D&D (2024) Change in Charisma Description

[UngeheuerLich]

Terrible idea.
I am glad, that modern interpretation is not just looks.
Charisma is way more than that. It is a matter of confidence. Of course, looking good can lead to being more self confident, but still, those things are only loosely correlated.

 

[Scribe]

Sure, maybe beauty can grant you magical powers. But it gets a little strange when you say "my lightning bolts are more potent because I won a beauty contest!".

I get it, abstraction makes things weird, but is it any more implausible than "Yes, sure I'm the size of a toddler, but I can lift as much or more, than that jacked guy over there who's over 6 feet tall." - Aka the Halfling Body Builder?

I'm afraid not.

 

[BookTenTiger]

I get it, abstraction makes things weird, but is it any more implausible than "Yes, sure I'm the size of a toddler, but I can lift as much or more, than that jacked guy over there who's over 6 feet tall." - Aka the Halfling Body Builder?

I'm afraid not.

From the Player's Handbook:

Strength measures bodily power, athletic training, and the extent to which you can exert raw physical force.

Note that it doesn't mention size, or even how muscular you look.

A Halfling with 20 Strength knows how to use their bodily power, athletic training, and raw physical force to accomplish incredible feats of athletics and martial combat.

In a similar way, Charisma measures how you use your force of personality to persuade, deceive, perform, and cast spells. It doesn't need to be tied to beauty, just as Strength doesn't need to be tied to size.

 

[Scribe]

From the Player's Handbook:



Note that it doesn't mention size, or even how muscular you look.

A Halfling with 20 Strength knows how to use their bodily power, athletic training, and raw physical force to accomplish incredible feats of athletics and martial combat.

In a similar way, Charisma measures how you use your force of personality to persuade, deceive, perform, and cast spells. It doesn't need to be tied to beauty, just as Strength doesn't need to be tied to size.

I had just edited my post, and decided 'nah, its not worth it', and this is pretty much exactly why I cancelled the edit.

I understand why people dont want it as part of the OPTIONAL description, but saying its for game reasons just wont fly, and size absolutely should have a tie to strength, and power, and a super strong halfling is the most nonsensical thing I can think of in this game.

I'm bowing out. When I rewrite 5e as a more palatable experience, rest assured 'you may have a high charisma in part due to your physical attractiveness' will be in there.

 

[James Gasik]

I mean, it's never been impossible for a Halfling to have very high Strength in D&D. The only difference is whether or not it's the result of magic. Nothing stops a Halfling from putting on a Girdle of Storm Giant Strength or reading a Manual of Gainful Exercise in any edition. Gnomes didn't even have a Strength penalty in AD&D, and I have a Gnome Cleric of Flandal Steelskin in 2e who has 19 Strength because his God grants "+1 to Str or Con" as a granted power.

3e ushered in the ability to raise ability scores outside of magic, but for the most part, Small creatures took Strength penalties. 4e removed this, and even published a Small race that could have +2 Strength, the Svirfneblin. 5e didn't have Strength penalties immediately, tried it with Kobolds, many people didn't like it (I didn't really mind, since Pack Tactics was a neat ability), so it's only recently that we ended up in a game where ability bonuses were no longer tied to size or race (species?).

It's worth noting though, that in all these cases, nothing stopped a small creature from gaining great strength, it was simply a matter of time and opportunity. Just as nothing stops a Half-Orc from becoming Intelligent or Charismatic, or a Dwarf from becoming amazingly Dexterous.

I understand wanting ability scores to make sense, but they really don't. They are abstract because the factors they govern vary from person to person or creature to creature. In AD&D, there was this huge divide between 18 and 19 Strength just to create extra bonuses for high Strength warriors that really made no sense (and things got weird if you played a race with a bonus to Strength and you could just skip over !8.01 to 18.00!).

In 3e, thanks to the way carry capacity worked, a Halfing with a -2 Strength was actually proportionately stronger than a Human (Halfling gear weighed 50% as much, Halfling carry capacity was 3/4 that of a Medium creature)!

Even in our world, which has to obey physical laws, chimpanzee muscle exceeds human muscle in maximum dynamic force and power output by ∼1.35 times. And chimps, while not necessarily Small size, are smaller and lighter than humans on average.

