Cha to damage [3.5]

[hymer]

I'm considering a campaign where most of the normal races would get quite a makeover. One thing I'm considering is an elf race that gets to add their charisma modifier to damage rolls of weapon attacks, natural attacks and weapon-like effects (Eldritch Blast when rolling to-hit e.g.).
I feel no particular need to buff spellcasters further, so it wouldn't apply to actual spell attacks.

How powerful is this? Am I opening up for a can of abuse/imbalance I'm not noticing? Would this in itself be enough to require LA?

My inspiration, if anyone's interested, is the Elves from The Hobbit, whose weapons blaze with green chill fire when they attack Orcs.

[toapat]

it mostly is a buff to paladin and bard.

i dont think it really is OP, but CHA is the most powerful attribute in 3.5

[Ashtagon]

My inspiration, if anyone's interested, is the Elves from The Hobbit, whose weapons blaze with green fire when they attack Orcs.

I was under the impression that this was because their weapons were actually magical.

[hymer]

@ toapat: Thanks. Could you develop the bit about charisma being the most powerful stat? Generally one of the strikes against sorcerer is its casting stat compared to the wizard's.

@ Ashtagon: Well, I imagined the green part, but here is the quote:


The elves were the first to charge. Their hatred for the goblins is cold and bitter. Their spears and swords shone in the gloom with a gleam of chill flame, so deadly was the wrath of the hands that held them. As soon as the host of their enemies was dense in the valley, they sent against it a shower of arrows, and each flickered as it fled as if with stinging fire. Behind the arrows a thousand of their spearmen leapt down and charged. The yells were deafening. The rocks were stained black with goblin blood.

[toapat]

@ toapat: Thanks. Could you develop the bit about charisma being the most powerful stat? Generally one of the strikes against sorcerer is its casting stat compared to the wizard's.

that is because Sorcerer actually does nothing for Charisma.

on the other hand, Charisma is the easiest stat to get applied to everything.
Paladins already get Cha to saves, while a properly built Blackguard gets twice that. They also get it for To hit and can turn it into their casting attribute with Dynamic Priest.
Bards get Cha to Spells AND music.
Marshal and Swiftblade get it to innitive.
Cha is typically the thing that gives extra turning usage.
MM3 and later undead get Cha to HP. Fey get Cha to Saves and AC.

[hymer]

Thanks again.

[Kyuu Himura]

Charisma is the most powerful stat because you can add it to everything.

No, really, everything can get a +cha.

Begining with saving throws (Paladin, Blackguard, Hexblade, even all of the above if you allow the variant paladins from Unearthed Arcana)

Turn Attempts (Cleric, duh)

Spells per day (Sorcerer, Bard, Hexblade)

Attack rolls (Smite, Snowflake Wardance, Castigating Strike)

Damage Rolls (Castigating strike, Kiai Smite [yeah, I know, still counts], a
couple items such as hexbands)

AC (there's one bard spell, I don't remember the name in english, my books are in spanish anyway, and some items, I think they are sandals??)

Intimidation abilities (check for that one build, Takahashi no Oni-san)

Also, high enough charisma gives you some manner of access to any spell in the game (Use Magic Device).

Just saying, whoever says charisma is a dump stat... hasn't read much outside Core

Edit: Swordsages, however, do not need Charisma to swordsage you....

[toapat]

Begining with saving throws (Paladin, Blackguard, Hexblade, even all of the above if you allow the variant paladins from Unearthed Arcana)

AC (there's one bard spell, I don't remember the name in english, my books are in spanish anyway, and some items, I think they are sandals??)

Dervish Slippers.

Fey racial ability

[Yitzi]

Just saying, whoever says charisma is a dump stat... hasn't read much outside Core

No, Charisma is actually a very good dump stat. It's also a very good main stat (and you don't even have to go much outside Core for that.) Not for the same build, of course.

The ability to dump a stat is determined by its minimum importance for a build, not its maximum importance. Thus, STR, INT, and CHA all make fairly good dump stats (for casters, for barbarian-sorts, and for anyone without a class ability or skill that uses them, respectively), despite being very important for many builds that do use them.

[Deepbluediver]

I honestly have never liked of randomly adding stats to any old value you feel like, even if the rationale is that you are trying to balance a MAD class against a SAD class.

