Advice for a possible house rule

[Lord Iames Osari]

I've been toying with the idea of applying Cha to Will saves to reflect its new "force of personality" status.

However, I'm having trouble thinking of ways to prevent Wis from becoming the same kind of dump stat that Cha currently occupies.

[Quietus]

Easy. Force the player to take the "force of personality" feat. If they want to use Wis as a dump stat, their perception abilities go down, and the spellcasting abilities of four classes, and the AC of a fifth, drop, plus they've gotta burn a feat. The feat does exactly that - it lets you use your charisma instead of your wisdom modifier for your Will saves.

[Lord Iames Osari]

No, you misunderstand. I'm thinking about making Cha apply to Will for everybody.

[Quietus]

Fair enough, but may I ask why?

[oriong]

To prevent it from being such a blatant choice for a dump stat.

It's tough, the main use of Wisdom other than Will saves is the perception skills. I'd say Wisdom, without the will saves, remains on a par with Strength at least: it's a score of significant important to well over half the classes in the book after all (as opposed to charisma: important to two, sideline usefulness to 2 or 3). There are some classes that just won't need it that much. That seems fine to me.

[Lord Iames Osari]

... Because it seems to make more sense to me, in light of Charisma's new role as the "force of personality" stat?

Edit: Yeah, and what Oriong said.

[Inyssius Tor]

Flavor-wise, I definitely agree with Lord James Osari.

Mechanics-wise... I have no mind whatsoever for balance issues.

[Quietus]

I'm not so sure that "force of personality" would really be used to turn aside a Hold Person, and illusion, or a Charm spell... to me, that certainly seems a more mental-oriented thing. Of course, this does have some benefits, in that it would serve well to give Bards and Sorcerors a boot upward, and make things less stackable for the Cleric and Druid. In balance terms, I think it's quite fair. I'm just having trouble making the fluff fit.

[oriong]

Actually I'd say it fits pretty well, force of personality isn't very far from force of will. They're often used fairly interchangably. Charisma is your personal sense of self (in non-physical terms), I can easily see how it would be able to repel someone attempting to force their own personal desires on you magically (domination, charms, magical compulsions, etc.)

Wisdom actually is suffering from 'excess' fluff as it is, it covers perception, communion with higher powers, strength of will, and common sense.

[Quietus]

This is true. But things like illusions? That's entirely a perception thing, it has little to nothing to do with your force of personality.

I think, with a little tweaking, a shift from Will to Charisma would definately be a good balance thing. Perhaps when they release a new version...

[oriong]

Well, the Will Save to disbelieve an illusion doesn't have anything to do with the perception aspect of Wisdom. A raging barbian is better at resisting illusions, so is someone with Iron Will, or someone who takes the Force of Personality Feat. It's just a generic will save to overcome the effect through force of will, perception has nothing to do with it.

[Zincorium]

Personally, I've always thought of the bonus of wisdom to will saves as a rapid understanding of what exactly is going on. You've got to imagine that when you get a spell cast at you, and either don't have spellcraft or fail the check, that you're completely at a loss as to what to expect. Are you going to have to avoid falling asleep? Or going insane?

What wisdom allows a character to do is rapidly take in the information that they're receiving, and use that to mentally gird themselves for the appropriate effect, thus giving them a bonus on their save.

As far as charisma determining will saves, go for it. A low wisdom can be both amusing and a lesson to the players who dump it.

[Krimm_Blackleaf]

Maybe something along the lines of more and better uses to certain wis-based skills. Perhaps use Sense Motive to percieve a foes next action and give them a little insight on it for either AC or attack bonus against them. But for balance's sake maybe only usable wis modifier times per encounter.

[Krimm_Blackleaf]

Maybe something along the lines of more and better uses to certain wis-based skills. Perhaps use Sense Motive to percieve a foes next action and give them a little insight on it for either AC or attack bonus against them. But for balance's sake maybe only usable wis modifier times per encounter. Just an idea I pulled out of the air.

[Leush]

May I note that certain supernatural abilities (mainly from undead) require a cha based will save. So I propose expanding that to more stuff...

Personally I'd split all will saves from external, perceptive sources, ie illusions, phantasms (which are also illusions) be will based, and those for internal things like enchantments, etcetera be charisma based, and thus you'd get two types of will save. Note that the extenal save may be less useful. Now I know this would change the mechanics, but I think it would both make sense and balance: Now every stat has a defensive purpose Strength? Counter grapples. Dex? AC, reflex saves. Con? Fortitude. Wis? Will, monks. Int? Combat Expertise Cha? Will saves. It might cause a bit more MAD, but I'm not complaining.

