6-7 range, IMO.

Well, if someone has suffered charisma damage, they could be lower.

In any case, someone with 0 charisma is comatose. I'd say my ability to influence people is a bit better than that, although not much.


Deadmanwalking wrote:
45ur4 wrote:
Bestow Grace is the 2nd level paladin spell, obtainable as a potion or a wand, and it gives a sacred bonus to all saves (thus stacking with divine grace). Bestow grace of the champion is indeed a clerical 7th level spell/ paladin 4th level that grants Charisma modifier as a bonus to all saving throws.
And is stil available as a Wand if you want. All 4th level Paladin spells are.

Yeah, just sayin' and endorsing the value of having high charisma for higher saving throws (two spells that stack).

@OP: are you interested in 3rd party material? Weapon Trickery lets use your Cha modifier instead of Str to hit under some circumstances...

Silver Crusade

It's possible I was being misunderstood. To clarify my cynical remark, I was talking about the frustration of other players and DMs specifically asking another player to take on the Face role with their character... and then the PCs go out of their way to make it impossible for the Face to do their job. Things like the other PCs repeatedly flinging around fighting words to anyone and everyone they can (picking more battles than necessary, perhaps they think this is worth extra experience points? Hmm...), or using the Face's negotiation efforts as an excuse to start sniping without said Face's foreknowledge that this is the plan. That last one can be a clever albeit underhanded tactic, but can also alarm the Face and expose them to unexpected danger.

Have had those sort of things happen far more often than I would like, in far more campaigns than I would like, with different groups and DMs each time. Doesn't happen 100% of the time, but it comes up frequently enough that I end up sharing KaptainKrunch's interest in finding non-RP uses to gain some benefit out of Cha. Sometimes, the other edit: players won't let you use the attribute they asked you to pump points into. Bizarre, but it happens.

More constructively, thinking on this at more length, I suppose it is because 'social victories' via Diplomacy/Bluff end up with one character doing most of the dice rolls while the others sit around. There must be some way to deal with that problem, because it could be part of the cause of the stuff I'm complaining about.

That, or I could just be playing in an incredibly unusual string of odd parties.


Celestial Pegasus wrote:

It's possible I was being misunderstood. To clarify my cynical remark, I was talking about the frustration of other players and DMs specifically asking another player to take on the Face role with their character... and then the PCs go out of their way to make it impossible for the Face to do their job. Things like the other PCs repeatedly flinging around fighting words to anyone and everyone they can (picking more battles than necessary, perhaps they think this is worth extra experience points? Hmm...), or using the Face's negotiation efforts as an excuse to start sniping without said Face's foreknowledge that this is the plan. That last one can be a clever albeit underhanded tactic, but can also alarm the Face and expose them to unexpected danger.

Have had those sort of things happen far more often than I would like, in far more campaigns than I would like, with different groups and DMs each time. Doesn't happen 100% of the time, but it comes up frequently enough that I end up sharing KaptainKrunch's interest in finding non-RP uses to gain some benefit out of Cha. Sometimes, the other edit: players won't let you use the attribute they asked you to pump points into. Bizarre, but it happens.

More constructively, thinking on this at more length, I suppose it is because 'social victories' via Diplomacy/Bluff end up with one character doing most of the dice rolls while the others sit around. There must be some way to deal with that problem, because it could be part of the cause of the stuff I'm complaining about.

That, or I could just be playing in an incredibly unusual string of odd parties.

That idea sounds interesting. I've thought about making a more of a social combat system for the game, but in the mean time, maybe allow more skills to be used in social encounters?

Let knowledge skills replace diplomacy checks if it's on the right subject, for instance. A heal check can see the other person's general health, which can have some meaning in an encounter.

I'm not entirely sure about everything else, but if another skill or knowledge that comes with a skill(heal for health for instance) can affect a social encounter, it maybe able to help make social encounters more interesting for all players. This would require the players to know about these things, however.

This doesn't exactly help charisma be more useful, but on another point, if the social encounters are more interesting, players may want to contribute more to them.

Sovereign Court

Malach the Merciless wrote:
Charisma does not suck. I love the fact CHA is used for social skills, and is great for RPing.

My thoughts exactly, but like all things it really comes down to what you as a group decide. That's the great thing about this game. We play together and we make the rules fit our needs as explorers in a fantasy world. You can do whatever you want as a group, substitute Cha for Str or anything you feel should work. I think that's pretty freaking cool.

Grand Lodge

Anyone who has dealt with the Antagonize feat, knows charisma can be quite powerful.


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Did Hitler have a Charisma of 12? Did MLK? When you think of a person with a 12 Charisma, do you think of a famous movie star, beloved politician, cult leader, or master manipulator? How about a Charisma of 14 then? No? Well then why do you picture somebody with a Charisma of 8 or even 6 as Quasimodo? An 8 Charisma is just as common as a 12, a 6 Charisma is just as common as a 14 - it is just on the opposite side of the bell curve. We tend to have an inflated sense of attributes because player characters tend to be so high above the average, but low attributes aren't low at at. In real life, you probably have an attribute that is 8 or below.

Think of the people you know personally. That shy guy, he has a Charisma of 8. That chubby guy has an 8 Dexterity. Most women you know probably have a Strength below 10. So when you imagine a character with an attribute of 8 or even lower, don't think of that character as being horribly unbalanced or min-maxed, think of them as a normal person, who like most of us, is below average in at least on regard.

As for making Charisma more desirable - why? For classes or concept that can benefit from Charisma, it's very useful. For others, then it is the player's choice. Charisma means something, it means being good with people, if somebody doesn't want their character to be good with people or thinks that some other attribute is more important, then why is that a problem? D20 by its nature is about specialization, what with the class system, and so why would it be a problem have a low attribute that doesn't benefit your area of specialization?

