Wisdom, Charisma, and Will saves...

[Terraism]

Though it's not so much in this edition, the fact remains that Charisma is still kinda a dump stat for many players (or, powergamers. Never say munchkin.) Note, I may be wrong, and it could be only unique to my group, but I'm still asking for advice... because Charisma represents force of personality in addition to appearance, does it make sense that it would apply to Will saves? That said, the problem is then turning wisdom into the dump stat for many characters... so, both in mind, what'd'you think the balance issues of taking half the combined total of the two? I'm not sure what to do - round up or down - for odds, but... any ideas?

 

[Fires Under Water]

Charisma has always been a "dump stat", simply because a lot of people either have Charisma or don't. While it's easy for someone with high charisma in real life to roleplay low Charisma, someone with low charisma will have a hard time of roleplaying high Charisma. Plus, as Charisma has the smallest effect on the game mechanics (except for Sorcs and Pallies), most people will choose to put their points elsewhere.

Just the way it is.

 

[Spatzimaus]

Well, I've posted this a few times, but what we did IMC was change all saves to a 2-stat system:

Fortitude is (STR bonus + CON bonus)/2, round up
Reflex is (DEX bonus + INT bonus)/2, round up
Will is (WIS bonus + CHA bonus)/2, round up

Each of these makes sense in a way; for example, Reflex saves for Fireballs have to do with both your physical speed (DEX) and your ability to figure out which way to dodge (INT). Wizards still have lousy Reflex saves since it's poor for their class, of course.

This isn't enough to entirely avoid dump stats, usually; a Fighter will still put his lowest rolls in WIS or CHA, but it's no longer quite so automatic. The impact on the campaign is minor; the few classes with one prime stat that also happened to be a save-inducing one (Clerics and Druids for Will, Rogues for Reflex) aren't quite so untouchable, and most of the classes with poor saves aren't quite so penalized.

 

[Wolf72]

see now if they ever come with a big book of alternative rules, that one should be in it!

(i like)

 

[jlhorner1974]

Wow. I really don't like to make changes to important core mechanics like this very often, but the averaging approach just makes so much sense and the reasoning behind it is so sound that it is VERY tempting to do so.

I think this is how it should have been done all along.

 

[Spatzimaus]

It's had one other nice side effect. Before, no one bothered with items that only increased one save (let's say Fortitude), since you could just get a CON item and get all the other benefits. Likewise, people didn't waste Feats on Iron Will, etc. unless they had tons to spare.

But, with the averaging system it's far more difficult to use a stat boost to pump a save up. You're better off trying to raise the save directly.

At least, I like how it's turned out; your mileage may vary.

 

[hong]

It's had one other nice side effect. Before, no one bothered with items that only increased one save (let's say Fortitude), since you could just get a CON item and get all the other benefits. Likewise, people didn't waste Feats on Iron Will, etc. unless they had tons to spare.

Other than some items in OA, are there _any_ items that pump up only one save?

Also, at high levels having good saves is a must. Cloaks of resistance (or equivalent) are had by every high-level character I've seen so far. You don't want to take any chances against those instakill spells.

Getting back to Charisma: the reason it's a dump stat is basically because it has little relevance to 3E's core mission: killing monsters and taking their treasure. Unless you're a sorc or paladin, you're probably only going to use Cha for social interaction, and there's not much call for that in the middle of a fight. An individual campaign, of course, may feature more social interaction than the norm, but then Cha isn't going to be a dump stat for these campaigns either.

So the best solution to the dump stat problem, IMO, is to make Cha relevant to this mission of killing monsters and taking their treasure. I have a bunch of feats on my D&D page that try to address this.

 

[2WS-Steve]

Getting back to Charisma: the reason it's a dump stat is basically because it has little relevance to 3E's core mission: killing monsters and taking their treasure.

Even if the core mission of 3E was to talk to monsters and explore their emotional issues I suspect Charisma would still be a dump stat simply because trading off 6 attribute points for a +3 bonus ain't so hot; skill ranks, feats, and Rings of +10 Diplomacy rapidly drown out the effect of stats.

The Divine feats from DotF and the sort of feats hong wrote up are the best way to give Cha a boost. I think you want to make a high Charisma be a path to certain character concepts, concepts that are both cool and effective. For other games I've run it where things like Action points are derived from Charisma and that seems to reinforce the image of swashbuckling and charming hero. If you've got d20 Modern you could add your Charisma modifier to the number of Action points you gain per level.

 

[Spatzimaus]

Other than some items in OA, are there _any_ items that pump up only one save?

Core rules, no items, but based on all the ones in NWN I added them to my campaign, for much cheaper than a Cloak of Resistance (I was thinking 1/4th cost since making a slotted item that does all three saves this way would cost (1/4)+(1/4 x 2)+(1/4 x 2) = 1.25 times the cost of the cloak). Maybe 1/3rd. It hasn't been an issue yet since it's more of a loot item thing than a "can I craft one of these?" thing.

I was also referring to spells, Feats, or effects that give bonuses to one save, like a Barbarian's Rage or Iron Will. In the core rules, you'd wonder why you should bother with Iron Will when you can just buy a Cloak of Resistance.

Yes, everyone uses the Cloak of Resistance, which is ironic since it means they can't wear a Cloak of Charisma, which makes CHA even more of a dump stat. I ended up having to make other slots available for these effects.