The only thing I will challenge you on is Cha. The books state that willpower is Wisdom. So casting with Cha can’t be force of will.
Charisma is the ability to impose your will on others, Wisdom is the ability to resist being controlled.
to build on this, resisting things like charm or confuse via wisdom is not necessarily I just willed not to, but rather having very good judgement and understanding of the situation. More, I can tell you are trying to use magic to manipulate me, or leaving my friends now would be a bad idea, rather than I just am unmoved.
also, wisdom is not the only way to resist mental things, somethings call for other saves like Int or cha. It just applies more often.
in fact, looking at the few cha save, Cha does seem to line up with maybe representing pure will power defensively, it can beat things like banishment or force cage.
people tend to focus on persuasion, and beauty, but charisma is also intimidation. So it does kinda suggest a force of will type thing, Like imposing your reality on someone else.
Do you think that the casting stats are well defined in the PHB or DMG? What is the actual difference from between casting with Int or Wis or Cha?
The Six Sacred Scores are about as well defined in the PHB/DMG as they can be. They've long been a mediocre-at-best fit for the needs of the game, but they're a sacred cow so we're stuck with them.
As casting stats, specifically, they are not defined at all and serve very poorly in that regard. There is no difference between casting with any of the given stats, all spellcasting is mechanically identical and until that changes there's no reason to differentiate between casting stats.
Do you believe the the Classes all have their appropriate casting stat(s) based on your understanding of the casting stats?
I am increasingly of the opinion that the idea of a "Casting Stat" itself is the core problem. That your abilities as a spellcaster are tied solely to something that fundamentally has no bearing whatsoever on your magic, and because of that your character is always shoehorned into one of a small number of nichey, narrow, shitty overplayed tropes with absolutely zero room for creativity or fresh takes.
Which Casting Stat(s) would you assign each Class?
I wouldn't. I would likely reconfigure the system to try and function solely off proficiency bonus, or otherwise divorce spellcasting from individual Sacred Scores.
Would another class having a stat that differs from your assignment make you dislike the class? Which one(s)? Why?
No. Because I'm fed up with every casting class being shoehorned into the same dumb stupid lame tropes every single time because they're all forced to assume the same bloody stat spreads.
What other general spell casting questions would you like polled?
Anything I'd like to know would likely be considered irrelevant to anyone still married to the Six Sacred Scores. So nah, guess not.
casters aren't really shoehorned relatively speaking, because they only strongly need one stat, don't have a lot of great feats, they'll probably have 20 in two stats. If they were divorce it from casting power, they may as well divorce melee power from a stat.
then we'd probably have dex/con being two highest stats for most players. str int wis chr would be about what other skills/flavor you want.
basically they tied power to the stats they wanted strongly linked to the class. DnD is actually trying to create fantasy tropes, not a freeform character builder. They want strong barbarians, intelligent wizards, wise clerics.
but I do think the system could be improved so that it isnt that you never touch another stat until your max main stat.
Melee power was divorced from one stat the moment they created finesse weapons. Just because casting stats are divorced from class wouldn’t divorce skill checks from stats so a party of just Dex/Con Characters will struggle. Also very important flaw of the game is Wisdom stat that it doesn’t make the Character Wise. In game Wisdom Stat is Perception and Intuition. If you lack Knowledge which is represented by Intelligence you can’t can actually be a Wise cleric. You are an intuitive cleric. Without knowledge there is no understanding. Real world wisdom requires knowledge. The mental stats are the strangest thing ever to me when I really think about them. This is the main reason I couldn’t make an unbiased poll without getting input first.
the post i was responding to was talking about divorcing damage compeletly from attributes. Dex is still an attribute. They were reccomending power be based on PB, and you can be whatever type of stat you want for a class without losing any power.
Also, the point isnt that they want attributes tied for attribute sake, they want them tied to a certain attribute because it fits into some sort of fantasy trope. Real world wisdom is mostly about intuition, perception. A wise man understands the way the world works, and the nature of people. They speak in parables. Knowing lots of things doesnt really represent wisdom. The wise person applies knowledge better, they have better judgement. Its not really the same thing.
