And that stat has now been merged into Charisma.

The description at D20 SRD is not ambiguous about this:


As I said, Charisma has several unrelated aspects. Your score is the average of them all, weighed however you feel is appropriate.

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Sorry man, i have to politely disagree. Powerbuilds can be RPed well just like any other build. If a powerbuilder wants to senselessly grind away without interacting then that's on them, but ive met way too many well built CHRs who are great RPers to think this way. As far as someone who just bullies people with their powerbuild? Just assume just that about them and round up a group of friends and hunt them down. Seems a perfectly RPed response to a bully IMO.

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Nothin matters berk. Don't you see? Even so a poor sod shoudn't go hungry

Ania, for example, likes a sarcastic asshole with a sweet side. Mostly because that's what she is too.


Now, on to the stats.
I agree that you should play them. I also agree that most of us (most, not all) have forgotten to, conveniently or otherwise. Just do your best. That's all I've ever asked anyone.

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Aly'dra Zau'ana: Priestessish Of Eilistraee
Danika Nefzen: Druid of the Earthmother
Delia Am'Anodel: Paladin of Torm

You completely missed my point. Its not the relative strength of the build its the thought put into it. There's a difference between "I'm going to make a gruff, hard hitting badass warrior and generate some conflict RP with him" and "OH MY GODS MUST MAKE POWERBUILDS TO PWNS ALL THE NOOBSORS WHO CANT! I AM THE NUMBERONES!!!!1111oneoneone".

An RP build, in my opinion, is a build that is created and dictated by the character background you created, the sort of RP you want, and then you choose stats, feats, skills, and classes accordingly. These people generally bring good conflict RP that actually builds upon things and can lead to some pretty fun stuff.

A powerbuild is when someone creates a build for the express purpose of being able to kill as many PCs as they feasibly can, and the only RP they do outside of starting fights is occasionally trading for uber equipment they've not been able to get by grinding away on epic runs. This attitude contributes little of value or meaning to the server, its just another asshole running around and ruining peoples times, and I'm sorry but getting a group of people together to come out and kick your ass just so you can respawn and come back five minutes later somewhere else having suffered no real penalty and do it over and over again is NOT good RP, its you being a douche.


Disclaimer: That you isn't a personally you. I realized that sounded like an attack after I wrote it.





The problem with wis and int is that even when they are clearly defined they aren't clearly defined. That said I tend to play 14+ int characters because it fits better with my own way of looking at and analyzing things.

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Sir Taelar Ardelyn of Wiltun
Winner of the Razor Tongued Award 2015!

Kira "Penny" Sigers
Better than Boulderdash!

This really has taken a lot of left turns. And they are not divisible by four.

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The Peacock wrote:

[GreatPigeon] is better than me.

Depends too much on the player. I think if you're intelligent and have a more 'forceful' personality in real life, that is probably going to slide over into your character, even if he has 8 CHA himself - unless you are a god of objectivity and can completely authentically remove yourself from yourself and 'be' your character, which sounds pretty unlikely. Even if you intend to play a 'quiet, gentle, bland' type of person, the level of three-dimensionality that you can give them because of your own imagination will make them stand out more than 18 CHA Sally, who is being played by Nice Quiet Susan. Add that to the fact that certain people value some OOC aspects over proper IC interactions: ''This character is going to be in a confrontational faction, therefore he must be a powerbuild or he will be stomped because the opposition guys all powerbuild too,'' and you have a recipe for some fairly questionable RP-stat relationships.

To conclude, humans are disgustingly fallible creatures and I hate all of you and myself.

an example of low wisdom RP

viewtopic.php?f=85&p=1164917#p1164917

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Nothin matters berk. Don't you see? Even so a poor sod shoudn't go hungry

It would totally work for me. NWN was my first entry into Forgotten Realms, DnD, and even roleplaying in general. I can still remember doing some things on Garnith when I first started here that make me cringe now. And even now, I have very little knowledge of any lore beyond a few areas of expertise, mostly gained through these very forums (The draconic lore thread and the Fey thread are probably my two favorite threads on the entire site), with only occasional input from other sources (Libris Mortis, etc).

Getting a few DM slaps earlier would have helped me immensely, though I'd like to think that said slaps would only rarely be required now.

