What does Charisma do?

[Nightshade]

See topic title - I am not sure what it does, nor am I particularly sure how to test to find out what it does.

[Redhollowlives999]

... To be honest, I haven't the slightest.

Legaia 2 (to me) was just a game where you didn't even have to worry about the stats unless you were still in the first half of the game or you just wanted to know when you were going to level up.

I'd assume it'd have to do with your Artblocks or something.


Where are the grinding half of the site? We need you!

[xTrance]

I have never known what exactly charisma does. I originally thought it affected when cutscenes become available, barring any prerequisite storyline progression. This is only a guess, and I have no idea whether it actually affects anything like cutscenes. I usually am extremely overleveled throughout the game, and also happen to have had early access to most cutscenes, that I do not remember having before. However, my memory is tenuous at best of this, and it should be treated as a rough stab in the dark.

Trying to think about how to test this is giving me a huge headache though. It would be incredibly time-consuming. We'd have better luck waiting for somebody to hack the game, see what it affects directly.

I can't see it affecting anything in battle, however. I doubt it affects who an enemy targets. It likely does not affect damage or healing, as those are affected by STR, INT, or are fixed. It might affect susceptibility to status effects, but I doubt this, as charisma would be a poor name for a stat that resists status changes. I would bet status changes are likely determined by MEN and/or level, not CHR. We might able to test this, but the required sample size would be large, too large for me to carry out. In any case, I can't think of any other action in battle that might draw from the CHR stat. There's turn order (AGI), Art Blocks (which are set), damage done normal/origin (STR/INT), damage received normal/special. Status likelihood (?, likely MEN/INT, or level, where applicable of course). Is there anything else battle related that I'm missing?

[Nightshade]

I was checking out some of the FAQ's on GameFAQ's, and one of the guides suggested that CHA affects escape probability, which I guess it not implausible.

[LegaiaWiki]

Prima's guide says "Charisma. Affects preemptive attack rate, escape rate, and rate of likelihood of getting abnormal status in battle."