D&D (2024) Change in Charisma Description

[Scott Christian]

What about the other way around? Would you expect DMs to accept that a low-strength PC could be described as having athletic training and bodily power but lacking in the third component (the ability to exert raw physical force)?

Would it be a problem to have two characters, each with athletic training and bodily power, with highly disparate strength scores? One is strong due to described bodily power; one is weak despite having described bodily power.

I'm sorry, I am confused by your question. "Athletic training" and "bodily power" are definitions used for strength in D&D 5e. They are its literal definition along with "natural athleticism" and "extent to which you can exert raw physical force." So this has nothing to do with describing. The number next to your strength literally is one or a group or all of those things. There is no describing. If you have a 6 strength it is assumed you do not have strength, and therefore, do not have strength's descriptors. If you have an 18 strength, you can use one or two or three of the descriptors. It's your call.

Again, I am confused. How many players are running around describing their lowest ability, and then how many of those DMs are questioning them. My guess is zero.

 

[Irlo]

I'm sorry, I am confused by your question. "Athletic training" and "bodily power" are definitions used for strength in D&D 5e. They are its literal definition along with "natural athleticism" and "extent to which you can exert raw physical force." So this has nothing to do with describing. The number next to your strength literally is one or a group or all of those things. There is no describing. If you have a 6 strength it is assumed you do not have strength, and therefore, do not have strength's descriptors. If you have an 18 strength, you can use one or two or three of the descriptors. It's your call.

Again, I am confused. How many players are running around describing their lowest ability, and then how many of those DMs are questioning them. My guess is zero.

Sorry, yes, confusing question.

If beauty is a part of Charisma, can we have physically attractive low-Charisma PCs?

Can players describe their characters as attractive, or are they constrained by that low CHA ability score?

 

[Scott Christian]

To use your statement they purposely made Charisma about eloquence, leadership and confidence to allow for an old, ugly charasmatic character.

Let's start with this. You are right. The definition allows for the hag to be so confident that her charisma is high. It's neat, huh? How we know why the hag has high charisma. It's probably because, I don't know... because it was in charisma's definition. If charisma wasn't defined that way, there would probably be a lot of D&D players going, "Why is her charisma so high? Probably because she can change shape." You see how their definition clarified for us why a night hag can have high definition? That is all I want for charisma.

Moreover, how does keeping beauty out of Charisma limit a character? You can build a beautiful character or an ugly character without worrying about how it affects your charisma.

Again, as it stands right now, you can say: I am beautiful and have high charisma. What you can't say is: I have high charisma because I am beautiful. There is a difference between the two. I would like to expand the definition so a player can say that.

They don't have to be eloquent. They don't have to leaders. Heck, they don't even have to be confident. They can just sit there, and look handsome or gorgeous or stunning and that gives them their advantage. This would be an option instead of making every bard try to be witty and come up with eloquent phrases. This would be an option instead of having every paladin look serious and be ready to lead everyone. This would be an option instead of making every warlock or sorcerer confident. How about, a warlock that is only good at magic because his patron finds him beautiful? How about a bard that can give people inspiration just because he has a beautiful twinkle in his eye? How about a paladin that everyone follows just because he's "so freaking hot?"

That is what I am asking for. Because right now, according to the rules as they are written, those things don't exist.

 

[Irlo]

Again, as it stands right now, you can say: I am beautiful and have high charisma. What you can't say is: I have high charisma because I am beautiful. There is a difference between the two. I would like to expand the definition so a player can say that.

I think you risk closing off the options for me to say, "I am beautiful and I have a low charisma."

 

[Scott Christian]

Sorry, yes, confusing question.

If beauty is a part of Charisma, can we have physically attractive low-Charisma PCs?

Can players describe their characters as attractive, or are they constrained by that low CHA ability score?

Ah. Thank you for the clarification.

I think it is very reasonable to have attractive characters with low charisma. They just suffer from the other abstract parts of the definition. The incredibly handsome buffoon that is always putting his foot in his mouth. The attractive druid that has been a hermit so long she has no confidence. I don't see a problem with that.

Just like I don't see a problem with someone saying they have bodily power but a lower strength. Think of the goliath that moves like a big-gutted drunk guy. Their mass might help them carry stuff, but their "ability to exert raw physical force" and "athletic training" are non-existent.

 

[Clint_L]

I get where you are coming from. I really do. But we just disagree at the core. To me, leadership is just as subjective as beauty. Any political leader that has 50% of the people for them, and 50% of the people against them is an example. Eloquence is also subjective. One person's eloquent rapper is another person's mush-mouth. Confidence is also subjective. One person's confidence is another person's bravado. All three of these subjective things are not quantifiable. Just like beauty.

I have a question: why do you care? Why are you so passionate on having your pet definition of charisma written into the rules?

I am not letting this go because I am a high school teacher, and I run the D&D Club at my school, and I see, every year, the damage done by telling young people, especially young women, about the importance of their physical appearance; that their beauty is the most important thing about them. I teach students right now who have been in and out of hospital for treatment with an eating disorder. It's a bit personal.

