D&D General You Were Rolling Up a New Character, and Just Rolled a 3. What Is Your Reaction?

[Swarmkeeper]

It's a flaw in the rules that allows very-low-Intelligence characters to know three languages when in reality they would barely know one.

If you're not willing to roleplay a dumb or clumsy or weak character then don't put the low roll there.

Also, keep in mind we're talking about the extreme-outlier ends of the bell curve here. Further, 3-4-5e with their linear bonus structure suggest a far greater practical difference between a 8 and a 14 in any stat than do the IMO much more reasonable 1-2e setups where the bonus is j-curved at each end to better match the bell curve and has a big +0 region in the middle.

You do realize there's more than one way to play this game we all love, right? (well, maybe not all... but most of us)

 

[AlViking]

To make my position perfectly clear, I am saying that all D&D attributes are is a measure of that character's facility with the specific situations described in the rules, like spellcasting, making attacks, using skills. Things you roll for. That's it. An Int. 3 means that your character is really bad at those specific rolls. It does not means that your character has to be bad at everything that involves thinking or...they'd actually be bad at everything.

So a score only has to coincide with your RP as far as you, the player, prefer. If you want to play your Int. 3 character as briiliant in ways that aren't covered by the rules, then thats fine! It's fun! Go for it! They'll still never be a wizard, but maybe they are a genius at other things. Which mostly won't be relevant to your adventuring day, or they'd be covered in the rules, but might be very impactful on the story.

We have MANY examples of such people in popular culture. How intelligent is Doc Brown? He's obviously a super genius in some ways, but a total idiot in others. And you can say the same for every other attribute. It's all a matter of context. The attribute scores only apply to the context covered, specifically, by the rules.

If you have the intelligence of a standard house pet or a toddler, you should be bad at most things. Doc Brown? His wisdom may have been a bit lower than average but it was in no way a 3. In any case, it's just a matter of how we approach stats, a 3 is as low as humanly possible while still being basically functional. That's not a high bar. Meanwhile a 20 is higher than most mortals could hope to attain.

But it's a game. Play it your way but I disagree and people playing low stats for "humor" in my experience has been quite negative.

 

[Stormonu]

Anything below an 8 generally has gone in the "Unplayable Character" bin for the past 30 years.

Except when it's been Charisma, then you're stuck with the character.

 

[EzekielRaiden]

For the physical stats - Str-Dex-Con - the dice largely can take care of this. For the non-physical - Int-Wis-Cha - not so much.

Why the separation?

Why do mental stats need to be purely conducted by the player herself, while physical stats are left solely to the game mechanics?

This--this thing right here--is a huge part of why certain archetypes are punished and other archetypes are rewarded. It's why people see Fighters as the "stupid" class (hence the "Big Stupid Fighter"/"BSF" acronym), the kiddie class for clueless newbs, while Wizard is the class that unlocks the phenomenal cosmic power of the entire universe if you, the player, are already a mega-genius.

There needs to be an excellent, unassailable reason why we should allow one set of stats to have zero association with the human playing them, and the other needs to have near-lockstep 1:1 matchup between character actions and player actions. "That's what makes sense" is not an excellent reason, because it's literally just dodging the question. "Players should be creative and not rely on rules" is not an excellent reason--because it's circular reasoning, as physical stats somehow don't require creativity, but mental ones do.

 

[GrimCo]

Wouldn't be happy about it, but it's manageable. It would also highly depend on the edition, type of game and how good are rest of the stats. 5e? Easy. First off, most items don't give you +x to ability, they set ability to fixed number. Second, if it's combat light campaign, i'm going bard and dumping str. If it's more combat heavy or straight up H&S campaign, i'm going fighter and dumping CHA. Dumping INT also works, since outside skills, it's mostly useless.

 

[THEMNGMNT]

Assuming you are creating a new character, and
assuming that you DO roll your stats, and
assuming you DID roll a nat-3...
...what is your initial reaction?

I'll add more options as I think of them (and as people start commenting.) This is just for fun, nobody panic!

That 3 is going straight into Wisdom.

Foolhardy, oblivious adventurers = great adventures.

 

[Lanefan]

Why the separation?

Why do mental stats need to be purely conducted by the player herself, while physical stats are left solely to the game mechanics?

Because due to both physical limitations and (sometimes) local laws we have to abstract nearly all the physical activities our characters do. We can't climb walls at the table, nor balance on clifftops, nor throw heavy objects, nor - most importantly - fight each other. LARPing gets around some of this, but by no means all of it; and with the rarest of exceptions D&D isn't a LARPG.

Therefore, the stats relevant to those physical activities are going to meet game mechanics on a frequent and recurring basis in order to carry out these abstractions. And as such, those stats are very much going to inform play.

Players can, however, think and talk* at the table pretty much directly as their characters would in the fiction, with far less abstraction required. Here, though, in order for the non-physical stats to inform play on a vaguely equal basis with their physical counterparts, it's on the player to not only let that stats-inform-play process occur but to lean into it fairly hard.

Otherwise the players might as well just play their real-life personalities in the fiction, which will get pretty boring over the long term.

* - with all the in-fiction languages conveniently translated to English or whatever other language is spoken at the table, of course.