Back on the main topic:

It never actually occurred to me that people might do this. I just thought that everyone put tons in Cha. Kinda glad I usually drop wisdom, as it's fairly easy to play a character who isn't that perceptive compared to one who can't count over twenty because he runs out of fingers and toes.

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"Hi, I'm Garnith, and I'm an Invisophile."
Garnith, Ranth, Rick, Burick, Elail, Deryl, Kane, Rini.
Suggestion Rule of Thumb: Don't think about how neat it would be to use, think about how neat it would be for people to use against you.

Bumping this as a reminder. Your stats -MUST- be RPed. Do not make a ridiculous cheese-build and then be surprised when your dump-stats are enforced by the DM team.

Manarethan, could you give a brief make-up scenario of what you should or shouldn't so? As someone who plays a "cheese build" (Paladin/Rogue) I make sure to RP the skills acquired through her Rogue levels (like her sneaks, magical item manipulation and tumble dodging), but want to make sure I'm doing it to the extent the DM team want to see it.

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You should RP your stats, skills, race and class levels appropriately. For example, that means that if you're playing a character with 6 charisma and wisdom, your character -will- make terrible strategic choices and have the social skills of a brick. The upside is, of course, that you're about as tough as a brick, but you can't have the upside and gloss over the downside. If your character is, for example, an Earth Genasi, this means you must RP that race, and your character will demonstrate some earth genasi traits, such as a typically lawful alignment, physical attributes or other such things. If you say you look, sound and act entirely like a normal human/elf/whatever, you're doing it wrong. If you're a paladin with rogue levels, you must address both how your paladin acquired such skills, and RP it accordingly. This goes even moreso for classes like RDD or PM, which are the most common for people to take for power and then ignore in RP.

A prime example of an unacceptable cheesebuild is this. A Chaotic Evil Earth Genasi Bard/RDD/PM with 6 wisdom and charisma. It has an exceedingly rare alignment, -two- exceedingly rare bloodlines, both of which happen to manifest, and all three classes do not fit the RP of the Earth Genasi Race. If the character also RPs themselves as suave, charming and a people-person who makes excellent decisions and gives great advise, that is so far unacceptable that I would likely force a rebuild. It's sad that I've literally seen this exact character type in-game far more than once.

So yes, your character sheet must be RPed appropriately. All of it.

In return, I would say it would be a good practice for DMs to ensure they know why certain stats are low for a given character and why they are that way. It is easiest to find this out just by asking, generally. Abilities can refer to multiple aspects of a character's roleplay, but not necessarily all aspects that ability covers. For example, some people may roleplay a deipnosophist who is ugly as sin to represent a low Cha, whereas others may be a beautiful ingenue who buckles even if you ask "why?"

Responded to it in a new topic, as not to derail this one.

I think most would agree Lithen fits 8 CHA and WIS. She has trouble reading social context and is usually pretty transparent in what she wants and is doing. She also doesn't know that she is and will try to be smooth accordingly. With 14 It she is pretty good at piecing together bits of info into a workable whole, leading to some good ideas and unforeseen intuition on her part. Many make the mistake of thinking she is dumb because of her poor personality.

8 WIS is harder. She has insight from intelligence and experience and uses that to help others, so I regularly give her really bad ideas that are not founded on any sound reasoning or evidence, which lead her into doing/trying unwise things (or just not being nearly as careful as she should.) I often worry that i put too much of a positive spin on her dump stats, but so far other characters have responded more or less well to the vibe I try to give off.

Roleplaying my good stats is easy because they're ... DEX. Roleplaying my sub 10 stats however make up a lot of her regular interactions.

Now for my 4 str 4 con pixie ....

Just to be clear and for the sake of argument(Not actually wanting to argue the point).

So, stat RP is going to be enforced. Is the build thread now going to reflect this stance as well? And are more RP appropriate builds and players that are inept at the utilizing the mechanics of the game going to be compensated somehow? I don't know about anyone else, but I steer clear of most epic areas already with even my cheese builds due to the ass kickery found there. So now not only am I a bad player but a terrible RP'er as well.

Thanks, I guess.

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Thine taste in horrid footwear not withstanding, I did not say that thou were in fact an idiot, I merely implied that such things were self evident.

