Charisma! What is it good for? (Shopping)

[PaulBlay]

I came across a somewhat old newsgroup discussion on what should be done about money/charisma. http://angband.oook.cz/rgra.php?showpost=115811
I don't think a great deal has changed with respect to charisma since then.

Personally I have a tendency to stuff points in charisma even if I do think it's useless (who wants to play an ugly character? ) so I am completely biased on this point. I would rather see charisma made more useful than eliminated.

High-elves get +5 to charisma. I bet that accounts for some of the 200% exp learning penalty, but do they get their money's worth for that? Paladins have "primary stats are strength and charisma" but that charisma doesn't provide any bonus to spell casting or anything.

The problem seems to be that charisma is only useful for shopping, nothing else. I think most stats have several different uses. (Strength is useful for carrying capacity not just fighting, intelligence is not just for spells but devices and traps etc. Wisdom improves spell resistance as well as priest's prayers. [IMO Con should probably increase change of resisting poison damage, but I don't think it does?]

Perhaps high charisma could act as a partial reverse aggravate? If your character is cute enough monsters might think twice about whether to beat him/her up. It would require some balance testing but I don't think it is that far away from 'Angband style'.

[EDIT]I'll provide an example, from the point of view of two orcs.
Gork: "Hey, look what just walked in. I wouldn't mind a random encounter with that body in a dark alley."
Zork: "Too right. Oh wow, she's coming this way!"
Gork: "Looks like tonight is our ... er, Zork, why do you have a dagger sticking out of your ... AAARGh!!"

[Zikke]

It can get you out of otherwise socially awkward situations.


p: You tramp! You killed my dogs!

@: Wow you must be working out! That popping vein in your forehead perfectly matches your cut biceps. Do you want to go work this little situation out over a bowl of Slime Mold soup?

p: Swoon!

[Magnate]

Well, I was going to say there's nothing useful that can be done with Charisma, so let's just get rid of it altogether. But the idea of cancelling aggravation intrigues me. Currently aggravation is binary, you either aggravate or you don't. If it was reworked as a penalty to stealth, all sorts of things would be different. You could have varying degrees of aggravation, and an ability which modifies it. The obvious choice is Dex, but that's already used for so many things, so why not Charisma? Doesn't make quite as much literal sense, but never mind.

CC

[PaulBlay]

But most importantly ... Sexy rogues!!!111one!

[bio_hazard]

I like the idea that it could be a stealth modifier. I don't know that you would need to posit that monsters find @ sexy, but a character with high charisma could be comfortable in their own skin and look like they "belong there" (i.e. stealth would incorporate more than not being detected, but being detected and recognized as an enemy).

It could also have a minor effect on saving throws, or maybe something like "luck" that would increase the chances of vaults, good drops, etc...

In a variant like ToME you could give a power to charm or scare away low level monsters once Charisma is maxed out...

[Donald Jonker]

I like the idea that it could be a stealth modifier. I don't know that you would need to posit that monsters find @ sexy, but a character with high charisma could be comfortable in their own skin and look like they "belong there" (i.e. stealth would incorporate more than not being detected, but being detected and recognized as an enemy).

Sounds like a bit of a logical stretch to me. I'd be more in favor of the idea already posited by Antoine and under consideration for V 3.2, namely to get rid of Charisma entirely, and to add stealth as a stat (which could be augmented by stat pots and so forth). Might as well call a spade a spade.

edit: non-binary aggravation would be very interesting, though.

[zaimoni]

I came across a somewhat old newsgroup discussion on what should be done about money/charisma. http://angband.oook.cz/rgra.php?showpost=115811
I don't think a great deal has changed with respect to charisma since then.

Unfortunately, yes. The AI just isn't enough there yet. (In my opinion, high charisma should cause the monster AI to be suboptimal. E.g., giving the player free chances to kill at range, or inducing overconfidence to *not* teleport away/heal when appropriate.)

