Wizard vs. Sorceror - Spellcasting power

[Krya Flacongrace]

I don't agree with that. Nearly every super high charisma player I have seen has not known how to RP charismatically. Intelligence is easier to RP because.

Would a suggestion such as writing a thread giving tips on how to RP this stat and that fall on deaf ears?

[Rhifox]

Would a suggestion such as writing a thread giving tips on how to RP this stat and that fall on deaf ears?

Problem is that, again, it's a very hard stat to learn--that's why Charisma is harder to RP than Intelligence. With Intelligence, it's up to you, the player, to learn the information that you want your character to know, by reading source books and finding out the lore.

On the other hand, with Charisma, it's very, very hard to become charismatic when you aren't already. It's a natural thing, pretty much talent. While some tips might help, they aren't necessarily going to turn someone who's naturally uncharismatic into becoming suddenly charismatic. It's changing someone's personality around, that's a pretty hard thing to do. This is why I really personally feel that people should be really careful with how much points they put into Cha, because you can't tailor your RP to meet the stat, you have to tailor the stat to meet your RP. Wisdom is like this as well. Those two stats are the most important for RP, IMO, and they are the two that are heavily dependent on the player's own natural ability. Intelligence can be learned if the player really wants a smart character, Strength is just a dice roll, Dexterity is just a dice roll, Constitution is just a dice roll. But Cha and Wis are stats that you either have, or you don't have, and if you personally don't have it, your character won't be able to have it either, because it's not something you can mimic, learn, or roll dice on, at least not effectively.

[Krya Flacongrace]

Problem is that, again, it's a very hard stat to learn--that's why Charisma is harder to RP than Intelligence. With Intelligence, it's up to you, the player, to learn the information that you want your character to know, by reading source books and finding out the lore.

On the other hand, with Charisma, it's very, very hard to become charismatic when you aren't already. It's a natural thing, pretty much talent. While some tips might help, they aren't necessarily going to turn someone who's naturally uncharismatic into becoming suddenly charismatic. It's changing someone's personality around, that's a pretty hard thing to do. This is why I really personally feel that people should be really careful with how much points they put into Cha, because you can't tailor your RP to meet the stat, you have to tailor the stat to meet your RP.

That makes sense and I hear what your saying. But surely if there were some tips posted you wont get people putting aload of points into char for the save values they add with certain classes, and then roll Char evey two mins to get across what they mean.

[GodBeastX]

Sorceror was better when counterspell was working.

[Infernal_Havok]

Problem is that, again, it's a very hard stat to learn--that's why Charisma is harder to RP than Intelligence. With Intelligence, it's up to you, the player, to learn the information that you want your character to know, by reading source books and finding out the lore.

On the other hand, with Charisma, it's very, very hard to become charismatic when you aren't already. It's a natural thing, pretty much talent. While some tips might help, they aren't necessarily going to turn someone who's naturally uncharismatic into becoming suddenly charismatic. It's changing someone's personality around, that's a pretty hard thing to do. This is why I really personally feel that people should be really careful with how much points they put into Cha, because you can't tailor your RP to meet the stat, you have to tailor the stat to meet your RP. Wisdom is like this as well. Those two stats are the most important for RP, IMO, and they are the two that are heavily dependent on the player's own natural ability. Intelligence can be learned if the player really wants a smart character, Strength is just a dice roll, Dexterity is just a dice roll, Constitution is just a dice roll. But Cha and Wis are stats that you either have, or you don't have, and if you personally don't have it, your character won't be able to have it either, because it's not something you can mimic, learn, or roll dice on, at least not effectively.

I disagree, but essentially what your saying is the inverse of what I proposed with the intelligence being much harder to rp. For instance, if your an idiot in real life you can't pretend to be smart no matter how much you try... Typing skills, vocabulary, punctuation, sentence structure, etc... and even speech patterns all contribute to the mannerisms of intelligence which is completely apparent when Rping in both a PW or even in a PNP game.

For instance, if a person with 20+ intelligence score is considered "God-like" it means that they are almost omniconscious of all things around them to a degree that they could even predict various outcomes of the future. Or have the base for extraordinary deductive reasoning that is able to solve every inquiry they might have (ie Sherlock Holmes on an epic level). This leads to metagaming in a PW since you "supposedly" could divinate outcomes to all events around you just by rational thought alone (ie Gandolf the White/Eliminster).

