Charisma Actions
This page provides additional information on playing out Charisma based events, such as how determine cognition costs for attempts. These are not hard and fast rules, but more a baseline suggestion to DMs as to what might work best. If you have ideas that work better with your players, use those.
Determining the DC of a Charm Attempt
The cost of a Charm attempt should be mostly determined by the target’s Poise.
Base DC = 3 at Poise -1, 5 at 0, 7 at 1, 9 at 2, and Jack at 3
If the target has a negative disposition towards the player, then the DC should go up accordingly.
- +1: The target has a bad impression of the player.
- +2: The target actively dislikes the player.
- +4: The target hates the player.
If the target has a positive disposition towards the player, then the DC should go down accordingly. If the DC goes below 3, then the player automatically succeeds.
- -1: The target has a good impression of the player.
- -2: The target actively likes the player.
- -4: The target loves the player.
Determining the Cost of Persuasion
The cost of a Persuasion attempt should be mostly determined by the target’s Wit and what the NPC is being persuaded to believe, but with some room for circumstances that can’t be deterministically accounted for, like mood, health, and their personal history.
As such, a good formula for determining the cost is:
Cost = Base Cost + (Target Wit)d8
Where Base Cost is one of the following:
- 1: Accepting the player’s argument would be mildly inconvenient for the target.
- 2: Accepting the player’s argument would be significantly inconvenient for the target but is only a small material cost at most.
- 4: Accepting the player’s argument would result in a net-negative for the target, but doesn’t go against strongly held beliefs.
- 8: Accepting the player’s argument would go against held convictions, risk betraying the target’s allies, or come at a substantial material cost.
- 16: Accepting the player’s argument would go against fundamental beliefs or put their loved ones at risk.
If the target’s is negative, then you should roll as many die as they are negative and subtract the total from the base cost.