Dump stats? [Archive] - Wizards Community

Dump stats? [Archive] - Wizards Community

Post/Author/DateTime Post
Daniel Sutton
07-28-07, 10:12 AM Two things that sit uneasy with my in D&D are how frequently charisma is a dump stat, as well as the disparity between mad and sad classes. The idea I got was to merge Wisdom and Charisma into the same attribute, and have it be something like Resolve. Second, int is used for bonus spells, resolve for your spells save DCs. The consequences of this I can think of is that rolled stats will, on average, go down, the number of points in point purchase will have to be adjusted. Certain class combinations, such as paladin/monk, will become much more viable. Casters don't necessarily want to focus entirely one one ability score. Characters that had a large number of ability scores they needed might need slightly fewer, but fighters, who need everything but wisdom and charisma, have one fewer dump stat, while being just as mad as before. Resolve becomes more valuable a score, as it does everything either wisdom or charisma did before, so it might be a choice more characters want to take, which is nice, because most great heroes were charismatic people. Overall, I'm not sure if the change would be worth it; I'd have to do an audit of everything that used wis and cha in the game, and imagine what would happen if they ran off of the same attribute.
Me, Myself, & 101 others
07-28-07, 03:26 PM I'm busy coming up with the house rules I'm going to use in an upcoming game and one of the things I've decided to implement is action points, used as described in the Eberron campaign setting.

Instead of the normal progression though, I'm going to base the number of action points per level on charisma. I'm thinking 3 + Cha bonus each level, but I might tweak that number. It even makes a certain amount of sense if you think of chrasma as "force of personality."
Tequila_Sunrise
07-28-07, 05:08 PM ...most great heroes were charismatic people.

And which heroes are we talking about? Sure, fictional heroes are often charismatic because it makes a better story. But d&d heroes? Why would charisma be a priority for someone who makes their living by regularly engaging in mortal combat? Unless being charismatic makes them better at their livelihood (Cha-based classes or a character in an rp-intensive game), a hero who focusses on charisma is likely to be a dead hero.
Werral
07-28-07, 05:32 PM Charismatic heroes were often leaders. The problem is in D&D being a leader sucks, why lead an army of low-level warriors when a magic item is of more use.

If yu made leadership a part of your campaign Chr would be far from a dump stat even for warrior types.
Daniel Sutton
07-28-07, 05:39 PM And which heroes are we talking about? Sure, fictional heroes are often charismatic because it makes a better story. But d&d heroes? Why would charisma be a priority for someone who makes their living by regularly engaging in mortal combat? Unless being charismatic makes them better at their livelihood (Cha-based classes or a character in an rp-intensive game), a hero who focusses on charisma is likely to be a dead hero.

Agreed, and I was even thinking, as I typed it, that if there really were adventurers like you see in D&D, in real life, they'd be low life rednecks who looked like their face had had an accident with a parked car. Charisma would, in fact be, a dump stat. So for gritty, more "realistic" games, charisma as a dump stat is fine. I was thinking more along the lines of simulating the characters from mythology and legend, who usually had very strong personalities.
CryoSilver
07-28-07, 05:53 PM I have no problem with "dump stats," because if D&D was real life, those dump stats would be the same: charismatic people don't need to become fighters; they can talk some yokel into doing it for them.
Tequila_Sunrise
07-28-07, 11:32 PM Agreed, and I was even thinking, as I typed it, that if there really were adventurers like you see in D&D, in real life, they'd be low life rednecks who looked like their face had had an accident with a parked car. Charisma would, in fact be, a dump stat. So for gritty, more "realistic" games, charisma as a dump stat is fine. I was thinking more along the lines of simulating the characters from mythology and legend, who usually had very strong personalities.

In that case, I have three suggestions:

Attach more important mechanics to Charisma, like action points as was suggested earlier.

Make charisma more useful in your game. If your run a politically centered game, suddenly Charisma becomes the new Constitution.

Modify your ideas about what Charisma, as a stat, represents. Sure it can be associated with strong emotion and forceful personalities, but it doesn't have to be. I myself view Charisma as merely a measure of social grace, totally divorced from personality. Take for example Heracles, the greatest of the greek heroes. Many would assign him a high charisma because he was utterly single-minded in his pursuits, and therefore affected the lives of everyone near him. Personally I would assign Heracles a low charisma; he laughs and cries and rages, but he's not very good at influencing others except by intimidation. His ability to stir up the lives of those near him like a blender is just a result of his fame, father and lack of foresight. In my POV, emotional tendancies and force of personality is governed by roleplaying, not any stat.
The_Hedgewizard
07-29-07, 01:38 AM Isn't there some luck stat in Unearthed Arcana? Why not merge that with Charisma? It's pretty clear the gods in DnD favor Charisma as a stat (right after Wisdom) and charismatic people.
calronmoonflower
07-29-07, 01:45 AM Isn't there some luck stat in Unearthed Arcana? Why not merge that with Charisma? It's pretty clear the gods in DnD favor Charisma as a stat (right after Wisdom) and charismatic people.

