I am a Barbarian/Alchemist mix who focuses on dealing massive amounts of damage in a single hit (mutagen + rage + large size = death). Because of this, I took a 7 in charisma to maximize my strength. Sadly, I got into a fight with a succubus who permanently drained 8 charisma. Needless to say, I fell unconscious. My party was kind enough to hop me up on enough drugs and eagle splendor potions to get a +2 charisma headband to turn into permanent bonus, leaving me with just 1 charisma.
No one in my group knows how this should be played. No one is high enough caster or alchemist level to cure me of the ailments, and I'm not sure how long it will be before I find an NPC who can cure me.
TL;DR: Succubi are whores and I'm now at 1 charisma. What do?
The DM think's I'm a vegetable who can't even poop without someone assisting me, I think otherwise.
I don't know the exact effects that would have on my character, but I would imagine that I would be unable to communicate anything, except the most primal emotions (like fear, happiness, pain, anger etc...)
I can not talk, I can not gesture, I can do nothing to communicate, or otherwise notify my party of anything. Of course, this means I can't use charisma based skills as well. For example, I can see tracks on the ground, but if I'm the only one who can see them I can't notify my party to them.
What do you think of this. Fair, broken, never thought about it? I think it's a rather fair ruling, seeing as the website only states what happens when you have 0 or less of a score (you fall unconscious or, in the case of constitution, you die)
I am a Barbarian/Alchemist mix who focuses on dealing massive amounts of damage in a single hit (mutagen + rage + large size = death). Because of this, I took a 7 in charisma to maximize my strength. Sadly, I got into a fight with a succubus who permanently drained 8 charisma. Needless to say, I fell unconscious. My party was kind enough to hop me up on enough drugs and eagle splendor potions to get a +2 charisma headband to turn into permanent bonus, leaving me with just 1 charisma.
No one in my group knows how this should be played. No one is high enough caster or alchemist level to cure me of the ailments, and I'm not sure how long it will be before I find an NPC who can cure me.
TL;DR: Succubi are whores and I'm now at 1 charisma. What do?
The DM think's I'm a vegetable who can't even poop without someone assisting me, I think otherwise.
I don't know the exact effects that would have on my character, but I would imagine that I would be unable to communicate anything, except the most primal emotions (like fear, happiness, pain, anger etc...)
I can not talk, I can not gesture, I can do nothing to communicate, or otherwise notify my party of anything. Of course, this means I can't use charisma based skills as well. For example, I can see tracks on the ground, but if I'm the only one who can see them I can't notify my party to them.
What do you think of this. Fair, broken, never thought about it? I think it's a rather fair ruling, seeing as the website only states what happens when you have 0 or less of a score (you fall unconscious or, in the case of constitution, you die)
I'd say that since Charisma is force of personality and has nothing to do with the ability to talk, I'd imagine a Charisma 1 person to be either highly abrasive (like a drill sergeant) or highly meek. given that you are a Barbarian, I'd say you would be more of the very incredibly abrasive a-hole, constantly belittling your teammates or NPCs.
For example, you find tracks...
"Hey idiots, why don't you get off your lazy butts and check this out. I found some tracks to that c--- that ran off with the item!"
Get some good cuss words in your vocabulary. You'll be needing it :)
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According to RAW nothing happens to your character other than various symptoms you or your dm choose for you to roleplay as long as you're above zero.
I would roleplay it as being able to communicate but not necessarily willing to communicate. I would also only show the most extreme of emotions.
Edit: I would rule a low charisma as a lack of personality. I would play him as bland and empty without due cause unless absolute necessity dictated otherwise.
It's good to know other people believe I wouldn't turn into a turnip :)
Now my only problem is the one of six madness's that have been inflicted upon me (only made worse by my will save being utter garbage). Personally, I'm hoping for psychosis, though phobia would probably fit better.
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You have extreme tourette's syndrome. You can speak, but for every relevant word you utter, ten or twelve meaningless obscenities separate it from the next relevant word.
/tongue-in-cheek
While having burgers growing out of your rear would certainly be unattractive, I don't think it represents lack of charisma all that well.