[JaronK]

Honestly, I wouldn't bother. You'll either make something too complex, or you will just cause the same problems with Wisdom... worse even, since Diplomacy and Use Magic Device are darn useful, but not many people need Spot and Listen all that high.

JaronK

[Red Sky Knight]

I agree whole heartedly with using charisma for will saves. IMO will represents personal strength to overcome, and the ability to dominate the personal strength of others is inherently assosciated with strength of personality. Was hitler wise? Is he known for his high levels of perception and his inner oneness? what about charles manson?

as said before, wisdom is already a poor dump stat mechanics wise, your level of perception can be the difference between life and death. I have been considering house ruling this myself for some time.

[Dan_Hemmens]

Flavour wise, I could care less. None of the D&D stats mean what they say they mean anyway.

Balance-wise, Charisma needs something, Wisdom is far, far more useful as it stands.

[d12]

Charisma to will saves just doesn't make any sense to me. Charisma represents how forcefully one can exert ones will upon others. Will saves represent the ability to ignore, overcome, or endure an external force attempting to act upon your mind without (or with minimal) adverse effects. There doesn't seem to be a lot of projection of ones will on the outside world involved in that. I mean, are you going to try to convince the vampire that he didn't just Dominate you?

[Red Sky Knight]

The effect of being dominated is experienced internally, and will is more than that, it is the faculty one possesses for being in control of ones own existance, opposing the forces of circumstance. it is the mechanism that provides purpose and direction to the ego, which is tied more to charisma than wisdom

to successfully harness one's will, one must be aware of the fact that one possesses a will, and is there fore a "willing being" capable of self actualization

[Matthew]

One option is to make it so that you use the highest Bonus and the worst penalty, so that:

Charisma +1 and Wisdom +1 = +1
Charisma -1 and Wisdom +1 = +0
Charisma -1 and Wisdom -1 = -1

[d12]

The problem, from where I see it, is that to a certain extent Wisdom and Charisma attempt to model the same thing (ie, the strength of ones mind). As far as I can see, Wisdom tends to model how well the mind handles inputs, and Charisma models how strongly the mind can output. When viewed form that angle, Will saves could be viewed as a form of input filtering--sort of a method of disregarding "noise" attempting to enter/influence the mind. It would seem more likely that if anything, Charisma would be applied in a manner which would force a Will save, seeing as it represents ones ability to project ones will to the outside world.

Wisdom really is more than how well your eyes and ears work.

[marjan]

Well I don't think it to be good idea because of the following things:
1. it seems that if you are good at controling somebody else you should be able to resist same attempts on you. But for an example take retard who everybody likes. He has high cha but low wis. Cha is how your personality is likeable and ranks in certain skills are how able you are to control other people (it is logical that if they like you more they will believe things you say easier and that is what represents cha bonus on such skills). Also it is logical to me when someone is strong that he can take more beating than most other people, but str and con are still separate abilities.
2. what about paladins and classes which add charisma bonus on all saves.
3. every stat except con can be made dump stat depending on character and race you play. For example your fighter have all wis based skills as cross-class so high wis won't help him much on higher levels even if he max them out. On the other hand Intimidate is his class skill so he will get better will saves and checks with one skill (not much but still better)
4. undead allready for unknown reasons add cha bonus on concentration checks so giving them cha bonus on will saves makes them more powerfull (some even use it as con bonus when determining HP per HD).
5. Also you may unbalance classes. Take for example favoured soul. He is cha based caster and he does pretty much same things as cleric does but has all saves good because his wis bonus isn't that great. If you give him cha on will saves he will be more powerfull than he is.

More logical to me is to allways add cha bonus on mind-affecting spell save DC instead of the usual one.

[Woot Spitum]

I have always viewed charisma as offensive and wisdom as defensive, in the same way that strength is offensive and constitution is defensive. Wisdom is not a measure of senses, it is your ability to apply your knowledge to a certain situation. I actually think senses would be more closely related to dexterity, since they are physical, not mental. After all, spot and listen checks just tell you something is there. Whether or not you know what it is (int) or what to do about (wis) is another matter entirely.

[oriong]

Wisdom is a measure of your senses. That's just a fact by the logic of D+D mechanics.

[Mewtarthio]

I've been toying with the idea of applying Cha to Will saves to reflect its new "force of personality" status.

However, I'm having trouble thinking of ways to prevent Wis from becoming the same kind of dump stat that Cha currently occupies.

Move Initiative to Wisdom. Dexterity's important enough already, and it makes more sense that a more perceptive person will react more quickly to a combat situation.

[Woot Spitum]

But if wisdom is a measure of your senses, wouldn't it decrease when you got older rather than increase? Honestly, I think wis got to be related to spot and listen just because the writers thought it wasn't useful enough. Think about it, isn't it easier to sink a feat into iron will than it is to drop 16 into wis if it isn't directly related to your spellcasting? There are lots of ways to increase will saves. What's the big deal with not being able to stick a +1 bonus into it?

