Played in a campaign using that rule. Wound up as the world's sexiest mongrelfolk.
GAHHHH Mental Image Theatre! GAAAHHHH!
*runs around with images of an amazingly buff and sexy Mongrelman (so hot that even the men that are straight want him) singing "I'm Too Sexy"* GAHHHHH!!!
Ask the Beholder.
Don't they have more con than cha?
I think we have our answer.
Almost every face or figure study done in psychology would suggest beauty is mainly "Constitution, plus smiling."
All these years I've been climbing mountains I've never yet had a runway model breeze by me while I huffed and puffed along.
So I know it's nowhere to be found in the official rulebook, but determining a character's 'natural' beauty at creation has been plaguing my thoughts recently. In my games we often role a 'hotness score' for characters (1d6+Cha) so we can easily move on from conversations of who's cuter and determine starting attitude, however I'm starting to wonder if looks would actually be based off of this stat as most people think. The crit deck says things like "ugly wound" dealing CHA damage, but it's also a mental stat. Thoughts? Should how pretty a character is be based off of charisma at all? Or should it be in the realm of constitution?
Thank you for your time.
There is no such thing as mental stats or physical stats, those are arbitrary groupings that a lot of people use, but don't exist in published text.
Charisma is listed as a measure of beauty, right in the core rulebook. It is ALSO what you use to determine how convincing you are.
Conversely, other races find each other despicable (Dwarves-Elves, Halflings-Giants and so on) so beauty is subjective. They don't have a mechanical measure for it because it would be very hard to track, you would need a grid showing modifiers for how each race interacts which each other race.
There is no such thing as mental stats or physical stats, those are arbitrary groupings that a lot of people use, but don't exist in published text.
The headband grants the wearer an enhancement bonus to all mental ability scores (Intelligence, Wisdom, and Charisma) of +2, +4, or +6.
This was the easiest one for me to find, but I am sure there are others. Not disagreeing with any of the rest of your post though.
There is no such thing as mental stats or physical stats, those are arbitrary groupings that a lot of people use, but don't exist in published text.The headband grants the wearer an enhancement bonus to all mental ability scores (Intelligence, Wisdom, and Charisma) of +2, +4, or +6.This was the easiest one for me to find, but I am sure there are others. Not disagreeing with any of the rest of your post though.
The person who made that magic item fell into the same trap most of us have fallen into.
If 'mental ability scores' had been a defined concept already, they wouldn't have had to add the information in the brackets...
It's kinda like how in English, words that become common parlance are adopted into the language even though they weren't proper words at the outset.
Mental Stats is not a recognized game mechanic, but if we all adopt it long enough, and enough magic items reference it (like your example above) then perhaps it will become a recognized mechanic that is addressed in the CRB where they talk about the six stats.
Currently, it isn't there. The question is... Why not?
Okay, if magic items don't count, how about:
With age, a character's physical ability scores decrease and his mental ability scores increase (see the Aging Effects tables). The effects of each aging step are cumulative. However, none of a character's ability scores can be reduced below 1 in this way.
Does every single thing in the book need to have a glossary entry to count as a rules mechanic? Do they really need to define the term before it comes up? How many times does it need to be referenced?
Okay, if magic items don't count, how about:
With age, a character's physical ability scores decrease and his mental ability scores increase (see the Aging Effects tables). The effects of each aging step are cumulative. However, none of a character's ability scores can be reduced below 1 in this way.Does every single thing in the book need to have a glossary entry to count as a rules mechanic? Do they really need to define the term before it comes up? How many times does it need to be referenced?
A better question would be this:
After defining the existing six stats in the CRB, why is this split between Physical and Mental stats not talked about?
It is a concept we all use and refer to (myself included), but is slowly creeping to the ruleset similar to my example of how English (or any language) evolves.
It was not a planned distinction, nor is it currently implemented as a recognized mechanic (otherwise you could have magic items adding to "all mental stat" and "all physical stats" rather than spelling out which ones they modify).
There is no real point to me bringing this up, other than to bring attention to the fact that many people assume the stats have been split into two categories by the game designers since day one.
They have not.