Frankly, I've seen more higher charisma sorcerers, warlocks and bards being rp'd as "Gorgeous, flirtatious, and irresistible" on PWs, than Wizards that are all seeing, all knowing. But in the end it all depends on the player's interpretation and strengths as a person, but I feel it is more intimidating and scrutinizing to play the "Genius" than the "Beauty".

Which is exactly why we all know who Paris Hilton is, but don't know who the guy was that invented Penicillin or the cure for Malaria.

[ThePaganKing]

I think that people need to really pay attention to what is said (typed) and then the ever present roll afterwards and weigh these both when roleplaying. Too many times I have seen situations where you try diplomacy or bluff or even a charisma roll followed or preceded by an eloquent speech or a decent bluff or whatever only to have both ignored completely.

We have to remember that we are roleplaying our characters, characters that have attributes that few real life humans have. Therefore, you are not always going to be able to type the greatest bluff or the greatest diplomatic treatise or the most impassioned speech that sway people with your uber charisma.........that is what rolls are for! And that is what saves are for.........will saves or whatever save you are supposed to roll to see if you believe or think it a bunch of BS.

I tried to disarm a situation the other day using diplomacy and I rolled over 30 on my diplomacy roll and actually typed/spoke of disarming the situation, lets cool down, think about the situation, so on and so forth and then rolled.....only to have it all completely ignored and not roleplayed at all. I have seen this happen many times.....people just thinking that their characters cannot be persauded by anything but their ultimate objective or roleplay.

Its a damn game and nobody has the attributes that most characters have, so that is what the rolls and at least a decent attempt at speaking/typing the speech is for, IMO.

[Sammael]

Sorceror was better when counterspell was working.

THIS. How the hell did they mess that one up? It was such a damn useful system to. I loved doing mage duels with that thing!

Frankly, I've seen more higher charisma sorcerers, warlocks and bards being rp'd as "Gorgeous, flirtatious, and irresistible" on PWs, than Wizards that are all seeing, all knowing. But in the end it all depends on the player's interpretation and strengths as a person, but I feel it is more intimidating and scrutinizing to play the "Genius" than the "Beauty".

Which is exactly why we all know who Paris Hilton is, but don't know who the guy was that invented Penicillin or the cure for Malaria.

I disagree with your ideas of who's charismatic. For example, I personally think that Paris Hilton's charismatic as a dishcloth.
I'd say a charismatic person COULD be attractive and so on as you mentioned, but I think that strength of will and persuasiveness are more important. Tony Blair was charismatic; willfull and persuasive enough to get persuade most of the UK that the Iraq war was something that needed to happen, and drag the rest of the country along anyway (I'm not making a political point, I just think that no matter what you say about Blair, he's damn good at taking the lead).
Perhaps a reason why high-char. characters are portrayed as sex bombs so much is because it is much easier to portray someone who's sexy than it is to portray someone who just has a strong personality. I think that's rather sad; the harder option could be much more fulfilling in the long term than just trolling around fluttering eyelids at people (unless you sway that way, in which case \/O\/ )

[GodBeastX]

Charisma to me is force of personality. Outward expression of thoughts. Honestly, I just want to rip beauty out of it, unless it's grooming. No way every sorceror is beautiful, or ever Favored Soul is gorgeous. I think it's just poor RP to equate Charisma to just being "OMG HAWT!"

There was a priest of Tempus on our server at one point who had 8 charisma. He probably RP'd low charisma better than anyone I know. Girls would talk to him and he'd freeze up, getting all sweaty and worried. He didn't know how to act around people well or how to express himself at times. I gave him a ton of Exp for it.

Anyway, this thread isn't about charisma though. Wiz vs Sorceror. I personally like RP'ing a "brainiac" more than a "Beauty". So I'll usually play wizards.

[Infernal_Havok]

Well hello GBX,

You practically created every functional thing in Sundren. I think that counts as "Brainiac/omniconscious/ultimate admin power" . Your characters can forsee the future if you want them to because you control (oocly) all of our little insignificant PC lives lol.

And I have never seen once in all my time playing on this server, an Int roll when a character speaks or presents themselves in that kind of intellectual manner. It is easy to roll charisma after everything because you are actively trying to persuade via Dip/Bluff, but how do you roll things about predicting events and outcomes due to a God like intellect? Without using DM involvement or metagaming information.

