After doing a lot of lurking on the Dumping the charisma thread, I thought it would be beneficial to have a place to compile some house rules for making Charisma a more attractive stat.
First, some food for thought "borrowed" from ProfessorCirno
To put it another way, here is what stats do completely outside of class abilities AND outside of skills.
Strength: Hit and damage on melee attacks and touch attacks, damage on most ranged attacks, ability to carry things
Dexterity: Hit on ranged attacks, initiative, reflex
Constitution: Health, fort saves, health, and health.
Intelligence: Languages known at start, number of skill points, multiple melee feat requirements
Wisdom: Will saves
Charisma: ~none~
I would add to Charisma's category that it increases Leadership, arguable the most powerful feat (but one that isn't always allowed).
So, post your house rule suggestions for making Charisma a stat that gives some decent mechanical benefits.
It's important to note that charisma only affects the starting level of your cohort. After that, the cohort is free to gain XP to catch up to the maximum of your level -2.
Good point about Leadership.
I'm also combing the Dumping thread for some of the suggestions I saw there.
Here's one
It's easy, make Charisma a prerequisite for Leadership (instead of a useless bonus to it).
I know it's bad form, but here's another one, quoted in it's entirety because I love the post.
People dumping Charisma doesn't infuriate me. Bad game design infuriates me. What is the point of having 6 attributes if, with the exception of the few classes you forced to invest in it, everyone ignores one of them. In Paizo's defense the whole Charisma issue is one they inherited, but they still did little to nothing to make it a valid attribute.
Another solution to the problem is dump the stat entirely, lower the point buy, change all the Charisma based casters to another stat and be done with it. I don't like that idea because Charisma is historically one of the six attributes, and people only dump it because it doesn't do anything.
Making everyone average and all attributes equal is obviously not the solution, and I'm pretty sure you're joking.
Here is a suggestion.
Every class get's Influence Points as they level, just like skill points (i.e. a Wizard might get 2+Cha Mod Influence Points, a Bard 8+Cha Influence Points).Influence Points can be used to by in-game rewards such as: Titles, Monikers, Estates, and Followers.
Titles- give automatic social bonuses, such as a +1 Step to NPC Initial reaction if they recognize your title.
Monikers- in game effects caused by your reputation, such as when you by the Lightning Hands Moniker you get a +1 initiative against any intelligent opponent that recognizes your moniker.
Estates- In game wealth that is not counted against your WBL, people would invest in Charisma to get extra gear.
Followers- Ditch the leadership feat entirely and totally tie cohorts, followers, and allies to your Charisma.
You can't just punish players for designing their characters the most effective way possible, you need to reward players for exploring other aspects of the game.
There are a couple of things you can do with CHA to make it more attractive. ;)
One thing you can do is adjust NPCs starting disposition based on CHA. You'd have to work out a range, something like this :
Actively Hostile
Hostile
Extreme Dislike
Dislike
Disdain
Neutral
Accepting
Like
Admiration
Infatuation
Love
Then, each Plus or Minus to the CHA bonus moves the NPCs initial disposition up or down by one level. After initial contact, the character's actions and words affect the level. Set the DC of using social skills based on the table above (say 5 at Love and 40 at Actively hostile).
Secondly, you could have CHA have some combat effects, such as NPCs having a propensity to attack the low CHA character before the high CHA character (if all other things are equal, obviously a charismatic but dangerous character would be higher priority).
Thirdly, you could introduce some 'Presence Attack' type rules, such as they have in Hero System, to 'impress' or 'shake up' the target, with CHA defending against these attacks (similar to the CMB/CMD mechanic).
DigitalMage had posted a similar suggestion about using CHA to adjust the initial NPC disposition, but didn't offer any specifics (that I've found yet).
I like the "Presence Attack" idea, but is it too similar to using Intimidate to demoralize?
I know it's bad form, but here's another one, quoted in it's entirety because I love the post.
People dumping Charisma doesn't infuriate me. Bad game design infuriates me. What is the point of having 6 attributes if, with the exception of the few classes you forced to invest in it, everyone ignores one of them. In Paizo's defense the whole Charisma issue is one they inherited, but they still did little to nothing to make it a valid attribute.
Another solution to the problem is dump the stat entirely, lower the point buy, change all the Charisma based casters to another stat and be done with it. I don't like that idea because Charisma is historically one of the six attributes, and people only dump it because it doesn't do anything.