[oriong]

Logically as you get older your Intelligence score would decrease too, but it doesn't. D+D agining isn't really justification for a whole lot.

Wisdom is used for every single sense based roll in the game, from spot and listen to scent rolls. Wisdom and Charisma are the two ability scores that make a difference between being an object and a creature: one represents your sense of self, the other the ability to percieve the world around you.

Wisdom = senses. It might not necessarily represent super-keen physical senses so much as excellent perception, but it can. The same way charisma doesn't necessarily = physical appearance, but it can.

[Fizban]

Well, if you're still reading, here's my suggestion:

Base will saves off of charisma.
Base initiative checks off of wisdom.

Dexterity has too many thing on it right now, but wisdom only has will saves and divine casting, and charisma only has sorcerer casting. Giving charisma will saves baisically switches the dump stat, but wisdom is a good candidate for initiative because it's used for the sense skills. Besides, just because you're dexterous doesn't mean you can think fast enough to act, but if your senses (wisdom) tell you what's going on sooner, you have more time to react.

This setup means that every stat has a use:
Strength still has melee attacks and damage.
Dexterity still has AC, ranged attacks, and reflex saves.
Constitution still has hp and fortitude saves.
Intellegence still has wizard casting and skill points.
Wisdom now has divine casting and initiative.
Charisma now has sorcerer casting and will saves.

Every stat has a use.

[Woot Spitum]

But if you are willing to accept that wisdom=perception, how does it follow that will saves (which seem to be a measure of being able to perceive falsehood and deception) are related to charisma. Charisma is how people perceive you not how good you are at correctly perceiving others. After looking up wisdom in the dictionary, I failed to find any mention of senses or perception, but I did find out that knowledge and wisdom are synonyms. Applying charisma to will saves is like applying strength to fortitude saves, you can do it, but it should probably be a special ability, not the standard.

[Quietus]

I can see how it would work for some things... anything that affects you mentally, like charm person and the like, would then become your force of personality overriding their desire to make you do what they want you to. That portion of it makes sense to me; The illusion idea, even, now that I think about it, would work if you fluff it so that instead of "percieving" the illusion as being false, when you test it and something seems off (such as ... "I could've sworn I put my hand through that!"), instead of it being you trying to see through the illusion, the will save becomes your self-assurance and strong sense of self overriding the image the illusion is trying to project into your mind.

[oriong]

But if you are willing to accept that wisdom=perception, how does it follow that will saves (which seem to be a measure of being able to perceive falsehood and deception) are related to charisma. Charisma is how people perceive you not how good you are at correctly perceiving others. After looking up wisdom in the dictionary, I failed to find any mention of senses or perception, but I did find out that knowledge and wisdom are synonyms. Applying charisma to will saves is like applying strength to fortitude saves, you can do it, but it should probably be a special ability, not the standard.

That's because you looked up wisdom in the dictionary.

Wisdom, by it's dictionary definition, has nothing to do with willpower either, but in D+D it does. Wisdom is just the name for an ability score, which represents a huge range of things: common sense is the only part of wisdom that actually relates to the dictionary definition.

And will saves are not an ability to percieve falsehoods, they are the ability to resist outside influences and force them off.




Wisdom describes a character’s willpower, common sense, perception, and intuition. While Intelligence represents one’s ability to analyze information, Wisdom represents being in tune with and aware of one’s surroundings. Wisdom is the most important ability for clerics (http://www.d20srd.org/srd/classes/cleric.htm) and druids (http://www.d20srd.org/srd/classes/druid.htm), and it is also important for paladins (http://www.d20srd.org/srd/classes/paladin.htm) and rangers (http://www.d20srd.org/srd/classes/ranger.htm). If you want your character to have acute senses, put a high score in Wisdom. Every creature has a Wisdom score.

[Mewtarthio]

But if you are willing to accept that wisdom=perception, how does it follow that will saves (which seem to be a measure of being able to perceive falsehood and deception) are related to charisma. Charisma is how people perceive you not how good you are at correctly perceiving others. After looking up wisdom in the dictionary, I failed to find any mention of senses or perception, but I did find out that knowledge and wisdom are synonyms. Applying charisma to will saves is like applying strength to fortitude saves, you can do it, but it should probably be a special ability, not the standard.

Okay, that bolded part definately nullifies your dictionary's definition of "wisdom." Few people would call a know-it-all very wise. Besides, "wisdom" has a very nebulous definition, so I don't think any dictionary could properly define it.

Regardless, in DnD, Wisdom is related to perception (Spot checks, Listen checks, etc), so that's really all that matters.

