Is Charisma needed?

[Rev. Layle]

Supposedly, a high CH will help your followers perform better in combat (Nerves), not sure how much it does affect their ability in combat as I have had only one play through (finished today).

 

[brfritos]

I don't know. I think NV has a decent balance in terms of skill points given to the player. The difference between 5INT and 10INT is 72 Skill Points which isn't THAT much considering that reaching the level cap is a relatively long process and in the meantime you have to use whatever skills you chose to raise first.

I would agree with that if you could not shift the checks to a later point in the game when you increased your skills. To many times you found your self in a situation where you might do a check with your skills be it spech or barter and can simply return later to do it again particularly since you know exactly how much is needed to succeed here. Also its no problem to get most skills up to level 50 quite early which most of the time enough for most checks and when you really encounter some high checks you either do a few more wandering killing criters and exploring or you even use one of those wonderfull magazines. ~ one rare situation is with Lainus in the end game where yo ucan convince him to retreat which needs 100 in spech if I remember correctly but since that chapter of the game was closed you had not much chance wandering around in that part of the game so if you had not the needed skill, well.

For what I remember only some checks aren't raised, the rest goes up according to your character progression.
The checks in Primm and Goodsprings are the same regardless your level, but for example, when I tried to recruit Cass my speech and barter were pretty low. The smart ass here thinked "ok, I raise one or two levels and then go back to her".
"Not so fast genius", the game reply: her speech and barter check was higher too!

This happens also in Helious One when you speak with Lt. Haggerty without having a good reputation with NCR and Black Mountain with Tabitha and/or Brenda.

As obvious, the game don't put an impossible check, so when I talked to Cass the first time I needed 35 in barter, but later was 55.
Since I always pick the educated perk and have some salesman magazines this wasn't a problem, but it was close!

I think Charisma should at least impact in the way you gain money in the quests. For example, with Charisma too low you shouldn't have the option to do some barter or speech checks to raise the caps you gain for performing some tasks.
Even the most inteligent person in the world don't go too far unless it has some charisma.

Damned, I wish my english was better, so I could write this in more detail.

[ ]'s

 

[Crni Vuk]

I understood you pretty well no worries

Though I didnt noticed that the game did what you described changing the skill check with your progress.

What I noticed though is that there are different checks inside the dialogue itself. Meaning you would need for one situation 35, with the next answer maybe 50 and with the finall one 75. ~ as like with Karl when you try to get his oppinion about the Khans in front of Papa Khan.

Or other situations where you could tell with a medicine skill of 35 what issue a character had but you would need 50 to cure him!

Those are things I actualy liked a lot. I just wish the game would have exploted that better using more skills in to that. As you already said. Even with high inteligence a low charisma would mean some heavy handicap. Remember Inteligence just means your overall knowledge NOT how to put this knowledge in a coherent setence.

Think about someone with high inteligence to be a representing a character like Frink from the simpsons

Inteligence : 9
Charisma : 2

while someone with high charisma representing a personality like Che Guevara or JFK if you want so

 

[Little Robot]

Or other situations where you could tell with a medicine skill of 35 what issue a character had but you would need 50 to cure him!

Yeah, in the Boomers camp there was a situation with the sick people where I had a high enough speech to tell the doctor that I could cure the people. But then I had almost no medicine so when I tried to apply my BS cure I just killed all of them.

 

[cronicler]

Rev. Layle: "Nerve" gives %5 bonus damage and armor per each Cha point you have.

Because of this, Boone, Raul, Cass and Arcade (from most efficient to least) can become very good tanks with a good armor (despite their AI limitations).

*Lily doesn't have any DT so she might seem stunted but as she is the only companion who is capable of using silenced weapons, she can become ridiculously deadly when firing "down" onto multiple targets when sneaking.

(Veronica is still bugged, ED-E (0) and Rex (2 base) don't have DTs so they don't benefit from Nerve bonuses much. ED-E's brotherhood upgrade gives 12(8 base) Dt which is not really enough for the end game. You may be better off with having a better gun for occasional random enemy and parking him somewhere safe.)

 

[Nalano]

Inteligence : 9
Charisma : 2

This, this; a thousand times this.

