Larian Studios Forums Baldur's Gate III Baldur's Gate III - Suggestions & Feedback Some Suggestions after 300 hours

Charisma really is a very strange trait. It is a force of personality, but isn't personality, well, personal? And therefore not racial?


Yes, I think that is the only possible explanation.
Charisma, in our world at least, is the only ability that is relative: you always need another living being to make use of it. But the world of D&D seems to be different: sorcerers can use their charisma to create force fields or set things on fire. No other living creatures are required to project their intimidating personality on. So in D&D, charisma seems to be some form of magic. Or a power source for magic.

I always viewed it as "Influence over another entity." Charisma therefore can influence spirits as well, and even the very source of spirits; magic - influence on the Weave.

Yeah - in a world of magic and weave, Charisma is also an expression of your ability to impose your force of self on the world around you, to a certain extent, especially for caster that use the stat for that; and yeah, that's personal and usually emotional... Justifying it as a racial bonus is... odd. It makes more sense, in that light, for tieflings than others, since if you look at it in this particular light, tieflings have a supernatural edge from their heritage that literally makes it easier for them to impose their will on the world around them... but if that's the angle you take... what about half-elves and halflings? You've got to interpret it differently for them. So, yeah, it's a bit of an odd duck.

I had to read up on that ... Magic is made possible by the Weave, which is a manifestation of Mystra, the godess of magic. If the Weave is maintained by a living entity, it does make sense that charisma can be used to exert power of it; creating a fireball is intimidating Mystra.

Maybe that is Mystra taking pity on them because they are only half of something? Thereby offering less resistance to intimidation?

OK, yes, those charisma bonuses are hard to explain.

First of all, halflings aren't half anything. They are a race in and of themselves. They aren't half elf and half dwarf or something of that nature.

Second, Charisma is also natural charm that someone has. What a boost in Charisma implies is that certain races have more natural charm than others. So, a halfling is seen as more charming, possibly cute and adorable by other races. A half-elf is considered more attractive and charming than perhaps a typical elf or certainly many types of dwarves.

And I wouldn't say that casting a fireball spell with Charisma as your bonus is you intimidating Mystra. It's more like the spellcaster's influence over the Weave - which is like the Force in Star Wars. It is kinda sorta intelligent by itself, and is sort of a part of all living things. It binds the galaxy together.

I mean, not exactly, but kinda.

The point is, someone with high Charisma is someone with a good amount of charm, or they know how to speak well in order to influence and inspire other people, animals, spirits, etc. Or they carry themselves well - like someone who walks down the street with an entourage and you just sense they are important. They don't even need to speak. Their very presence just emanates from them.

It CAN be intimidation as well. It CAN be like Darth Vader who simply appears on the battlefield and melts the hearts of his enemies with sheer terror. It CAN be like Jabba the Hutts laugh that makes your heart drop into your stomach.

All these things are Charisma, and it is not abnormal in RPGs to have certain races have greater Charisma than others.

Okay slight tangent but I have always been so annoyed by the fact Halflings are called Halflings when they aren't half anything. It just irks me in a very particular way that I know is stupid and pointless, but I still can't entirely ignore.

And I think the thing about charisma that makes the racial ability scores thing break down for me is that, as others above have pointed out, charisma isn't objective. Strength, dexterity, attentiveness, even intelligence to a certain degree are all objective. No matter who you interact with, those things won't change. Even if people think you're not strong, smart, etc, you will always be precisely as much that thing as you already are. But charisma is very, very subjective. You can be super charismatic in your own culture, but all the things that make you so in that culture could be the height of impropriety in another. And if you're saying halfings or half elves get their charisma bonus from their looks, then that shouldn't apply to creatures like Dragonborn, who would have entirely different standards of beauty. Or hell, if they meet a blind person, that charisma bonus shouldn't apply there either. UNLESS we say that their charisma bonus is magic. And since charisma can impact the weave and magic, I think there's room to say that that's the case.

It's like this. Mechanically, RPGs need some sort of attribute/ability that determines how well someone influences others. Some games make Charisma-based skills much more complicated than D&D 5e with lots of social modifiers based on all the things you mentioned. One game I played had Infamy and Famous as Feats. If you were Infamous you would receive penalties for interacting with common folk and nobles and law-abiding citizens. If you were Famous, you'd get bonuses with that same group but penalties with infamous people.

D&D 5e tries to simplify this kind of thing so it isn't so overly complicated. Charisma adds a bonus to certain social skills like Persuade and Deception. It's up to the DM to then apply Advantage or Disadvantage or a +1 or +2 or -1 or -2 based on the circumstances.

As for Charisma bonus based on looks, that's not what I was trying to suggest. Charisma is more than looks. It is about presence and bearing, and it's a natural quality that someone has to be able to somehow naturally influence others.

So, like I said, Darth Vader is as ugly as heck, like an undead, but he has a strong Charisma. His very presence inspires fear and is Intimidating. He also has a great deal of skill in Persuading others, because although he lacks charm, his very presence and reputation make people respect him and do as he says. He is good at Deception as well, because, again, people don't want to question him. His personality and presence frightens them too much to question him.

So, a halfling and half-elf's Charisma bonus has nothing to do with looks. It's about some sort of natural charm or presence or quality that they possess. People just can't help but like them - generally speaking - as opposed to a hag who people naturally can't help but dislike. The hag could be as intelligent and nice as can be, and she could speak well and know exactly what to say, but she would likely get a Charisma penalty by nature simply because of her reputation and looks.

It's about the whole package, not just one aspect of social influence. It's looks, the way you carry yourself, your reputation, etc.

