Charisma has a pretty good allotment of support in Pathfinder, actually.
There are several ways to get Charisma to AC, Charisma to hit and damage, Charisma to Initiative, and Charisma to Will saves...
Wisdom also has a decent amount of support in Pathfinder. You can get Wisdom to AC, Wisdom to hit, etc.
But those are class features, feats, and traits that reassign one stat for another.
You can talking about fundamental changes to the core mechanisms of Pathfinder. Not a bad thing, but I don't see the benefits outweighing the confusion that it will cause to anyone already familiar with the Pathfinder system.
I don't let anyone have any stats below an 8, and that's after racial modifiers are applied.
I like to factor in the racial modifiers so that you can never have a 6.
If someone dumps a stat to 8, then applies a racial -2, it's not viable at my table.
I also give generous point buys for character creation and expect well-rounded stats...
I don't support munchkin madness murderhobo shenanigans like "dump stats".
If someone wants to dump their Charisma to a 7 or a 5, I say go for it. The last time I ran a game where someone tried to drop it to a 3, they abandoned the concept as unplayable pretty much as soon as intelligent enemies understood the character's glaring weakness. I think, once you hit around 6 or lower, any form of ability damage or drain becomes a silver bullet. At 3, poisons that target Charisma are basically just save-or-die situations.
#2 illustrates where the abstraction of six ability scores starts to break down; one's "sense of self" should definitely overlap a lot with the concept of "willpower".
I don't think it makes sense to say that being unattentive awards you any kind of mental resistance, though. Oblivious people are the easiest to influence.
#3 almost makes sense, but that's just an offshoot of a bonus to Diplomacy.
In my attempt at a d20 rules system, u had 10 attributes: Strength, Deftness, Agility, Endurance, Toughness, Intelligence, Wit, Wisdom, Spirit and Charm. That covered all the nooks and crannies I felt the 6 abilities left unfilled (the gnarled old veteran with arthritis and rock-steady aim, the wise but unobservant philosopher, the foolhardy swordsman who's easily duped but never says die).
As for confusion, I played 3rd and 3.5 for over a decade and then switched to Pathfinder. Me and my groups always managed okay. And that's with the constant houserules always changing and growing.
Bonus to Will saves. This is either in the form of straight-up replacing Wisdom or taking the higher or average of the two. Drawback here seems to be that screws with how much Will the Monk gets.
What about Wisdom, then? I flirt with having it govern ranged attack rather than Dexterity on the basis that no matter how agile you are, if you have bad senses you can't aim well. I realize the logic doesn't work for everyone.
Kirthfinder does both of these.
One thing I liked about 4e was the saves:
- Fortitude means one's ability to withstand physical exertion. Take either Constitution... or Strength (whichever is higher at the time)
- Reflexes means one's ability to react rapidly to danger. Take either Dexterity... or Intelligence (same)
- Will means one's ability to assert one's sense of self. Take either Wisdom... or Charisma (same)
It changes slightly the order in which the attributes scores are displayed (Con nearer Str), but it's quite interesting for the players.
Of course, if what you seek is to reduce dump stats, you wouldn't want that kind of option at all. And I agree with one of the proposals: if you want to enforce it, enforce it. Say "no score lower than this minimum" and go. As a GM, you have every right to do so.
[EDITs] You can also engineer your games towards more social situations, making good use of Diplomacy/Intimidate, or Perform. And it's not devoid of uses in combat: have you seen Combat Performance, for gladiators? Or a judicious application of Intimidate and Shatter Defenses?
Forget Charisma, Constitution is the one ability score underused in the game: there is only one save... and the hit points (important, but still only one effect). AFAIK, no skill and no class ability depends on Constitution. Yet everyone and their pet take at least 10 there.
Want to improve Charisma? Have your player make undead characters (for which Charisma determines the hit points)...
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I like to factor in the racial modifiers so that you can never have a 6.
If someone dumps a stat to 8, then applies a racial -2, it's not viable at my table.
I also give generous point buys for character creation and expect well-rounded stats...
I don't support munchkin madness murderhobo shenanigans like "dump stats".
Rather than prevent such decisions, I've found it more fun to design situations that punish highlight the player's decisions when allocating strengths and weaknesses. } : D
"What's that? Drogg was carriage-sitting and saw the killer and wants into the party to warn his more intrigue-suitable friends? Sure, make that Diplomacy check, champ!"
I've done more or less that, and the amount of yelling required to get the Droggoid player away from his phone rendered it counterproductive.
Maybe relevant skills should have rank caps attached?
For example, a character can only have a number of ranks in a skill equal to twice the relevant ability score. AKA, Fighter McFighterson, who has a charisma of 7, can never get more than 14 ranks in Bluff or Diplomacy.
Of course, it would still be worth it for Fighter McFighterson to dump to 7 in such scenarios, and a minor annoyance at high levels isn't really balance changing, but maybe something similar to that could work.
Another idea is for DMs to ask for regular old ability checks. No amount of Diplomacy skill ranks will help McFighterson if he's just rolling d20+CHA.
I've also thought about characters making "charisma saving throws" instead of will. I'm somewhat new to pathfinder: I was brought up on 5e originally, and while I would agree that things like strength saving throws or Intelligence saving throws don't really make sense (using STR or INT suggests proactive behavior, not reactive), I think CHA makes sense as a saving throw.
Another idea is for DMs to ask for regular old ability checks. No amount of Diplomacy skill ranks will help McFighterson if he's just rolling d20+CHA.
So the character, who is obviously proficient in social interactions, shouldn't get to apply any of their expertise because someone felt a need to punish those with low charisma?
Doesn't sound fun or fair.
How would you like it if your GM decided that you had to make a Strength ability check to hit opponents instead of relying on BAB and feats?
Or that you're not allowed to add your class bonus to reflex saves because your dexterity modifier is 0?
I'm not saying it's a good idea, and these sorts of changes definitely shouldn't be sprung on a group halfway through a campaign. That's just bad DM work.
I was just making a point: That the problem with increasing Charisma's utility is that by increasing it, you are probably punishing someone else who could do "X" before CHA became relevant for that thing.
Unless you are going to come up with entirely new mechanics, it's going to screw someone else. Even if you come up with new mechanics, the utility of those options are probably going to make other stuff obsolete.
There is one way that I can think of:
Having CHA and CON count for hitpoints, so hitpoints at level-up are dx+CON+CHA.
It makes sense, since you derive HP from both your body and the strength of your personality.
It would buff spontaneous casters for sure. You could change it so that only half the CHA modifier applies.
A lot of DM's buff PC hitpoints anyway.