Charisma

Charisma is an attribute in NetHack.

Description

Charisma factors into gameplay much less often than other attributes, but still has several effects:

• Charisma influences foocubus encounters, both by increasing the chance of a positive result and by giving more control over whether they remove the hero's armor.
• Charisma also affects the prices offered by shopkeepers for buying wares and selling items in their shop—this is detailed in the table below.
• Charisma increases the chances of a hero successfully bribing demons with less money than they demand.
• Charisma partly determines the amount of gold required to bribe the Yendorian army.
• The chance of successfully applying a saddle to a monster.
• The initial apport of new pets is equal to your charisma.

Charisma also influences several funny messages that otherwise have no effect on gameplay or mechanics:

• The message given when a monster digs through a door outside of the hero's sight, while they are hallucinating.
• The message given for a hero applying a mirror at themselves.
• The message for a hero curing delayed stoning by eating the corpse or tin of a lizard or acidic monster, casting the stone to flesh spell at themselves, or else quaffing a potion of acid, while also hallucinating.

Changing charisma

A hero cannot exercise or abuse charisma, but can raise or lower it through a few methods. Charisma can be raised by the following:

• A worn ring of adornment increases charisma by an amount equal to its enchantment.
• Quaffing a potion of gain ability can increase charisma by 1, and quaffing a blessed potion increases it and all other attributes by one.
• Quaffing from a magic fountain can raise one or all attributes by 1 as with the potion of gain ability, depending on the hero's luck.
• The taming effect of a magic trap also raises the hero's charisma by 1.
• A Wizard wearing a cornuthaum increases their charisma by 1.

Charisma can be decreased by the following:

• The attribute-decreasing effect of quaffing a non-blessed potion of sickness.
• The attribute-decreasing effect from sitting on a throne.
• The effect of a worn ring of adornment with a negative enchantment.
• A non-Wizard hero wearing a cornuthaum decreases their charisma by 1.

The following information pertains to an upcoming version (NetHack 3.7.0). If this version is now released, please verify that the information below is still accurate, then update the page to incorporate it.

Charisma affects the probability that monsters are affected by conflict.

List of price adjustments

This table displays which charisma values produce which price multipliers when buying and selling in a shop:

Charisma	Price
3–5	×2
6–7	×1.5
8–10	×1.33
11–15	×1
16–17	×0.75
18	×0.67
19–25	×0.5

Strategy

Charisma is often overlooked as a stat of importance, but its use in foocubus encounters gives an advantage to higher-charisma roles and races, and favorable prices in early shops can be a large difference-maker in a particular game.