Anyways, getting off topic... Wizards just seem more interesting to me because I probably played sorcerer and hybrid sorcerers waaay too much just to spam nuke things. I have PVP'd once with a specialist wizard once on another server that knew my sorcerer's number, got pwn'd after getting countered from every AOE/evocation I threw at him. I got a bit more respect for that class even though, personally it is not my preferred choice when building a magic user.

[Sammael]

Charisma to me is force of personality. Outward expression of thoughts. Honestly, I just want to rip beauty out of it, unless it's grooming. No way every sorceror is beautiful, or ever Favored Soul is gorgeous. I think it's just poor RP to equate Charisma to just being "OMG HAWT!"

There was a priest of Tempus on our server at one point who had 8 charisma. He probably RP'd low charisma better than anyone I know. Girls would talk to him and he'd freeze up, getting all sweaty and worried. He didn't know how to act around people well or how to express himself at times. I gave him a ton of Exp for it.

Anyway, this thread isn't about charisma though. Wiz vs Sorceror. I personally like RP'ing a "brainiac" more than a "Beauty". So I'll usually play wizards.

That's pretty much bang on how I think charisma should be rped. Of course, that'll be difficult to rp. But then, I suppose that's why how charismatic your character is is judged by a number you set yourself rather than how charismatic you make them act.

[Xanderleo]

Would a suggestion such as writing a thread giving tips on how to RP this stat and that fall on deaf ears?

I think a thread like that would be interesting and there's be many people with much to offer. There is a much older thread that deals with low charisma specifically that I referenced when making Sigrun, found here. One thing I think people don't take into account is how both Wisdom and Intelligence will affect this score. All three are mental stats, and in my opinion and can't be completely separated.

Anyhow, my thoughts on Sorcerer vs Wizard:

I've always been more attracted to playing Sorcerers because in my personal opinion, hey tend to be more dynamic characters. They're more a manisfestation of raw, self-taught, sometimes reckless talent; whereas the Wizard is more the result of measured, conscious thought and endless practice. These differences are represented fairly well in their spellcasting abilites and how they work in regards to spontaneity versus memorization.

Plus, sometimes I get annoyed micromanaging and memorizing wizard spells.

[Machiavelli]

Well, here's me stating the obvious, and it's already been said I think (for the most part) . In terms of power... wizards are waaayyy better if you know what you're going up against, and sorcerer's are much betterfor raw "off the cuff" power (but can be completely useless if their known spell list doesnt match up to a situation).

As for the RP aspect, I don't think wizards neccesarily need to be as dry as some people have said... but Sorcerors really really should have alot of force of personality (that's a very high charisma score they need to have). Many people seem to confuse "force of personality" with "forceful personality"; please note, these things are not the same!

On the mental stat RP discussion that's emerged here... I'd be tempted to say that none of the three are easy to RP well unless you've some flare in that direction yourself. People should, of course, play whatever characters they want to, but to some extent people should really be able to tell if you have high/low values in these stats just from speaking with your character (though I'd also agree with Xanderleo that the three can't always be seperated all that well, and I'd say that to some extent they can be used to fake each other).

[GodBeastX]

I think people are too afraid to be cliche with a stat. However, it adds ALOT of color if you exaggerate the stat. For example, if you got 24 int. Go ahead and be like the X-Files with all sorts of uber intellect discussions about nothing. Make it seem like your character has the book knowledge. If you have huge wisdom, play the insightful perceptive person. If you have high charisma, but they first person to put out your feelings on something.

[Rhifox]

Anyhow, my thoughts on Sorcerer vs Wizard:

I've always been more attracted to playing Sorcerers because in my personal opinion, hey tend to be more dynamic characters. They're more a manisfestation of raw, self-taught, sometimes reckless talent; whereas the Wizard is more the result of measured, conscious thought and endless practice. These differences are represented fairly well in their spellcasting abilites and how they work in regards to spontaneity versus memorization.

Plus, sometimes I get annoyed micromanaging and memorizing wizard spells.

Not just sorcerers can be like that. Wizards can be as well. While the stereotypical sorcerer might be raw and reckless and the stereotypical wizard might be measured and many-hours-long practice, that doesn't necessarily mean that all are like that, and there can be sorcerous wizards (which is how I play Jo), and wizardly sorcerers (the first wizards in existence were wizardly sorcerers, since there had to be some beginners that had to initially compile all the knowledge).

One thing I think people don't take into account is how both Wisdom and Intelligence will affect this score. All three are mental stats, and in my opinion and can't be completely separated.

QFE

[Saulus]

Wow this got too DnD nerdy for me!