Trope wise, is the priest highly intellegient? can they easily aquire knowledge and synthesize information, see patterns? or do they know whats going on, and show strong judgement. i have known many highly intelligent people who were not wise, and many wise people who wouldnt be described as highly intelligent.
foolish wizards are common tropes, mad scientists, academics who blew themselves up, foolish shaman, or foolish priest, less so. Corrupt maybe, but not foolish
I’m not going to start a pointless argument defending Yurie’s stance even though I agree with him. I will point out that your understanding of real world Wisdom is very flawed. Wisdom- the quality of having experience, knowledge, and good judgment. I’m sorry you can’t a Wise without experience or knowledge. The mental stats make no sense.
intelligence is not really all about having knowledge or experience though, intelligence is the ability to assimilate/create knowledge. IQ tests are designed to try to test reasoning, understanding, not test your knowledge or experience.
learning tons of facts isnt going to give you a high IQ, or best represent your intelligence. A highly intelligent person can exist without knowledge or really much relative experience. Intelligence and Wisdom represents different aspects of mental acuity.
intelligence is how easily you can learn, or aquire knowledge.
wisdom is about the soundness of your decisions, judgement, your ability to figure out what information is important.
you can have a high IQ(be highly intelligent), and love smoking crack and playing russian roulette. Thats not qualities that people would say represents being wise.
You are making my point for me. Real world IQ test don’t work all the time because they are biased. The people making the test understand that now. In DnD Int does represent your knowledge, but Wis does not represent your judgement. That is literally the point I was trying to make. The games mental stats don’t make sense.
in the phb, intelligence says; mental acuity, accuracy of recall, and ability to reason.
That is not knowledge perse, knowledge is just how many things you know.
you may be thinking accuracy of recall is knowledge, but its not the same thing.
I might accurately recall a song I just heard, but that doesnt mean I have a wealth of knowledge of songs.
I hear it one time and can play it, is not the same thing as knowing 100000 songs. This is why you can say a child may be a genius or highly intelligent, even when there knowledge may be comparitively small compared to some one else.
also wisdom says perceptiveness, intuition, and how well attuned to the world you are. This overlaps with judgement, though not perfectly. Probably because part of judgement can only be determined after you see the results, and might be based on some personal ethics. However intuition and awareness are a big part of judgement. Being able to tell that following those guys is a bad idea, or that someone is trying to manipulate you, generally considered good judgement. They can't go 100% with judgement though because a player choice is a thing, (some players may be aware of bad choices and do it anyway) But thats fine, few things are best described by one single other word. Judgement is a part of wisdom, but its not the whole thing.
But back to the general point of the OP, I think the linking of certain mental properties to certain classes usually makes sense. How a character does things, and what type of person they are is a part of developing a role for most people to follow.
I think charisma is the least clear to people, though there definitely not a 100% consensus on the other ones, but its still a better fit for some concepts/tropes.
while a warlock might be intelligent, they are defined more by their ambition, their force of personality, their ability to impose their desires on the world irrespective of logic, reason, or judgement.
that said, its not the only way certain tropes might go about things.
I think the issue is the current attribute system favors focusing on one stat too heavily, and game design makes it hard to justify not using secondary stats on defense. (con and dex)
you can't realistic be charismatic, intelligent, and defense unless you are rolling stats and got a high spread.
Will you two trim your quote chains?! There is no reason to take up three pages of text every single post because you keep nest-quoting yourselves into oblivion.
The stats aren't really that well defined. First thing I did when making my own RP system was "merging" charisma and wisdom into Willpower, and adding Perception as its own thing.
So you either study magic and learn it through effort (Intellect) or else magic comes naturally to you or you manifest it through faith in a deity (Willpower).
More on topic, I'd really want more Intelligence casters in the game. Artificer really needs to be made core; it doesn't have to be full on Steampunk on release, but not being in the PHB makes it really DOA for future content, as we've learned previously. Warlock very tiny bit makes more sense as Intelligence than Charisma, but arguments could be made for all three, I suppose. Bard works as Intelligence or Charisma, but not Wisdom, really. The amount of "just imagine" needed to explain a Wisdom bard would also explain an Intelligence paladin.
ALSO too few casters study magic and have spellbooks. There should be more spellbooks around.
I don't think wisdom ties that well into willpower, outside of being a fuel for a type of magic. An old wise man, doesnt seem tied to willpower.
