So I play my characters based on their stats. My barbarian had 8 charisma and last session for hit with a death curse that gave me -6 charisma and boils.
I don't know how to play a character with 2 charisma, what does that even look like?
Also, could it be spell sundered?
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So I play my characters based on their stats. My barbarian had 8 charisma and last session for hit with a death curse that gave me -6 charisma and boils.
I don't know how to play a character with 2 charisma, what does that even look like?
Also, could it be spell sundered?
Let me start by saying that I approve of you playing your stats; too many people on this forum don't agree with you.
That said, remember that the effective (non-pathological) human minimum is 8, so your character obviously has some sort of pathological condition that prevents him from being able interact successfully with people. Put bluntly, your character should literally be insane at this point, in a medical/psychological sense. So feel free to ham it up.
Possibly the most common interpretation would be something akin to Tourette's Syndrome; a complete lack of the social norms that keep us behaving "politely" towards others. So you might simply be acting completely in your own short-term self-interest, violating not only rules like "you don't say 'nice ass' to a woman you just met, even if you actually think so," but also rules like "you don't punch out the bartender because he didn't fill your glass all the way up to the rim" or even "you don't headbutt someone because they won't share their fries with you."
Another possible interpretation would be absolutely crippling social anxiety; you can't talk to other people, you can't look at other people, you can't even step out from behind a convenient door without major effort. A third would be the classic "always muttering to himself" lunatic ("Bugrit! Millennium hand and shrimp! They're going to come steal my tinfoil, but I hid it in my hat!")
Basically, think of the person, real or fictitious, that you would least like to be sitting next to on a bus, and become that person.
Death curse is (su), not an ongoing spell, so you're out of luck there (I think).
What kind of death curse were you hit with? I couldn't find anything with that name affecting charisma.
Most seemed to be (Su) abilities, though, so Spell Sunder wouldn't affect them.
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You know how you're like in the morning before you've had your coffee? Basically, that. :P
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So you might simply be acting completely in your own short-term self-interest, violating not only rules like "you don't say 'nice ass' to a woman you just met, even if you actually think so," but also rules like "you don't punch out the bartender because he didn't fill your glass all the way up to the rim" or even "you don't headbutt someone because they won't share their fries with you."
Another possible interpretation would be absolutely crippling social anxiety; you can't talk to other people, you can't look at other people, you can't even step out from behind a convenient door without major effort. A third would be the classic "always muttering to himself" lunatic ("Bugrit! Millennium hand and shrimp! They're going to come steal my tinfoil, but I hid it in my hat!")
Basically, think of the person, real or fictitious, that you would least like to be sitting next to on a bus, and become that person.
Charisma is the "force of personality"-stat, not the "stop yourself from random violence"-stat. Don't go punching random people. (Unless you already did do that before.)
I also don't think it should be insanity in that kind of way.
I'd suggest that your character now has as much personality as a wet blanket. Nothing drives him, he has no passions. But, since he's so far gone from the human minimum, he's on a comical level - he literally can't bring himself to care.
To me, that makes much more sense than "just be a crazy [expletive]".
It's a homebrew curse. It effected everyone who damaged the bbeg and me even though I only spell sundered is ability to fly...
But that's neither here nor there.
When it happened I pretty much stopped functioning socially and kind of glanced with an awkward smile and chuckle when people were deciding what to do or asked me things. It's just such a low stat that I want sure how to *be* it, if that makes sense
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Read Caverns and Creatures.
Hmm, the character would still have his Wisdom (ability to notice his environment properly) and his Intelligence (ability to understand it). Low Cha alone (in my opinion) means problems expressing yourself, up to not understandable language, static face expression and no intended body language. Each of these things can be done by either abscence (of language / face expression / body language) or by a weird version which isn't even consistent (e.g. smile for happiness, smile for sadness, frown for happiness, smirk for sadness).
I skimmed Bestiary 1 for Cha 2 creatures, and many of them are insects and reptiles - creatures with little language, face expression and body language.
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Looking at the ability scores on the srd makes me think I actually should be more like oramfay said. A 4-5 means you have no empathy, 2-3 means you make minimal independent decisions. Akin to a spider or rhino.