-Krrja

I don't know where the hostility stems from. We are an RP server and thus if your sheet says something you are just expected to account for it. Barring server specific rulings.

Bravo21: I will shamelessly take this opportunity to polish my halo and say: way ahead of you, sirrah! I invite you to search my username within the build threads. You'll find several references to obligations stemming from dumped personality stats.

Mercedes: I can't see actual hostility, but as a former DM and lifelong complete arse, I am nervous of the notion that someone with more buttons and better buttons than me, who is also a complete arse, will disagree with my interpretation of stat RP and force a rebuild. Even if that's as 'trivial' as 30HP and 1Fort, it'd just be a pain in my complete arse.

Not intended as hostile. But I do have a particular OCD about equality and in this case a sense of scale.

By that I mean, a player cannot possibly RP accurately an Intelligence of 40, yet would be penalized by just 2 points below average? A the same time the server has always been the haven for extreme builds without the need to exclude those characters from RP. Why not simply require a request so that all characters can be RP'd correctly? Maybe you're right, still sounds a little hostile, I'll be quiet now...

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Thine taste in horrid footwear not withstanding, I did not say that thou were in fact an idiot, I merely implied that such things were self evident.

-Krrja

What fun is it if your character is good at everything but it doesn't transition into stats? Always RP your shitty and your strong stats.

Is it okay to supplement your base stats with items and RP those? That's why I've always done with Rosie, someone asks me for advice I change some of my equipment (RP putting. On a pariphet of wisdom, even tell them what it is if they roll their sc check) and then go from there. Same thing with nymph cloak and crafted +# CHA clothing if I'm going to a play etc..

Her low con also means she has a -lt- of scars for the many many times she's been fell in battle and she runs like hell if anything ever attacks her.

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Rosie Adenney - The Smiling Red Hin
Dalur Illien - Hound of Justice
Tria Under - Blunt as Stone

Roleplaying the stats of your character appropriately is something everyone should have been doing from the start. It is common sense, and this being enforced just cracks down on those who think they can get away min-max their characters, and pretend they do not have weak attributes.

If you make an orog barbarian with all epic rages, with 4 charisma, 4 wisdom and 4 int, then he is not going to be very wise, intelligent nor charismatic. If you then play him as if he understood higher concepts of theology of the church of lathander, or give him the background he was a professor at the thayan academy of astronomy and planar lore, you are essentially cheating, given we are a roleplay server. Not to mention you should read up on Thay.

And of course we can not demand you deliever on 40 int, but we can certainly expect you to deliever on 5 int. If you want to play a graceful sun elven wizard, do not take 6 dexterity.

I am not a big fan of turning characters into sums of the stereotypes associated with each sthat, so I am likely to argue if someone says my characters should be like this or like that based on their stats unless we are talking about a task that mandates a stat check and the character does not have what it takes to pass that test.

That is what the stats are for after all, checks.

Everyday communication does not call for a charisma check, writing a letter does not call for an intelligence check and knowing to avoid sitting on an ants nest does not call for a wisdom check.

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Gagis Silvarna, the Robocop with wings who shoots lasers from his fingertips
Lily Havthorn, the Waukeenar
Silwe, the elf

Curious, how many DMs pop open the character sheet to award RPing their excellent stats well? That goes for high scores aswell.

Also do characters with high scores that doesnt act them get frowned at too? Like a 30 base wisdom character having a farting contest with a 30 base int character underwater?

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Fear is not evil… It tells you what your weakness is. And once you know your weakness, you can become stronger as well as kinder. - Gildarts Clive, Fairy Tail, Hiro Mashima.

A thousand times this. “Roleplay appropriately” doesn't cut it when we have a handful of DMs, each possibly looking and expecting for a certain stat to be role-played one way or another. You might look at my PCs Wisdom and expect them to have the common sense of a drug-addled teen. But I've instead infer that 300+ years have by default given him some basic sense of whats a bad idea(through actually making those failures at least once already), and instead chosen to roleplay that dearth through a complete lack of empathy and emotional understanding of anyone but himself. If a dragon walks up to him in Amia Frontier and says "Yo, Imma dragon" he is gonna call bullshit simply because he has been shown many times such usually implies some jerkass druid using Dragon Form. But when it comes to understanding why a child is crying while he or she is standing next to a broken hobby horse--with the broken reigns in his hand--it's going to take him a minute to get it without the child actually telling him.

