Balancing charisma-based divine casters

[calypso15]

Let's say I had a house rule like this:

Casters and Spellcasting Ability Scores
Arcane casters may choose to base their casting on either Intelligence or Charisma. Divine casters may choose to base their casting on either Wisdom or Charisma. This changes which score is used to determine the highest level of spell they can cast, bonus spells per day, and spell save DC.

and I want to make it so that every arcane caster doesn't choose int and every divine caster doesn't choose charisma. How would I go about adding incentive for that?

 

[szilard]

Why would every divine caster choose Charisma?

Wisdom is a useful ability for Will saves and a number of skills...

-Stuart

 

[calypso15]

Why would every divine caster choose Charisma?

Wisdom is a useful ability for Will saves and a number of skills...

-Stuart

Well, the cleric has more to gain from Charisma than Wisdom. They already have good Will saves. Going with Charisma would mean more turning attempts and more effective turning.

The paladin has much more to gain from Charisma than Wisdom. Sure, they don't have good Will, but they have Divine Grace. Every point of Charisma instead of Wisdom lowers his Will save by one but raises ALL his saves by one. In addition, they benefit with the turning the same way that clerics do.

Rangers and druids... *shrug*. It's a tossup. I made a change that makes a high Charisma independently useful (make a few luck feats and whatnot that require high charisma), but I can see these two classes going either way.

Calypso

 

[Jack Simth]

Well, ignoring stuff that's class-specific (spellcasting, basically), the reason Charisma tends to be a dump stat is that it doesn't do much beyond helping with a couple skills.

Ignoring skills and class-specific requirements, stats affect:

Strength? Carrying capacity, melee attack, melee damage
Dexterity? Initiative, AC, Reflex Saves
Constitution? HP, Fortitude Saves
Intelligence? Skill points
Wisdom? Will saves
Charisma? Umm....

Now, if you move Will saves from Wisdom to Charisma (force of personality -> Willpower), and Inititive from Dexterity to Wisdom (percieve that there's something you need to react to faster) then there is a decided reason for all classes to have Charisma.

 

[calypso15]

Well, what I ended up doing was:

a) "Charisma - Once per day, you may choose to add your Charisma bonus to a roll. You must do so before you roll."

and b)

Lucky [General]
Things just seem to always go your way.

Prerequisite: Cha 13

Once per day you may reroll one roll that you have just made before the game master declares whether the roll results in success. You must take the result of the reroll, even if it’s worse than the original roll.

Survivor’s Luck [General]
Your luck has seen you through more dire situations than most men ever face.

Prerequisite: Cha 15, Lucky

As long as one of your uses of Lucky remains, you receive a +2 luck bonus on whichever of your saves has the lowest base bonus. If two or more of your saves tie for the lowest bonus, choose which save it applies to when you take this feat. If your base save bonuses change, the bonus changes accordingly.

In addition, you gain one additional use of Lucky each day.

Perverse Luck [General]
Bad luck is a form of luck too, and your enemies seem to have more than their share.

Prerequisite: Cha 15, Lucky

You may expend a use of Lucky to force the game master to reroll one roll he has just made, after he announces the outcome.

In addition, you gain one additional use of Lucky each day.

I realize it's not a perfect solution, but it at least rewards charisma.

That being said... I still see no compelling reason why clerics or paladins would choose Wisdom if they could choose Charisma. I've considering making a Wisdom requirement for a number of the turning feats (I completely revamped turning, it's kinda sweet).

 

[avigor]

Make Force of Personality a default - whichever is higher decides your Will saves, no feat required.

Then, go and say that good clerics are expected by their good dieties (or the good cosmic forces) to use nonviolent methods whenever possible (i.e., encourage Vow of Nonviolence/Peace and the Apostle of Peace prestige class).

In addition, you can say that arcane casters are viewed with suspicion wherever you're sending the chars, so they'll need to convince the people that they aren't evil. In addition, throw in a few pitfalls for Enchanters/Illusionists, such as the local races all have +5 or higher racial bonuses (and a "no automatic fail on a natural 1" ability) to resist charms, see through illusions, whatever, or possibly an automatic, racial Detect Magic that only sees arcane casters, meaning that they automatically know who's arcane and who isn't, so they can't just illusion/enchant their way with "I'm not a sorceror".

 

[eamon]

I like the solution of Init depends on Wis and Will depends on Cha. It's simple.

 

[eamon]

On second though - having both initiative and spot and listen all on the same ability will make some optimizations quite extreme.

 

[MrNexx]

Then, go and say that good clerics are expected by their good dieties (or the good cosmic forces) to use nonviolent methods whenever possible (i.e., encourage Vow of Nonviolence/Peace and the Apostle of Peace prestige class).

An example problem with this solution:

Clangeddin Silverbeard is Lawful Good. Gaerdal Ironhands is as well, IIRC. Not to mention Heironeous.

Not every good god is a god of peace; in D&D, violence is not inherently evil.