I'm agreeing that my I character would understand and know as much as ever, but would become extremely unresponsive in social situations. Lacking empathy I suppose she would become far more selfish and rather unconcerned about anyone else. Seems allot more evil :/
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You're also much easier to influence, as Diplomacy DCs include Cha modifier. So you're unlikely to make your own decisions and more likely to go along with the rest of the party's decisions.
I roleplayed a skulk in 3.5 with a 6 Cha as not really having its own identity. Rather than having a name, he said "this one" when referring to himself and spoke of doing things for the group.
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Lacking empathy I suppose she would become far more selfish and rather unconcerned about anyone else. Seems allot more evil :/
Sense Motive is wisdom-based, not charisma-based. Empathy as in "understanding other people" shouldn't be affected.
The skills that are affected - diplomacy, bluff, intimidate, UMD - mostly revolve around "getting people and things to do what you want". (Exceptions are Disguise and Performance.) That's why I suggest the absence of personality - not only can't you get others to do what you want, you don't even know what you want. You're no more selfish than before, but outside of direct survival, you have nothing you care about.
So I'll be like the village idiot from werewolf, that could be fun.
The reason I said no empathy is because that is what is on the srd under chr 4-5 "no awareness of the needs of others, almost 0 empathy"
*edit I do agree with you that wisdom seems the more empathy stat, and will likely play it that way. It seems more fun not being a sociopath.
I'd do it one of three ways.
1. Stop talking altogether, since you can't be bothered to communicate with people anymore. Go where they say, punch what they tell you to, but you're no good in conversation until you get fixed.
2. Start f&+~ing swearing every ass-f*#@ing second. Use words that aren't suited for polite (or any) company with the frequency people usually say "Um." The party'll probably be amused, and the NPCs will be taken aback.
3. Lose your backbone. Have a quiver to your voice, frequently ask your party what you should be doing, or if you did the right thing. Be incredibly worried about every little thing you do, or will do.
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It does NOT affect your ability to know what you want. It does NOT affect your alignment. It does NOT affect your ability to intelligently communicate information.
So what DOES a low Cha affect?
Charisma governs your ability to alter the opinions of others. With a 2 you could play it that you either can't express emotions or express the wrong ones to affect others. The biggest factor in influencing others through words or music is the expression of emotions. Emotions are infectious and either a skilled performer or naturally Charismatic individual knows just how to act to get others to feel as she wants them to feel. Since this doesn't affect your skills and only your natural talent for emotional interaction it might get complicated to role play if you have Charisma skills... as a barbarian you might not have any, simplifying things. The choice in how to act is ultimately yours but some examples might be an utter lack of emotion when communicating (like a robot), or perhaps being "stuck" in a single way of talking (like if your character was compassionate in much of her speech before then now she always uses a compassionate tone even when such a tone is inappropriate for the situation).
If CHA is your life force maybe your also just depressed and just completely lack motivation. You used to love the smell of blood spurting from foes, but now you just... Don't get the same kick.
I'd agree that it doesn't impact knowing what I wants, a lack of empathy would definitely effect how I think about and to treat others others which could effect alignment, and I also think it would effect you ability to communicate with such a low score (though indirectly).
I'm not going to rp the empathy part so that's moot, but to explain how I see the communication issue:
You have a person whose growth is so stunted that they don't know how things around them should impact them or how to communicate it to impact others and while trying to intellectually figure out an appropriate response the conversation has long since moved to something else. This manifest itself in her just kind of standing there while people are talking with a dumb look.
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Since the "-6 to CHA" is most likely a temporary condition for your character, and since I have personal experience with this sort of thing in real life, I would probably RP this sort of thing as a severe depressive episode.
I mean "a loss of interest or pleasure in everyday activities; feelings of emptiness, hopelessness, anxiety, worthlessness, guilt and/or irritability; changes in appetite; problems concentrating, remembering details or making decisions" seems to fit.
Listless, shiftless, and overly compliant. Always follow a party member's suggestion without question (or even the suggestion being settled on as a good idea), but do so in a lazy, half-hearted manner. Mostly based on a combination of 0 Charisma (complete inaction even in the face of death) and unchained Charisma poison (extreme suggestibility).
