Charisma key ability for Will saves?

[platinum]

I think that wisdom should indicate a person's insight and awareness. Charisma should estimate a person's magnetism, looks, force of personality, and ability to influence and be influenced by others.

If a spell or effect attacks a person's willpower or consiousness, I think it sounds like an attack against their ego/sense of self/strength of mind. So, would it be hugely game-altering to have Cha be the ability tied to will saves instead of Wis?

What would be the undesired consequences of that houserule?

[Morgen]

It would depend on your group. If they're all a bunch of min/max power gamers you'll have sorcerers and paladins with huge will saves and you take away the other people's traditional "dump" stat. If your group focuses more on story and roll playing and your not already in the middle of things I doubt anyone will notice much of a difference.

I wouldn't implement that change without talking to them first, nor would I do it in the middle of an ongoing campaign as characters are already built assuming wisdom was the stat for will saves and it wouldn't be fair to just change it in the middle of things.

Monster's will take a bit of retooling too. Some would gain quite a bit from that change (Succubi, some Vampires, etc.)

[Alexander Kilcoyne]

If it ain't broke, don't fix it?

Undesired consequence- Lore Oracles can now dump Dexterity AND Wisdom to 7 with little ill effect.

[Richard Leonhart]

you will shift the bonuses of some classes a bit. A sorcerer would get something good and wisdom based things like monk, cleric and other people would loose something.

You can make it like 4E, and let your players choose between 2 abilities.

But it ain't broke, you can't use 100% logic, rules are balanced towards wisdom for will and lots of other small reasons.

I wouldn't change something that rule-based when it's not broken. You can do that for flavour-things, but I don't see this here.

Anyway, your house, your houserules.

[Kerney]

Derro, if I recall correctly off the top of my head use Charisma rather then Wisdom as a form of insanity. Something like this might make a good example of a Oracle curse or perhaps as a feat (Warped thinking?).

All the Best,

Kerney

[Weren Wu Jen]

The "Complete Adventurer" for 3.5 D&D has a feat called Force of Personality.

Force of Personality
Prerequisite: Cha 13
Benefit: You add your Charisma modifier (instead of your Wisdom modifier) to Will saves against mind-affecting spells and abilities.

It doesn't replace Wisdom altogether, but does help against most enchantments.