I have played a guy with 6 int before, he was a barbarian too. He had a dagger blade stuck in his head, he had an acquired brain injury, he was not stupid. He was completely dyslexic, so maps, numbers and letters eluded him, but he knew how they worked. He also had a terrible medium term memory, he needed to be reintroduced to NPCs every time he saw them. The terrible memory was represented well by having a terrible score in lore rolls. He was otherwise smart enough though, I did not play him as an idiot, just a guy with a disability. I played him as if he had an Int of about 12 when it came to puzzles etc.
D&D 5E So 5 Intelligence Huh
JonnyP71
Explorer
In a 2E game our party (including my fighter with 6 Int/7 wis) arrive in a village. The villagers are screaming - there was a funeral going on, when a Necromancer in the graveyard began animating bodies - including that of the dead man. The zombies had begun to attack the villagers.
We dealt with the zombies, drove off the Necromancer, and my Fighter proudly marched up to the dead man's family and announced with a big, happy grin on his face:
"It looks like he was angry because you were burying him before he was really dead. Don't worry, we've killed him properly now so you can carry on with your funeral."
Playing stupid can be a lot of fun
We dealt with the zombies, drove off the Necromancer, and my Fighter proudly marched up to the dead man's family and announced with a big, happy grin on his face:
"It looks like he was angry because you were burying him before he was really dead. Don't worry, we've killed him properly now so you can carry on with your funeral."
Playing stupid can be a lot of fun
Warbringer
Explorer
Run for President.
Giant2005
First Post
I doubt DnD Int scores scale linearly compared to real life IQ scores so it is hard to calculate an exact parallel but I think there is enough evidence to suggest that an Int score of 5 would equate to considerably lower than an IQ of 70.
The average Int score for a human is 13.24 (average of 4d6d1 = 12.24, +1 racial bonus) and the average IQ score of America is 98 (source), so we can be sure that an Int score of 13.24 = an IQ score of 98.
As I said earlier, we can't really extrapolate more than that because the Int progression probably isn't linear, but I really don't think an Int score that is 37.76% of the average should equate to being anywhere near an IQ score that is 71.43% of the average.
In my group, you can take a disability in order to kind of clarify your low stats. As a reward for RPing this, you can come across times where that low stat is not an issue.
As I mentioned earlier I had the guy with an acquired brain injury. We have had a guy with a knee locked in straight position (Dex 6) he sucked at acrobatics, balance etc, and his base move was 20' but his bad dex did not affect his fine motor skills, like picking locks etc.
I had a guy who was simply very old (Dex 6, Con 8) and had arthritis. He could ignore his low dex for a very limited time, but was crippled afterwards for a while, meaning he over exerted himself and ripped his joints up pushing through the arthritis.
On the extreme end, we had a guy who rolled low Str, but did not want to play a weak character. He just said his character lost an arm in the war. So he was physically fit and muscular enough, but could not push, pull, lift or climb well. There are many disadvantages to having one arm, so the guy took that disadvantage and the DM pushed his Str to 13 for things that were not affected by the lost limb.
As I mentioned earlier I had the guy with an acquired brain injury. We have had a guy with a knee locked in straight position (Dex 6) he sucked at acrobatics, balance etc, and his base move was 20' but his bad dex did not affect his fine motor skills, like picking locks etc.
I had a guy who was simply very old (Dex 6, Con 8) and had arthritis. He could ignore his low dex for a very limited time, but was crippled afterwards for a while, meaning he over exerted himself and ripped his joints up pushing through the arthritis.
On the extreme end, we had a guy who rolled low Str, but did not want to play a weak character. He just said his character lost an arm in the war. So he was physically fit and muscular enough, but could not push, pull, lift or climb well. There are many disadvantages to having one arm, so the guy took that disadvantage and the DM pushed his Str to 13 for things that were not affected by the lost limb.
L
lowkey13
Guest
*Deleted by user*
Saeviomagy
Adventurer
By the rules, the only effects of having a low int are:
1. If you start as a wizard, you may not stop being a wizard.
2. If you don't start as a wizard, you cannot become one later.
3. If you are a wizard, your spells are easy to dodge/resist.
4. You are bad at knowledge skills.
5. You are bad at tool usage.
6. You are bad at navigating magical mazes and the like (ie - you are bad at int saves).
7. You are bad at whatever it is that investigation actually does.
You can still be good at:
1. Survival
2. Tracking
3. Spotting things
4. Understanding people
5. Convincing people
6. Healing people with first aid
7. Controlling animals
8. Casting wizard spells that do not need an attack or save
9. Tactical manuevering
10. Perfectly memorizing everything from the last month
Which is just all kinds of confusing. It's entirely possible to make the mentalist with an intelligence score of 2, only slinging high level spells as well.
1. If you start as a wizard, you may not stop being a wizard.
2. If you don't start as a wizard, you cannot become one later.
3. If you are a wizard, your spells are easy to dodge/resist.
4. You are bad at knowledge skills.
5. You are bad at tool usage.
6. You are bad at navigating magical mazes and the like (ie - you are bad at int saves).
7. You are bad at whatever it is that investigation actually does.
You can still be good at:
1. Survival
2. Tracking
3. Spotting things
4. Understanding people
5. Convincing people
6. Healing people with first aid
7. Controlling animals
8. Casting wizard spells that do not need an attack or save
9. Tactical manuevering
10. Perfectly memorizing everything from the last month
Which is just all kinds of confusing. It's entirely possible to make the mentalist with an intelligence score of 2, only slinging high level spells as well.
