Wisdom and Charisma should be one stat

[User3]

I can't think of one reason why your force of personality(Cha) doesn't affect your Will save, and why Wisdom is for Clerics and priests when Charisma is the most useful thing you need when trying to gain followers for a god.

In this way, Charisma won't be such a dump stat.

[The_Hanged_Man]

Interesting take. I never really thought about the clerical charisma thing. I figured some clerics were charismatic missionaries, some were gruff evil-killers, but all needed the wisdom to know what Big Juju wants.

I wouldn't mind getting rid of Charisma. I hate the interaction skills, and the other stuff it does it does only so charisma matters.

But getting rid of it messes w/ the holy 6 attributes. Never going to happen.

[Sma]

Sounds as if clerical casting should be charisma based, then.

I actually like having a stat that lets a character be likable wihtout being the sharpest tool in the shed.
It´s only a dump stat if a character isn´t going to do any talking, isn´t a Paladin or even a Sorcerer.

Charisma tends to be underplayed, as its easy to forget that the guy sitting next to you making all those funny jokes, being helpful, and generally a nice person, plays Gorm the Hideous whose bad breath alone is said to have staved off an entire invasion force of Pit Fiends.

Sma

[Username17]

Unless and until the designers can finally decide what Charisma is supposed to do, it will never really have a place in game.

Like Gnomes.

-Username17

[The_Hanged_Man]

C'mon. Gnomes have a place in the game. They have big noses and like dark practical jokes! How can you do that w/o being a gnome?

[RandomCasualty]

1082684555[/unixtime]]Unless and until the designers can finally decide what Charisma is supposed to do, it will never really have a place in game.

CHarisma's problem is that it's a stat that does nothing for most people and everything for others. If you have a class that empowers it, like the paladin, charisma is broke. I mean seriously it does anything, divine shield on your shield, divine might on your damage rolls, adds to all saves, helps you turn undead and increases your lay on hands healing.

OTOH, If you have a class that does nothing to it, like a fighter, charisma sucks so incredibly bad.

I think we probably could do well to just eliminate the social skills and charisma altogether.

[Desdan_Mervolam]

Problem is that it winds up penalizing people who want to play characters who are more persuasive or eloquent than they are IRL.

-Desdan

[Username17]

People should be allowed to play persuasive people even when they aren't one. Actually, I am a very persuasive person, and often play a character who devotes a good deal of points into knowledges and social skills.

Not because I need them in a lot of games, but because I feel sort of weird turning into the party face when I have a Charisma of 6 - something which has happened to me more than once.

People who are shy and uneloquent often have a hard time even thinking of what an eloquent person would say. Even getting the basic idea of what an eloquent person would say is often beyond the means of a person who is basically shy.

Convincing people to do things involves several steps. You have to figure out something that you want them to do. You have to figure out some lesser thing that they actually will do towards that end. You then have to figure out some relatively germaine method of persuasion to get them to do that (often by telling them that you want them to do more, or perhaps less). Then you have to actually deliver that method of persuasion effectively.

Now unfortunately, many people who personally don't have a lot of social graces are getting jacked in the early stages of this process - the conceptual ones. Just like someone who doesn't have a good grounding in physics is going to have a very hard time even coming up with a vague sketch of how you would move a heavy weight from one end of a hole filled with acid to another - the socially inept person is quite often at a loss as to what would go into standing up and proseletyzing people into throwing down their arms and joining the service of Pelor.

Saying "I recruit people to the service of Pelor, I roll a 17" is unsatisfying. But for a lot of people, that is the best you are going to get out of them.

Just like a lot of people don't know how a Rogue goes about unhinging a pressure plate gas trap, and must resort to saying "I attempt to disable the trap, I roll a 17". Just like absolutely noone knows what it is that a Rogue does when they attempt to disable a Symbol of Pain or a Forcecage (since those traps do not have real world analogs and thus it is an open question as to what their limitations are, and thus what exactly goes in to bypassing them).

If you really don't know what it is that someone does when they perform a skill - you really do have to resort to the die roll. And the set of people who want to play military leaders and diplomats is not the same as the set of people who know what it is that people are doing when they lead or convince.

-Username17

[RandomCasualty]

1083043265[/unixtime]]
If you really don't know what it is that someone does when they perform a skill - you really do have to resort to the die roll.

I try to do this as less as possible, since I think it drains away the story behind the game. If at all possible I want some way of describing something.

For traps, I really liked the Traps and Treachery book for nice flavor descriptions as to how rogues find and disarm traps.

It's one thing I found really lacking in 3E was the flavor descriptions about how something is happening. IMO if you can't adequately say how someone is doing something then you shouldn't allow it.