[Greyhame]

Charisma

some definitions

a personal attractiveness or interestingness that enables you to "influence" others ----in that regard it should be used to increase the effectiveness of certain spells(confusing monsters, blinding them with light, etc). As well as getting better prices in stores

Personal charm or magnetism; An extraordinary power granted by the Holy Spirit; The ability to influence without the use of logic. Could be used to increase the effectiveness of spells such as creating food, finding treasure, etc

charismatic - the ability to lead and influence large numbers of people.

Charisma should also potentiate some of the abilities of the rogue character type

[tigen]

The D&D concept of Charisma is clearly for social interaction. So my feeling is that either you plan on adding more of this to the game in the long run (having it only for shopping seems pointless), or else get rid of it. Or possibly make the shopping angle more important (have it affect which things are stocked? Let a high starting charisma give you better starting equipment + money? Let it give you access to really much better deals, for example in the black market?) In a *band with some sort of quests feature it could influence rewards.

As an aside, I think the Incursion project that I toyed with briefly has an ambitious implementation of bona fide social interaction, where creatures in the game have varying dispositions and alignments, and some can be traded with, made into allies, or hired for specific situations (e.g. keeping watch while you rest). Monsters also have inventories, and can pick up loot from your kill, which is pretty annoying, but you can ask them to give it back... depending on Charisma.

[Pete Mack]

Charisma is supposed to effect the usefulness of "charm" type spells, like Scare, Sleep, Confuse, and possibly even sound/stun attacks. Unfortunately, those spells are not particularly useful, with or without the slight benefit that CHA gives. If the spells were made more powerful, and/or the effects were also added to the CL in "protection from evil", CHA would be significantly more useful.

[Nolendil]

possibly make the shopping angle more important (have it affect which things are stocked? Let a high starting charisma give you better starting equipment + money? Let it give you access to really much better deals, for example in the black market?)

This idea also makes charisma more interesting when shopping.

Otherwise, I think charisma also includes how self-confident you look.
So, an adventurer with high charisma would impress monsters and they would be more reluctant to attack the player.
It's not like stealth : monsters could come near the player but wouldn't rush toward him all together, some would keep some distance, some would never attack and even run away from the player.
They could also flee earlier when wounded.
We could also consider that they become nervous and could fail some attacks and spells once in a while.
They could be more vulnerable to spells (damage/effects have a higher chance of being around the max value) and critical strikes could be more likely.

[Nick]

Otherwise, I think charisma also includes how self-confident you look.
So, an adventurer with high charisma would impress monsters and they would be more reluctant to attack the player.

I'm going to use something like this in FA040, where there are going to be monsters which don't always attack the player. Their chance of being hostile will depend on several factors, one of which will be charisma.

[Nolendil]

Sounds cool

[PaulBlay]

I'm going to use something like this in FA040, where there are going to be monsters which don't always attack the player. Their chance of being hostile will depend on several factors, one of which will be charisma.

If they aren't hostile I suggest that the default action when the player moves onto their space should be "swap positions" not "attack". (Attacks can be done with the + alter grid command).

[azfalt]

How about expanding the idea of CHA as a stat?

Currently we take CHA to mean 'charisma', but it could just as well be 'charm', 'chance', 'character', etc... (without being too silly, like 'chastity', 'charity' or 'chablis')

What I mean is that if you interpret charisma a little more loosely to generally include luck/charm then it could have some more game-relevant effects. For instance, high CHA could improve saving throw, disarming, maybe even searching, as well as having effects on store prices. Perhaps very high CHA could give a small chance of partially resisting certain nasty effects of high-level elemental attacks (nexus, nether, chaos, time, etc)

I definitely think CHA should influence success of spells such as slow/sleep/confuse monster, except that these spells seem to have so little effect on gameplay that it'd hardly matter. It'd be interesting for priests/paladins if CHA improved Dispel Evil/Undead and Protection from Evil success rates, so CHA would act like a 'holiness' stat. It'd explain why one of Paladin's primary stats is CHA, as someone mentioned earlier.

Perhaps CHA should influence stealth? I'm not sure if CHA should be ditched yet, it'd be nice to find some more uses for it...