Blackbloodtroll has it right.
you have something like the sever signs and symptoms of autism.
(please note this is a fantasy afliction and does not in any way represent REAL autism.)
its not that you cant talk, or even that you cant reason.
you just dont recognize other people as important or relevant. they are to you like a TV running in the back ground.
for play sake you can assume that you retain just enough sense of personality to have some vague attachment to the party members. to go where they go, fight what they fight and manage your own personal hygene to a basic degree (eating and not becoming diseased from sleeping in your own filth) but he should roll a chance for you to go into an unexplained rage during random social interactions, occasionally become fascinated with something like a section of wall or the contents of your nose, and sometime wander off or stand idol while a battle rages around you.
although you maintain your full intellect and wisdom and understand things you can make personal needs known like being hungry or sleepy but cant hold general conversation (who would talk to a manikin or the TV that would be crazy)
please note. I am not making fun of autistic people. I am simply using cirtain symptoms of autism to simulate a fantasy affliction. this does not in any way represent anyone actually aflicted with autism.
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A lot of people (including a couple in this thread) don't seem to understand what it means to have low force of personality. It doesn't mean you're abrasive, it means people flat-out don't have any reason to notice or listen to you. You're that guy that when you and the rest of the gang go out to eat, people you pass by honestly didn't even realize you were there. You can talk, but you probably don't. Maybe you speak really quietly, but whenever you do speak, you don't get your point across at ALL. People may not like you, but they don't necessarily actively dislike you- because they probably don't even know who you are, even though you've been to their house a dozen times. You could choose to roleplay your character as abrasive or a gibbering wreck if you wanted, but remember that if you leave a strong impression on people you meet, you're not playing a low Charisma.
One especially important note, though, is that the lowest a human can naturally have in Charisma is 3. So even the most extreme real-world examples of people with social disorders or whatever are MORE charismatic than you, since your Charisma is even lower than that. Simply put, you have the charisma of an animated chair or a zombie. Real-world examples are a good baseline, but take it up (or down?) two notches.
Oh, and something occured to me. Why do you have a 1 Charisma? If I'm not mistaken, you started with a 7, but you took 8 Drain. Correct? That would put you at 0- you can't have a negative ability score. To keep you from being a catatonic vegetable, however, you said that you have a headband or something that increases your Charisma, right? Unless you have a homebrew +1 Charisma item, then your Charisma (assuming a standard item of Charisma +2) would be at 2. Like I said, you can't have a negative ability score, so your base is 0, with it enhanced to 2.
Unless I'm getting something wrong here.
Oh, and something occured to me. Why do you have a 1 Charisma? If I'm not mistaken, you started with a 7, but you took 8 Drain. Correct? That would put you at 0- you can't have a negative ability score. To keep you from being a catatonic vegetable, however, you said that you have a headband or something that increases your Charisma, right? Unless you have a homebrew +1 Charisma item, then your Charisma (assuming a standard item of Charisma +2) would be at 2. Like I said, you can't have a negative ability score, so your base is 0, with it enhanced to 2.
Unless I'm getting something wrong here.
Ah, that's good to know. We never really looked into the rules so I'll make sure to tell the GM that. Thanks for the correction. Also, you probably had the best answer to the problem than the rest of the posters. I'll try to roleplay him as socially invisible, only speaking when I absolutely have to or forced to by some outside force.
Actually a chronic severe depression would be in order.
I'd imagine a Charisma 1 person to be either highly abrasive (like a drill sergeant)
Hardly. A drill sergeant needs to intimidate and motivate people. Influence them. A good one will have HIGH Charisma.
Stats are -not- meaningless. Every statistic has an RP equivalent. Just like you cannot describe your character as a super-massive body-builder with a strength of 9.
No statistic is meaningless. The fact that you think they are is a bit disturbing.
Yes, realistically, you're very turnip-like. Charisma 1 is WAY lower than Rain Man. You had it right in your original post. You have lizard-like communication skills, but you are NOT YET completely lost in a nightmare of your own making. You still have one point!
