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Message: <blockquote data-quote="Joshua Randall" data-source="post: 9591654" data-attributes="member: 7737">Commentary: "This native gentleman" and "his comely girlfriend" must be minstrels…"Comely" is not only a great old-timey word, but also a subtle reference to Comeliness, the seventh ability score introduced in AD&D's Unearthed Arcana to bifurcate physical attractiveness from personal magnetism (Charisma).As that book put it, "While Charisma deals specifically with leadership and interactions between characters, comeliness deals with attractiveness and first impressions. Comeliness is not charisma…." (UA p. 6, emphasis in original)Except that in THE VERY NEXT SENTENCE, "Charisma, however, affects comeliness." Huh? WHY? I can assure you that in real life, someone's personal magnetism and leadership qualities do not travel back in time to affect the physical beauty they were born with.But in AD&D, your charisma ability score applied a modifier to the 3d6 you rolled for comeliness, from -5 at Charisma 3 to +3 at Charisma 18. Your comeliness was then also adjusted by your character's race (-3 for Half-orcs, -1 for dwarves and gnomes, 0 for halflings and humans, +1 for half-elves and sylvan elves, and +2 for grey elves and high elves), except that your adjusted comeliness only applied to the reactions of other races, not your own race.Got all that?Then you consulted the modified comeliness value on a scale from -16 to +30 and got results ranging from disgust and a desire to be away from so ugly a creature, to initial unease possible to overcome with charisma, to no effect, to "interest in viewing the individual [because] he or she is good-looking", to head-turning beauty, all the way to a quasi-magical fascinate power at sufficiently high you-must-be-cheating comeliness scores.---Also, the paladin-marine referred to Dalris as our GIRLFRIEND!swoon---We ignore the jibe and exclaim, "You were wonderful!"Once in a while, Carr is NOT a jerk.---Dalris turns and heads for the street at the end of the pier. You watch her long black braid dance lightly against the tight leather of her trousers and smile softly before following her haughty but captivating figure.Yowza!</blockquote>

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