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Charisma is more than just your empathy and interactions. It's also your physical appearance.
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One time, my character was suffering some pretty severe Charisma damage from Mummy Rot. I decided to play the mental damage as becoming an incredibly depressed individual that sobbed at nearly everything negative. He was already fairly unpopular with the party with how creepy he was, so having him start sobbing and blubbering about how his uncle never liked him in reaction to the slightest request was an amusing way of playing it out.
At the end of the day, charisma is such a wide range of things, you can pretty much play it how you want and you'll be right.
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Pick up a copy of Critical Failures by Robert Beven (or any of his Caverns & Creatures short stories).
This short story is free right now.
Be like Cooper. His charisma is 3.
I think in terms of "RPing your stats" that a low Charisma score represents that you are less likely to succeed at convincing people to like you than someone else who has invested the exact same amount of time, effort, and other resources into diplomacy.
But why that it is, exactly, is up to your player. "So ugly that people don't even want to look at you and make excuses to leave the room when you walk in" is a plausible reason that your character might struggle to make friends, but so is "normal looking, but a complete nebbish" or "somewhat attractive but a coarse and abrasive personality with a complete inability to notice social cues" (think like "all the thousands of people you have to block on Twitter to make the service useful".)
But there's no sense in which you have to be one thing or the other if your charisma is low, it's just that if you want to RP low charisma make a point of trying to figure out why your character has more trouble than other people at making friends.
I consider CHA your natural ability to influence people.
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I would play him as a character who doesn't want to do ANYTHING, ever. In the ability score damage section of ability scores, it states "A character with a Charisma score of 0 is not able to exert himself in any way and is unconscious." Compare to the others: wisdom - incapable of rational thought and is unconscious, strength - too weak to move in any way and is unconscious, constitution is flat out dead. I would say that the only reason you're getting up and going to eat and literally not starving to death is because that sandwich isn't really that far away. And it's already made. And it's your favorite. I guess.
Since the "-6 to CHA" is most likely a temporary condition for your character, and since I have personal experience with this sort of thing in real life, I would probably RP this sort of thing as a severe depressive episode.
This is what I would recommend doing.
Think Theon/Reek from Game of Thrones, but take it even further.
This also works, except where Reek limited his interactions for fear of punishment, perhaps your character limits theirs because "I'm cursed, don't touch me! Keep your distance or you might have boils too!"
*pop*
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Here are some monsters from bestiary 1-3 that have 2 charisma, hope they are helpful:
Shark-Eating Crab, Garden Oooze, Cannon Golem, Deadfall Scorpion, Ghost Scorpion, Giant Sea Anemone, Snake Swarm, Venomous Snake Swarm, Giant Crab Spider, Ogre Spider
Army Ant Swarm, Giant Centipede, Centipede Swarm, Giant Crab, Crab Swarm, Crocodile, Dire Crocodile, Lizard, Rat, Viper, Leech Swarm, Rat Swarm, Giant Scorpion, Shark, Constrictor Snake, Venomous Snake, Giant Spider, Spider Swarm, Squid, Giant Squid
Giant Whiptail Centipede, Titan Centipede, Giant Cockroach, Cockroach Swarm, Giant Fly, Gar, Giant Gar, Jellyfish Swarm, Manta Ray, Stingray Ray, Black Scorpion, Cave Scorpion, Emperor Cobra Snake, Giant Anaconda Snake, Giant Solifugid, Albino Cave Solifugid, Giant Black Widow Spider, Giant Tarantula Spider, Giant Tick
From a majority of the examples I would deduce that creatures with a charisma of 2 seldom interact with their own kind or others outside of hunting or breeding. Perhaps play your character incredibly withdrawn, maybe even paranoid. Spend your down time away from the party in a private room at the inn, have the staff bring your meals and leave them outside the door before knocking so that you can take it without having to interact with them, and maybe even make a point to check it for poison afterwards.
@Trigger Loaded: Ugly and low Charisma is unattractive. Ugly and high charisma is impressively unattractive. XD Like... not just scarred, but scarred in a memorable way.
