DM Dealing with a 3 Charisma


Advice


So I'm DM of a new campaign for RotRL.

I am fairly lenient on my "house rules" im giving them hero points and 2 character traits, but am going to make them roll on the compulsion table to add a minor "flaw" for balance and RP purpose.

My house rule for rolling up is 4d6, pick 3 highest. They can assign in any order. They can roll 2x am pick the better set. OR they can opt for Point buy using standard fantasy.

Needless to say everyone gambles on the rolls and it normally pays off. I make them use CASINO D6 and roll in front of me so its fair. Anyway one of my players was doing great, rolled 17,16,15,14,13 and was hoping for the strait with an 18, but rolled four "1" and got a 3. His other set of scores was more balanced. He chose this set though and kept the 3.

He is an elf monk. The problem is in the first session he came into contact with the goblin dog that gave him the rash (-2 charisma). Then later he rolled a natural one on a grapple check and I added the disease again. ( i normally dont do this b/c of the stack effect) However i added it this time b/c we have a house rule that "bad" stuff happens on a natural one. you drop your weapon, your bow string breaks, etc... seeing as he had no weapon this is what i thought of. Regardless of if it was done correctly.

So his charisma hits 0 and he is rendered unconscious. Noe the problem is as a DM i know this is going to be the way to bring him down. I dont want to Metagame it. thoughts on fixing this.

My though was to let him use point buy to reallocate from his current points. He takes one of his higher rolls drops it down and releases points to bring his score up. Would this seem fair?

Thoughts?

EDIT: I found this link and am unsure how much it cost to raise points from 3. I assume its 1 point per score.

http://paizo.com/prd/gettingStarted.html


With those rolls that seems fair to me. Either that or have him roll a new PC. What I might offer is one new set of rolls that must be used to replace the current set.


Why on earth would rolling badly on a grapple check make his rash worse?

You could come up with a more reasonable fumble for that 1.

That being said, 3 is a bit low even for a dump stat. I would say put him up to 7 or something.


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Scenarios like this are why I like point buy and dislike critical failure rules.

Also, critical failure is really just another way of punishing martial classes, as all of their iterative attacks pretty much ensure that they will be regularly rolling 1s. Meanwhile, your spell casters can generally get around having to roll a d20 entirely.


Well, contact with the dog has a chance of acquiring the rash. Since he rolled a one (and then failed his fort save he got the rash) again, its hard to do when there are no weapons.

Regardless of the 1 and the subsequent penalty, my concern is moving forward all that has to happen is 3 points of charisma damage and he is down and out.

Silver Crusade RPG Superstar 2014 Top 16

Well, one can't accuse the player of "dumping" since the stats were rolled.

With that said, a low stats has consequences. Any stat going to 0 puts you out of the fight. That's just how things are.

There aren't many things that provide Cha damage though, so how unlucky of him to have run across one?

With all of that said, I too am completely opposed to the crit and fumble rules as many practice them.


DominusMegadeus wrote:

Why on earth would rolling badly on a grapple check make his rash worse?

You could come up with a more reasonable fumble for that 1.

That being said, 3 is a bit low even for a dump stat. I would say put him up to 7 or something.

Go look up cauliflower ears on wrestlers or mma people.


I seem to remember hearing that almost nothing damages intelligence, as that would make beasts too easy to beat. Maybe he should switch his charisma and intelligence?


Zahir ibn Mahmoud ibn Jothan wrote:

Well, one can't accuse the player of "dumping" since the stats were rolled.

With that said, a low stats has consequences. Any stat going to 0 puts you out of the fight. That's just how things are.

There aren't many things that provide Cha damage though, so how unlucky of him to have run across one?

With all of that said, I too am completely opposed to the crit and fumble rules as many practice them.

Unlucky yes as its written in the AP. I had no idea what had happened if CHA reached 0. Thats the first time in my 15+ years of gaming that I can recall that happening.

I really cant think of anything that attacks charisma off the top of my head. Im sure there are some undead that have something that drains it and poisons, and perhaps a spell but im not aware of them.


You could allow him to drop points from other stats to raise his charisma
He's got the stats to do it but would say can't raise it above say 6 which is still pretty crap


First off - Drop the fumble houserules.
Secondly - Avoid Charisma damage.
Simple.

Grand Lodge

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Melkiador wrote:

Scenarios like this are why I like point buy and dislike critical failure rules.

Also, critical failure is really just another way of punishing martial classes, as all of their iterative attacks pretty much ensure that they will be regularly rolling 1s. Meanwhile, your spell casters can generally get around having to roll a d20 entirely.

Quoted for truth. Really, critical failures just ruin the game.


