So I was wondering what peoples thoughts on Charisma was.
1st Question: Does charisma effect the way you look(I never make it effect apperence, but I have a friend who think it's directly linked)?
2nd Question: Give me examples of what you think certain charisma levels mean/could be. Give a wide array if possible.
Examples.(Doesn't have to be exactly like below)
3 - means blah
4-5 - means blah
6-7- means blah
.....
16-17 ...
18-19...
20...
Reason I am asking this question is becasue I jsut rolled a Dwarf with 5 charisma. I'm thinking is is always going to be completly blunt with what he says(i.e. always pisses people off), not sure what past that to give to him character wise.
Edit: I know this is mostly opinion based., just wondering what people thought.
1: Not directly. At least no more then having 8 or 20 Str might the way you look.
1: I don’t think they should be linked. I don’t want to always make a paladin or warlock that is good looking. I also tend to make it one of my dump stats in other class types, and I don’t want to make all my characters ugly either.
2: 16-20 would be the life of a party and talk you into giving up both your kidneys,
14-15 would be a funny guy, one of the people you would want to hang out with often,
10-13 would be ok to get along with, maybe shy but not socially awkward,
8-9 would probably have Asperger syndrome,
As a side note, at least according to RAW, you can’t have a character with any of their stats below 8. I think it says that if you roll lower than 8 you have to reroll until your get 8 or higher. But if you really want I am sure you could house rule that 
Charisma does affect how attractive you are to people. This isn't merely about looks, but also about force of personality.
So you could be Ryan Gosling or Scarlet Johanssen, but with a 5 charisma, it would be a version that doesn't bath, always stairs at the ground, and acts like an obnoxious demanding dick. In other words, people are inclined to dislike and distrust you.
Charisma is your ability to interact well with others. I would not have beauty factor in because beauty can be a pro or con based on who you speak to. If you are a beautiful woman the princess may see you as competition and not help you as much as she otherwise would if you were ugly. But the prince might help a beautiful woman out more than an ugly one in hopes of winning her favor. And so, beauty or lack of beauty is a relative thing that is alot more specific than the general interaction qualities that charisma is suppossed to measure.
If beauty was something your character wanted to play up, you can always add an ability in the same way the DMG describes the optional Sanity ability. (This would have to be done during character generation of course.)
Ranthalan wrote:
Charisma is used for Deception, Intimidation, Performance, and Persuasion checks. Let's think what that means.
If you are bad at deception, it doesn't mean you are ugly, it means you are too honest. You are useless at using words, intonation and body language to tell lies. You give yourself away. Maybe you get a nervous twitch, or your voice goes squeaky when you try to tell a barefaced lie.
If you are bad at intimidation, that doesn't mean you are ugly. Quite the reverse. It's about self-confidence and dominance. If you know you are better in some way than the other guy, you can bully him into doing what you want. If you are timid and lack self-confidence, you will be bad at intimidation. Maybe you look at your feet and mumble when you feel insecure.
If you are bad at performance, maybe it means your voice goes squeaky in front of an audience. Or your timing is terrible when you try to tell jokes. You say the punch line too early. Nothing to do with being ugly.
If you are bad at persuasion, maybe it's because you don't read people right. You're too literal and take what people say they want, at face value. But people don't ever say what they really want, do they? Because they are afraid of being tricked and manipulated. They expect you to play some sort of game, but you don't know those games. You just don't get it. You'd be useless as a salesman because you would be too honest.
Each of these things can be turned into a flaw. To get a Charisma as low as 5, you must have pretty much all of them, But it's nothing to do with physical appearance. It's how you talk, the way you move, the things you say that matters.
My 4e Warlock was CHR 20 at start. This was not because he was handsome / beautiful - his backstory included a single mom with revolving boyfriends (implying an abusive household and plenty of chances to get beat up) - but because he had the capacity to set his will on accomplishing something and get other people to join in and help make it happen.
HermanTheWize wrote:
mattaddhall wrote:
Charisma isn't looks, its ability to manipulate people to get them to do what you want. Attractive, charismatic people might use their looks to do that, but think of how often, say, attractive women can't get harassers to leave them alone.
Charisma is power of personality, it is the mental stat equivalent of strength (where int might be thought of as dexterity and wisdom constitution). It is the ability to force a desired point of view - maybe your own, maybe not, onto another person.
An unattractive person might have lower self esteem because of their looks, but it's the self esteem, not the looks, that would actually translate into lower cha.
Alternatively, a low cha character might just be a naive realist, someone unwilling or unable to perceive points of view to begin with, and who thus has no patience or tact when it comes to massaging the points of view of others, resulting in a tactless character with no poker face.
Or maybe its cultural. High cha might be a manifestation of social privilege, others in your society culturally inclined to defer to you based on caste or gender what have you, and a low cha person might be part of some oppressed segment of society that others are conditioned not to respect, an attitude that may even be internalized within themselves.
Or maybe you have a high cha because you overcame just such a system of persecution, the hardship only making you stronger, and now you walk tall, a living challenge to that system, the members of the oppressing class unable to even meet your eyes due to the stark reality of their injustice staring back at them.
Regardless, cha isn't looks. It's deception, persuasion, and intimidation. It's the ability to force your will on others through social manipulation, or on reality itself through arcane or divine magic as a sorcerer, warlock, bard, or paladin. The beautiful but meek princess who everyone dotes on but nobody listens to or takes seriously may have cha 6. The hulking, battle scarred amazon who can bring a room full of bickering nobles to silence by merely clearing her throat might have cha 16. The hideously disfigured woman in the mask who knows just how to tear it away and reveal herself to drive all thought from a man's mind leaving only empty shock, and whose haunting song can bewitch women, enthrall children, or capture a heart beat to lead it - or stop it - at her whim might have cha 20.
