D&D 5E Making Intelligence less of a dump stat

[Blue]

Agreed on the int to initiative, but the rest is completely unacceptable to me at least. If I outlined a plan for the party and the DM said “no, your character isn’t smart enough to come up with that” I’d leave the table.

Umm, since I only suggested INT to Initiative I'll assume you were refering to some other poster about the rest. But I will answer it.

I agree that I wouldn't let a DM tell me how to play my character. But I wouldn't be annoyed if when playing a dump-INT character if my "brilliant plan" turned out to be anything but even if it was an actual brilliant plan.

Bob wants to play a charismatic character but isn't a good speaker himself. He's got a high CHR and is trained in persuade, so even though he's only mildly persuasive a good roll and he can convince folks. My 8 CHR half-orc without a social skill to his name, might find the opposite - even if I'm persuasive the NPCs might not react well to what I am saying if I flub my rolls. In both cases I would expect bonuses or penalties to the rolls based on how good the actual talking was, but I also understand that it's the character in the world, not me, and they are also represented by mechanics.

By the same deal, if I was roleplaying a character with INT as my dump stat and I came up with a brilliant plan - great tactics, playing on a gnoll tribe's cultural fears, and utilizing the terrain, and then flubbed the INT roll, I wouldn't mind the DM reacting in kind - hey, these are a different gnoll clan that don't share the culture, part of the terrain we couldn't see doesn't work out to help my plan and the like - regardless if that was "true" before. Because my character can and would mess up the details, and the failed roll showed that I did.

So while I agree that I wouldn't accept a DM telling me I'm playing my character wrong, I would accept my character BEING wrong because I built him stupid.

 

[Sword of Spirit]

By the same deal, if I was roleplaying a character with INT as my dump stat and I came up with a brilliant plan - great tactics, playing on a gnoll tribe's cultural fears, and utilizing the terrain, and then flubbed the INT roll, I wouldn't mind the DM reacting in kind - hey, these are a different gnoll clan that don't share the culture, part of the terrain we couldn't see doesn't work out to help my plan and the like - regardless if that was "true" before. Because my character can and would mess up the details, and the failed roll showed that I did.

So while I agree that I wouldn't accept a DM telling me I'm playing my character wrong, I would accept my character BEING wrong because I built him stupid.

I see what you're saying here, but as a DM I would feel it to be a pretty big imposition on my world to have to change a gnoll tribe's backstory in response to a player not wanting to accurately role-play their stats. As the DM, I role-play dozens or hundreds of NPCs, villains, monsters, etc, according to their stats. I don't think it's outrageous of me to say to a player:

"Dude, role-play your character."

But then again, I tell my players that I expect them to role-play their stats, and I go over what the various numbers mean in my campaign interpretation at the start of the campaign, and I haven't had any problems yet.

 

[ryanroyce]

While I concede that one day may be too brief, we are talking about individuals with peak-human intelligence and such characters in adventure fiction tend to know many, if not most, languages anyway. Also, having INT 20 isn't a guarantee of learning every tool or language in the game, since they still need a willing and able instructor.

How's this as an alternative: At INT 20, the character makes a DC 25 Intelligence check once per day to learn a new tool or language proficiency. The DC is reduced by 1 per attempt. On average, they'll learn the new proficiency in about 10 days. Characters with the Linguist feat may add their proficiency bonus to rolls to learn a new language.

Anyway, at least the core idea of "high INT reducing training time" seems to not be too objectionable, so I'll count that as a win.

 

[UngeheuerLich]

I just realized:
Use the optional rule of score -5 vs very easy DC of 5.
So if you have less than 10 in a core you need to roll for things others don't have to roll on. You just are no natural.

So things may go wrong even when you are trained in it. Only with a proficiency bonus of 4 or higher you are safe.

Maybe when there is advantage, you only need a score of 5 to beat DC 5, but if disadvantage is there, maybe I would require a 15 in a score to not have someo mbe roll.

For int it could happen a lot that with only an 8, you won't remember the easiest things. Imagine a cleric that sometimes can't remember the wordings of a particular prayer... and so on.

Then I also use int rolls to learn proficiencies more quickly. Also a trainer may shorten the time a lot as does first hand experience.

 

[thethain]

Honestly allowing downtime training doesn't do much for most campaigns. If my elf didn't bother to train in his previous 200 years, he probably isn't getting to in the middle of the campaign of utter doom.

The effects need to be apparent, immediate, and useful.

Each +1 grants a skill, tool or language proficiency

More Wis saves shifted with Int.

Maybe even a more formal action using the knowledge skills, Once per short rest, a Arcana/History/Nature/Religion DC based on creature type and CR. If it passes you know their resistances/vulnerabilities, and if you pass by 5+ you can apply your proficiency bonus to damage rolls against them.