Making everyone average and all attributes equal is obviously not the solution, and I'm pretty sure you're joking.
Here is a suggestion.
Every class get's Influence Points as they level, just like skill points (i.e. a Wizard might get 2+Cha Mod Influence Points, a Bard 8+Cha Influence Points).Influence Points can be used to by in-game rewards such as: Titles, Monikers, Estates, and Followers.
Titles- give automatic social bonuses, such as a +1 Step to NPC Initial reaction if they recognize your title.
Monikers- in game effects caused by your reputation, such as when you by the Lightning Hands Moniker you get a +1 initiative against any intelligent opponent that recognizes your moniker.
Estates- In game wealth that is not counted against your WBL, people would invest in Charisma to get extra gear.
Followers- Ditch the leadership feat entirely and totally tie cohorts, followers, and allies to your Charisma.
You can't just punish players for designing their characters the most effective way possible, you need to reward players for exploring other aspects of the game.
That seems like a solid idea, though it could definitely use some polishing. For one, I wouldn't start handing out influence points until the PCs reach a certain level (which level could depend on the flavor of the setting). I certainly wouldn't give them any at 1st level, possibly even holding off until 5th or 6th depending on the exact benefits allowed.
Setting followers off of influence points is quite easy--you use influence points to 'buy' follower 'capacity'. Picking up a cohort or similar ally would be a bit trickier...certainly more expensive, maybe represented as using a fraction of your total IP, rather than a set point value.
Estates brings to mind the 0ed rules that grant you a castle, tower, or cathedral at a certain level. Definitely nice flavor, and something that shows up in many games anyway. Can also be expanded to include lesser dwellings, tax-paying holdings, and in limited cases adventuring gear (don't want to go overboard here--else you'll start seeing filthy rich sorcerers everywhere).
Titles could be partly linked to estates--certain titles would require you to have certain land holdings, where others could be official appointments (thinking the leadership positions from Kingmaker).
The hardest part, if one was to use this rule, is making sure there's something for all characters--not every character is going to want a noble title, lands, and serfs. In particular, casters might be tricky...perhaps the improved familiar feat could be wrapped into this somehow?
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DigitalMage had posted a similar suggestion about using CHA to adjust the initial NPC disposition, but didn't offer any specifics (that I've found yet).
I like the "Presence Attack" idea, but is it too similar to using Intimidate to demoralize?
Two options on that, either replace the Intimidate/Demoralize with the new mechanic or make the Intimidate skill part of the presence attack calculations.
I'd replace the demoralize mechanic with the Presence Attack mechanic.
For example, it could be :
PAB (Presence Attack Bonus) = CHA Bonus + BAB
PAD (Presence Attack Defense) = 10 + CHA Bonus + WIS Bonus (Willpower) + BAB
You can use a Presence Attack as a standard action to cause your opponents to become shaken for a number of rounds. The DC of this check is equal to the target's CMD. If you are successful, the target is shaken for a number of rounds equal to your CHA bonus. This duration increases by 1 round for every 5 by which you beat the DC. You can only threaten opponents in this way if they are within 30 feet and can clearly see and hear you.
Half-Orcs (And Orcs) Gain a +2 Racial bonus to both PAB and PAD. If you are larger than your opponent, you gain a +4 to your PAB for every level larger you are. Correspondingly, you gain a -4 to your PAB for every level you are smaller than your opponent.
If you have just performed an especially violent action, or displayed a special power or ability (such as killing or disabling one of the target's allies, or you just cast a spell of a higher level than the target), then you gain a +4 bonus to your PAB. For every additional ally you have more than the target has, you gain a +2 to your PAB. For every ally you have less than the target, you take a -2 penalty to your PAB. If the target has killed or disabled one of your allies already, then you have a -4 penalty to your PAB against that target.
Here's another suggestion courtesy of TriOmegaZero
One suggestion was to use action points and base the total on Cha.
As for the titles/lands ideas, I agree that it does leave something to be desired in that it will only work for certain characters. I think that is why the "monikers" part is included, as most characters would like to be able to pick up other trait-like mechanical benefits.
Actually, that's an idea. Allow additional traits based on CHA. Maybe everyone gets 1 trait only, and CHA grants additional using the "bonus 1st level spells" column of the chart.
