Game Effects of Dragon Eyes?

[Ogrork the Mighty]

Better make it a really little dragon.

It's always tough trying to replace your eyes when the new ones are bigger than your head.

-Hyp.

What's wrong with BUG eyes!!! (Bonuses to Spot checks? Eyes in the Back of Your Head feat?)...

 

[Ambrus]

You can't really assign a Charisma penalty (or a charisma bonus for that matter) based on how much you imagine the eyes would improve or worsen the person's appearance; some people would find the change exotic and attractive while others would find it hideous and/or frightening. Likewise, a person's charisma represents their confidence and force of personality. Some people cursed/blessed with dragon eyes may feel ashamed and loose their self-confidence while others would gain great confidence in themselves with such a change (especially if it grants them new abilities). You could assign a bonus or penalty based to Charisma based on that alone, but I wouldn't recommend it; it's too arbitrary to truly be fair.

The best game effect that I can recommend is what others have suggested above, give the player a +2/-2 circumstance bonus/penalty to Charisma based skill checks based on how the NPCs being affected would react; they may find the individual with the exotic eyes frightening or alluring. That's the only rule (as written) that I believe applies to this situation. Hope that helps.

 

[shilsen]

Frankly, in a world with things like half-orcs, dwarves, and elves existing in society, I don't think having weird-looking eyes is going to earn you a second look, leave alone any mechanical (dis)advantages in-game. YMMV.

 

[DragonSword]

I realize a lot of people don't like the fact that physical appearance is rolled into Charisma, but that doesn't mean the rules should be ignored...

At the end of the day, how you play your game is up to you. The rules are a guide, not a codified set of laws where the punishment for breaking them is death. Just look at the House Rules forum, and most of the d20 products that are available now. They all change the rules, or expand on them, in a way that the author thinks improves them. If you want to use Cha like that then, yay for you, if others think its bad, than they can do it their way.

I think at the end of the day it's up to YOU to decide whether NPCs in YOUR setting would be freaked out by a dude with huge scaly eyes and whether that constitutes a Cha penalty.

I've "ignored" the rules at least once in every gaming session I've ever played, simply because I've either forgotten the rule or have ruled differently based on things specific to my campaign setting. So sue me...

This is exactly why having a psudo seventh stat comliness is a goo idea
Charima should just be your force of personality and comlinees should be your looks
Theres to much variety in the races to lump looks and personality together

I do like the idea of seven stats, and I've seen rules for a 7th stat, but frankly, I can't be bothered to go through every skill and decide whether or not attractiveness affects it. At the end of the day, the only thing that might be affected by looks is how an NPC responds to a PC when they first meet, before they've spoken, after that the character's charisma takes over, when the two start a conversation. That's when the PC's charm kicks in.

 

[Saeviomagy]

The spell "arcane sight" makes your eyes glow for the duration of the spell.

It does not mention a charisma penalty, nor a penalty to any social skills.

However I daresay the GM would be well within his rights to have a peasant mention it, or someone who assassinates wizards have a more negative starting reaction than normal.

And that's the same way you adjudicate the eyes. If the person in question has reason to believe that the eyes indicate something bad, decrease his reaction by one step. In a town thats being terrorised by a dragon, having the dragon eyes is probably worth changing helfpul to friendly, friendly to neutral and neutral to unfriendly.

Conversely in a town being protected by a good dragon, the opposite is probably true.

A blanket decrease in skills or stats is just plain stupid.