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... Point buy just doesn't allow for the storybook style hero...
Interesting... I'd say that a hero in what I'd personally class as a good story is an individual with flaws and depth - to me overcoming one's own flaws and inabilities is part of what being 'heroic' is all about. That, I'd suggest, the 'normal' point buy covers very nicely.
What 'normal' point buy doesn't create well is the 'action movie hero' - they guy who can do everything. Of course, just upping the number of points does create such characters well.
Which style of hero you prefer playing is a matter of indvidual and group choice, of course. I much prefer the 'normal' point buy method, because I like the PCs to feel a real sense of achievement when they 'win', and to be guided into thinking in a more tactical and interesting manner about how to go about things - and I, personally, find that the lower 'normal' point buy method promotes that.
I guess it's similar to the (pre-Crisis) comics question of whether you prefer DC (with guys who can regularly push the moon out of orbit under their own steam) or Marvel (with guys who worry about even making this month's rent). I guess I'm more of a Marvel guy... ;)
In short, your problem is just that you don't like how Charisma works. I can't comment on that, as I'm not you. It works fine for some of us, however, and we don't mind that Charisma has little impact (positive or negative) on most characters, while being vital to others.That's not quite fair. Partly true, but not entirely fair. Heck, I don't even like the fact that Diplomacy is a SKILL instead of just being roleplayed, but that's an argument for...never, really.
It's a skill for fairness, and verisimilitude. I've discussed this before, but it's the same thing as playing a character that's a better climber than you, or a better swimmer than you, or some other thing that a person could be better at than you.
This argument started from the idea that people ought to at least roleplay (i.e. "play the role of") having a low CHR. According to the core rulebook, "Charisma measures a character's personality, personal magnetism, ability to lead, and appearance." Mechanics-wise, it has extremely little impact, and for many classes can be offset quite easily with a few skillpoints. I don't like that, but that's secondary.
The thing is, because of the broad and intangible nature of Charisma, you can roleplay virtually any character however you want, and still be roleplaying your Charisma. By definition, Charisma is something of a divine gift or unseen power that exists in a person. For example, many claim Hitler had amazing Charisma, and his heated words and emotion stirred an entire nation. However, another guy acting in the same way might just be viewed as crazy and overly excited.
Even those arguing about Charisma in other threads have to resort to saying that it isn't how you "look, dress, or act" but that it's "personal magnetism, presence" and so forth. Characters either have that naturally, or they don't. It's really that simple.
For the record:
cha·ris·ma
/kəˈrɪzmə/ Show Spelled[kuh-riz-muh] Show IPA
–noun, plural -ma·ta /-mətə/ show+spelled">Show Spelled[-muh-tuh] Show IPA.
1. Theology . a divinely conferred gift or power.
2. a spiritual power or personal quality that gives an individual influence or authority over large numbers of people.
3. the special virtue of an office, function, position, etc., that confers or is thought to confer on the person holding it an unusual ability for leadership, worthiness of veneration, or the like.
The opinion that actually started this whole spiel goes something like "I've completely offset my initial stat dump through the mechanics of the game, so I don't have to actually think about what a low CHR might manifest as - my character has passable Bluff, Diplomacy, and Intimidate rolls, after all. What part of human interaction doesn't fall under those? I think I'll just ignore this score." I would argue that's not roleplaying. Figuring out who your character is and how, exactly, your character displays his low CHR while rocking at those checks - and having fun with the people around the table while you do it - that's roleplaying.
Being good at something despite the drawback doesn't mean you've negated it. Offset does not equal ignoring it. Offset != Ignore_It. If you have a -1 to hit with ranged weapons and someone casts bless to give you a +1, you have offset the penalty, but the penalty is still there, holding you back slightly (5% slightly, actually).
Likewise, not I, nor anyone else (that I know of) have suggested that you can ignore it. You might be able to become good despite it, but not ignore it. If it takes your 7 Charisma fighter until 2nd level to reach +0 Diplomacy, and 5th level to reach +4, it's obvious that the penalty isn't being ignored. Merely overcome. If compared to the bard in the group who has a +3 Cha, and the same ranks (5), and a class skill (+3), he's sitting a +11 compared to your +4. No, you don't suck at it but you're definitely not ignoring it.
Edit: CHR being a "soft" stat is fine with me - I just feel like people should look at it once in a while and try to fit it into their actions at the table. It messes with my suspension of disbelief if a CHR 5 or 7 character is the best diplomancer, storyteller, and all-around people pleaser at the table. In the same way, I imagine, your suspension of disbelief would be threatened if a halfling fighter with a dagger and 5 STR was doing the most damage in the party.