They are BECOMING split into these two categories, because almost everyone uses them this way already.
There is no real point to me bringing this up, other than to bring attention to the fact that many people assume the stats have been split into two categories by the game designers since day one.
They have not.
They are BECOMING split into these two categories, because almost everyone uses them this way already.
Both of my quotes are from the CRB, the 'day one' rules. You can argue that such distinctions didn't exist in D&D (I'm not going to go back and check), but as far as Pathfinder is concerned the original game designers did split the stats into the two categories since day one. They didn't state it in the Ability Score sections of the rules probably because they were very limited in word count (a lot of stuff was cut down because of this) and there was no need to mention it until it came up later.
Appearance is equal to charisma. After too many characters who have chosen to dump charisma because it has no particular combat application, then claim that they have a 3 personality and an 18 appearance, using this to fulfil their own erotic dreams about being an a@!@&*# supermodel... enough was enough. Want to look good? Pump up charisma. Don't care about charisma? Live with a plain-looking character.
Also, charisma is not particularly useful as a measure of beauty across racial boundaries. Don't keep harping about liches and hags, it's getting too sodding old.
Since deciding on this, the characters I have gotten in my games have actually prioritized charisma more than before, and I haven't had one single self-declared a!@@~%$ character.
Both of my quotes are from the CRB, the 'day one' rules. You can argue that such distinctions didn't exist in D&D (I'm not going to go back and check),There is no real point to me bringing this up, other than to bring attention to the fact that many people assume the stats have been split into two categories by the game designers since day one.
They have not.
They are BECOMING split into these two categories, because almost everyone uses them this way already.
They do.
If you bothered to do a google check Wikipedia even has that listed. It's been a grouping for a long time in 3.X.
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Don't keep harping about liches and hags, it's getting too sodding old.
Ah, "that argument is inconvenient for me, so please stop using it."
No, not at all. As I said, in the preceding sentence which you ignored: "Also, charisma is not particularly useful as a measure of beauty across racial boundaries."
This is not a surprise to anyone, I hope. When dealing with radically different creatures, appearance affects us differently. That is why talking about liches and hags is useless in a discussion about appearance.
No, not at all. As I said, in the preceding sentence which you ignored: "Also, charisma is not particularly useful as a measure of beauty across racial boundaries."
That statement totally doesn't apply to the example given, though -- which is why I felt safe in ignoring it. Hags think that human guys are HAWT, and seek to reproduce with them. Human guys think that hags are heinous, and won't go near them unless they're disguised. That very much cuts across racial boundaries, in both directions.
Appearance is equal to charisma. After too many characters who have chosen to dump charisma because it has no particular combat application, then claim that they have a 3 personality and an 18 appearance, using this to fulfil their own erotic dreams about being an a%&$~$~ supermodel... enough was enough.
Did these players tell you that, or did you read their minds?
And I am sure mosquitoes like the look of all humans, too. Hags are effectively a parasite on humanoids. Don't mix in appearance here, though. If you do, you would need to add in a specific modifier to appearance for each race toward each other race - and frankly, that would be a huge effort and completely wasted. Across races, charisma is fine giving all the other perks like leadership and personal magnetism, but appearance is a useless concept.
Appearance is equal to charisma. After too many characters who have chosen to dump charisma because it has no particular combat application, then claim that they have a 3 personality and an 18 appearance, using this to fulfil their own erotic dreams about being an a%&$~$~ supermodel... enough was enough.Did these players tell you that, or did you read their minds?
Enough of them told me that "I look mind-blowingly good, but I have a low charisma because I have a nasty personality", followed by "but I have to act badly toward others because I have a nasty personality" that I never needed to read anyone's mind.
Enough of them told me that "I look mind-blowingly good, but I have a low charisma because I have a nasty personality", followed by "but I have to act badly toward others because I have a nasty personality" that I never needed to read anyone's mind.Appearance is equal to charisma. After too many characters who have chosen to dump charisma because it has no particular combat application, then claim that they have a 3 personality and an 18 appearance, using this to fulfil their own erotic dreams about being an a%&$~$~ supermodel... enough was enough.Did these players tell you that, or did you read their minds?