Not that I remember.

That's why I came up with this Luck as an Ability Score.
Psikerlord
07-30-07, 07:48 AM Introduce a few psionic foes (with Ego Whip, 2nd level power which causes charisma damage, no minimum 1 reduction like ray of enfeeblement), and your PCs will soon realise low charisma is a very real combat vulnerability.
CaoSlayer
07-30-07, 08:01 AM 1º Change Charisma name into Power (from stormbringer)
2º Besides charisma role make that everything magic that requires a DC use your power stat.
katahn
07-30-07, 08:02 AM Exactly, the solution to "dump stats" is not to eliminate them it is to make sure you introduce elements into the campaign that make it harder on PCs that have a low value in whatever stat they consider "worthless". If the GM isn't making charisma valuable, it isn't the players' fault for not prioritizing it in character creation.
Rhialto
07-30-07, 08:48 AM Agreed. As long as your campaign is just a kickthedoorin robthe monster, Charisma will be a dump stat. Let's face it, breaking and entry is hardly the stuff of charismatic heroes. Making feats that force Cha to be important in combat just distorts teh meaning of the word beyond recognition. If you want Cha to not be a dump stat, make adventures where Charisma is important because it is charisma, not because it is fuel for a combat ability.
starfire311
07-30-07, 10:29 PM In a previous campaign I nerfed casters and made charisma less of a dump stat at the same time.

I made all casters use Intelligence for highest level spell they can cast, Wisdom for bonus spells and Charisma Spell DCs.
Talisman
07-31-07, 12:25 AM One guy I game with did this. He combined Wis and Cha into one stat (Spirit), which combined Wisdom's "willpower" and Charisma's "social interaction." The Wisdom-based spells got absorbed into Intelligence.

One thing to beware of is that every single D&D book, rule and bit of text is set up for a six-stat system. Cn a 5-stat system work? Absolutely, but you have to watch out for weird, wonky corner cases.
katahn
07-31-07, 02:30 PM One guy I game with did this. He combined Wis and Cha into one stat (Spirit), which combined Wisdom's "willpower" and Charisma's "social interaction." The Wisdom-based spells got absorbed into Intelligence.

One thing to beware of is that every single D&D book, rule and bit of text is set up for a six-stat system. Cn a 5-stat system work? Absolutely, but you have to watch out for weird, wonky corner cases.

It could, you'd just have to adjust point-buy systems to compensate. In a mana-based system you could then tie bonus mana-per-level to intelligence and the rate of mana regeneration to spirit (ie. like in the WoW MMORPG actually) and the further differentiation between the casters is that clerics, druids, and sorcerers would have less mana than wizards in general, but would on average recover their mana more quickly. Theoretically a powerful wizard who exhausted their mana supply might take days to fully recover (something supported in fantasy literature) whereas a spirit-based caster would run out of "gas" faster but would likewise "refuel" more quickly.
TheDarkLord
07-31-07, 04:39 PM Agreed, and I was even thinking, as I typed it, that if there really were adventurers like you see in D&D, in real life, they'd be low life rednecks who looked like their face had had an accident with a parked car. Charisma would, in fact be, a dump stat. So for gritty, more "realistic" games, charisma as a dump stat is fine. I was thinking more along the lines of simulating the characters from mythology and legend, who usually had very strong personalities.

Hmm, as one of those "Low Life Rednecks" you seem to be bigoted against, no Charisma is NOT my dump stat, rather Dexterity is (outside of shooting a gun, I am not dexterous at all). Watch those choice of words if ya don't mind. Because even though I still fly the Confederate flag, it doesn't mean I'm a low life racist with no charisma...
elondir
07-31-07, 04:42 PM You don't need charisma to kill stuff unless you're a sorcerer. Then you only need it to cast finger of death. D&D is generally not about being charming. It's about walking around in underground tunnels, killing things, and taking their treasure.
Airwarp
07-31-07, 05:02 PM One suggestion I would have for making CHA more useful would be to give a discount on equipment to those with a Charisma bonus, but only the second time the character purchases from a specific place, representing that the storekeepers like the person buying, and are willing to sell for less to them. Of course, some way to limit the other PCs from making them all just use that one person to buy everything would be needed for this to be a benefit only for the high charisma character.
The_Hedgewizard
07-31-07, 07:31 PM Well, I was sort of right. There is a "Lucky" feat in Unearthed Arcana on page 124 in the house rule text box at the bottom. Apparently, the way it works is any roll involving random chance, like a percentile roll, you roll an unmodified d20 if you have the Lucky feat. If you beat DC 15 you get a +50% on your percentile roll. I suppose what you could do with Charisma is, instead of using the Lucky feat, use a character's base Charisma modifier as a bonus (or penalty) whenever you roll a die for luck to beat DC 15 to see if they get a +50% bonus on the percentile roll. A character with base Charisma 40 would always get +50% on percentile rolls.