Why would that break your suspension of disbelief when men with pointy sticks are killing monsters of legend? It took a demigod (Hercules) to kill a hydra, but in D&D a 5th level Fighter can probably solo one.
Meanwhile, if no one else in the party has invested into the social aspects of their character, and the low-Charisma guy overtakes them (effectively being the best one in the party at that), I don't see that as breaking verisimilitude. That means he's worked at it, over an extended period (or possibly invested in feats) to get better at it. They haven't, so they're not as socially impressive.
Meanwhile, a halfling Fighter dual wielding +5 kurki (1d3+2) with the weapon specialization line, weapon training, and weapon finesse, and improved critical very well could lead the damage in an unoptimized party. That's 1d3+11 around 9 attacks per round, at a 25% chance to threatne a critical, using his high Dex and Size bonus to offset the dual-wielding penalty. If all his attacks hit, that would be around 117 damage in a round before factoring possible criticals. He really could lead the damage in melee.
However, that's if you had a group that didn't invest like that into melee. If you had a barbarian next to him with a 18 strength at first level, now 34 strength, with a +5 two-hander, raging, he would probably lead the halfling's damage by leaps and bounds. That's called offsetting, not ignoring.
I like to disassociate the attributes as much from the character as possible, with the exception of strength which is pretty clearly just based on the character's military press.
A low INT in my games just represents a lack of attention to detail or a slowness to learn boring, non-class related skills.
A low wisdom reflects a bit of aloofness that prevents the character from noticing things around him or the effect of magic on his mind before it takes hold.
A low charisma reflects a poor sense of timing with ones words.
That's it. Very, very little RP related material in that. The first two can drop into the back ground and the last the GM can keep in mind or just assume its full effects in the occasional die roll. None of that says the characters have to act stinky, foolish, or idiotic.
That said, I do a 25 point buy and don't allow any stat under 10 to grand attribute points - just extra starting wealth or starting skill points. If we roll stats, I make it clear that the attribute has LITTLE to do with character personality or ability.
Why do you bother with attribute values at all then? Just put a 10 in each one and "role play" away.
... Point buy just doesn't allow for the storybook style hero...Interesting... I'd say that a hero in what I'd personally class as a good story is an individual with flaws and depth - to me overcoming one's own flaws and inabilities is part of what being 'heroic' is all about. That, I'd suggest, the 'normal' point buy covers very nicely.
What 'normal' point buy doesn't create well is the 'action movie hero' - they guy who can do everything. Of course, just upping the number of points does create such characters well.
Which style of hero you prefer playing is a matter of indvidual and group choice, of course. I much prefer the 'normal' point buy method, because I like the PCs to feel a real sense of achievement when they 'win', and to be guided into thinking in a more tactical and interesting manner about how to go about things - and I, personally, find that the lower 'normal' point buy method promotes that.
I guess it's similar to the (pre-Crisis) comics question of whether you prefer DC (with guys who can regularly push the moon out of orbit under their own steam) or Marvel (with guys who worry about even making this month's rent). I guess I'm more of a Marvel guy... ;)
I am totally down with ProfessorPotts on this one. Being a Marvel guy myself, I liked the fact characters had flaws and problems they had to work through. Superman might have been Mary Sue in a cape, but Spiderman was the socially awkward teen who got really strong, agile, and a few cool powers, and went on to become the wise-cracking super-hero everyone knows and loves.
We're gifted with a system that can easily allow us to become better at things that you weren't better at before. Why would I ever believe that the guy who went from fighting goblins out of some fields to slaying godlike demons across the planes would be incapable of overcoming his public speaking problem?
Because players like to customize the abilities of the character.
???
Non sequitur...
Does not compute...
... wait... you just said that you ignore stats when role playin...
Ah what the hell
whatever
What I'm saying is that the professional skill and capability of succeeding on dice rolls shouldn't have to have very much to do with the character's personality, I want people to make the characters they want to make and play them the way they want to play them. The point buy fantasy of strong people being stupid is silly to me. I interpret the stats so that they don't have to do with the characters personality. They still reflect aspects of the person, but not how they think or act beyond habits and timing.
Oh, so the good values you put in physical attributes have an impact, but the poor values you put in mental attributes don't.
I think I get it.
I played a Cha20 oracle like an unlikable prick. Am I doing it wrong?
Ask Gregory House. He's an unlikable prick that probably has a high Charisma because of his personality, ability to lead, and possibly good looks.
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What I'm saying is that the professional skill and capability of succeeding on dice rolls shouldn't have to have very much to do with the character's personality, I want people to make the characters they want to make and play them the way they want to play them.
Does this include to put the stats accordingly to their character's personnality ?