I really have no problem with screwing over a player who can't bypass the conceptual part of negotiations. Roleplaying scenes are pointless without the roleplaying anyway, and if players are rewarded in combat for conceptually knowing how to min/max, I see no problem with rewarding players for conceptual negotiation skills.

[Username17]

Roleplaying scenes are pointless without the roleplaying anyway, and if players are rewarded in combat for conceptually knowing how to min/max, I see no problem with rewarding players for conceptual negotiation skills.

But you are not rewarded for conceptually knowing how to swing a sword, which is the point here.

My attack is handled by my attack roll, and my ability to know how a sword swing really functions or my beautiful descriptions of how my blade cuts in underneath the joints of the ogre's tigulated armor doesn't change my attack in the slightest.

Except possibly if the DM is handing out some circumstance penalties which I think are unwarranted, then I can maybe use a description and my knowledge on the subject to argue that down. That's about as far as it goes.

Similarly, if I can conceptually contemplate negotiation strategies, I might be able to present a diplomatic plan of attack which would result in lower penalties than a simple "I want these guys on my side" would.

-Username17

[RandomCasualty]

1083045623[/unixtime]]
But you are not rewarded for conceptually knowing how to swing a sword, which is the point here.

No, but you are rewarded by knowing how to min/max your classes so that you swing a sword better.

You are rewarded if you know that your best tactic is a trip and not a standard attack also. In fact, if you didn't know what combat action to perform and instead just double moved around the battlefield like an idiot, you're gonna get penalized and badly, and rightly so.

My attack is handled by my attack roll, and my ability to know how a sword swing really functions or my beautiful descriptions of how my blade cuts in underneath the joints of the ogre's tigulated armor doesn't change my attack in the slightest.

Nor should the actual delivery of a diplomatic encounter, the skill roll should still determine how well you say something. I'm just talking about conceptually figuring out what to do, not actual public speaking skills.

However, what you say and what you want should still be determined by the player and he should get penalized if he has no idea what he wants to say. If he does the diplomatic equivalent of running around the battle field doublemoving and not attacking anybody, then he deserves to automatically fail.

EDIT: Fixed tags.

[Username17]

I'm just talking about conceptually figuring out what to do, not actual public speaking skills.

These are not two things.

-Username17

[RandomCasualty]

1083049177[/unixtime]]
These are not two things.

Sure they are. A person can be a great speech writer but not be very good at actually delivering speeches. Public speaking is basically the art of projecting your voice, using proper voice inflection, not stuttering, not rocking from side to side as you speak, and all that other stuff that makes you look more presentable when you speak.

The conceptual part is more knowing about human nature than anything else, and really has nothing to do with charisma.

[Username17]

How does that point of view mesh with the fact that the entire range of persuasion you and I are engaged in is entirely devoid of any of these skills which you seem to think make up diplomacy?

That is, I am engaging in diplomacy, you are engaging in diplomacy right back. This is very much an opposed roll situation - and neither you nor I are actually using our voices at all. This thing we are engaging in - it is still a charisma check - but I don't even know what sex you are, let alone whether your voice is strong and clear or not.

-Username17

[RandomCasualty]

Well, even online there is the art form and there is the conceptual element.

The art form is your writing style. Some authors are better than others, and more persuasive writing. There are tricks to persuasive writing, the first of which can simply be good grammar. You can have all these great and awesome things to say, but if you type out a post without any paragraphs, periods and all capital letters, people are probably going to react negatively to it, regardless of what you actually say.

The conceptual end is what you're actually going to say. You can be the greatest writer in the world, but if you don't understand the topic you're talking about, then you can still fail. The conceptual part is the argument itself, and that should not be covered simply by a roll, because that's a tactical point of view, and it has nothing to do with how your character does something, it's all about what he does exactly. Saying "I cast a spell" isn't sufficient, you have to say exactly what spell you're casting.

When I read one of your posts, I can either agree with it, disagree with it, not respond at all to it, or post an offtopic response. So I've already had to come up with a basic goal here. Lets say I disagree, so now I'm posting something that is a counterargument. Now I've got isolate points where I think you're wrong and provide some kind of example or logical argument as to why that's the case. This is the thought process before writing skill even starts to come into play, and I think it's absolutely essential players have to do this part.

[User3]

1082684555[/unixtime]]Unless and until the designers can finally decide what Charisma is supposed to do, it will never really have a place in game.

Well, we'll need a mechanic to replace the way Charisma works with Charm spells and Binding spells.

Which I would dearly love, because I like to play Wizards who Charm and Bind a lot! And that means dedicating some points and material resources to actually having a "decent" Charisma instead of as a dump stat.

[Username17]

Well, we'll need a mechanic to replace the way Charisma works with Charm spells and Binding spells.

We need a mechanic for that now. The ones we have make no sense.

Seriously.

