What does Charisma do, exactly?

[Froosti]

People online are saying that it effectively adds to your trading and leadership skills, but is that all it does? Also, how many points of trading/leadership is one point of charisma worth?

[LazyTavi]

Yea, I think that's all it does. Charisma is added directly to your trading and leadership skills, so the effective value is (skill value) + (CHA). For example, if you have a leadership skill of 25, and you have 5 charisma, your leadership skill is effectively 30.

[mistersneak]

Charisma also improves followers that you've recruited.

[Froosti]

Originally posted by mistersneak:

Charisma also improves followers that you've recruited.

Oh, how exactly does it improve them?

[Greedy Gnome]

Originally posted by Froosti:

Originally posted by mistersneak:

Charisma also improves followers that you've recruited.

Oh, how exactly does it improve them?

Been a while since I played, but I remember that it unlocks more commands for them. You know, wait here, attack this, etc. Not sure if it improves npc stats.

[Froosti]

Originally posted by Soda dog:

Originally posted by Froosti:

Oh, how exactly does it improve them?

Been a while since I played, but I remember that it unlocks more commands for them. You know, wait here, attack this, etc. Not sure if it improves npc stats.

I would hope it improves their stats, otherwise mistersneak was getting my hopes up for nothing lol

[LadstonFelisGaming]

Generally speaking, charisma is a dump stat. It primarily affects two things: trading prices and the effectiveness of recruited NPCs. These are done by charisma being treated as a modifier for the trading and leadership skills. The reason it’s a dump stat is more to do with the skills themselves than the stat. To wit:

Trading can be maxed as early as the Gnomish Mines (if not, then shortly thereafter) on most playthroughs. Once maxed, you will always get the best prices and further increasing charisma does nothing.

Leadership is probably the worst skill in the game period due to a number of issues with NPC followers. Like trading, your charisma adds a modifier that lets you give higher-level commands. This modifier becomes moot if you max the skill. Additionally, even with max skill, oftentimes the commandable NPC AI will have a brain fart and either ignore your orders entirely or forget that you gave orders and revert to default behavior. Worse, for humanoid NPCs, the game keeps track of each individual piece of equipment worn by them. That’s fine and all, but if you have a large amount of fully-geared NPCs, it makes the game start chugging and has the potential for making it crash due to gear eating up memory. Because of these issues, it’s often better to not focus solely on leadership and use it mainly for free xp gains and meatshields.

[Froosti]

Originally posted by LadstonFelisGaming:

Generally speaking, charisma is a dump stat. It primarily affects two things: trading prices and the effectiveness of recruited NPCs. These are done by charisma being treated as a modifier for the trading and leadership skills. The reason it’s a dump stat is more to do with the skills themselves than the stat. To wit:

Trading can be maxed as early as the Gnomish Mines (if not, then shortly thereafter) on most playthroughs. Once maxed, you will always get the best prices and further increasing charisma does nothing.

Leadership is probably the worst skill in the game period due to a number of issues with NPC followers. Like trading, your charisma adds a modifier that lets you give higher-level commands. This modifier becomes moot if you max the skill. Additionally, even with max skill, oftentimes the commandable NPC AI with have a brain fart and either ignore your orders entirely or forget that you gave orders and revert to default behavior. Worse, for humanoid NPCs, the game keeps track of each individual piece of equipment worn by them. That’s fine and all, but if you have a large amount of fully-geared NPCs, it makes the game start chugging and has the potential for making it crash due to gear eating up memory. Because of these issues, it’s often better to not focus solely on leadership and use it mainly for free xp gains and meatshields.

That's all good to know, but at this point I just want to know what the dev meant by "Charisma also improves followers that you've recruited.". Like, does it improve their stats? If so, then by how much?

[LadstonFelisGaming]

Originally posted by Froosti:

Originally posted by LadstonFelisGaming:

Generally speaking, charisma is a dump stat. It primarily affects two things: trading prices and the effectiveness of recruited NPCs. These are done by charisma being treated as a modifier for the trading and leadership skills. The reason it’s a dump stat is more to do with the skills themselves than the stat. To wit:

Trading can be maxed as early as the Gnomish Mines (if not, then shortly thereafter) on most playthroughs. Once maxed, you will always get the best prices and further increasing charisma does nothing.

Leadership is probably the worst skill in the game period due to a number of issues with NPC followers. Like trading, your charisma adds a modifier that lets you give higher-level commands. This modifier becomes moot if you max the skill. Additionally, even with max skill, oftentimes the commandable NPC AI with have a brain fart and either ignore your orders entirely or forget that you gave orders and revert to default behavior. Worse, for humanoid NPCs, the game keeps track of each individual piece of equipment worn by them. That’s fine and all, but if you have a large amount of fully-geared NPCs, it makes the game start chugging and has the potential for making it crash due to gear eating up memory. Because of these issues, it’s often better to not focus solely on leadership and use it mainly for free xp gains and meatshields.

That's all good to know, but at this point I just want to know what the dev meant by "Charisma also improves followers that you've recruited.". Like, does it improve their stats? If so, then by how much?

If it does, it’s not by much. NPCs recruited at 100 Leadership die just as quickly as those recruited below 100 Leadership.

[happygiggi]

Charisma doesn't add much and is the least useful stats, it affect trading and follower's unlock commands sooner. And increase the charm spell power. And with enough charisma, shield wielding followers will actually raise their shields.

But there, if you maxed trading and leadership, all the charisma points will do is improving the charm spell.

On the topic of followers, despite them being clueless. With the right set up you can end the game with a lvl 130~ buddy that eat cockatrice and minotaur like bread.

If you want to give the followers a chance, I've made this guide in hope to give them more love.

https://steamcommunity.com/sharedfiles/filedetails/?id=2229170418