IMHO, if your player wants so bad to roleplay a nice guy who finds cunning battle plans and can talk his way out of a situation just because he, the player, can, then you don't make him 18/14/16/7/13/7 and call it just because well, after all, he is good at this roleplay thing. You build him 16/10/14/12/13/14, or you explain beforehand that until he puts points in according skills, he will naturally seem the opposite of what he would appear in his roleplay, and that he can't have both the butter and the butter's money.Negatives stats in mental attributes make you suffer in the game, even if in real life you are the bastard child of Shakespeare, Einstein and Gandhi and could found your own nano-technologic worldwide religion. It seems to me that some people take it wrong : it's not that mental stats shouldn't influe on the roleplay, but that the player should have invest points either into stats or skills from the beginning if he wants the world to interact accordingly to his expectations. You can't just handwave stats just because you feel they don't make sense, when they are especially designed to be interpretated depending of what you want to use them for, so...
Oh, so the good values you put in physical attributes have an impact, but the poor values you put in mental attributes don't.
I think I get it.
... => +1.
In my experience, I've got a good DM, but he doesn't master the rules and is often hard on encounters, and thus I had to build a fighter with 19/15/14/13/7/7 at level 1. Intelligence is for roleplay and got never use other than skills and character's comportment. I play him as a disliked noble, and even though he's got a low charisma due to his global awkwardness, all the ranks and magic items I've put in diplomacy make up for my first impression. I often regret to have such a "mini-maxed-like" build, since they got me a lot of suffering in-game (freakin' elven princess not wanting my glorious DNA ? PREPOSTEROUS !), but finally they were and still are also a great way to improve the character's development. The DM always opened roleplaying opportunities (elven princess, old casern companion, redhead bard from the old tavern...) according to our hopes for our characters' development, taking into account our roleplay, the way we acted an if our stats were giving us an advantage or malus from the beginning. My 7 in charisma wasn't enough to sweet-talk a princess, even though my player's persuasion and character's diplomacy/noble background helped me to get a second d100 check.
Charisma shouldn't be ignored, but integrated to the global roleplay, like any other stat - it just allows more DM intervention and interpretation than a strength check.
I come up with a concept and stick with it, sometimes I need certain abilities to make that work, and sometimes the class with those abilities doesn't require the stats that would portray my character.To be a little less trite, sit down and read your own sentence. The first half is not true - you come up with a character concept, and then the moment that portraying the concept accurately on the character sheet would result in a disadvantage, you drop the concept in favor of mechanical advantage. You just admitted that you're freely ignoring the stats that would "portray your character" simply because the class "doesn't require" them. That's not "sticking with it."
You have made the assumptive mistake of thinking that sentence had anything to do with mechanics, since that is the whole crux of your argument then you may want to get a new one. Turns out, if my character concept requires wild shape, I need to be a druid, if it requires bombs I need to be an alchemist. Neither of these features are making an optimal choice, they are just being chosen because they fit thematically. Only problem is if I want to be a druid I need a high-ish WIS. Which means every single one of your characters that would be way more thematic with wild shape just have to go without it if you want to play a poor wisdom.
@brassbaboon: Yes, it turns out I want my characters abilities AND mechanics to act out my concept. I guess that's selfish of me, instead I should either have thematic abilities or actually be good at what my concept says I'm good at right? Too much flavor to have both apparently.
I'd also like to note that none of this has had anything to do with optimizing choices, just thematic ones.
@brassbaboon: Yes, it turns out I want my characters abilities AND mechanics to act out my concept. I guess that's selfish of me, instead I should either have thematic abilities or actually be good at what my concept says I'm good at right? Too much flavor to have both apparently.I'd also like to note that none of this has had anything to do with optimizing choices, just thematic ones.
Well, I'm not going to get into yet another pointless discussion about how other people play the game. Those who want to gain the advantages you want to gain here just get so upset about being called out on their exploitation of the rules that they call me a jerk or worse.
Knock yourself out. But don't think for a minute your approach would fly in one of my campaigns.
Well, I'm not going to get into yet another pointless discussion about how other people play the game. Those who want to gain the advantages you want to gain here just get so upset about being called out on their exploitation of the rules that they call me a jerk or worse.
Knock yourself out. But don't think for a minute your approach would fly in one of my campaigns.
Agree to disagree. My idiotic self destructive terrorist should be using bombs. If I have to ignore my high INT for that then I will.
You can go ahead and play a fighter and pretend his thunderstones are bombs. Same thing I guess.
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Agree to disagree. My idiotic self destructive terrorist should be using bombs. If I have to ignore my high INT for that then I will.