Or, alternatively and more simply, maybe just increase the percent on the percentile roll by +5% (or decrease by 5%) for each point of Charisma bonus (or penalty) a character has. This means a character with a Charisma of 50 would always get a 100% though (though how often will that come up?). I don't think merging Wisdom and Charisma is a good idea from a role-playing standpoint. A character who is wise isn't necessarily going to be charismatic at all and with how stretched "Wisdom" already is on what it actually means it doesn't need more loading.
Nigel Rorris
07-31-07, 10:36 PM Hmm, as one of those "Low Life Rednecks" you seem to be bigoted against, no Charisma is NOT my dump stat, rather Dexterity is (outside of shooting a gun, I am not dexterous at all). Watch those choice of words if ya don't mind. Because even though I still fly the Confederate flag, it doesn't mean I'm a low life racist with no charisma...Relax joe...I am fairly certain there was no attempt to offend anyone...
Nigel Rorris
07-31-07, 10:38 PM I believe that the best way to reduce the dump stat-ability of Cha is to increase its use...put them in more situations where cha checks and cha based skill checks are required...
TheDarkLord
07-31-07, 11:03 PM Relax joe...I am fairly certain there was no attempt to offend anyone...

Well... being called a "Low Life" is kinda offensive... i mean, wouldn't it offend you?
Nigel Rorris
07-31-07, 11:10 PM Well... being called a "Low Life" is kinda offensive... i mean, wouldn't it offend you?you took it that way...it was not said..."red neck low life like THEDARKLORD"....if you consider yourself a redneck then, well that is actually up to you....I do not think he was attempting
to take a shot at you....he has probably never even heard of you before.....there are red low life's out there...it is them that he was talking about...not you....