It might just be my gaming experience, but I've always found Cha to be a rather attractive statistic already. It does impact several important skills (bluff, diplomacy, intimidate; disguise to a lesser extent) as well as being a factor in some common and symbolic spells (charms and bindings). I'd have to think a lot before adding houserules into my game that give a stronger mechanical reward to Cha, mostly because I feel it would upset the tenuous balance between the sorcerer and wizard classes. While a solid boost to Cha would make less people want to "dump" it, I feel that any change of any real impact mechanically strong enough to make it seem more attractive to classes that will utilize less often would upset the level of balance between classes that rely heavily on Cha vs. those that don't.
An approach that I'd take rather than creating a list of houserules for empowering the Cha statistic is create a set of feats with Cha as a prerequisite or that reward a strong Cha modifier targeted at classes like ranger and wizard who generally get less use out of it, but would still be mildly benefical to classes that already have Cha as a prime stat to keep in balance. I'm sure it'd take a bit of playtesting and tweaking to pull off correctly.
But in keeping with the topic I think that houserules involving reaction adjustments would likley be best, with a larger array than the standard steps (hostile, unfriendly, indifferent, friendly, helpful); perhaps granting minor boons, like being treated favorably by a shopkeeper and getting MINOR discount, although a bonus like that would encourage the players to turn to their sorcerer, paladin, or bard and just have them handle expenditures I suppose.
I do like the monikers and titles idea, but don't feel that a system like that should be based solely off of Cha, but rather off of actual accomplishments, but perhaps Cha should determine the strength of a titles power as opposed to which they get, when they get them, or how many they get...
If you do that, you rather quickly run out of trait categories. A Charisma in the mid-20s is not unreasonable for a high level character. I think trait-like bonuses are an excellent idea, but I'd develop a separate list of options. Especially since many traits are intended as background--there really is a limit to how many you can reasonably take and have it make any sense.
Another option would be to modify and expand Leadership, with various Cha requirements and dependencies. So maybe one feat gives you a cohort; another grants you lands and titles; and so on.
I like the idea of the monikers/titles being awarded by accomplishments but having a mechanical benefit based on CHA.
ex: Lightning Hands moniker gives +1/2 CHA to Initiative rather than a flat +1 as per D8MB's example.
I don't know that I'd replace demoralize personally, as I'm just looking for some additional options for CHA, but I think that presence attack mechanic does look promising.
You could just take a page from 0ed and have your Charisma set a limit on benefits such as followers, lands, etc. Someone with a Cha penalty could only get a couple of followers or a relatively minor title, whereas a bard's Cha would get you loyal 'groupies' and superior titles. This would require working in some sort of level- or plot-based system for gaining said followers or titles.
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Odd question has anyone considered using charisma to also influence luck? Everyone knows the gods bless those with great beauty and charm so why not bring it into the game?
I would suggest the possibility of a system of luck points using Charisma as the generating stat (perhaps 1+Cha mod per level). These could be used as action points or fate points (if fate points wfrp style i would let each character start with cha mod fate points and add 1 per level.
This idea needs more work but its 04:45 here and i need sleep more :)
My ideas (some borrowed from 4e others totally half-baked).
1) Saves are based on the higher of two abilties within a pair (str/con for fort, int/dex for reflex, wis/cha for will). This merely allows players to choose between which skills that want to emphasize (wisdom based or charisma based).
2) Saves are based on adding the modifier from both abilties in a pair (str/con, int/dex, wis/cha). This makes everyone MAD as a hell but it also boosts saves which considering the current Save DC vs Save math is suspect isn't necessarily a bad thing.
3) Scrap leadership but incorporate various leadership based feats and/or class features. Maybe fighters can provide bonuses ala inspire courage to teammates, or give people init rerolls, etc. Usage rate would be tied to charisma and DCs would be (10+1/2 HD+ charisma) for any offensive extraordinary or spell-like ability. I'd actually be tempted to scrap intimidate as a skill and make functions of intimidate more like feats/class features (war cry or intimidating display).
Honestly I'd like to see a return of the 1e Fighter as pre-eminent leader of men archetype that has largely fallen out of favor due to poor mechanical support.
It's strange that the OP left skills out of the analysis. A lot of great skills key off of Cha, and for some characters it will be many levels before those points can be exceeded by an Int investment. It might still be a less useful stat than some others, but you can't leave skills out of the analysis entirely. A big part of what Wis has going for it is Perception, for example.