“Roleplay appropriately” also doesn't take into account things like synergy, past experience, or one Attribute making up for another. Maybe my character still doesnt understand why the child is crying off the bat, but his higher than average Intellect might let him reason out the previous actions that occurred and attached causation and/or correlation.

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I don't think this was some official declaration of new server policy. It certainly would not meet the formal criteria of one. It was just a reminder, perhaps an unnecessary resurrection of a trainwreck topic. The point itself is fairly obvious and one I cannot find fault with, although the suggestion that someone could be more qualified than me to evaluate my RP would be offensive if it wasn't amusing. DMs have always had the theoretical right to enforce a rebuild, though I don't know if it's been practiced much. Needless to say, if DMs actually started actively policing how people played their characters and builds, the server would probably die.

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Of note for those who do drop stats down to 4 or even 6, at least two of the planned epic dungeons will have stat checks or other similar checks for various challenges that you will find yourself severely gimped for. So don't just assume that you'll get away with it mechanically either.

That sounds nice, Glim.

We should remember something about 6, though: it is only slightly below average for the race in question. It is not possible in NWN to dump stats far beyond the normal. Normal human stats in NWN range from 8 to 18. The differences are not huge. If 10 is average and 12 is a reasonably clever guy, 8 would be just a little slow. In PnP you might roll 3, which the PHB describes as "horrible." In NWN we don't have such luxury of skilldumping. Even the worst of the worst is just two steps below the average.

So: in NWN you cannot skilldump enough to become seriously challenged. The game just won't let you. Racial modifiers are, of course, somehow innate to the race and have to be taken into account separately. If the average Dwarven Charisma is 8, then 6 does not make you some hideous, intolerable wimp, it just makes you a little more annoying and ugly than the typical Dwarf. And, specifically, it could make you exactly the same as a human with 8 Charisma, other than the racial -2 penalty which would apply only to whatever trait it is that makes Dwarves less Charismatic on average. What that means for other races' perception of you is another matter, of course. Physical stats are a little more straightforward, granted: strength is easy to measure objectively, whereas how wise or charismatic you are depends on cultural criteria.

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I like how the easy to roleplay stats, like STR and CON, are handwaived through mechanics but the more difficult ones that are often dumps like CHA, WIS, and INT require an onion's worth of contextual layers and racial backgrounds.

By the same logic, is a Wood Elf's +2 STR just make him average for his race, and thus not stronger when he travels to human lands? Are Elves not considered naturally more dextrous than humans in general? Why wouldn't someone with 6 INT just be considered naturally dumber unless they went through the stat investment to fix it?

I'd personally say that this has nothing to necessarily do with the PC's stats. A character can be silly and playful but still have a high intellectual capacity or have a world of wisdom. Just cause you are high int doesen't automatically make you a snob with a superiority complex that causes you to believe you are above certain activities

When people pick their primary stats, they pick the one that best represents their character for a particular reason, same goes for dump stats. I find it difficult sometimes to explain my thoughts, so bare with me but what I'm trying to say is when you pick certain dumps you pick it for one reason or another.

Let's look at the tiefling for example. -2 Charisma. They get this pretty much for being a freak and having horns on their head and stuff. It puts people off (Or it's supposed to, but most people don't RP discrimination and Racism in forgotten realms as much as they should). Tis doesen't mean they cannot necessarily talk, or be seductive. The persausion rolls and skill stats are mainly there for things that are not reasonable... for example; a character who is a lawyer with high intellect but low charisma because they are a tad ugly or perhaps just smell really bad. May still be able to make a compelling, without a question of doubt case to the judge and jury by using his greater intellect to explain the evidence in a logical and explanatory format. I mean it's not like:

"Well, you showed us a letter written by the defendant, saying he clearly committed the crime. However we're simply not going to believe you because you aren't exactly attractive or have a good force of personality."

The skills are mainly used in moments were it is not likely someone would believe them. Things like bluff and persaude, are used to try ad fool people into believing something that sounds ureasonable or ridiculous, or perhaps may not even make complete and total sense.

