So I am making a character with 7 Charisma, but has the Student of Philosophy Trait and 2 levels of Investigator. I was curious how I should roleplay him? Based on his skills, the only thing he aabsolutely sucks at is Fienting, Bartering, and Performances.
So... What would a character be like this? I was thinking someone who is shy and reserved, but is mpre than happy to throw around a timid idea whenever he needs to.
What else should I be afraid of with 7 charisma as being the party's "Face"?
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I think you could also do it like Sherlock or House. A brilliant, highly-observant person with absolutely no manners or empathy, more interested in answers than tact.
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don't roleplay on stats, stats only limit how often you succeed not what you actually try to do.
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I'd roleplay him as intelligent, erudite, and charming, as befits his high skills in practical matters involving social skills. I'd also portray him as maybe a bit nerdy and probably not physically attractive. He's also not naturally charming, he actually has to work at it. It's not effortless, and if he gets frustrated, tired, or angry, he could slip and suddenly become more awkward (presumably not when making skill checks, but it can inform roleplaying).
Arrogance is probably the wrong way to go, since arrogance does not make people like or believe you. Bruising Intellect is wonderful when paired with unpleasant arrogance (and what Sherlock Holmes or House likely have), but Student of Philosophy? Not so much.
Oh, and for the record, I really empathize with that kind of thing, since I have diagnosed Aspergers Syndrome/High-Functioning Autism, but am widely considered likable and charming (or so I hear). My social skills are an entirely intellectual exercise, and that means that, good as I am at them most times, they've been known to desert me entirely when I'm overtired, as I just can't focus on them properly in that state.
I consider Charisma your natural ability to influence people. Maybe your foot subtly trembles put of nervousness, you use elegant phrasing, and simply sound (not too much) geeky.
Could just be my group, but I think the shy and/or a+&&#*! CHA dump characters are overdone.
You could play a character who enjoys socializing, is very charming, but frequently says things that accidentally offend people, and they just can't comprehend why. After all, intellectually there's nothing wrong about what you said, they should understand that.
I have a 7 Cha Magus that uses Student of Philosophy. I played it off as part of his Chelish upbringing. He is very, very talented at identifying what people want and negotiating it to them, whether its affection, money, influence, or protection. Most everyone he talks with is aware that he's a conniving snake just increasing his own power and influence, but he honors his agreements and is surprisingly caring to his subordinates. Even if he isn't a natural beacon that people are drawn to, he knows what buttons to push to keep them happy or to make them sweat, and he's always considering how to play what he knows against people. Its been a lot of fun.
So I'd suggest playing it as being observational, not necessarily in the rude Holmes/House way, just paying attention to people and choosing your words carefully to appeal to them.
Although it's called Student of Philosophy, I think of characters with that trait to be more of psychologists. They know how people think and how they are likely to act (I feel like this pairs well with a good Sense Motive, both mechanically and flavor-wise). They can be diplomatic because they have studied how people react when you say certain words or you say them in a specific way. You know how to bluff because you know what signs indicate that someone is lying, so you've learned to try and not exhibit those signs (this part really intertwines with Sense Motive).
Maybe like Spock from Star Trek?
don't roleplay on stats, stats only limit how often you succeed not what you actually try to do.
This! Stats are only a mechanic to dice rolls. Play the character how you want.
I'd say it's more like stats shouldn't LIMIT your character, they should inform it.
Stats have meaning, otherwise they'd be a completely disassociated mechanic. The fact that there is a brief description of what each stat means at the start of the core rulebook suggests they have meaning. But outside of that basic meaning, you can interpret them pretty loosely as fits your needs. And no, it's not a universal requirement, but I argue it enriches your roleplay if what you character can do and how they are portrayed are in sync.
"A fake who tries hard enough can be better than the real thing."
Your Cha 7 character with that ability set is perhaps someone with no intuitive grasp of how to interact with people, but rather has studied and thought-experimented exhaustively on how to interact with people.
Like, the character might functionally have an internal drop-down menu of pre-planned responses to various situation. Your conversations might err on the side of manipulative, as you try to steer people towards "correct" results.
Which is something that may only come up when you flub a check, and things don't go the way you "know" they're supposed to go.
I dont think I would go for brusing intellect, the closest he gets to an intimidate check is a prissy pouty face and heel stop (as a guy no less), so he wont be very Intimidating. Actually, I took thus post to heart and decided to make the character a little more in depth.
Duel Talented Human (+2 Dex, +2 Int)
STR: 8 / Dex: 16 / Con: 12
Int: 20 / Wis: 12 / Cha: 7
Traits:
- Student of Philosophy
- Master of many Tongues
Pros: Good Social Bluff and Dilpomacy, Good Sense Motive, Perception, and INT based skills, can use Dex based skills.
Cons: Bad at Fient, Bartering, and Intimidation, low STR score.