If you bring back the Comeliness stat from the 1st ed Unearthed Arcana, you'll find that Charisma modifies that. More Charisma basically means more Comeliness, or at least a chance to use it to better effect to get a Fascinate effect going as a passive action.
That mechanic also in a roundabout way improves Wisdom because Wisdom is the stat used to determine resistance to Comeliness's fascination.
The extra luck is interesting but it makes for weird metaphysics. Either the gods are playing favorites (which they can, but it shouldn't invariably be the charismatic who are tapped) or else the universe itself is impressed by high charisma and bends to the character's will (more logical, if possibly weird).
The easiest way to do extra luck is to implement the Hero Point system from Advanced Player's Guide then add in some extra wrinkle where your Charisma score helps determine you maximum number of Hero points.
For example, the max is 3 without taking a feat to bump it to 5. What if every three levels of Charisma over an average score of 9 would grant a possible extra hero point, and lower would give you less. Like this:
CHA Max Hero Points
3-5 1
6-8 2
9-11 3
12-14 4
15-18 5
19-21 6
Of course you'd have to watch out for minmaxers dumping their Charisma then declaring that they wanted to play Antiheroes for a free Feat, but that could be dealt with either by disallowing it or just making it a Trait at best if the character is missing out on the poor Hero points from from a low Charisma.
Of course, since having 2 Hero points allows the "Please don't kill my character!" maneuver, most minmaxers wouldn't drop their Charisma below a six, as that's what's necessary to keep two hero points in reserve for this eventuality.
The extra luck is interesting but it makes for weird metaphysics. Either the gods are playing favorites (which they can, but it shouldn't invariably be the charismatic who are tapped) or else the universe itself is impressed by high charisma and bends to the character's will (more logical, if possibly weird).The easiest way to do extra luck is to implement the Hero Point system from Advanced Player's Guide then add in some extra wrinkle where your Charisma score helps determine you maximum number of Hero points.
For example, the max is 3 without taking a feat to bump it to 5. What if every three levels of Charisma over an average score of 9 would grant a possible extra hero point, and lower would give you less. Like this:
CHA Max Hero Points
3-5 1
6-8 2
9-11 3
12-14 4
15-18 5
19-21 6Of course you'd have to watch out for minmaxers dumping their Charisma then declaring that they wanted to play Antiheroes for a free Feat, but that could be dealt with either by disallowing it or just making it a Trait at best if the character is missing out on the poor Hero points from from a low Charisma.
Of course, since having 2 Hero points allows the "Please don't kill my character!" maneuver, most minmaxers wouldn't drop their Charisma below a six, as that's what's necessary to keep two hero points in reserve for this eventuality.
My luck idea was based on the fact that Charisma is used heavily in all the god bothering classes (Cleric, Paladin, ect.) so they obviously do pick favorites :D
That being said i like your idea more as its a slight modification of a pathfinder rule rather than the addition of a new one.
Firstly I'm against this. I think Cha is fine as it is.
But, if you are going to do it- I think its somewhat counter productive to say that "if you have low cha you will get attacked more often".
really? Awesome. So the meat shield- who is the one most likely to dump it anyway- gets a tangible benefit to doing so? Thats just awesome. You've just provided him an incentive to dump it.
Making Charisma an "incombat" stat isn't going to work well mainly because Sorc, Bards, and Pallies already use it extensively already, not to mention oracles and summoners from the APG.
If you want to boost it you have to make it an out-of-combat thing that they can't fix simply by having someone else make the roll (such as using a front man for diplomacy or whatever) while also Not making the face people more powerful.
Personally- I suggest DM fiat. The word NO. as in. "No, you may not dump Charisma. All ability scores must be at least (x) after racial adjustments. Period. End of story.
It is really the best idea for what you are already trying to do through some back-door method.
Just. Say. No.
-S
Or the GM could just run a game that uses Charisma on occasion. I know some people loathe that argument, but it really isn't that hard to just use the existing rules for social situations.
Some people play the game in such a way that these rules get used less, sure. And in those games, maybe dumping Cha is a solid decision, mechanically.