The stats aren't really that well defined. First thing I did when making my own RP system was "merging" charisma and wisdom into Willpower, and adding Perception as its own thing.
So you either study magic and learn it through effort (Intellect) or else magic comes naturally to you or you manifest it through faith in a deity (Willpower).
More on topic, I'd really want more Intelligence casters in the game. Artificer really needs to be made core; it doesn't have to be full on Steampunk on release, but not being in the PHB makes it really DOA for future content, as we've learned previously. Warlock very tiny bit makes more sense as Intelligence than Charisma, but arguments could be made for all three, I suppose. Bard works as Intelligence or Charisma, but not Wisdom, really. The amount of "just imagine" needed to explain a Wisdom bard would also explain an Intelligence paladin.
ALSO too few casters study magic and have spellbooks. There should be more spellbooks around.
I don't think wisdom ties that well into willpower, outside of being a fuel for a type of magic. An old wise man, doesnt seem tied to willpower.
The books state that willpower is Wisdom. So casting with Cha can’t be force of will.
Where is that stated?
The Wisdom saving throw is literally called Will.
Would you attempt to argue that "the ability to resist being manipulated or controlled" has nothing to do with exercising willpower?
in 5e, it is not, its called a wisdom save. And one would argue the ability to resist manipulation can be achieved by understanding someone is trying to manipulate you. Also in 5e, they also have cha and int saves. Cha can save you from force cage and banishment, those seem to be more coded as pure will power.
Would you attempt to argue that "the ability to resist being manipulated or controlled" has nothing to do with exercising willpower?
No, the Wisdom saving throw used to be called "Will". In older editions where your stats didn't matter for spit save as mother-may-I permissions to play the class you liked. There's no more Will, Reflex, and Fortitude saves. In fact, the idea that 5e stats "inherited" the old saves is part of the problem. Ideally all saves should be equally or near-equally valuable, as opposed to there being three "strong" saves that between them account for over ninety-five percent of all the game's saving throws, with the three "weak" saves coming up maybe once a campaign each at most. Hells, most campaigns go their entire course without the DM ever once asking for an Intelligence or Charisma saving throw. How is that fair to the classes assigned Intelligence or Charisma as one of their two saving throw proficiencies?
The idea of Will/Reflex/Fortitude needs to keep going away, not be reinforced.
in 5e, it is not, its called a wisdom save. And one would argue the ability to resist manipulation can be achieved by understanding someone is trying to manipulate you. Also in 5e, they also have cha and int saves. Cha can save you from force cage and banishment, those seem to be more coded as pure will power.
In 5e it is no longer called that, sure, but in mostprevious editions it was, and from those we derive the tradition of the ability scores' definitions.
How is that fair to the classes assigned Intelligence or Charisma as one of their two saving throw proficiencies?
You will note that *none* of the classes have two of DEX/CON/WIS, and also *none* of them have none, either. Classes, with "strong" save bold: Artificer: CON, INT Barbarian: STR, CON Bard: DEX, CHA Cleric: WIS, CHA Druid: INT, WIS Fighter: STR, CON Monk: STR, DEX Paladin: WIS, CHA Ranger: STR, DEX Rogue: DEX, INT Sorcerer: CON, CHA Warlock: WIS, CHA Wizard: INT, WIS I agree that *a lot* needs to be made to make the saves at least somewhat remotely slightly equal.
in 5e, it is not, its called a wisdom save. And one would argue the ability to resist manipulation can be achieved by understanding someone is trying to manipulate you. Also in 5e, they also have cha and int saves. Cha can save you from force cage and banishment, those seem to be more coded as pure will power.
In 5e it is no longer called that, sure, but in mostprevious editions it was, and from those we derive the tradition of the ability scores' definitions.
How is that fair to the classes assigned Intelligence or Charisma as one of their two saving throw proficiencies?
You will note that *none* of the classes have two of DEX/CON/WIS, and also *none* of them have none, either. Classes, with "strong" save bold: Artificer: CON, INT Barbarian: STR, CON Bard: DEX, CHA Cleric: WIS, CHA Druid: INT, WIS Fighter: STR, CON Monk: STR, DEX Paladin: WIS, CHA Ranger: STR, DEX Rogue: DEX, INT Sorcerer: CON, CHA Warlock: WIS, CHA Wizard: INT, WIS I agree that *a lot* needs to be made to make the saves at least somewhat remotely slightly equal.
the tradition was changed in 5e. wisdom doesnt represent willpower here
Hells, most campaigns go their entire course without the DM ever once asking for an Intelligence or Charisma saving throw.
