Alternate Charisma Uses

[Corlon]

I must be the only rogue in the world that takes constitution as a dump stat...

Generally, like most other people said, it's more subjective rulings by the DM that makes charisma more powerful, but the more action points seems like a good idea.

 

[punkorange]

...
An idea I had but only got to test once was to tie in charisma with luck (paladin's get a bonus to their saves as kind of a blessing...so I decided to make charisma that way in general).

Whenever a player rolled a 10 on a 20....they added their charimsa modifier. I choose 10 because its the middle number....a good or bad modifier can really effect the result while adding to a 20 or subtracting from a 1 doesn't really have much effect.

I like that idea, I like it better without telling my players about it

 

[Nifft]

Oh, wow. I really like that. It seems like a very, very minor thing--ties don't come up often, do they?--but it's just beautiful, conceptually.

They come up about as often as a +1 bonus helps. That is to say, about 5% of the time.

If you count Attack vs. AC as an elligeable roll, well...

But you're absolutely right in that the feel of the change is minor. Which I like.

Cheers, -- N

 

[MadBlue]

The descriptions are not meant to detail motives, but to describe how a person's force of personality affects other people.

Interesting. I'm assuming that the affects are there for flavor. For example, an indifferent NPC would still start off as indifferent, he'd just do it in a way that shows more respect for someone with a higher Charisma than for someone with a lower Charisma.

Is it relative, though? For example, what happens if the NPC has an 18 Charisma and the PC has a 16 Charisma? Would the NPC be in awe of the PC, even though his own Charisma would provoke servility in others? What if the NPC has a 6 Charisma and the PC has an 8 Charisma? Would the NPC treat the PC condescendingly even though his own Charisma provokes a feeling of domination in others? What if they both have a 12 Charisma? Does the NPC see the PC as an equal, or does he act with deference? It would seem to me that there should be some kind of opposed Charisma check and/or massive table involved to determine what the attitude of the NPC would be.

As far as actually influencing an NPCs attitude upon first meeting, I'd be against giving Charisma that much power. Considering that there are only five attitudes, and that they require successful skill checks and one minute (or a full round at -10) to improve, I think that giving a character a chance to improve (or degrade) an NPCs initial attitude instantly upon first meeting seriously overvalues Charisma, and devalues the skills Charisma is based on. Why bother with Diplomacy, Bluff or Intimidate if you have a high enough Charisma that everyone you meet wishes you well or will take risks to help you? Why even leave the house with a low Charisma if it means everyone you meet is going to wish you ill, or possibly even take risks to hurt you? That doesn't sound like a game world that would be very much fun to roleplay in, at either end of the Charisma scale.

MadBlue

 

[Nifft]

Interesting. I'm assuming that the affects are there for flavor. For example, an indifferent NPC would still start off as indifferent, he'd just do it in a way that shows more respect for someone with a higher Charisma than for someone with a lower Charisma.

So, Charisma would have no mechanical benefit... that would keep it a dump stat.

-- N

 

[Cyberzombie]

So, Charisma would have no mechanical benefit... that would keep it a dump stat.

-- N

Yeah, I have to agree there.

From this thread, I am leaning towards having Charisma add to action points -- though I'm still not 100% sure exactly how I want to do action points for my game.

I am also really liking the idea of having initial reactions (when not decided by the story) being decided by Charisma. Charisma is your inborn attractiveness (from likeability, force of personality, and appearance), while Diplomacy is your developed skill in dealing with others. It makes sense that the initial impression is strictly by your inborn traits, while further contact lets you use the full skill to sway others.

As for all the good/evil/whatever nit-picks above, that's easy. An evil orc meeting a high-charisma elf starts off as Unfriendly or even Hostile. The elf makes an immediate Charisma check to influence his reaction. Say it's Hostile orc. He'll probably stay hostile, but the elf has a chance of rolling a 20 or higher on her Cha check and making the orc Unfriendly -- which is probably enough to stave off combat. It's not a *likely* scenario, but it is logical. A low Cha character has no chance of succeeding, but a high Cha character has a small chance.

I'd really have to think about the bonus feats idea. I'm not even 100% sure my initiative idea is balanced, so I'm really not sure about that. I'm a fan of giving more feats, but I'm really having trouble with the rationale behind it. You can always just do things because you want to do them that way -- but that's not how I operate.

 

[MadBlue]

So, Charisma would have no mechanical benefit... that would keep it a dump stat.

No. I'm saying that it shouldn't improve or degrade an NPC's intitial attitude. And it doesn't, so it's not like I'm suggesting taking something away from Charisma. Just that I don't think adjusting NPC initial attitudes is the way to go if one wants to add something.

Cyberzombie, I agree with you on Action Points. I think it's the best idea, but I'm not sure if I want to use AP in my game. I think that the example you gave of an Orc and Elf illustrates exactly why Charisma shouldn't affect an NPC's initial attitude. Orcs hate Elves and would more likely see an especially charismatic Elf as more of a threat, not more likeable, if Charisma affected initial attitude. Elves tend to have higher Charisma scores than Orcs do (and Orcs tend to have negative modifiers). Does this mean Orcs would be more likely to react positively to Elves than to other Orcs? That doesn't make much sense to me.