So the personality I thought of was something lile you all said. He is friendlyand sociable, but is not naturaly Charismatic. He isnt a leader but is a great diplomat. He is much more interested in conversation than other forms of brutish tact. Because of his boyish charm, people might not take him seriously, but his surprizing intellect has not lead him astray.
What do you guys think? How would you guys RP a character like this one??
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Just another possibility to throw out there: Maybe you could be like this fellow?
There you are, brain the size of a planet....
Monk.
The series, not the class.
Smart, observant, but not witty and with no real force of will, and a laundry list of habits that annoy others instead of attracting them to your side.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hseWMRV3lA8
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A lot of these are good advice for someone with low Charisma, but terrible for someone who has that combined with the ability to use Int for social skills.
Look at Monk, for example. You could easily make him as an Empiricist Investigator with dumped Charisma...but you wouldn't give him Student of Philosophy in a million years.
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I don't know, Monk often convinces people of things, pretty much every episode. He has a low charisma, yes, and low diplomacy ranks, but it's fairly easy to see him adding Int to Diplomacy roles. He's not liked, but he IS respected.
I'd be more inclined to say he has maxed ranks in Diplomacy, but doesn't add Int. At, say, 4th level as an Investigator with Cha 7, that'd give him a +5 modifier (+10 or more to gather information if an Empiricist), which seems right-ish.
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Charisma is not a mental stat, it's a magical stat. Charismatic people unconsciously use mild charm and compulsion effects to influence people. Otherwise the same stat wouldn't influence both diplomacy and intimidate. It should have no roleplaying impact at all.
Have you not met people with real force of personality in real life? I have, and trust me, they can easily use that to either charm or intimidate quite readily.
Now, a lot of people aren't equally good at both, it's true, but you can pretty readily explain that with skill ranks.
That's not to say any of the stats really map to real-world stuff all that accurately, but the idea that force of personality governs both charm and how intimidating you can be? Not unrealistic at all.
Charisma is not magical because it's not defined as a magical stat, it's defined as a mental stat, and is not implied in any way to be magical in nature in it's definition.
There's little argument room here, unless you're arguing you disagree with paizo and the rules. Which is fine, but IMO a tad off topic.
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I've met people who are both strong and clever too. It doesn't mean strength and intelligence are the same stat.
That's not quite the same thing. Both the charm and intimidation come from the same thing, a certain force of personality that some people possess. Everyone I've met who has it can easily do both those things. They're just...compelling. I've met far fewer people who were really good at one of those things and really bad at the other (well, barring really big people being intimidating...but see below) than I have those who were at least decent at both.
In a system where the most effete minstrel is more naturally intimidating than an orc barbarian something is seriously wrong.
Sure, but the problem there is with the Orc, not the Minstrel. Really, Str should be able to be used for Intimidation even sans Feat.
You don't get to pass it off "because dragons" unless you also admit that the stat involved is pure magical b@$$$**% just like dragon biology and aerodynamic.
You're accusing me of something I didn't do, here.
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In a system where the most effete minstrel is more naturally intimidating than an orc barbarian something is seriously wrong.Sure, but the problem there is with the Orc, not the Minstrel. Really, Str should be able to be used for Intimidation even sans Feat.
I usually ask my DM if I can use Str as my intimidation stat instead of Cha, when I'm playing the 'scary brute.' Since the feat adds them together, there's still merit to taking the feat.
Charisma is completely a mental stat, because there are no "Magical Stats." Why would a fighter with 20 charisma be using charm effects?
Yeah, that can lead to situations where the minstrel is scarier than the bruiser, but that's not nonsensical. Let's say the two are both trying to threaten a bandit into surrendering.
The Cha 7 Barbarian growls "I'm going to rip off your arms unless you surrender."
The bandit is a bandit, he lives with dangerous bruisers, and fights guys for a living. He expects this kind of threat from this kind of guy, it's very run-of-the mill. The bandit's confident that these guys aren't anything special.
The 20 Cha Minstrel drops his cheery visage and gives the bandit a steely glare. "If you don't surrender, I am going to tear you limb from limb." He asserts factually.
The bandit wasn't expecting something like this from the cheery dude with the instrument. It came from left field, and it has him off balance, deeply unsettling him. What else had he wrongly assumed about these guys?
See, no magic involved, just different reactions because one of them knows how to deliver a threat in a way that actually pierces most people's thick skin.
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I think people should generally be encouraged to 'live up to' the choices that they make with their stats. Maybe I'm too old-school or something, but engaging in major stat-dumping and then just totally ignoring the conceptual side of what 7 INT and/or 7 CHA means for a character in a roleplaying game is kind of fundamentally dishonest. I mean, "Charisma measures a character's personality, personal magnetism, ability to lead, and appearance" is straight-out Core Rulebook text.