Intelligence is like Halflings, Charisma is like Gnomes. You see, in source material, there are a lot of "little people". They run from baleful to beneficial, strong to weak, comedic to horrific, humanoid to monstrous, and the only thing they have in common is that they are shorter than me.

You can go to ancient legend, modern fairy stories, fantasy movies, games, or whatever. There's some version of little people in just about all of them, and save for the fact that they can't wear my pants without a belt there's no common thread at all.

And D&D attempts to encapsulate them all. And for the monstrous ones, we've got Goblins and Kobolds and Gibberlings and Mephits - and a host of others too numerous to mention. But for the really humanoid ones, we've basically got Dwarves, Halflings and Gnomes.

Dwarves get to do the whole "Hall of the Mountain King" thing - where they get their choice of being Tolkien Dwarves or Norse Dwarves. Halflings were originally just the Hobbits from LotR, and eventually included the guys from Elf Quest as well for some reason, and absolutely every single other humanoid little person is lumped into Gnome.

And they don't all fit.

The guy who is somewhat magical and dances in the mushroom rings at sunset? He's a Gnome. The dude who lives at the old Crowley place and curses people? He's a Gnome too. The miniature chick who constructs steam powered robotic roosters? Gnome. Heck, the decrepit guy who lives under the staircase and is filled with ineffable wisdom waiting to be effed is also a Gnome.

There's a lot of stuff Gnomes are being asked to fill in from a conceptual standpoint - and it's more than one race can handle. And that's why we've gone through 12 completely different versions of the Gnome in the last thirty years.

Not because any of the versions is not able to find backing in source material - but because they all are.

And Charisma has the same problem. Only more so because every single character has to have it.

-Username17

[User3]

The biggest thing I don't like about the way mental ability scores is definately the Wisdom/Charisma thing (the second being Constitution changing with Polymorph).

Wisdom is insight and willpower. Do these neccissarily go together? No.

Charisma is willpower/force of personality.

So why not make Charisma apply to Will savingthrows and willpower skills that don't use Con? Well, it would be unbalanced with all of those abilities that add Charisma to everything. Other than that I don't see a major issue.

Monks, Druids and Clerics get slightly worse Will savingthrows... Except they get good Will anyway.

Sorcerors... Sorcerors will be interesting. You can either let them have amazing willpower, or do something odd like change their good save so Fortitude. And mabe give them a d6 HD and some Con-based 'channeling' type abilities while you're at it.

For bards, just drop the good Will saving throw. And maybe give them more songs to compensate. What do Bards do again?

-Catharz Godsfoot

[Username17]

The game hasn't fallen apart with Druids getting a high Willpower stat and a good Willpower save.

I mean, those classes are overpowered, but it's because they learn all of the spells in every supplement instantly and for free - not because they have really high Will saves.

Meanwhile, the Sorcerers and Bards are regularly made fun of as primary casters - so I don't see a blatant power up of their saves as being even worth worrying about.

-Username17

[RandomCasualty]

The main problem with the combination is what the paladin gains from it, and the interaction with the divine feats, like divine might.

A cleric's divine might suddenly becomes very powerful under this system, because he's improving it at the same rate he's improving his casting stat. To balance things you better take out divine favor or divine power, otherwise clerics become even more uber than they already are.

Also, you've got people who can now link wisdom and charisma classes more thoroughly, like a cleric/sorcerer/MyTh, a paladin/monk and a paladin/cleric. Now I haven't really looked at these very closely so I'm not sure if any of them would be broken per se, but divine grace is a very powerful ability, and linking that to wisdom, thus granting a double benefit to will saves would make it even better.

[User3]

1083524529[/unixtime]]The main problem with the combination is what the paladin gains from it, and the interaction with the divine feats, like divine might.

A cleric's divine might suddenly becomes very powerful under this system, because he's improving it at the same rate he's improving his casting stat. To balance things you better take out divine favor or divine power, otherwise clerics become even more uber than they already are.

Of course. You might even have to simply replace which stat the abilities are based on. Although it might make an equal amount of sense to leave the casting stat of divine spellcasters as Wisdom (as they gain spells through religious contemplation and introspection), and leave Charisma as their force of belief (more raw, like a straight bonus to damage, saves, or the ability to destroy Undead). I think that is basically the rationale for clerical/paladin MAD.

1083524529[/unixtime]]Also, you've got people who can now link wisdom and charisma classes more thoroughly, like a cleric/sorcerer/MyTh, a paladin/monk and a paladin/cleric. Now I haven't really looked at these very closely so I'm not sure if any of them would be broken per se, but divine grace is a very powerful ability, and linking that to wisdom, thus granting a double benefit to will saves would make it even better.

