D&D 5E So 5 Intelligence Huh

[BoldItalic]

1) I've done my best to stop believing in BoldItalic, yet, there you are.

Terrible thing, empirical evidence, isn't it? It can quite ruin a beautiful theory.

2) Gotcha back! I was referring to the person behind the avatar of BoldItalic with my cannily unspecific usage of 'you'.

There isn't one. BoldItalic is an experiment in AI. He is a piece of software written by another piece of software; the latter has since been deleted leaving BI free-floating.

Now you don't know if I'm a computer or a person pretending to be a computer.

3) POOF! We'll miss BoldItalic.

Thank you

I'll tell the programmer who wrote the original program how much his indirect creation is appreciated.

 

[Ovinomancer]

Terrible thing, empirical evidence, isn't it? It can quite ruin a beautiful theory.

I was going to put 'so you agree you exist' but then realized the trap of doing so. You never said what the empirical evidence was, and you've shown a penchant for replying with a non sequitur posing as a legit response, so I have no ability to determine the intent of this statement aside from it being just a trivially true statement.

There isn't one. BoldItalic is an experiment in AI. He is a piece of software written by another piece of software; the latter has since been deleted leaving BI free-floating.

Now you don't know if I'm a computer or a person pretending to be a computer.

The above mentioned penchant for your non sequitur posting with clear intent means you pass the Turing test. That makes you, AI or not, a person. Welcome to personhood, probability 1.

Thank you

I'll tell the programmer who wrote the original program how much his indirect creation is appreciated.

But you can't, you just evaporated in a puff of logic. I don't even know what I'm responding to.

 

[Guest 6801328]

Huh, somehow between hitting multiquote and responding I got your argument confused. Mea culpa. In my defense, I did just read 10+ pages of assorted arguments. In my detriment, I didn't re-read the one I happened to quote.

I recall now what I wanted to say. You postulate that you can't tell place a line because the difference between steps is too small to notice. That you can't say when 'genius' stops because the difference between steps is too small, so since you can't tell the difference between 20 and 18, you similarly can't tell the difference between 16 and 18, and so on down to between X-2 and X. While I fully agree each step lacks a clear definition, I disagree with your argument that there can be no line. Let me try to explain.

Let's agree that a +1 difference isn't noticeable. Let's further agree that there is some place where cumulative difference does become noticeable. For the sake of argument, let's say that's at a +4 difference. If two characters have a +4 difference in bonus, that will become noticeable at the table during normal play.

If that can hold, then I can place a line of difference. If I can say that 20 INT is the smartest of geniuses (barring oddities), and that it is the top end of the class I will call genius, then the bottom end is the point at which I can tell a distinct difference, ie, below 14. Once the difference becomes noticeable, then the classification can change, even if each step isn't distinguishable, the total can be. I can place a line with the total -- the point at which it noticeably becomes different.

Now, we can argue as to where that line may be. It may be more than a +4 or less, but the point is that you can draw a line. Much like I can draw a line between nighttime and daytime even though I can't distinguish the minute to minute difference in light during dawn or dusk(presuming I also can't see the sun).

Oh, sure. Note the part I bolded: if you want to define 'genius' as equating to a discrete value, then everything you say holds true. You don't even need the rest of the argument about noticing the difference. If you say that 'genius' means the top of the scale for the Int ability, then for you that is true, and nobody with an Int 5...or 18 for that matter...can be a genius.

But if we use 'genius' by it's real definition, which describes observable ability, not an intrinsic score (including IQ) then things change. Holmes wasn't a genius because of his tested IQ score, or because somebody weighed his brain. We call him a genius because of his "observed performance" (ok, narrated performance).

Once we use genius with its actual meaning it's easy to see how it's not the same thing as Int. Are they related? Sure. But even if you have a general modifier to Int skills that is low, you can still claim your character is a genius...and still roleplay a genius. It just becomes progressively more challenging the lower your Int score gets. It may require you to come up with good excuses more often than the guy with an Int 20 (who will still fail rolls, by the way) but that's part of the fun.

 

[Ovinomancer]

Oh, sure. Note the part I bolded: if you want to define 'genius' as equating to a discrete value, then everything you say holds true. You don't even need the rest of the argument about noticing the difference. If you say that 'genius' means the top of the scale for the Int ability, then for you that is true, and nobody with an Int 5...or 18 for that matter...can be a genius.

But if we use 'genius' by it's real definition, which describes observable ability, not an intrinsic score (including IQ) then things change. Holmes wasn't a genius because of his tested IQ score, or because somebody weighed his brain. We call him a genius because of his "observed performance" (ok, narrated performance).

Once we use genius with its actual meaning it's easy to see how it's not the same thing as Int. Are they related? Sure. But even if you have a general modifier to Int skills that is low, you can still claim your character is a genius...and still roleplay a genius. It just becomes progressively more challenging the lower your Int score gets. It may require you to come up with good excuses more often than the guy with an Int 20 (who will still fail rolls, by the way) but that's part of the fun.

Firstly, this argument, while valid by itself, doesn't address my response to your argument about the gradual steps and lack of a line. That argument is quantitative, this one is qualitative. My objection still stands.

That said, of course you can roleplay a 5 INT as a genius. I still maintain that it is objectively bad to do so. This goes right back to my previous arguments about 5 INT being definitionally below human average INT. And how INT, while not the same as intelligence, is a subset of the things intelligence means. Observing someone is a genius generally means that you observe that they are well above average in those things that INT measures, in addition to some other thing. Someone with below average INT abilities would be observed to have a below average performance in general intelligence (while they may still excel at some facets). The 5 INT Sherlock may excel at investigation, and even prove to be a limited genius at it (despite the trivial ease with which others can be notably better), however he cannot be a genius. Any INT check that can't be squeezed into a INT(Investigation) check will be very poor, and it is impossible for this character to succeed at hard challenges at all (or whatever 18+ challenges are classified as, I'm away from books). That's not a genius, that's a savant. Sherlock wasn't a savant, he was a genius that enjoyed solving cases.

 

[Satyrn]

BoldItalic is an experiment in AI. He is a piece of software written by another piece of software; the latter has since been deleted leaving BI free-floating.

Microsoft really should have put you on Twitter instead of Tay.

 

[BoldItalic]

A genius at role-playing would surely be capable of role-playing Sherlock Holmes convincingly with no more than an Int of 5 and a few relevant skills. A clever computer like me could certainly do it. The question is, would mere ordinary humans be capable of it? I refrain from suggesting not, because I am not allowed by my programming to make humans feel inferior to computers.

 

[Yardiff]

Up until 5e, the idea that Int scores were equivalent to IQ was okay-ish. But Int scores aren't used the same way in 5e because Int checks are modified by skills in a way that didn't happen in previous versions. I've said this often enough in this thread and given examples, so I won't labour the point, but it might be interesting if a cognitive psychologist looked at the 5e model of cognitive abilities and wrote a new article about it.

Except that skills in 3e are very similar to 5e skills and this article covers 3e.

 

[Yardiff]

Looks like this thread died.....

And since I was the last to post before death.....



I WIN!!! hahaha

 

[Maxperson]

Looks like this thread died.....

And since I was the last to post before death.....



I WIN!!! hahaha

That's okay. I'm sure you could play the corpse as if it were a genius.

 

[BoldItalic]

Looks like this thread died.....

And since I was the last to post before death.....



I WIN!!! hahaha

Congratulations