Fear and charisma

[TheBlob]

Hello,

Back on live, when I was a teenager and where all the knowledge we had was based on urban legends, I heard that charisma affected fear in the sense that lower charisma meant "better" fears (whether by lowering resist rate or by lengthening the effect, we'll never know!).

Is this actually the case? Does the fact that many necromancer and shadowknight items give a minus charisma bonus serve any functional purpose, or is it purely for lore/roleplay reasons?

Cheers!