Quite some while ago, the folks I game with instituted a house-rule that had an ancillary effect of adjusting the mechanical value of characters/creatures having a higher Charisma score.
I have added a small incentive toward not dumping charisma completely - by making will saves dependent upon wisdom or charisma, depending upon the effect.
For example: If someone casts a 'Dominate Person' the target must make a charisma based will save. This is because the caster is trying to overcome the target's own force of personality, seems logical to me that charisma, not wisdom, is the key attribute there. Similarly for most Enchantment [Mind-Affecting] spells.
If someone casts an illusion however, that is more of an attempt to beguile the target's senses, in this case they must make a wisdom based will save.
It seems to result in a reasonable mix of the two types of save being made.
I can lend some perspective on Fractal's position.
For years, our gaming group merrily went along with the Player's Handbook (PHB) rule that prescribes Wisdom as the talent behind characters’/creatures’ Will saving throws. But the descriptions for both Wisdom and Charisma (as presented in Chapter 1 of the PHB) just seemed... well... a bit disjointed when read in light of the description of Will saves under Combat Basics (“[Will] saves reflect [one’s] resistance to mental influence as well as many magical effects”).
If “Wisdom represents being in tune with and aware of one’s surroundings” and Charisma “represents actual strength of personality, not merely how one is perceived by others in a social setting”, then Charisma seemed – at least to us – to be the better well-spring of willpower. On several occasions we sat around the gaming table debating the value and potential effects of moving Wisdom out of the way and instilling Charisma as the root of willpower, but it wasn't until one of us picked up WotC’s Complete Adventurer from a local hobby store, and we became aware to its Force of Personality feat, that our group voted to actually make the switch.
Our implementation of this universal house-rule had nothing to do with Charisma being a “dump” stat for everyone except the Sorceress and Bard. Additionally, it wasn’t made with any consideration relative to Single- vs. Multiple-Ability-Dependency (SAD vs. MAD). Instead, we just wanted to correlate the strength of one’s personality with his/her/its willpower and until we saw that the game’s designers were open to the idea of Charisma as the driving force behind Will (or, put another way, that there wasn’t some sublime mechanical reason behind Wisdom contributing its modifier to Will), we weren’t willing to alter such a fundamental aspect of our game for fear of creating unexpected negative consequences. (Which is funny in and of itself, because now we play a heavily modified rule-set.)
Last session, we began play-testing an evolution of our previous Willpower-flows-from-Charisma house-rule by incorporating an idea reinvigorated by Kirth Gersen's "Mechanical Tinkering Thread".
Possible topics include…
- How to make Charisma something other than an auto-dump stat
I have always thought it was a bit unfair that there were two saves for physical effects and only one for mental effects. Will saves cover a wide range of effects, but I have never really liked that they were all lumped together in the way they interacted with the target (basically by calling for Will saves.)
Why not split will saves into two types. Will saves can handle effects that trying to deceive (i.e. illusion) and a second mental save handle effects that try to coerce (i.e. enchantment.) Let us call this second mental save the Individuality save.
The individuality save is based on charisma and handles any effect that tries to coerce the target to act contrary to how they would normally act.
A will save would still be based on wisdom, but would only handle the effects that target the subject's senses.
This idea is still in its rough draft form, so I am sure there would need to be some tweaking, but it would be a step in helping to solve the Cha dump stat issue.
Oh man, I love this one.
I suggest the terms Suspicion and Defiance to represent saves vs. deception and coercion, respectively.
Willpower and Insight (for Charisma and Wisdom, respectively) could also work.
I am not sold on Willpower and Insight. Both words suggest wisdom and I already have mixed them up in talking through this idea.
Defiance is at least charisma sounding.
However, toe-may-to/toe-mah-to. The names themselves don't really matter.
What does matter is:
- What each one covers.
- What stat each one is tied to.
- Arranging the good and poor saves for class.
To be honest, I think that shouldn't be too much work to do. We have the basics of the first point, the second point is decided, and the third one just needs work and play testing.
While we all liked the idea of having two mental saves to compliment characters’/creatures’ two physical saves, and we agreed to split up mental saves according to affects that result in deception vs. affects that result in coercion, we – like Kirth’s contributing posters – struggled with what to name the new mental saving throw.
