D&D 5E Where does "Willpower" lie... Wisdom? Charisma? or someplace else?

[Lojaan]

It's constitution. Nothing to do with wisdom or charisma. Your con score is a combo of physical and emotional fortitude.

 

[Uni-the-Unicorn!]

As @cbwjm said, in 5e willpower is broken up between all of the “mental” stats: Int, Wis, & Cha.

 

[Seramus]

I tried to get into it--I even own it. Perhaps I didn't give the systems enough time to present their case, but I got rather turned off by an accidental spoiler while looking up information. To whit, the fact that the gods are just machines created by an ancient race that went insane from realizing there were no gods....just wasn't a very interesting story to me, and rather undercut any interest I might have had in the "a god chose to incarnate as a mortal" plot that undergirds the rest of the story.

Spoiler

They are not machines like AI or anything. Their society used magitech to transform into etheric soul-stuff, which formed into Gods themed around major things the culture believed in. A little bit like the chaos gods in 40k and how the Eldar made Slaanesh.

There IS a machine/magitech called The Great Wheel that gathers up the souls of the dead, gives them a good rinsing, and then reincarnates them. The gods munch on some of the souls in the Great Wheel to sustain themselves.

I don't know if that clarification helps, but I wanted to write it in case there was a misunderstanding.

 

[EzekielRaiden]

Spoiler

They are not machines like AI or anything. Their society used magitech to transform into etheric soul-stuff, which formed into Gods themed around major things the culture believed in. A little bit like the chaos gods in 40k and how the Eldar made Slaanesh.

There IS a machine/magitech called The Great Wheel that gathers up the souls of the dead, gives them a good rinsing, and then reincarnates them. The gods munch on some of the souls in the Great Wheel to sustain themselves.

I don't know if that clarification helps, but I wanted to write it in case there was a misunderstanding.

Not particularly.

Spoiler

I find the "horrified at God is Dead" trope to be not particularly interesting, and at least the initial game's presentation of Eothas and his actions to be pretty off-putting. As in, they specifically took the deity I normally would have liked most and made him something monstrous. Also atheism is true and all believers are deluded fools enslaved to an ancient conspiracy...not really "for me." Having read up on the sequel, it sounds like it gets somewhat better, but not in a way I find very compelling. Whether the gods are mere machines or huge piles of souls condensed in giant soul gems or organically-bred wonders of biotechnology...doesn't really matter to me. They're all machines (of whatever construction) created by humans, and any belief in them is thus axiomatically hollow. Characters like Edér make the situation worse, not better.

I much prefer the agnostic approach. No one knows and it is always a choice. I encoded this into my own home game. A powerful deity-like being is known to exist, whom the Safiqi priests call The One. The One cannot prove unequivocally that it is the one true God (and its servants claim They would not, even if They could). So it's ultimately a choice for each person: to decide, based on inherently incomplete information, which path seems to be correct. There is no proof that cannot ever be questioned, no independent objective facts that can be accessed even in theory.

 

[Seramus]

Not particularly.

Spoiler

I find the "horrified at God is Dead" trope to be not particularly interesting, and at least the initial game's presentation of Eothas and his actions to be pretty off-putting. As in, they specifically took the deity I normally would have liked most and made him something monstrous. Also atheism is true and all believers are deluded fools enslaved to an ancient conspiracy...not really "for me." Having read up on the sequel, it sounds like it gets somewhat better, but not in a way I find very compelling. Whether the gods are mere machines or huge piles of souls condensed in giant soul gems or organically-bred wonders of biotechnology...doesn't really matter to me. They're all machines (of whatever construction) created by humans, and any belief in them is thus axiomatically hollow. Characters like Edér make the situation worse, not better.

I much prefer the agnostic approach. No one knows and it is always a choice. I encoded this into my own home game. A powerful deity-like being is known to exist, whom the Safiqi priests call The One. The One cannot prove unequivocally that it is the one true God (and its servants claim They would not, even if They could). So it's ultimately a choice for each person: to decide, based on inherently incomplete information, which path seems to be correct. There is no proof that cannot ever be questioned, no independent objective facts that can be accessed even in theory.

Spoiler

The Engwithans didn't find any gods, but they don't know where the souls are coming from originally. So it's not factual atheism or anything. Just a huge shrug. Of course, the gods that formed DID cover up their origins and pretend to be the only gods that ever were.

 

[jmartkdr2]

Snip. Into the memory banks this one goes.

I once re-wrote the base races as:

Dwarf: tough but slow, + to con and wis, and - to dex and int
Elf: fast but weak, + dex and int, - str and cha
Human: strong but frail: +str and cha (they are the largest of the classic races, and the loudest), - con and wis (they are also the most corruptable)
Halflings: are hiding and can't be found

 

[Benjamin Olson]

It's Wisdom, as per D&D tradition, but I refuse to vote for that. Of all the odd things that get lumped together in one stat willpower and insightfulness bothers me the most, as they not only often have nothing to do with each other in the way I feel like characters should behave, but often have an inverse relationship. Yes one can have a great force of will from some sort of self-knowledge or whatever, I understand why they got lumped together, but one can also be stubborn or brave or some other things that also should involve helping one pass a will check precisely because one is unwise.

I think my preference if we must do everything with the traditional six stats would be for willpower to be a derived stat with a positive bonus based on how far your Wisdom deviated from ten. Great wisdom, fantastic you're a stoic philosopher; nothing can phase you. Terrible wisdom; congratulations you are foolhardy.