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I don't think there's any one specific correct way to play having 1 or 2 charisma. The last time (only time I remember) that severe Charisma drain happened to a character in my group and it couldn't be fixed on the spot, he played it as sort of a listless fugue - little interest in engaging anyone or anything and just sort of going through the motions almost mechanically.
Another place to look for inspiration is the source of your affliction. The character wasn't hit with a generic arcane ray of charisma drain; he made a deal with a succubus and then had it torn away. There's any number of bizarre consequences that might have. Maybe the character is temporarly unable to feel any empathy, compassion or other warm feelings. Maybe he's terrified and paranoid. Maybe he's unable to trust, or maybe the charisma damage manifests as a paranoia that somehow reflects the nature of whatever the profane gift was in the first place. Those things aren't exactly what 1 Charisma "means" in any traditional sense, but they might be a way to spin this instance of having 1 Charisma.
Hmm.
Well... Crocodiles have a 2 charisma. Also, spiders.
Grant you, neither of the above are particularly intelligent, but they're also far from vegetables. Personally, with a 2 charisma, I would be looking to non-social animals and vermin for some inspiration, particularly in their interactions with other creatures. Grant you, this isn't perfect, considering they don't have human intelligence, but you have to start somewhere.
I recommend reading "The Curious Incident of the Dog at in the Night Time" by Mark Haddon. It presents a first-person narrative of a character that could be said to have high intelligence (logical reasoning), high wisdom (perception, spatial ability and acute awareness) and extremely low charisma (near inability to comprehend information in social terms).
No, not like a robot at all. I highly recommend reading it. The main character has emotions, motivations and acts accordingly, but is something like a high-functioning autistic. The book does not state his particular condition at all but the classification is not necessary for the story.
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He will act in a way that no one will notice him. If you have seen office space then he is the red stapler guy(Milton according to google). He mumbles and still manages to let his words trail off. No one pays attention to him because he does not seem important.
An example of your barbarian's future interactions: Milton gets talked over
Eventually you rage and burn the office down.
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I recommend reading "The Curious Incident of the Dog at in the Night Time" by Mark Haddon. It presents a first-person narrative of a character that could be said to have high intelligence (logical reasoning), high wisdom (perception, spatial ability and acute awareness) and extremely low charisma (near inability to comprehend information in social terms).
Even if your character has a charisma of 24 I recommend reading this book, because it is excellent.
A character role-played like the book's hero would be a wonderful thing to have in a role-playing group, but I certainly wouldn't be able to pull it off. It is also slightly off base for d20 games, because the character in the book has zero ability at Sense Motive (as he is completely unable to understand social situations), but Sense motive is based on Wisdom, not Charisma.
For me, one of the attractions of the book is that sooner or later the reader is able to understand what is going on in the boy's life, despite it all being relayed second hand by the boy, who doesn't understand it at all.
A lot of people (including a couple in this thread) don't seem to understand what it means to have low force of personality. It doesn't mean you're abrasive, it means people flat-out don't have any reason to notice or listen to you. You're that guy that when you and the rest of the gang go out to eat, people you pass by honestly didn't even realize you were there. You can talk, but you probably don't. Maybe you speak really quietly, but whenever you do speak, you don't get your point across at ALL. People may not like you, but they don't necessarily actively dislike you- because they probably don't even know who you are, even though you've been to their house a dozen times. You could choose to roleplay your character as abrasive or a gibbering wreck if you wanted, but remember that if you leave a strong impression on people you meet, you're not playing a low Charisma.
One especially important note, though, is that the lowest a human can naturally have in Charisma is 3. So even the most extreme real-world examples of people with social disorders or whatever are MORE charismatic than you, since your Charisma is even lower than that. Simply put, you have the charisma of an animated chair or a zombie. Real-world examples are a good baseline, but take it up (or down?) two notches.
+1
The DM think's I'm a vegetable who can't even poop without someone assisting me, I think otherwise.
That would be Int of 1. And probably not even then, because animals manage it. More likely, it would be that you were no longer potty (or even house) trained.
I don't know the exact effects that would have on my character, but I would imagine that I would be unable to communicate anything, except the most primal emotions (like fear, happiness, pain, anger etc...)