Some stats might make sense, such as replacing Strength with Wisdom or Intellect in an attack roll with the explanation that you are "fighting smart" and picking the best time and place for your hits. (In my system, Strength is still the only stat that really applies to damage, since it doesn't do much else anyway.)
But Charisma is defined as your character's "force of personality and personal appearence". I have trouble finding any way in which that some how makes your physical attacks more damaging.

If you want some group to have a racial ability to use their charisma as a damaging attack, I would prefer to give them a spell-like ability similar to the Warlock's Eldritch blast.

[NichG]

Yeah, I'd be really cautious about doing this. Compared to a souped-up Iaijutsu Master its small beans (I think they get Cha to damage something like 9 stacking times), but really Cha doesn't need more ways to be added to stuff.

If you wanted to do something along the lines of innate magic powering swordplay, perhaps any magical weapon they wield counts as +1 higher than its actual enchantment, which can also let it break DR/epic with a +5 weapon (by forcing it past the normal pre-epic limits).

[hymer]

@ Kyuu Himura, toapat and Yitzi: Thanks for the elucidation. :)

@ Deepbluediver: Thanks for the honesty. It seems to me that if charisma can power spells and SLAs, it can power a projected aura of magic onto your weapon. So I'm going to ignore that particular piece of advice. :)

@ NichG: Interesting idea. I'd like for the ability to attract high charisma characters, however, and what you suggest doesn't seem to do that. But perhaps if it capped at something realted to charisma modifier...
The whole epic thing isn't going to concern me in the slightest. This campaign is more likely to be E6 than epic, but +3 rather than +2 is worth looking at.

[Deepbluediver]

@ Deepbluediver: Thanks for the honesty. It seems to me that if charisma can power spells and SLAs, it can power a projected aura of magic onto your weapon. So I'm going to ignore that particular piece of advice. :)

Your original post was a little light on details; I responded as best I could.

So basically, you want a racial ability as opposed to a class based one. And it's magical in nature.
Does that make it a Spell-Like ability? Or is it Supernatural or Extraordinary for some reason? How does it function (if at all) in an anti-magic field?

Overall, I wouldn't call this overpowering, if only because melee damage is usually not a broken part of the game, even if you combine it with Strength (I'm sure some builds exist, but as anything based in damage it can only push the game so far- tier 3). I get the impression that in order to take advantage of it, people will still play bards and paladins, and the rest of the racial melee will remain unchanged.

If you did a little write up on exactly what mechanics you are thinking of, we might be able to help more.

[NichG]

Especially if this is E6 you need to be careful with extra sources of 'add X stat to Y'. Think of it this way - you mentioned that weapons will at most be something like +2, but for a character built to take advantage of the racial ability (I'm assuming they still focus primarily on Str so they don't go as far as an 18), the ability to add Cha to attack/damage is going to be at least a free +2. That is to say, a character who starts with this ability has the equivalent of the best weapon the game will ever see built in (and doubles the power of such a thing if they find one).

Especially if the game is E6, small bonuses like that can make a big difference in overall power.

So hm... something that keys off of Cha but doesn't exacerbate the Cha-to-everything problem... What about something like, Cha mod times/encounter they can add +2 to attack and damage?

[hymer]

@ Deepbluediver: Thanks again. :) I'll try and be clearer. I guess my original idea would go something like this:

Fey Wrath (Su): As a standard action, the [name of this particular elf nation] may enhance himself, improving his weapons, natural weapons and Eldritch Blast (if he has them). The effect lasts for 1 minute/character lvl, and makes succesful attacks cause additional typeless damage [I may be inventing a campaign-specific type of damage for this or not, possibly with a DR/that for certain monsters] equal to the character's charisma modifier in addition to any other damage dealt.

So it should be susceptible to dispels and AMFs, and should take a bit of actual effort to activate. For non-elves, there'll probably be a ring and a weapon enchantment that lets you do the same thing as long as you're in good standing with these elves.

@ NichG: You've got a point there about E6 and bonuses. I like your idea on sort of smite light a few times per encounter. I'm kinda zonked right now, but I'll be back after a nice long night's sleep (aka 4½ hours or so).

Edit: Well, having slept on it, I've arrived at no conclusions yet.