Faerun is beset by autistic savants! What other explanation can there be for characters wondering around with 3 charisma? As stats are generated by rolling 4d6 and discounting the lowest, the proportion of people who have 3 charisma must be equal to the chances of rolling 4 '1's on 4 dice. To look at it another way, if you took a sample of 1296 people at random, your <font color=red>25</font>\18\18\18\18\3 character would be the least charming among them. If your character lived in a city of 10000 people, only 7 would have poorer social skills. At a dinner party with 216 guests, your character would take the last profita roll and then wet their keks.

Yes. Math is fun! :-S

Dirty Meg, last I checked, each stat is supposed to be determined by a 3d6 roll, not a 4d6 roll, making the minimum a 3 and the max an 18.

its determined by a 4d6 roll, then you discard the lowest roll.

for example:

dice one: 2
dice two: 4
dice three: 3
dice four: 6

discard the lowest roll; dice one.

4 + 3 + 6 = 13

Hmm... I see. I learned 3d6, but the 4d6-1d6 works too.

Different DMs use different rolling systems. The BG series rolls 4D6s: Roll a few stats and compare the number of 18's you see go by with the number of 3's.

I can also think of several DMs, myself included, who simply would not allow a character to have a 3 in any stat without a very good reason... The only reason a character could have a 3 in Dexterity would be vast paralysis, for example.
And don't get me started on punishing people who take a six in Charisma using the point-buy system.

Well charisma of 3

A lot of people have it, for fairly obvious reasons - It is the softest statistic in the pack

Certain goodies can bump it up when needed, which seems to be very rarely

So why would anyone want to sacrifice another ability for charisma?

Lets face it, we are playing in the "City of Coin" and as a certain character says: "Hellspawn or artison, all that matters is the deal"

I dont think that these people care if you pick your nose at the dinner table, while swigging down water from the finger bowl

They have only invited you to dinner, because they expect you to pay for it!

Anything below 10 is below average, right? That means nine is below-average looking. Eight is fairly unattractive. Seven is ugly. Five is someone you don't want to look directly at. By three, I doubt anybody would join your party. You'd have commoners running at the mere sight of you, and Knights of the Radiant Heart "attacking the demonspawn" every chance they get.

I care more about roleplaying than stats... and it irritates me when someone wants to give themselves an irrational stat from a roleplaying perspective to make their character 'better.' How's a character with a Charisma of 3 going to get any quests at all? Who'll assign them? Who'll entrust a character like that with any kind of task? Remember, Charisma not only applies to looks, but force of personality. Someone with a Charisma of 3 would not only be ugly, but seem... wrong. Not trustworthy. Surely off-putting.

There is also the fact that you can pick up an item about 5 minutes after the starter dungeon that makes a low charisma state meaningless.

Charisma isn't just looks.
Someone could be good looking but have such poor behavior that their charisma score would still suck.
Also, I always thought that 9 was average.