I suppose that's not really unique to saving throws though; you can be a Cleric in a campaign and never encounter any undead to turn, a Paladin who can abjure fiends might never meet any etc. It kind of falls to the DM to try and ensure they are bringing out a reasonably balanced mix of enemies to face in terms of the saves they target, creature types etc., so everybody gets a chance to be the one that saves the day because they're the hero the party needed.
Though of course you also can't account for your players rolling like shit; give the Bard a chance to persuade their way in somewhere and they might whiff it badly, throw some CHA saves at those proficient in them and they might be the only ones that fail it etc.
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Do you think that the casting stats are well defined in the PHB or DMG? What is the actual difference from between casting with Int or Wis or Cha?
Do you believe the the Classes all have their appropriate casting stat(s) based on your understanding of the casting stats?
Which Casting Stat(s) would you assign each Class?
Would another class having a stat that differs from your assignment make you dislike the class? Which one(s)? Why?
What other general spell casting questions would you like polled?
Yes. Intelligence is casting from knowledge one has gained through whatever means, Wisdom is casting through one’s connection and attunement to forces from outside of themselves, and Charisma is casting through sheer force of will.
All except Warlocks. Warlocks could (and IMO should) potentially use any of the three casting stats. Either they have gained arcane knowledge from their patron that allows them to manipulate the weave (Int), they directly channel their patron’s power (Wis), or they have managed to get their patron to grant them inherent power that they can then use (Cha).
I would leave everything as is except give Warlocks their choice of spellcasting stat to best suit however their players envision that magic to manifest.
Yes to a degree. Any of them, and for the reasons I outlined in #1.👆
None that I can think of at this time.
The only thing I will challenge you on is Cha. The books state that willpower is Wisdom. So casting with Cha can’t be force of will.
Uhhh…. Have we been reading he same books? Because Charisma is quite literally one’s force of personality. Wisdom ≠ Willpower.
the tradition was changed in 5e. wisdom doesnt represent willpower here
The "traditional definition" changed... but very much nearly all of the effects of the Wisdom saving throw are still exactly as in 3.5.
inb4 "resisting tasha's hideous laughter or dominate is not an effort of will"
Arguments relying or past editions might hold water if we were discussing any of the previous editions. We are not. We are discussing this edition now.
the tradition was changed in 5e. wisdom doesnt represent willpower here
The "traditional definition" changed... but very much nearly all of the effects of the Wisdom saving throw are still exactly as in 3.5.
inb4 "resisting tasha's hideous laughter or dominate is not an effort of will"
not sure the context of your inb4 are you saying those are definitely acts of will, or that those are exceptions that aren't acts of will?
because dominate specifically is beguiling and charming people, and someone being aware would compromise the effect.
hideous laughter describes itself as making you find everything funny, so high intuition, or perception, or judgement would be the counter. like I'm really good at understanding people and situations, and this situation isnt actually that funny.
Many mental effects are logically countered by being wise/perceptive. Some might be more tied to other mental facilities, that doesnt mean wisdom = will power any more than dex = antimagic
dex can resist a lot of magic, that doesnt mean dex stat can be defined as antimagic.
How is that fair to the classes assigned Intelligence or Charisma as one of their two saving throw proficiencies?
It's fair because every class is assigned one 'good' save (Con, Dex, or Wis) and one 'bad' save (Str, Int, or Cha), though it's dumb they have to do it that way.
The books state that willpower is Wisdom. So casting with Cha can’t be force of will.
Where is that stated?
The Wisdom saving throw is literally called Will.
Would you attempt to argue that "the ability to resist being manipulated or controlled" has nothing to do with exercising willpower?
There are certainly examples where such is the case. The one that immediately sprang to mind was in Harry Potter, where Harry resists a mind-control curse by simply repeatedly asking "Why?" - in that example it is the ability to think critically which is the key to resisting mind-control effects. Though in other fiction it is pure willpower that allows a character to break free from mind control - though it is generally tied up in "the power of love" rather than simply willpower, where the character is being forced to harm or kill someone they love and that gives them the willpower to break free.