Is a character with mind-blowing good looks and a high charisma also necessarily an erotic fantasy?
The erotic fantasy part was my interpretation of what these people got out of it. I could be wrong. There could be other reasons why someone chooses to play a character that will be a problem in virtually any campaign played. Then do it again, every time dumping charisma, and going with hawt looks and a horrid personality as the excuse.
Charisma is appearance, not beauty. Exhibit A:
That is one sharp-looking, scary dude. But he's no Derek Zoolander.
Stats are fairly irrelevant to actual physical attractiveness, though I usually assume that PCs are attractive (for their race) unless they specify otherwise.
A character needs something like the charming trait or the green widow racial ability to actually be getting a mechanical advantage from being pretty =P
Mediocre charisma pretty person v. high charisma pretty person would be, say, Megan Fox or Rosie Huntington-Whiteley v. Jennifer Lawrence or Natalie Portman.
High charisma not-pretty person v. high charisma pretty person would be, say, Sylvester Stallone or Bruce Willis v. Michael Fassbender or Benedict Cumberbatch.
Perhaps another way to put it - think of actors who are actually good at acting, and then think of actors who've made a career of just being themselves (or at least a caricature of themselves) on screen.
(So, say, Jeff Bridges v. Arnold Schwarzenegger =P)
Your mileage for my examples may vary =P
Appearance isn't the same as attractiveness/beauty/etc., but many people treat them as such, which tends to lead to problems. Appearance is objective, and is the same regardless of who is looking at you, while attractiveness is subjective, and can change drastically depending on the tastes of whoever is looking at you.
In my opinion players should be able to choose their character's appearance, while using the ability scores as guidelines. A strong/dextrous character, for example, should probably look more physically fit than the wizard who dumped all their physical stats, but that doesn't mean they need to have a visible six-pack. Its not much different from picking eye color, hair color, or even skin color, except that the guidelines are set by stats instead of race (EDIT: or in addition to race, I should say, since race certainly affects appearance choices).
Now, whether others find that character's appearance to be attractive...that is entirely up to whoever is in control of the character looking at them, not the player of the character being looked at. In the case of NPCs when I am GMing, I'll either decide based on what I think fits the characters and the story, or if I want to leave it somewhat random, I'll make a charisma check against whatever I feel is a fitting DC. For example, if its a creature of the same race I might just do DC 10, and up to say a DC 25 for different races, depending on just how different they are. Other modifiers to the DC could be things like whether the person is attracted to muscles or intelligence, or even for clothing preferences.
As for Sissyl's situation, what I'll say to that is that being attractive with a low charisma doesn't mean you have to have a nasty personality. You could just be socially awkward in some way, maybe by being shy or blunt. Low charisma just means you are less likable or noticeable, not that you are more hate-able. If players choose for their character to be rude, it is usually because the player wants to be rude, not because they feel forced to do so. In addition, as I said earlier, the players should not be able to choose whether others are attracted to them. So overall it just sounds like you were playing with people who wanted to be [insert obvious swear word/words here], and changing how appearance/attractiveness works might not solve that problem.
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Charisma is appearance, not beauty. Exhibit A:
That is one sharp-looking, scary dude. But he's no Derek Zoolander.
I also think that we can all agree that Rasputin oozed charisma out of his every pore. Pretty much what he was known for, to be honest.
appearance is a useless concept.
Which is exactly why it shouldn't have a stat governing it. I personally leave it out of Charisma altogether. I use Charisma as force of personality only. (As such, you use your Cha modifier, not your Wis modifier, on Will saves in my home game.)
And of course, you're free to houserule that in your game.
It's not that it might not help my situation to change the way charisma and appearance works. I enforced RAW, tied appearance completely to charisma, and now the problem is gone.
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The way I play it, Charisma is a purely mental stat: Your force of personality / "mental strength". Charisma is your ability to convince others to do what you want them to do, whether that's by argument, threat, or fast-talking. Physical appearance certainly comes into play a bit when trying to convince people to go along with you, but that doesn't necessarily mean attractiveness.