In my own game, through no special effort, Charisma has become more influential at higher levels. Those with high CHA have the reputation of heroes, those PCs with low CHA have the reputation of sidekicks. When they need to rally a nation to war, CHA-keyed skills are important. CHA affects their leadership score and directly affects their leadership rolls in fortress management.
This is one of those situations where if the GM is awake and not creatively brain-dead, the rules work perfectly well as presented.
Charisma is as dumpable for certain PC's as nearly any of the others are for some other PC- with the possibly exception of wisdom (because of will saves).
A group with No charisma person in it however is going to have a hard time ever making a diplomacy check. That may be fine for your groups. I know for us, it comes up quite often.. often enough that more than one of us have diplomacy. (one guy is the clear winner in it however, but a couple of us others are no slouch in it either).
To me, if a guy wants to dump charisma (or any other stat) then let them. The penalties manifest themselves. Now it may not be a "you are easier to mind control" or "you hit like a limp banana" penalty but if you have a low stat then it can be utilized by the DM to hamper you at least occasionally.
It can be as easy as "the messenger for the queen walks up to you all and addresses Bob (Mr 7 charisma) and starts the conversation with him. Or the Queen herself.
"I hear I have You to thank for saving the kingdom" or whatnot and let him try to pull his foot out of his mouth when he replies to her.
You say "well gee who cares if he has the etiquette of an uncouth barbarian?".. well, the blacksmith you go to tomorrow to sell things might have heard about it, and doesn't much care for having the queen talked to that way, and so on.
All this is done through role playing, and some dice rolling (hey, maybe he'll roll a 20 on that check vs the queen, eh?) but has ingame consequences.. because he chose to dump a stat.
It doesn't have to come up every single session, adventure arc, or even every book of an AP.. but eventually that low dex guy has to make a dex check to avoid falling over a ledge, or that low Str guy can't pull a comrade out of danger.. that low wis guy gets feared or mind controlled and the low int guy can't decipher the page fast enough to save his intelligent friend from the thingie of doom.
Make it happen occasionally and let the PC's know there will be consequences.. and then enforce it.
or, just tell them -no-. "Guys, i really don't like the idea of a dump stat. Please keep all stats 10 or higher after racial adjustments". or 8 or higher or.. 12 or higher, or whatever pleases you. Its alot more balanced than creating rules out of thin air to try and *force* your PC's to not dump a stat. Just talk to 'em before hand and ask 'em not to, or alternatively make it clear that characters will need, at least to some extent, every stat in the game since you are doing a role-playing game not a roll-playing game.
(sheesh, I got long winded.. apologies)
-S
This is one of those situations where if the GM is awake and not creatively brain-dead, the rules work perfectly well as presented.And when the GM isn't?
Then you have bigger problems than the role of Charisma in the game.
Again, I don't think the OP's house rule ideas are bad, or even unnecessary in his game. I just think the best solution is for the GM to pay attention to Cha in cool ways — not as an attempt to punish low Cha characters, but just not to overlook parts of the game that are there!
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There have been some really interesting ideas thrown around on this thread. I wish I had more to add here.
Evil Lincoln, I hope that I am understanding the OP correctly when I think that he is aiming more to mechanically *reward* high Charisma, vice punishing low Charisma.
I play Bards. I've played a dozen or more over the past 15 years. But, no matter how much I love the guys, I have to admit that Charisma focused characters are, at best, more pigeonholed than other character types. They are excellent in campaigns of a fairly narrow style, but most of the time they fail to shine.
I hope that I am understanding the OP correctly when I think that he is aiming more to mechanically *reward* high Charisma, vice punishing low Charisma.
Exactly. My reason for starting this post was to provide a "one stop shop" to collect some of the ideas I found appealing on the Dumping the Charisma thread while not derailing that thread.
That's why I chose the house rules forum. I understand that many people think CHA is fine and doesn't need any adjustment. I'm just not in that camp. I see CHA as the one stat that almost everyone can afford to dump, and due to the difficulty level in many games, one that many players will dump to get more survivable chars.
Note: I don't care that people dump CHA, so in my mind, DM fiat isn't the answer. I want to see mechanical benefits to taking each stat, not punish my players for building the chars they want to build. It's a game design issue, not a play style or DM pet peeve issue.
Ok, on to more interesting things...
I very much like the idea of CHA as the determining stat for maximum number of hero points. It would be a very seamless addition, not requiring many changes anywhere and leaving the other stats and skills intact.
