D&D 5E Geniuses with 5 Int

[Dannyalcatraz]

Cutesy ad hominem attacks don't win fans. Or debates.

The most charitable reading of your characters with MostlyDM's restatement "they are receiving a -3 penalty to Intelligence ability checks, spell attack rolls, saving throws, and spell DCs" is that Milton and Deuce might be interpretable that way.

Why? Because by your descriptions, Elolelle and Calivan actually succeed in their rolls: Elolelle deliberately misrepresents her success; Calivan succeeds, but holds back in hopes his tiger can come to the correct conclusions. They are making decisions to go with less optimum results. They are not actually failing, they are "throwing the fight."

Back to Milton and Deuce, though. Again, the character descriptions do not fit with the mechanics. Milton is- as described- seemingly ONLY affected when he's dealing with matters arcane. Absent any more info, the would seem to be unhindered by those insecurities.

Deuce's hinderance is similarly situationally limited. Being made idiotic by love is a great RP hook, but what if there is no "love-linked" distraction to be had? In the example given, if the library were that of someone who had no poetry in his soul, is Deuce going to get that same -3 when the raciest, most erotic text in the collection was "How to Torture a Modron"?

As for MostlyDM's restatement itself? Well, the assertion that you can divorce the description of Intelligence form the math that models it is very problematic. Words mean things. Going down that path allows someone to describe the darkness of night and giving bonuses to visual perception rolls. Or describing something as heavy and letting characters carry more mass the weaker they get.


There ARE games that do a good job of letting you model highly intellectual characters with flaws that hinder their cognitive abilities in certain situations- HERO, GURPS, etc.- but D&D isn't one of them.

 

[Yardiff]

Bingo.

For example, when Danny says:



But D&D does have a way to model that: that's what I'm using my Int score for. And there's absolutely nothing wrong with that; it doesn't affect game balance one bit.

Now, some may have an aesthetic objection to interpreting Int that way. One might look at the description of Int in the PHB and therefore say it's a "rule" that Int means something. But really when you get down to rules, Int merely describes how to adjust certain dice rolls. The reason for adjusting those dice rolls should be left to whatever narrative invention the DM and players choose.

But...sure...for the unimaginative I guess it's less complicated to roleplay that Int is some sort of measure of how smart your character is. I'll grant that. /wink

This supposed to funny?

 

[MonsterEnvy]

Bingo.

For example, when Danny says:



But D&D does have a way to model that: that's what I'm using my Int score for. And there's absolutely nothing wrong with that; it doesn't affect game balance one bit.

Now, some may have an aesthetic objection to interpreting Int that way. One might look at the description of Int in the PHB and therefore say it's a "rule" that Int means something. But really when you get down to rules, Int merely describes how to adjust certain dice rolls. The reason for adjusting those dice rolls should be left to whatever narrative invention the DM and players choose.

But...sure...for the unimaginative I guess it's less complicated to roleplay that Int is some sort of measure of how smart your character is. I'll grant that. /wink

I don't agree. None of those people would have a low Int Score. You could just give them penalties.

 

[Cap'n Kobold]

Cutesy ad hominem attacks don't win fans. Or debates.

This supposed to funny?

I'm fairly certain Elfcrusher meant it sarcastically, not seriously.

At least in the interests of keeping this and other discussions going.

 

[Cap'n Kobold]

I don't necessarily agree with the exercise here, but the bold part seems wrong. And not just wrong, but essentially the opposite of what's happening.

Elfcrusher is trying to come up with character concepts for Int 5 that take into consideration the game's basic mechanics and nothing else. That is, he's offering explanations for why they are receiving a -3 penalty to Intelligence ability checks, spell attack rolls, saving throws, and spell DCs. And that's it.

These explanations do varying degrees of a passable job at it, so if that's all Intelligence means (the basic game mechanics) then they should be at least somewhat acceptable.

Yep. As long as they are actually roleplayed as described, they generally work fine as examples of low Int characters. The player can work their character's flaws into the reasoning of why they are practically very bad at thinking, remembering, and working stuff out even when rolls aren't involved.

For instance, when coming up with a plan, Milton as a genius, is quite capable of thinking tactically and taking into account numerous variables. Practically however, he worries so much about whether its any good that he keeps adding odd contingencies to the point of self-sabotage. In the end he ends up with a useless mess that he can't articulate to the rest of the group anyway.

Eloelle can also come up with an effective plan, using available resources well. However for some reason the actual plans that she suggests tend to be skewed towards achieving a completely different objective than the one required and have a very high chance of getting some of her companions killed . . .

Emo Baggins could probably come up with an effective plan, but spends the time daydreaming and waxing lyrical about the highlights in his beloved's foot hair, giving no actually useful input.

Calivan is able to (and loudly points out) that he has come up with a particularly cunning and subtle plan. But upon consultation with his companion decides to put forward the plan involving the party sneaking up on their enemies* then pouncing upon them and tearing them apart with their teeth.

*livestock

 

[Guest 6801328]

Cutesy ad hominem attacks don't win fans. Or debates.

