Charisma is still a character's influence on others. A rotting corpse would have high charisma because it is easily capable of scaring those who see it (Hence why intimidate is charisma-based)
One time i played a sorcerer that was short and fat but had 20 cha. Everyone agreed it was because he was creepy looking and me rolling intimidate checks was more of a "Ahhhh! he wants to touch me! Get away!" thing
| 1 person marked this as a favorite. |
Precisely. And thus: Charisma does not deal with appearance. Appearance is more or less completely irrelevant.
The rules are definitely working against you there since appearance is explicitly included.
But with that in mind, it's important to realize that Charisma is an abstract score. In any individual character, any of those 4 elements (personality, magnetism, leadership ability, and appearance) could be much more important than the others or much less important than the others and yet yield the same mechanical effect on other people as someone else who has a different relative mix of the 4 elements. A high Charisma could reflect a character who is beautiful and knows how to use it to influence people. It could reflect someone with a great deal of personality but a shocker of a nose. It could be a goony-looking public speaker with a great deal of magnetism.
Charisma does deal with appearance, but not in the same way with all characters.
I fall under the group that feels appearence doesn't have to do with charisma because if it did, it would be highly abusable.
Disguises, Invisibility, and Polymorphing would of course have to affect charisma otherwise.
"Obviously, [Julius Caesar, Napoleon Bonaparte, and Adolf Hitler] did not have an 18 score on physical beauty, so it is quite possible to assume that scores over 18 are possible, for any one of the named historical personalities would have had a higher charisma score — there can be no question that these individuals were 18's — if they would have had great physical attractiveness as well as commanding personal magnetism and superb persuasiveness."
Precisely. And thus: Charisma does not deal with appearance. Appearance is more or less completely irrelevant.The rules are definitely working against you there since appearance is explicitly included.
But with that in mind, it's important to realize that Charisma is an abstract score. In any individual character, any of those 4 elements (personality, magnetism, leadership ability, and appearance) could be much more important than the others or much less important than the others and yet yield the same mechanical effect on other people as someone else who has a different relative mix of the 4 elements. A high Charisma could reflect a character who is beautiful and knows how to use it to influence people. It could reflect someone with a great deal of personality but a shocker of a nose. It could be a goony-looking public speaker with a great deal of magnetism.
Charisma does deal with appearance, but not in the same way with all characters.
Which is precisely what I adressed before. If you claim appearance factors into charisma, you get to the loveliness of slimy mauve skin and face tentacles. It turns ridiculous VERY quickly. So, despite the fact that the rules at the definition of charisma are against me, it is very clearly a case of contradictory rules. All in all, see my above posts.
I remember back in AD&D in which there were optional rules for the appearence stat and for charisma. One was which you rolled an additional time for appearance and the other was that you could vary your charisma into two seperate numbers that still had to be close to each other that each determined a seperate value.
For example, a 16 charisma could be changed into 17/15 in which the first would be leadership and the second your physical beauty. There was an option to do this to pretty much all of your stats, but it was kind of complicated and unneccessary most of the time.
I also see charisma as a way of grooming yourself. A hag is ugly, but with the way she presents her body and moves, it could be very appealing.
If you claim appearance factors into charisma, you get to the loveliness of slimy mauve skin and face tentacles. It turns ridiculous VERY quickly.
?
I am sure slimy tentacled monsters find other slimy tentacled monsters very attractive or there wouldn't be so darn many for PCs to kill.Race and opportunity are the important factors in mating rituals.
Just cause a dwarf is hot doesn't mean humans want them.
Charisma can be appearance... Don't limit your players imaginations by excluding one of the many possible facets of Charisma.
|
"Obviously, [Julius Caesar, Napoleon Bonaparte, and Adolf Hitler] did not have an 18 score on physical beauty, so it is quite possible to assume that scores over 18 are possible, for any one of the named historical personalities would have had a higher charisma score — there can be no question that these individuals were 18's — if they would have had great physical attractiveness as well as commanding personal magnetism and superb persuasiveness."
Don't forget Rasputin! He probably had a 20 Cha and 20 Con.
By the by Wolfthulhu, you might want to update König's stats.
Actually, he had a template - but don't tell anybody, as that particular campaign was supposed to be pure humans only.
Don't forget Rasputin! He probably had a 20 Cha and 20 Con.
Nah, he just had a bunch of levels, his killers took a bunch of noncombat feats, and they rolled like complete garbage that night.
Don't forget Rasputin! He probably had a 20 Cha and 20 Con.
Only 20 Con on Rasputin? Hell, he probably had lots of Adept levels (minus the casting), 24 Con + the Diehard feat the way he got killed in the end.
|
| 1 person marked this as a favorite. |
Appearance for me can indeed factor into charisma, but Appearance does not necessarily equate to attractiveness.
A high charisma is a collection of factors that means the character is able to demand attention. As part of that an appearance that demands attention can be because of beauty, or ugliness, or simple strangeness or uniqueness (green eyes on a Chinese man).
A low charisma character who describes themselves as beautiful, has a beauty that is not particularly striking, memorable or captivating - bland almost. The sort of person who if asked "are they good looking?" you would reply yes, but that a day later you would struggle to pick out of a line up of other equally good looking people.
"Obviously, [Julius Caesar, Napoleon Bonaparte, and Adolf Hitler] did not have an 18 score on physical beauty, so it is quite possible to assume that scores over 18 are possible, for any one of the named historical personalities would have had a higher charisma score — there can be no question that these individuals were 18's — if they would have had great physical attractiveness as well as commanding personal magnetism and superb persuasiveness."Don't forget Rasputin! He probably had a 20 Cha and 20 Con.