A high INT character while having low charisma can and should be able to appeal to an audience over a high charisma character, should the high charisma character be saying something that's absoluely ridiculous. People choose their stats for different reasons... someone might have a dump on INT or DEX for reasons that aren't so obvious such as simply being learning disabled, not being educated, or just being incompetent and incapable of analyzing information on an academic or intellectual level. It shouldn't and doesen't necessarily mean they can't speak correctly, or a low wisdom character may just have difficulty seeing or hearing as opposed to just making poor decisions.

In the end it's all about how you want to represent your low stats... not so much a static "Oh well your character must be this because he has low X"

That is to say, low stats shouldn't be out right ignored... there should always be a reason why they have such a low stat, and it should be RP'd to some degree. We have to remember though, PC's are essentially medieval superheroes/vigilantes. PC's are meant to be movers and shakers in the world. This is why in PNP the are not traditionally permitted to take NPC Classes. NPC classes are made to be purposley weaker versions of PC classes, because he PC's are supposed to be special, so to speak. Some NPC's will have PC classes, depending on how powerful or how important the NPC is. For example:

The local street wizard probably isn't a "wizard" at all, but rather an character with the "adept" NPC class.

but the high court mage of Castle Assngrab or whatever, probably has quite a few class levels.

Whole point of the game is that the PC's aren't just adventures... they're SPECIAL adventurers that are more or less goin to impact the campaign the are playing in, in some way.

Thats my two cents and hopefully it made sense.

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What criteria would you have to measure them? There is a reason we perceive physical stats as "easy" to RP while mental stats are a frequent source of controversy: the mental stats were not very successfully defined to begin with. To think you could quantify someone's intelligence, let alone their wisdom or charisma, would be naive.

If we assume that, as NWN ridiculously claims, people with 9 Int cannot speak properly, and we assume some kind of a normal distribution of stats scaled to have 3 and 18 as the minimum and maximum values and 10 as the center, +/-2 racial modifier, then even humans and especially races with -2 Int would have large groups of the population unable to speak their own language. And that is ridiculous.

If Dwarves get -2 because they have smelly beards or because they are tend to be rude to outsiders, then that is what the -2 represents and that alone. In every other aspect, a 8 Cha Dwarf could be identical to a 10 Cha human. It is not like the racial modifier would apply additional benefits or penalties.

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So why have the stats affect our characters at all, then, instead of trying to establish rules as their pertain to our setting? If we can talk about it without waving it away as unrealistic, we can establish norms and the argument might not be repeated so often. Look at other topics: "Why can't bards be lawful?" Because they can't, and we can talk about it until the DM team decides to do away with it, but until then they can't.

CHA has largely been the stat in campaigns that affects how people see you, and also your force of personality. Since you can't right affect how other PCs see you, you can at least run off the examples given by campaigns where Bluff, Persuade, Intimidate, etc. get modifiers from their stat counterpart that controls them. Can you be persuasive without having any CHA? You bet, but you're not going to have the hefty bonus, and some classes learn the skill better than others. You could go around and around forever and say that "Well my character has 20 INT and thus should be persuasive because he's smart" but that doesn't apply to the skill.

Ultimately we can't force these things, but we shouldn't breed a culture where these things don't matter just because we can OOC logic-dance our way around them and make them sound meaningless or uninterpretable. Otherwise, we've got an island full of Mary Sues and the few people who DO shine in roleplay are the weakest, most flawed people instead of those who would be seen as exemplary in the setting.

And what is a better way to separate the wheat from the chaff? I would rather the bad players be evident from a mile away than mask them under the guise of mediocrity until closer inspection.

I am not sure what you are aiming at, anyway. Do you want someone to give you a chart or a table to calculate proper character behavior? Do you want rules, which the majority of people will disagree with, to limit our freedom and make sure everyone plays the same way for no apparent benefit? If there was a simple, satisfactory answer to "what does 11 Charisma mean exactly", don't you think it would have been discovered already?

In general, attempts to give definite answers to pretty much anything is bad policy.

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Definite answers doesn't have to be a chart or some quantifiable value we can check and adhere to every time we interact with one another. DM rulings such as "PCs with 8 INT or lower cannot speak properly" is a ruling with options that could create as much roleplay as it breaks. I know a lot of folk don't like definite rulings because they find them stifling, but then we have these threads at regular intervals where someone asks a question for guidance and philosophers break out into "... but we must ask ourselves: what IS intelligence?" It effectively kills the practical points of the discussion every time it occurs.

