Alternate Rule: Make Charisma Great Again!

[inshal chenet]

So I have noticed that Charisma is still stuck as the only "true dump stat." What if instead of having a Focus Pool limit of 3 it was 1 + Cha mod? Would that be balanced?

[Aricks]

inshal chenet wrote:

So I have noticed that Charisma is still stuck as the only "true dump stat." What if instead of having a Focus Pool limit of 3 it was 1 + Cha mod? Would that be balanced?

IMO cha isn't a dump stat anymore. Consider the utility of deception and intimidate with the current action economy with MAP. Being able to do anything useful with that 2nd or third action is really good.

[keftiu]

Can we maybe not invoke MAGA in our tabletop mechanic discussions?

[rainzax]

Your title could be better as "Make America Grift Again" and by America we mean Golarian.

...

I believe the reason Focus is hard-capped at 3 is because the difference between "more" points and "unlimited" points is proportionally much smaller than lower numbers; as the resource is renewable and becasue fights tend to have certain durations.

I could be wrong?

[Vidmaster7]

I kind of wish charisma had been tied to magic items close but not quite like how they had it.

If you wanted to make it more important you could change the resonance which is currently 10 to 8 and have charisma give +1 resonance per bonus. so 14 chr gets you back to 10 everything else is gravy.

[rainzax]

Or maybe build conceptually off the Bulk Math?

5+X and 10+X where X equals Charisma modifier.

Not sure what the first threshold is meant to be though...

Maybe if you cross you first threshold, and become a "willing" recipient of someone else's beneficial magic, you must roll a flat check DC = number of invested items, or the effects of their magic affecting your person are counteracted?

And the Incredible Investiture feat grants both a +2 threshold and a +2 bonus to this flat check (instead of it's normal effects)?...

[rainzax]

Resonance
A character's Resonance scores are a measure that represent the tolerance a character has to the peculiar side-effects of invested magic equipment. When a character invests a magic item, the tolerance increases by one.
A character's Absolute Resonance is equal to 10 plus their Charisma modifier. The number of magic items they have invested can never exceed this amount.
A character's Tolerant Resonance score is equal to 5 plus their Charisma modifier.
A character that has invested a number of items greater than their Tolerant Resonance, but less than their Absolute Resonance, becomes Thaumadistorted. A character who has invested more magic items than their Absolute Resonance renders all of those items suppressed.

Thaumadistorted
A thaumadistorted character must roll a flat check against their current tolerance (number of items invested) to activate their magic items. Failure on this check causes the activation to fail, wasting the action, but not the daily use.

Incredible Investiture
(Skill Feat 1)
Pre-requisites: Trained in Arcana
You increase your Tolerant Resonance and Absolute Resonance scores by two each. When you have the thaumadistorted condition, you gain a +2 on your flat checks to activate a magic item you have invested.

[Arachnofiend]

Focus pool keying off of charisma gets super weird on some classes. Monks, for example, it becomes completely non-viable to focus on wisdom - a Monk that wants to use the DC based ki powers is stuck boosting every attribute other than intelligence. A magical monk would be much better off forgetting wisdom and just using the ki powers that don't care about DC like ki strike.

[Corvo Spiritwind]

inshal chenet wrote:

So I have noticed that Charisma is still stuck as the only "true dump stat." What if instead of having a Focus Pool limit of 3 it was 1 + Cha mod? Would that be balanced?

I'd disagree but that depends on if you're going powergaming or roleplay approach. I personally like my rogue being good at intimidation, diplomacy and creating diversions for stealing/sneaking, so Cha is quite nice to have.

It's a dump stat if you have zero interest in playing a social character or using social skills. Even for combat, a cha character can use his third action on intimidation or feints without suffering MAPs.

[Lady Melo]

I plan to look in to Calculating Will saves using charisma, as a source of personal strength, identity, and ego to shrug off some effects, and change some existing will saves to perception saves which seems to now cover insight/sense motive type actions (Currently it's looking like just Illusions will become perception saves, though a few others may as well).

[Vidmaster 1st edition]

I think (It's been awhile memory is foggy) in 1st edition AD&D a Very high charisma would give you bonuses against charms and mild altering stuff which always made sense to me.

[Excaliburproxy]

inshal chenet wrote:

So I have noticed that Charisma is still stuck as the only "true dump stat." What if instead of having a Focus Pool limit of 3 it was 1 + Cha mod? Would that be balanced?

You would still have Cha as a dump stat for non-focus users. Also, it would double the usefulness of charisma for clerics which is maybe not something you want.

Towards some earlier suggestions: You can make will saves scale off the average of your wisdom and charisma or go full 4e and let you use the higher.

[Perpdepog]

Lady Melo wrote:

I plan to look in to Calculating Will saves using charisma, as a source of personal strength, identity, and ego to shrug off some effects, and change some existing will saves to perception saves which seems to now cover insight/sense motive type actions (Currently it's looking like just Illusions will become perception saves, though a few others may as well).

I'm honestly a little surprised that they didn't do this from the getgo. Charsima is usually flavored as the force of personality, and in my mind that makes it the constitution of your mental stats in many ways.

How disruptive would it be to shift will over to keying off charisma?