You should see my Monk/Paladin build if you think that this would be unbalanced. It isn't core, but it is "100% Official."
Getting Wisdom to unarmored AC, Attacks, Damage, Saves, Full turn undead progression, Smite evil, Spellcasting, and various DCs isn't as hard as you might think

-Catharz Godsfoot.

[Lago_AM3P]

Getting Wisdom to unarmored AC, Attacks, Damage, Saves, Full turn undead progression, Smite evil, Spellcasting, and various DCs isn't as hard as you might think.

I'm not seeing how this works.

In fact, I'm not seeing what monk levels give you at all--there is an item in the core books that will give you the same AC as 9 levels of monk and unarmed damage of 7 levels of the same.

[User3]

1083593588[/unixtime]]

Getting Wisdom to unarmored AC, Attacks, Damage, Saves, Full turn undead progression, Smite evil, Spellcasting, and various DCs isn't as hard as you might think.

I'm not seeing how this works.

In fact, I'm not seeing what monk levels give you at all--there is an item in the core books that will give you the same AC as 9 levels of monk and unarmed damage of 7 levels of the same.

No.

As you might have noticed, the build isn't "core."

There is, however, as feat in Dragon magazine that lets you base everything important to a paladin off of Wisdom (Serenity). There is also a Monk class variant in Dragon 310 that gives you Smite evil and Turn undead as a paladin/stacking with Paladin levels. And lets you multi freely between the two. The classic Shiba protector (who everyones loves) can give Wisdom to attack/damage, or if that is too cheesy for you, take Intuitive strike from BoED and Zen archery from CW.

The advantage Monk gives you is that Monk suddenly becomes the better class after you've taken around 4 levels of Paladin. All good saving throws, more skill points, better class abilities (remember SR?), increasing unarmed damage, Flurry...
You do loose out on spells higher then 1st level... Then again, Monk 12/Paladin 8 or Monk 11/Paladin 8/Shiba 1 wold work too.

The advantages come from canceling out the various classes' and abilities' balancing factors, namely MAD.

[Lago_AM3P]

Damn it. Why do people keep bringing up that flurry attack like it means something?!

Guess what? Having to invest 11 levels in a class that will slaughter your BAB just to have a shot at getting as many relevant attacks as people with real BAB is a kick in the junk; this gets worse when you consider that the only relevant attack capabilities monks get is their choice of a feat they're no good at or an improvement to a die they're no good at.

Paladin levels don't help either, as that last attack at a MINUS -15 TO HIT with your crappy monk damage and crappy monk attack due to spreading out your stats, lack of class abilities, and murdered BAB makes the whole enterprise worthless.

The advantage Monk gives you is that Monk suddenly becomes the better class after you've taken around 4 levels of Paladin. All good saving throws, more skill points, better class abilities (remember SR?), increasing unarmed damage, Flurry...

You'd come out way ahead just by mixing and matching classes with good saves.

None of the builds you even mentioned even have monks getting SR--and SR for monks isn't even all that great. If you want SR so bad, be a cleric, and cast an extended spell resistance backed up with a prayer bead of karma. It might seem like a waste to use up a 6th level spell slot for that, but clerics get way better SR (16 + caster level) and this is supposed to be the crown ability of monks.

You do loose out on spells higher then 1st level... Then again, Monk 12/Paladin 8 or Monk 11/Paladin 8/Shiba 1 wold work too.

Or you could jettison the monk levels entirely and also the paladin levels. The fact that you considered more than 4 paladin levels under any circumstance makes me wonder.

The advantages come from canceling out the various classes' and abilities' balancing factors, namely MAD.

Which doesn't actually mean jack when you can't actually attack the enemy.

People get their panties in a bunch all the time over monk's defensive abilities. Well, every single goddamn monk defensive class feature is inferior to a wizard casting magic jar and invading the body of a golem and then slapping a monk's belt on the golem's waist.

[Username17]

Note that you have to control the Golem to have this happen, or wait for someone who does control the Golem to cast a buff spell on it. Golems have infinite Spell Resistance - which means that to affect them with a Magic Jar you have to wait until they voluntarily lower it (something they won't do unless ordered to by their master). You can shapechange into one at any time however.

You'd come out way ahead just by mixing and matching classes with good saves.

This is certainly true. Remember the benefits you get from dipping into Evil. A Paladin 3/Ranger 1/Fighter 1 has pretty decent saves. You can then take Shiba Protector, then turn Evil and take Blackguard. Then you can turn good again at level 8 after you have 2 levels of Blackguard and get your paladin abilities back.

Bam! Now you add your Charisma Bonus to all your saves and have a stackable bonus equal to your Charisma to all your saves. Your base saves are +12/+3/+3 at level 8, but you add your Charisma Bonus twice to all of them, and your regular stats.

I really don't see what Monk is providing other than a lower BAB.

-Username17