Idiotic self-destructive terrorist ? Low Wisdom. There are autistic geniuses, yours is just trying to make things explode for whatever reason and without too much consideration for himself. Close-minded, easy to influence and manipulate but also a great and ingenious expert in his field, so probably low wisdom.
darn, i remember playing an Ame Warashi (japanese rain spirit) who focused on weather spells
she was mechanically a 3.5 edition grey elf air shugenja
she was also a complete space cadet (low wisdom) but supernaturally influential (high charisma) and highly diverse (high int).
she spaced off and usually (obscesively) lectured random people about things along the line of the 5 rings, how weather works, or the different species of clouds.
i also proposed in her taboos that she could not cast spells for an hour is she stepped within 30 feet of either a sunflower or a temple of pelor.
and it rained wherever she walked, the rain's strength was proportionate to the level of intensity behind her current emotions.
her lesser vigor (and vigor too) spells created a cloud of regenerative rain over the target's head.
it even rained indoors when she walked inside a building.
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darn, i remember playing an Ame Warashi (japanese rain spirit) who focused on weather spells
she was mechanically a 3.5 edition grey elf air shugenja
she was also a complete space cadet (low wisdom) but supernaturally influential (high charisma) and highly diverse (high int).
she spaced off and usually (obscesively) lectured random people about things along the line of the 5 rings, how weather works, or the different species of clouds.
Paizo's forums legends are true : you are weird, mademoiselle.
Looks like a fun character though ! 83
darn, i remember playing an Ame Warashi (japanese rain spirit) who focused on weather spells
she was mechanically a 3.5 edition grey elf air shugenja
she was also a complete space cadet (low wisdom) but supernaturally influential (high charisma) and highly diverse (high int).
she spaced off and usually (obscesively) lectured random people about things along the line of the 5 rings, how weather works, or the different species of clouds.
Paizo's forums legends are true : you are weird, mademoiselle.
Looks like a fun character though ! 83
and she wasn't a loli either.
more like the equivalent to 18-20 (by elf standards)
I think that the D&D attributes are originally written for nerds that believed fit people were stupid. Its a silly fantasy. It doesn't reflect real life at all (sense fit people are usually smarter and more personable on average than weaklings and rounder people). It caters to the silliest ideas of nerd culture.
Hmm... so you object to silly nerd stereotyping while you invoke silly stereotypes about nerds.
Interesting.
The original game method of creating a character had absolutely no connection whatsoever between a character's intelligence and strength. Every character had exactly the same chance to have a god-like intelligence as they had to have a god-like strength. And lucky characters could have both.
If anything this is a direct contradiction of your assertion that the current mechanic is derived from the game designers' supposed "nerd affliction syndrome" ("NAS").
The trade-off between different stats was introduced when the "point buy" system was introduced, and the sole reason for the point buy approach was the clamor for more "balance" in the game. I have no sense that this clamor for balance was driven by "NAS" or "nerd rage" or whatever negative opinion you have of people who enjoy intellectual pursuits but not physical ones. This was a specific reaction to a general market demand for "balance" that has driven this hobby (quite unfortunately in my opinion) to the extremes of 4e.
If you truly want to build characters where there is no trade off between stats, then go back to the purely random character generation that Gary Gygax and Dave Arnot had built into the original rules. That would be a much more intellectually honest and defensible means of dealing with your imaginary "NAS" assertion, but would probably not give you what you are truly looking for.
Which, again, appears to be characters built with a point buy, but without any negative impact, which means no balance.
By the way, the mechanic you assert was built by nerds to punish people who want characters that are both strong and smart is equally punishing to people who want characters that are intelligent and wise, or strong and dextrous. So again I fail to see how the existing system is any sort of evidence that nerds were out to push the strong man down.
But it's an entertaining notion Cranewings. I really got a good laugh from it.
You have made the assumptive mistake of thinking that sentence had anything to do with mechanics, since that is the whole crux of your argument then you may want to get a new one. Turns out, if my character concept requires wild shape, I need to be a druid, if it requires bombs I need to be an alchemist. Neither of these features are making an optimal choice, they are just being chosen because they fit thematically. Only problem is if I want to be a druid I need a high-ish WIS. Which means every single one of your characters that would be way more thematic with wild shape just have to go without it if you want to play a poor wisdom.
I'm honestly confused. I would call throwing bombs a mechanic. I would call wild shape a mechanic.
I assumed when you meant you picked a concept (say the town leader barbarian from your earlier posts - that was your post, wasn't it?). You imagined this guy was a good fighter but had a way with people (else, why is he a leader). Then we you looked at the mechanics and said "hey, CHR isn't important to this character."
