D&D 5E So 5 Intelligence Huh

[Hriston]

I'm sorry but that is simply not true, it can be very enjoyable playing a dimwit - and if a player at our table put a 5 in Int then yes, they would be playing a dimwit...

I didn't say it wasn't. Playing a character of low-Intelligence is not at issue from my point of view and is not what I'm arguing against. That's a fine choice and can be very enjoyable.

What would make it less enjoyable for me, however, is being told that choosing to attempt certain actions on behalf of my character is "wrong" RP. Then I'm not really playing my character, am I? Then I'm limited to doing only the things someone else thinks my character would do.

 

[Maxperson]

I didn't say it wasn't. Playing a character of low-Intelligence is not at issue from my point of view and is not what I'm arguing against. That's a fine choice and can be very enjoyable.

What would make it less enjoyable for me, however, is being told that choosing to attempt certain actions on behalf of my character is "wrong" RP. Then I'm not really playing my character, am I? Then I'm limited to doing only the things someone else thinks my character would do.

If you establish a fact about your character, say that he hates spaghetti and loves flowers, then suddenly because you just feel like it and with no real reason behind it, you suddenly have your character love spaghetti and hate flowers, that would be bad RP. It's the same with low int. By virtue of giving your PC a low int, you agreed to roleplay a low int PC. If you then decide to roleplay him as high int, you are engaging in bad RP. People can in fact roleplay badly, and roleplaying against established limits is one of the ways to engage in bad RP.

 

[TheCosmicKid]

If the DM is so concerned with Intelligence becoming a dump-stat that s/he feels the need to police players' roleplaying, s/he should instead set up the proper challenges to make Intelligence matter.

I don't think anyone here has expressed a concern with Intelligence being a dump stat. That's not what this conversation is about.

No, of course not, but make it your own.

Make up a new and different London Underground? Why? And wouldn't that break verisimilitude, especially for the players who are familiar with London?

That's a good idea in general, but players shouldn't have to lobotomize themselves to avoid knowing too much.

Now you're just being melodramatic.

An auto-success is just that. It has very little to do with what happens when there's uncertainty.

This is in response to a situation I expressly described as being an auto-success for one player and a roll for another even though the difference is indiscernible in universe. So no, clearly auto-successes and uncertainty can have a lot of overlap.

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It seems to me that something has gone wrong in the description.

Let's try a different example to see what that is: If Robert the player has a character named Conan and plays him as a mighty-thewed physical powerhouse, but on the character sheet Conan's STR score is 5, is this an inconsistency or not?

The answer is, surely, that the example isn't possible: because when a character with a STR score of 5 is actually played within the gameworld, according to the rules of the game, that STR 5 will result in a large amount of failure at physical feats. Not a lot can be lifted; doors can't be kicked in; Conan will tend to get beaten up in barroom brawls; etc. That is to say, you can't play a 5 STR character as a mighty-thewed physical powerhouse. You can try to do so, but the rules will kick in and produce a different sort of fiction that confirms that the 5 STR character is, in fact, something of a weakling.

So surely the same thing should be true for Arthur's character Sherlock: the character with 5 INT will fail at the sorts of checks that a brilliant detective would want to succeed at (like spotting clues, matching fibres to clothes, recognising voice even when muffled behind scarves or helmets, etc). So Arthur can try to play Sherlock as a brilliant detective, but the rules should kick in and reveal the truth about the 5 INT character - namely, not all that bright.

Yes, exactly. See again the example of Otto. Tries lots of Intelligence tasks -- fails almost all of them.

I think a number of posters clearly are advocating that a player whose PC has a low INT should refrain from certain action declarations (roughly, the ones that are too "clever" for a 5 INT person to come up with, or the ones that break stat-imposed "limitations"). If you're not doing that, I'm not sure what you mean by referring to a notional flaw "I am unintelligent" - how else do you expect it to come into play, but as a constraint on action declaration?

Flaws are supposed to be where you call out your character's weaknesses, right? Pretend for a second 5th Edition hasn't happened yet and there's no "flaw system". Ask a player what her character's "flaws" are, and a very low ability score is likely to be near the top of the list. It's a soft constraint on action declaration, because, as you and I have both noted, it affects what actions a character is likely to succeed at.

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I think what is appropriate is up to the player to decide. Sure, Int 5 Sherlock isn't as good as Int 10+ Sherlock when it comes to making Intelligence checks, but that Intelligence score doesn't prevent the player from playing that character. Player skill also mitigates the impact of that -3 modifier. If I turned up at your table with such a character and never let you see my character sheet, you'd probably have no idea that my Intelligence was sub-par.

Tell me, O skilled player, the London train schedule for the first week of August in 1886. And don't tell me "Sherlock looks it up", because Sherlock canonically has it memorized, so if your character has to look it up then you're modifying the concept in concession to your low ability score. (And finding the information you want may be an Intelligence check anyway.)

That's your preference, but it's not a rule. I'd also call into question your assertion that it is "old school," as [MENTION=42582]pemerton[/MENTION] has explained above.

It's not my preference. It's my recommendation based on the concrete fact that your character will be bad at the very thing your concept says he's supposed to be good at. If for some reason you roll for class, and you get barbarian, I'm also going to recommend you pick a character concept other than "wizened old master of the arcane arts".

That is another statement of your preference which applies to how you approach the game and the meaning you apply to Intelligence scores. Others might not do that. They're not wrong for doing so, right? I mean, I would prefer to have my Sherlock concept have a higher Intelligence so that those times I need to make Intelligence ability checks (which I will still try to minimize), but having a low Intelligence score only makes the character mathematically less effective in this regard. It imposes no other restrictions.

Can a player can take the flaw "I am unintelligent" and play the character as intelligent? The "I am unintelligent" imposes no restrictions, and unlike the Intelligence score doesn't even make the character mathematically less effective at anything. Thus if you're okay with playing an Int 5 character as intelligent, surely you should be even more okay with playing an "I am unintelligent" character as intelligent. Sure, the word "unintelligent" may directly contradict the word "intelligent", but so does quantifying "intelligence" with a number and giving the character a very low number. Those are just the meanings of words -- they're not rules, right?

I'm not cool with people saying the rules demand we play them a particular way (e.g. "with low reasoning").

The rules do actually say that "Intelligence measures mental acuity, accuracy of recall, and the ability to reason." So I'm going to stand by that. What I'll dispute is that this constitutes a demand that we play "a particular way". There are lots of ways to play a character with a low ability to reason.

Sorry to answer your question with questions, but it's probably the best way to address this: Can you imagine a situation in which the DM will not ask for an ability check to kick down a door? If so, can you imagine a player having his or her character set up a situation so that one is not necessary? If your answer is "Yes" to both, then you'll see what I mean by player skill making a difference.

If your character concept would have you kicking down doors, but instead of doing that you arrange for the door to be unlocked and then try the knob, then you are again modifying the concept in concession to your low ability score.

 

[iserith]

If you establish a fact about your character, say that he hates spaghetti and loves flowers, then suddenly because you just feel like it and with no real reason behind it, you suddenly have your character love spaghetti and hate flowers, that would be bad RP.

Not bad, but inconsistent or contradictory. It could be better in my opinion.

It's the same with low int. By virtue of giving your PC a low int, you agreed to roleplay a low int PC. If you then decide to roleplay him as high int, you are engaging in bad RP. People can in fact roleplay badly, and roleplaying against established limits is one of the ways to engage in bad RP.

Nope. Now if the player said, "My guy has an Int 5, so I'm going to play him as dim-witted and slow on the uptake..." and then played him in a way that consistently contradicts that, then yeah, an objection could be made. Having a number on a sheet isn't enough to establish that the character behaves in any particular in my view. Background/backstory, personality traits, ideals, bonds, and flaws is where that sits.

 

[JonnyP71]

At our table - if you choose to roll your stats then you play them how you arrange them. If you roll a 5 then you must put it somewhere and roleplay accordingly - exactly how you incorporate it into your character is largely up to you, but it must fit somehow. We write our backgrounds and personalities based around our stats, not try to squeeze stats into a preconceived character idea. A low stat is an opportunity to create an interesting flaw.

It really is as simple as that.

Thankfully all of our players are fully on board with this and don't try to worm out of it - and some of the results have been great. We have a PC with a Cha of less than 6 - he is portrayed as a total bigot who will not speak in sentences of greater than 1 syllable to any character of a different race than him!

 

[Maxperson]

Not bad, but inconsistent or contradictory. It could be better in my opinion.

Nope. Now if the player said, "My guy has an Int 5, so I'm going to play him as dim-witted and slow on the uptake..." and then played him in a way that consistently contradicts that, then yeah, an objection could be made. Having a number on a sheet isn't enough to establish that the character behaves in any particular in my view. Background/backstory, personality traits, ideals, bonds, and flaws is where that sits.