We can create headcanon on any stat, any class, and if we're smart enough (as you have proved yourself on numerous occasions) make it sound perfectly reasonable and believable despite nonsensical setting evidence to the contrary. Not everything is going to make sense, and a certain amount of flexibility is required to keep everything fresh and imaginative. That does not mean, however, that an expectation to simply be responsible, have personal integrity, and roleplay ALL of your stats in a way you find fitting for your character even when a DM is not looking, should be lost in a sea of theory and a debate about the meaning of words.

What would be the point of such a ruling, though? What concrete outcome do you hope for? Sure, we could do what you propose, but to what end that's worth all the trouble and debate?

The whole point of breaking into a philosophical discussion of what intelligence is, for example, is to show the absurdity of the desire for concrete guidelines. If you cannot ask yourself those questions, and answer them, being told what to do won't make your RP any better. And if you are capable of such evaluation, you no longer need an external authority. That is why, in general, rulings are bad. They only appear to help the bottom 5-10%, but in fact just lift them to mediocrity.

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You're of the mind of no stat rulings at all, then, despite the team coming out and blatantly saying "RP your dump stats"? What about when someone's suave, intelligent, powerful Half-orc barbarian is in your event and now he's mad because the DM won't let be how he envisions his character? That's going to create a disconnect for those people who feel they are free to interpret that their CHA is 6 because their character is just THAT sexy, charming, and powerful and people find that intimidating.



I never said we SHOULD make specific rulings on what __ stat means, but the expectation that you ACCOUNT for those dump stats and roleplay them according to your... personal feelings is very important. The more homogenous understanding we have of the things that make up our setting, the better. I want to believe you're in support of reasonable freedom, and not utter chaos where nothing has meaning.

Ironangel is in support of reasonable freedom, but inherent in his argument is the constant reminder that it only functions when reasonable people are involved. He is operating under the assumption that people will either be reasonable or be made to be reasonable when they are not, and that while rules attempt to guide the unreasonable, they cramp the reasonable, and as such it is preferable to educate/ignore/destroy the unreasonable.

He can of course correct me if I am inaccurate.

What Yoss said. I mean, I don't understand what it is away from me or anyone else if someone RPs like shit. At worst, they might annoy us - but they would probably annoy us anyway. Forcing them to superficially improve their RP according to a standard we set them from on high (and I am assuming everyone who frequently posts here is a reasonable, clever player; I'm not exactly sure who the retards are supposed to be) does not really make the server any better, and any collateral damage on the personal freedom of those who are already doing fine without guidance is just not worth it.

We are in full agreement that you should role-play each aspect of your character to your best ability. I don't think anyone would disagree. But most of us, or those of us who matter anyway, already know how to do it. I don't need anyone interpreting the -1 Charisma modifier of a character for me, I am perfectly capable of doing so myself.

Who here can sincerely say that they do not know how they should role-play their character, and feel they need the community/the DMs to tell them what to do? Is there anyone who would actually benefit from some more specific ruling, in their own mind, not in the mind of their fellow players? If volunteers do show up, I will be happy to give them some pointers; no need for bureaucracy.

I am not sure what exactly our disagreement is about, though. Perhaps we're talking about different things. I am entirely fine with DMs expressing their personal opinions, as long as they stay out of my hair and no official rules are enforced. I think this started from my observation that a 6-Cha dwarf would not be notably different from a 8-Cha human, except in those standard ways all dwarves are different from humans. Usually a racial modifier targets a specific aspect or interpretation of an attribute, all of which have several possible meanings, so if for dwarves it means they're smelly and rude, you should not feel the need to play an inspiring dwarven leader as any less imposing in the dwarven context than a human two Cha higher. Smelliness and rudeness don't really apply to leadership ability, at least when they're the social norm.