We discussed the merits of naming the new mental saving throw ‘Individuality’ like CalebTGordan suggested, but there was some strong opposition based on the fact that while a Fortitude saving throw can be quickly requested at the table by calling it a “Fort save”, and the terms “Reflex save” and Will save” are similarly concise phrases, no one could come up with a truncated form of “Individuality” that didn’t sound odd stumbling off the speaker’s tongue (calling for an “Indie save” just wasn’t very evocative).
Evil Lincoln’s suggestion to call the mental saves “Suspicion and Defiance” seemed quite promising, especially since we’d agreed that one mental save should address deception and the other coercion. Then someone in our group brought up two good points:
- (1) getting rid of the term “Will” as it relates to all possible mental saving throws puts the kibosh on more than 10 years of common language in our continuing game and
(2) there is a definition of “Defiance” that is basically a synonym for “Willpower”: willfulness.
Ultimately we smooshed together CalebTGordan’s and Evil Lincoln’s naming ideas, resulting in us keeping the term “Will save” (to denote the defensive effort one can attempt to mitigate the effects of a coercive magical effect) and gaining a new mental saving throw, named “Suspicion” (to denote the defensive effort one can attempt to mitigate the effects of a magical effect designed to deceive a victim’s senses).
No one has yet come up with a good at-the-table truncation for a “Suspicion save”…
Any help on this point (in addition to the main request of this post) would be appreciated.
Having named our house-ruled mental saves, we went thru the Pathfinder Core Rulebook and the Advanced Player’s Guide agreeing, in congress, as to which distinct mental saving throw would be the most appropriate mechanism for defending oneself against each Rules-as-Written (RAW) Will save magical affect. It took nearly a whole evening of fire-side debate, but at the end of it all we’d eaten a ton of s’mores and everything seemed good.
Then, last weekend, as part of the celebrations associated with my son’s 14th birthday, he wanted the whole crew to get together and began a new campaign; we decided it would be a good opportunity to begin testing this new house-rule. Just as the GM brought us to the night’s finale, we five adults - who’d all invested so much time and energy in working thru the planning of this house-rule - tripped on our collective faces when one of my son’s friends - a kid that’d never played a table-top RPG (with us or anyone else) – asked simply, “Can I use my Sense Motive ranks in place of my Suspicion save to shrug off the Wizard’s (that night’s Big Bad Evil Guy (BBEG’s) Phantasmal Killer spell?”
Hmmmm. A quick review of the Core Rulebook by my son revealed to his friend that Phantasmal Killer does operate (in part) by deceiving its victim into being literally scared to death. Accordingly, my son – supporting his friend – opined that the BBEG’s magical deception was, therefore, essentially a lie. Lying in-game is normally a task of the Bluff skill. And Bluffs are opposed by Sense Motive.
We’d set up this evolution of our saving throw house-rule so that Suspicion follows either the good or bad saving throw progression; just like Fortitude, Reflex and Will do. But, after just 4th level, the bonus provided by the good saving throw progression begins to lag behind the bonus a character can have in Sense Motive, even if it’s a non-class skill, as long as he/she assigns maximum ranks at each promotion. (If Sense Motive is a class-skill, that initial +3 bump makes the good saving throw progression lag as early as 1st level…)
And even though we’d already built a +2 to Suspicion saves feat (“Highly Suspicious”, mirroring the mechanics of Great Fortitude, Iron Will and Lightning Reflexes), the scalable bonus to Sense Motive that a character can get from taking the Alertness feat again outstrips the best possible saving throw progression.
The long and the short of it is that my son’s friend intuitively recognized that skill check bonuses can be higher than saving throw bonuses pretty easily. And since making his save was so important, using the bigger number was better for his character.
During the game, the best reason any of us could come up to explain the difference between needing to make a Suspicion check against the BBEG’s (admittedly deceptive) spell and a Sense Motive check to oppose someone’s Bluff was this: Illusions - being magical affects - are much more subtle and innately convincing than merely being confronted by an untruth (not matter how exceptional). Even though my son and his friend took that explanation and we successfully moved on with the climax of the episode, I don’t feel that that was an especially good answer – at least not flavorwise.
