Willpower, Wisdom, and Charisma

[AbsintheCurdle1]

From the 3.5 SRD (snipped):

WISDOM (WIS)
Wisdom describes a character’s willpower, common sense, perception, and intuition. While Intelligence represents one’s ability to analyze information, Wisdom represents being in tune with and aware of one’s surroundings.
You apply your character’s Wisdom modifier to:
• Will saving throws (for negating the effect of charm person and other spells).

CHARISMA (CHA)
Charisma measures a character’s force of personality, persuasiveness, personal magnetism, ability to lead, and physical attractiveness. This ability represents actual strength of personality, not merely how one is perceived by others in a social setting.
You apply your character’s Charisma modifier to:
• Checks that represent attempts to influence others.

Fair warning: I'm going to get all philosophical here, to very little end. My feelings won't be hurt at all if you skip this.

Maybe it's a semantics issue, but having Wisdom represent "willpower" keeps nagging at me. The term willpower is used more often to represent "force of personality" than anything to do with the "being in tune with things, perceptive, intuitive" trait that I associate with D&D Wisdom. I will happily accept two different kinds of willpower:

1) "Quiet" willpower- wisdom- is having your head on straight; having good habits of thought, regardless of how clever or knowledgeable you are. Good priorities; self-reflection; always knowing why you're doing what you're doing. It's what you use to know and overcome your own bad habits, and the self-reflection part is what clues you in that someone is using an enchantment on you and lets you fight it off. So far, so good.

2) "Loud" willpower might more accurately be represented by D&D Charisma. It's willpower as the term is more commonly used- the will to achieve; to mold the world (and the people around you) to your desire. Wisdom may give you a basis for self-confidence, but charisma is- at least in part- the appearance of self-confidence, whether justified or not.

Okay, well, will saves are mostly (all?) against enchantment-type effects, and I just said that "quiet" willpower is your best defense against that, and that fits the rules as they are. So, you're asking, why worry about all this? Who cares?

But see, fiction doesn't have the hero overcoming the evil enchantress' spell of terror through quiet contemplation of his internal self-model... the hero throws off the alien influence through 'sheer grit' - determination - stubbornness - even cussedness. He doesn't say "Hmm, this doesn't seem right", he says "Screw this!". Definitely the "loud" version of willpower. In fact it's usually the square-jawed, stubborn fighter types that do it best, usually with a good burst of testosterone-fueled anger. Not something I associate with "wisdom". Not to be sexist or anything.

I don't know what, if anything, I want to do about this. I'm sure class balance would be all messed up by basing Will saves on Charisma. Wouldn't it? I'm not sure I believe in the Ultimate Fine-Tunedness Of Class Balance that every D&D designer has assured us of since Gygax. Don't try this at home, kids! We're professionals. Really! But I'll save that rant for the next time that particular topic reincarnates on here.

A lot depends on how you play enchantments- are they subtle things that you believe are your own feelings until you recognize the discrepancy (see many charm threads about whether or not you know what happened when it wears off)? Then Wisdom works fine- once you recognize the alien nature of your feelings, you throw it off. But a lot of enchantments aren't like that- you know darn well what's happening, but you can't help yourself... without that burst of anger/cussedness/determination. You could consider these things to be measured by Wisdom- by the book, we're supposed to. But to me, it fits so much better with Charisma, and so poorly with the other characteristics that Wisdom measures, that it sticks in my craw.

Maybe it wouldn't be bad to distinguish between types of Will saves- your class bonus stays the same; just use one stat modifier or the other depending on what you're saving against. I'm positive 99% of you are going to think it's way too much trouble for too little 'flavor benefit', but I thought I'd throw the idea out there anyway.

 

[Hashmalum]

Hey, don't forget about Will saves that represent disbelieving an illusion. That's a function of perception (and hence, Wisdom). So along with Enchantment (Charm) effects, saves versus illusions would still be standard Will saves too. Anyway, it looks like the sort of stuff you think Charisma should help you resist falls conveniently into one category: Enchantment (Compulsion). Although you have a slightly different idea of what the attributes represent and how they work than I do (but not all THAT different), using the Charisma modifier rather than the Wisdom modifier for Will saves against Enchantment (Compulsion) effects doesn't seem unreasonable. As for game balance, using Charisma to save versus enchantments is specifically given as an example under the sidebar "Variant: Saves With Different Abilities". The only drawback mentioned is the added complexity. So if you want to deal with that (I wouldn't), I can see no reason to argue against it.

