What's the coolest thing you can do with Charisma?

[Armyguyclaude]

I was recently thinking about random builds as I've just received help on creating a character than probably won't die, but deals no damage. Got me thinking about the uses of Charisma. I know there's Skill Based Charisma Builds, but what are some other things it can do? I've tried looking it up on Google and haven't found much. I'm guessing follower builds using leadership and maybe some spellcasting like bard? I don't know. Still new to a lot of this. Thanks

[Zaq]

CHA is used for a lot if you build for it, but it’s basically the only “optional” stat (alongside maybe STR). Outside of enchantment spells, it’s rare for a character who chooses to ignore CHA to need a CHA check.

Still, it’s used for a hell of a lot of save DCs, a lot of casting (sorcerer, bard, shugenja, spirit shaman, favored soul, urban druid, warmage, dread necromancer, jester, and probably a few others), binding checks, smiting, marshal auras, turning undead, wilder manifesting, most of the game’s most powerful skills, and a bunch more. It is what you make of it.

[PoeticallyPsyco]

Yeah you've got your social skills, your bards, and a whole lot of spontaneous casters that Zaq mentioned. Not quite a caster is Warlocks, a great way to try out magic if you're new to the system; you still need Dexterity to hit but it's Charisma that determines the DC of your saving throws. On the melee/martial side of things you have Paladins and Crusaders (one of my favorite classes, incidentally), who each use Cha for a couple of their abilities, and Marshals who are about boosting their allies. On the weirder side of things, Binders use Charisma when binding vestiges to their souls to give themselves special abilities.

As for the coolest thing you can do with it? I'm going to say the Stormsinger prestige class, which lets you make Perform checks to shoot lightning.

[ezekielraiden]

Check out the "X stat to Y bonus (http://www.giantitp.com/forums/showthread.php?125732-3-x-X-stat-to-Y-bonus)" thread. You will notice that, with the right build, Charisma can be used for almost everything. Despite being the theoretically optional stat, it's also the only stat that can be plied into nearly every beneficial thing.

A Bard/Virtuoso/Sublime Chord with Snowflake Wardance and Slippers of Battledancing can do nearly everything (skills, social, Wizard-like magic, party support, and fighting) at a moderate to high competence. Sublime Chord gishes (a term for blended fighter-mages still very good at both things) are quite popular for this reason.

[the_david]

Cast Gate to call a Great Wyrm White Dragon or an Ancient Silver Dragon? I mean, you'd have to have 18 levels of Sorcerer first, but you are using Charisma.

[Vizzerdrix]

I'm a fan of stacking it to AC and saves while using a stunning weapon.

[martixy]

Everything you do with high charisma is cool. It's what it does.

[Covenant12]

You mentioned skills in the first post, but they get quite crazy. Diplomacy is the worst here, it can accidentally be campaign-wrecking even limited to core books. There's a reason the Giant had to sit down and write a fix.

Bluff is nearly as bad, especially with glibness. But at least some creatures like dragons have very high sense motive and Wis scores. And Bluff at least says truly absurd things may just be disbelieved, no roll. Diplomacy isn't horribly hard to get where everything not mindless is now helpful. And it doesn't get harder with enemy HD/levels. A 1st level goblin warrior and a great wyrm dragon need the same check to become helpful, assuming both hostile.

[MaxiDuRaritry]

Add a level of marshal to an exemplar build to add +Cha to Dex skill checks, and I only have two words for you: The Arseplomancer (https://1d4chan.org/wiki/Arseplomancer).

You'll arseplode them, and they'll like it!

[Biggus]

A high-level bard with the Ability Enhancer feat (Dragon Compendium Vol. 1) can buff their Charisma into the stratosphere. With the spells Nixie's Grace (Spell Compendium), Inner Beauty (Fiendish Codex 1) and Snowsong (Frostburn) you can get a total of +20, all of which last for 10 minutes per level, or 20 minutes per level with a Metamagic Extend Rod. Take a dip into one of the classes which gives you +Cha to saves (eg Paladin of Freedom) and combine this with the spell Ruin Delver's Fortune (Spell Compendium) to never fail a save except on a natural 1 again. Then cast Sirine's Grace (Spell Compendium) to add your Cha to your AC as well.

If that's not enough, keep a couple of scrolls of Greater Visage of the Deity (Spell Compendium) for special occasions, which you can cast using UMD (which also runs off Cha), for a further +4 boost to Cha (or +6 if Ability Enhancer applies to spells cast from scrolls, I'm not sure).

Your boosted Cha increases the save DCs of your spells, your Perform checks for your Bardic music (making your Countersong, Fascinate, and Suggestion abilities more powerful), and if you take the Paladin of Freedom levels, means you almost never miss on your Smite Evil attempts.

And that's without trying to get really munchkin about it. Have a look at the Sublime Chord prestige class (Complete Arcane) for example...

[Cygnia]

Wanna frustrate enemies as a tank?

Get the best AC you can afford and get the Goad feat (CAdv 109).