Since the community here has so much experience and brings incredible diversity and creativity to this forums’ many posts, might someone help me out by providing a better (more flavorful) way to address this disparity?
Even though my son and his friend only argued along the thought cascade of illusions-are-deceptions-deceptions-are-lies-lies-are-challanged-via-Sense Motive, I could foresee someone using the same logic to argue that Perception checks should counter Illusions. (Essentially, if illusions aren’t lies, per se, they could be understood as something being magically disguised as something else; and Disguise checks are opposed by challengers’ Perception.)
None of the adults in our game want to wander so far away from Pathfinder ruleset as to necessitate totally re-working all of the myriad RAW will save affects that exist in print just so our table can take into account the kinds of oppositional effort a character/creature could generate by using a maxed-out skill check to counter magic. So, we’re not going to.
Still, I’d like a better way to explain the difference between what triggers a Suspicion saving throw vs. an opposing skill check.
GaaH, post monster chewed my post. So for the short version...
By design, Sense Motive needs a Bluff check to oppose (and set the DC etc). By extension, we can deduce that the sense motive checks has more to do with reading the body language and listening for nervousness in the tone of the bluffer. In other words, Sense Motive identifies a bluffer but does not detect a bluff per say.
In that light, the illusion is a sensation just like the bluff is a statement; it is not the object of a Sense Motive check.
If you feel generous, you could allow a Sense Motive check on a caster to warrant a disbelieve check on its illusionary 'summons'. Perhaps a successful Sense Motive check would give a +2 bonus to the save as 'favorable conditions' on spells like Phatasmal Killer, but not take lieu of a Will save (or Suspicion save in your case).
As for the phantasmal killer spell, it so happens that the spell in question is a phantasm, which represent a personalized impression created by the mind of the target: the caster doesn't even know what it will turn out to be. That give the observer lees to work on for its Sense Motive...
So with Phantasmal Killer, it doesn't matter if the conscious knows it isn't real, the subconscious makes it real enough to die from.
So to sum it all, Sense Motive does not thwart deceptions; it detects the source of the deception as credible or not. Whether such a roll should be permitted in the heat of the battle is yet another question.
'findel
This does raise an interesting dilemma in the rules; why are skills separate from defenses, and attacks for that matter? Even though you said you don't want to stray from the PF rules set, I feel compelled to mention d20 Threshold. It treats all the ability scores as defenses. It actually makes perfect sense. To me anyway.
I don't really have any help on the main thrust of the thread, but as far as the shortening of the name...why not call it something else? Skeptical? Disbelief (although disbelief has been used in the "I disbelieve!" way)? Sensory? Perceptive (Perception is a skill already thoguh)? Doubt? Trust?
I don't really have any help on the main thrust of the thread, but as far as the shortening of the name...why not call it something else? Skeptical? Disbelief (although disbelief has been used in the "I disbelieve!" way)? Sensory? Perceptive (Perception is a skill already thoguh)? Doubt? Trust?
Insight.....I know its a bonus type, but how often does that come up. In 4E the Sense Motive skill became Insight.
Intuition would work too. All of these shorten easily too (some better than others): Skep, Dis, Sense, Per, Doubt (it's already one syllable, what more do you want?), Trust, Int...
I think Laurefindel lays out the main part of the post quite well, so I'm just dropping by to offer a suggestion.
From years of watching Criminal Minds, might I recommend 'unsub'? Not for 'Unknown Subject', but for 'Unsubstantiated Belief'. :)
I agree with Laurelfindel
As for a name for the save, how about Judgement Save, shortened to Judge Save?
I'd call it a Sense save and explain it as a combination of a character's good sense and ability to sense stimuli. That's very general and not the kind of thing you can learn in a lesson, which makes it quite different from skills.
I'd be very interested in seeing your list of effects resisted by the new save.
Nearly done with end-of-year efforts and finally have some time to relax visiting these messageboards again.
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I'd like to express my thanks to each person who posted a reply to this thread. As I suspected, everyone shared their distinct, creative and flavorful perspective addressing the issue raised at my son's birthday campaign-launch. Thank you, all.