Could you walk me through what you call a character concept? I think we're speaking two different languages.
Idiotic self-destructive terrorist ? Low Wisdom. There are autistic geniuses, yours is just trying to make things explode for whatever reason and without too much consideration for himself. Close-minded, easy to influence and manipulate but also a great and ingenious expert in his field, so probably low wisdom.
No he always makes sure he survives it. He just wouldn't mind if he didn't, hence self-destructive. He just can't figure things out that a normal person could piece together so he blows stuff up instead. Not very smart, uses bombs to compensate.
Honestly it isn't like you don't get my point anyway, sometimes thematic abilities and the stats required for the class that gets those abilities clash. I just don't let that get in the way of my roleplay.
I am totally down with ProfessorPotts on this one. Being a Marvel guy myself, I liked the fact characters had flaws and problems they had to work through. Superman might have been Mary Sue in a cape, but Spiderman was the socially awkward teen who got really strong, agile, and a few cool powers, and went on to become the wise-cracking super-hero everyone knows and loves.
We're gifted with a system that can easily allow us to become better at things that you weren't better at before. Why would I ever believe that the guy who went from fighting goblins out of some fields to slaying godlike demons across the planes would be incapable of overcoming his public speaking problem?
I would like to say that I'm not against character growth, and if someone invests points in diplomacy I expect him to be better at diplomacy than he was. My main problem is around first level, and honestly it's happened few enough times I should probably drop it. In fact, I will. I will close with the following: play the character in front of you, not the character in your head. G'night.
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No he always makes sure he survives it. He just wouldn't mind if he didn't, hence self-destructive. He just can't figure things out that a normal person could piece together so he blows stuff up instead. Not very smart, uses bombs to compensate.
Well, no ranks in psychology and having a minimum of survival instinct don't make you a perfect dumb. I stay convinced this character can be simulated with low wisdom and high intelligence without intelligence being a "fake" stat used only for mechanics. You know how to do bombs, you know how to prepare extracts, you're just a mad scientist or a skilled terrorist without a lot of conscience, having a lot of intelligence doesn't make you an obligatory sane and normal person.
Well, no ranks in psychology and having a minimum of survival instinct don't make you a perfect dumb. I stay convinced this character can be simulated with low wisdom and high intelligence without intelligence being a "fake" stat used only for mechanics. You know how to do bombs, you know how to prepare extracts, you're just a mad scientist or a skilled terrorist without a lot of conscience, having a lot of intelligence doesn't make you an obligatory sane and normal person.
Once again missing the point.
I asked this earlier but was lost in the shuffle:
On the topic of high Intelligence (and by extension, Wisdom), the way that is very easily simulated is to give more time to the player to figure things out, even in combat and/or to allow the other players to give more input but have the high Intelligence/Wisdom character make the final decision in character.
On the topic of low Charisma (or any other mental stat), sure you can offset some of the penalties with skill points or even some feats. So do you actually do this with your characters or do you actually ignore the low scores and put your points into other skills instead?
I asked this earlier but was lost in the shuffle:
On the topic of high Intelligence (and by extension, Wisdom), the way that is very easily simulated is to give more time to the player to figure things out, even in combat and/or to allow the other players to give more input but have the high Intelligence/Wisdom character make the final decision in character.
On the topic of low Charisma (or any other mental stat), sure you can offset some of the penalties with skill points or even some feats. So do you actually do this with your characters or do you actually ignore the low scores and put your points into other skills instead?
Bob, as I remember from the discussion, some of them put points into skills like diplomacy and bluff and claim that completely offsets their negatives to charisma. Others put their skill points into other areas and claim that their role playing is more important than their stats.
I have slightly more acceptance of the argument that you can put points into cha based skills to offset the negatives, but the argument that you can just role play your character in complete opposition to, or ignorance of, your mental stats and skills is, to me, the very antithesis of role playing.
My argument on the buyback skills approach is that the proponents of that tactic greatly exaggerate the impact of the skills (saying, for example, that bluff and diplomacy are all you need to control interaction with other characters or PCs) and at the same time greatly minimize the impact of attributes (saying charisma is not something an NPC can directly react to).
This whole thing is just so inane and the arguments to avoid penalties for poor mental stats is so obviously an attempt to gain an advantage by exploiting a lack of specific penalties to cha, int and wis that I find it hard to believe that the great majority of people reading this thread aren't simply guffawing into the backs of their hands as they read this.
But I dunno, those arguments are getting a much larger amount of support than I would ever have thought possible.