Grand Lodge

Let's not drop the Hitler bomb. Nothing ever good comes from it.


Sergeant Brother wrote:

Did Hitler have a Charisma of 12? Did MLK? When you think of a person with a 12 Charisma, do you think of a famous movie star, beloved politician, cult leader, or master manipulator? How about a Charisma of 14 then? No? Well then why do you picture somebody with a Charisma of 8 or even 6 as Quasimodo? An 8 Charisma is just as common as a 12, a 6 Charisma is just as common as a 14 - it is just on the opposite side of the bell curve. We tend to have an inflated sense of attributes because player characters tend to be so high above the average, but low attributes aren't low at at. In real life, you probably have an attribute that is 8 or below.

Think of the people you know personally. That shy guy, he has a Charisma of 8. That chubby guy has an 8 Dexterity. Most women you know probably have a Strength below 10. So when you imagine a character with an attribute of 8 or even lower, don't think of that character as being horribly unbalanced or min-maxed, think of them as a normal person, who like most of us, is below average in at least on regard.

As for making Charisma more desirable - why? For classes or concept that can benefit from Charisma, it's very useful. For others, then it is the player's choice. Charisma means something, it means being good with people, if somebody doesn't want their character to be good with people or thinks that some other attribute is more important, then why is that a problem? D20 by its nature is about specialization, what with the class system, and so why would it be a problem have a low attribute that doesn't benefit your area of specialization?

Not quite right, even if you determine ability scores are usually 10.5 on average and assuming a 3d6 method a 6 (all 2's or similar) is about as common as a 15 (all 5's or similar), altogether favoring higher scores slightly. It should be said that 3d6 or 4d6 (best 3) will not give a good representation of typical people, but it serves fairly well for fantasy characters which are supposed to be more interesting than typical people, and generally more extreme.

Personally I think D&D would function better with fewer ability scores condensing some to make them more equal, or more spreading out some of the existing ones. I'd personally prefer the latter even if it makes characters more complex.

I'd split dexterity up and determine chances to hit both ranged and melee, though I'd like to include a melee focus and ranged focus trait that gives a +1/-1 to hit.

I'd add initiative to wisdom making it an important skill for those who want to avoid being caught flatfooted.

I'd add will saves to charisma, making it the ability for characters with a strong personality.

Probably not perfect but you would get something like this :

strength (damage, weight allowance)
agility (AC, reflex, skill focus)
accuracy (to hit, ranged and melee, skill focus)
personality (skill focus, will saves)
stamina (hp, fortitude)
wisdom (skill focus, initiative)
intelligence (skill focus, bonus skills)

skill focus meaning it is an important attribute for quite a few skills, accuracy reflecting steady hands and good hand-eye coordination, personality as a more suitable name for charisma, stamina as a personal preference in the place of constitution.

This system would make characters naturally more MAD and would advise (relatively) more point buy, at least 25 instead of 20, also I'd recommend to make caster types more MAD by having them be dependent on two ability scores i.e. personality for DC's and concentration checks and either intelligence or wisdom for bonus spells and maximum spell level allowed.


blackbloodtroll wrote:
Anyone who has dealt with the Antagonize feat, knows charisma can be quite powerful.

The DC on antagonize is so easy to hit that you don't need a charisma bonus to do it.

Charisma has a few problems.

First of all, its something that only one person in the party needs. For the vast majority of situations Grumpy the dwarf's charisma of 5 has as much effect on the bards ability to sweet talk the NPC as Sir Clanks a lots low dex has on a rogues ability to pick a lock. Mechanically, one character is making a skill check and the other characters are complete nonsequetors .

Secondly a low cha is very easy to make up for unless you're a caster. Cha affects bluff diplomacy perform and intimidate. You can get by on just diplomacy if you have to, and intimidate DC's are ridiculously low to demoralize people. Even IF you want all four skills, intelligence will get you a higher skill modifier in the long run. No other stat can be completely subsumed with skill points.


Deadmanwalking wrote:
Meophist wrote:

I would put my charisma at around 3, actually. I got a few points in Diplomacy, but I'm still well below the average. A have a few... problems when engaging people socially; my general volume of speech is a few levels lower than the norm, it took me years to learn to actually speak towards people than away, I was often misunderstood and have had difficulty expressing my view properly. Generally, however, I didn't make enemies, although few friends. I went more unnoticed than hated.

I think that's more like how extremely low charisma would be like. A 7 would only be somewhat low, in my view.

3 is literally the lowest humanly possible. What you describe is more in the 6-7 range, IMO.

Bear in mind that most likable or charming people probably actually have at least a rank or two in Diplomacy and likely it's a class skill for them as well, that's a +5-+7 right there, and that's not even counting things like Feats. A +0 Diplomacy score (like that of someone with Cha 6 and two ranks, but no class bonus) sounds about right for the reaction you describe people having toward you.

Actually, I'd go so far as to say it's the lowest possible for a normal human. If you added in certain conditions (such as brain damage) it could go lower. Pushed low enough, it could actually mean a human cannot take care of themselves, and must rely on others to do anything for them (Cha 0).

Incidentally, with no ranks in Diplomacy and 3 Charisma (the lowest normal human range) you tend to come off as an ass more often than not. That's a -4 to social attitude rolls. See how far you go in society just working on your natural Charisma like that. The DC to improve someone who's indifferent toward you would effectively be 19+ on a d20 (base DC 15, and you have a -4). Your chances of missing by 5 and pissing them off is dangerously high. Your chances of getting them to do something for you, even less so.

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