I can not talk, I can not gesture, I can do nothing to communicate, or otherwise notify my party of anything. Of course, this means I can't use charisma based skills as well. For example, I can see tracks on the ground, but if I'm the only one who can see them I can't notify my party to them.
No, that'd be intelligence. And you can still use charisma skills, you just have a -5 to them.
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As for addressing the problem in the first place, a scroll of restoration costs 800 gp. You can't read it yourself, but if you have a cleric, oracle, inquisitor or paladin, they can read it off (even if they're not 7th level yet). That will remove all the drain from a single stat.
Even if your character has a charisma of 24 I recommend reading this book, because it is excellent.
A character role-played like the book's hero would be a wonderful thing to have in a role-playing group, but I certainly wouldn't be able to pull it off. It is also slightly off base for d20 games, because the character in the book has zero ability at Sense Motive (as he is completely unable to understand social situations), but Sense motive is based on Wisdom, not Charisma.
For me, one of the attractions of the book is that sooner or later the reader is able to understand what is going on in the boy's life, despite it all being relayed second hand by the boy, who doesn't understand it at all.
Yeah, that is one thing that would be difficult to represent in d20. His ability to notice objects and details is great, but his ability to interpret social cues is nigh nonexistent.
Perhaps it would make sense to put sense motive in charisma, to reflect excellence in the social arena.
first: I think you optimized and your GM wants to make you pay, he's the GM, you have to accept or at least respect his view of charisma.
That being said, I would "play" it as that others barely notice you're a living being, and not furniture. When you lie dying on the floor the group will say "okay, let's move on" and when they need something that you have on your belt they will just take it, like from a shelf, and not ask you.
So basicly the rest of the people have to play your charisma, not you.
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first: I think you optimized and your GM wants to make you pay, he's the GM, you have to accept or at least respect his view of charisma.
That being said, I would "play" it as that others barely notice you're a living being, and not furniture. When you lie dying on the floor the group will say "okay, let's move on" and when they need something that you have on your belt they will just take it, like from a shelf, and not ask you.
So basicly the rest of the people have to play your charisma, not you.
There's nothing wrong with the character's memory, however.
When (if?) he gets his charisma restored, he will realise if people have taken advantage of him when he was vulnerable.
Without wading in to deeply...
1. I believe you should have died, not just fell unconscious, when you went negative charisma.
Not necessarily. According to the PRD:
If the amount of ability damage you have taken equals or exceeds your ability score, you immediately fall unconscious until the damage is less than your ability score. The only exception to this is your Constitution score. If the damage to your Constitution is equal to or greater than your Constitution score, you die.
So when an ability score drops to zero, you immediately fall unconscious (unless it's Con, in which case you die). The only exception to this is if the source for the damage/drain specifically says otherwise (like a Shadow's strength damaging touch). The Succubus' entry in PRD mentions no such caveat.
Profane Gift (Su) Once per day as a full-round action, a succubus may grant a profane gift to a willing humanoid creature by touching it for 1 full round. The target gains a +2 profane bonus to an ability score of his choice. A single creature may have no more than one profane gift from a succubus at a time. As long as the profane gift persists, the succubus can communicate telepathically with the target across any distance (and may use her suggestion spell-like ability through it). A profane gift is removed by dispel evil or dispel chaos. The succubus can remove it as well as a free action (causing 2d6 Charisma drain to the victim, no save).
Edit: Hmm, it seems my earlier post may have been incorrect- I actually can't seem to find anything saying that an ability score cannot be below zero (though I feel like I remember that being a rule- 3.x holdover, perhaps?). So I suppose, unless someone can back me up, it seems your character, TC, would indeed be at 1 Cha. Also, I realized that zombies have Charisma 10- so you have 1/10th the Charisma of a mindless brain-mongering corpse. Good luck roleplaying that. :-P
The only stat that kills you when you hit 0 is Con. The rest just leave you in a variety of helpless situations.
That being said I kind of agree with the Milton post. You'd just be talked over and pretty much ignored by everyone around you until you rage and burn the building down.
