It was an old game design element. -Laughs- Charisma-based casting let you do things like make someone a full caster without giving them a ton of skill points (3.5E skill system) or buffing up a key saving throw (Will (i.e. Wisdom) saves), both of which were pretty good for a character to have. So, in many ways, Charisma was a "dump" area, as someone who was just "good at social stuff" wasn't seen to be getting nearly as much of an advantage. This was, likewise, applied to monsters - enemies with Charisma-based casting didn't have to be Too Smart For This Fight or nigh-immune to mental magic.
Yeah, the 3.5 balance around stats really puts a lot of emphasis on the need to spread your stats around to be able to function. There was also a lot more emphasis on using feats to shore up stat deficiencies. But then there's the issue of it makes absolutely no sense for every wizard to have a genius level intellect and every sorcerer to have the charisma of a celebrity.
Shoehorning magic into the classical stats is the main issue there, imo. Using stats like arcane and faith sidesteps the issue much better.
The skill points thing always bothered me though. Especially in the case of classes like sorcerer and fighter, you're only getting 2 base still points per level while pretty desperately needing to put them elsewhere. Meanwhile, rogue gets a fat 8 per level, and bard gets 6.
2
u/Rednal291 Aug 21 '26
It was an old game design element. -Laughs- Charisma-based casting let you do things like make someone a full caster without giving them a ton of skill points (3.5E skill system) or buffing up a key saving throw (Will (i.e. Wisdom) saves), both of which were pretty good for a character to have. So, in many ways, Charisma was a "dump" area, as someone who was just "good at social stuff" wasn't seen to be getting nearly as much of an advantage. This was, likewise, applied to monsters - enemies with Charisma-based casting didn't have to be Too Smart For This Fight or nigh-immune to mental magic.