Starting CHA 20 and Inspiring Leader at 4th (2024)

Quote from gorman42 >> 

And I'd hate to play at a table where the DM would rule "rules state that you need to use the modifier of an ability you increased, so your maxed stat cannot apply".

And have you encountered that or are you arguing about a scenario that has not occurred, a scenario that I personally have never heard of occurring prior to Sabin76's mention of one Discord conversation.

You are in an active game, is your DM requiring you to use Wisdom because your Charisma is 20?

Quote from SmiteMakesRight_3_5 >>

Quote from gorman42 >> 

And I'd hate to play at a table where the DM would rule "rules state that you need to use the modifier of an ability you increased, so your maxed stat cannot apply".

And have you encountered that or are you arguing about a scenario that has not occurred, a scenario that I personally have never heard of occurring prior to Sabin76's mention of one Discord conversation.

You are in an active game, is your DM requiring you to use Wisdom because your Charisma is 20?

 My DM is not requiring that. At least, not that I know of and we discussed it explicitly. Prior to Sabin76's remarks, I was simply pointing out that, with the way the rule was written, it could even be interpreted like that. Pointing out, imo, that it could have been written better. Just that.

Quote from gorman42 >>

Quote from SmiteMakesRight_3_5 >>

Quote from gorman42 >> 

And I'd hate to play at a table where the DM would rule "rules state that you need to use the modifier of an ability you increased, so your maxed stat cannot apply".

And have you encountered that or are you arguing about a scenario that has not occurred, a scenario that I personally have never heard of occurring prior to Sabin76's mention of one Discord conversation.

You are in an active game, is your DM requiring you to use Wisdom because your Charisma is 20?

 My DM is not requiring that. At least, not that I know of and we discussed it explicitly. Prior to Sabin76's remarks, I was simply pointing out that, with the way the rule was written, it could even be interpreted like that. Pointing out, imo, that it could have been written better. Just that.

There is a point at which it is sufficiently clear and additional clarity requires more words that inflates the word count for a feature, either reducing the content of a book or inflating the price of it. Remember, it's not one feat, it's a standard that all rules would be written to.

That is in addition to what I believe is the intentional design choice to encourage players to marry attribute choices with certain abilities. I think the issue you are encounter is, in the eyes of the developers, a feature, not a bug.

Quote from sabin76 >>

Wait. It seems that some of these arguments are coming from the reading of the feat that makes it impossible to leverage a 20 CHA for the speech. Unless I am seriously misjudging Gorman's reading as the same as my own... the problem isn't that one much choose WIS if they want both the stat bump and the temp HP, it's that one must choose WIS to get any benefit from the feat at all (THIS is the point of contention with how the feat is worded).

 Hi Sabin76. No you got it backwards.  The OP, Gorman42, had a CHA = 20 and WIS= 14 prior to taking the inspiring leader feat. He’s miffed because if he applies the +1 the feat grants to his WIS, then per the feat’s rules he has to use the Wisdom stat (now 15) with the feat. What he should do is apply the feat to CHA. However since the next step of the process is to check if the stat is already 20….in which case the CHA stat stays 20. But now one gets to use the feat with the 20 CHA, which more than makes up for not raising any stat +1. Basically he wants whatever player that is in this particular situation to be able to “eat their  cake and eat it too.”  Wants to be able raise the Wis +1, BUT THEN, still use CHA 20 when using the feat.  

Quote from EdO06057 >>

Basically he wants whatever player that is in this particular situation to be able to “eat their  cake and eat it too.”  Wants to be able raise the Wis +1, BUT THEN, still use CHA 20 when using the feat.  

I think this is an overly strong statement. It is a reasonable request that is not supported by RAW. As such, asking the DM to make an exception/house rule is appropriate, but the DM has denied the request. That would normally be the end of it.

5 pages later, there have been multiple attempts to highlight a fault in the rules. I don't know if the intent is to change them in order to use Charisma anyway, but a change is extremely unlikely to occur. OP must make a choice on which attribute to use and deal with the consequences of that choice.