For a while, 1st Edition AD&D also had some creatures having negative Charisma, to represent something really hideous in a way that you can't stop paying attention to. Not sure if this carried over into 2nd Edition, but it was definitely gone by 3rd Edition.
For a short while, 1st Edition AD&D also had a separate Comeliness score to reflect pure physical attractiveness, but as far as I can tell, this didn't even last out the duration of 1st Edition time . . . .
When it happened I pretty much stopped functioning socially and kind of glanced with an awkward smile and chuckle when people were deciding what to do or asked me things.
That's perfect. Just keep doing that. That's basically 2 Charisma right there.
Someone telling you that a low-Charisma character should be loud and rude doesn't know what Charisma is.
When it happened I pretty much stopped functioning socially and kind of glanced with an awkward smile and chuckle when people were deciding what to do or asked me things.That's perfect. Just keep doing that. That's basically 2 Charisma right there.
Someone telling you that a low-Charisma character should be loud and rude doesn't know what Charisma is.
If you ever wanted to roleplay a piece of wood, now's your chance! Normally, when people put forth zero effort into their character and have no character concept and are nothing more than stats on a piece of paper, it's boring and dumb and defeats half of the game. When it is ACTUALLY your character concept to be like that....you have my interest. I really want to know more about how this goes.
If you ever wanted to roleplay a piece of wood, now's your chance! Normally, when people put forth zero effort into their character and have no character concept and are nothing more than stats on a piece of paper, it's boring and dumb and defeats half of the game. When it is ACTUALLY your character concept to be like that....you have my interest. I really want to know more about how this goes.When it happened I pretty much stopped functioning socially and kind of glanced with an awkward smile and chuckle when people were deciding what to do or asked me things.That's perfect. Just keep doing that. That's basically 2 Charisma right there.
Someone telling you that a low-Charisma character should be loud and rude doesn't know what Charisma is.
The character has been cursed down to 2 Cha; it's not like they want to know how to play their 7 Charisma dump-stat character. I assume this is until they find a way to reverse it.
Charisma is your ability to influence others.
Lower numbers mean others tend to ignore you no matter what you do.
That said, you do not have a Charisma of 2 but a Charisma of 8 with a -6 penalty. [If it were damage, it heals in days. If it were drain, it would not be a curse.]
I read this as you still interact with your party almost the same, but outsiders tend to ignore you, like a buzzing fly. It does open up the possibility of doing things as though you were invisible, since no one pays attention to you.
/cevah
Charisma is your ability to influence others.
Lower numbers mean others tend to ignore you no matter what you do.That said, you do not have a Charisma of 2 but a Charisma of 8 with a -6 penalty. [If it were damage, it heals in days. If it were drain, it would not be a curse.]
I read this as you still interact with your party almost the same, but outsiders tend to ignore you, like a buzzing fly. It does open up the possibility of doing things as though you were invisible, since no one pays attention to you.
/cevah
That's an interesting way of looking at it. Not as a modified score of 2, but as 8 minus 6. I would think, though, that it's more like you're so inconspicuous that people pass you over, rather than them just not noticing you at all. It would probably be near-impossible to pick you out of a crowd, but if you go over and take something from someone, that'll definitely get noticed.
Or they just react to you really negatively. Like when someone's looking at a crowd, they see you and go "Oh, that person's super creepy, I hope they don't come near me."
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Interesting suggestions.
I had a cohort with low charisma in a game once. The DM and I decided that she NEVER said anything to ANYONE, save me. Even when other people were around. Most thought she was mute. She was also slavishly obedient to my character to the point people thought she was my slave(my character was not especially nice to her- even abusive in one instance[although my character would say that was a desperate act, not a cruel one] , although they did marry later in the game and she had several children by him that she loved as much as she loved him). She was a doormat in every sense, unable to stand up for herself and unwilling to talk to others.
Your life has now become the epitome of this single sentence:
You can't convince a starving man to take free bread.
I typically think of being able to "pull it off." ie. Not everyone can pull off that type of shirt. Not everyone can pull off wearing leather pants. Think of "trying too hard" sure you say the right things wear the most insanely stylish clothes but come off looking a fool. This works in social situations a person with high Charisma walks in hits on the ladies in the most outrageous ways and the girls fawn all over it, but the low cha character is slapped or laughed out of the room.