EDIT:
Darn it UltimaGabe, you beat me to it!
There you go, just role play that! You're The Least Interesting Man in the World.2. I would argue a turnip has more influence than others that you, as most plants have a higher charisma. You are the opposite of the Dos Equis guy.
That is an excellent way to view having a 1 Charisma! ^__^
See, it's not that he didn't finish that sentence, you just forgot he was talking and walked away.
You speak normally.
What everyone hears is elevator music.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Asberger%27s
Having empathy is a moral choice. A charisma that low would not only lack force of presense but what presense you to present is difficult to understand and off putting in a way that would generate no sympathy from others or have any likability. This is one of the problems of Charisma is that it is difficult to define.
It is not going to make you a vegetable by any means. You may be smart enough to know and wise enough to use good manners but you lack that certain something that causes people to respond positively or even understand your motives. The challenge is not for you to rp this it is for the DM to come up with reasons everyone is bothered by or hates you. Even when you attempt to meet normal social expectations.
You say hi and people think you are talking to someone else and do not care to reply.
You say hi and people think you are being sarcastic or have some sort of agenda.
Your arguements are deemed weak and lame because they are delivered akwardly.
Remember that person in junior high who everyone made fun of, they attempted to strike back but it make them look worse, the attempted to be cool sometimes by liking or doing the sames thing as the well liked and popular people but if backfired on them. Your character is like that to the Nth degree.
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My interpretation of a CHA score of 1 would mean that your character is absolutely socially repugnant - people feel creeped out by your presence and can't stand to be in the same area as you, animals raise their hackles and snarl and snap at you, children cry when you turn your gaze in their direction, and even your closest friends feel horrified to be near you for long durations. You're still as intelligent and wise as you were before your loss - you have no problems reasoning or thinking or creating sentences, but you project such an aura of wrongness that people don't listen to you...they're too distracted by how wretched you are to notice.
Beyond how others view you, you have no understanding of societal norms or taboos. A one Charisma might mean that you leer at every member of the opposite sex, rubbing yourself inappropriately in public without regard to propriety, but not because it's pleasurable...you do it because of an instinctual drive to mate. You take things you want without regard to whom they belong, because you've lost your comprehension of personal borders and belongings. You feel no remorse, you feel no guilt, you feel no empathy, no compassion, no love, no greed. You consume because you must eat, but you take no pleasure from it because you no longer know what pleasure is.
In short, you've become a creature of cunning and instinct, no longer balanced by the personality, the humanity, of charisma...and everyone can sense that you are such a base and inhuman creature.
My interpretation of a CHA score of 1 would mean that your character is absolutely socially repugnant - people feel creeped out by your presence and can't stand to be in the same area as you, animals raise their hackles and snarl and snap at you, children cry when you turn your gaze in their direction, and even your closest friends feel horrified to be near you for long durations. You're still as intelligent and wise as you were before your loss - you have no problems reasoning or thinking or creating sentences, but you project such an aura of wrongness that people don't listen to you...they're too distracted by how wretched you are to notice.
Beyond how others view you, you have no understanding of societal norms or taboos. A one Charisma might mean that you leer at every member of the opposite sex, rubbing yourself inappropriately in public without regard to propriety, but not because it's pleasurable...you do it because of an instinctual drive to mate. You take things you want without regard to whom they belong, because you've lost your comprehension of personal borders and belongings. You feel no remorse, you feel no guilt, you feel no empathy, no compassion, no love, no greed. You consume because you must eat, but you take no pleasure from it because you no longer know what pleasure is.
In short, you've become a creature of cunning and instinct, no longer balanced by the personality, the humanity, of charisma...and everyone can sense that you are such a base and inhuman creature.
+1
I think of him as having Tommy's charisma from the first half of The Who's Tommy rock opera. He's completely unresponsive to anyone else.
Being able to think and communicate falls under Intelligence.
Charisma affects how people react to you. It's your ability to make them react favorably.
Your character should be extremely depressing and pessimistic. It makes people just not want to be around you. Even when you're happy or excited it comes out in a depressed tone making everyone else think your just being sarcastic.