Can charisma be something more than just dump stat?

[(Psi)SeveredHead]

It should be no surprise that some classes benefit more from a stat than others. Fighters and Barbarians don't benefit very much from Wisdom unless they are specifically built to take advantage of it (boosting a single save is not much to get from a stat)

Still more than you get from Charisma (until 4e, anyway): anyone can use a high Wisdom to boost your Will save. I usually dumped a 12 or 14 into a fighter or ranger's Wisdom just for that.

and only a little bit more from Int.

Still, anyone can use skill points.

Anyone with heavy armor isn't getting much from Dex.

But they usually get at least +1 (enough to make a 12 or 13 worthwhile) and for some reason wearing heavy plate has no impact on your Reflex save.

Wizards and sorcerors aren't getting much from Str.

But rogues, rangers, and just about anyone who ever uses a non-ranged weapon (and even then, sometimes) gets at least a small bonus from it. I don't think I've ever seen an 8 Strength rogue, but 8 Charisma rogues? All the time! (I'm assuming you're taking Weapon Finesse... which does nothing for damage. And at least in 3.0 you could not sneak attack COUPies.)

Still, many of those options are based on items and spells, which can be made use of by any class (the latter through scrolls, wands, magic items using those spells, asking the party caster to help, etc).

It's been awhile since I've seen a campaign that won't at least consider material from the Complete books, for example. With the Complete books, PHB 1/2, DMG 1/2, and Spell Compendium things can get pretty far in Charisma's favor already.

Much of the material in the Complete Books and Spell Compendium were, in fact, overpowered compared to core material. Of course sometimes they were trying to fix previous problems, but more splats means more work for the DM, since you can't rely on their playtesting. (And I would know; I've playtested some products.)

Now, I'm not saying that these alleviate the problem, but these highlight a different side of it. Charisma is a very bipolar stat - in the hands of someone who doesn't look up all this stuff and figure out how to break it, they won't get much mileage out of it. In the hands of someone who goes out of their way to make a 'Charisma-build' its overpowered. It isn't an easy stat to get an even value from. I guess my point is, 3.5ed designers felt that Charisma was a dumpstat and added all sorts of mechanical ways to take advantage of it, but all of them sort of obscure and specialized. And so it becomes the sole domain of building for mechanics and not just something that comes naturally out of a character concept.

Another possibility are weaknesses in the skills system and lack of Defenses.

Almost anyone can use Strength. If you use a melee or throwing weapon, it's useful. The number of classes who shouldn't bother are pretty small: wizard, sorcerer, maybe druid. As a result, I see Strength dumped to 8 very rarely, and usually only for the classes I just listed.

Almost anyone can use Dexterity. It boosts ACs for all classes, even though for some (paladin, cleric, fighter) the boost might cap out at +1. Still, it's a +1, and a bonus to Reflex saves never hurt. In short, no one likes to die, so anyone can use Dex. I see Dex dumped for clerics and paladins sometimes, and in part because Charisma cannot be dumped for either, IMO.

Is there anyone who does not want Con? Virtually noone ever maxes it out, but everyone likes hit points and save-vs-Destruction spells.

Intelligence is an odd one. Even obscure skills can be useful from time to time, to the point where the only times I've ever seen a low Int is if someone wanted to play a particularly dumb half-orc barbarian... for the roleplaying. (It helps that barbarian skill point totals don't suck.) I see Int 10 all the time, but almost noone likes the stigma of having a dumb character. Mechanically a pretty weak stat. (Even weaker in 4e!)

Wisdom is a bit better. It boosts Will saves. Even a Wisdom of 12, giving you a +1, is better than a Wisdom of 10, which gives you a +0. I don't think I've ever seen a Wisdom score of 8 (as they will have no will of their own when facing spellcasters) except for roleplaying purposes. Again seen on dumb barbarians, who can boost their Will saves with rage.

