In particular, because I'm arguing in favour of shoring up a weakness rather than emphasizing a strength (which is always tougher to do), I'd really like to push in favour of charisma. I think that it offers a lot of intangible benefit that you wouldn't see with the Strength/Intelligence boost, especially down the road.
I have been thinking about this for a while, actually, and the decision we have to make between pursuing a generalist vs. specialist path is one that goes beyond this update. This may be a bit on the long side, but please bear with me.
Right now, our character is defined by his hunting skills, well-above-average fortitude, both mental and physical, slightly-above-average physicality, and his repugnant appearance and poor social skills. I think we should double down on our strengths, rather than trying to shore up every weakness, because of the opportunity costs involved: we will have to invest a lot of effort and pass up many opportunities to fix our low Beauty and Charisma scores, opportunities that we could instead invest in becoming an better physical specimen, or developing our mental capacity to match our willpower. In other words, I fear that in trying to become a jack of all trades, master of none will result in a character that is less than the sum of his parts: not particularly good at anything.
While Rain thinks that our character is Superman right now, being able to communicate on a more functional level as she grows up, as well as empathize and understand her emotions will be important. Even if our character is stoic and usually the silent type, whenever he does speak, he should be able to express himself properly.
And then there is Rain to consider. The question we must ask ourselves is this: how can we best contribute to her life and development? You are correct in that she will not view us as a god forever but the bottom line is that we will have to face serious challenges as essentially, a single parent in a not-so-friendly world: we must feed her, clothe her, raise her, arrange for her education and return her to her people. And that's without accounting for the scary tentacle monsters that may or may not be coming for her. I think that we will be better able to serve her by specializing in physical and mental aspects, while letting our charisma suffer. It's not like we are incapable of speech, or of expressing ourselves intelligently (a higher INT may help with that
), so we'll be able to sell our catches and tinctures, and I don't think that
not pursuing C will lead us to not communicating with her at all. We'll still be caring for her while we study or lift.
Poor kid still thinks that this was an accident. Wouldn't hurt to be a bit more wise in the ways of the world through interacting with people.
Don't get me wrong - I get that being smarter has great synergy with the education that Father McClellan is offering, I just think that the intangibles offered by charisma outweigh it.
I think that 3C is not the only option that offers intangible benefits: intelligence also measures a person's ability to think critically (which is useful in hunting and navigating foreign environments, for instance), while strength will make us an even meaner dude than we already are (
also useful for hunting and ripping off rapey tentacles, as well as scaring off bozos who want to mess with our baby sister). Also, we are not as naive as we were at five years old and I think that your're taking that snippet out of context. To me, it it describes our character's disenchantment with his master and life in general, and underscores his loss of innocence instead of reaffirming it. I think that we're plenty jaded by this point, and do not tend to trust people easily.
But more than that, a general education will improve our knowledge and understanding of the world, and maybe (hopefully) make it easier to find her people.
