I think you should get a bonus to skills based on your INT score, but they can only be used for INT based skills. 16 INT? Great, you can pick up History, Religion, Arcana as a bonus. You're big brain does not let you get acrobatics though. Or perhaps for every bonus of INT you can spend it to get expertise on a skill even if you aren't a rogue or bard. Still gotta spend the skill point, but you can focus on it to a level that sets you ahead of others. Something like that.
To me, I’d rather just give everyone more skills, and let people represent being very smart with more knowledge skills.
Expertise is too powerful. I second getting extra languages for high Int. There’s very little in the game that gives you more languages aside from weak feats and being able to speak to a variety of races/cultures just adds more rp possibilities. It enables social skill checks instead of making existing ones overly powerful. . It also means that a party doesn’t have to rely on magic (comprehend languages or tongues).
Yeah, like I said I’m fine with more languages for higher Int. Especially since my well travelled sailor gnome with 15 Int would know more than Gnomish and Common.
Nice example of failing an Int (Athletics) check.
So applying my example to D&D, you could call for such a check if your player ever declares that he's looking to set up a trick shot, something like "I scan the room, looking for a piece of furnishing - a drapery, a candlestick, something - that I could shoot with an arrow to send flying into that lamp around the corner, and knock it over."
Success would mean that he's applied his archery trickshooting to the scene, and has found the outlandish geometry to make it work.
I tend to use Investigation for this, but I’d allow it if the character isn’t trained. I’ve been moving more toward complete divorce of skills from abilities, anyway.
I call for an Int check, and ask if there is any reason you’d have a proficiency bonus in the situation.
Yep, it's clear that I have failed, but that doesn't stop me from pretending like I know what I'm talking about.
make a Charisma check with proficiency if you’re proficient in Athletics or Deception. Advantage if you’re proficient in both.
I think smart people should be smart. I give +1 knowledge skill (history, religion, nature, arcana) per point of intelligence modifier.
Its a tragedy that intelligence is so underwhelming in 5e. Heck even wizards don't have to have high intelligence scores to be effective. Its amazing that wizards have any social standing at all. Here's what a 5e parent could be saying about their son.
"Well, he didn't have aptitude in anything, so we sent him to a weekend course to learn to be a wizard."
the fact they managed to become a wizard makes them exceptional. Most people don’t have levels.
Begond that, a 14 Int is incredibly exceptional for most races, and impressive even for gnomes. Most people have between an 8 and a 12 in all stats.
If you want a smart character, use your skill proficiencies for knowledge skills, and make sure your Int is above average.
It really depends on how you resolve said trivia contest.
Yep. Even outside not having to require rolls, each character should be rolling themselves, so each Barbarian is going to fail much more often than the wizard, and having simplistic rules for a trivia contest is going to get simplified results. Build encounters for the type of results you want.
How people justify multi classing really depends on dm and campaign. Some don’t allow multiclassing. I usually require a player to have a good reason. Maybe they’ve had a magic book for the last few years and only just recently learned to decode it. Or maybe we hand waive one year passing. I know lots of dms don’t care about that kind of thing though.
Yessir. For me, multiclass character “builds” are replacing a class progression. Thematically, there is no multiclass. My rogue/wizard is an exception, bc he started learning wizardry after meeting a threat he couldn’t even touch with mundane prowess. My wife’s Druid levels on her ranger are simply part of making the character as magical as her concept called for. She didn’t go study druidry, she just is progressively getting closer and closer to the spirits, exactly as if that were just how the class was built.
Ie, we view it as the “class” she is playing being a “Shamanic BM Ranger”.