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Laurefindel -- I respect your dedication to helping me after the post monster chewed up your initial effort. Your insight regarding phantasms (specifically, how such magic can use a victim's subconscious in a way that trumps his/her conscious mind) holds enough mystique to infuse these effects with the right amount of exoticness so as to keep the magic in prayers, spells and invocations (which was not an insignificant concern in our debates about saving throws vs. skill checks that night at the table). Also, your summation feels spot-on; I can totally groove on the notion that Sense Motive measures a (potential) deceiver's credibility rather than directly defeats a deception.
CantFindthePath -- I appreciate you pointing me to the d20 Threshold Google website. In spending some time there earlier this morning, it certainly illuminated an interesting alternative to the current array of subsystems built into Pathfinder. (On the matter of your proposal to rename Suspicion to Insight, since I don't play 4e, might you know if WotC punted the insight bonus type when they renamed the Sense Motive skill to Insight? We seem to have an insight bonus apply to quite a wide variety of rolls in our game.)
DrowVampyre -- I like your suggestion: renaming Suspicion to Doubt. You're right; it's already monosyllabic, what more could we want? (Plus... changing the name of our new mental saving throw from Suspicion to Doubt keeps the connotation the same: questioning stimuli.) What might you suggest we rename our Highly Suspicious feat?
Apotheosis -- While I recognize that your "unsub" recommendation isn't -strictly speaking - a pun, it certainly made me smile like one; very clever.
Ion Raven -- Neat idea. Renaming our new mental save to Judgment is flavorful on so many levels, especially in light of our compiled list of delineated magical effects. (Even though Judgment can be truncated to just Judge, we don't seem to have any problem calling for [disyllabic] Reflex saves [it’s just the three-syllable saving throws we tend to abridge: Fortitude to Fort, and Willpower to Will] so I think keeping both syllables of Judgment in play wouldn't cause the kind of heartburn that using the polysyllabic word Suspicion has so far.) What might you suggest we rename our Highly Suspicious feat?
Mortuum -- I like the elegance of your lessons-based differentiation between skills and saving throws. (If you'll post your email, I'll send you our list of effects resisted the new mental save when I get back to the States.)
What might you suggest we rename our Highly Suspicious feat?
Well if you do go with Judgement, I think True Judgement, Watchful Judgement, or Vigilant Judgement (to be in parallel with the name of the other feats).
Also, thank you. I kind of stole your idea for my home game. (Splitting Will into Judgement and Resolution) :3
OK... I really like this idea so i juggled it around in my head and came up with the following for myself that keeps it really simple.
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each player splits their WILL save into 2 separate saves. Will Internal (Will-I) and Will Outer (Will-O)
Will-I is modified by charisma and is generally used to resist spells and effects which effect you internally such as charm, sleep, confusion and insanity effects.
Will-O is modified by wisdom and is generally used to resist spells and effects which effect you from the outside such as illusion, fear, mind reading, and scry effects.
Level based save progression which generally effects Will saves enhances both Will-I and Will-O
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with this in mind the OP issue with illusion fall under the following explination in my head.
sense motive is about observing subtle changes in the body language and tone of some one to grasp their true motive or intent although often used to discern lies it is not so much a LIE detector as an intent detector. which is why it can work even if the opponent is telling the absolute truth with the intent to due you harm such as saying "its right down the hall and to the right" which is totally true except for that trapped section of floor which he hopes will kill you.
an illusion effect is an external attempt to deceive you and the Will-O save represents your ability to simply disbelieve based on sheer "this cant be happening" or "that doesn't add up" seems odd in a world where almost anything you see certainly CAN be happening thats the nature of the save
the phantasmal effect is basically an illusion that happens inside your mind so it can conceivably fall under both saves but since phantasm is fundamentally an attempt to trick you, not control you I think the phantasm falls on the side of Will-O as you only need be smart enough to realize its not real in order to resist it.
hows that work?
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As for a flavor-based approach, I'd point out that a spell isn't crafted on the fly, like a lie would be. It was developed ages, maybe centuries, ago by some other wizard. It's been handed down, honed, revised, and so on by many, many wizards. The form of it being cast today isn't any mere lie, and has become immune to things such as Sense Motive.