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He chose the keep the points that had a 3 in it. With the goblin dog, he now knows that he has to be careful. Dont shy away away if the adventure has things that will damage charisma, but dont throw anything extra in there that can target that, he will have enough to worry about protecting his charisma already.
the critical fumbles and whatnot, i love them. If u have already stated ur using them and the players didnt object, then by all means go for it. BUT heres the thing, they are to add flavor and imho i wouldnt let something that supposedto add flavor kill said character. So i would have ruled he took one point of burn damage or whatnot. I would retcon the ruling for the cha dmg and make it something else.


Well consider this. Standard fantasy is 15 point buy. Which is rather harsh, and makes lots of character concepts impossible to make functional.

So you're choice as a GM, makes rolled stats the only viable option. Heck, that single 17 your character rolled would represent almost the entirety of buy point alotment if he had done that instead. I understand what you're after, but this is the exact problem with rolled stats.

Personally I have adopted giving players a fixed stat array. It is generous, but well rounded. It helps players to be able to play MAD classes without adding power to full casters or other SAD classes.

I give 16,16,15,14,13,11. It has the feature of not having a dump stat, but also not having one extremely high stat while giving 3 moderatelty good stats. Making martials and MAD classes much more viable.

Grand Lodge

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Critical Fumbles sound fun, but in practice, they are horrible.

You know who suffers? The players. At best, they are DM porn.

It got so bad in a previous campaign, that we had 3 PCs die, from critical fumbles alone. No monsters critical hits, bad tactics, or traps. I wasn't even told about the houserule until second session.

I have since been, very vocal, that I despise Critical Failures, and like opt out of a game that includes them.
Well, that or run a reroll focused PC.


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Dynas wrote:

Then later he rolled a natural one on a grapple check and I added the disease again. ( i normally dont do this b/c of the stack effect) However i added it this time b/c we have a house rule that "bad" stuff happens on a natural one. you drop your weapon, your bow string breaks, etc... seeing as he had no weapon this is what i thought of.

This is your problem right there. Critical fumble rules are a abomination, and this is a great example.

I can't blame the guy for dumping since they were rolled. (PS, we have a rule that if you do roll, 1's are 2's.).

Just ask him- would he rather bring in a new PC, or just have him saved by DM fiat? "Shillelu wanders by: Oh, I see you have Goblin Dog rot, here', I have a herb that can fix it."


He would be at a charisma of 1 if you hadn't double dipped. We've all tried critical fumbles in the past, and most people give up on them at some point. The way that they are most often done, critical fumbles are a worse punishment to martial characters than to casters. Try a couple of sessions without fumbles and see how you like it. I'd bet that the game will still be fun if combatants aren't dropping weapons all the time.

Grand Lodge

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Critical Fumbles also hurt martial more, and create a bigger imbalance between martial/caster.

Just wait until the Witch PC spams Misfortune/Cackle along with Ill-Omen.

Fighters will punch themselves in the face, but the Witch just stands back, makes no roll, and just lets the enemies kill themselves.


I will look into the critical fumble aspect, but we all really enjoy them. I also play this with the monsters as well. So if a goblin rolls a 1 (since it was early) i ruled he burned himself with his torch and died. Granted this is extreme but this was the first encounter just introducing the adventure. So it goes both ways. I have played it where my bosses have rolled 1's on attacks or spells and severely damaged themselves.

I can try without it and see how it goes.


Dynas wrote:

I will look into the critical fumble aspect, but we all really enjoy them. I also play this with the monsters as well. So if a goblin rolls a 1 (since it was early) i ruled he burned himself with his torch and died. Granted this is extreme but this was the first encounter just introducing the adventure. So it goes both ways. I have played it where my bosses have rolled 1's on attacks or spells and severely damaged themselves.

I can try without it and see how it goes.

But you see- the PC's have to deal with stuff from criticals even after the battle, whilst the NPC's dont. Unless you roll a few hundred times for each NPC to see if anything permanent occurred to them in the last few years?

"It's all fun and games until somebody puts an eye out!"

Grand Lodge

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Indeed, the Critical Fumbles seem fun at first, to all, but that wears off eventually.

They work for one-shots, but are a horror for campaigns.

Dark Archive

Sounds like a whole lot of not answering the question is going on here; he was looking for advice on how to fix a broken character, not about the wisdom of critical fumble rules. Short answer, with an ability score of 3 that character is hopelessly broken (seriously, if it we're intelligence he would be practically at animal level). You should put it out of its misery now before you get too far into the game and make him reroll.


BlackOuroboros wrote:
Sounds like a whole lot of not answering the question is going on here; he was looking for advice on how to fix a broken character, not about the wisdom of critical fumble rules. Short answer, with an ability score of 3 that character is hopelessly broken (seriously, if it we're intelligence he would be practically at animal level). You should put it out of its misery now before you get too far into the game and make him reroll.

There have been a number of suggestions. There just isn't much that can be done when you've painted yourself into a corner like this.