Besides, wouldn't it at least make all the stats mechanically more balanced if you moved Will to Charisma and Initiative to Wisdom?

[Draz74]

I had a well-explained argument against this house rule here, and I was proud of it ... and then my internet blipped and I lost it all. :smallmad:

Anyway ... short story, I like Will based on Wisdom better.

[Woot Spitum]

Okay, purely from a game balance standpoint it might work (just as taking hp away from con and making it related to your highest modifier would), but from a fluff standpoint it seems like quite a stretch. Especially since the rules state that wisdom describes a character's willpower. I simply can't imagine will saves not being related to your character's willpower in any way, shape, or form. Honestly, what's the big deal if everyone dumps charisma? Six stats are quite a bit to try and get good scores on everything. If charisma is going to be explained as your willpower through force of personality, why not just combine wis and cha into one ability?

[oriong]

Well I think the whole point of the house rule is changing the definition of wisdom and charisma so that Charisma now covers your willpower instead of wisdom.

And there's really no reason to combine them. Charisma as willpower makes sense because it already covers the 'mental strength' aspect in many other ways, it's your ability to 'push' with your mind in a lot of ways (as can be seen in the way charisma affects skills, things like turn undead, etc.). However the other aspects don't really make sense together (charisma as common sense? charisma as perception? charisma as connection to the divine?).

Charisma has always been 'mental strength' and 'force of will'. If you want a good fluff explanation think of it this way: Wisdom for will saves works like a barrier: your mind is assaulted by outside forces and they break upon the walls of your implacable will.

Charisma as will saves would be more like a 'grapple'. The outside influence attempts to smother you and wrestle you down but your strength allows you to push it off and shove it away.

Both work fine as fluff, the only real concern is the balance of the mechanics.

[Woot Spitum]

Charisma works as a connection to the divine. The Favored Soul is a charisma-based spellcaster, and it can be argued that the Favored Soul's connection to his deity is actually closer than that of the cleric (A cleric recieves his power after entreating his deity for it. A Favored Soul is granted his power because his deity has taken a personal interest in him). If Charisma affects both your ability to act and react mentally, perception being affected by it is not a tremendous mental leap (illusions fool the senses, charisma will-save=perception). The only thing that remains is common sense, but that's more an intangible thing, a role-playing function that doesn't have to be related to stats.

[Matthew]

There is no one true way to interpret Attributes. Intelligence and Wisdom overlap, Wisdom and Charisma overlap. There's no reason why Charisma and Wisdom couldn't both contribute to Willpower.

[oriong]

No, the perception still doesn't make sense. Just because charisma gives you will saves and will saves are used against illusions doesn't mean that will saves have anything to do with perception. In fact you can know something is an illusion and still fail your will save to disbelieve it. The will save represents 'cracking' the illusion and being able to see through it, not realizing it's not real.

And the favored soul still uses Wisdom to determine how powerfully they can 'channel' the effects of their deity (i.e. to determine spell DC). They use charisma because they aren't granted their powers daily like a clerics, they are given their powers as innate abilities and charisma determines the effects of pretty much all magical innate abilities.

[Mewtarthio]

No, the perception still doesn't make sense. Just because charisma gives you will saves and will saves are used against illusions doesn't mean that will saves have anything to do with perception. In fact you can know something is an illusion and still fail your will save to disbelieve it. The will save represents 'cracking' the illusion and being able to see through it, not realizing it's not real.

Another example: If you see an Illusionist casting Phanstasmal Killer on you, you should know that the phantasm is not real. You don't even need to make a Spellcraft check to know, intellectually, that what you are facing is an illusion conjured up by someone trying to incapacitate you. However, you still need to make the Will save because the illusion seems so real. You aren't tricked into truly believing that you're actually facing the most terrifying thing in the universe, but it looks real enough that you're unable to block it out.

[Desaril]

I think that basing will saves off of CHA is an excellent idea for eliminating CHA as a dump stat. It would not seriously unbalance the entire game, although some classes and abilities would have a slight change.

I think that the "force of personality" argument is persuasive. The explanation does not have to be perfect, just sufficient to make some sense. Trying to divide the complexity of the human mind into three areas (INT, WIS & CHA) is always going to come up short.

Lastly, there should be a mechanism that encourages CHA for characters other than sorcerers. It helps in social situations, but I have found that in games where NPC interaction is important, the player's wits and words counts more than the character's CHA score and die rolls.

[PirateMonk]

This would provide a better explanation for sorcerers; they are now using their abilities to bend the universe through will power.

As for initiative, this would work for game balance; from a fluff perspective, however, it would make sense to base initiative on both Dex and Wis: You need to react quickly by reflex, and make your reflexes do something useful by figuring out what's going on.