CHA, huh, what is it good for?

[ProfessorCirno]

Here's the problem with Charisma. Bereft of class abilities:

Strength: Melee hit, melee damage, many forms of ranged damage, carrying weights
Dexterity: Reflex saves, AC, ranged hit, some melee feat requirements
Constitution: HP, fortitude saves
Intelligence: Skill points, languages, multiple melee feat requirements
Wisdom: Will save
Charisma:

Well save and fort save are both literally needed to avoid instant death, which helps Wisdom and makes Constitution even more hilariously good.

See something missing from that list? Yeah. That's why people dump Charisma.

If you want charisma to be useful what you need to do is not punish those who dump it, because why the hell wouldn't they dump it? No, you need to give them a reason to take it. Make a positive charisma do something.

Also Charisma != appearance. There is no appearance stat. There should never be an appearance stat.

 

[Dausuul]

I think the biggest probelm with Charisma is DM's don't enforce a low charisma and players many times don't role play their charisma properly.

I think the biggest problem with Charisma is that people think it requires "enforcement."

If you have Strength 8, there's no talk about whether you're roleplaying it correctly. Your carrying capacity is lower, your basic melee attacks suck, and you'll botch a lot of Strength-based checks. Same goes for Dexterity and Constitution. Nobody calls in the roleplaying police over physical stats.

Mental stats, on the other hand, lead to all kinds of crap. Wisdom mostly gets a pass because nobody has a clue what it's supposed to signify, so no one can figure out how to police it. But Intelligence and Charisma are nearly as bad as alignment-restricted classes for spawning stupid arguments between players and DMs who disagree on exactly what "Charisma 8" signifies, since the rules give virtually no guidance.

(Intelligence is at least as bad as Charisma, if not worse. A lot of folks take the attitude that if you don't have an actual Int penalty, you don't have to "dumb down" your character--completely ignoring the fact that Int 10 is average human intelligence, even slightly below average, and the typical gamer is a lot smarter than average. If we assume Int follows the usual 3d6 bell curve, then most gamers should be "dumbing down" any character with an Int score less than 15 or so.)

These days, my attitude is: Intelligence describes your character's "book learning," as evidenced by its effect on her knowledge skills. Wisdom describes your character's alertness and perceptiveness, as evidenced by its effect on her perception-type skills. And Charisma describes your character's innate charm and persuasiveness, as evidenced by its effect on her social skills. Beyond that, I don't bloody care. I'm not interested in being the roleplaying police, and I'm not interested in having anyone else police me.

And if a lot of folks dump Charisma as a result? Well, I agree that Charisma tends to be underpowered in early editions, though to some extent that reflects DMing habit more than the rules--if DMs were more rigorous about using the monster reaction rules, Charisma would see a lot more interest. In 3E, it's still weak, but not intolerably so; social skills and the Leadership feat count for enough that I don't have a problem with using it as is. (And if you want to dump Cha and make up for it by pouring your scarce skill points into Diplomacy/Bluff/Intimidate, that's fine.) In 4E, it's not really an issue.

 

[Crothian]

If you have Strength 8, there's no talk about whether you're roleplaying it correctly. Your carrying capacity is lower, your basic melee attacks suck, and you'll botch a lot of Strength-based checks. Same goes for Dexterity and Constitution. Nobody calls in the roleplaying police over physical stats.

When a player role plays a low dex character as a highly coordinated character then it does happen. It is just for some reason it seems people who misplay their charisma are not called on it as often. I see it in the game I'm playing it is just more common for people to misplay charisma then any other stat.

 

[Sepulchrave II]

A move to a system which is point-buy, or even 4d6, discard and arrange as you see fit, is the largest contributor to the perceived irrelevance of Charisma. If the game demanded random stat generation in order then, obviously, this conversation wouldn't be happening in quite the same way.

I'm not necessarily an advocate of completely random stat generation, but I think the degree of control offered to players with the advent of 3e was not supported by the mechanical applications of the various abilities and more thought should have gone into all ability score remits.

For example, I don't like that Strength automatically offers a bonus to hit and damage in melee; I'd rather that Strength can be leveraged with the right training - this could be represented by either a class ability or a feat. Likewise for many other applications of other abilities.

I don't like that ability scores automatically offer bonuses to skills, and I'd rather they act as limiting factors to skills in some way as I noted above - e.g. your capacity to tumble is limited by your Dex, rather than Dex offers a bonus to your ability to tumble.

I think by calling out Cha that this illustrates the biggest problems with the system as written; but the problem is not limited to Cha.

Ideally, each ability score might govern a single automatic benefit; other benefits should only be 'unlocked' through experience or training - represented by either levels in a particular class or through feats.

 

[JacktheRabbit]

I think the biggest probelm with Charisma is DM's don't enforce a low charisma and players many times don't role play their charisma properly.

Absolutely agree. There are lots of non skill related areas where a low charisma is likely to come into play. The parties 6 charisma half orc barbarian is as likely to fart loudly and spit on the floor during the audience with the king as do anything else. But of course that never happens.

DMs (me included in the past) have allowed players to pull the "I just stand back and let the Paladin do all the talking" so that their low charisma never hurts the party.

Is that real? Think about the low charisma (as you would imagine them) people you have met in the world. Are they quiet in the corner? No, they are annoying. They make crude jokes, inappropriate comments, they interject useless comments, and generally make social events painful by their presense.

Make that happen every time the party has the 6 charisma dude around. Eventually they leave him at home, which causes all sorts of other problems, or they stop letting people use it as a dump stat.

 

[Dannyalcatraz]

Is that real? Think about the low charisma (as

 

[JacktheRabbit]

However, at the heart of all of these is "changing the attitude of others".

I will agree with the OP that's CHA biggest problem, especially in 3.5, is that its core functionality is almost entirely overlapping with a few skills.

Every other stat has core functionality that has nothing to do with skills, the most obvious example being 3.5e's CON stat.

CON has one skill its tied to, and for the vast majority of classes one they will never use. Yet its one of the most common stats to see for characters because it influences your hp and fort save...which are of critical importance if you are doing any fighting.

Wisdom affects will, strength affects melee attacks and encumberance, dex does a boatload of things, int gives you more skill points.

CHA is the only 3.5e stat that doesn't provide an out of skill advantage, besides the classes that actually use the stat for their class features.

Not really.

Diplomacy requires someone to talk to you. If your Charisma is 6 then someone may be so annoyed by your natural personality, body odor, and poor habits, that they either refuse to talk to you or ignore everything you say. Diplomacy needs at least a tiny amount of willingness to communicate for it to even have a chance.

Diplomacy also requires some sort of common method of communication between you and target while a high natural charisma can cross even the largest language barrier.

The biggest problem with Diplomacy is the player idea that it will work on anyone. That their bard with the 22 in diplomacy can talk their way through anything. Unfortunately not everyone wants to talk or cares to even hear what you have to say.

One solution to make Charisma more relevant is to make a small tweak. Make Will saves base off Charisma instead of Wisdom. Will saves is your strength of personality to resist mental assaults in one for or another. Doesnt it make sense that the stat that is supposed to measure the strength of your personality should modify your Will Save? I have known lots of very wise people who are pretty weak willed.

 

[Umbran]

There are many approaches that don't introduce dump stats and handle social interactions well. There are tens, if not hundreds, RPG systems with no such issues.

Not really. If there is a system, and a playstyle, then players can and will find optimal statistical builds. It may not be in the "attributes" section - but then it is off in the skills, or what have you.

Unless the GM takes meticulous care to be sure that all areas of the rules get equally exercised, the players will learn there are areas they can ignore with some safety, at least until the GM realizes that is what they are doing, and hits them in the soft spot.

DMs (me included in the past) have allowed players to pull the "I just stand back and let the Paladin do all the talking" so that their low charisma never hurts the party.

Is that real? Think about the low charisma (as you would imagine them) people you have met in the world. Are they quiet in the corner? No, they are annoying.

Well, that depends on other factors. Only those with both a low Charisma and low Intelligence and/or Wisdom are annoying. Smart or observant people who have low charisma can (and do) learn to shut up.

So the dumb half orc, who has used two mental stats for dumping to get inanely high Strength and Constitution will still blow corrosive flatus in the King's presence, but the nerdy wizard's got reason to know he should shut it for the time being.

 

[JacktheRabbit]

Not really. If there is a system, and a playstyle, then players can and will find optimal statistical builds. It may not be in the "attributes" section - but then it is off in the skills, or what have you.

Unless the GM takes meticulous care to be sure that all areas of the rules get equally exercised, the players will learn there are areas they can ignore with some safety, at least until the GM realizes that is what they are doing, and hits them in the soft spot.




Well, that depends on other factors. Only those with both a low Charisma and low Intelligence and/or Wisdom are annoying. Smart or observant people who have low charisma can (and do) learn to shut up.

So the dumb half orc, who has used two mental stats for dumping to get inanely high Strength and Constitution will still blow corrosive flatus in the King's presence, but the nerdy wizard's got reason to know he should shut it for the time being.

True, but if there is someone in the party with a 6 Charisma is it more likely to be the party wizard or the party barbarian?

 

[Umbran]

True, but if there is someone in the party with a 6 Charisma is it more likely to be the party wizard or the party barbarian?

Who it is more likely to be isn't the issue. The point is that Charisma alone shouldn't fully determine things. Just like melee combat - not everything is based on Strength alone. Dex and Con enter into the equation. Same for social situations.