The books state that willpower is Wisdom. So casting with Cha can’t be force of will.
Where is that stated? I found references to Wisdom being "awareness, intuition, insight" (under Determine Ability Scores), "measuring perception and insight" (under Using Ability Scores), and "Wisdom reflects how attuned you are to the world around you and represents perceptiveness and intuition" (under Using Each Ability).
Charisma by comparison under the same sections is defined as "confidence, eloquence, leadership", "measuring force of personality", and "charisma measures your ability to interact effectively with others. It includes such factors as confidence and eloquence, and it can represent a charming or commanding personality" respectively.
Along these lines I would think of Charisma as how you can impose your will on others (lying, intimidating etc.), whereas Wisdom is how you might recognise that being done to you (realise someone is lying, that they can't back up their threats etc.).
Charisma isn't a perfect fit for force of will, but nothing else is better really; having a forceful personality, or having force of will, usually means confidence/certainty, though in a Sorcerer's case it might be more about the natural "presence"; in so far as that could inform character it might be that a Sorcerer without any social skill proficiencies may just have a forceful personality (just not a convincing one) or they might seem "intense".
I should clarify I haven't done an exhaustive search for where in the rules the ability scores are defined, these are just the sections that stood out to me.
Wisdom does equal willpower. Says so in the DMG. Please see my above post. Thank you.
interesting they decided to make this distinction dmg facing only, but OK.
its also interesting that charisma is attributed to resisting being thrown into other dimensions with no explanation of why.
however this also shows their reasoning for CHR warlocks, as its also used to resist possession or have your personality subsumed in terms of saves, and convincing patrons for power.
intelligence nor wisdom wouldn't improve your power since its based on a patron relationship, I suppose.
Confidence is apparently their key factor for sorcerers, becoming more sure of yourself and less afraid of the powerful innate forces.
that said overall the list seems to be mostly justification/description rather than an inherent cohesive design philosophy.
Wisdom does equal willpower. Says so in the DMG. Please see my above post. Thank you.
interesting they decided to make this distinction dmg facing only, but OK.
its also interesting that charisma is attributed to resisting being thrown into other dimensions with no explanation of why.
however this also shows their reasoning for CHR warlocks, as its also used to resist possession or have your personality subsumed in terms of saves, and convincing patrons for power.
intelligence nor wisdom wouldn't improve your power since its based on a patron relationship, I suppose.
Confidence is apparently their key factor for sorcerers, becoming more sure of yourself and less afraid of the powerful innate forces.
that said overall the list seems to be mostly justification/description rather than an inherent cohesive design philosophy.
That’s because there isn’t a cohesive design philosophy, because the mental stats don’t make sense. They become utterly flawed when you look at them as casting stats. Intelligence is the only stat that is cohesive in how you cast spells with it. Every Intelligence casters works out formulas, words, glyphs, or etc that already have been proven to have magical effects. They deal with the “science” of magic. While Cleric’s casting is clearly explained in the book the Druid’s is not. Technically Clerics are intuitively casting the will of their God. While I would argue that’s not always true in play, the book says it and I’m willing to run with it. Druids don’t have the same explanation. They also have multiple possibilities of were there source of magic is coming from. If it’s nature spirits then you could say it’s the same as a Cleric and they are intuitively casting the will of the spirit, but if you are using the the old faith or primal energies as your source what is the Druid actually doing to manifest and cast the spell? The Cha caster is where things really become a mess. We have Bards who learn the words of creations(which is something a wizard would definitely study). We have the Warlock who made a deal with Devil(or something). We have the Sorcerer who is just magical. None of them have a through line of how Cha effects there ability to cast. What exactly are they doing with Cha that allows them to manifest magic?
to build on this, resisting things like charm or confuse via wisdom is not necessarily I just willed not to, but rather having very good judgement and understanding of the situation. More, I can tell you are trying to use magic to manipulate me, or leaving my friends now would be a bad idea, rather than I just am unmoved.
also, wisdom is not the only way to resist mental things, somethings call for other saves like Int or cha. It just applies more often.
in fact, looking at the few cha save, Cha does seem to line up with maybe representing pure will power defensively, it can beat things like banishment or force cage.
people tend to focus on persuasion, and beauty, but charisma is also intimidation. So it does kinda suggest a force of will type thing, Like imposing your reality on someone else.
in the phb, intelligence says; mental acuity, accuracy of recall, and ability to reason.
