D&D 4E Obligatory dump stats in 4e: the irrelevance of Intelligence

[Ahglock]

So I don't know about History, but Arcana and Religion checks can give you information about monsters, including common tactics and vulnerabilities. Knowing when you first bump into a monster that it likes to use area-affecting powers can save the party's bacon.

Nature checks can provide such information as well(about different monsters), but is wisdom based, which is why I didn't include it in the previous paragraph.

This can be somewhat useful in certain circumstances, though I suspect for 80+% of the monsters its a waste. Its an orc archer with a bow, Player I use "knowledge appropriate skill, what are its tactics." DM, "Um, well it tries to stay at range and use it bow."

But things like this can be huge so I don't totally discount them. I just don't find them generally useful as a reason to increase your int stat. If your int stat is already high sure take advantage of these skills and get a moderate benefit.

 

[Ahglock]

Don't know about your games, but I make a lot more knowledge checks than I do hide checks.

DM:"The gnolls have raided Village To The West."
PCs: "Is that typical for gnolls in this area?"
DM:"Knowledge local?"

If we find out that, for example, the gnolls normally don't act in this way, we will start looking for clues as to what's driving them, etc. We might find an odd sigil in the ruins. Knowledge (Religion) tells us it's a sign of a forgotten cult. Knowledge (History) tells us the cult was strong ages past, when gnolls were a power to be feared. And so on.

Basically, the more we know, the better prepared we are for what we will face. If we just go charging in without any prep work, the DM will quite rightfully hand us our heads, since we won't have determined the likely opposition, prepared the right spells, got silver or cold iron weapons, and so on. And this is just for a typical H&S adventure. For a city/diplomatic adventure, Knowledge becomes even more valuable. Who is the Baron related too? What's the proper way to impress a visitor from Farfarawayistan? Is an alliance between the North and West sensible, or is someone pulling the strings? This is all set-up for in-play; it tells us what kind of questions to ask when we roleplay encounters, gives us circumstance bonuses for knowing how to treat people properly, gives us hints as to who is the best person to follow discreetly (which is where sneaking comes in, finally), and so on.

Basically, for any game which is more than 10 x 10 room, orc, chest, knowledge skills are vital.

Sounds great, but I don't really think it helped all together that much.

Assuming you don't use knowledge skill, or failed at the roll with your gnoll encounter what would be different. Would you have charged in blindly? Or would you of scouted out the situation, gone to the places they attacked, tracked where they came from, and used a ton of skills not tied to intelligence in order to gain the information anyways. All knowledge skill local did here is replace a gather information check for pulling together some information. So knowledge local gets you the information or going where you plan on going anyways and asking someone a question gets you the information.

And yeah sure in towns it can totally give you circumstance bonuses for the skills you actually will be suing for solving the problem. They are great support skills, but they are not the actual skills you use to solve the problem. Those skills may get a benefit from using knowledge skills, but the lions share of the result comes from the core skill being used.

 

[Ahglock]

I've made a hell of a lot more knowledge checks over the past 8 years than I ever have swimming or climbing checks.

Aside from the obvious applications - knowledge skills tell you stuff about unfamiliar monsters & effects (3e and 4e) and in 4e they power rituals - Arcana comes up a lot in the 4e stuff I've seen. You can use it to deal with magical traps, and it factors into a lot of the sample skill challenges.

Arcana and other ritual powering skills totally may be awesome in 4e and may make those skills fantastic. But really how many times did intelligence based skills have the same impact as useful non-intelligence based skills. Sure, climb and swim rarely are used in 3e since magic circumvents them insanely early, but in a city talking skills seem to reign supreme. In a dungeon or adventure setting dexterity skills pull more weight. Intelligence based skills can be made at a drop of a hat, they actually have a meaningful contribution much less often unless the DM really likes to favor thse skills.

 

[theNater]

In 3e, a low Charisma still gave you penalties that mattered for a Fighter (penalty to Intimidate a class skill, penalty to Leadership, and it sure sucked when the Charisma drain/damage starts flying around). Sure, it was still the optimal stat to dump, but it wasn't (entirely) a no-brainer.

