Underdeep negotiation charisma events are the only place Intelligence, Negotiation and Charisma are ever used: they feed the skill checks of the one-time events that appear on the maps, and nothing else. Points in those three stats buy you no damage, no navigation and no drops.

Underdeep negotiation and charisma events: the only place they matter

Intelligence (INT), Negotiation (NEG) and Charisma (CHA) are used in exactly one place: the skill checks of the one-time events that appear on the maps. They are referenced nowhere else - not in damage, not in block or dodge, not in door and trap checks, not in drop rates.

That makes them a very different kind of stat from the other seven. Damage comes from POW and SPD or from MAG and SPI, survival comes from HP, TGH and SEN, and navigation comes from DEX and SEN, while these three only show up when the map puts an event in front of you.

The check or the karma shortcut

Most of those events are built as a choice. You can pass the skill check with the relevant attribute, or you can take a hit to your karma and skip the check. So even when an event checks Charisma, taking the karma hit is always the alternative route - which is why the practical read for a build is not "invest in Charisma" but "decide, per event, whether the check is worth the karma".

Two jobs hand out these stats

Two of the eight first-stage jobs award these attributes: Trader gives INT and NEG, and Seeker gives SPI and CHA. That is two of the four job pairs in the first stage that you will mostly leave alone, which is worth knowing before you commit a stage to them. The rest of the first-stage jobs are listed in the jobs and stages guide.

Why points in them are usually wasted

  • These three attributes give no combat or farming benefit, so putting levels into them is usually wasted.
  • The one exception is a dedicated Charisma or Negotiation build, and even then the payoff is small, because the events are one-time and each map has only a handful of them.
  • A player who tested Intelligence found nothing measurable changed even with a large amount of it.