Not to say that FONV has been good in depicting it. I mean, there really are quite few instances where one's CHA stat is important, where physical appearance and sheer animal magnetism (and not just Animal Friend) matter and should make a difference, because we are, after all, a fickle, superficial people.

I mean, sure, the guy could have the correct answer to everything, but who's gonna listen to him if he has a stutter, halitosis and a bad attitude?

That said, I think part of the blame goes to the players, too, for CHA being a dump stat's been an RPG norm for as long as I can remember. Old habits die hard!

 

[gumbarrel]

Played Baldurs Gate only for a little bit, but I remember Charisma being pretty important in that game if you wanted to be a Paladin for example.

Edit: Reading an old guide for that game right now and yeah, it's a dump stat, lol. Paladin is pretty much the only class that needs Charisma.

 

[Bal-Sagoth]

Baldurs Gate is based off of Advanced Dungeons and Dragons rulesets. It should be no surprise that all the stats matter when you consider the source material.

 

[Threepwood]

Charisma should govern 'party' size.

It should open up oppurtunities for speach checks.

It should be used to affect the view of people around you, if you have 1 for example, those prostitutes at Gamora may not be so eager.

 

[Innawerkz]

Although someone with low Charisma may have a very difficult time become president, most of the speech checks in Fallout aren't on that level. If I was not very charismatic (probably because of my crippling agoraphobia), you would probably not be willing to hear what I had to say. But if I had spent years practicing by debate skills I would probably be able to bring you around eventually.

Apologies if this was said a different way, but Charisma could be used to set the initial difficulty on Speech & Barter checks. For each point of Charisma, a skill check in dialogue is reduced (or raised) by 3 rounding up. Examples of what I mean using the ''Ghost Town Gunfight' quest. I need to convince Chet to lend us his armour to improve our odds in the fight. I walk up to Chet as:

My 2 Charisma character. My first impression is terrible. (My breath stinks, I have a giant wart on my nose, I hold an agressive posture, etc.). Because of this, the game represents this as any skill checks I have to make while talking to him are noticeably higher - especially Speech & Barter checks. In this case I need 55 Barter to convince Chet. No small feat this early in the game.

My 8 Charisma Character. Warm smile; friendly handshake; complimenting Chet on his store & sense of style. Needs to make the Barter check only at 30. Much easier since a High Charisma character already has the stat bonus to Barter and likely is playing a diplomatic character with Barter tagged. Even without it tagged, it puts it within reach of a magazine boost in the early going.

This would still allow highly intelligent characters to get around Speech & Skill checks - but they would need to commit their extra XP per level in the relevent direction to surpass the higher thresholds. Representing his 'infallible logic' but cold approach to the NPC.

ADD: Also gives new reason & purpose to carry a suit of fine clothes around with you to put on when you enter a new town. Ditch the armour and put on the sweet threads to get an additional 3% bonus in your favour when chatting up the locals. Would make it even better if most armours gave you a reduction in Charisma. Hard for most 'civilized people' to be subtly persuaded through conversation when you have the bloodstains of your victims, cured into the leather by the Mojave sun, distracting their attention.

 

[Nalano]

ADD: Also gives new reason & purpose to carry a suit of fine clothes around with you to put on when you enter a new town. Ditch the armour and put on the sweet threads to get an additional 3% bonus in your favour when chatting up the locals. Would make it even better if most armours gave you a reduction in Charisma. Hard for most 'civilized people' to be subtly persuaded through conversation when you have the bloodstains of your victims, cured into the leather by the Mojave sun, distracting their attention.

I dunno. Swapping outta clothing sets always felt odd to me. You don't really expect the lone cowboy right off the plains to change before entering the Last Call Saloon, do you? Maybe that nebbish wordsmith who fell out the stagecoach with fourteen crates might care how he dresses, but I can't see him throwing his weight around...

Either way, what you're suggesting is far more complicated a system than I've seen in this engine - great though it sounds - but lore-wise, who in Fallout doesn't look like they've been baking out in the desert sun? 'Bout the only difference I'd imagine would be the salted leather look of a wanderer versus the cooked lobster look of a vault-dweller...

