Linking CHA and Beauty

[dcas]

Suppose one rolls one's Comeliness separately and adds the Charisma modifier to the total? Then suppose future changes to Charisma or Comeliness affect the other stat on a one-to-one basis (e.g., if one's Charisma increases by one, so does one's Comeliness)? It would explain why the ladies find roguish bards and leather-clad sorcerors so attractive.

 

[krunchyfrogg]

If CON has anything to do with attractiveness, then why do so many guys go for anorexic model-types?


EEEeeeech!

 

[Jesus_marley]

How's about this idea?

when creating your character, you, as a player, get to arbitrarily decide what the actual charisma stat stands for. The character can be uglier than sin or hotter than the hinges of Hell.
They can have strength of personality or be stunningly shy. They can be the friendliest person in the realm or an unequivocal Ass.

The point I am making is that you can make any aspect of charisma as important or unimportant as you want. Just as long as you stick by your decision.


Problem solved.

 

[Jefe Bergenstein]

The way I see it is a matter of degrees.

For a 14 cha, this could be a beautiful woman with an okay personalty, an ugly woman with an amazing personality, a slightly beautiful woman with a decent personality, etc.

However, once you start hitting 16-18, you need to have both. That's a person who is the cream of the crop, they have both good looks and a good personality.

Like ghasts! And medusas. They are hoTTT!

I'm pretty much against any beauty stat, as it would translate across races.
A talent (1st level only feat) would be better IMO.

 

[Felix]

So Hill Giants are pretty good looking in your game? And the average Fire Giant is hot (no pun intended)?

I think linking CON to physical beauty is a bad idea, because a lot of monster types easily outstrip CHA with their CON.

Personally, I don't think physical appearance should not be based on any ability score.

Since I don't like an independent comliness stat because it takes away from the little that Charisma has dominion over, the (Con+Cha/2) would apply to the PCs to get them to be quiet about who's better looking. The physical attractiveness of everyone else is up to the DM in the end, eh?

And who says 12-foot tall beet-red dwarfs arn't foxy?

 

[Psion]

So Hill Giants are pretty good looking in your game? And the average Fire Giant is hot (no pun intended)?

As for me, I normalize it for each race: i.e., I subtract out all racial bonuses; your appearance is a function of your raw stats and only applies to your race.

Some races may appear particular attractive or repugnant to other races; where this is worth handling at all, I simply apply an inter-racial modifier.

 

[Banshee16]

Comliness doesn't really matter. Comliness is in the eye of the beholder. Charisma is what matters. Charisma tends to vary less among different observers.

I'm pretty sure that scientific research has demonstrated that there are consistent, measurable differences in physical attractiveness between different people.....so it's not necessarily in the eye of the beholder at all.

I tend to prefer the idea of having an actual physical score......but then, I haven't had any arguments in my games between players about how hot their characters are.

Banshee

 

[Ibram]

I'm pretty sure that scientific research has demonstrated that there are consistent, measurable differences in physical attractiveness between different people.....so it's not necessarily in the eye of the beholder at all.

Though I dobut those studies factor in other species (as would be present in a fantasy universe). Why would Trolls have the same standards of beauty as Elves?

If you want to have a way to represent exceptional attractiveness / uglyness (if thats a word) then perhapse feats will work.

Pretty
[General]
Prereq: None
Ben: +2 to diplomacy and bluff. -2 to Intimidate when dealing with members of your own race.


Ugly
[General]
Prereq: None
Ben: -2 diplomacy and gather information. +2 bonus to Intimidate and bluff when dealing with members of your own race.

 

[GreatLemur]

I'm pretty sure that scientific research has demonstrated that there are consistent, measurable differences in physical attractiveness between different people.....so it's not necessarily in the eye of the beholder at all.

Ah, that's a bit of a generalization. Research shows that people like symmetry, but that's about it. I'd say that an appearance of robust physical health is another universal attractor, but I don't think I could really defend that one successfully (dangerously thin models and Chinese foot binding come to mind). A whole hell of a lot of people's ideas of physical attractiveness are cultural, or even subcultural or individual.

Of course, in D&D, things are complicated even further by the fact that you've got to worry about more than just humans. With about three to twenty new intelligent species being introduced with every book, you've got a hell of a lot of different viewpoints to consider. Even if certain ideas of physical attractiveness are universal to humanity . . . they probably ain't universal to elves, orcs, lizardfolk, dragons, and mind flayers.

Really, the idea of quantifying beauty is pretty absurd even in our world, never mind the average D&D setting.

 

[phindar]

I have seen one argument in a game over who was hotter. It was 2e, it was the Comeliness score and two players were searching through the books trying to disprove the other's 23 COM. I thought it was hilarious, but that's not really the point.

If there weren't mechanical abilities based on CHA, I would have less of a problem with linking CHA and attractiveness. (That is to say, I wouldn't like it, but I wouldn't care that much.) But I don't like the idea that a cleric can Turn Undead more times per day because he's more handsome than another cleric. That's a deal-breaker for me. In a game with roaring dragons and spells that bring fire from nothing, linking physically attractiveness to a Sorcerer's bonus spells collapses my suspension of disbelief. It's just a silly idea.

On the other side of it, I have no problem with a player deciding what his or her character looks like, because its a part of the fluff. It doesn't have an mechanical effect, so what's the big deal?