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No need to do more for Charisma, makes the characters role play there characters and not roll play their characters.
Anyone that uses cha as a dump stat has to live with not being able to 'barter' properly with the merchants (as an example impose a gold penalty or increase for a good diplomacy roll.
ie make them make use their cha skills....the way they were meant to be used.
handle animal checks for animal companions or mounts, diplomacy checks to get information/receive favorable npc reactions...(bartering with merchants is only one example)/intimidate checks...
letting the player get away with not having a low charisma affect gameplay, makes it a viable dumpstat.
The fighter may very well not be able to 'talk effectively', but the druid better be able to, or is bear might be more inclined to look for food in the jar than stand in front of him. The Cavalier standing calling his mount may curse that he didnt increase his charisma when his horse looks up and neighs and goes back to chewing hay....The rogue who appraised the figurine and knows its worth 100 gold, but the fence gets the better of him in negotiations and gives him 80 gold will curse when the opposed diplomacy roll doesnt go his way. The Cleric who goes asking his church for information regarding their deepest secret and gets told know, you do not have the need to know will cuss when he realizes he should have put more points in cha...
dont fall into the pitfall of allowing the players charisma or metagame knowledge change what the characters charisma indicates should happen...
simple
charisma = interaction with the world
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After doing a lot of lurking on the Dumping the charisma thread, I thought it would be beneficial to have a place to compile some house rules for making Charisma a more attractive stat.
First, some food for thought "borrowed" from ProfessorCirno
To put it another way, here is what stats do completely outside of class abilities AND outside of skills.
Strength: Hit and damage on melee attacks and touch attacks, damage on most ranged attacks, ability to carry things
Dexterity: Hit on ranged attacks, initiative, reflex
Constitution: Health, fort saves, health, and health.
Intelligence: Languages known at start, number of skill points, multiple melee feat requirements
Wisdom: Will saves
Charisma: ~none~I would add to Charisma's category that it increases Leadership, arguable the most powerful feat (but one that isn't always allowed).
So, post your house rule suggestions for making Charisma a stat that gives some decent mechanical benefits.
Always giving a benefit and never giving a penalty leads to power creep.
My impression of the debate that lead to this thread was that people want have a dump stat and not suffer as a result. I fundamentally disagree with this approach.
If you have a low Con, you take negative hit points per level. Why should there be no negative effects for negative charisma? Why add incentives when the other ability scores have clear disincentives?
I'm currently working on a house rule along these lines. Since, players use Charisma for the "dance" perform skill, Charisma therefore doesn't just represent personality, but also poise and grace. High dexterity would therefore mean moving with speed, while high Charisma would mean moving with precision.
With this in mind, I'm working on breaking down all the stats as follows:
Strength: Melee to-hit and damage bonus, thrown weapon damage bonus.
Dexterity: Bonus to base AC, touch AC, initiative, Reflex saves, and to-hit rolls with crossbows and thrown weapons.
Constitution: As normal.
Intelligence: As normal.
Wisdom: Bow and crossbow damage bonus (1/2 Wisdom mod) and Will saves.
Charisma: Bonus to unarmored AC and to-hit bonus with bows and spells.
The Weapon Finesse feat would make light weapons the domain of either Dexterity or Charisma (choose one), and the Stealth skill would run off Charisma.
And the impact on rogues. you are taking their iconic skill away from their iconic ability and shoe-horning it onto the stat for force of personality. Ouch. Suddenly, inexplicably, sorcerers across the land are better at sneaking than the sneak.
Silvercat Moonpaw:
Um, isn't forcing people to have numbers for things the same as rollplaying? You could dump the stat altogether and just have some characters have bad social skills and get the same result.
Its just a more honest way of doing what the OP is trying to do anyway. His preferred result is to stop people from dumping Charisma. Rather than just telling his PC's not to do it, he's trying to rewrite the system to force them not to do it, and in so doing he's altering the entire balance structure of the game. If the PC's are doing something you don't like, the simplest easiest method to stop the behavior is to sit down and have an honest chat with the PC's. "Guys, please don't do this" is just flat out a better way to handle this issue than "guys, I don't like that you were doing that, so I've rewritten the system to force it on you." Both ways do the same thing- one way saves you alot of headache and balance issues.
