Optimize Charisma

[lbuttitta]

I am playing a campaign in which I will next be playing a bard, so naturally, I want to increase my Charisma score as much as possible.
My DM is strictly banning races with more than +0 LA, and it would be good if my end character will have cohesion with my backstory. Therefore, I am looking for items, abilities, prestige classes, races (with +0 LA), anything that will increase my Charisma score, as long as it ties together.
I will be starting at 9th level, so I will get 36,000 gp to spend on items, and 4 feats, unless I somehow gain a bonus feat.

[Jowgen]

If allowed, the Command ASA from Defenders of the Faith is a +2 that gives a +4 Compentence bonus to Charisma, which stacks with just about anything. Also +2 Morale to will for allies and -6 to hide as a counterbalance.

[noob]

Stacking unseelee court fey as many times as possible is still la +0.
So lose all your con and str to get charisma and dex and rebuke.
This makes playing a creature which is not at maximal age category interesting since you get 2 dex and 2 charisma for each 2 points of str and con.

[Rebel7284]

Unseelee Fey template (LA +0 if going by the example gnome)
Magic-Blooded (AKA Spark) Dragon 306 pg. 64 (LA +0)
Star Elf
Venerable Age Category

[remetagross]

Lesser Aasimar starts out with +2 Wis, +2 Cha (Player's Guide to Faêrun if I recall correctly). If banned, you can get the Spellscale with +2 Cha, -2 Con (Races of the Dragon).

[noob]

Unseelee Fey template (LA +0 if going by the example gnome)
Magic-Blooded (AKA Spark) Dragon 306 pg. 64 (LA +0)
Star Elf
Venerable Age Category

Venerable age category will reduce the number of times you can get Unseelee Fey unless you are a dragonheart kobold.

[Biffoniacus_Furiou]

Templates:

Magic-Blooded in Dragon 306 p64 gives Wis -2, Cha +2, and some other minor benefits for +0 LA.
Unseelie Fey in Dragon Compendium gives flight, DR, your choice of one of four special abilities, Str -2, Dex +2, Con -2, Cha +2, and some other benefits for +0 LA (according to the example creature).
Primordial Giant from Secrets of Xen'drik gives Str -4, Con -2, Int +4, Cha +4, Invisibility at will as a spell-like ability, and some other minor benefits for +0 LA, but it can only be applied to a creature of the giant type.


Races:

Hellbred in Fiendish Codex II allows you to choose Body or Spirit, picking Spirit gives Con -2, Cha +2, Darkvision 120 ft. even in magical darkness, and eventually Telepathy 100 ft., among other beneftis, for +0 LA.
Spellscale in Races of the Dragon gets Con -2, Cha +2, and has the dragonblood subtype if you need it, for +0 LA.
Cyclopeans in Dragon 323 p92 don't specify what creature type they are but the description starting on page 93 refers to them as giants, so they're really the only +0 LA candidate for Primordial Giant. I would use the Str bonus version to offset the penalties for Primordial Giant.


So a Feral-Kind Cyclopean, Magic-Blooded, Primordial Giant, Unseelie Fey would have the following total adjustments and interactions, skipping what doesn't interact with anything else (since I'm not retyping all those templates in their entirety):

Medium Fey (Augmented Giant)
-4 Str, -2 Con, +2 Int, -2 Wis, +8 Cha

Magic-blooded replaces all racial visual capabilities with low-light vision, which removes the drawbacks of having a single eye. You can then gain Darkvision 60 ft. from Unseelie fey, depending on whether your DM makes you roll or allows you to choose. You can opt to instead add Magic-Blooded last, so you can gain Blindsight or Tremorsense from Unseelie Fey and then regain eyes and low-light vision from Magic-Blooded.

You must apply Primordial Giant before Unseelie Fey due to creature type requirements.



Take one level of Dragon Devotee from Races of the Dragon for +2 Cha, its prerequisites are extremely easy to meet. I'd go (Savage (http://www.d20srd.org/srd/variant/classes/variantCharacterClasses.htm#bardVariantSavageBard) ) Bard 8/ Dragon Devotee 1/ Mindbender 1/ Sublime Chord 2/ PrCs that advance Sublime Chord spellcasting 8.

[Gildedragon]

Magic-blooded + unseelie fey + Primordial giant + feral kind cyclopean
Middle aged

That's a -5 str, -1 Dex, -3 con, +3 int, -1 wis, +9 to cha
And sundry SLAs
Edit: Arcanetrickster-ed

[noob]

Wotc explicitly allowed stacking multiple times the same template.
So in your build you could apply multiple times unseelee fairy and apply multiple times Magic-Blooded until you have the lowest stats to take the template without becoming unconscious or unable to move or dead.
However I am quite sure from what the op said that the GM would forbid all the cool LA 0 templates we proposed.(and dragon-wrought kobolds too)

[Rebel7284]

I am not a fan of using cyclopeans as giants. While there are a few places in the text they are referred to as giants, it also says under Physical Description "These extremely tall humanoids." So ask your DM at best.