Suggestion: His immune system violently reacted to the disease, leaving him in a better place than he started. Then raise his Charisma to a 5.


I can go all GRRM style perhaps...

Its always good to kill someone early to establish the threat to the remainder of the PC's.... :) muhahahaha

Thanks for the feedback from everyone this helps.

Silver Crusade RPG Superstar 2014 Top 16

If there was no intent to permit a character to actually play with a 3 in a stat, then don't use 3d6 or 4d6 as a rolling method.

Try 2d6+6, or maybe Focus & Foible?


Zahir ibn Mahmoud ibn Jothan wrote:

If there was no intent to permit a character to actually play with a 3 in a stat, then don't use 3d6 or 4d6 as a rolling method.

Try 2d6+6, or maybe Focus & Foible?

On the high end of things, I've done 4d6 drop lowest and reroll 1s.

But I've since decided that if I'm running the campaign, I'm going with point buy. It gives the player a lot more control over the most permanent part of their character. Rolling for stats is like having to roll for race and gender. It should be in the player's hands. If I want people stronger, then I just increase the point buy pool.


Dynas wrote:

Needless to say everyone gambles on the rolls and it normally pays off. I make them use CASINO D6 and roll in front of me so its fair. Anyway one of my players was doing great, rolled 17,16,15,14,13 and was hoping for the strait with an 18, but rolled four "1" and got a 3. His other set of scores was more balanced. He chose this set though and kept the 3.

...

My though was to let him use point buy to reallocate from his current points. He takes one of his higher rolls drops it down and releases points to bring his score up. Would this seem fair?

Thoughts?

EDIT: I found this link and am unsure how much it cost to raise points from 3. I assume its 1 point per score.

http://paizo.com/prd/gettingStarted.html

It's not one point per score. The farther you deviate from the average, the greater the point totals are.

17 = 13 pts
16 = 10 pts
15 = 7 pts
14 = 5 pts
13 = 3 pts

3 is not defined in the book, but if you extend the point buy system out, it would be a -16. (7 = -4, 6 = -6, 5 = -9, 4 = -12)

So your total is a 22 point buy, not out of range of a normal game (pathfinder NPCs are built on a 15 point buy, and PFSOP specifies a 20 pb for PCs). Let him change points around based on that point buy.


Paladin of Baha-who? wrote:
Dynas wrote:

Needless to say everyone gambles on the rolls and it normally pays off. I make them use CASINO D6 and roll in front of me so its fair. Anyway one of my players was doing great, rolled 17,16,15,14,13 and was hoping for the strait with an 18, but rolled four "1" and got a 3. His other set of scores was more balanced. He chose this set though and kept the 3.

...

My though was to let him use point buy to reallocate from his current points. He takes one of his higher rolls drops it down and releases points to bring his score up. Would this seem fair?

Thoughts?

EDIT: I found this link and am unsure how much it cost to raise points from 3. I assume its 1 point per score.

http://paizo.com/prd/gettingStarted.html

It's not one point per score. The farther you deviate from the average, the greater the point totals are.

17 = 13 pts
16 = 10 pts
15 = 7 pts
14 = 5 pts
13 = 3 pts

3 is not defined in the book, but if you extend the point buy system out, it would be a -16. (7 = -4, 6 = -6, 5 = -9, 4 = -12)

So your total is a 22 point buy, not out of range of a normal game (pathfinder NPCs are built on a 15 point buy, and PFSOP specifies a 20 pb for PCs). Let him change points around based on that point buy.

This is what i was looking for! So if he drops his 17 to a 16 that frees up 10 points. Using all those in charisma would bring his score from 3 to what? basically how many actual points does he need to free up to get his charisma to lets say base 10.


Melkiador wrote:
Zahir ibn Mahmoud ibn Jothan wrote:

If there was no intent to permit a character to actually play with a 3 in a stat, then don't use 3d6 or 4d6 as a rolling method.

Try 2d6+6, or maybe Focus & Foible?

On the high end of things, I've done 4d6 drop lowest and reroll 1s.

But I've since decided that if I'm running the campaign, I'm going with point buy. It gives the player a lot more control over the most permanent part of their character. Rolling for stats is like having to roll for race and gender. It should be in the player's hands. If I want people stronger, then I just increase the point buy pool.

I suggest strongly giving a higher PB, but not giving any points back from dumping.


Dynas wrote:
My thought was to let him use point buy to reallocate from his current points. He takes one of his higher rolls drops it down and releases points to bring his score up. Would this seem fair?