A lot of this is the burden of your DM who should be turning on your character all the time over this. Your character's words are misunderstood, when everyone is laughing somehow your laugh is bothersome.
Things I would do if I was stuck in your shoes:
1- Pick a demeanor (or several) shy, obnoxious, outrageous, loud, shifty, leering play these to the hilt your not a Rock Star you are Jack Black trying to be a rock star. You are not just slight and quiet you are suspicious in the extreme.
2- Pick at your face when you talk; your nose, ears, scratch your neck and turn away while you are still talking.
so here's the weird thing about charisma
high charisma makes it easier for people to like you, it also makes it harder for others to make you like them(the DC for diplomacy checks is based on charisma).
Low charisma makes it so it's hard for you to make people like you, but other people can make you like them really easily.
you're also not easier/harder to intimidate based on your charisma, so even though all of the above is true, they can't FORCE you to act friendly to them any more than before.
you're also better at disguising yourself and worse with low charisma.
there is really nothing I can do to make all of these come together in a clear and concise way to apply charisma to any given personality or even strength of personality.
so basically, low charisma characters will like a lot of people but not be well liked, or at least on a personal level.
while the reverse is true for high charisma characters.
they both have the same will save and resistance to fear or intimidation.
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So I play my characters based on their stats. My barbarian had 8 charisma and last session for hit with a death curse that gave me -6 charisma and boils.
I don't know how to play a character with 2 charisma, what does that even look like?
Also, could it be spell sundered?
Not sure on the spell sunder. Regarding low CHA, there's basically 2 standard ways to RP charisma.
First, is do everthing you'd normally do, with added huge negative penalties. So if you are normally social, you'd find yourself using diplomacy a lot and really screwing up the adventure for the other party members..Works exactly the same as a high CHA character, except you have bonuses and usually succeed.
Second, your PC plays to their strengths. So with Low CHA, you don't talk much, while with high CHA, you are always talking to people.
There is a third option, but it is pure role play and doesn't really aid the party. I have seen players that play to their weaknesses, so if they have low CHA, they make a point in always being the face of the group. And if they have high CHA, they really don't talk much. This option is pretty annoying for the party to deal with, expecially in PFS, where PVP is not allowed.
Diplomacy isn't about getting getting someone to "like" you so much as it is about "convincing" someone. You roll Diplomacy to convince someone to do something. Sometimes, you roll Diplomacy to convince someone of how awesome you are. Furthermore, you can improve your Diplomacy not just by Charisma but also through skill points and feats. A character with no training in Diplomacy would need 24 Charisma to be as good as a character with 10 Charisma, 1 point in Diplomacy, Diplomacy as a Class skill, and Skill Focus(Diplomacy). But the 10 Cha character, while good at convincing others can, himself, be convinced rather easily while the 24 Cha character is absolutely positive that he doesn't need anyone else telling him what he ought to do.
... you can also use it to just influence their attitude of you, it's not specifically making requests. For instance, After I had already hired a stage coach driver, I decided to influence his relation to me so that he was friendly to make the trip more favorable. the point is that someone with higher charisma is going to naturally be able to have people like him more often.
also the rest of this, I don't know what this has to do with 2 equally qualified people just with different charisma. One being good at improving someone's relations and likewise being able to resist improved relations doesn't make much sense to me, while the reverse is ALSO, ALWAYS, true. Like it doesn't matter how much diplomacy can be trained, charisma DOES affect how well you diplomacy, what about it let's it do this?
"is absolutely positive that he doesn't need anyone else telling him what he ought to do." Also, as I said, you attribute charisma to resisting other's influence on you, but they're both equally easy to intimidate.
basically, you cannot look at someone's personality and attribute a charisma score to them, because there are plenty of people out there who simply don't fit how charisma works mechanically.
is the broodish bookworm who doesn't want to be bothered right now low charisma or high charisma? he's resistant being diplomacied and yet, also is not going to diplomacy anyone himself. Likewise, i doubt he has any bonuses to making disguises.