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Personally RPing charisma has always been hardest for me, my main is a level of charming but that doesn't make him a nice guy and he's openly hated by many on the server. But that has nothing to do with his charisma modifier. His Charisma is 6, even if I knew how I could appropriately RP how charming or social he might be according to a number on his sheet I still wouldn't. You can't measure someone's force of personality, if they are more stable of mind that doesn't make them anymore charming or social. That also makes me wonder where does mental illness factor in a charisma modifier? RPing your stats to a point is all well and good but it shouldn't be enforced.

Part of what has made Amia a great place when I joined was that it wasn't strict like this is starting to sound. I was a complete noob when I joined and allowed a amount of freedom in my RP. Within reason of course. But to enforce some crap ruling of playing all your ability scores to the letter will only annoy some players and even scare away some newer players coming here. Since when have we become RP Nazis?

My character has 6 charisma, he's led a faction, he's had a lot of social interaction. But because his ability score says 6 should I suddenly RP him as being socially awkward? Not bothering to hold his farts when in company? I opened a topic a month ago asking about charisma specifically. Best reply I saw was saying you can't really RP a charisma score appropriately. Your character is as charismatic or not charismatic as whatever they think they are. Charisma is by far the hardest ability to RP. Does it make you more confident? Does it make you more charming? Does it make you more approachable? No no no. It certainly doesn't make you more physically attractive.

All other ability scores can be RPed out easier, Dexterity, Strength, and Constitution are incredibly easy. Either you can climb that tree, or you can't. Either you can throw that halfling or you can't. Either you can handle your liquor or you can't. But the mental ones are where it gets tricky, if someone has 8 Intelligence I would love if they couldn't talk normally, but I certainly wouldn't force it on them. Wisdom would be second hardest to me, next to Charisma. How do you RP high or low wisdom?

Anyways when you start forcing people to RP out their personality stats you are effectively changing that character. You are forcing a player to play a character that they may not enjoy. They had an idea of what character they wanted to play when they made that character, I'd say that you have absolutely no right to enforce something like this. Tell the person if he didn't have the intelligence to find out all that he wanted to find out in a specific research project, not without help and guidance from his wizardly friend. But don't do things like "This NPC thought you were very rude in your speech because you have a negative charisma score" regardless of how polite and civil they were talking.

Do things within reason according to their ability modifier if the situation truly warrants it but don't force your standards for RP on anyone else. We're all here to have fun and make the best of it.

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~Draco Bloodcloak~ In the mind of a tielfing
~Xanhorn Dragonsbane~

Iintelligence is knowing a tomato is a fruit, wisdom is knowing that you should never put tomato in fruit salad.

Yes.

If your PC has 6 Charisma, he should have no leadership capabilities whatsoever. In Draco's case, it would probably make him the archetypical reclusive, surly wizard. If you want your PC to be "charming" then you should build him appropriately. Even if that means sacrificing a little bit of HP and fortitude saves. On that note, I've always thought that people who lack a certain kind of confidence on the other side of the screen shouldn't bother with charismatic PCs. It just does not work. No, not even with those supposedly perfect and firm curves.

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I agree, Draco, that you shouldn't have to deal with DMs constantly looking over your shoulder and nitpicking your RP choices. But I also agree that the server should encourage people to accept the flaws they assigned themselves during character creation. I think that that encouragement should come not as an ongoing hovering Big Brother-type presence, but rather only when a character seeks to do something that specifically requires DM approval (most commonly, DC requests, but also stuff relating to DM / NPC recognition of factions and such). That's the point at which a player is basically submitting herself/himself for DM review: "I am contributing positively to the awesomeness of the server; may I please have some goodies in return?" It's an if/then assertion, and at that point the DMs are justified in assessing the validity of the "if." It's their job to define whether a PC's interaction with the server is positive and constructive, and if they decide that adhering to the consequences of a charisma dump is among their criteria, then that's that.

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Winner of Amia's "Most Ethical Time Traveler" award 2026

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For a nemesis, I seem to agree with Liz a lot today!