I asked this earlier but was lost in the shuffle:
On the topic of high Intelligence (and by extension, Wisdom), the way that is very easily simulated is to give more time to the player to figure things out, even in combat and/or to allow the other players to give more input but have the high Intelligence/Wisdom character make the final decision in character.
On the topic of low Charisma (or any other mental stat), sure you can offset some of the penalties with skill points or even some feats. So do you actually do this with your characters or do you actually ignore the low scores and put your points into other skills instead?
Depends on the character. Often my high CHA ones won't play party face. Sometimes my low CHA ones do all the talking. If CHA only hinders my thematic abilities and Diplomacy can make up for it then yeah I'll do it. I have to admit though I don't believe i have run into this. When I make a likeable character I tend to avoid diplomacy rolls, I focus more on npc's liking me on my own merit not my silver-tongue.
No he always makes sure he survives it. He just wouldn't mind if he didn't, hence self-destructive. He just can't figure things out that a normal person could piece together so he blows stuff up instead. Not very smart, uses bombs to compensate.Well, no ranks in psychology and having a minimum of survival instinct don't make you a perfect dumb. I stay convinced this character can be simulated with low wisdom and high intelligence without intelligence being a "fake" stat used only for mechanics. You know how to do bombs, you know how to prepare extracts, you're just a mad scientist or a skilled terrorist without a lot of conscience, having a lot of intelligence doesn't make you an obligatory sane and normal person.
The description - that piece of fluff describing the stat you're talking about, includes "reason". Ergo, some dumb terrorist with a bomb fetish is kind of the opposite of "Intelligence" if you're arguing that you must act in the way that is without reason, stupid, or foolish, without facts, judgment, and so forth.
You yourself are in fact refluffing his lack of reason as being Wisdom, unless you're basing it under the "common sense" fluff of Wisdom, in which case I guess he would need both low Int AND low Wis, because having high Reasoning ability would indicate a higher amount of common sense.
common sense
–noun
sound practical judgment that is independent of specialized knowledge, training, or the like; normal native intelligence.
You are only proving Shadow's point.
Not that it had anything to do with my initial point, but thank you for your contribution ashiel. The more explanations the higher chance for comprehension I suppose. :)
Bob, as I remember from the discussion, some of them put points into skills like diplomacy and bluff and claim that completely offsets their negatives to charisma. Others put their skill points into other areas and claim that their role playing is more important than their stats.I asked this earlier but was lost in the shuffle:
On the topic of high Intelligence (and by extension, Wisdom), the way that is very easily simulated is to give more time to the player to figure things out, even in combat and/or to allow the other players to give more input but have the high Intelligence/Wisdom character make the final decision in character.
On the topic of low Charisma (or any other mental stat), sure you can offset some of the penalties with skill points or even some feats. So do you actually do this with your characters or do you actually ignore the low scores and put your points into other skills instead?
I know what they said they could do but I want to know if they actually do it. If they aren't doing that and they are ignoring the skills, then it answers every question I would have.
I have slightly more acceptance of the argument that you can put points into cha based skills to offset the negatives, but the argument that you can just role play your character in complete opposition to, or ignorance of, your mental stats and skills is, to me, the very antithesis of role playing.
I agree with you. The skills aren't the backbone of the character though. It's the attributes. There is a reason why nearly everything is built off of those 6 numbers. They are quite literally the basis for your character.
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Charisma does not mean "likeable." It means that people react to your presence in a favorable manner. That's why "intimidate" is a cha based skill.If you have a 20 cha prick and the GM is playing NPCs as avoiding or ignoring you, HE is doing it wrong. They may not LIKE you, but you will influence them.
No, he is doing it differently that you do. That is not wrong. 'Avoiding' or 'purposely ignoring' IS reacting to you.
Charisma means that people react to your presence. It does not always mean favorably. You have to use a skill to make sure that happens.
Depends on the character. Often my high CHA ones won't play party face. Sometimes my low CHA ones do all the talking. If CHA only hinders my thematic abilities and Diplomacy can make up for it then yeah I'll do it. I have to admit though I don't believe i have run into this. When I make a likeable character I tend to avoid diplomacy rolls, I focus more on npc's liking me on my own merit not my silver-tongue.I asked this earlier but was lost in the shuffle:
On the topic of high Intelligence (and by extension, Wisdom), the way that is very easily simulated is to give more time to the player to figure things out, even in combat and/or to allow the other players to give more input but have the high Intelligence/Wisdom character make the final decision in character.
On the topic of low Charisma (or any other mental stat), sure you can offset some of the penalties with skill points or even some feats. So do you actually do this with your characters or do you actually ignore the low scores and put your points into other skills instead?
I'm not saying or suggesting that you play the party face. The party face in my campaign is the fighter who has a lower Charisma than the Paladin. I'm wondering how you play a likable character with low social scores.
Charisma does not mean "likeable." It means that people react to your presence in a favorable manner. That's why "intimidate" is a cha based skill.If you have a 20 cha prick and the GM is playing NPCs as avoiding or ignoring you, HE is doing it wrong. They may not LIKE you, but you will influence them.
No, he is doing it differently that you do. That is not wrong. 'Avoiding' or 'purposely ignoring' IS reacting to you.
Charisma means that people react to your presence. It does not always mean favorably. You have to use a skill to make sure that happens.
This is so true that I think people forget it.
I like to use Dr House as an example. You could also use Montgomery Burns. You could use Pol Pot. You could use bin Ladin. You could use Michael Moore. Each of these characters and people all have positive Charisma scores (of varying degrees) and are larger than life. People react to them in a wide variety of ways.
Once you start putting ranks in skills, then you start to use actively your Charisma to your benefit.
I hope it sounds like I'm agreeing with you. My medications are making it hard for me to follow my own though processes right now.
No he always makes sure he survives it. He just wouldn't mind if he didn't, hence self-destructive. He just can't figure things out that a normal person could piece together so he blows stuff up instead. Not very smart, uses bombs to compensate.Well, no ranks in psychology and having a minimum of survival instinct don't make you a perfect dumb. I stay convinced this character can be simulated with low wisdom and high intelligence without intelligence being a "fake" stat used only for mechanics. You know how to do bombs, you know how to prepare extracts, you're just a mad scientist or a skilled terrorist without a lot of conscience, having a lot of intelligence doesn't make you an obligatory sane and normal person.The description - that piece of fluff describing the stat you're talking about, includes "reason". Ergo, some dumb terrorist with a bomb fetish is kind of the opposite of "Intelligence" if you're arguing that you must act in the way that is without reason, stupid, or foolish, without facts, judgment, and so forth.
You yourself are in fact refluffing his lack of reason as being Wisdom, unless you're basing it under the "common sense" fluff of Wisdom, in which case I guess he would need both low Int AND low Wis, because having high Reasoning ability would indicate a higher amount of common sense.
You are only proving Shadow's point.
common sense
–noun
sound practical judgment that is independent of specialized knowledge, training, or the like; normal native intelligence.
Furthermore, that would also mean that taking 10 on a Knowledge check should be based off Wisdom, since that's the common sense, rather than Intelligence. However, Knowledge is based on Intelligence, even if it's not trained. If you have a low Intelligence, the game says you have less common sense. The fluff of Wisdom says it determines common sense.
Just using simple reasoning (let's use our Int here people - or was that Wis?) shows that there is a conflict. Mechanics trump fluff, because fluff is mutable.
Charisma does not mean "likeable." It means that people react to your presence in a favorable manner. That's why "intimidate" is a cha based skill.If you have a 20 cha prick and the GM is playing NPCs as avoiding or ignoring you, HE is doing it wrong. They may not LIKE you, but you will influence them.
No, he is doing it differently that you do. That is not wrong. 'Avoiding' or 'purposely ignoring' IS reacting to you.
Charisma means that people react to your presence. It does not always mean favorably. You have to use a skill to make sure that happens.
I should not have said "react favorably" because that sounds too much like "they will like you". By "react favorably" I mean they will react to your influence in some way that you would want them to, even if that means avoiding you. But not "ignoring" you. That's what they can't do.
I don't think we are disagreeing here so much as wordsmithing the effect of charisma.
Still, if the GM is not having characters react to highly charismatic characters, he is, in fact, doing it "wrong." That's the very definition of what charisma is, and if that is not being portrayed in the game, then the GM needs to be coached.
Tri:Note that I did not say "react favorably" but instead said "influence them."
Note also that sometimes when people do something that I disagree with, they are in fact doing something WRONG. It is not always simply some warm fuzzy no offense possible "that's just your opinion, man!" situation.
This happens to be one of those cases.
No, you said "It means that people react to your presence in a favorable manner."
Avoiding a 20 Cha prick IS reacting to someone. If it's someone the prick wants to talk to, that is NOT a favorable manner.
This is not a case of someone doing it wrong, just differently.
Yeah, you're quick on the draw. I deleted that one and rewrote it because of the way I had used the word "favorably." See my second post.
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Still, if the GM is not having characters react to highly charismatic characters, he is, in fact, doing it "wrong." That's the very definition of what charisma is, and if that is not being portrayed in the game, then the GM needs to be coached.
I can agree with that. I think my main disagreement is those that say negative Cha characters should be reacted to just as much as high Cha characters, only negatively. (And yeah, I'm usually quick to answer since I have little else to do in my off time here.)