Yeah, but he wasn't one of the examples cited by Gary Gygax back in the 1st edition AD&D DMG, while "Julius Caesar, Napoleon Bonaparte, and Adolf Hitler" were.
Robin Williams. Handsome? no. Charismatic? yes.
Remember, if you have 19 Charisma you're this pretty!
Mr. Fishy dated that girl...she was a dirty girl.
Robin Williams. Handsome? no. Charismatic? yes.
Ahh the old funny is sexy lie.
*blink*
Robin Williams. Handsome? no. Charismatic? yes.Ahh the old funny is sexy lie.
Ahh, the old charismatic is sexy lie.
Charisma isn't sexy, however it can help you fake it.
One of the leads in the movie Kissing Jessica Stein referred to it as "sexy-ugly." (warning: clip is estrogen-drenched rom-com)
Hi-
I'm just wondering about the relation ship between charisma and appearance. Is there any? I've heard some people say that a high charisma score reflects positively on character appearance. I'm assuming because it applies to the diplomacy skill.
Anybody have high charisma, yet ugly looking characters?
Now what about the intimidate skill? I can understand high charisma characters being intimidating. Just about any kind of mob movie would give you some examples of those characters. However what about physically intimidating? If I have a character that is say 7 foot tall and chews nails, but has no charisma, how is that not intimidating?
Thanks for your thoughts.
That why they have the feat Intimidating Prowess where you get to add you Str stat bonus to you Intimidate roll. Works even better if you have good Charisma but you will still be decent at it for being physically intimidating.
As for ugly and good Charisma, happens all the time. Every wonder how some of the most unattractive guys get the most gorgeous women? Charisma is how they do it. I knew a guy like that, he was very charismatic but not the best looking guy though he though he was super model material. Thing is he could talk his way into bed with most women.
Another High Charisma + Fugly appearance character example:
Tyrion Lannister
Blasphemy.
We duel at dawn.
I find it bizarre how many people seem to have completely skipped most of the thread before they post here and parrot things that have gone before without noting that, you know, others have noted them before.
Before we go any further, we need to make something clear. "Appearance" is not the same as "Beauty". This is an important point. Further, "Beauty" doesn't even mean "Hot" or "Sexy" or even "Attractive".
Are we talking RAW or personal opinion or real life? Personal opinion, and real life, and RAW are all very, very different things that sometimes overlap, and sometimes don't.
As Shadowdweller noted on page one, according to RAW, they are linked. You can find this in the Core Rulebook, or the PF SRD.
For faster reference:
Charisma (Cha)Charisma measures a character's personality, personal magnetism, ability to lead, and appearance.
I bolded for emphasis. Now, as far as undead, that's another story altogether, and RAW covers that, too:
For undead creatures, Charisma is a measure of their unnatural “lifeforce.”
Thus, for undead, it's apparently separate from appearance of any kind. That said, according to older editions' RAW, apparently it does have something to do with beauty. For example:
"
Decide what your character looks like using the descriptions of various races in Chapter <2: Races/Two: Species> as a starting point. Character with high Charisma scores tend to be better looking than those with low Charsiama scores, though a character with high Charisma could have strange looks that give him or her a sort of exotic beauty."
Bolded for emphasis. Most of those who are mentioned as "ugly, but not" (much like Pug Bulldogs) have those strange-and-exotic-yet-still-somehow-attractive looks. Based off of all the images I've seen, Hitler wasn't actually ugly, nor was Winston Churchill, Robin Williams, Bill Murray, the members of Tenacious D (an oft-used "counter"-example), or Ghandi, while Martin Luther King and Tommy Lee Jones were actually look really good, to my way of thinking. I don't have too much knowledge of others in terms of reference, however.
Admittedly, those were different systems, and Pathfinder has stepped away from it (as the PF Core doesn't have an "Appearance" section), but all the d20 WotC products presumed a correlation between "Charisma", "Appearance", and "Beauty".
Further, referencing such things as illithids, beholders, kraken, and the like, I think the all look rather fascinating - their appearance is certainly striking, and the variety and array of colors and structures is impressive and can be thought of as "beautiful" in the same way that an exotic fish or squid or brightly colored frogs could be thought of as "beautiful" - pretty, even potentially enthralling to watch, but not really sexy in any way.
ALL THAT SAID, according to personal opinion, it's another story entirely. Personal opinion and house rules can do anything at all, and that's perfectly fine. I, personally, use house rules that potentially (but don't inherently) divorce Charisma from Appearance. That's totally fine. That's an option within the rules as well.
And according to real life, well, I don't know. Probably at least marginally related, as none of the actors or famous folks that I know of were actually repulsive to look at, but probably not a direct one-to-one correlation, even if we could reduce real life to "numbers".
3.X RAW: Charisma controls appearance and, to an extent, beauty, but this could be a very strange or exotic beauty (it does not have to conform to the "standard" version of "beauty" as most think of it).
Pathfinder RAW: Charisma controls appearance (but appearance does not mean the same thing as beauty, sexiness, or attractiveness).
Personal Opinion/House Rules: the above is often not the case.
Answer your question OP?
Edited for grammar and minor clarity
|
Well, for starters I did use comeliness rules back when AD&D released Unearthed Arcana. Basically, beauty is only skin deep.
Mildly speaking, it made PCs feel good about their characters...in a nutshell. When they tried to seduce NPCs they did it with confidence, bravado.
I can see why they got rid of it. Eye of the beholder kind of stuff. Don't you want to be barbie?
I found this while typing in Comeliness D&D at Google.