And all we are saying is that if you want, for whatever reasons, to make physical attractiveness (presumably to a particular species) a part of charisma, you are already allowed to do that. There is nothing stopping you. But why do you need that in the rules when so many folks are telling you a lot of reasons why it doesn't make sense and is an uncomfortable message?

 

[Scott Christian]

I think you risk closing off the options for me to say, "I am beautiful and I have a low charisma."

Might want to read my last response. That should clarify things.

 

[Scott Christian]

I have a question: why do you care? Why are you so passionate on having your pet definition of charisma written into the rules?

I am not letting this go because I am a high school teacher, and I run the D&D Club at my school, and I see, every year, the damage done by telling young people, especially young woman, about the importance of their appearance. I teach students right now who have been in and out of hospital for treatment with an eating disorder. It's a bit personal.

And all we are saying is that if you want, for whatever reasons, to make physical attractiveness (presumably to a particular species) a part of charisma, you are already allowed to do that. There is nothing stopping you. But why do you need that in the rules when so many folks are telling you a lot of reasons why it doesn't make sense and is an uncomfortable message.

Your only reason to not have it is because of the effects on high school students, and in your case, particularly girls. And, as I have stated many times, I also am a high school teacher, and I also help run the D&D club. And as I stated before, this will not change anything. It will not harm anyone.
The affects from social pressures that exist on all students are terrible. Adding one word will not, even in the slightest, tip any scale. And as I stated before, to which you never responded:

If you say this about beauty, then why not say this about strength. I mean, I am sure there are players in your D&D club that wish they were strong in real life, but are constantly out shadowed by the football players, the wrestlers, and any male who hit puberty one or two years earlier than them. Yet, D&D encourages this in the realm of combat and athleticism, arguably, the two most used functions in the game. And let's not even discuss intelligence. I am sure you have students that are not on the 4.0 stream. They may struggle greatly in all their academic areas. Yet, here you have a game that actively encourages players to "not be smart." I have seen more than my share of high school D&D clubs poke fun of the barbarian with an 8 intelligence. If that was a student that struggled academically, I am sure it hit a little close to home.
And then there is adding one word, "beauty" to charisma. A word that will probably be read by a third of the players. A word, that is a pebble in the boulder strewn stream of social media, including geek media. Anime, Critical Role, geeky actresses, pictures of heroines, etc... I would argue all of those play a much greater influence than adding a word to a definition.

Should we also remove all the words out of the definition of strength? Should we also remove the words from the definition of intelligence, which by the way mirrors exactly what some students with SLD are poor at: "information recall," "analytical skills," and "ability to reason." That sounds exactly like someone who performs poorly on academic and IQ tests. It's even used in Wechsler's IQ definition, which most school districts still use to label students intellectually disabled or specific learning disabled. Why are you not on a fire and brimstone path towards erasing those definitions in the game?

In the end, it is a game. It will not matter if that word is included. I like the fact that you care about your students. But I think you are severely overestimating the impact of a word, out of the thousands of pictures, words, and non-verbal signals these students receive daily.

 

[Cadence]

I have a question: why do you care? Why are you so passionate on having your pet definition of charisma written into the rules?

I am not letting this go because I am a high school teacher, and I run the D&D Club at my school, and I see, every year, the damage done by telling young people, especially young women, about the importance of their physical appearance; that their beauty is the most important thing about them. I teach students right now who have been in and out of hospital for treatment with an eating disorder. It's a bit personal.

Would it be helpful if the weight line were removed from the description section of the character sheet?

I assume the description box isn't a problem?

 

[James Gasik]

Again though, we can't say that your Strength is because you have upper body strength, but you skipped leg day. Because the ability score doesn't work that way. If you have a 14 Strength, your carry capacity is the same no matter what you say the source of your power is. You jump the same distance no matter how weak you say your legs are. You have the same +2 bonus to attack rolls that you do to climb cliffs.

The Hag, by the way, has high Charisma because of how scary it is. This is how they justified things like this in 3e, and it remains true now. You are in awe of it because it is a terrifying creature. An adult red dragon has a 21 Charisma, and it's likely not because you find it physically attractive (no matter what some Bards and Sorcerers might say). Note this is greater than the 19 Charisma of a Nymph, a creature that is often said to be the pinnacle of physical perfection, a triumph of nature!

Each ability score has the same functionality in the game. To describe yourself as being deficient in one quality of an ability score and greater in others is not supported by the rules of the game. To do so, you would need to break the ability scores apart into things like "muscle", "fitness", "agility", "precision", "endurance", "resilience", "reasoning", "memory", "awareness", "willpower", "manipulation", "appearance", and the like.

Thus, if we add "beauty" to Charisma, then low Charisma characters cannot be good-looking and high Charisma characters must be, because you cannot break one aspect of Charisma away from another by the current rules. And races (species) and monsters will have to have the relation between their appearance and their Charisma scores re-evaluated. So this isn't "one simple change".