This is a very elegant solution to the problem and I'd favor it.

point breakdown:

18 = 17 pts
17 = 13 pts
16 = 10 pts
15 = 7 pts
14 = 5 pts
13 = 3 pts
12 = 2 pts
11 = 1 pts
10 = 0 pts
9 = -1 pts
8 = -2 pts
7 = -4 pts
6 = -6 pts
5 = -9 pts
4 = -12 pts
3 = -16 pts

He is in the hole 16. Allow him to cash in however he wants on his other stats to get out of it.

But your numbers are off for dropping a 17 to a 16, as it frees up 3 points, not 10. Dropping his 17 to a 13 would free up 10 points, however, which could be used to raise his cha from a 3 to a 6. It's costly, but allows him to not be so easily crippled.


Lacdannan wrote:


This is a very elegant solution to the problem and I'd favor it.
6 = -6 pts
5 = -9 pts
4 = -12 pts
3 = -16 pts

I disagree. The minuses should not be geometric like the pluses.

How about
6 = -5 pts
5 = -6 pts
4 = -6 pts
3 = -6 pts

This gives our Player a chance to buck his CHA back to 8 by spending only 6 points, which means 17-16, 15-14 and 13-12. Thus, he still has basically the same PC. Still low CHA, etc.


Dynas wrote:
Paladin of Baha-who? wrote:
Dynas wrote:

Needless to say everyone gambles on the rolls and it normally pays off. I make them use CASINO D6 and roll in front of me so its fair. Anyway one of my players was doing great, rolled 17,16,15,14,13 and was hoping for the strait with an 18, but rolled four "1" and got a 3. His other set of scores was more balanced. He chose this set though and kept the 3.

...

My though was to let him use point buy to reallocate from his current points. He takes one of his higher rolls drops it down and releases points to bring his score up. Would this seem fair?

Thoughts?

EDIT: I found this link and am unsure how much it cost to raise points from 3. I assume its 1 point per score.

http://paizo.com/prd/gettingStarted.html

It's not one point per score. The farther you deviate from the average, the greater the point totals are.

17 = 13 pts
16 = 10 pts
15 = 7 pts
14 = 5 pts
13 = 3 pts

3 is not defined in the book, but if you extend the point buy system out, it would be a -16. (7 = -4, 6 = -6, 5 = -9, 4 = -12)

So your total is a 22 point buy, not out of range of a normal game (pathfinder NPCs are built on a 15 point buy, and PFSOP specifies a 20 pb for PCs). Let him change points around based on that point buy.

This is what i was looking for! So if he drops his 17 to a 16 that frees up 10 points. Using all those in charisma would bring his score from 3 to what? basically how many actual points does he need to free up to get his charisma to lets say base 10.

Incorrect. Going from a 17 to a 16 frees up 3 points. A 17 costs 13 points. A 16 costs 10 points. The difference is 3.

Also, I disagree with the above extension of the point buy system. I think it should be -5 points for a score of 6, -7 for 5, -8 for 4, and -10 for 3. Regardless, this isn't something normally covered by the system.


DrDeth wrote:
I disagree. The minuses should not be geometric like the pluses.

Meh. At that point it's personal preference I guess. My method makes his effective point buy a 22. Yours makes his effective point buy a 32. Knowing the stats of the other characters in the party would make the determination of which is more fair easier to make.

Either way, he may decide not to trade in his high value stats to raise his low one. In that case, don’t pull any punches as it is no longer a product of bad luck and now a conscious decision.


Lacdannan wrote:
DrDeth wrote:
I disagree. The minuses should not be geometric like the pluses.

Meh. At that point it's personal preference I guess. My method makes his effective point buy a 22. Yours makes his effective point buy a 32. Knowing the stats of the other characters in the party would make the determination of which is more fair easier to make.

Either way, he may decide not to trade in his high value stats to raise his low one. In that case, don’t pull any punches as it is no longer a product of bad luck and now a conscious decision.

I agree on both of these points, even tho we disagree with the numbers.

It does make a lot of difference how the other players rolled. If a 32 pt buy is 10 pts below the lowest, then it's different than he got the highest set- other than the 3.


The process I used for extending the PB system into the lower single digits was based on the logic of the PB numbers in the normal range, comprising the following:

To get the pb value of a number, start at 10 = 0, 11 = 1, and from those points add the bonus or penalty associated with an ability score at each increasing or decreasing number. So, 12 gives a +1 bonus; add +1 to the pb of 11 to get 2. 13 gives a +1 bonus; add +1 to the pb of 12 to get 3. 14 gives a +2; add +2 to the pb of 13 to get 5. And so on.

For the lower numbers that have an established pb value, this pattern holds: 9 gives a -1 penalty; add -1 to the pb of 10 to get -1. 8 gives a -1 penalty; add -1 to the pb of 9 to get -2. 7 gives a -2 penalty, add -2 to the pb of 8 to get -4. Continuing this pattern downward results in the values I posted.

I'm not saying these values are better, just that they are the logical result of extrapolating the pb system to 3.

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