MadBlue

 

[kyberus]

Perhaps, however, its surprising how much good looks and a strong persona can influence reactions. For example, in a recent study, as I understand it, it was found that young children who are less cute are significantly more likely to be left alone and unsupervised, be ignored and so on by their own parents by equivalent, cuter children. Disturbing thoughts indeed.
That being said, would it EVER amount to more than one block of helpfulness? it depends too much on the NPC (If the NPC is a dwarf, its not going to help quite so much, and so on, and two forceful persona's might clash, and so on and so forth)

or... I hope I didn't misread that article, anyway

 

[MadBlue]

Perhaps, however, its surprising how much good looks and a strong persona can influence reactions. For example, in a recent study, as I understand it, it was found that young children who are less cute are significantly more likely to be left alone and unsupervised, be ignored and so on by their own parents by equivalent, cuter children. Disturbing thoughts indeed.

There has been research that suggests that it's the cuteness factor of children (and other young mammals) that evokes a caretaker response in adults, so the findings of that study don't surprise me. That doesn't have anything to do with what Charisma represents in D&D, though. Also, that study doesn't really seem to have anything to do with persona.

That being said, would it EVER amount to more than one block of helpfulness? it depends too much on the NPC (If the NPC is a dwarf, its not going to help quite so much, and so on, and two forceful persona's might clash, and so on and so forth)

Considering that there are only two blocks of helpfulness past indifferent, and that characters have to do well on Charisma based skill checks in order to improve an NPC's attitude (especially to the point where they'd take risks for you), I'd say that improving even one block just based on a character's raw Charisma score is too much. On the flip side, hosing characters with a penalty to their Charisma score by having people you meet tend to wish you ill by default is too big a penalty and is an invasive change to the game.

MadBlue

 

[Afrodyte]

Is it relative, though? For example, what happens if the NPC has an 18 Charisma and the PC has a 16 Charisma? Would the NPC be in awe of the PC, even though his own Charisma would provoke servility in others? What if the NPC has a 6 Charisma and the PC has an 8 Charisma? Would the NPC treat the PC condescendingly even though his own Charisma provokes a feeling of domination in others? What if they both have a 12 Charisma? Does the NPC see the PC as an equal, or does he act with deference? It would seem to me that there should be some kind of opposed Charisma check and/or massive table involved to determine what the attitude of the NPC would be.

I hadn't thought about it at the time of writing, but yes, it would be relative to the one with the lowest Charisma modifier. So, a character with a Charisma modifier of +3 dealing with a character with a Charisma modifier +4 would have a general attitude of Deferent toward the that character.

However, that does raise the issue of dealing with Charisma penalties, and your implied question about hostile vs. friendly interactions do raise an intriguing possibility. Looking over it, I think I didn't communicate the attitudes very well. It should be something like the following:

Initial NPC Reactions and Attitudes: First impressions mean a lot when determining NPC reactions, and those impressions signify how they relate to you on first meeting or through casual acquaintance. Basically, it's how important you seem to be to strangers and acquaintances. You determine an NPC's initial reactions by figuring out the difference between the Charisma modifiers of the PC and NPC in question, based upon the PC's Charisma modifier.

Charisma modifier -4 or lower: Barely paid attention to (Common Furniture)
Charisma modifier -3: Generally ignored (Nobody)
Charisma modifier -2: Constantly overlooked (Nobody Important)
Charisma modifier -1: Easily overlooked (That Guy/Girl)
Charisma modifier +0: Equal
Charisma modifier +1: Catches attention (Somebody)
Charisma modifier +2: Holds attention (Somebody Important)
Charisma modifier +3: Demands attention (VIP)
Charisma modifier +4 or higher: Enthralls attention (The Man/Woman)
​

Thus, when interacting with a Charisma 10 commoner, a Charisma 17 PC would demand the NPC's attention and would often be treated likea VIP (based on PC's score, it's +3 minus +0, which equals +3). However, when dealing with a Charisma 12 warrior, a Charisma 8 PC would simply be seen as Nobody Important and is likely to be constantly overlooked (based upon PC's score, it's -1 minus 1, which equals -2).

Even in hostile situations, the process remains the same. For instance, say that a party of elven adventurers are taken captive in orc territory. Given average Charisma for all of them, if one of the elves has Charisma 17, that elf is perceived (even wrongly) as a VIP and thus not to be used as trail rations like the rest of the party who used Charisma as a dump stat. They may still kill said elf later, but that force of personality may delay matters long enough to escape or negotiate a way out of certain death. On the other hand, the elf who has Charisma 6 may not even make it to trail rations, as the orcs may guess (again, even wrongly) that said elf is Nobody Important, and may very well treat him thus.

Granted, social visibility may be a double-edged sword, and social invisibility may be a blessing in disguise.