Charisma totally useless for rogue?

[Urinietszche]

Nothing else than minor -2 on dialogue rolls? Not even considering vendor modifiers because economy is broken anyway

[wendigo211]

It's completely useless for any character that isn't a Warlock, Paladin, Sorcerer or Bard.

[Deitrix]

It's not COMPLETELY useless... it affects your social skills and thus is kinda nice to have on your main character since they'll likely be making all the social skill checks.

That's about all they need it for unless they're multiclassed tho.

[Moonbane]

Not entirely useless for a rogue. If you get caught stealing, you often get a dialogue check to try to get out of it.

[victorvnv]

It’s not useless if you are the face of the party and have no other char based companions.

It affects persuasion, vendor prices , etc.

But besides social interactions it’s totally useless yea.

Dex and const are your main stats as rogue

[AnonymousWizard]

Rogues are the second best class at being a 'face', but that's more down to gaining Expertise while most other classes don't. Even then in the BG3 level range an optimised Warlock or Sorcerer will probably be just as good due to having less desire for other stats.

It's more useful than Strength is, about on par with the other mental stats, with the big difference being that I believe Rogues have freer access to Cha skills than Int or Wis skills.

[Boiledteabag]

Originally posted by Moonbane:

Not entirely useless for a rogue. If you get caught stealing, you often get a dialogue check to try to get out of it.

Duuuuuuuuuude thats what I did in Divinity 2, pick pocketing and persuasion.
Do it with red prince for the bonus +1

There's something smug about blatantly stealing from peoples pockets and then saying "nah weren't me" *your hand is still in their pocket taking everything they are carrying*

[ahsanford]

If this is for your main/talking character, Charisma is massive. Charisma is the single most useful ability regardless of class for efficient XP gain:

Why? Because:

Persuasion
Deception
Performance
Intimidation
Talking your way out of stealing or going to restricted areas
Talking down your companions when they want to kill each other or leave you

...all depend on CHA and and these come up all the time in dialogue. They don't just sprinkle some RP fun into the game -- they are shortcuts for many quests. They unblock plot obstacles, avoid fights and settle disputes. And that almost always lets you close out quests in less time than is needed to fight and recover from fighting.

For context, in Act 2 you can kill each of the Thorm family bigger bad dudes in Reithwen without drawing a weapon, spending all your spells and needing to rest. You can kill them all with dialogue. And I'm pretty sure you get the same XP you would get for killing them in combat.

Now: do you need to make CHA 20 because of this? Absolutely not. But I've played Fighters and Rogues with 12 or 14 CHA and selected Persuasion skill just to get a bump on a common opportunity.

But if this is for a companion that will never speak, or if all you care about is 'the principal role of this class in its purest combat form', then yes, Charisma isn't doing you any favors with a Rogue. That's a dump stat in that case.

- A

[[TG] zac]

Originally posted by wendigo211:

It's completely useless for any character that isn't a Warlock, Paladin, Sorcerer or Bard.

Sadly this is true. (expertise alone makes you more often then not not need it)

I'm hoping modders bring over a few pathfinder 2e subclasses at some point (Someone has already done a full on magus)

Rogue there has some options that make very good use of charisma (the bon mot ability for instance can really screw over a target, and some of their dedication abilities allow them to use charisma very well)

[Moonbane]

Earlier editions of dnd allowed intimidate to be done with strenght checks. Boggles the mind you cant do it now.

[Indure]

I think they removed charisma effecting vendor prices.

[Mike Garrison]

Occasionally I end up controlling a non-"face" character, and suddenly an event triggers and I'm facing a conversation check. It's kind of frustrating when I've got my proficient 22 Char warlock right there, but my 10 Char cleric is the one that ends up having to roll for persuasion.

Other than that, it's a dump stat for most classes.

[ahsanford]

Originally posted by TG zac:

Sadly this is true.

Again: talking is, in fact, a thing in this game. The person talking could be a Rogue, and they could use some CHA in that case.

Originally posted by TG zac:

Rogue there has some options that make very good use of charisma (the bon mot ability for instance can really screw over a target, and some of their dedication abilities allow them to use charisma very well)

I hear you there. I always thought something like Cutting Word like might fight its way into a Rogue 'street fighter' sort of build. Some variant of Rogue that could uses street smarts to gain advantages in combat -- strength to intimidate with a shoulder barge, wisdom to debuff or feint, charisma to bluff or s--- talk during a fight, etc.

- A

[dolby]

not if you plan to multi into charisma based class:) and i would always multi a rogue no question asked the only question is into what.

[Boiledteabag]

Originally posted by dolby:

not if you plan to multi into charisma based class:) and i would always multi a rogue no question asked the only question is into what.

This, Dolby is correct. I really don't see the issue here.

Charisma is good for dialogue checks etc but if you are so hard up on it being more then RP use then just multiclass into something that use's charisma as a main stat.

Get the RP and utility.

[The1Kobra]

So, what CHA affects for a rogue is:

CHA skills,
CHA saves

Most mind affecting things are WIS saves, but there are a few CHA saves. As for CHA skills, those are mostly things you'll find in dialogue. So CHA isn't really all that big in combat for a rogue. Personally with my rogue builds I usually go for more WIS than CHA, given the importance of Perception, unless you're doing a rogue/bard build in which case CHA will matter for your bard spells.