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I have a Gnome with a -5 to most charisma skills, heading toward -7.
He basically is a socially unpleasant gnome (CHA 9 Blight Druid -1) covered in sores and bad smells (wasting oracle -4) Sometimes with green goo dripping out his ears (Clear Ear -2)
At what point does just having him around make the other PC's diplomacy checks harder?
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At the point where you think it would be fun to roleplay such.
By RAW this isn't a thing but if you think it would be funny you can talk to your GM about it.
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I really wasn't thinking of it as funny. Frankly, a lot of times "wouldn't it be funny if my character hosed the party" is just annoying to be around.
But a lot of these things are "you get X benefit, but at the cost of Y penalty" and must sitting in the back of the party not talking and having there be no mechanical effect feels like cheating the system.
Good, it really isn't funny.
This is just an effect of how the mechanics work. Learn to stop worrying and dump charisma to the pits. Social skills are what bards are for.
As a side note, why the Oracle level? You can't cast any of the class's spells.
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Your character has no place as a party invitee, but that's not to say you cannot participate in the party encounters. As a blight druid you might be most comfortable exploring the kitchen using vermin shape, and you might create a distraction for your allies in doing so.
Take what might be considered an annoying disadvantage and harp on it in ways that it can become an advantage for a creative party. When you capture an enemy, you can take the role of bad cop simply by spending the night with whomever you are questioning and attempting to make pleasant conversation.
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At the point where he takes the lead in the conversation, or if the NPC has a specific reason to be offended by the presence of a smelly or diseased individual or a foul discharge, such that her starting attitude worsens.
The default response to a low-Charisma individual is contempt and a tendency to ignore him. His other modifiers are more like active disgust and aversion, but if the NPC can keep away and avoid physical contact, she should be able to interact neutrally with the more pleasant members of the party.
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Your character has no place as a party invitee, but that's not to say you cannot participate in the party encounters.
Actually, the mostly keep him around for the damage he does in combat... (And to be fair, up until last night he was only -1 charisma.)
As a side note, why the Oracle level? You can't cast any of the class's spells.
In character, because it wasn't his choice, not that it made him unhappy to be chosen. He is a "priest" of Groetus. Over the last two levels, he has established four new sacred places of worship to Groetus. (As in he has taken 4 abandon temples to other gods, defaced them, and marked them as sacred to Groetus.) In doing so, he has grown closer to Groetus through spreading Groetus' blight, and a portion of Groetus' power has flowed through him, warping him and inflicting the oracle's curse.
Out of character, for a one level dip, he gets immunity to fatigue, +4 to save vs disease, the ability to force / grant a reroll to every ally and enemy once per day, an extended list of spells that he can activate via wand without a check. He pays a -4 penalty to charisma, and -5 move speed, but he already has extremely effective ways of getting around movement problems.
Since his other 7 levels are invulnerable rager barbarian, with bolster resilience, immune to fatigue cancels out one of his great weaknesses (he can no longer lose most of his class features to a ray of exhaustion!) and allows him to double his DR 3/- against the first attack that hits him every round.
I am considering getting him a headband of charisma, but ironically, I would possibly get more benefit out of buying a couple of wands.
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At the point where he takes the lead in the conversation, or if the NPC has a specific reason to be offended by the presence of a smelly or diseased individual or a foul discharge, such that her starting attitude worsens.
The default response to a low-Charisma individual is contempt and a tendency to ignore him. His other modifiers are more like active disgust and aversion, but if the NPC can keep away and avoid physical contact, she should be able to interact neutrally with the more pleasant members of the party.
+1 to Starglim. The last time I had a low charisma character, the rest of the party sent him away to the servants' areas when they had to deal with nobles or important folks. I used my healing hex (witch class) to help anyone who needed it and dispensed advice. Having a negative charisma wasn't a big problem then, whereas being a smelly obnoxious smartass tended to offend the nobs.
If you absolutely must have rules, the easy options are:
*Set DCs with the expectation of aid Another being used.
*Require a DC 10(ish) Diplomacy check for even being present at the negotiation, failure carries a -2 penalty for everybody on your side. Make that DC 15(ish) for anyone who speaks.
I have a Gnome with a -5 to most charisma skills, heading toward -7.