I'm not saying or suggesting that you play the party face. The party face in my campaign is the fighter who has a lower Charisma than the Paladin. I'm wondering how you play a likable character with low social scores.
Actions generally speak louder then words. Most my likable low charisma characters are kind of like if some dirty hobo ran up while you were being mugged and with a swift flick of his switchblade disarmed and subsequently judo dropped the bad guys. Good first impressions and all that, even if your real first impression was a dirty hobo with no dignity you can provide a better impression after, a secondary impression that challenges the notions set by the first.
Usually how I do it.
Still, if the GM is not having characters react to highly charismatic characters, he is, in fact, doing it "wrong." That's the very definition of what charisma is, and if that is not being portrayed in the game, then the GM needs to be coached.I can agree with that. I think my main disagreement is those that say negative Cha characters should be reacted to just as much as high Cha characters, only negatively. (And yeah, I'm usually quick to answer since I have little else to do in my off time here.)
Extreme Cha, in both directions, should provoke a reaction. Now, the exact reaction should be based on the NPCs world view and background. It could be anything from dismissal to avoidance to hostility, just as the high Cha PC could invoke a reaction anywhere from attraction to light lust to interest to avoidance to just making a big impression on the NPC who later remembers "that guy" when the watch asks about them. This should all be depending on the PC's appearance, race, cha, etc.
Sometimes it's as bad to be a high cha character as it is to be a low cha character. If you have a high cha, it can get you remembered when you'd just as rather be forgotten. And the same applies to the low cha character, sometimes you just want to be one of the boys, but it's so darn hard, and you wish that blonde barmaid knew you were alive.
Still, if the GM is not having characters react to highly charismatic characters, he is, in fact, doing it "wrong." That's the very definition of what charisma is, and if that is not being portrayed in the game, then the GM needs to be coached.I can agree with that. I think my main disagreement is those that say negative Cha characters should be reacted to just as much as high Cha characters, only negatively. (And yeah, I'm usually quick to answer since I have little else to do in my off time here.)
And in either case, where would the mechanical threshold for altering people's initial attitude be? Where do you get the +/-10 modifier to charisma when you are going to try using your diplomacy skill? (If you decide to make someone even one step less/more friendly, you are altering the DC to achieve anything using diplomacy by 5, which is the mechanically equivalent of having TEN less/more charisma.
And since the system still uses 10 as an average when it is possible to have 39 in half the stats by endgame (20 on creation, +5 levels, +5 inherent, +6 item, +3 age), the old system of averages where 3 was minimum and 18 was maximum is gone. Not even the 2e cap of 25 applies any more. Yet 20 is the mechanical opposite of 1. Beyond that, there is no means for comparison. "I have 24 charisma, that is the opposite of comatose plus 4"?
And in there's the rub. If PC point buy minimum (7) is supposedly a critical disadvantage (which mechanically, it is not, you just have a -2) and should be roleplayed as an "extreme", then how in the nine hells do you even go about playing someone with a freaking THIRTY-SIX? Not to mention, how do NPCs react? Automatically helpful? I mean, you ARE the god of charisma made flesh, Shelyn herself should likely come down and go "Wow, you're so hot! Would you please go out with me?"
The only consistent portrayal of NPCs I have found is that a combination of int and cha 3-4 equals simple when applied to humans. But in the same AP, you have a man with Wis 8, who has the force of will to throw off his misfortune, turn on his boss, surrender status quo and stand up for what he believes is right. Quite a heroic feat of willpower.
While in another, I have seen a character with Wis and Cha over 14 not having the courage to go through with it's ambition. And then in yet another, a Wis8 character concocts a cunning plan to overthrow an entire kingdom...
So... yeah.
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The concepts, the concepts!
I demand a Combat skill! - something I can bump up to offset my lousy Base Attack Bonus.
Seriously people, I have this awesome concept and I only have so many points to burn! My haffer barb has Str 5 but that's because he's lazy and doesn't like lifting things - but oh can he fight! Once he gets going he knows exactly where to strike!
So come on, help a glorious leader out.
What say ye!
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Oh, oh oh and a Hit Point skill!
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Won't somebody please the concepts!
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This sentence no verb! :D
Won't somebody please the concepts!
YOU NO VERB!
Damnit!
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Ok Loyal Citizens, listen up. You've trained for this. There are no excuses.
Once more, from the top.
SWASH + BUCKLE FIEND = BAD
How hard can it be? Is it the hat? It's the hat, isn't it?
*sigh*
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Ok, from the top...
*BANG*
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You the verb?
YOU CAN'T THE VERB!