CHARISMA: Is it a dud score?

[diaglo]

This has always been the case, in any editon where you got to arrange your stats as you liked. CHA has always been the dumpstat for non-paladin fighters. 3.x changed that, thank God. I'd say the real dumpstat for fighters is INT. So you get 1 less skill. Whoopdeedoo. That's not your job. Your job is to hit things. Skills are for rangers.

that's what i said. the newer editions.

my edition of choice... roll 3d6 in order. no arranging.

 

[diaglo]

IMC the most commonly rolled skill rolls are for Cha-based skills, so I don't see Cha as a dump stat, though we certainly don't see any characters maxing out Cha just because (leave that to the bard and sorcerer). At the same time, I don't see many true dump-stat characters -- with a 6 or lower in the stat -- probably because with point buy, everyone has to start at at least 8, and most of my players seem to dislike having negative ability modifiers.

tell that to the str 6 gnome sorc
cha 8 hin dragonslayer
cha 8 rogue/figher
wis 8 bard

in the party.

my hat of point buy knows fewer limits than my hat of d02.

give me my dice in hand.

 

[Bullgrit]

A couple years ago, I joined an ongoing group (at 8th level, D&D3.0). Of the other five Players, the two "planners" (the guys who did all the tactical planning for the group) had PCs with 8 Intelligence. The polite "facewoman" of the group had a PC with 10 Charisma, and no social skills. The barbarian had a PC with 12 Charisma only to support the divine grace class ability he got from a one level dip in paladin (he had 5 classes, including barbarian, paladin, fighter, and two prestige classes -- but acted like a straight battle-hungry "barbarian").

I've been in a one-shot "convention" game where the DM never called for a social skill check, even though there were at least two occassions to make a Diplomacy check. When we first entered a "diplomatic" situation, I asked "Who's our face person?" The Player who stepped up was good at diplomacy, but her character had 10 Charisma and no social skills. (She was sitting right beside me, so I could see her character sheet).

I was DMing a one-shot for a group in which I normally played a PC. When the greatsword-wielding fighter tried to bluff some sailors to get on their ship, I let him say his spiel, then called for a Bluff check to see how well his character carried it off. His response: "I prefer to roleplay this than roll the dice." Then he went off on a riff about how social skill mechanics ruins a roleplaying game. His character, of course, had a 10 Charisma and no social skills (but he was a kick-ass swordsman).

Charisma is the only stat that people cheat with. Hear me out on this one. Players will place a low stat in Charisma annd then not role play it out that way. And then DMs let them get away with this type of cheating. I've seen it plenty of times and games I've played and in conversations on these boards.

But it does depend on the type of game. If I run a heavy role playing game I as DM can make strength a useless stat. Or if I let player play dumb character smart, I can make Intelligence a useless stat.

Charisma is only a dud stat when the players cheat and the DMs allows them to get away with it. Or if the DM is just not a good DM and allows characters with negativbes that don't matter.

I've seen this, too, so many times. And as I've shown above, not just with Charisma, but Intelligence too. And I agree that this is the core problem.

For instance, our party bard was recently Wisdom drained down to 6. Many Players I've seen over the years would play this as no having no real affect. Just a penalty to a couple skills and if a Will save came up. Bards don't need Wisdom (look at Elan , so a low score wouldn't matter. But fortunately, I play with a good group, and the Player played up the low score -- being incautious, acting/talking on impulse, etc. (Acting on an impulse nearly got my character killed twice.) We *knew* the bard was suffering from the drain. There was a tangible effect in the game.

The same with Charisma. Too many people think "roleplaying" means being all theatrical and social and such. They overlook that it actually means "playing the role of the character". And roleplaying a low Charisma/no-social-skills character doesn't mean you get to act above the ability of the character.

But, unfortunately, as Crothian mentions, too many Players cheat the scores, and too many DMs let it slide. (Some DMs let encumbrance slide too, and that makes Strength less important for the non-fighters.)

Bullgrit

 

[JoeGKushner]

If it's a heavy dungeon crawl with no opportunity to be put in use and you're not a paladin or sorcery, yeah, it's a dump stat.

 

[Kahuna Burger]

This puts me in mind of a great situation of a player roleplaying a low charisma (though it was iirc cyberpunk and called Empathy) while doing negotiations. He played his character as having no interpersonal skills and knowing it but also knowing he had to get this person to help him. So he just laid it all out, quietly and without a lot of inflection but honestly, and just trusted the npc's interpersonal skill to be high enough to see he was sincear if not suave.

 

[JoeGKushner]

tell that to the str 6 gnome sorc
cha 8 hin dragonslayer
cha 8 rogue/figher
wis 8 bard

in the party.

my hat of point buy knows fewer limits than my hat of d02.

give me my dice in hand.

Seems like a control problem. You see the design as flawed while others see it as min-maxing. What fun is it to play a character with ability scores in a manner that you don't like? D&D is supposed to be fun.

 

[diaglo]

Seems like a control problem. You see the design as flawed while others see it as min-maxing. What fun is it to play a character with ability scores in a manner that you don't like? D&D is supposed to be fun.

it is supposed to be fun. you should be able to play your character how you see fit. but often the style of play dictates doing things you might not like.

we are using 25 pt buy or default array.

when one player min/maxes that doesn't mean much to the others. it can mean something to the min maxer though. he may feel betrayed. as everyone else is less optimal.

when one player doesn't min/max and everyone else does. you get the opposite. everyone telling the one player what an imperfect or suboptimal PC he has.

i can tell you from experience i have seen both.

what is it like playing in a campaign when all fighters have str 15, dex 14 con 13 int 12 wis 10 cha 8? over and over and over again.

 

[JoeGKushner]

it is supposed to be fun. you should be able to play your character how you see fit. but often the style of play dictates doing things you might not like.

we are using 25 pt buy or default array.

when one player min/maxes that doesn't mean much to the others. it can mean something to the min maxer though. he may feel betrayed. as everyone else is less optimal.

when one player doesn't min/max and everyone else does. you get the opposite. everyone telling the one player what an imperfect or suboptimal PC he has.

i can tell you from experience i have seen both.

what is it like playing in a campaign when all fighters have str 15, dex 14 con 13 int 12 wis 10 cha 8? over and over and over again.

I imagine it would be very annoying. With the wide range of feats and racial options, that might not be the standard. A half orc with those default stats is going to be far different than an elf and different again from a halfling. Once you start looking at feats... for example, an elf who wanted to be good at two-weapon fighting wouldn't put the 15 in str, he'd put it in dex so that he could have a 17 and as he progressed in levels, put his level modifiers into dex.

 

[Viktyr Gehrig]

Of course, Castles and Crusades ties each stat to a saving throw to reduce "dump statitis".

You don't even have to add new Saving Throws to do this. Just have each Saving Throw connect to two stats. (Might want to do something to make some save DCs higher, though.)

Most logical would be Fort = STR and CON, Reflex = DEX and INT, and Will = WIS and CHA, though this makes Strength entirely too powerful. (On the other hand, you could run Fort off of CON x2 or CON and WIS, but this overpowers CON and WIS, respectively.)

 

[(Psi)SeveredHead]

Not at all. Whilst your ability to turn undead might become lame (which I don't buy, at all), the things you can do with the number of turns, such as turn-based feats, are a great advantage to the cleric class that you're robbing yourself of by having a low CHA.

The uselessness of turn undead can go to another thread, but turn-based feats aren't core. Except Extra Turning, but what's the point of being able to perform a useless action a few more times per day?