Curse that charisma!

[Myrddin ap Taliesen]

Ok, I pose a question to you all. I'm currently running a game where one player is playing a Dwavern Fighter 3/Barbarian 3/Battle Rager 2. He has a some martial training, but has spent most of his life on his own in the wilderness. He is gruff, crude and generally as antisocial as can be. He is large for a dwarf (about 5'0"), wears spiked plate mail, wields a sharktooth staff, and has a CHA of 6 (which fits the background, rather than just being a dump stat).

The issue is the intimidate skill and the fact that it is CHA based. He has maxed out intimidate at 11, but ends up with a 9 because of CHA. Whereas our party's halfling sorceror who has 5.5 ranks of intimidate and a CHA of 20 is more intimidating than the rough and gruff dwarf, looking like he'd as soon eat you as talk to you. The player of the dwarf feels this is unfair and I agree with him, but don't want to just arbitrarily assign a different stat to be used for intimidate. Anyone else have a similar situation and/ or any ideas?

-Merlin

 

[Epametheus]

WotC's Masters of the Wild splatbook has suggested allowing Strength to be the relevant stat on intimidate checks, if the check is accompanied by some show of force/violence.

Ex. The barbarian demanding his enemies to surrender without any props has to suck up his Cha penalty. The barbarian demanding the surrender of his enemies after killing one of them and ripping the head off gets to use his Str mod on the check.

 

[Kahuna Burger]

The issue is the intimidate skill and the fact that it is CHA based. He has maxed out intimidate at 11, but ends up with a 9 because of CHA. Whereas our party's halfling sorceror who has 5.5 ranks of intimidate and a CHA of 20 is more intimidating than the rough and gruff dwarf, looking like he'd as soon eat you as talk to you. The player of the dwarf feels this is unfair and I agree with him, but don't want to just arbitrarily assign a different stat to be used for intimidate. Anyone else have a similar situation and/ or any ideas?

well, there are three basic options. One is to allow the dwarf to use str as the intimidate stat rather than cha. I dislike this one, since background or not, cha IS his dump stat, and he should pay for it once in a while.

The second is circumstance modifiers. If his axe is out and he has done something obviously violent recently, give him a +2 or +3 on his intimidate check. Of course, the sorcerer should be able to take advantage of this to if he is talking to someone with a shocking grasp crackling.

Third is to suck it up. His gruffness and lack of leadership makes people think of him as just dumb muscle regardless of his actual int or wis, and it makes people take his threats less seriously. Or what he thinks of as gruff comes off half the time as mumbling. CHA isn't just how much people like you, its force of personality, and he just doesn't have it. Regardless of the demenour he is trying to project, he has to work harder to make people really feel it, whereas, if the sorc wants someone to feel his willingness to end their life, they feel it.

I don't like people who play low cha as loud and boorish or having everyone hate them, because inspiring that kind of negitive emotion takes as much force of personality as being the life of the party. The majority of the time, a low cha character should be dismissed or ignored in my opinion.

Kahuna Burger

 

[Artoomis]

Ok, I pose a question to you all. I'm currently running a game where one player is playing a Dwavern Fighter 3/Barbarian 3/Battle Rager 2. He has a some martial training, but has spent most of his life on his own in the wilderness. He is gruff, crude and generally as antisocial as can be. He is large for a dwarf (about 5'0"), wears spiked plate mail, wields a sharktooth staff, and has a CHA of 6 (which fits the background, rather than just being a dump stat).

The issue is the intimidate skill and the fact that it is CHA based. He has maxed out intimidate at 11, but ends up with a 9 because of CHA. Whereas our party's halfling sorceror who has 5.5 ranks of intimidate and a CHA of 20 is more intimidating than the rough and gruff dwarf, looking like he'd as soon eat you as talk to you. The player of the dwarf feels this is unfair and I agree with him, but don't want to just arbitrarily assign a different stat to be used for intimidate. Anyone else have a similar situation and/ or any ideas?

-Merlin

The answer is in the rules themselves. You may feel free to sustitute another stat for a skill in the appropriate circumstances. That rule may or may not be in the SRD.

 

[pyk]

Personally, and I know this view is not shared by all, but the fact that the dwarf has a six Cha would make the guy just plain scary, not entirely intimidating. The whole purpose to intimidation in not to get what you want by sheer force, or fear, but by making the other person(s) believe you are able to do what you want. Examples: Mr. T, from Rocky 3. Try as he might, with the funky hairdo and stuff, he never could pull off the real intimidating look about him. Now, switch to Terminator 3. The guy playing the new terminator. He just had that look about him that meant INTIMIDATION. And without any appearance of strength (at least not when he first showed up).

Anyway, if he wants to play some uncharismatic oaf, he should not be surprised when no one takes his threats seriously. That's my take on it.

 

[Hypersmurf]

Now, switch to Terminator 3. The guy playing the new terminator. He just had that look about him that meant INTIMIDATION. And without any appearance of strength (at least not when he first showed up).

Terminator 3?

Are we thinking of the same guy?

-Hyp.

 

[pyk]

Whoops...I meant T2.

 

[Otterscrubber]

Hey, if that is a dude I'd be more disappointed than scared....

Anyway, I like Kahuna's take on this. People with low charisma aren't just unlikeable, they don't have much of a personality. They will fade into the background even with a bloody axe in their hands. They have trouble getting people to see things their way, etc.

If you want to use circumstance bonuses to reflect roleplaying I would do that instead of using a different ability score. Intimidate is a CHA skill for a reason.

 

[Plane Sailing]

Not to put too fine a point on it I think you HAVE made CHA your dump stat and now you are crying about it. You have chosen to make your character with a poor "actual strength of personality" as Charisma is defined. Your wimpy charisma is a hindrance to you. Maybe the character is insecure or cowardly.

I really dislike it when someone puts a low score in CHA and then plays an obnoxious and forceful character under the excuse of "my Charisma is low, I'm unlikeable". You just don't have much personality if your charisma is low. A bully who throws his weight around intimidates people and has charisma, used to ill purposes.

High and Low Charisma don't reflect good and bad personalities as much as powerful and weak personalities. You chose to give your dwarf a weak personality, so live with it. That is what the ranks in the intimidate skill are for, anyway... the character is attempting to overcome his personality limitations by becoming better at intimidating people.

Regards,

 

[Scion]

Personaly I would probably treat it like this:

Guy wants to be good at intimidate but has a bad cha.

He has lots of ranks in it, he tries to use it often.

I would create a feat that had some prereq's (things like must have succeded at intimidating someone in situation x or whatever, and lots of ranks in intimidate, and require a cha of 9 or less). It would grant a +2 to intimidate checks, keep the negative cha modifier, and add on the str modifier as well to the check if it is obvious that the character will use it or has used it recently (that is why big bad guys have lackeys! to chop them up first and then say that the big guy is next.. or chop up a lackey buddy and tell the other he is next ).

That way he has paid the price, gets a very good benefit, and still keeps the game balance pretty well on track