D&D 5E Charisma- Good ability ... or OMNIVOROUS DESTROYER OF D&D?

[Horwath]

I would personaly delete charisma as a stat and rearange other stats in 4 stats only:

Strength; melee and thrown attack and damage, bonus HPs(old con mechanics), carring capacity,
skills: athletics,
saves: fort saves(current str and con saves),

dexterity; ranged and finesse attack and damage, AC bonus, initiative bonus,
skills: acrobatics, stealth, thievery(sleight of hands, open lock, disable device).
saves: reflex saves(dex saves),

Cunning; finesse part of the mind. Merged some functions of inteligence, wisdom and charisma; extra skill proficiency per bonus, extra language per bonus, initiative bonus,
Skills: all current int,wis and cha based skills.
saves: none

Willpower; power and presence part of the mind. Spellcasting stat for all classes, calculated in "presence" part of charisma(inspire courage, paladins auras, frightfull presence etc...),
skills: none.
saves: will saves(current int,wis and cha saves).

 

[Yama Dai O]

I don't care at all if Charisma is balanced with other ability scores. The abilities are not balanced, nothing short of revising the entire system will change that, and I'd rather just play D&D and its familiar six scores than some convoluted homebrew.

What I do take issue with is Charisma, a score that's supposed to represent how well the character interacts with others, being used as a spellcasting stat. I can see that working for bards, because a lot of their magic is about presentation. But the sorcerer? I have heard people reason that a sorcerer's high Charisma impresses reality so that the magic works, which I think is an incredibly stupid idea. And the warlock, the class of wild-eyed creepy cultists? If anything their magic should be based on an inverted Charisma score.

 

[Irda Ranger]

Both saves and skills are the evidence of what actually matters mechanically.

Four Ability Scores

• Athletics (Reflex, Jump, Climb, Balance, Melee Weapons)
• Size (Fortitude, Hit Points, Carrying Capacity, Reach, Heavy Weapons)
• Awareness (Perception, Knowledge, Cautious Precision, Stealth, Sharpshooter Weapons)
• Charisma (Will, Empathy, Influence, Social Skills)

I like this a lot. Cutting it down to four rather than expanding it is probably the right way to go.

 

[ro]

Perhaps the easiest modification would be to roll Intelligence into Wisdom. This would have almost zero effect on saves. Only Wizards would be clearly changed, though 1/3 caster Fighters and Rogues would see a change. Int skills would become Wis skills: religion should be anyway, and probably nature; why not the other two?

Thinking about some of the most famous wizards in literature, we have Gandalf, Dumbledore, and Merlin. All three are not just sources of knowledge but guiding forces for the souls of their respective stories' protagonists: wisdom goes hand-in-hand with intelligence when it comes to wizards.

The easiest fix for this is a simple homebrew: "Anytime you see Intelligence mentioned in the rules, ignore it and use Wisdom instead." And drop the Intelligence stat.

This would even help with race selection, as there are exceedingly few races with +2 Int or Wis bonuses, and a peculiarly large number with +2 Cha bonuses. (Why are so many monstrous races considered extraordinarily charismatic, anyway? That doesn't make any sense!)

 

[billd91]

I'd keep the stats at six and pair them up into active and passive. Active stats are mainly for offensive capabilities or deliberately wielding them to affect the world around them. Passive stats are defensive and react to the world around the PCs.

Area --- Active --- Passive
Body --- Strength --- Constitution
Mind --- Charisma --- Wisdom

It's very easy to pair those off. Constitution and Wisdom would govern saves while Strength and Charisma would be the offensive end, used to calculate attack/damage bonuses and save DCs for spells cast via force of will and personality, which thematically covers many of the casters currently casting via charisma and wisdom.

There would need to be a bid of redefinition of both Intelligence and Dexterity to get them to work together. I'd suggest Acuity as the grouping and Keenness and Deftness as the offensive and defensive terms, respectively.

Area --- Active --- Passive
Acuity --- Keenness --- Deftness

Keenness would determine offensive attack and damage bonuses and the DCs of things that Intelligence would otherwise cover. Deftness would govern AC bonuses, saves, and, I think, initiative.