Not gonna give you the skill arguement, as putting those same charisma points into intelligence would actually improve your intimidate skill more. Leadership is a general purpose feat, not a fighter feat, and is about as valuable as Linguist or Jack-of-all-trades, for which intelligence is required, not just helpful.

But your third point is entirely correct. It is no longer necessary to keep all of your ability scores high for when you run into ability score damage.

There was a character in a 3e game I played. Specialist diviner. He had a reasonable Str, and had invested some feats in melee combat, with the logic that at low level (one he'd cast his 1 or 2 spells for the day) he could still contribute effectively.

I find it interesting that you are complaining that doing something atypical to make your character able to contribute at low levels is no longer necessary.

Remember that the only stat a wizard actually needs is int. A wizard who prioritizes int-str-con, in that order, is not going to fail to be viable.

 

[theNater]

This can be somewhat useful in certain circumstances, though I suspect for 80+% of the monsters its a waste. Its an orc archer with a bow, Player I use "knowledge appropriate skill, what are its tactics." DM, "Um, well it tries to stay at range and use it bow."

But things like this can be huge so I don't totally discount them. I just don't find them generally useful as a reason to increase your int stat. If your int stat is already high sure take advantage of these skills and get a moderate benefit.

Well, the question was why intelligence might be more valuable than dex for any character that doesn't key powers off of either of them. In that case, you can take the dex for a small initiative bonus all the time, or int for the huge strategic bonus information provides 10% of the time. The point being that neither one is flat-out better than the other.

 

[Nifft]

Well, the question was why intelligence might be more valuable than dex for any character that doesn't key powers off of either of them. In that case, you can take the dex for a small initiative bonus all the time, or int for the huge strategic bonus information provides 10% of the time. The point being that neither one is flat-out better than the other.

We should consider skills that benefit the party, and skills that benefit the individual.

Every individual benefits from Perception and Initiative.
The whole party benefits from at least one member covering each "knowledge" skill.

Basically, some skills can be used by one member for the whole party, while other skills (and initiative) must be used by each member individually.

Cheers, -- N

 

[Ahglock]

Well, the question was why intelligence might be more valuable than dex for any character that doesn't key powers off of either of them. In that case, you can take the dex for a small initiative bonus all the time, or int for the huge strategic bonus information provides 10% of the time. The point being that neither one is flat-out better than the other.

Though, the problem is i find the skills Dex keys into overall more useful than the skills Int key into. So Dex is win, win. Win on the skill side, and win in that it has a side benefit.

Honestly, i do not know why i am arguing this at all. Sure, I see it as a problem but it so small of a problem this is just insane nitpicking on my part.

I was just thinking of something nifft said earlier, about how when you need to sneak the entire party needs to sneak. 4e is the first time you can actually do that without magic in D&D, or at least on a practical level. I guess people could of been dumping tons of points into cross class hide and move silently skills. And that, is pretty freakin awesome.

edit to point out that the whole party sneaking is pretty freakin awesome not people dumping tons of skill points into cross class skills. As ever so politely pointed out in another thread i suck at english, so sorry for the confusing post.

 

[Blackeagle]

Honestly, i do not know why i am arguing this at all. Sure, I see it as a problem but it so small of a problem this is just insane nitpicking on my part.

This is the internet, insane nitpicking is par for the course.

 

[muffin_of_chaos]

The "smart and fast" character is a pretty classic concept, and I know many folks loved that 3e gave skill-oriented a benefit for making their characters smart. Is anyone disappointed now?

"Smart" in the case of this concept would be Wisdom.

 

[Nifft]

"Smart" in the case of this concept would be Wisdom.

"Smart" could also be judicious application of Skill Training.

Bob learned how to use a bastard sword, Joe learned Goblin, Dwarven and Elven, and you learned how to sneak or lie or detect magic at will.

Cheers, -- N