 

[EzekielRaiden]

Because due to both physical limitations and (sometimes) local laws we have to abstract nearly all the physical activities our characters do. We can't climb walls at the table, nor balance on clifftops, nor throw heavy objects, nor - most importantly - fight each other. LARPing gets around some of this, but by no means all of it; and with the rarest of exceptions D&D isn't a LARPG.

This is a reason to treat all stats this way, not to treat only some. We cannot translate fictional languages. We cannot cast spells. Etc.

Therefore, the stats relevant to those physical activities are going to meet game mechanics on a frequent and recurring basis in order to carry out these abstractions. And as such, those stats are very much going to inform play.

Players can, however, think and talk* at the table pretty much directly as their characters would in the fiction, with far less abstraction required. Here, though, in order for the non-physical stats to inform play on a vaguely equal basis with their physical counterparts, it's on the player to not only let that stats-inform-play process occur but to lean into it fairly hard.

Otherwise the players might as well just play their real-life personalities in the fiction, which will get pretty boring over the long term.

* - with all the in-fiction languages conveniently translated to English or whatever other language is spoken at the table, of course.

Again this is completely spurious. What differs in this from--say--a player who has stage fright being incapable of giving a rousing speech? A player who has discalculia being incapable of doing complex arithmetic? A blind player failing to visually poke at every nook and cranny?

Players can move and bend and jump and endure. Why do those get dismissed as "well it would be too difficult"? Who the heck cares? You've just responded with circular logic. If you already aren't asking the player to physically look at details in order to perceive them within the game, you're already accepting that mental scores have uses which aren't tied to actions of the player. Likewise, if you had an actual gymnast in your group, and said gymnast showed you that it was physically possible to do something you thought couldn't be done, would you continue to reject their character's ability to do it? Or would you grant it, since you'd been shown IRL that it was in fact doable?

Given I consider you a relatively reasonable person, I would think you'd accept a physical demonstration like this. But that would mean you'd account for physical things your players can do, as part of what stats can do. Likewise, I doubt you demand players physically search every corner of a physical room in order to find objects--the player has to show initiative, but the actual observing is trusted to mechanics, no? At which point we have counter-examples in both directions: a player using their physical ability to demonstrate that something can be done, and a player not using their own IRL capabilities but instead relying on mechanics.

Yes, I grant that many physical feats are things a player cannot personally do. The exact same logic applies to mental feats. There are some people can do, and some they can't. To demand perfect represntation of the mental and zero representation of the physical remains unjustified--because exceptions are allowed in both directions.

 

[tetrasodium]

Because due to both physical limitations and (sometimes) local laws we have to abstract nearly all the physical activities our characters do. We can't climb walls at the table, nor balance on clifftops, nor throw heavy objects, nor - most importantly - fight each other. LARPing gets around some of this, but by no means all of it; and with the rarest of exceptions D&D isn't a LARPG.

Therefore, the stats relevant to those physical activities are going to meet game mechanics on a frequent and recurring basis in order to carry out these abstractions. And as such, those stats are very much going to inform play.

Players can, however, think and talk* at the table pretty much directly as their characters would in the fiction, with far less abstraction required. Here, though, in order for the non-physical stats to inform play on a vaguely equal basis with their physical counterparts, it's on the player to not only let that stats-inform-play process occur but to lean into it fairly hard.

Otherwise the players might as well just play their real-life personalities in the fiction, which will get pretty boring over the long term.

* - with all the in-fiction languages conveniently translated to English or whatever other language is spoken at the table, of course.

Not only that, they can directly or abstractly describe actions their characters take. Im not sure if even be surprised about a 3int druid pc player saying their wild shaped druid mimes/gesticulates/scrawls in the dirt/interpretive dances a primer on advanced theoretical physics in base 2/base 8/base 12/base16/base20/base60 so much over the years so much as call for an explanation is of why my apparent polymath player thinks not using decimal base10 is important
L

 

[Clint_L]

If you have the intelligence of a standard house pet or a toddler, you should be bad at most things.

That's my point. Int. 3 on a character is clearly not the same as the general intelligence of a house pet or toddler. You can build a perfectly functional character who goes on to great things, reaches level 20, etc. with Int. 3.

The D&D attributes do not have real world analogues. They are far, far too reductionist and simplistic for that. They are a game device that reflect a D&D character's competence at extremely narrowly defined tasks. There is no such thing in the real world as Int. 3, or anything like it.

In terms of roleplay, this means that your assumptions about how Int. 3, Char. 3, Str. 3 should be performed are completely biased and not based on any kind of objective reality. Objecting to how someone else chooses to play their character because of their attributes is simply projecting your own assumptions. The game mechanics will impose specific limitations that will probably suggest ways of playing the character to you, but extending these to judge someone else's interpretation of, say. Wis. 3 is totally subjective.

This goes the other way, too. Maybe I want to play my Char. 18 character as someone who is completely obnoxious and destable, but manages to get their way through sheer chutzpah and intimidation, while you see Char. 18 as the most charming person in the world. Both are valid! And if we think of pop culture characters, I am sure that we can think of examples of both.

That's why I think characters should be based on the things that writers have been building characters from forever - goals, flaws, needs - and not arbitrary scores that were designed as game aids, and derived specifically from war games.

Trust players to roleplay their characters the way they want. Diversity is a good thing. Maybe their intepretation will be something you never, ever would have imagined...and that is amazing!