Charisma, still the poor stat!

[Brown Jenkin]

Re: will saves man, will saves

If you want to see CHA get a bit more play, make the bonus from CHA (instead of WIS) apply to WILL saves.

g!

Then of course everyone will dump in Wisdom except for divine casters.

Edit [We both had the same idea I was just slower hitting submit]

 

[LostSoul]

LostSoul, thanks for the reply. Do you apply modifiers based on what the players say as well as the character's charisma or just the character's charisma?

Usually I don't; I'd rather it worked the other way around - the player role-playing the Bluff roll or whatever. This isn't always possible, though, and I like to encourage fancy and creative speeches and such; so sometimes I'll give a + or - 2 to the roll. (DM's favourite tool.)

 

[Squire James]

Use the usual Diplomacy rules to determine if a merchant is unfriendly, indifferent, friendly, etc. IMC, the merchant's attitude mostly defines his behavior. I normally don't get too elaborate, but here are some rules to play with:

Hostile merchants won't sell at all ("Get out of my shop, you loathsome louts!"). Unfriendly merchants will sell with a d10x10% markup, or buy at 1/3 cost. Indifferent merchants will sell at normal prices, or buy at 1/2 cost (as usual). Friendly merchants will sell at a 10% discount, or buy at 50% cost (friendly only goes so far). Helpful merchants will offer up to 25% discount, or buy at 2/3 cost, and may offer a credit line if the idea doesn't seem insane.

Knowledge of the "true price" of an item is helpful when dealing with unfriendly and indifferent merchants (more friendly merchants work from "true price" already). A DC 15 Appraise check with an indifferent merchant will yield a d10x1% discount, and the unfriendly merchant markup is reduced by 10% per 5 points above 10 of the Appraise check (never below 0% markup).

 

[Squire James]

Some things should be obvious from the rules I've posted:

1. It really pays to have a high-charisma PC cultivate a long-term relationship with an honest merchant. A 17th level paladin with a 33 charisma with 21 ranks in Diplomacy can probably convince a samurai to loan him his ancestral sword for a couple of days, so it wouldn't be too surprising that he can get credit from most merchants if he needs to (especially since not paying back may cost him his paladinhood!).

2. Low-charisma groups with no Diplomacy ranks will quickly run out of people to sell to unless they make a habit of saving their daughters from orcs and such (and even then they may have to deal with suspicion and "unfriendly" status).

3. Only one high-charisma PC is really required. I normally require that PC to enter the shop alone, or the extra PC's automatically attempt "Hinder Other" maneuvers (-2 to main PC's Diplomacy for each other PC who fails a DC 10 Diplomacy check). About 1-2 times in the campaign, this separation is taken advantage of (not so often as to seem unfair).

4. The rules don't account for dishonest merchants or those on the "lower planes" level of the alignment chart. I figure these are special cases where the DM will rig specific results anyway. Nailing the merchant down to "unfriendly" with no real chance of changing it seems to be a good start.

 

[SonOfLilith]

Personally, I can't stand to have a character that has low charisma. The score itself might not help you mget out of some encounters by talking ect., but it is just the principle. I can't stand being ugly and disliked. makes things so much more difficult.

 

[-Ekimus-]

Well. If you want to make charisma VERY important, play in a Mafia-type quest like our DM just started for us. Respect is everything unfriendly people get the shaft sooner or later. As for any low cha characters like mine in that sort of quest, they play another part. I beat people up for information and/or back-owed money.

 

[Utrecht]

An alternate way to handle the buying and selling of goods:

Allow the PC and the merchant to make opposed diplomacy checks. Whoever wins the check can shift the price of the goods by 2% in their favor.

This gives a small but significant benefit to a high-diplomacy player: winning this check by 5 points won't be too tough, and will result in a nifty 10% discount on purchases (or a 10% bonus on sales).

Better shops, of course, will have better merchants. And better merchants excel at haggling.

Daniel

The only problem with this is that as PCs start to get some look under thier belts, a players willingness to haggle goes away - rationalizing... "So what If I spent twice as much gold - I got plenty to spare."

 

[Pielorinho]

Squire, I really like your ideas. I'm loath to use an overly mathematical system (despite my own earlier suggestion), but I think this would be a great set of guidelines.

Basically, I'll have folks make diplomacy checks when they go to buy something, and then pull a discount (or penalty) out of my butt based on their roll.

Daniel

 

[Wormwood]

We tinkered with the idea of altering Saving Throw derivatives:

Average STR+CON = FORT Bonus
Average DEX+INT = REF Bonus
Average WIS+CHA = WILL Bonus

On the upside, you really can't afford to dump any one stat too low. Unfortunately you have a net decrease in Saving Throw bonuses, which many will object to (and did, in our game).

 

[Andor]

Easy. Set up a running nemesis in your campaign of a group of thieves who favor charisma affecting poisons.

By the third time the entire party is taken down by a bunch of LSD tipped darts they'll get sick of their characters sitting in a corner and mumbleing about disco colored spiders while the bad guys take all their items.

-Andor