The rules have been laid out. The DM has been beseeched to no avail. Those who find no fault in the rule are not budging. Those who wish the rule was "better worded" to potentially different effects are not budging either.

I think this topic has been discussed to its conclusion.

Quote from SmiteMakesRight_3_5 >>

Quote from EdO06057 >>

Basically he wants whatever player that is in this particular situation to be able to “eat their  cake and eat it too.”  Wants to be able raise the Wis +1, BUT THEN, still use CHA 20 when using the feat.  

I think this is an overly strong statement. It is a reasonable request that is not supported by RAW. As such, asking the DM to make an exception/house rule is appropriate, but the DM has denied the request. That would normally be the end of it.

5 pages later, there have been multiple attempts to highlight a fault in the rules. I don't know if the intent is to change them in order to use Charisma anyway, but a change is extremely unlikely to occur. OP must make a choice on which attribute to use and deal with the consequences of that choice.

The rules have been laid out. The DM has been beseeched to no avail. Those who find no fault in the rule are not budging. Those who wish the rule was "better worded" to potentially different effects are not budging either.

I think this topic has been discussed to its conclusion.

 
As far as the initial post, written during character creation/planning phase, all of it has been resolved in my group. So I'm not seeking anything. We are/were discussing if the rule could have been better worded or not, since, in my opinion, it's not so intuitive, especially for newcomers to the game. You are right that it would add to the word count but, since there are several feats like this, I think some wording before the feats list would be the easiest/less wordy route to go. "Whenever a feat calls for a choice between two or more attributes, note that..."

Quote from SmiteMakesRight_3_5 >>

Quote from EdO06057 >>

Basically he wants whatever player that is in this particular situation to be able to “eat their  cake and eat it too.”  Wants to be able raise the Wis +1, BUT THEN, still use CHA 20 when using the feat.  

I think this is an overly strong statement. It is a reasonable request that is not supported by RAW. As such, asking the DM to make an exception/house rule is appropriate, but the DM has denied the request. That would normally be the end of it.

5 pages later, there have been multiple attempts to highlight a fault in the rules. I don't know if the intent is to change them in order to use Charisma anyway, but a change is extremely unlikely to occur. OP must make a choice on which attribute to use and deal with the consequences of that choice.

The rules have been laid out. The DM has been beseeched to no avail. Those who find no fault in the rule are not budging. Those who wish the rule was "better worded" to potentially different effects are not budging either.

I think this topic has been discussed to its conclusion.

 Yay!  It's done!  

Quote from gorman42 >>

 

As far as the initial post, written during character creation/planning phase, all of it has been resolved in my group. So I'm not seeking anything. We are/were discussing if the rule could have been better worded or not, since, in my opinion, it's not so intuitive, especially for newcomers to the game. You are right that it would add to the word count but, since there are several feats like this, I think some wording before the feats list would be the easiest/less wordy route to go. "Whenever a feat calls for a choice between two or more attributes, note that..."

 OK then.  Let's talk about whether this rule is poorly worded.  Not only do I disagree that the RAW is poorly worded, but I'm going to go so far as to say that the wording is PERFECT.

In my profession, I specialize in contracts; I read and modify the wording of contracts frequently.  You may not believe this, but court cases involving a contract dispute between two parties have been won/lost over the existence of a comma in a sentence and/or between what words that comma appears.

The RAW say: "Increase your Wisdom or Charisma score by 1, to a maximum of 20."  The comma denotes two steps in the process. First the player picks either WIS or CHA to increase by 1. Let's say that the player increases his CHA of 20 to 21.  The next step in the process (described after the comma), tells you what do if the score you chose to raise is now over 20. If so, you reduce it back down to 20.

The last sentence of the feat (describing what happens when you use the feat) says "The chosen creatures each gain Temporary Hit Points equal to your character level plus the modifier of the ability you increased with the feat."