Charisma ... affects a few skills and some class abilities (some significantly). Some classes rarely if ever use such skills. As stated above, it's quite binary. But for some characters, it's completely useless, and you might as well dump it to 8. If you're a fighter and you don't plan on taking ranks in Intimidate, dump it to 8. If you're a rogue who isn't going to take ranks in Bluff and Improved Feint, dump it to 8. If you had a Charisma of 12 instead, your untrained Bluff score would have been only 2 points higher. And if you took training in Bluff... it would still only have been 2 points higher.

It has no impact on your defenses whatsoever, and (unlike the variety of attack forms) everyone wants and needs higher defenses. In 4e, it can apply to a defense, and I think I'm seeing more non-8 Cha characters now, because they can dump Wisdom without much penalty. (Also seeing lots of high Int, low Dex warlords. Basic min-maxing.) Also, some classes that didn't find it that useful before (eg rogue) now find it very useful with the right type of build. (And warlord is a new class, in terms of core rule classes. Charisma is probably more useful overall in 4e, both because more classes "like" it, and because it can boost a defense.)

It doesn't help that many social skills are poorly written. Yes, you can spend an action using Intimidate to inflict a minor penalty on an opponent for 1 round. Or you could just stab him again. Which seems like the better option?

Even the heavy skills-based d20 Modern suffers from this. Unless you want to take some of the better Charismatic talents (Inspiration, I'm looking at you) or Frightful Presence, Charisma doesn't do a whole lot. You can (and I've seen this) play a low Charisma character with Charismatic levels, boosting their social skills with talents like Fast Talk while spending stats on things to make up for their low hit points and attack rolls.

 

[NichG]

I'm not intending to debate whether a campaign should be core/non-core/etc, just observing that most games I've seen allow some splat books at least.

It may be that I've just played in games with a different culture, but in the last two campaigns I've played in, and the last campaign I've run, at least one player has always used Charisma to become basically untoucheable in some aspects. One was a ~Lv10-20 campaign over a few years where the party caster went the Lich route and ended up with an AC in the 60s and who knows how high saves, while the party armored fighter had AC around 30.

The second (the one I ran) was an E6+gestalt game where one of the party ended up having a Will save of something around +70 by using various stacking Charisma boosts (he used Paladin, Shaman, and Marshal to pull it off), though he didn't end up doing the AC/attacks/damage/etc stuff that make it get really silly.

The third (that I'm currently playing in) is a high level game and features two people with Charisma-based characters, one of which is focused on Charisma to the detriment of pretty much everything but Int (and yes, that character does have an 8 Wisdom), the other of which is a bit more well-rounded.

It's something that really comes into play at higher levels, where the +1 to +3 to Will saves from not dumping Wisdom is easily swamped by other sources, +1 or +2 to AC from not dumping Dex is pretty much irrelevant, etc.

 

[(Psi)SeveredHead]

I'm not intending to debate whether a campaign should be core/non-core/etc, just observing that most games I've seen allow some splat books at least.

Except some of the examples you posted involved really rare rules (gestalt) or some heavy cheese. I could make a monk/whatever/whatever/whatever with an AC of 50+. That doesn't make the monk good.

It's something that really comes into play at higher levels, where the +1 to +3 to Will saves from not dumping Wisdom is easily swamped by other sources, +1 or +2 to AC from not dumping Dex is pretty much irrelevant, etc.

I was picturing going through lower levels, but it seems to me that, sticking to the core classes, it's hard to make Charisma useful for most characters. (Doesn't mean it's totally useless for everyone.)

 

[NichG]

Well in the case of the +70 Will save it was gestalt but characters capped at 6th level, so we're not talking about anything a 12th level character couldn't also do.

As far as core only goes, I guess what I'd say is this: the thread asks 'can Charisma ever be more than a dump stat?' and my answer is 'In 3.5ed with splat books, yes, but it goes too far'. If you're running a 3.5ed game core only and find that the person who went high into Charisma isn't getting much out of it, allow them to use some of the feats that swap Charisma for other stats from non-core, even give them the feats for free, and problem solved.