I let players decide what their characters look like and how attractive they are. There are traits out there that give situational bonuses for attractiveness: If a player wants his PC's rugged handsomeness to affect skill rolls, he can take one of those traits. Otherwise, we just say he's ruggedly handsome and let the story play out accordingly.
A Beauty is in the eye of the beholder. Rasputin had Cha but was consider vile when it came to appearance
Another vote for rolling the Comeliness stat like others have talked about - and it actually does attempt to compensate for the cross-race divide some, though it's still fairly human-centric. There are modifiers based on your race (think positive for elves, negative for half-orcs) that don't apply when you're interacting with someone of your own race (or at least, that's how it was taught to me). It's never really made much mechanical difference for us, but it can be fun if you want to let fate decide, and it's actually sort of remarkable how well the dice tend to support our preconceived notions.
(Side note: when the aasimar oracle rolls a 17, the result comes out to...angelic blood plus personality oozing out the very pores, carry the one...daaaaaamn.)
Fair enough based on some posts , i would follow this:
Charisma by RAW will directly influence your apparence , now to me it means , higher you should be more beautiful using the races standards , but if we consider that beauty changes based on the person , then even if a vast majority would think a person with high charisma is beautiful , some will still not do so.
Still i wouldnt consider giving any bonus or extra penalty to a player based on this in the first place , that is what the charisma modifier is for.
Charisma = Appearance is not RAW in my opinion.
Let's look again at what the rules say:
Charisma measures a character's personality, personal magnetism, ability to lead, and appearance.
Charisma = Personality + Magnetism + Leadership + Appearance
In an equation where X = Y + Z, raising the value of X does not mean that Y also has to go up; it could just as easily be that Z is going up. Y could even go down as long as Z goes up by a proportional amount.
There are four 'values' added to charisma by RAW, so you can easily have a high charisma while still having one of these values be low, or a low charisma with one of the values being high.
Charisma = Appearance is not RAW in my opinion.
Let's look again at what the rules say:
Charisma measures a character's personality, personal magnetism, ability to lead, and appearance.Charisma = Personality + Magnetism + Leadership + Appearance
In an equation where X = Y + Z, raising the value of X does not mean that Y also has to go up; it could just as easily be that Z is going up. Y could even go down as long as Z goes up by a proportional amount.
There are four 'values' added to charisma by RAW, so you can easily have a high charisma while still having one of these values be low, or a low charisma with one of the values being high.
Fair enough , that is one way to see it.
I would say it is actually a direct mod to all of the above together.
So lets say , char +5? That means you have actually + 5 on Personality , Magnetism , Leadership AND Appearance.
If you divide them separately , that would mean the PC would actually get different modifiers on different CHAR checks using the same exact skill based on what exactly he is trying to do , even if as far as i know RAW doesnt cover it.
Example , You say your PC sucks at leading at the start , but he is super hot and all ladies fall for him instantly , he is a bard with max charisma , as far as i know , saying this wont give you any bonus to get ladies later or will give you penalties to lead a group. You will just keep your normal CHA mod.
Charisma = Appearance is not RAW in my opinion.
Let's look again at what the rules say:
Charisma measures a character's personality, personal magnetism, ability to lead, and appearance.Charisma = Personality + Magnetism + Leadership + Appearance
In an equation where X = Y + Z, raising the value of X does not mean that Y also has to go up; it could just as easily be that Z is going up. Y could even go down as long as Z goes up by a proportional amount.
There are four 'values' added to charisma by RAW, so you can easily have a high charisma while still having one of these values be low, or a low charisma with one of the values being high.
Charisma 'measures' four qualities. There's nothing in the rules about it being directly additive (or even actually quantitative) in how it measures each of them. You can't just make up an arbitrary equation and then claim it supports your interpretation.
RAW, Charisma is the only stat that gives any indication of your character's appearance. So if your character is a paragon of physical beauty, and rocking low CHA, you should make up for that in the rest of your character's (uninspiring apparently) personality.
Am I allowed to go the other direction? If I have a CHA 5 Dwarf, can I say he's got a super strong personality, inspiring magnetism, is a natural born leader, but is hideously ugly because he was burned nearly to death?