As with the other stats, cha isn't about what you are, its about what you can do.
BoldItalic wrote:
intimidation isn't torture, its instilling fear and respect through personality rather than force. If you don't have confidence to believe in your own threat, no one else will. And while an attractive charismatic person might use their looks, that doesn't mean looks make someone charismatic. Again, someone finding you attractive doesn't mean they'll listen to you, or respect you, or care what you say, or believe you when you lie to them or threaten them. Those things are what charisma is in the game.
Vahnyu wrote:
Captain_Kobold wrote:
At that point, its no longer intimidation though: its just torture. You have failed to convince them that they should cooperate, and you're now just trying to hurt them until they hit a pain threshhold. Preferably before they lose consciousness.
That is something any character can do (assuming that the morals of themselves and their party allow it) although Wisdom (Medicine) checks might be useful in keeping them alive and awake long enough to fail a save.
Stripping an arm down to a stump? Just actually think about that for a moment. You've probably just sent them straight into shock, making it even more unlikely that you will get anything useful out of them in the 10 or so seconds they have before they lose enough blood to faint and then die. Casting "Speak with Dead" is also not Intimidation, and probably wouldn't work either.
Haha he's referencing Baccano, where said person whose arm was stripped down was immortal and regenerated his body, but still felt pain. So yeah, stripping down the arm actually worked pretty well in that scenario =P.
I agree that Intimidation isn't just torture or scaring someone. It is, as others have referenced, using force of will to get someone to bow down. Apperance might play into it, but that is your choice as a player.
D&D is an abstract game. Thus, a high Charisma can mean anything you want it to, as long as it makes your PC better able to influence others. I disagree with others it that it CAN be looks, if that's what you as player want it to be. Perhaps it is physical attraction, or perhaps it is a magnetic personality. Perhaps others are drawn to you for a reason that no one can quite seem to understand, despite your seemingly average looks or lack of apparent presence. A low Charisma PC might be ugly, or they might be stammeringly awkward, or they might just come off as slimy and untrustworthy. It's up to you as a player (and your DM) to decide how a high or low Charisma manifests itself.
HermanTheWize wrote:
By the time you've gotten to torture that isn't intimidation anymore. Just like you're no longer using persuasion to convince the mayor that his son is an evil necromancer once junior's already shown up at town hall with his army of walking corpses.
A good example would be my Bard in the current adventure my friend is DMing. With 8 Str my bard isn't exactly looking intimidating, but with 19 Cha and the presence of a 6'8 dragonborn fighter and a 6'4 half-orc barbarian, both with nearly 300lbs and with 19 Str each, I can use them to gain an advantage to the Intimidation roll as follows:
"If you dont tell me what I need to know, I'm sure my associates will enjoy using you as a pinata. *points to the fighter and barbarian.
We use an additional comliness attribute to "define" how good looking a character is. It affects how much you stand out in a crowded room. Wanted or unwanted attention by just being there.
Charisma is how you attract attention by speaking, singing, acting, etc....
When it comes to intimidation, let's take a page and learn a little something from Far Cry 4's main antagonist, Pagan Min.
Pagan Min doesn't look particularly tough or built for hand-to-hand combat, but he has VERY strong presence. If he intimidates you, it doesn't mean HE'S going to hurt you. No, he just sends you off for shock treatment while he handles other matters. He doesn't have time for you right now.
Using your allies to back up your intimidation helps.
CrimsonAssassin wrote:
Someone with high charisma could be descirbed as "compelling" or "intense" or "having a magnetic personality", just as much as they could be "attractive" and "beautiful".
Consider real-world personalities.
Charles Manson had high charisma, but I don't think many would call him good-looking. Consider Richard Nixon. Not exactly a hollywood hunk but he convinced millions of people to vote for him.
I skimmed most of this, because it is late and I am tired.
I rarely tie charisma to physical appearence on purpose, but my high charisma characters tend to be more good looking than not.
Really, the only time a stat needs explained is the extremes and I have a few go to's for the high end of charisma, but first the low end.
Low end Charisma means only one thing to me, you make people incredibly uncomfortable to be around. You're the guy people avoid looking at in the diner, or the guy whose brushed off almost immediately. Maybe your just a super wall flower, almost not there.
High end charisma has some neat examples though. For example, my go to is Hitler. Evil, Crazy, horrible guy all around, but he could whip anybody into a frenzy. I actually remember, I think it was a professor, who said they were shocked and disgusted to catch themselves nodding along and get worked up while listening to one of Hitler's speeches. It stunned them, but while he was talkning it was just too easy to get swept up in the moment and forget what he was really saying. Same thing with Stalin. There are still statues of the guy in Eastern Europe, well respected, honorific statues to a guy most in the west would consider brutal and tyranical. That was how charismatic he was, how big his legend got. Also, con-men. Not so much the greasy car salesmen , but more like Neal from White Collar, social chameleon and able to charm you into just doing him one small favor.
Once you've got the extremes it's easy to slide the scale. Maybe with an 8 you stick out as obviously not belonging, but at a 15 you can be comfortable in most social settings. At 20, well you might be able to get away with murder, after all it was clearly self-defense and it's possible that guy was working for a cult.
Chaosmancer wrote: