billd91
Not your screen monkey (he/him) 🇺🇦🇵🇸🏳️⚧️
Based on what? How players tend to get into ruts when they min-max or on the in-game statistical distribution of low charisma in a population of random barbarians and wizards?
CHA, huh, what is it good for?
- Thread starter grufflehead
- Start date
Based on what? How players tend to get into ruts when they min-max or on the in-game statistical distribution of low charisma in a population of random barbarians and wizards?
Unless you're LARPing, how do you "role play" a low-Dex character as highly coordinated? You can wax as lyrical as you like about how graceful your PC is; you'll still blow most of your Dex checks.
Crothian
First Post
That is how it is done. You describe the character doing things in a graceful way. Not everything requires a roll of the die. There are plenty of times that players can just describe how the character is. It is no different then the low charisma character played with a glib tongue and talk perfectly but failing most of his charisma checks when they come up.
JacktheRabbit
Explorer
Also, other than ranged attack roles and armor class bonus, how often is a straight dex check used? I can load heavy on Tumble and Balance and have a very graceful character with a 7 dexterity.
Thasmodious
First Post
Not really. You'd have a clumsy character that has learned some skills, with some difficulty. For a real world example - I am not particularly dexterous (I wouldn't put myself at a 7, but I am not rolling in the positive modifier department). I can, however, skate like the wind, due to years of playing street hockey (inline skates, but I can skate on blades, too). Forwards, backwards, transitions, crossovers, anything short of pulling off lutzes and double sow cows. While skating I look pretty dexterous. I use top of the line gear, with the best bearings, built for speed and control. Yet all of that, and I still sometimes fall while standing still on the sidelines. All those skill points, but I'm still a clumsy lug (and a bruising defensemen
). I can't escape my low dex.As a GM, one thing I do at the start of any campaign is spend some time with the character sheets. I look them over and see what the players spent their resources on, what seems to be important to them, and what impressions I can get from their sheets. I am looking for lots of things - background notes to work into the game, player preferences (if a guy spends a lot of time and space on mundane equipment lists, he wants that to come up in game), and I look at the character with an eye to how others in the game world will perceive him. Stats play a big roll in this. Regardless of developed skills, clumsy is clumsy and socially awkward is socially awkward.
A player has the right to play his character as he sees fit, but his attributes affect how he appears to others. Someone may be a slick lawyer/businessman type, but if they are a snivelling, obsequious worm with a CHA 7 (perhaps James Spader in Wolf), it's going to have an affect on every interaction.
Long and short of it, I think, is that roleplaying is always the great equalizer in "fixing" system shortcomings.
I cannot imagine a situation where that would happen. If the player describes doing something that requires notable dexterity, I call for a Dex check or appropriate Dex-related skill. If it doesn't require notable dexterity, then the character's Dex is irrelevant.
I certainly don't make low-Dex PCs tell me how they're tripping over their own shoelaces all the time. If the player wants to do that, more power to 'em, but I'm not going to mandate it.
I suppose it depends on what you mean by enforcing low Charisma, then. If you just mean, "Require Bluff/Diplomacy/Intimidate checks whenever the PC attempts a challenging social interaction," then I agree: DMs should enforce low Charisma just like they enforce any other low stat.
However, typically when people call to "enforce" low Charisma, they mean that the player or DM should apply constraints that go beyond the rules--the player must not be allowed to say glib or eloquent things in character (as opposed to having the player say something eloquent and fail the Diplomacy check, indicating that the PC had a convincing speech ready but botched the delivery).
Sure; intensive training compensating for lack of natural talent. So? As a general rule, a person without natural talent but highly trained will outperform a talented novice. You'll still be far behind a PC with the same level of training (skill points invested) and Dex 18.
Last edited:
Celebrim
Legend
a) Charisma as the basis of charisma based skills: Well, every skill has this problem. You can be a Str 7 weakling, but with enough points in Swim, Climb, and Jump you can bounce around like the incredible hulk. While its true that any character with X amount of charisma is going to be relatively sauve, a 18 CHR character is still going to be much better at it than a 7 CHR char. For example, at level 6, the 18 Chr character has a +13 bonus, whereas the 7 CHR character has a +7 bonus - less than what the charismatic character had at level 1.
b) Charisma doesn't have a non-skill effect: I agree this is a problem, though how big of a problem you find it is purely a matter of taste. In my game, I've fixed this problem by have your charisma bonus effect the number of 'Destiny Points' you have (think 'action points' or 'hero points' from other systems). There are also combat related feats that tie to charisma, allowing for the possiblity of flashy wise cracking warriors if that's your thing.
c) IME, the usual reason that players dump Charisma is that the DM usually decides ahead of time how the NPC will react to the party (whether friendly or helpful, hostile or whatever) and doesn't let party charisma upset his plans.
b) Charisma doesn't have a non-skill effect: I agree this is a problem, though how big of a problem you find it is purely a matter of taste. In my game, I've fixed this problem by have your charisma bonus effect the number of 'Destiny Points' you have (think 'action points' or 'hero points' from other systems). There are also combat related feats that tie to charisma, allowing for the possiblity of flashy wise cracking warriors if that's your thing.
c) IME, the usual reason that players dump Charisma is that the DM usually decides ahead of time how the NPC will react to the party (whether friendly or helpful, hostile or whatever) and doesn't let party charisma upset his plans.
Hmm, there's an uncomfortable amount of truth to that... of course, the solution there is for the DM to plan more "branches" to social encounters.
Last edited:
In 3.5e Charisma is also used in some spell DCs as well.
Also, there's another useless stat called Agility. At least it's useless when there's also Dexterity. Because the kinds of things that agility covers can be covered by Dexterity.
Also, there's another useless stat called Agility. At least it's useless when there's also Dexterity. Because the kinds of things that agility covers can be covered by Dexterity.
