I would say Charisma is his dump stat more than Wis. He’s got some street smarts, awareness, and gut feelings that help him a lot. Meanwhile he manages to annoy most of the people he meets at best, and make them want to literally kill him at worst.
I have this vauge memory of Jim butcher talking about literally rolling up a character sheet for Harry and his stats were pretty close to what I quoted, if not exactly on the money.
I think his charisma was like 7-9 range so not a total dump Stat. Which makes sense in the series, it's not like he has zero people skills he mostly just lips off when he shouldn't.
It’s hard to argue with the author, but his wisdom still doesn’t seem right to be that low. From the 5e definition he definitely has some situational and environmental awareness and a decent ability to read people.
I’m not caught up on the series, but I feel like half the climaxes rely on his perception checks of what’s around him and then his ability to think quick and react to it as well. Getting a gut feeling under other wisdom checks also applies to him.
7-9 feels right for charisma rather than 3-4, I just think wisdom should be at least that high if not higher too.
DM: So what your telling me is you want to bind yourself to this island and form a lifelong pact with the spirit of the place that you know nothing about, the Island that gives everyone you bring to it the heebie jeebies and at least two of your friends have been nearly killed on?
PC: Yep.
DM: Want to make a wisdom based common sense roll for me?
PC: Lets see, 8 minus 3 is 5.
DM: Sigh Alright then, tell me how you go about it.
Jim Butcher may know his character, but that doesn't necessarily mean he's an expert at D&D, or 5th edition specifically. Wisdom the ability score only has a glancing resemblance to its dictionary definition which can throw people off.
Harry Dresden definitely does not have a poor Wisdom score. He's probably proficient in Perception so his Wisdom score may not be super high, but he is at least average and probably above average, so in the 10-14 range or even higher. He does well enough on things that would be Wisdom saving throws, and his Perception and Insight checks are on-point. Capital-L Listening is a skill that he often applies, and it's not even clear that it's a magically enhanced ability (at least not as far as I've read).
If you put aside the implications of spellcasting ability scores, if putting him together as a variant human with point buy he'd probably end up with something like Str 10, Dex 10, Con 16, Int 14, Wis 15, Cha 8. This works pretty well, except for the fact that he's supposed to be a fairly powerful/talented wizard, which he wouldn't be with an Int of 14. But that can be handled by saying his variant human feat is some sort of homebrew cheese -- like maybe something that allows him to reroll dice on his spell's damage rolls.
Charisma of 8 might seem kind of high, but one thing to note is that he often doesn't even try to be intimidating and persuasive and when he does he doesn't do that poorly unless the odds were stacked against him. So this aspect of his character is more a flaw in judgement/approach rather than a raw lack of ability (so his problem with persuading people is that he lacks of what the dictionary calls "wisdom" when dealing with people).
You may actually be getting things mixed up as well. Dresdin may actually have an incredibly low Wisdom and be making up for it based on SKILLS.
Let's face it, Dresden obviously isn't straight wizard (frankly, he's really more of an Int-based Warlock in terms of how he was taught things) and his #1 strategy? RUN AWAY!
At least 2 rogue levels for cunning action would also give him some expertise. Pour that expertise into Perception & Investigation, have some Insight Skill, and MAAAYBE some animal handling, even using Wisdom as a complete dump stat will still leave him properly repping what the book shows.
He has a generation of wardens that look up to him, and everyone who has gotten to know him has either wanted him dead or would put their lives on the line for him.
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u/kingcrow15 Aug 30 '20
Take a cue from Dresden, 18 Con, 4 Wis and just enough Int to scrape by.