The Crimson Binome
Hero
There are basically two ways to go about this:
1) Assume that the dice distribution covers the whole range of human capability, match people by relative percentages, and that describes what the person can do. I.e. If you are in the bottom x% of the 3d6+1 curve, then you are as smart as someone in the bottom x% of the real-world IQ curve. If your Int score is 4, then you are exactly as dumb as the dumbest possible human in the real world. The main problem here is that it assumes the 4-20 range covers the entire range of real-world capabilities, with identical distribution.
2) Look at what someone with a given score can do, find someone in the real world who can do those same things, and that is how smart you are. If you can routinely pull of a DC 8 check, but not a DC 10 check (after taking a significant sample size), then you are as smart someone in the real world who could perform those same tasks with the same frequency. The problem here is in getting anyone to agree with the exact DC for any given real-world activity, though that is nominally one of the primary tasks for the DM anyway.
MechaPilot
Explorer
I don't reasonably know how a person thinks at different IQ levels, and I don't think that the INT score maps over to an actual IQ score very well.
If you look at INT in 3e, 4e, and 5e (editions which use the same bonus/penalty scheme for attributes), a character with a -3 penalty to INT checks will, on average, fail tasks only 15% more often than an average person, who by virtue of being average has no bonus or penalty to that attribute. If we assume that the average IQ is 100 points, then a person who is 15% worse would have an IQ of 85. That's "low average," but it's not within the range recognized for people with certain mental disabilities.
If I were portraying a character with a low INT, I would play that character as if she had normal intelligence, and then I would deliberately make a stupid choice every so often to remind people that she's dumb.
Also, it's worth noting that Int has a couple of different facets to it. As described in the PHB, Int covers "mental acuity, information recall, and analytical skill." The Using Ability Scores section also adds "education" to that list. With those four facets, one could easily play a 5 INT character as a normal character with just a god-awful memory, or very little analytical skill.
The character might often ask questions that she should already know the answer to:
Example 1
5 INT PC: Why do you want that dusty old idol? It's not even gold.
Other PC: We were hired by the temple bring this back. It's the entire reason we came here.
5 INT PC (embarrassed): Right. I knew that. I was just . . . um . . . joking! I was joking! It's funny, right?
Example 2
5 INT PC: What's the name of this town again?
Other PC: Seriously.
5 INT PC: So I forgot. Big deal. We go so many darn places I can't keep all the names straight.
Other PC: You grew up here!
5 INT PC: Well you don''t have to be a jerk about it.
Example 3
5 INT PC: Stop him! He's running off with the, the, you know, the thing! That we need for the other thing!
The character might also simply ask someone else to explain things to her because she lacks the "analytical skill." Or maybe the character states the obvious as if she were saying something only she figured out.
Example 1
Other PC: It looks like there's guards at the front gate.
5 INT PC: Hmm. I guess we can't go that way then. We'll have to find another way in.
Example 2
Other PC: Damn, that last set of rapids put a hole in our boat.
5 INT PC: Right. Wait. So, what does that mean?
If you look at INT in 3e, 4e, and 5e (editions which use the same bonus/penalty scheme for attributes), a character with a -3 penalty to INT checks will, on average, fail tasks only 15% more often than an average person, who by virtue of being average has no bonus or penalty to that attribute. If we assume that the average IQ is 100 points, then a person who is 15% worse would have an IQ of 85. That's "low average," but it's not within the range recognized for people with certain mental disabilities.
If I were portraying a character with a low INT, I would play that character as if she had normal intelligence, and then I would deliberately make a stupid choice every so often to remind people that she's dumb.
Also, it's worth noting that Int has a couple of different facets to it. As described in the PHB, Int covers "mental acuity, information recall, and analytical skill." The Using Ability Scores section also adds "education" to that list. With those four facets, one could easily play a 5 INT character as a normal character with just a god-awful memory, or very little analytical skill.
The character might often ask questions that she should already know the answer to:
Example 1
5 INT PC: Why do you want that dusty old idol? It's not even gold.
Other PC: We were hired by the temple bring this back. It's the entire reason we came here.
5 INT PC (embarrassed): Right. I knew that. I was just . . . um . . . joking! I was joking! It's funny, right?
Example 2
5 INT PC: What's the name of this town again?
Other PC: Seriously.
5 INT PC: So I forgot. Big deal. We go so many darn places I can't keep all the names straight.
Other PC: You grew up here!
5 INT PC: Well you don''t have to be a jerk about it.
Example 3
5 INT PC: Stop him! He's running off with the, the, you know, the thing! That we need for the other thing!
The character might also simply ask someone else to explain things to her because she lacks the "analytical skill." Or maybe the character states the obvious as if she were saying something only she figured out.
Example 1
Other PC: It looks like there's guards at the front gate.
5 INT PC: Hmm. I guess we can't go that way then. We'll have to find another way in.
Example 2
Other PC: Damn, that last set of rapids put a hole in our boat.
5 INT PC: Right. Wait. So, what does that mean?