Half the stats are offensive, half defensive so you can't double-down on single stats that offer excessive helpings of both (Dexterity, I'm looking at you).

 

[flametitan]

And the warlock, the class of wild-eyed creepy cultists? If anything their magic should be based on an inverted Charisma score.

Most cult leaders are actually pretty charismatic, otherwise they wouldn't get enough of a following to be a cult, rather than a rambling madman. So if the warlock is supposed to be a cultist, then charisma works fairly well.


I've put some thought into justifying why certain classes and races use certain spellcasting stats and not others. Might be more in a completely different direction than wotc, might be more or lass thought out than wotc, I don't know.

Generally the way I justify charisma as spellcasting is that in the skills it represents having your ways with others. In magic it's kind of the brunt hammer instead of finesse. So while a Wizard might have studied the interlocking waylines of magic, or a cleric might naturally intuit them by perceiving the way the world around them works, a sorcerer just wants it really really badly. Constitution to me would imply it's some sort of physical part of your body, like a "Magic Organ." The Magic Organ theory sort of works for sorcerers, as their magic is in their blood, but at the same time it only goes so far, as they're not made of magic, like an elemental or (to a lesser extent) a Genasi. Likely their bloodline makes them a magic magnet. So instead of their magic being an actual physical extension of their body, they're using this magic magnet to basically project their desires onto the world around them, rather than learning the "correct" way to manipulate it, or naturally noticing what ways the magic in the area seems to flow.

It's not a perfect theory, and needs refinement, but I think it's a start for justifying it in sorcerers.

 

[lowkey13]

*Deleted by user*

 

[MechaTarrasque]

I'm not sure I see all, or most, or many, warlocks as cut leaders.

I see them as Eldritch Blasters!

Seriously, though, while you can make the warlock what you want, a lot of the lore flavor points to them being solitary, hunted, and alone (in pact with, for example, Cthulhu ... um, GOO). It's not that they can't form their cute little cults; it's just not necessarily part of the image of many of them.

I personally see charisma as being orthogonal to being a Warlock; it could be useful, it might not, depending on the direction you the warlock.* Certainly not the repository of their spellcasting ability, and such an important ability that the WARLOCK is often a "face" for the party.


*Ha! Who am I kidding? There is but one direction, and that is EB!

The thing is there isn't a particularly good reason for any stat to be associated with a warlock. How much damage and the saves ought to be a product of level of the PC (as a proxy for how impressed the patron is with you), but such a thing is anathema to D&D (I can hear the cries of anguish over the Internet for even suggesting such a thing). So it needs a stat, and since D&D won't do physical stats for casting (I am still holding out hope for the college of dance bard and the school of throwing really heavy material components wizard--seriously guano-covered kender fireball is the best spell ever), it needs to be a mental one. Charisma is the last one standing once you decide to differentiate the warlock from the wizard (still holding out hope for reform school wizard) and the cleric.

 

[lowkey13]

*Deleted by user*

 

[flametitan]

The thing is there isn't a particularly good reason for any stat to be associated with a warlock. How much damage and the saves ought to be a product of level of the PC (as a proxy for how impressed the patron is with you), but such a thing is anathema to D&D (I can hear the cries of anguish over the Internet for even suggesting such a thing). So it needs a stat, and since D&D won't do physical stats for casting (I am still holding out hope for the college of dance bard and the school of throwing really heavy material components wizard--seriously guano-covered kender fireball is the best spell ever), it needs to be a mental one. Charisma is the last one standing once you decide to differentiate the warlock from the wizard (still holding out hope for reform school wizard) and the cleric.

I mean, I can see an argument for Constitution casting: The magic is literally something you pull out of your body to hurl at foes, and is great for Genasi and a hypothetical blood caster.

Charisma for a warlock I can sort of see as a way of representing your own ability to bargain with the dark powers you made a pact with: convincing or tricking them into granting you more power while trying not to gamble away your soul or sanity. After all, a warlock is a conduit, not a true caster; they might only be as powerful as their patron lets them be. This is kind of contradictory with the possibility the PHB mentions about certain Great Old Ones not even recognizing someone trying to draw their power, but I definitely find the patron aspect more interesting if the patron you draw from is active, rather than passive.