D&D 5E How do you determine your initial Attributes?

[Maxperson]

Please provide quote and page number. Thx.


Which 5e has not... unless you can provide me with a concrete quote from the rules that I somehow missed.

Pages 177 and 13

"Intelligence measures mental acuity, accuracy of recall, and the ability to reason."

"8-9 -1"

A penalty = impaired, and it clearly tells you what that impairment means with regard to intelligence.

You can ignore that RAW and play your mentally impaired PC as highly intelligent, but...

 

[Maxperson]

Completely disagree (obviously). First off, trying to use animal ability scores as a basis for determining human(or demihuman) ability scores seems like a mistake right off the bat. Monsters, NPCs and PCs are all handled differently for a reason. Apes have an intelligence of 6 as a way of comparison to other animals to show how much smarter they are than most animals, not as a guideline for how dumb a person can be.

Nope. That's you assuming. NPCs are handled differently in that they don't have classes. They have stat blocks. Those stat blocks include ability scores which are identical to PCs. There is no rule that says otherwise that you can quote me. I on the other hand can show you how they are used like the PHB scores.

"Every monster has six ability scores (Strength, Dexterity, Constitution, Intelligence, Wisdom, and Charisma) and corresponding modifiers. For more information on ability scores and how they're used in play, see the Player's Handbook."

So as you can see, how the PHB describes them for PCs are how they are used in play for monsters and NPCs.

Second, even if you were to use it as a comparison point, who's to say that an ape can't be smarter than an impaired human? Apes in the real world are plenty smart, even to the point of learning language(sign language in this case). The limitations seem to be more of species than brain power. An ape that was smarter than most wouldn't suddenly be capable of human speech(in real life, anyway. In a fantasy setting? Maybe).

Koko learned more words than any other ape. 1000. That's it. 1000. The top quarter of 7 years olds know 7100 words and the bottom quarter know 3000. The smartest ape could only learn a third of what the bottom quarter of 7 year olds know. By age 5 a child should know a few thousand, so Koko was half of the average 5 year old.

Finally, if you're using standard array, then 1 of your stats is going to be an 8 (barring ASI use). That means that by your reckoning, at least one stat is impaired in a way similar fashion that Forrest Gump is with intelligence.

No. By my reckoning an 8 intelligence is impaired like Forest Gump who has an 8 intelligence in D&D. Other 8's are impairment in some way, but how impaired depends on the stat and what it means.

 

[Charlaquin]

And this conversation is why boiling intelligence down to a single number is an inherently problematic idea. Like, in the literal sense that it causes problems.

 

[Lyxen]

Honestly, all these discussions about intelligence, while interesting, are fairly pointless and actually more than a bit dangerous. There are many different types of intelligence in the world, and IQ is a dangerous concept to use, because not only does it measure only specific types of intelligence (mostly around logic), it is still based fairly strongly on education. This is why some really nasty people have used IQ statistics to try and push racist ideas around.

In a world which is even richer than our own, with "alien" intelligences around, but also "awakened" animals and creatures of all sorts, I don't think it's a good idea to try and rationalise everything. D&D is not that simulationist anyway, Intelligence is probably one of the hardest stats tor roleplay correctly and I personally feel that it's better to leave most stats, but in particular that one to the technical aspect of the game with a few bonuses where relevant, and for general comparisons of capabilities along very specific axis like pure memorisation.

 

[Oofta]

Completely disagree (obviously). First off, trying to use animal ability scores as a basis for determining human(or demihuman) ability scores seems like a mistake right off the bat. Monsters, NPCs and PCs are all handled differently for a reason. Apes have an intelligence of 6 as a way of comparison to other animals to show how much smarter they are than most animals, not as a guideline for how dumb a person can be.

Second, even if you were to use it as a comparison point, who's to say that an ape can't be smarter than an impaired human? Apes in the real world are plenty smart, even to the point of learning language(sign language in this case). The limitations seem to be more of species than brain power. An ape that was smarter than most wouldn't suddenly be capable of human speech(in real life, anyway. In a fantasy setting? Maybe).

Third, using the traditional 3d6, it's possible to have an intelligence of 3 in a character who is still functional enough to be an adventurer. If 8 is Forrest Gump, then what is a 4 in terms of actually still being functional?

Finally, if you're using standard array, then 1 of your stats is going to be an 8 (barring ASI use). That means that by your reckoning, at least one stat is impaired in a way similar fashion that Forrest Gump is with intelligence. Nearly every single PC using standard array is either neurodivergent, suffering from muscular dystrophy, etc. Or else you're applying standards to intelligence that you aren't to other stats, which probably isn't great.

If you don't want to use animals, use ogres. They describe them as "Few ogres can count to ten, even with their fingers in front of them. Most speak only a rudimentary form of Giant and know a smattering of Common words." Therefore the devs gave them a 5 intelligence.

Whether or not a 3 intelligence PC is viable is DM, player and table choice. I would say that they would be practically nonverbal, probably able to understand but only able speak a few words. If intelligence scores mean anything at all a 3 intelligence is slightly lower your average baboon.