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Because of my incredibly high Charisma, no doubt. --nodnod--

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Winner of Amia's "Most Ethical Time Traveler" award 2026

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Seriously if you want to play a leaderly, assertive type, just take the 2-4 points off something else and shove it there. Especially wizards, which are powerful regardless of how perfectly you build them. It hurts your build a little, but that's a fair price to pay for the opportunity to be a leader. D&D is kind of built on the idea that no one character should be good at everything. If you're a spell-slinging iron wall then why should you get to be a suave speechcrafting smarmodon as well? Give someone else a shot at it. That's not to say you can't lead - plenty of gruff, un-personable people reach positions of authority. But rather than being charming, deadly and awesome as well, pick a second-in-command who can do whatever you don't. If your build is gimped, pick a deadly man-of-few-words as your enforcer (or "Dragon" in the tvtropes parlance). If you're the strong silent type yourself, pick a smarmy vizier (protip: choose a non-treacherous one), or a clever, weaselly advisor. Remember it's not just about your personal RP but about everyone around you, and you should give them a chance to shine. Work together and all that. Now is it really so bad to balance your abilities with respect to your roleplay?

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@Thanatopsis#6293

Totally what Serbiris said. Or alternatively, your 6-Charisma character with high Intelligence or Wisdom might be savvy enough to perceive and acknowledge his own flaws, and invest in a nice magic item or two to help him out in social situations. An artificial boost of even +6 would get him into a range where only the snootiest characters would look down on his people skills.

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Winner of Amia's "Most Ethical Time Traveler" award 2026

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Can I ask what DMs are intending to do about this? Are they looking to enforce this or just make people aware? Are certain leader characters going to have their CHA looked in to? Are players going to have their characters examined?

The actual point of this thread has been lost during the 3 pages I've read.

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To clarify, my only point in response to Mana was just to ask DMs to be mindful when it comes to enforcing the accurate roleplay of abilities and that asking a few questions of the player first before coming to judgment is probably the best way to go. It may have been the DM Team's intent all along, but I felt it bore mention in case it wasn't.

Charisma is then being able to sell a tomato laden fruit salad anyway ... and as we all know a tomato-based fruit salad is known as salsa.



This is where my argument with IronAngel lies. Mindful of what? If we go by the philosophical argument, we can't enforce or even suggest one thing about a stat lineup is another without cramping on inherent freedom. I agree entirely with Mana's point, that if you have something: Roleplay it. I don't care how, it's up to others to decide whether or not they like it. But whenever the topic of a character with 6 CHA or INT or WIS or whatever comes up, it is frustrating to hear deterrents along the line of "but what IS Intelligence?" because we'll never get an answer, it's subjective in real life and even moreso in-game with all the other races, magic, and supernatural forces.

It might be important to brainstorm the statistical role in our roleplay, but my sole argument is: if the DMs create a ruling, we may contest it, but we should follow that ruling until it is changed, whether it be speaking fluently with 6 INT or not. If the DMs rule we need to roleplay our stats and do not create individual guidelines, that is also great!

I do agree with that. I would like to see abilities RPed out appropriately, but with Charisma there are just so many variables to consider when you mix it in with the Wisdom and Intelligence and then skills like Persuasion and Bluff. Nothing is so black and white.



In my case I am well aware of making sacrifices for RP but it see's absolutely no benefit. You are making yourself weaker while people that powerbuild are much stronger. I actually took all wizard levels, I didn't multiclass in ranger or rogue for a skill dump or bonus feats. I even went so far as to take Courtesous Magocracy, Skill Focus Spellcraft and Epic Skill Focus Spellcraft receiving absolutely no benefit other than being able to pat myself on the back. In fact my character wouldn't be seen as any more skilled in magic than the next person that took 6 levels of SD with their wizard.

There are reasons why my character can be charming with a low charisma score. Shouldn't skill dumps into skills like bluff also be taken into consideration when thinking of how you "properly" RP your character? I would think that a person with a positive Wisdom score and high Intelligence score be able to work around those small issues he likely would have noticed in his social interactions and plan for them. Reading peoples faces, knowing when to smile, when to laugh, when to ask if something is wrong, how to ask if something is wrong. Reading all the variables of a situation and what the person your talking to is liable to do and applying your method.

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~Draco Bloodcloak~ In the mind of a tielfing
~Xanhorn Dragonsbane~

High skill in one of the interaction skills should be taken into account, yes but at the same time that is TRAINING versus raw personality.

Is there much of a difference in the eyes of another? Unless you can read the mind of someone you're talking to you could never know how nervous or unstable they are on the inside.

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~Draco Bloodcloak~ In the mind of a tielfing
~Xanhorn Dragonsbane~