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Message: <blockquote data-quote="damieus" data-source="post: 561189" data-attributes="member: 4270">Sounds like fun, and a lot of other people point out that the DM has to make charisma important or it won't be. HOWEVER- (If you've seen me anywhere else on the net you knew that was coming)A. If you start turning people away from the gates because they are too dang ugly, then the players feel like you are picking on them. In the minds of the players it would be no different than if they all had low dexterities and you threw nothing but balance checks, tumble checks, and reflex saves at them.B. If only one player has the "I dumped charisma to have a high constitution" problem, then turning him away at the gates of every city is gonna cause irritation for the other players (at best) or make the syndrome sufferer sit out of a big part of the game session (at worst)C. Then you run into the problem that I get from the single (or sometimes more than one) player who feels that charisma is useless. He says ok fine, I won't dump charisma. How much charisma do I have to have before you'll let me play? (Talk about guilt-trip)D. Unlike every other statistic, charisma has little to no bearing on actual gameplay for a lot of the classes. A quick review: Str- Carrying capacity, melee attack, damage. Obvious pluses for any character, though undoubtedly more important for a warrior-type.Dex- Better ranged attacks, a whole assortment of important skills, AC, and reflex saves. Again, obviously great for a rogue, still good for anyone else.Con- Better HP, better fort saves. Int- More skill points, lots of dependant skills.Wis- Better will saves, several important skills such as spot, listen.Now charisma. What is it good for? Absolutely nothing. *snicker* No seriously. If you are a sorcerer, it is obviously necessary. If you are a cleric, and you turn undead it is important. Bards have the perform skill and their spellcasting. If you are anyone else.... well... you have bonuses to a few skills, but most of the time in my group, my players are decent enough roleplayers where I don't need to make a bluff or diplomacy check. If they roleplay well, then they succeed. If they roleplay badly, I can't justify rolling a die and saying that the guardsman believed they are sick with something like: "Umm.. Randor sneezed. I think he may have hepatitus. Come let us out please."In the rare instances where a player cannot or does not feel like actually doing the roleplaying I think that wisdom (as in your understanding of human nature and practical knowledge of people in general) would serve just as well as a bonus providing ability score. Now that I am reading this, I may have just realized my problem with players that dump charisma. I can't feel justified about penalizing them for dumping it because I personally think its useless except as a guide on how to roleplay your character. With something along the lines of Constitution, they cant argue that I am picking on them because I make them subtract 1 from their hit die rolls due to their 8 in Con. Its hard-coded into the rules and easy to understand. There is no room for arguement. Almost all of charisma's benefits are floating out there in the nebulous ground between roleplaying and rollplaying. So what started out as a rant about how charisma is dumped became a rant about why charisma sucks, and now its a cry for help. Someone please tell me a good way to make charisma more useful in the games I run without picking on the players, please! Or if you can't do that, please help me to at least justify keeping it on the character sheets. (Which if you have read about RPGnu *formerly Primus* then you know I already have tossed it in my current system)</blockquote>

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