 

[Xeriar]

I've been thinking along much the same lines, however...

My games tend to be about people in a world. They may be kick-ass people, but they are still a part of the world - not its core feature.

I've been thinking, however, to use the character's charisma bonus in matters relating to 'attempt to force someone to do something against their nature'.

In my classless/levelless design, the attribute bonus is equal to the score, so this makes for an 'average' of a +10 bonus in those situations - not a pushover anymore!

 

[Impeesa]

I've long thought it should be possible to make will saves cha-based across the board, and switch the paladin's divine grace to be wis-based. Makes sense, right?

 

[AbsintheCurdle1]

Hey, don't forget about Will saves that represent disbelieving an illusion. That's a function of perception (and hence, Wisdom). So along with Enchantment (Charm) effects, saves versus illusions would still be standard Will saves too. Anyway, it looks like the sort of stuff you think Charisma should help you resist falls conveniently into one category: Enchantment (Compulsion). Although you have a slightly different idea of what the attributes represent and how they work than I do (but not all THAT different), using the Charisma modifier rather than the Wisdom modifier for Will saves against Enchantment (Compulsion) effects doesn't seem unreasonable. As for game balance, using Charisma to save versus enchantments is specifically given as an example under the sidebar "Variant: Saves With Different Abilities". The only drawback mentioned is the added complexity. So if you want to deal with that (I wouldn't), I can see no reason to argue against it.

Dang, I missed that whole section. Thanks for pointing it out. Kind of makes my whole post even more pointless; they already took into account, and gave their blessing to, everything I was saying.

Okay, (Compulsion) saves = Charisma/Will; (Charm) saves = Wisdom/Will. I wonder if this gives me the excuse to replace "disbelief saves" with Spot checks, like I always wanted to.

 

[Aaron2]

The way I see it is that Wisdom represents the ability to stay focused on the task at hand. Kinda like determination. You gain a bonus to perception type things cause your concentrating on looking, rather than enjoying the sunny day and watching the birds fly about.

Charisma, OTOH, is more about how you view yourself. Do you demand to be the center of attention or do you subjugate yourself to the will of others? I see low Cha people as more hive like while high Cha is "all about me".

I would still use Wis for Will saves because of the determination aspect of it.


Aaron

 

[AbsintheCurdle1]

The way I see it is that Wisdom represents the ability to stay focused on the task at hand. Kinda like determination. You gain a bonus to perception type things cause your concentrating on looking, rather than enjoying the sunny day and watching the birds fly about.

Charisma, OTOH, is more about how you view yourself. Do you demand to be the center of attention or do you subjugate yourself to the will of others? I see low Cha people as more hive like while high Cha is "all about me".

I would still use Wis for Will saves because of the determination aspect of it.


Aaron

I agree with everything you just said about Wisdom, except that I keep seeing "determination" as more tied to Charisma. Wisdom gives you the self-discipline, but Charisma gives you the drive (I also agree about low-CHA people being more likely to subjugate their desires to others, but that ties in with it all). I dunno; maybe all this just says something nasty about the way I see social interaction working around me: seems to me that it's the stubborn, loud, determined people that don't listen to reason who get paid more attention to than the thoughtful, try-to-see-all-sides types (can you guess where I'd put myself in that scale? ).

I'm not sure what you meant by "Charisma is more about how you view yourself". And I wouldn't say high-CHA people are more likely to need to be the center of attention, in that annoying way- just that they are more likely to be driven to persuade people to their point of view, which you can't do as effectively from the sidelines. There are quietly charismatic people, after all- they know how to get their point across with a few well-timed words. Maybe those are high-CHA/high-WIS? Heh.

I guess there will be overlap between the two, no matter what. Someone keeps at an unpleasant task for days straight- is it self-discipline or drive? I'd go with WIS there, but it illustrates how subjective this whole issue is.

Bottom line for me, I guess, is that I see lots of stubborn, determined people who seem to have no wisdom, perceptiveness, or common sense at all. It's hard for me to let the one "ability" stretch to encompass things that sometimes seem mutually incompatible. Definitely a matter of personal taste.

It's an interesting thread, though- thanks for your comments.