Either you are making up things the game doesn't need and tacking them onto Charisma- and thus giving those who need it an un-needed break or you are taking existing mechanics away from the stats that use them and you are un-necessarily hosing those who already use them. (see above- stealth to charisma).Charisma is only a dumpstat if you let it be. If you never make the folks who dump it use it then they'll keep dumping it. If you will not make them use it, but don't want them to dump it, then just sit down at the table and discuss it with them and set a minimum value for it.
The base Pathfinder Point buy restricts PC's to a minimum of 7. Just up it to whatever you want it to be and go from there. Its no different than any other rule you may have (such as how many points they have to buy in the first place) and saves you a the huge headache of re-writing the game.
-S
Ok, on to more interesting things...I very much like the idea of CHA as the determining stat for maximum number of hero points. It would be a very seamless addition, not requiring many changes anywhere and leaving the other stats and skills intact.
I'm glad you do.
I think that it also works as reward for those who take extra points of charisma, a penalty for those who drop it, and no effect for those who simply take it as a median stat. A 9-11 CHA will get you a reservoir of 3 Hero Points max, same as using the Hero Points system unchanged.
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a lot of stuff
I think we're talking past each other here. I fully agree that players will keep dumping Cha if you allowed it to be dumped - which is why I use Cha based skills very heavily in my campaigns - but the OP is questioning the lack of *incentives* toward a high Charisma, which is distinctly different than a lack of disincentives for a low Charisma.
Of course someone who completely dumps any stat is going to be bad at the things tied to that stat. The problem is that Charisma has less mechanically to offer than the other stats.
To quote ProfessorCirno (care of the OP)
To put it another way, here is what stats do completely outside of class abilities AND outside of skills.
Strength: Hit and damage on melee attacks and touch attacks, damage on most ranged attacks, ability to carry things
Dexterity: Hit on ranged attacks, initiative, reflex
Constitution: Health, fort saves, health, and health.
Intelligence: Languages known at start, number of skill points, multiple melee feat requirements
Wisdom: Will saves
Charisma: ~none~
Again, I want to be clear that I am a strong advocate of high Charisma characters. My favorite class if Bard, for crying out loud. :) But from a mechanical PoV, if you want to be charismatic you have to be a Bard or a Sorcerer (or a Paladin, to a lesser degree).
Always giving a benefit and never giving a penalty leads to power creep.
My impression of the debate that lead to this thread was that people want have a dump stat and not suffer as a result. I fundamentally disagree with this approach.
If you have a low Con, you take negative hit points per level. Why should there be no negative effects for negative charisma? Why add incentives when the other ability scores have clear disincentives?
Ok, what do you propose? If you look at the Pratical Optimization thread, I think there is a convincing argument that high INT can make up for low CHA quite easily with the increase in skill points, so I don't agree with the arguments that "low CHA should make people not like you" because it's ignoring that you can get a high diplomacy, bluff, etc through higher INT and skill points.
I would argue that CHA has both no major incentives (other than for CHA based class abilities) and no major disincentives (because skill points eventually override it). I posted this thread to see what others could come up with for answers.
After doing a lot of lurking on the Dumping the charisma thread, I thought it would be beneficial to have a place to compile some house rules for making Charisma a more attractive stat.
Hey thanks, for starting this thread. I've been mulling this over for a few days, because I'm starting a homebrew after the first of the year, and I'd love to reward players for investing in Charisma. I'm glad you liked my post, but it really was just a few rough notes on a way to make Charisma more mechanically beneficial without seriously altering the current mechanics.
I toyed with the idea of adding an "Awe Phase" right after initiative where each side rolled oppposing Charisma checks and the looser suffered a penalty for the first couple rounds because they were scared/awestruck. But I quickly discarded the idea, because by and large I like the way combat works in PF and when you go making changes I think small steps are important so as not to completely unbalance the game accidentally.
I really liked TOZ's idea of handing out Action Points based on Charisma.
1) I like the idea of Action Points in general and think they would be a good addition to my game.
2) It's not a big drastic change, that I think later on I'm going to be doing the facepalm and wondering why I ever messed with it.
The only real question I had about that was- Is this enough?