Then again, perhaps thats not the real problem. Suggesting Charisma as a defense is interesting. It might be that one wants to force people to think twice before having low Charisma or even punish those that excessively dumpstat it (i.e. 6 Charisma), rather than to reward those with high Charisma. In that case, a DM has a lot of options:

They can occasionally have enemies that have Charisma damage/drain attacks, or poisons/diseases that target Charisma. They can have intelligent magic items that refuse to work for the owner unless they can hit a certain DC Charisma check. They can, as has been mentioned, have NPCs and monsters react to a passive PC based on their Charisma (i.e. first impression).

My general feel is its better to encourage players to be brilliant than shackle them to their small numbers, since everyone has more fun when clever things are done. As such I don't like to penalize that sort of dump-statting in the roleplay interactions - if I'm going to do that, I'd rather do it mechanically, and focus mainly on giving bonuses than giving penalties.

 

[Jon_Dahl]

Just to add my two coppers in, I've noticed more misconceptions about Charisma than any other ability score. It seems that the whole concept of Charisma is difficult especially for beginners.

Charisma is a dump stat
It depends really. If the party has a good spokesman, that goes a long way. Otherwise low Charisma can hurt you. For instance for a random munchin player Cha 4 might not seem like much, but if you roll untrained diplomacy checks you have as much as chance to make someone your enemy than your friend... and this just when you TRY to befriend them! Now that is hard IMO
Low Charisma means that you're scary
Fairly common misconception. Low Charisma means that you are repulsive, can't make yourself understood or something else like that. If you are 9 feet tall, you have a giant axe and you seem like an aggressive creature with hardly any intelligence, then you are threatening DESPITE your Charisma or any rolls.
Low Charisma is dependent on your race and alignment
No it isn't. You are still an irritating human scumbag with Cha 4, even if you have LG alignment.
Low Charisma means you're quiet, especially if it's a PC
Not necessarely. Many people (me included) like people who are quiet listener-types. It's possible to have amazingly beautiful woman who hardly ever talks or some ugly mutant who loves to hear his own voice. Low Charisma is not about how much you talk, it's about how and when you talk. Someone with a really low Charisma would talk at inappropiate times, interrupt people, talk too quietly or possibly yell all the time and commit faux pas after another.
If your face gets mutilated, your Cha drops right?
This is a hard one, because Cha is also about physical attractiveness. There is no clear answer to this, at least from Core. In my games I rule such mutilations as an additional effect, usually that people get shocked to see at first but it doesn't chance their attitude. After all they could feel pity for you or respect your struggles or just feel disgusted about your face.

 

[The Shaman]

If your face gets mutilated, your Cha drops right?

In Flashing Blades, a scar on the cheek increases the character's Charm, which is totally in keeping with the genre.

Losing your nose, on the other hand . . .

 

[cattoy]

If you want Charisma to not be a dump stat and your game is combat-centric, try this:

Charisma limits a character's ability to benefit from magic items.

I'll leave the exact implementation as a mental exercise for any interested parties, but a simple system could work thusly:

For each point of charisma, you can have +1 worth of magic.

or

For each point of charisma, you can have x,000 gp worth of magic items.

 

[Diamond Cross]

But why should one player be penalized for not having a high Charisma?

And so on.

 

[steenan]

You can't have a cookie and eat it too.

Either dumping charisma is not a problem or charisma is useful and having it low hurts. If something is not a dump stat, dumping it is bad for you - "penalized" if you want to call it this way. There is no other way.

The only question is what kind of penalty will work well in play.

 

[DumbPaladin]

But why should one player be penalized for not having a high Charisma?

For the same reason other players are penalized for not having a high Constitution (by being easier to kill), or for not having high Strength (they do less damage in melee combat), or any other stat. There should always be a reason why a character is less in one area than another, if the difference between the two is mostly attribute-based.

Otherwise, as pointed out earlier in this thread by a few people, if a player with a character whose Charisma is 6 can smooth talk kings and magistrates, Charisma becomes a fairly useless attribute except for those characters who need it for casting.