Post/Author/DateTime	Post
Daniel Sutton 07-28-07, 10:12 AM	Two things that sit uneasy with my in D&D are how frequently charisma is a dump stat, as well as the disparity between mad and sad classes. The idea I got was to merge Wisdom and Charisma into the same attribute, and have it be something like Resolve. Second, int is used for bonus spells, resolve for your spells save DCs. The consequences of this I can think of is that rolled stats will, on average, go down, the number of points in point purchase will have to be adjusted. Certain class combinations, such as paladin/monk, will become much more viable. Casters don't necessarily want to focus entirely one one ability score. Characters that had a large number of ability scores they needed might need slightly fewer, but fighters, who need everything but wisdom and charisma, have one fewer dump stat, while being just as mad as before. Resolve becomes more valuable a score, as it does everything either wisdom or charisma did before, so it might be a choice more characters want to take, which is nice, because most great heroes were charismatic people. Overall, I'm not sure if the change would be worth it; I'd have to do an audit of everything that used wis and cha in the game, and imagine what would happen if they ran off of the same attribute.
Me, Myself, & 101 others 07-28-07, 03:26 PM	I'm busy coming up with the house rules I'm going to use in an upcoming game and one of the things I've decided to implement is action points, used as described in the Eberron campaign setting. Instead of the normal progression though, I'm going to base the number of action points per level on charisma. I'm thinking 3 + Cha bonus each level, but I might tweak that number. It even makes a certain amount of sense if you think of chrasma as "force of personality."
Tequila_Sunrise 07-28-07, 05:08 PM	...most great heroes were charismatic people. And which heroes are we talking about? Sure, fictional heroes are often charismatic because it makes a better story. But d&d heroes? Why would charisma be a priority for someone who makes their living by regularly engaging in mortal combat? Unless being charismatic makes them better at their livelihood (Cha-based classes or a character in an rp-intensive game), a hero who focusses on charisma is likely to be a dead hero.
Werral 07-28-07, 05:32 PM	Charismatic heroes were often leaders. The problem is in D&D being a leader sucks, why lead an army of low-level warriors when a magic item is of more use. If yu made leadership a part of your campaign Chr would be far from a dump stat even for warrior types.
Daniel Sutton 07-28-07, 05:39 PM	And which heroes are we talking about? Sure, fictional heroes are often charismatic because it makes a better story. But d&d heroes? Why would charisma be a priority for someone who makes their living by regularly engaging in mortal combat? Unless being charismatic makes them better at their livelihood (Cha-based classes or a character in an rp-intensive game), a hero who focusses on charisma is likely to be a dead hero. Agreed, and I was even thinking, as I typed it, that if there really were adventurers like you see in D&D, in real life, they'd be low life rednecks who looked like their face had had an accident with a parked car. Charisma would, in fact be, a dump stat. So for gritty, more "realistic" games, charisma as a dump stat is fine. I was thinking more along the lines of simulating the characters from mythology and legend, who usually had very strong personalities.
CryoSilver 07-28-07, 05:53 PM	I have no problem with "dump stats," because if D&D was real life, those dump stats would be the same: charismatic people don't need to become fighters; they can talk some yokel into doing it for them.
Tequila_Sunrise 07-28-07, 11:32 PM	Agreed, and I was even thinking, as I typed it, that if there really were adventurers like you see in D&D, in real life, they'd be low life rednecks who looked like their face had had an accident with a parked car. Charisma would, in fact be, a dump stat. So for gritty, more "realistic" games, charisma as a dump stat is fine. I was thinking more along the lines of simulating the characters from mythology and legend, who usually had very strong personalities. In that case, I have three suggestions: Attach more important mechanics to Charisma, like action points as was suggested earlier. Make charisma more useful in your game. If your run a politically centered game, suddenly Charisma becomes the new Constitution. Modify your ideas about what Charisma, as a stat, represents. Sure it can be associated with strong emotion and forceful personalities, but it doesn't have to be. I myself view Charisma as merely a measure of social grace, totally divorced from personality. Take for example Heracles, the greatest of the greek heroes. Many would assign him a high charisma because he was utterly single-minded in his pursuits, and therefore affected the lives of everyone near him. Personally I would assign Heracles a low charisma; he laughs and cries and rages, but he's not very good at influencing others except by intimidation. His ability to stir up the lives of those near him like a blender is just a result of his fame, father and lack of foresight. In my POV, emotional tendancies and force of personality is governed by roleplaying, not any stat.
The_Hedgewizard 07-29-07, 01:38 AM	Isn't there some luck stat in Unearthed Arcana? Why not merge that with Charisma? It's pretty clear the gods in DnD favor Charisma as a stat (right after Wisdom) and charismatic people.
calronmoonflower 07-29-07, 01:45 AM	Isn't there some luck stat in Unearthed Arcana? Why not merge that with Charisma? It's pretty clear the gods in DnD favor Charisma as a stat (right after Wisdom) and charismatic people. Not that I remember. That's why I came up with this Luck as an Ability Score.
Psikerlord 07-30-07, 07:48 AM	Introduce a few psionic foes (with Ego Whip, 2nd level power which causes charisma damage, no minimum 1 reduction like ray of enfeeblement), and your PCs will soon realise low charisma is a very real combat vulnerability.
CaoSlayer 07-30-07, 08:01 AM	1º Change Charisma name into Power (from stormbringer) 2º Besides charisma role make that everything magic that requires a DC use your power stat.
katahn 07-30-07, 08:02 AM	Exactly, the solution to "dump stats" is not to eliminate them it is to make sure you introduce elements into the campaign that make it harder on PCs that have a low value in whatever stat they consider "worthless". If the GM isn't making charisma valuable, it isn't the players' fault for not prioritizing it in character creation.
