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Message: <blockquote data-quote="Kae'Yoss" data-source="post: 426865" data-attributes="member: 4134">As I hate to play under a DM that totally ignores Charisma (except for Paladins's saves, Turning Checks, Bards' and Sorcerers' Spellcasting, and the Performing Checks for bardic music). So people with high charisma, maxed out diplomacy (plus synergy and family bonuses, probably bonuses from skill focus and other feats) who should by the rule be able to talk even an unfriendly NPC into helping them, maybe without even rolling (because of the insane bonuses) doesn't get ANYTHING for all this. The Dwarven player with Cha 11 and no ranks whatsoever in diplomacy will be much better talking to other dwarves, "because he's a dwarf, too". I can understand if you give circumstance penalties to diplomacy checks for certain situations (the others are wary of you, or you ain't no dwarf and ain't got a beard), but completely disregarding all charisma-based skill checks because "they have to be roleplayed" is a slap in the face for players who have invested precious skill points into that (they could have gone for spot and listen instead, for example)Let's say he's got Cha 7 (Half-Orc, put a bad roll on cha) without ranks in any cha-based skill.Now, he's meeting someone on the road (it's dark, stormy, and everyone's road-wary and there are reports of highwayman, so the DM rules that the others are "unfriendly" toward the party, especially since they have a half-orc in the party!). The Half-Orc rattles down his speach (which doesn't interest the DM much since those words would not come out of a Cha 7 Half-Orcs mouth. Maybe we give him a +2 bonus because the player has made such a fine speach, despite it's completely out of character! But that's a really a courtesy and encourages bad roleplaying!). So his modifier to the roll will be 0 (+2 circumstance, -2 Cha). If he rolls 1-4, the character will have been so rude that the others will grab their weapons.If he rolls 5-14 (the most likely), the others will tell them to bugger off.If he rolls 15 or more, the others might tell them a little about the way, but won't stop very long and give only vague answers. After all, they want to be within the secure walls of a city as soon as possible!So, now tell me again: why would you hate to play under such a DM? Maybe because you always put your lowest stat into Cha (unless you get some class benefit out of it, like with a sorcerer or a paladin) and disregard every skill with "cha" as key ability score, since you like to min-max out the charakter and "role-play these rolls?"I could even rule that the strangers they met were from a caravan - who expect nothing but highwaymen in these parts. That would make them hostile. I could also give them no damn circumstance bonus, because they play crap! so they needed to roll a natural 22 to succeed at the diplomacy check to make them even unfriendly. An impossible task, as it should be in that case!You forget that meaning != meaning. Let's take our Cha 7 Half-Orc Barbarian again. Without any ranks in diplimacy. Probably of the sort with the leitmotif "Let your weapons speak". He would not want to have a normal, polite conversation anyway. And even if he would, his version of "polite" might very well differ from everyone else's. We have that even in our world: I know people who answer every stupid joke with "f*cking idiot". I know that he doesn't really think I'm a f*cking idiot". But if he made that comment when his professor pulled a bad joke, it could earn him a special place in that professor's heart (and special attention at every test he writes).So maybe the player said "Dear Sir, could you be so nice to tell us the way to sundabar, since we seem to be lost in this godless wilderness", the character would never say such a thing. He might say "Hey, weakling, you tell me now where sundabar is, and quick, or I get real angry" Because everyone in his tribe calls humans weaklings (since they tend to be weaker than half-orcs) and he sees nothing special about it, "you tell me now where sundabar is" may be polite enouth in his eyes, and the "and quick" just serves to indicate that he likes the answer soon (another thing often heard by his chieftain). He doesn't even interpret the "or I get real angry" as a threat: he will be angry when he can't find sundabar, that doesn't mean he wants to attack the stranger. But the stranger might very well misinterpret it as a threat.Face it: A Half-Orc with Cha 7 without any ranks of diplomacy is no good diplomat. If you make long-winded speaches as if he were, you're playing the wrong character.Cha 8 might not neccesarily mean the ugliest thing on earth, without any people skills whatsoever. But he's neither very strikingly beautiful, nor is he the born speaker. And his diplomatic skills are very surely inadequate to shift the attitude of other people in any grand scale.A character with Cha 12 with maxed-out Diplomacy skill, on the other hand, has contributed much of his time into conversation and the like, and is rather better than the other guy. A high-level character with even higher character and maxed out Diplomacy, and several other bonuses to Diplomacy, IS a brilliat orator!I don't expect anyone with a Cha penalty and no Ranks in diplomacy to actually speak like "hey, <img src="https://cdn.jsdelivr.net/joypixels/assets/8.0/png/unicode/64/1f642.png" class="smilie smilie--emoji" loading="lazy" width="64" height="64" alt=":)" title="Smile    :)"  data-smilie="1"data-shortname=":)" /><img src="https://cdn.jsdelivr.net/joypixels/assets/8.0/png/unicode/64/1f642.png" class="smilie smilie--emoji" loading="lazy" width="64" height="64" alt=":)" title="Smile    :)"  data-smilie="1"data-shortname=":)" /><img src="https://cdn.jsdelivr.net/joypixels/assets/8.0/png/unicode/64/1f642.png" class="smilie smilie--emoji" loading="lazy" width="64" height="64" alt=":)" title="Smile    :)"  data-smilie="1"data-shortname=":)" /><img src="https://cdn.jsdelivr.net/joypixels/assets/8.0/png/unicode/64/1f642.png" class="smilie smilie--emoji" loading="lazy" width="64" height="64" alt=":)" title="Smile    :)"  data-smilie="1"data-shortname=":)" /><img src="https://cdn.jsdelivr.net/joypixels/assets/8.0/png/unicode/64/1f642.png" class="smilie smilie--emoji" loading="lazy" width="64" height="64" alt=":)" title="Smile    :)"  data-smilie="1"data-shortname=":)" /><img src="https://cdn.jsdelivr.net/joypixels/assets/8.0/png/unicode/64/1f642.png" class="smilie smilie--emoji" loading="lazy" width="64" height="64" alt=":)" title="Smile    :)"  data-smilie="1"data-shortname=":)" /><img src="https://cdn.jsdelivr.net/joypixels/assets/8.0/png/unicode/64/1f642.png" class="smilie smilie--emoji" loading="lazy" width="64" height="64" alt=":)" title="Smile    :)"  data-smilie="1"data-shortname=":)" />, give me that or suffer". But I don't expect them to start using words he hasn't even heard before. If you want to be OK in diplomatic skills, have no Cha penalty, and maybe a couple of token ranks in diplomacy. If you want to be a brilliant diploment, put one of your better rolls into charisma, max diplomacy out, and probably get additional bonuses to Diplomacy as well.And going only by the things the player says is discriminating, too. Maybe the player has not that good social skills, but wants to play a character who has. He'll do as I said above. If you now disregard the values on his sheet and only count what he says, you're discriminating him. Rather, listen to what he says, and determine whether he makes an effort, and let the dice speak. After all, every weakling can play a Barbarian who can lift several times his own wight. Noone's going to let them lift up the fridge to determine whether his character can lift that stone block. So treat the ablitity scores and skills equal, and don't take some out of equation only because you're good in them yourself and min-max your character in other things. Could be the strong, dumb guy who wanted to play a bard tells you that your character does what his character says or he will beat you up. It's practically the same: use player skills instead of character skills. to make a bad PC better.I have finish</blockquote>

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