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Message: <blockquote data-quote="Kae'Yoss" data-source="post: 429472" data-attributes="member: 4134">You want characters with low charisma that can nonetheless sway other's opinion with their words (and body language, and whatever) alone. That just won't work.No, but I expect them to play the characters they've rolled. And they've rolled a charisma value, so they have to stick to that. If it's low, they're not supposed to discuss the donkey's legs away, only to persuade him to a stroll afterwards!You're mistaken. Charisma is some incredible amalgam of force of personality, persuasiveness, personal magnetism, ability to lead, and physical attractiveness. If you don't agree with that, you're playing the wrong game, for this is exactly what the PHB has to say about charisma.Of course it has! Because his charisma is part of his personality. With low charisma, you may be shy, or arrogant, or rude, or have a weak character (not the PC's we play in D&D). A character with low charisma might still be good in one or more of these things, but if so, he's even worse at the rest!And playing a character with low charisma as if he were the most polite and confident person there is, is bad roleplaying.Of which charisma is a part, if not the greatest.Which is mirrored in his skills, in the case of conversations, that's Diplomacy (key ability score: charisma.....)So, are smarter characters the one who will be more confrontational, or the dumber ones? Really, this is so wrong! Intelligence has about nothing to do with your conversational skills. I've seen very intelligent people starting to stutter before an audiance. I've seen people that are quite smart that were in hell on every date (if they could get one).I'm not talking about speaking like an idiot. I'm talking about not being able to choose quite the right words to make the other do what you want (and that can well be not attacking you).In D&D 3e (unless you house-rule it), "Diplomacy includes etiquette, social grace, tact, subtlety, and a way with words."I'm not saying that a character without ranks in Diplomacy and without a bonus for high charisma can't talk to people properly.But I'm saying that a character without ranks in Diplomacy and with a penalty for low charisma will screw things up once in a while. Because they can even get negative results in a diplomacy check. And THAT will make you "talk like an idiot with a psychotic streak", or at least make you so rude that the other one takes offence.BTW: I was not talking about casual conversation at all in my example. It was a situation where you need a high result on your diplomacy check to get the people friendly or at least indifferent (so that you can make casual conversation). And a character with a negative modifier in his diplomacy is less likely to get that right, and the others's behavior will likely not change (or even change to the worse). If you play THAT situation as if you were the best orator in the world, you deserve every point of XP penalty you get for it (unless the DM ignores skills like Diplomacy and accepts it when people say that their Cha 7 character has an open and polite personality)Quite the contrary: it's just one mor example of how many people tend to ignore parts of the rules (namely, the functions of Charisma and Diplomacy) in order to create a dumb stat ("Hey, my character has Cha 5 and will never take a single rank in diplomacy, but that's nothing to do with his personality. I'll play him like a openminded, strongwilled, very charismatic, oooops, very good speaker I wanted to say, person!")</blockquote>

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