What an excellent opportunity to use the PC's charisma. Use a charisma check to see the dealer's response to the character. A good roll and the dealer could use the old "but for you, it's only...", but a poor roll could have the same dealer thinking "what a
, I could make some extra coin off this one!" and proceed to show off a "normal" horse while spouting it's "superior" qualities!Some common use of similar tactics might persuade many players from minimizing their charisma scores. Of course, it's not limited to affecting prices. If the place is busy, the merchant could "ignore" that PC in favour of others that are there, even ones that came after him. Or how about the watching eye of distrust and public accusation of theft. That would make an actual attempt at theft much more harder and/or make it more difficult to gain a good reputation and fame, even if you did those "alleged" heroic deeds.
Any other thoughts on the repercussions of a poor charisma?
Any other thoughts on the repercussions of a poor charisma?
Interesting thoughts!
First of all, I never noticed that Handle Animal was a CHA skill, which IMHO is wrong. Animals don't respond to how "likable" or persuasive a person is - they respond mainly to the person's empathy and a system of rewards and punishments (I don't mean that to suggest cruelty to animals but if your dog craps in your house you're going to yell at it :D)
So, IMO, Handle Animal should be a WIS skill.
Furthermore, the person with a poor charisma (or wisdom) who fails to spot an inferior mount, should still get a Sense Motive check to realise that the horsetrader is trying to trick him. I would suggest an opposed skill check: the trader's Bluff versus the buyer's Sense Motive - possibly with a bonus to the bluff if it is obvious that the buyer doesn't know anything about horses.
As for the other negative effects of charisma, it is something which has been much debated in my group of roleplayers. What do you do if a player, who likes to talk a lot, comes up with a brilliant idea but plays a character with a lousy charisma while another player, whose character has a high charisma, has problems expressing his ideas in an eloquent manner and rarely talks?
If you emphasise the effects of charisma, you should have NPCs pay little or no attention to the character with the poor charisma whose player had a good idea, while having them pay much attention and actually being somewhat persuaded by the character with the high charisma, even though that player really did not express his idea all that well.
We have had this problems sometimes in the group that I DM, and I don't really have any solutions except keeping a list of the party's charisma scores behind my screen and trying to constantly "rephrase" in my mind what the players are saying accordingly. But IMO that slows the game down.
Besides, it is not the only time when a situation arises when a player is faced with being in a situation where his much more intelligent or much wiser character would surely know what to do but he himself does not have a clue. How DO you play a 21 Intelligence wizard?
:-) Jesper
I wouldn't be so much against Handle Animal being a Charisma Skill, were it not for one thing: there's already Empathy that covers that region. So Handle Animal should be about the ways of handling an animal to teach it something (basically its the skill TEACHING applied to animals) and to tend it. And since Teaching is a Profession, then Handling Animal should be a Wisdom Skill, and that's my point of view.
Now, coming to Spellweaver's dilemma, first of all Charisma should NEVER be taken into consideration when a PC deals with another PC: it's a matter of roleplaying (else we could just avoid all of the roleplay and save 10-20 minutes by just rolling a dice after specifying an action). But I reckon that, as much as this happens with Intelligence and Wisdom, there may be occasions when the PC's score it too high in comparison to the player's capacities.
IN these cases, I'd ask the player to roll his d20 adding his Charisma/Wisdom/INtelligence bonus against a certain DC and keep track of the result. Then I'd let him roleplay and modify either the roleplaying or the die roll accordingly.
So If the player has acted too smart or charmingly (or viceversa has acted too dumb or shy) in comparison to his Int or Wis or Cha score, you should used the die roll to account for his real Int/Wis/Char and disregard the roleplay (modifying the speech or idea accordingly).
If however the player acted in line with his INt/Wis/Cha score, you should disregard the die roll and judge by the roleplay, OR give the roll some bonuses because of the roleplay.
Help the player when they're not up to the PC's score by making them roll their dices and giving advices if you can (i.e. if a mage has Int 19 and the player forgets the speech he overheard an hour ago, you as a DM should remind him every single word or at least let him roll against a low DC to remember! Same goes especially with Charisma deeds..)
First of all, I never noticed that Handle Animal was a CHA skill, which IMHO is wrong. Animals don't respond to how "likable" or persuasive a person is - they respond mainly to the person's empathy and a system of rewards and punishments (I don't mean that to suggest cruelty to animals but if your dog craps in your house you're going to yell at it :D)
Charisma isn't just about how likable you are, at least, not the way our group uses it. It includes your personal attractiveness as you say (and not just looks alone). In addition,
Charisma represents the way you relates to the world around you, and in part it represents the essence of your soul together with Wisdom.
But it also reflects the "power of your prescence", which no doubt is related to the first two. That is why the Intimidate skill is charisma based. Our group oftens states that the scene in the movie "Tombstone" starring Kurt Russell and Val Kilmer where Kurt, playing (an unarmed) Wyatt Earp, creates fear in a gambling-table bully (who was armed), is a perfect example of using the power of presence to affect someone else. (Great western btw!)
Back to the animals, they respond to the dominate one, the "alpha male", or what-have-you, not because they "like" you.
So, IMO, Handle Animal should be a WIS skill.
I wouldn't be so much against Handle Animal being a Charisma Skill, were it not for one thing: there's already Empathy that covers that region. So Handle Animal should be about the ways of handling an animal to teach it something (basically its the skill TEACHING applied to animals) and to tend it. And since Teaching is a Profession, then Handling Animal should be a Wisdom Skill, and that's my point of view.
All we can do is share our point of veiws, so here's mine :P
I do see Wisdom as the application of knowledge, but when dealing with animals, you're not imparting knowledge, you're altering the natural tendicies of an instinctual creature by dominance.
One thing this discussion has caused me to realize though is that Handle Animal is not the right skill for determining horse quality; I think probably a Profession or Knowledge should be used. Any thoughts on that? Oh, and Animal Empathy is no longer a skill in 3.5 (which I like) but a class feature (IIRC).
All the other comments I basically agree with. As a DM, you always have to keep in mind the difference/seperation between player and character; they usually don't have the same ability scores ;) . I mean, if the character doesn't use the same physical scores as the player than there's no reason to make them use the same mental scores. There was some good suggestions stated there guys, thanks.