Rhialto 07-30-07, 08:48 AM	Agreed. As long as your campaign is just a kickthedoorin robthe monster, Charisma will be a dump stat. Let's face it, breaking and entry is hardly the stuff of charismatic heroes. Making feats that force Cha to be important in combat just distorts teh meaning of the word beyond recognition. If you want Cha to not be a dump stat, make adventures where Charisma is important because it is charisma, not because it is fuel for a combat ability.
starfire311 07-30-07, 10:29 PM	In a previous campaign I nerfed casters and made charisma less of a dump stat at the same time. I made all casters use Intelligence for highest level spell they can cast, Wisdom for bonus spells and Charisma Spell DCs.
Talisman 07-31-07, 12:25 AM	One guy I game with did this. He combined Wis and Cha into one stat (Spirit), which combined Wisdom's "willpower" and Charisma's "social interaction." The Wisdom-based spells got absorbed into Intelligence. One thing to beware of is that every single D&D book, rule and bit of text is set up for a six-stat system. Cn a 5-stat system work? Absolutely, but you have to watch out for weird, wonky corner cases.
katahn 07-31-07, 02:30 PM	One guy I game with did this. He combined Wis and Cha into one stat (Spirit), which combined Wisdom's "willpower" and Charisma's "social interaction." The Wisdom-based spells got absorbed into Intelligence. One thing to beware of is that every single D&D book, rule and bit of text is set up for a six-stat system. Cn a 5-stat system work? Absolutely, but you have to watch out for weird, wonky corner cases. It could, you'd just have to adjust point-buy systems to compensate. In a mana-based system you could then tie bonus mana-per-level to intelligence and the rate of mana regeneration to spirit (ie. like in the WoW MMORPG actually) and the further differentiation between the casters is that clerics, druids, and sorcerers would have less mana than wizards in general, but would on average recover their mana more quickly. Theoretically a powerful wizard who exhausted their mana supply might take days to fully recover (something supported in fantasy literature) whereas a spirit-based caster would run out of "gas" faster but would likewise "refuel" more quickly.
TheDarkLord 07-31-07, 04:39 PM	Agreed, and I was even thinking, as I typed it, that if there really were adventurers like you see in D&D, in real life, they'd be low life rednecks who looked like their face had had an accident with a parked car. Charisma would, in fact be, a dump stat. So for gritty, more "realistic" games, charisma as a dump stat is fine. I was thinking more along the lines of simulating the characters from mythology and legend, who usually had very strong personalities. Hmm, as one of those "Low Life Rednecks" you seem to be bigoted against, no Charisma is NOT my dump stat, rather Dexterity is (outside of shooting a gun, I am not dexterous at all). Watch those choice of words if ya don't mind. Because even though I still fly the Confederate flag, it doesn't mean I'm a low life racist with no charisma...
elondir 07-31-07, 04:42 PM	You don't need charisma to kill stuff unless you're a sorcerer. Then you only need it to cast finger of death. D&D is generally not about being charming. It's about walking around in underground tunnels, killing things, and taking their treasure.
Airwarp 07-31-07, 05:02 PM	One suggestion I would have for making CHA more useful would be to give a discount on equipment to those with a Charisma bonus, but only the second time the character purchases from a specific place, representing that the storekeepers like the person buying, and are willing to sell for less to them. Of course, some way to limit the other PCs from making them all just use that one person to buy everything would be needed for this to be a benefit only for the high charisma character.
The_Hedgewizard 07-31-07, 07:31 PM	Well, I was sort of right. There is a "Lucky" feat in Unearthed Arcana on page 124 in the house rule text box at the bottom. Apparently, the way it works is any roll involving random chance, like a percentile roll, you roll an unmodified d20 if you have the Lucky feat. If you beat DC 15 you get a +50% on your percentile roll. I suppose what you could do with Charisma is, instead of using the Lucky feat, use a character's base Charisma modifier as a bonus (or penalty) whenever you roll a die for luck to beat DC 15 to see if they get a +50% bonus on the percentile roll. A character with base Charisma 40 would always get +50% on percentile rolls. Or, alternatively and more simply, maybe just increase the percent on the percentile roll by +5% (or decrease by 5%) for each point of Charisma bonus (or penalty) a character has. This means a character with a Charisma of 50 would always get a 100% though (though how often will that come up?). I don't think merging Wisdom and Charisma is a good idea from a role-playing standpoint. A character who is wise isn't necessarily going to be charismatic at all and with how stretched "Wisdom" already is on what it actually means it doesn't need more loading.
Nigel Rorris 07-31-07, 10:36 PM	Hmm, as one of those "Low Life Rednecks" you seem to be bigoted against, no Charisma is NOT my dump stat, rather Dexterity is (outside of shooting a gun, I am not dexterous at all). Watch those choice of words if ya don't mind. Because even though I still fly the Confederate flag, it doesn't mean I'm a low life racist with no charisma...Relax joe...I am fairly certain there was no attempt to offend anyone...
Nigel Rorris 07-31-07, 10:38 PM	I believe that the best way to reduce the dump stat-ability of Cha is to increase its use...put them in more situations where cha checks and cha based skill checks are required...
TheDarkLord 07-31-07, 11:03 PM	Relax joe...I am fairly certain there was no attempt to offend anyone... Well... being called a "Low Life" is kinda offensive... i mean, wouldn't it offend you?
Nigel Rorris 07-31-07, 11:10 PM	Well... being called a "Low Life" is kinda offensive... i mean, wouldn't it offend you?you took it that way...it was not said..."red neck low life like THEDARKLORD"....if you consider yourself a redneck then, well that is actually up to you....I do not think he was attempting to take a shot at you....he has probably never even heard of you before.....there are red low life's out there...it is them that he was talking about...not you....