The game has established that a 5 int = low ability to reason. If you choose to play a 5 int, you are agreeing with the game that this is true. It doesn't force you to act in a specific way, but you do need to roleplay it as low.

 

[iserith]

Tell me, O skilled player, the London train schedule for the first week of August in 1886. And don't tell me "Sherlock looks it up", because Sherlock canonically has it memorized, so if your character has to look it up then you're modifying the concept in concession to your low ability score. (And finding the information you want may be an Intelligence check anyway.)

I'll make the check if the DM calls for it and use whatever resources I can, such as Inspiration, to increase my odds of success. An Int 5 doesn't mean I automatically fail checks, you realize. I'm just 15% less likely to succeed than a character with a 10 or 11 Intelligence, given the same DC.

It's not my preference. It's my recommendation based on the concrete fact that your character will be bad at the very thing your concept says he's supposed to be good at. If for some reason you roll for class, and you get barbarian, I'm also going to recommend you pick a character concept other than "wizened old master of the arcane arts".

I don't deny that Int 5 Sherlock isn't going to be as good mechanically as Int 15 Sherlock. That doesn't mean the player can't play Int 5 Sherlock as he or she sees fit.

Can a player can take the flaw "I am unintelligent" and play the character as intelligent? The "I am unintelligent" imposes no restrictions, and unlike the Intelligence score doesn't even make the character mathematically less effective at anything. Thus if you're okay with playing an Int 5 character as intelligent, surely you should be even more okay with playing an "I am unintelligent" character as intelligent. Sure, the word "unintelligent" may directly contradict the word "intelligent", but so does quantifying "intelligence" with a number and giving the character a very low number. Those are just the meanings of words -- they're not rules, right?

Yes, I'm fine with a player doing that. It's not smart play, however. They won't be earning any Inspiration. But that's their choice, not mine.

The rules do actually say that "Intelligence measures mental acuity, accuracy of recall, and the ability to reason." So I'm going to stand by that. What I'll dispute is that this constitutes a demand that we play "a particular way". There are lots of ways to play a character with a low ability to reason.

There are lots of ways to do that, but no requirement by the rules to do it.

If your character concept would have you kicking down doors, but instead of doing that you arrange for the door to be unlocked and then try the knob, then you are again modifying the concept in concession to your low ability score.

Try to kick open all the doors you want. Because you have a low Strength doesn't mean you have to act any particular way.

You're missing the larger point though. If you get stuck with a bad stat, you can mitigate the mechanical effects of that that through player skill.

 

[iserith]

The game has established that a 5 int = low ability to reason. If you choose to play a 5 int, you are agreeing with the game that this is true. It doesn't force you to act in a specific way, but you do need to roleplay it as low.

Which is a specific way - "low" - even if there are multiple ways to portray "low." Your argument doesn't hold.

 

[Maxperson]

Which is a specific way - "low" - even if there are multiple ways to portray "low." Your argument doesn't hold.

Yes it does. It is not a specific way, but it is a fact that low int = low reasoning in 5e. If you give yourself a low int, you have agreed to that.

 

[TheCosmicKid]

I'll make the check if the DM calls for it and use whatever resources I can, such as Inspiration, to increase my odds of success. An Int 5 doesn't mean I automatically fail checks, you realize. I'm just 15% less likely to succeed than a character with a 10 or 11 Intelligence, given the same DC.

On a mathematical note, this is a potentially misleading statement. 15% of the total possibility space is not the same as 15% of the probability of success. The difference between, say, 11/20 and 8/20 is not 15%; 8/20 is about 27% less than 11/20. And the difference gets bigger as the probability gets smaller. At the extreme end, you do automatically fail checks with a DC of 18 or higher. (And inspiration can't help you there.)

I don't deny that Int 5 Sherlock isn't going to be as good mechanically as Int 15 Sherlock. That doesn't mean the player can't play Int 5 Sherlock as he or she sees fit.

I don't know what you expect me to say here. It's a free planet. If you play this way, WotC isn't going to bust down your door, break up your game, and confiscate your books. You can ignore the dictionary meaning of the word "intelligence" and interpret that ability score as the character's shoe size if you want. But the rules are written in a way that assumes "intelligence" means intelligence, so if you play a different way while still using these rules you are going to run into friction between your character's concept and his performance. Yes, you can play this way, because nobody's going to stop you. But in your words:

It's not smart play, however.