D&D sidesteps all of these factors by giving you a simple ability score that broadly encompasses many related traits, despite the fact that these traits can vary from person to person in real life. Yes, it may not make "sense" that a female Elf can have a 20 Strength while a male Goliath only has a 15. It also doesn't make sense that dragon bones aren't as dense as diamonds to allow them to move swiftly and fly despite their massive bulk.

You'll note that these arguments can be flipped around, as the thread title suggests. "Why not have beauty as part of Charisma?" Especially if ability scores are abstract anyways?

My personal belief is that giving something for someone to point to and rate "oh that person has XX Charisma" is bad. I'm not even particularly happy with being able to point to carry capacity and jump distances as metrics for Strength, to be completely honest.

Have you ever looked at the build of an Olympic track and field athlete? We're told that Strength determines jump distances*, yet the mental image most people hold of a 20 Strength character probably doesn't look anything like a guy who can long jump over 29' in our world.

*yes, I'm aware the PHB mentions an Athletics check. But it doesn't tell us how that works, so I have no data to use to illustrate this point.

Ultimately, it's better to separate ability scores from how your character looks and keep them abstract. It's not that the Halfling is really a pint-sized Hercules, it's more that his or her player put more points into that aspect of the game. Trying to inject realism into ability scores undercuts the point that this is a fantasy game. If you want to play an adorable Halfling maiden that can lift a horse over her head like Pippi Longstocking, as long as everyone at the table is fine with it and having fun, go for it!

If your 17 Charisma Warlock is smoking hot, again, go for it! But I don't see how it serves anyone to introduce any element that could get people to think "you must have X ability score to play Y character" or "I'm sorry, you have 18 Strength, you have to be this tall, and have this much body mass to justify it".

 

[le Redoutable]

so your preference is a point system, where you can buy anything without using package deals or kits ... mmmh!

 

[James Gasik]

If that's directed to me, no. I prefer class-based systems to free form spending points, simply because it's too easy in a points-based system to overspecialize or spread yourself too thin to the point of uselessness. Games like D&D generally make sure you have a baseline of competence.

I will admit I like having more options to play with on top of that than 5e supports though.

When I talk about points, I really mean investment. If you break the game into 6 areas of "things I can do", like "be good at strong stuff like melee combat and climbing", "be good at agility stuff", etc., etc., if a player wants to invest in one of these areas, then that's what they're good at.

As to whether or not a given species should be better/worse at things is a complicated discussion. On the one hand, yes, I admit Goliaths should be stronger on average than most other species. But on the other hand, I never cared for things like Orcs, who despite having warlocks and priests as important characters in their society, were really only good for being brutes who physically pounded people flat.

In my mind, any given species has every right to be as good a warrior, wizard, priest, rogue, or whatever as any other, but do it in way that plays to their culture and advantages.

On the gripping hand, however, 5e doesn't give us many ways to do that, so if someone really wants to be a fairy barbarian or a bugbear wizard, I err on the side of what is fun for the players as opposed to strictly enforcing "bugbears are worse wizards than gnomes, but better fighters than kobolds". To my mind, being a misfit is a good reason to be an adventurer in the first place, and makes a character more interesting than choosing a species because "it has the best numbers for what I want to do".

 

[le Redoutable]

species are inside what I call Package Deals;
either a specie comes from a location ( namely a country from within your world ) , or you get bargains on your character profile for using a common kit ( or Package Deal ) ( ?? )

 

[Ulorian - Agent of Chaos]

I must point out that, some people ( me included ) have little or no interest in Fashion;
one bad point is, when you want a job you have to be well-dressed ( for the entretien d'embauche ) , and you will be judged on your appearance ( at least )
am I wrong, has it nothing to do with beauty/comeliness ??

I suppose that not wearing bbq sauce-stained sweat pants, combing your hair and having a recent shower adds to one's comeliness

 

[Bohandas]

I personally feel that charisma should include beauty BUT only in the context of grooming, dress, style, hygeine, etc.

And even then a high charisma character won;t necessarily be dapper or fashionable, but when they are not they will be compellingly disheveled and unfashionable, like a mad scientist, a grunge rocker, or a terrifying monster character from a horror movie or the cover of a heavy metal album