That is not knowledge perse, knowledge is just how many things you know.
you may be thinking accuracy of recall is knowledge, but its not the same thing.
I might accurately recall a song I just heard, but that doesnt mean I have a wealth of knowledge of songs.
I hear it one time and can play it, is not the same thing as knowing 100000 songs. This is why you can say a child may be a genius or highly intelligent, even when there knowledge may be comparitively small compared to some one else.
also wisdom says perceptiveness, intuition, and how well attuned to the world you are. This overlaps with judgement, though not perfectly. Probably because part of judgement can only be determined after you see the results, and might be based on some personal ethics. However intuition and awareness are a big part of judgement. Being able to tell that following those guys is a bad idea, or that someone is trying to manipulate you, generally considered good judgement. They can't go 100% with judgement though because a player choice is a thing, (some players may be aware of bad choices and do it anyway) But thats fine, few things are best described by one single other word. Judgement is a part of wisdom, but its not the whole thing.
But back to the general point of the OP, I think the linking of certain mental properties to certain classes usually makes sense. How a character does things, and what type of person they are is a part of developing a role for most people to follow.
I think charisma is the least clear to people, though there definitely not a 100% consensus on the other ones, but its still a better fit for some concepts/tropes.
while a warlock might be intelligent, they are defined more by their ambition, their force of personality, their ability to impose their desires on the world irrespective of logic, reason, or judgement.
that said, its not the only way certain tropes might go about things.
I think the issue is the current attribute system favors focusing on one stat too heavily, and game design makes it hard to justify not using secondary stats on defense. (con and dex)
you can't realistic be charismatic, intelligent, and defense unless you are rolling stats and got a high spread.
Will you two trim your quote chains?! There is no reason to take up three pages of text every single post because you keep nest-quoting yourselves into oblivion.
Please do not contact or message me.
The Wisdom saving throw is literally called Will.
Would you attempt to argue that "the ability to resist being manipulated or controlled" has nothing to do with exercising willpower?
in 5e, it is not, its called a wisdom save. And one would argue the ability to resist manipulation can be achieved by understanding someone is trying to manipulate you. Also in 5e, they also have cha and int saves. Cha can save you from force cage and banishment, those seem to be more coded as pure will power.
No, the Wisdom saving throw used to be called "Will". In older editions where your stats didn't matter for spit save as mother-may-I permissions to play the class you liked. There's no more Will, Reflex, and Fortitude saves. In fact, the idea that 5e stats "inherited" the old saves is part of the problem. Ideally all saves should be equally or near-equally valuable, as opposed to there being three "strong" saves that between them account for over ninety-five percent of all the game's saving throws, with the three "weak" saves coming up maybe once a campaign each at most. Hells, most campaigns go their entire course without the DM ever once asking for an Intelligence or Charisma saving throw. How is that fair to the classes assigned Intelligence or Charisma as one of their two saving throw proficiencies?
The idea of Will/Reflex/Fortitude needs to keep going away, not be reinforced.
Please do not contact or message me.
In 5e it is no longer called that, sure, but in mostprevious editions it was, and from those we derive the tradition of the ability scores' definitions.
You will note that *none* of the classes have two of DEX/CON/WIS, and also *none* of them have none, either.
Classes, with "strong" save bold:
Artificer: CON, INT
Barbarian: STR, CON
Bard: DEX, CHA
Cleric: WIS, CHA
Druid: INT, WIS
Fighter: STR, CON
Monk: STR, DEX
Paladin: WIS, CHA
Ranger: STR, DEX
Rogue: DEX, INT
Sorcerer: CON, CHA
Warlock: WIS, CHA
Wizard: INT, WIS
I agree that *a lot* needs to be made to make the saves at least somewhat remotely slightly equal.
the tradition was changed in 5e. wisdom doesnt represent willpower here
The "traditional definition" changed... but very much nearly all of the effects of the Wisdom saving throw are still exactly as in 3.5.
inb4 "resisting tasha's hideous laughter or dominate is not an effort of will"
…no it's not?
