Guardian Spirit Chatisma

[Melkiador]

I’d like some opinions on what a guardian spirit’s charisma should be.

Quote:

Ability Scores: The guardian spirit’s Charisma score becomes 18 unless the base creature’s Charisma score was higher. Each of the guardian spirit’s ability scores increases when it’s summoned by higher-level spells, as noted on the Conjured Guardian table above.

So, the charisma is at least 18, but then all ability scores increase by at least 2. So does the first guardian spirit have a charisma of 18 or 20. It feels weird to be set at 18 in the first sentence just to immediately be raised again in the next sentence.

[Jared Walter 356]

Melkiador wrote:

I’d like some opinions on what a guardian spirit’s charisma should be.

Quote:

Ability Scores: The guardian spirit’s Charisma score becomes 18 unless the base creature’s Charisma score was higher. Each of the guardian spirit’s ability scores increases when it’s summoned by higher-level spells, as noted on the Conjured Guardian table above.

So, the charisma is at least 18, but then all ability scores increase by at least 2. So does the first guardian spirit have a charisma of 18 or 20. It feels weird to be set at 18 in the first sentence just to immediately be raised again in the next sentence.

I would say it's 20. If the templated creature had a lower charisma score it would be raised to 18, then the +2 kicks in.

If the templated creature started with 20, then it would be raised to 22.

It seems a little weird, but makes sense to me based on the structure of the sentence and the table. IF you used summon monster 5, it would go to 18, then up to 22.