D&D 5E Geniuses with 5 Int

TwoSix said:

Not necessarily. Zone of Truth allows the speaker to be willfully evasive on a failed save. Eloelle just has to start giving faerie-style answers to the questions. (I mean, she IS a genius.)

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The answer posited was not evasive- "I don't know the answer" is a bald-faced lie.

Alternatively, Eloelle's patron clouds her mind, to ensure that this arcane truth does not fall into the hands of this sorcerer. The patron has plans for this information, of which Eloelle is just starting to become aware...

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Again, giving the character an advantage that isn't reflected by the mechanics.

Elfcrusher said:

Oh, is it? Then she has a good chance of passing 'cause she's a Warlock

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Hence my caveat.

J.F.C., Danny, I can't believe you aren't getting this. Eloelle failed her Int check so mechanically she does not know the answer. Everything else...the part about her knowing it but keeping it secret because of her Patron...is storytelling.

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I got it, I just think it is UTTER BS.
"Knowing" an answer and lying about it is a concrete thing with potential repercussions within the campaign world.

As the DM you could enjoy this storytelling and play along with the pretense, or you could set up situations to try to force the player to admit that her character doesn't know the answer, that Int means what you say it is, leading to an arms race of increasingly contrived scenarios and responses.

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If you were playing Int RAW/RAI, there would be no such "arms race" at all.

You asked me why I care about how all this was narrated. I'm answering by asking you: "Why do you care what people on an Internet forum think?"

You & your buddies want to play D&D games the way you propose, good on you! Just don't expect validation of your idea from fellow forumites.

Elfcrusher said:

I call foul. That's a dishonest (and frankly just lame) rhetorical technique.

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Whereas "for the unimaginative I guess it's less complicated to roleplay that Int is some sort of measure of how smart your character is" is completely on the up-and-up?

Elfcrusher said:

He did NOT "acknowledge that this concept can't survive an audience that thinks through the consequences". He acknowledged that it goes awry with somebody who tries to abuse it to the detriment of the group rather than use it to contribute to the fun.

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If I make a ruling that is open in this way to what you call "abuse", that's on me. I'm not going to blame the players for ruining the fun; I ruined the fun. If I rule that hitting a guy with a chair does 2d8 damage because that's cinematic and cool, I should not be surprised if the players want to start carrying around chairs as weapons, or at the very least wondering out loud why their characters wouldn't do this. They're not being bad players by thinking this way. They're not griefing other players, or raging out and flipping the table. They're just parsing the information about the game world they've been given. I, however, am being a bad DM by creating a game world with such counterintuitive incentives. And the only thing for me to do is own that I made a mistake, and reverse the ruling.

Elfcrusher said:

The sorcerer isn't using the cards as material components to the spells. He is refluffing spell casting to be the flinging of cards.

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Same thing. What do you think wizards normally do with that bat guano?

Elfcrusher said:

Taken literally it raises all kinds of paradoxes, each of which must be explained away in order to sustain the illusion.

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What paradox does it raise that a spell component pouch doesn't?

CosmicKid, a Ranger player of mine really didn't want any overt magic. He chose non flashy spells and skinned it as completely and totally non magical... Hunters mark is just skilled/dedicated fighting. Goodberry is just knowing the area and finding innately magical herbs/berries/etc.

He didn't choose spells he wouldn't be able to refluff in this way.

How do you feel about this?

I'm genuinely curious, because I had to give it serious thought. Can NPCs counter spell him? If so, what's the narrative explanation? If not, isn't that giving him a big advantage? But isn't he voluntarily taking a negative of no flashy spells? Do they balance out?

Allowing or disallowing this wasn't a trivial decision at the table. But I don't think he was off base for wanting to do it, or cheating, or anything like that.

MostlyDm said:

CosmicKid, a Ranger player of mine really didn't want any overt magic. He chose non flashy spells and skinned it as completely and totally non magical... Hunters mark is just skilled/dedicated fighting. Goodberry is just knowing the area and finding innately magical herbs/berries/etc.

He didn't choose spells he wouldn't be able to refluff in this way.

How do you feel about this?

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I'm strongly in the camp that there ought to be a nonmagical ranger variant, precisely because of the difficulties you encountered. Per the rules, ranger abilities are definitely counterspellable, I'd whip up a houseruled class in a heartbeat to give him the character he wants without running into such jarring contradictions. He's absolutely not off base for wanting to do it. The system is off base for not giving him a way to.

And come to think of it, that too might underlie some of the negative reaction to these "low-Int geniuses". The system does give players a way to make these characters: give them high Int scores. So it's as if a player wanted to make a powerful master of magic, but chose to take the barbarian class and come up with ad hoc reasons why his "spells" never did anything, rather than just play a wizard (or even a houseruled barbarian that actually cast spells).

MostlyDm said:

CosmicKid, a Ranger player of mine really didn't want any overt magic. He chose non flashy spells and skinned it as completely and totally non magical... Hunters mark is just skilled/dedicated fighting. Goodberry is just knowing the area and finding innately magical herbs/berries/etc.

He didn't choose spells he wouldn't be able to refluff in this way.

How do you feel about this?

I'm genuinely curious, because I had to give it serious thought. Can NPCs counter spell him? If so, what's the narrative explanation? If not, isn't that giving him a big advantage? But isn't he voluntarily taking a negative of no flashy spells? Do they balance out?

Allowing or disallowing this wasn't a trivial decision at the table. But I don't think he was off base for wanting to do it, or cheating, or anything like that.

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You didn't ask me, but...

When I get requests like this, I rework the class, not the spells themselves, to remove the magical aspects.

Dannyalcatraz said:

The answer posited was not evasive- "I don't know the answer" is a bald-faced lie.

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Well, I wouldn't give that answer in that case, because I don't want to violate the actual mechanical constraints placed on the situation.. I would come up with something else.

Dannyalcatraz said:

Again, giving the character an advantage that isn't reflected by the mechanics.

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I don't view it that way at all...I see it as giving a character a temporary reprieve from a player-chosen disadvantage. Having knowledge you're not allowed to
leverage is at best a neutral situation, and very often a disadvantage, as in this situation.

Dannyalcatraz said:

You & your buddies want to play D&D games the way you propose, good on you! Just don't expect validation of your idea from fellow forumites.

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A little late for that! <brofist>

TheCosmicKid said:

If I make a ruling that is open in this way to what you call "abuse", that's on me. I'm not going to blame the players for ruining the fun; I ruined the fun. If I rule that hitting a guy with a chair does 2d8 damage because that's cinematic and cool, I should not be surprised if the players want to start carrying around chairs as weapons, or at the very least wondering out loud why their characters wouldn't do this. They're not being bad players by thinking this way. They're not griefing other players, or raging out and flipping the table. They're just parsing the information about the game world they've been given. I, however, am being a bad DM by creating a game world with such counterintuitive incentives. And the only thing for me to do is own that I made a mistake, and reverse the ruling.

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But the point is it isn't a ruling the DM has made, it's a concept the player has introduced into the game, so I would have the expectation the player isn't going to try to abuse it. I mean, we are all on board that this technique is something that should be used in an environment that supports and encourages player authorship, right?