While applying the same template multiple times is technically allowed, it hardly makes sense for Unseelee fey... you can't more than belong to the court of evil faeries. If you want to get super technical about it, the template does not have an LA, only the example gnome has LA. Therefore, you can only play an Unseelee fey gnome. So I would suggest NOT getting super technical in this case in attempts to abuse the rules. :)

[lbuttitta]

Wotc explicitly allowed stacking multiple times the same template.
So in your build you could apply multiple times unseelee fairy and apply multiple times Magic-Blooded until you have the lowest stats to take the template without becoming unconscious or unable to move or dead.
However I am quite sure from what the op said that the GM would forbid all the cool LA 0 templates we proposed.(and dragon-wrought kobolds too)
Interestingly, he has no qualms whatsoever about min-maxing LA +0 templates, but he feels that races and templates with an LA of +1 or higher "make other players wish that they had those same abilities", IIRC.
And where does Wizards say that templates can be stacked? If they can, how would I then get around the danger of ability damage?

[noob]

They say it after speaking of chimeric chimera.
After getting your wisdom con and str very low you can become a metropolitan(LA 0) and get undead immunities thus protecting you against a lot of stats lowering attacks.(and you do not even have a con to lower)
If I can find a template that makes someone intangible then I guess it gets rid of one more stat(in fact with an intangible necropolitan you could in theory take the unseele fairy an infinity of time since it do not explicitly give you a con value or a str value when you do not have them)
However you will never ever be able to get rid of wisdom because you become an object when you change your wisdom to _.
Oh and I forgot you can also take a random wild-shaping class to set your physical stats to fixed values(after taking templates so you can not use that to restart taking templates).
Alternatively be a necropolitan then take an infinity of times unseelee fey template and you have a str infinitely negative(or at 0) which prevents you from moving physically but you might possibly argue that CE soulborn makes you immune to str reduction and thus that you have your base str or start with wild shape or a variant.(wild shape might possibly be usable while having STR 0 since it is supernatural)

[Mordaedil]

I'd take any statement about stacking templates in the same breath as "chimera" with a huge pinch of salt.

[noob]

I'd take any statement about stacking templates in the same breath as "chimera" with a huge pinch of salt.

Except it was about chimeras of chimeras and they say after this example creature that while it seems weird to apply a template multiple times to a creature that as long as a creature qualify to a template you can keep adding it.

[Vaz]

Be a Neraph Ardent 1/Bard 8 with Alter Self, Practised Manifester, and Metamorphic Transfer

Take form of Visilight with Alter Self, proceed to grapple commoners, gain a net +6 to +9 charisma everyday for the cost of hiring three prostitutes.

[lbuttitta]

Magic-blooded + unseelie fey + Primordial giant + feral kind cyclopean
Middle aged
Adding on the half-undead "fetch" (http://www.realmshelps.net/monsters/templates/half-undead.shtml) template, that makes +11, or +10 if not middle-aged.
Now I'm going to have to figure out the crazy backstory for this character... :smalleek:

[Grod_The_Giant]

A dip in Marshal can effectively double your Cha for the purposes of skills, at least. And the Nymph's Kiss feat adds another +2 to checks.

[Gildedragon]

Adding on the half-undead "fetch" (http://www.realmshelps.net/monsters/templates/half-undead.shtml) template, that makes +11, or +10 if not middle-aged.
Now I'm going to have to figure out the crazy backstory for this character... :smalleek:

Cyclopean shaman sort, with a knack for contacting fae folk and the dead

[Vizzerdrix]

Gonna mention battle dancer-1 and pally of freedom -2 for completion.

[Anthrowhale]

Adding on the half-undead "fetch" (http://www.realmshelps.net/monsters/templates/half-undead.shtml) template, that makes +11, or +10 if not middle-aged.
Now I'm going to have to figure out the crazy backstory for this character... :smalleek:

Fetch is LA+5/CR+1.

[lbuttitta]

It seems to be listed as CR +5/LA +0.

[Anthrowhale]

It seems to be listed as CR +5/LA +0.

Is Dragon Magazine more or less authoritative than realmshelps.net?

[lbuttitta]

My mistake; I forgot to check the magazine. :smallredface:
Well, that puts a hole in things... Of course, +8 Charisma is already extremely good, so I suppose that's OK.

[Baby Gary]

if you are going to have a very high charisma you might want to check out this thread, I would help your character be very SAD

http://www.giantitp.com/forums/showthread.php?125732-3-x-X-stat-to-Y-bonus