D&D General Rethinking Charisma

[payn]

5E is not one of those editions. I ran a monk whose highest stat was 11, and did fairly well.

Which is nice and why I like bounded accuracy. Id still like to see a more MAD design over all in D&D though.

 

[MGibster]

This is excellent. I've been thinking along the same lines myself. I believe intelligence and charisma and wisdom are all bad to have as character scores the way they are because they restrict roleplaying. What if I want to play a stupid wizard?

A stupid Wizard is called a Sorcerer.

For social skills, if you can explain another attribute, why not? Example interrogation/intimidation: strength (I break something in front of the target) or constitution (I'm large in stature) or even wisdom or intelligence (tricking the other person into slipping up and revealing information)

This is actually covered in the 2024 Player's Handbook on page 14.

In some situations, the DM might allow you to apply your skill proficiency to a different ability check. For example, if a character tries to intimidate someone through a show of physical strength, the DM might as for a Strength (Intimidation) check rather than a Charisma (Intimidation) check.

What I'd want to avoid is players trying to come up with whatever outrageous justification for why they should their favored ability for a skill. But on some occasions I could see why it might be appropriate to use a different ability than what you would normally use.

 

[Umbran]

For social skills, if you can explain another attribute, why not? Example interrogation/intimidation: strength (I break something in front of the target) or constitution (I'm large in stature) or even wisdom or intelligence (tricking the other person into slipping up and revealing information)

These days, I've allowed that Charisma does all the things it normally does....
But, in addition, the player can substitute in another attribute if they describe an approach that uses that attribute instead.

Like, Persuasion: If the player can lay out an argument in terms of logic, data, or legal process, I'd allow them to use Intelligence to persuade. If they can make an argument on "common sense" grounds, I'll let them use Wisdom.

For Deception: if you can give me a fast-talking spurious logic argument full of good-sounding logical fallacies, I'll let you use Intelligence to deceive...

And so on. Basically, for social skills, I am a bit more permissive with the "Skills with Different Abilities" variant in the PHB.