Physical attractiveness - we'll just call it 'beauty' hereafter - can be linked to Charisma, and people tend to be somewhat influenced by physical beauty (and during adolescence, this is a pretty significant element), but because of the way an RPG works, whether physical attractiveness/beauty is a part of Charisma can be linked, and can be a complete disconnect. Simply put, RPG numbers are meant to indicate whether something goes your way or not.
Yes, this means a high charisma character can be incredibly beautiful - such as elves, or unicorns, or aasimar, or angels, or whatever. It also means that high charisma characters can be not beautiful - hags, or demon lords, or undead, or whatever. However it happens, however it works - beauty, well-applied force of personality, whatever - a high Charisma means that you know how to use what you got in order to get things to go your way. This can also mean that someone with great beauty and a forceful personality can have a low Charisma, because they unnerve people, or offend people, or people are thinking too much about what could happen in bed than they are 'hey I should do what this guy/girl says'.
ALL the other stats are similar. You might have a genius on your hands, but if you have ADD or ADHD, you may not have a high score in it, because you can't be kept on-task long enough to make it work for you. You might be incredibly dextrous in hand and body, but your timing might be off, or your ability to anticipate when the pressure's on might wind up meaning that you have a low Dex score. You might be human average in strength, but your knowledge of timing, leverage, and balance might indicate that you can carry a lot more, hit a lot harder than your pure physicality would indicate.
So when it comes to physical attractiveness, or any other attribute, IMO you should allow the players to define why they are the way they are, within a bowshot of reason, reminding them that if they all decide they have great beauty but 'they just can't use it properly', well, there are negative consequences for such things - like commoners in cities harrassing them with wolf-whistles and catcalls ... a lot.
Charisma = Appearance is not RAW in my opinion.
Let's look again at what the rules say:
Charisma measures a character's personality, personal magnetism, ability to lead, and appearance.Charisma = Personality + Magnetism + Leadership + Appearance
In an equation where X = Y + Z, raising the value of X does not mean that Y also has to go up; it could just as easily be that Z is going up. Y could even go down as long as Z goes up by a proportional amount.
There are four 'values' added to charisma by RAW, so you can easily have a high charisma while still having one of these values be low, or a low charisma with one of the values being high.
Charisma 'measures' four qualities. There's nothing in the rules about it being directly additive (or even actually quantitative) in how it measures each of them. You can't just make up an arbitrary equation and then claim it supports your interpretation.
RAW, Charisma is the only stat that gives any indication of your character's appearance. So if your character is a paragon of physical beauty, and rocking low CHA, you should make up for that in the rest of your character's (uninspiring apparently) personality.
Am I allowed to go the other direction? If I have a CHA 5 Dwarf, can I say he's got a super strong personality, inspiring magnetism, is a natural born leader, but is hideously ugly because he was burned nearly to death?
Fun question would be , if that is the way it is meant to work , then what happens when im dealing with a blind person?
Does the penalty disappears since the person cant see your appearance and thus isnt affect by it?
And does your leadership score change if you only recruit blind followers and cohort? Since currently it is based on just CHA and saying you are a great leader... , but look ugly will still mean less people want to follow you.
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There are other roleplaying games that go in to such specifics; some games also go into individual strength/dexterity scores for each arm, legs, and core. Some specify whether you are better at swinging a sword sideways, downwards, or thrusting. Some games even go through the insanity of trying to resolve everybody's actions as a single turn, instead of people taking turns in order.
Pathfinder takes the approach of generalization for the sake of keeping the game playable by most people. Ability scores, and really all stats, are an abstracted representation of what a character is capable of. In the case of charisma, this can be due to attractiveness or other social skills; the game doesn't bother going into detail about which part contributes how much because that would add more complication, and even pathfinder players can only tolerate so much of that.
As far as the beauty score idea specifically goes though, I am very tempted to post a random picture of someone, and see if the thread can come to an agreement on what their beauty score would be. Alternatively, people could post their own pictures (of other people, not themselves, let's not get crazy) with what they think their number should be, and people could vote on whether they agree with that number or not. Boy, that would be an entertaining mess of a thread derail. Of course, asking for a charisma score would probably be just as inconclusive.