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Message: <blockquote data-quote="Al" data-source="post: 2181710" data-attributes="member: 2486">Whilst I fully appreciate the tired old dead horse that Charisma is not equivalent to Appearance, I would strongly refute the assertion that Charisma cannot be readily gauged.  Most people could hazard an intuitive guess upon first meeting someone what ball-park figure their Charisma would be: the way they convey themselves, pride in their appearance, self-confidence, tone of voice, mannerisms, body language, appearance itself*, warmth in their handshake, eye contact, intonation, speed and flow of speech, etc. ad naus.* Appearance remains a component part of Charisma even if it is not the totality.The point that I was making is that the DM should raise appropriate non-mechanical bonuses and penalties to make Charisma a worthwhile option.  Needless to say, it will never achieve equivalency with all ability scores for all classes: the barbarian is almost likely to choose Str over Cha.  Yet the point is to ensure that someone is foregone if a low score is placed in Charisma, or a positive benefit derived if a high score assigned to it.  The problem at the moment - the reason why it screams dump stat - is because for many characters there is absolutely no detriment whatsoever in slapping a pitifully low score in Charisma.  It is the role of the DM to ensure that there is a tangible negative to having a low Charisma, in order to bring it in line with every other ability in the game.  I would argue that this is best achieved through social mechanisms rather than alterations in the mechanics (cf. initiative, Will saves) since it more closely models the underlying notion of the ability score itself in my view.  Of course, Charisma is a thorny issue itself, since people define it differently.  To my mind, Charisma is the ability to shape the world to one's desires in a non-material fashion, primarily through social interaction, but also manifested via the Charisma-based spellcasters.</blockquote>

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