He basically is a socially unpleasant gnome (CHA 9 Blight Druid -1) covered in sores and bad smells (wasting oracle -4) Sometimes with green goo dripping out his ears (Clear Ear -2)
At what point does just having him around make the other PC's diplomacy checks harder?
As long as you avoid doing any diplomacy yourself the best is no effect at all and the worst you could do is apply a situational penalty on their rolls depending entirely on how you play this role or who your group is talking to.
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I would award a circumstance of -2 to all diplomacy checks when you are in the room if you look diseased. Think leprosy. I believe this would scare most intelligent people away.
I might switch it to a +2 if the situation involves some creatures, like mongrelmen (are they even in pathfinder?).
It will hurt you the first time you attempt Use Magic Device or Handle Animal to train something. Of the two, the first is probably the only one you might regret.
You can (and should) stay out of social interactions. Hopefully someone else will do the shopping for you too.
Other than that, you stay in the background and try to not talk. Just like people shouldn't ask a halfling sorcerer to do strength-related activities, they shouldn't expect you to do social interaction.
Never. By RAW or RAI anyways.
IF you want to do so, and your party is okay with it, strictly for the funny - then yes, that's fine. But it's houserules period.
If you walk into a bar and start asking around about someone that I know and your friend there is leaking all over the place, I am going to be a little uneasy, therefore a circumstance modifier of -2 is clearly within RAW. That is the point of a circumstance modifier.
The part of D&D that was sadly forgotten when ported to Pathfinder includes:
Favorable And Unfavorable Conditions
Some situations may make a skill easier or harder to use, resulting in a bonus or penalty to the skill modifier for a skill check or a change to the DC of the skill check.
The chance of success can be altered in four ways to take into account exceptional circumstances.
Give the skill user a +2 circumstance bonus to represent conditions that improve performance, such as having the perfect tool for the job, getting help from another character (see Combining Skill Attempts), or possessing unusually accurate information.
Give the skill user a -2 circumstance penalty to represent conditions that hamper performance, such as being forced to use improvised tools or having misleading information.
Reduce the DC by 2 to represent circumstances that make the task easier, such as having a friendly audience or doing work that can be subpar.
Increase the DC by 2 to represent circumstances that make the task harder, such as having an uncooperative audience or doing work that must be flawless.
If you walk into a bar and start asking around about someone that I know and your friend there is leaking all over the place, I am going to be a little uneasy, therefore a circumstance modifier of -2 is clearly within RAW. That is the point of a circumstance modifier.
The part of D&D that was sadly forgotten when ported to Pathfinder includes:
Favorable And Unfavorable Conditions
Some situations may make a skill easier or harder to use, resulting in a bonus or penalty to the skill modifier for a skill check or a change to the DC of the skill check.
The chance of success can be altered in four ways to take into account exceptional circumstances.
Give the skill user a +2 circumstance bonus to represent conditions that improve performance, such as having the perfect tool for the job, getting help from another character (see Combining Skill Attempts), or possessing unusually accurate information.
Give the skill user a -2 circumstance penalty to represent conditions that hamper performance, such as being forced to use improvised tools or having misleading information.
Reduce the DC by 2 to represent circumstances that make the task easier, such as having a friendly audience or doing work that can be subpar.
Increase the DC by 2 to represent circumstances that make the task harder, such as having an uncooperative audience or doing work that must be flawless.
That still does not make it RAW to do what is being asked. It makes it RAW that a GM can apply a penalty in certain situations. There is no RAW that says what is being asked.
RAW=literally what is written. What your post is doing is suggesting a penalty in certain situations which is only a suggestion, not a rule.
Since the GM already has the power to apply penalites as he sees fit this statement is just really reminder text.
Which makes it not a house rule. It is a "rule as written" that is solely up to the GM to apply. That puts it in the same realm as all the terrain rules. Only the GM (usually) chooses the terrain features of the game.
My post showed the part of the game where a GM goes to decide what kind of penalties and bonuses apply to situations outside the acting PCs control. It is found in the beginning of the skills section (albeit 3.5) and is clearly not made up, as a house rule would be.
The only suggestion in my post is that the Op, or his GM, use the rule found there. This is akin to suggesting that a GM stay within the CR guidelines of the game. All rules, just not hard and fast ones.