I suppose that's not really unique to saving throws though; you can be a Cleric in a campaign and never encounter any undead to turn, a Paladin who can abjure fiends might never meet any etc. It kind of falls to the DM to try and ensure they are bringing out a reasonably balanced mix of enemies to face in terms of the saves they target, creature types etc., so everybody gets a chance to be the one that saves the day because they're the hero the party needed.
Though of course you also can't account for your players rolling like shit; give the Bard a chance to persuade their way in somewhere and they might whiff it badly, throw some CHA saves at those proficient in them and they might be the only ones that fail it etc.
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Uhhh…. Have we been reading he same books? Because Charisma is quite literally one’s force of personality. Wisdom ≠ Willpower.
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Arguments relying or past editions might hold water if we were discussing any of the previous editions. We are not. We are discussing this edition now.
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not sure the context of your inb4 are you saying those are definitely acts of will, or that those are exceptions that aren't acts of will?
because dominate specifically is beguiling and charming people, and someone being aware would compromise the effect.
hideous laughter describes itself as making you find everything funny, so high intuition, or perception, or judgement would be the counter. like I'm really good at understanding people and situations, and this situation isnt actually that funny.
Many mental effects are logically countered by being wise/perceptive. Some might be more tied to other mental facilities, that doesnt mean wisdom = will power any more than dex = antimagic
dex can resist a lot of magic, that doesnt mean dex stat can be defined as antimagic.
It's fair because every class is assigned one 'good' save (Con, Dex, or Wis) and one 'bad' save (Str, Int, or Cha), though it's dumb they have to do it that way.
There are certainly examples where such is the case. The one that immediately sprang to mind was in Harry Potter, where Harry resists a mind-control curse by simply repeatedly asking "Why?" - in that example it is the ability to think critically which is the key to resisting mind-control effects. Though in other fiction it is pure willpower that allows a character to break free from mind control - though it is generally tied up in "the power of love" rather than simply willpower, where the character is being forced to harm or kill someone they love and that gives them the willpower to break free.
Clearly y’all haven’t been reading the books. Well I’ll give you a pass if you say you aren’t a DM as this information is in the DMG.
Saving Throws
Wisdom does equal willpower. Says so in the DMG. Please see my above post. Thank you.
interesting they decided to make this distinction dmg facing only, but OK.
its also interesting that charisma is attributed to resisting being thrown into other dimensions with no explanation of why.
however this also shows their reasoning for CHR warlocks, as its also used to resist possession or have your personality subsumed in terms of saves, and convincing patrons for power.
intelligence nor wisdom wouldn't improve your power since its based on a patron relationship, I suppose.
Confidence is apparently their key factor for sorcerers, becoming more sure of yourself and less afraid of the powerful innate forces.
that said overall the list seems to be mostly justification/description rather than an inherent cohesive design philosophy.
That’s because there isn’t a cohesive design philosophy, because the mental stats don’t make sense. They become utterly flawed when you look at them as casting stats. Intelligence is the only stat that is cohesive in how you cast spells with it. Every Intelligence casters works out formulas, words, glyphs, or etc that already have been proven to have magical effects. They deal with the “science” of magic. While Cleric’s casting is clearly explained in the book the Druid’s is not. Technically Clerics are intuitively casting the will of their God. While I would argue that’s not always true in play, the book says it and I’m willing to run with it. Druids don’t have the same explanation. They also have multiple possibilities of were there source of magic is coming from. If it’s nature spirits then you could say it’s the same as a Cleric and they are intuitively casting the will of the spirit, but if you are using the the old faith or primal energies as your source what is the Druid actually doing to manifest and cast the spell? The Cha caster is where things really become a mess. We have Bards who learn the words of creations(which is something a wizard would definitely study). We have the Warlock who made a deal with Devil(or something). We have the Sorcerer who is just magical. None of them have a through line of how Cha effects there ability to cast. What exactly are they doing with Cha that allows them to manifest magic?
Actually, I do DM, but I don’t ever remember seeing that before. Can you please provide links to that info.
Creating Epic Boons on DDB
DDB Buyers' Guide
Hardcovers, DDB & You
Content Troubleshooting