I do get what you're saying. But my issue is that both your examples are flawed. Darth Vader would definitely have high charisma, but all of it was gained as a result of experiences, not something he was born with. And with the hag, again if you were blind, then the hag's looks-and maybe its reputation since you might not know she's a hag-wouldn't necessarily affect you either. I get what you're saying, and ultimately it is just a thing where you have to suspend your disbelief, and I don't really care about it in the moment while I'm playing, but in principle, I'm just not a fan of the racial stat bonuses and I think a lot of other games have tackled this sort of thing in a better, more internally consistent manner so I'm less inclined to be forgiving of D&D in that regard.

I was not being serious. Halflings are probably called that way because they are half the height of a human.


The problem there is that a constant racial charisma bonus does not make sense. The concept of cuteness is likely to be very different between humans, dark elves and goblins. I think hamsters are cute. But my cat probably thinks differently about that.



When you put it like that, it becomes harder to come to grips with the charisma trait in BG3. Suppose you wash up on an uninhabited island, in real life. High strength, dexterity, wisdom, intelligence, constitution are all useful to have in that case. Charisma is of zero use because there is no-one to impress with your amazing personality. Charisma needs an intelligent being to operate on. How then does a sorcerer use charisma to perform magic tricks?


That may be a fact, but does it make sense?

Again, the DM is responsible for providing bonuses or penalties, even advantage of disadvantage of the circumstances call for it.

So, a halfling is generally considered more charismatic as a standard, but the DM might apply Disadvantage to all Charisma rolls if the halfling is trying to influence a starving ogre who sees her as food. The DM might even be more harsh and apply both Disadvantage AND a hard penalty of -1 or -2. It all depends on the DM and circumstances.

Guys. It's not meant to be a perfect science. It's meant to give a rough measurement so you can actually roll for the character as opposed to trying to roleplay. What I mean is, if I play a super Charismatic rogue who can talk anyone into just about anything, the ability bonus and proficiency makes it so I can persuade via a skill roll. I as a person might really suck at talking people into anything, so I couldn't roleplay my way out of a paper bag in such scenarios, but I don't need to because my character is Charismatic and proficient in such things. I can just roll and have the DM say, "You did it. You convinced him to give you all his money."

I think the problem with Charisma is that it can mean so many different things in DnD:
-Being naturally charming
-Being able to talk your way out of anything
-Being good at lying
-Being highly persuasive
-Being intimating/imposing/scary
-Being a good performer
-Being able to bend people to your will
-Being able to manipulate the weave

And it's hard to imagine a character would have ALL of those traits just because they have a high Charisma score.

The thing to remember though is that a racial bonus is not a guaranteed success, it's an increased probability. So a halfling is more likely to be seen as charismatic than another race for instance, but they could still fail their Charisma roll. In which case, the DM would say that their charms did not work on whoever they are talking to. So theoretically if the halfling is talking to a race that wouldn't necessarily find them cute, the DC would be higher.

Ability scores are actually pretty bad in describing what a character is, without considering how those stats help them do things in a framework of game mechanics. The best possible explanation of what charisma is would be: "It helps you perform, lie, persuade and intimidate, and helps you cast spells that you didn't memorize, or didn't receive by ways of divine revelation or communion with nature."

A character that has low charisma doesn't have to be rude, but an explanation of why he failed his persuasion check could be that he was rude. Ugly Ogre that would don a Headband of Charisma and tried to convince a party not to attack him, wouldn't suddenly grow enormous eye-lashes and get his high-cheekbones, but rather something about him would make him more convincing. Maybe he looks adorable with that small crown on top of his giant head and a party would be more likely to consider his words. Or perhaps there is something magical about the words he says that he doesn't even realize. Or yeah, it makes him attractive in the eyes of the party, but that would be lazy on the part of DM.

And charisma is not some exception compared to other scores. Strength and Dexterity scores are not really representative of strenght and dexterity in real life. Using bows are obvious example. Or that fighting something with a two-handed sword in real life is more about proper movement,edge-alignment and constitution/endurance, but with maul it's mostly about strength. In DnD it's just strength for both.

Or f.e. adjective smart is sometimes used to describe a high intelligence score (even in this thread). But is Gale smart? He definitely is well-versed in arcana and history as he tries to show off his knowledge in every conversation. The way he talks about the deal with Rafael after you first get that offer shows that he has capacity for critical thinking. Those are sings of high intelligence score and those might be things we associate with smart in real life. But if you consider his current predicament is he smart? I wouldn't say that. Here of course there is some parallel with real life and what we mean by smart in this case is better shown in his wisdom score.

Racial ability scores are not really there to explain, what exactly an average exemplar of that race is, but what he is most likely to do. If you know you might fight a group of high elves, you could expect them to have archers and wizards, as long as, there is no other context provided. The expectation would be different if you would have to face dwarves. If you are looking for a weapon of a famous half-orc adventurer, you probably wouldn't think it is a gilded rapier, that a drow you just killed dropped. Of course you might be wrong, but it wouldn't be a bad assumption. If your party threatens a tiefling, DM might be inclined to make that NPC lie or try to persuade you rather than have them react violently. Racial ability scores do allow for participating in better stories especially for those who might not be educated in every little minutia of race lore and I think that's good.

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You can explain tieflings charisma bonus by a number of ways. The one I would use is that they have +2 thanks to their fiendish ancestry granting them super-natural powers - "devilish powers" as some more xenophobic Tavs might say. And in previous editions super-natural powers are governed by charisma. And because those powers are defining characteristic of tieflings, they need charisma score to be able to express that.

Half-elves are hard, and their current bonuses stats don't really track with previous editions. People bring up that they get charisma bonus since they are persecuted and I don't find it a bad explanation, but funnily in Pathfinder 1st editon Kindred-Raised half-elves: "feel less like outsiders, making them more confident, but less adaptable without the exposure to a human parent. They gain a +2 bonus to Charisma and one other ability score of their choice."