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Message: <blockquote data-quote="Celebrim" data-source="post: 4984013" data-attributes="member: 4937">Well, you could always do something like this:Intelligence 7, human expert level 3, max ranks in Knowledge (Arcane) (or whatever) skill focus (Knowledge (arcane), educated (+2 bonus in knowledge (arcane)), academy educated (+2 bonus in knowledge arcane and spellcraft).Knowledge Arcane skill at +12, and virtually no other skills.The choice of skill was arbitary.  Similar design could be used for virtually any skill to produce a prodigy in one skill who was inept in all others.Expert level 3, wisdom 8, max ranks in spot, search, and listen, skill focus (spot), skill focus (search), no ranks in sense motive.Charisma 16, max ranks in bluff, diplomacy, and perform.  Chaotic evil alignment and appropriate personality description, ei, "In public, Lord Danmarl uses his considerable charm to play the role of a witty, compassionate,  philantropist who has only the interests of the public in mind.  In private, he is a hard drinking foul mouthed misogynist sadist and sexual pervert."Poppycock.  This is one of those lovely rationalizations people throw around, but if you get back to the behavior they are actually defending its easy to see that it haas nothing to with playing 'an actual being with actual flaws' that don't involve being 'utterly perfect'.  It's high minded psuedo-intellectual sophistry, since no one in this whole thread has actually stated that they disagreed with me on the grounds that it would prevent them from playing a character with flaws.  Rather, every single argument against my point of view has - whatever the stated reasoning - been used to justify playing a character without flaws.All of this customization can be done in the D20 system by simply arranging your feat and skill selection.  If you want to be a skillful wizard but not have alot of book learning, buy a high int and not alot of knowledge skills.  Buy a trait like 'spellcasting prodigy' that gives you spell ability in excess of your intelligence.  If you want high wisdom, but not high perception skill, don't buy ranks in spot, listen, search, sense motive and the like.  Conversely, if you want to be alert but not particularly wise, take an average wisdom and buy the Alertness feat and ranks in spot, listen, search, sense motive and the like.Is it a perfect system?  No, but I don't know one that is and I've tried alot of systems.  There are always tradeoffs.Nothing in the rules prevents this.  'House' (the TV character) is an exellent example of a character which is a jerk but who also has high charisma, and who can, if he needs to, dazzle everyone around him with his charm.  That he more often uses his charisma to belittle, decieve, and taunt is a personality quirk.Easily handled under the rules.Not much of a stretch under the rules.You have a very narrow idea of what charisma means that is not at all supported by the books.  You seem to think that 'high charisma' means 'likeable, nice guy', but then how do you explain the charisma score posessed by fiends of the lower planes?To this extent, and to this extent only, I think that your rant has a point.  D&D does not out of the box support disadvantages like 'bad eyesight' or 'autistic'.  You do have to cludge a little to create the equivalent of a disadvantage using just the core rules.  However, there are plenty of supplements that allow you to buy disadvantages to go with your 'perks' (feats), and these are fairly easy to create if you want them.But for the most part, your rant is just not at all grounded in the rules.</blockquote>

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