So, even if the starting value of the stat was already 20 before taking the feat, the player still did raise it to 21 in the first step.  So if you chose CHA (which was 20 to start) then the CHA modifier is used to determine the Temporary HP.  If you chose to raise WIS from 14 to 15, then WIS is used to determine the Temporary HP gained.

Quote from EdO06057 >>

Quote from gorman42 >>

 

As far as the initial post, written during character creation/planning phase, all of it has been resolved in my group. So I'm not seeking anything. We are/were discussing if the rule could have been better worded or not, since, in my opinion, it's not so intuitive, especially for newcomers to the game. You are right that it would add to the word count but, since there are several feats like this, I think some wording before the feats list would be the easiest/less wordy route to go. "Whenever a feat calls for a choice between two or more attributes, note that..."

 OK then.  Let's talk about whether this rule is poorly worded.  Not only do I disagree that the RAW poorly worded, but I'm going to go so far as to say that the wording is PERFECT.

In my profession, I specialize in contracts; I read and modify the wording of contracts frequently.  You may not believe this, but court cases involving a contract dispute between two parties have been won/lost over the existence of a comma in a sentence and/or between what words that comma appears.

The RAW say: "Increase your Wisdom of Charisma score by 1, to a maximum of 20."  The comma denotes two steps in the process. First the player picks either WIS or CHA to increase by 1. Let's say that the player increases his CHA of 20 to 21.  The next step in the process (described after the comma), tells you what do if the score you chose to raise is now over 20. If so, you reduce it back down to 20.

The last sentence of the feat (describing what happens when you use the feat) says "The chosen creatures each gain Temporary Hit Points equal to your character level plus the modifier of the ability you increased with the feat."

So, even if the starting value of the stat was already 20 before taking the feat, the player still did raise it to 21 in the first step.  So if you chose CHA (which was 20 to start) then the CHA modifier is used to determine the Temporary HP.  If you chose to raise WIS from 14 to 15, then WIS is used to determine the Temporary HP gained.

As a Technical Writer turned Software Engineer, I am often bringing up UI/UX (User Interface / User Experience) concerns and don't have an issue with the wording. In a world with infinite development time, rules space, reader attention, and whatnot, I wouldn't be opposed to clarifying text or examples. However, that's not really the case and not really the point of the forum.

Perhaps it can be added as Sage Advice. I would love to hear if the email still works.

Quote from SmiteMakesRight_3_5 >>

Quote from EdO06057 >>

 OK then.  Let's talk about whether this rule is poorly worded.  Not only do I disagree that the RAW poorly worded, but I'm going to go so far as to say that the wording is PERFECT.

In my profession, I specialize in contracts; I read and modify the wording of contracts frequently.  You may not believe this, but court cases involving a contract dispute between two parties have been won/lost over the existence of a comma in a sentence and/or between what words that comma appears.

The RAW say: "Increase your Wisdom of Charisma score by 1, to a maximum of 20."  The comma denotes two steps in the process. First the player picks either WIS or CHA to increase by 1. Let's say that the player increases his CHA of 20 to 21.  The next step in the process (described after the comma), tells you what do if the score you chose to raise is now over 20. If so, you reduce it back down to 20.

The last sentence of the feat (describing what happens when you use the feat) says "The chosen creatures each gain Temporary Hit Points equal to your character level plus the modifier of the ability you increased with the feat."

So, even if the starting value of the stat was already 20 before taking the feat, the player still did raise it to 21 in the first step.  So if you chose CHA (which was 20 to start) then the CHA modifier is used to determine the Temporary HP.  If you chose to raise WIS from 14 to 15, then WIS is used to determine the Temporary HP gained.

As a Technical Writer turned Software Engineer, I am often bringing up UI/UX (User Interface / User Experience) concerns and don't have an issue with the wording. In a world with infinite development time, rules space, reader attention, and whatnot, I wouldn't be opposed to clarifying text or examples. However, that's not really the case and not really the point of the forum.

 Speaking as a game designer who specialized in rules, I have to agree. This just isn't unclear. It's possible to argue there's an ambiguity if one really tries, but I'd call doing so deliberate contrarianism.