But all measurements are relative. IQ in particular is a pretty nebulous concept and one that D&D oversimplifies (as do IQ tests, but that's another story). Most measurements are relative. I'm sitting still in a chair. But I'm on a planet that rotates while orbiting a star that's zipping along at a healthy clip while orbiting a galactic cluster that is moving ... and on and on. I'm only still based on my personal perspective. Intelligence scores only mean anything relative to each other.

P.S. for the record I always assumed apes in D&D were Tarzan-esque apes, which were smarter than most. I think baboons (int 4) are more accurate.

 

[el-remmen]

This is something I want to do. I want to create a set of arrays, mostly based on point buy, that fulfills the desire for RNG without making major character disparities. I'd like a few that are actually lower or higher than point buy, but not by much (maybe 2 points, tops). I'd also have a few that go beyond the point buy, such as having a 5-7 or a 16-17. Still working out the bugs though.

This is basically the first step of doing a stat draft, which is my other. I should do another sample stat draft on these boards. I did one back when I came up with the idea and reposted the results of an actual stat draft I did for my "Second Son of a Second Son" campaign back in 2007 or 08 - but it'd be cool to do another one for people to see how it works now that I have a lot more experience putting one together.

If I get enough interest, I will start a thread for it and get people to sign up.

 

[Maxperson]

Honestly, all these discussions about intelligence, while interesting, are fairly pointless and actually more than a bit dangerous. There are many different types of intelligence in the world, and IQ is a dangerous concept to use, because not only does it measure only specific types of intelligence (mostly around logic), it is still based fairly strongly on education. This is why some really nasty people have used IQ statistics to try and push racist ideas around.

What happened in the real world with regard to IQ has no place in the game. It's apples and oranges.

In a world which is even richer than our own, with "alien" intelligences around, but also "awakened" animals and creatures of all sorts, I don't think it's a good idea to try and rationalise everything. D&D is not that simulationist anyway, Intelligence is probably one of the hardest stats tor roleplay correctly and I personally feel that it's better to leave most stats, but in particular that one to the technical aspect of the game with a few bonuses where relevant, and for general comparisons of capabilities along very specific axis like pure memorisation.

Even if you don't want to equate it to IQ, the fact remains that by 5e RAW, an 8 intelligence is an impaired ability to reason, remember and you have impaired mental acuity. You aren't going to be average or better with a below average intelligence score.

 

[Swarmkeeper]

Pages 177 and 13

"Intelligence measures mental acuity, accuracy of recall, and the ability to reason."

"8-9 -1"

A penalty = impaired, and it clearly tells you what that impairment means with regard to intelligence.

You can ignore that RAW and play your mentally impaired PC as highly intelligent, but...

Thanks for proving my point. There are leaps one needs to take - and liberties one must take in ignoring the provided definition of role playing - in order to hardline prescribe how one must portray an INT 8 character in 5e. There is no "clearly tells you" about it.

Meanwhile, the book very explicitly tells us:
"A character with high Intelligence might be highly inquisitive and studious, while a character with low Intelligence might speak simply or easily forget details."
Suggestions. Qualifiers.

 

[Maxperson]

Thanks for proving my point. There are leaps one needs to take - and liberties one must take in ignoring the provided definition of role playing - in order to hardline prescribe how one must portray an INT 8 character in 5e. There is no "clearly tells you" about it.

I provided the rules that show a low intelligence = low ability to reason, remember, etc.

Meanwhile, the book very explicitly tells us:
"A character with high Intelligence might be highly inquisitive and studious, while a character with low Intelligence might speak simply or easily forget details."
Suggestions. Qualifiers.

Sure. You can take those suggestions for roleplaying the LOW intelligence or come up with your own that also represent a LOW intelligence. It's not saying you can just say screw it and play a high intelligence.

 

[Lyxen]

What happened in the real world with regard to IQ has no place in the game. It's apples and oranges.

Just pointing out the dangers of equating intelligence to IQ.

Even if you don't want to equate it to IQ, the fact remains that by 5e RAW, an 8 intelligence is an impaired ability to reason, remember and you have impaired mental acuity. You aren't going to be average or better with a below average intelligence score.

I agree that if there is a gradation, it's to be used in the game, but frankly, how often does this happen in the game ?

One of my favourite characters ever was a priestess with an Int of 8, and basically I did not play her dumb for what was a long campaign, because that would have been incredibly boring in short order. But she wrote everything down, on little pieces of parchment, that she sometimes lost (sometimes with hilarious or dramatic effect), and she sometimes (but not too often so as not to annoy the other players) asked other members of the party to summarise the situation for her. And that was it.

My partner is an orthophonist, who works with all sorts of people with impairment, cognitive, speech, etc. from very small children to elderly (or not so elderly, which is really sad) people who have diseases or accidents, etc. and there are almost as many factors as there are people. It's all well and good to say "impaired mental acuity", but what does it really mean in the game, knowing that it's still a game and should not be used derisively.

And there is the problem the other way around. How do you play someone with a genius-like intelligence ? This is why, honestly, especially for this stat (but also wisdom or charisma), I feel it's usually better to leave it to purely mechanical effects...