 

[ramessesjones]

The Nerve bonus is pretty significant and because they couldn't increase party size because the game engine, its about the best they could do as far as it influencing your companions. Even bugged, Veronica is pretty impressive mid game, with a higher Charisma character, because can find a lot of Brotherhood T-51B that only she can wear, you can the get set the at Repconn almost right after recruiting her without fighting anything.

One thing that could be done to help Charisma, would be to replace/reduce the requirements of reputation based dialogue with more CHA checks. It could also add a modifier to the trust increase given by completing quests (or reduce trust lost for doing bad things), requiring completing fewer quests to gain the trust of a faction. This coud provide easier access to things like the Monorail, getting safehouse keys, access to special shops, gaining the Boomers trust, etc...

 

[Innawerkz]

I dunno. Swapping outta clothing sets always felt odd to me. You don't really expect the lone cowboy right off the plains to change before entering the Last Call Saloon, do you? Maybe that nebbish wordsmith who fell out the stagecoach with fourteen crates might care how he dresses, but I can't see him throwing his weight around...

Either way, what you're suggesting is far more complicated a system than I've seen in this engine - great though it sounds - but lore-wise, who in Fallout doesn't look like they've been baking out in the desert sun? 'Bout the only difference I'd imagine would be the salted leather look of a wanderer versus the cooked lobster look of a vault-dweller...

Wasn't really the crux of my post, just an afterhtought. Currently - clothes that give a +1 to Cha grant little more than a 2 point increase in the related skill. Good but not enough to consider carrying a 2 LB set of apparel. If CHA granted a 3 point deduction in the skill check threshold while also boosting your Speech/Barter +2 that is a 5 point swing in favour. Certainly more relevant.

I understand a lot of players likely aren't playing Sim Apocalypse with their Couriers. I certainly didn't. However, when I was on the Strip and realized that guns were no longer present on the strip, I changed out of my Reinforced Combat Armour MK II into something more appropriate for the environment.

My suggestion to adding a negative to CHA in some armours during dialogue was to make the switch to a 'suit' even more substantial. A potential 10 point swing in skill. Could be too difficult to balance with that much of a difference.

 

[Crni Vuk]

Played Baldurs Gate only for a little bit, but I remember Charisma being pretty important in that game if you wanted to be a Paladin for example.

Not just that. I played a few times a fighter with very low charisma. While it definetly is not breaking your game you will have a hard time to convince people from your point of view regardless how "ingteligent" you are in the end. Luckily if you know where to find the ring of charisma (or what ever its name is) thats really not so much a issue. But it's the DND setting and at least in BG you get at some point magical items thrown at you like popcorn. THough I loved the game for that. Hard in the begining, easy with the end. Kicking those dragons and might wizards in their groin is fun when they lough at you with the start of the game. Also helps that many characters have superb voice acting (at least in the German version which is NOT! standart even today ...)

 

[Dreamsofcats]

Getting in on the conversation a bit late -- Unfortunately the affect of charisma is rather subtle compared to other stats.
It influences the starting skill levels of barter and speech, and also the armor and damage of companions. From the guide:

Charisma
value

1 = +5% companion armor and damage. +2 barter and speech.

2 = +10%, +4 barter and speech

3 = +15%, +6 barter and speech

4 = +20%, +8 barter and speech

5 = +25%, +10 barter and speech

6 = +30%, +12 barter and speech

7 = +35%, +14 barter and speech

8 = +40%, +16 barter and speech

9 = +45%, +18 barter and speech

10= + 50%, +20 barter and speech

Associated perks: Ferocious loyalty, Animal friend

Consider the musings of the guide with some healthy skepticism, however, as I've noted many omissions and inaccuracies within its pages. Charisma is best, I think, for a smooth talker who has his companions do most of the fighting. Otherwise, it may be safely considered a dump stat if playing a gunman.

My two caps.

 

[SerbianWarrior]

I was really hoping that they brought in the old school charisma where u needed 2 points of to recruit 1 companion...
Instead it influences companions nerve (+5% damage i think)...
Its not that its the least useful special stat...
Its that its completely useless...