However, mental stats are extremely abstract, and I have no issue with players interpreting a low mental stat in whatever way they want as long as, on a basic level, they're 'honest' about the fact that they chose to define a character as 'low-charisma' or 'low-intelligence'.
A low charisma score could mean a character is ridiculously ugly in a way that makes them hard to take seriously, but otherwise quite personable; or that they've got an undefinable uncomfortable vibe to them but are otherwise attractive and friendly; or that they're attractive and pleasant, but strangely distant socially.
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I actually agree completely. That said, if some aspect of the low stat is compensated for completely, I think you need to justify that, too.
I mean, the above listed character uses Int for almost all social stuff, and thus might easily have the same Diplomacy as a high Charisma Bard or the like, and that should be represented as well.
For example, my current PC, a Half-Orc Investigator (Empiricist) with Student of Philosophy, Int 16, and Cha 7 is extremely eloquent and charming most of the time, to reflect the fact that, mechjanically, he's tied with the Bard for 'most persuasive PC'.
He's also seriously nerdy, kinda funny looking (he's tall and skinny with arms too long for his body, making him look weird, especially with all the tattoos), and prone to lapses in social skill when drunk or otherwise impaired. To represent the Charisma of 7.
Another character I played once was an Inquisitor with Conversion Inquisition and Cha 7. He, too, was extremely friendly and persuasive. Actually, he was ridiculously smooth and had a lovely, melifluous, voice. Also he had horrible burn scars over something like a third of his body. Which explains the Charisma 7.
In both cases, the character overcomes their disadvantage in some way, but it still very much exists. And that's how I feel stat substitutions should generally look. They represent the character successfully not allowing a problem to greatly impact their life...but don't negate the fact that there is such a problem.
I'd say it's more like stats shouldn't LIMIT your character, they should inform it.
Stats have meaning, otherwise they'd be a completely disassociated mechanic. The fact that there is a brief description of what each stat means at the start of the core rulebook suggests they have meaning. But outside of that basic meaning, you can interpret them pretty loosely as fits your needs. And no, it's not a universal requirement, but I argue it enriches your roleplay if what you character can do and how they are portrayed are in sync.
to be clear, every stat can simply be associated with luck in a given area and nothing else (except strength and carry weight i guess)
you're low charisma can be simply associated as being unlucky when talking to people. you ask people how they're family is doing during a recent death, bring up a bad topic, etc.
There's nothing stopping you from doing that if you want, but I don't think it's particularly well supported by the rules themselves.
There's already a mechanic representing luck- the roll of the dice. If you divide up the parts that make up a skill check, you get the roll of the dice contributing luck, talent/training in the form of skill focus/skill points/traits, and some degree of natural aptitude based on the attribute bonus. At low levels in particular, that natural aptitude is important and works with the other factors to actually provide a stabilizing effect- they make it more likely to achieve higher or lower results, which is actually the opposite of luck, at least to me.
(A point to note- as you level up, training and experience in the form of skill points start to vastly outweigh natural aptitude, which is pretty neat. It suggests that you can in fact overcome your deficiencies through hard work and training, though it might take a really long time. So in general, attributes do matter less and less as you level up, though they still have some influence, as will become clear whenever you have to make a raw attribute check)
And then there's the fact that the stats are in fact defined by the game and none of these have anything to do with luck. And if the attribute element of a skill check is derived from an attribute that isn't luck, then that element of the skill check does not represent luck. Simple, yes?
You can handwave it as "oh, it's just luck" when you fail a check you had a measurably lower chance of succeeding at due to the low stat in question, but that seems lazy and simply not true to the reality of the game. Indeed, at low levels against high DCs, it can get to the point where the difference between low attribute and high attribute can change whether you have a slim chance or no chance at succeeding at a task.
Regarding stat switching: To be clear, I am absolutely for RPing competency at diplomacy if you've switched INT for CHA. I like the ideas that Deadmanwalking has for making it work while still acknowledging a weakness in CHA.
preface: was editing post with a lot to back my self up and countered a lot you said but power went out, just got it back. ;-;
a dice roll isn't actually luck, your character's overall luck is whether they are usually good or bad at something. you're definitely lucky if you constantly roll above 10 but you can also have counted this as having simply higher charisma and more normal rolls. The reverse is also true.
Being skilled can overcome luck, being prepared and having fall back plans lead to better luck catches.
the point is, luck tied to the character is a permanentish thing.
Kraken has great charisma. But can we call it beautiful?
You can not consider charisma as appearance.
Kraken is not beautiful but it is generally fabulous : D
after all there's a reason sailors were obsessed with it throughout most of history!
But yeah, Charisma is definitely not just appearance, it CAN be appearance but is not limited to appearance. Specifically, it can also be "personality, personal magnetism," and "ability to lead".