"Cutesy" yes, but not technically ad hominem; I was trying to colorfully suggest that objections are really based on an overly narrow restriction on how to interpret ability scores. Or perhaps an aesthetic dislike of the consequences.

But changing the meaning of Int this way is really no different...literally absolutely identical...to refluffing the description of a spell or a weapon. "My longsword is actually a katana." I can understand the aesthetic objection (and share it, in many cases) but my objections are entirely subjective.

The most charitable reading of your characters with MostlyDM's restatement "they are receiving a -3 penalty to Intelligence ability checks, spell attack rolls, saving throws, and spell DCs" is that Milton and Deuce might be interpretable that way.

Why? Because by your descriptions, Elolelle and Calivan actually succeed in their rolls: Elolelle deliberately misrepresents her success; Calivan succeeds, but holds back in hopes his tiger can come to the correct conclusions. They are making decisions to go with less optimum results. They are not actually failing, they are "throwing the fight."

Back to Milton and Deuce, though. Again, the character descriptions do not fit with the mechanics. Milton is- as described- seemingly ONLY affected when he's dealing with matters arcane. Absent any more info, the would seem to be unhindered by those insecurities.

Deuce's hinderance is similarly situationally limited. Being made idiotic by love is a great RP hook, but what if there is no "love-linked" distraction to be had? In the example given, if the library were that of someone who had no poetry in his soul, is Deuce going to get that same -3 when the raciest, most erotic text in the collection was "How to Torture a Modron"?

I'll agree that roleplaying Eloelle and Calivan would be harder, and all four of them would be harder than simply taking the default (boring?) interpretation of low Int. If the most erotic text that Deuce can find is "How to Torture a Modron" then the player better think quick to explain why he got distracted, or possibly introduce a new, hitherto undiscovered fetish to his personality (or roll well so he doesn't have to). Heck, maybe this is where we learn that his beloved is a Modron.

I'll also suggest that at my tables the player would be free to decide what kind of book he finds in order to support his storytelling. I suspect, given the conversation in another thread, that somebody like [MENTION=23751]Maxperson[/MENTION] would say the content of he bookshelves is strictly the DM's domain.

As for MostlyDM's restatement itself? Well, the assertion that you can divorce the description of Intelligence form the math that models it is very problematic. Words mean things. Going down that path allows someone to describe the darkness of night and giving bonuses to visual perception rolls. Or describing something as heavy and letting characters carry more mass the weaker they get.

That's a Parade of Horribles argument. (Or, dare I say, a genuine Slippery Slope?) Going down that path doesn't have to lead to mechanical impact if the DM doesn't allow it to.

Again, what I'm describing is not different from refluffing spells or gear....just harder to roleplay. Do you object to that, when there's no mechanical change? Or does letting the player describe his longsword as a katana risk him suddenly doing more damage because, you know, katanas are better in every way?

 

[Guest 6801328]

Yep. As long as they are actually roleplayed as described, they generally work fine as examples of low Int characters. The player can work their character's flaws into the reasoning of why they are practically very bad at thinking, remembering, and working stuff out even when rolls aren't involved.

For instance, when coming up with a plan, Milton as a genius, is quite capable of thinking tactically and taking into account numerous variables. Practically however, he worries so much about whether its any good that he keeps adding odd contingencies to the point of self-sabotage. In the end he ends up with a useless mess that he can't articulate to the rest of the group anyway.

Eloelle can also come up with an effective plan, using available resources well. However for some reason the actual plans that she suggests tend to be skewed towards achieving a completely different objective than the one required and have a very high chance of getting some of her companions killed . . .

Emo Baggins could probably come up with an effective plan, but spends the time daydreaming and waxing lyrical about the highlights in his beloved's foot hair, giving no actually useful input.

Calivan is able to (and loudly points out) that he has come up with a particularly cunning and subtle plan. But upon consultation with his companion decides to put forward the plan involving the party sneaking up on their enemies* then pouncing upon them and tearing them apart with their teeth.

*livestock

Yay! That's the spirit! We should get a table going.

 

[Maxperson]

I don't necessarily agree with the exercise here, but the bold part seems wrong. And not just wrong, but essentially the opposite of what's happening.

Elfcrusher is trying to come up with character concepts for Int 5 that take into consideration the game's basic mechanics and nothing else. That is, he's offering explanations for why they are receiving a -3 penalty to Intelligence ability checks, spell attack rolls, saving throws, and spell DCs. And that's it.

Ignoring the game in order to explain the int penalty by using descriptions that apply to other stats than int is a waste of time.

These explanations do varying degrees of a passable job at it, so if that's all Intelligence means (the basic game mechanics) then they should be at least somewhat acceptable.

By RAW that's not all intelligence means. RAW defines defines intelligence as...

Intelligence measures mental acuity, accuracy of recall,
and the ability to reason.

Those are the things that need to be used in the descriptions to explain deficiencies, not descriptions of non-int stats.

 

[TwoSix]

This supposed to funny?

I thought it was, and I'm pretty much an expert.

 

[Maxperson]

I thought it was, and I'm pretty much an expert.

What is a pert and why did you quit?