A Game of Thrones d20 had a fun Influence system that provided for Characters to gain control over people/places/organizations. It provided each class with a number of Influence Points per level. The Noble Class got 8+Cha Mod, a Man-at-Arms 4+Cha Mod. Most of the important characters from the book were between 10th-14th Level and had between 40-90 Influence Points. Influence for a character like that might look like this:
Influence
The King +10
The Barony of Such and Such +10
House Whositz +20
The Lord of House Whositz +10
Sir No-one-in-particular +15
DC's Range from 15 for Request lodging to 40 for Request Protection from a More Powerful Authority. You roll a d20+Influence+Cha Mod and compare it to the DC. I like the system and it worked great in AGOT, it's super-low magic so getting people to do things for you is critical.
Right now I'm leaning towards just combining the Action Point idea, with the AGOT Influence system. I have 10 kingdoms each with 4-10 Counties/Baronies, dozens of knightly and religious orders, and hundreds of NPC's. My players love that stuff and would be happy controlling parts of it. It really is the least amount of work for me without having to totally make a whole Influence system from scratch.
I'm not sure if the AGOT Influence system is really appropriate for most PF games, because the vast majority of PF characters aren't really interested being in charge/controlling who's in charge.
I'm currently working on a house rule along these lines. Since, players use Charisma for the "dance" perform skill, Charisma therefore doesn't just represent personality, but also poise and grace. High dexterity would therefore mean moving with speed, while high Charisma would mean moving with precision.
With this in mind, I'm working on breaking down all the stats as follows:
Strength: Melee to-hit and damage bonus, thrown weapon damage bonus.
Dexterity: Bonus to base AC, touch AC, initiative, Reflex saves, and to-hit rolls with crossbows and thrown weapons.
Constitution: As normal.
Intelligence: As normal.
Wisdom: Bow and crossbow damage bonus (1/2 Wisdom mod) and Will saves.
Charisma: Bonus to unarmored AC and to-hit bonus with bows and spells.The Weapon Finesse feat would make light weapons the domain of either Dexterity or Charisma (choose one), and the Stealth skill would run off Charisma.
The Bow/Crossbow damage bonus might be worth a try, because it adds a small boost to Wisdom.
I think you really should stay away from moving things that are already governed by one attribute to another. Although I might buy Charisma providing a bonus to hit with spells.
I don't like the bonus to unarmored AC, bonus to hit with bows, or switching Stealth to Charisma. The whole thing smacks of caster favoritism.
Always giving a benefit and never giving a penalty leads to power creep.My impression of the debate that lead to this thread was that people want have a dump stat and not suffer as a result. I fundamentally disagree with this approach.
If you have a low Con, you take negative hit points per level. Why should there be no negative effects for negative charisma? Why add incentives when the other ability scores have clear disincentives?
If you give resource such as Action/Hero Points, the penalty for dumping it then becomes the lack of that resource. Just like Con and HP. And you avoid artificial GM fiat disincentives. If you have a low Con, the GM doesn't penalize you by making you roll to avoid getting the flu.
I don't like the idea of having Cha being the basis for NPC starting attitude, because it is basically forcing the GM to RP based on PC attributes. As the GM I want to decide on their initial attitude based on the PC and the NPC.
I don't like the bonus to unarmored AC, bonus to hit with bows, or switching Stealth to Charisma. The whole thing smacks of caster favoritism.
I should probably mention I'm making a change to spellcasters too. :)
Arcane: Int = bonus spells, Cha = save DCs.
Divine: Wis = bonus spells, Cha = save DCs.
Thus all casters use Int or Wis, but also Cha to a lesser degree. One is your versatility, and the other is your "oomph". I find having two needed stats also helps keep caster power levels under control.
Oh yes, I also added a house rule to help with balance in terms of spellcasters, given that they get an unarmored AC bonus from Charisma (and possibly combat benefits from Wisdom):
When it comes to Ability Scores, Armor Class and Damage Resistance (energy or physical), you can only have one duration spell in effect in each category. Thus you could have mage armor, shield or barkskin affecting your AC, but not all three.
The buffs sound like nightmare bookkeeping and I'd avoid it for that alone. It also penalizes other players such as bards whose own survival strategy depends on being able to buff the fighter.
I think the Hero Point reservoir interaction should be enough both as carrot and stick.
At the risk of being crucified, I liked how they handled it in 4E. Charisma or wisdom, whichever was higher, determined your will saves. If this was implemented in Pathfinder we'd see people making choices between making the gruff and wise fighter or the absent minded and charming fighter, instead of the latter being mostly mechanically unviable.