D&D 5E 5th Edition Intelligence

[MG.0]

commiserate

I think you mean "commensurate".

Commiserate is "to feel or express sympathy". Your posts sounds pretty funny when you read it this way.

 

[Gimul]

I think you mean "commensurate".

Commiserate is "to feel or express sympathy". Your posts sounds pretty funny when you read it this way.

Good catch... auto-complete + multi-tasking... ;-)

 

[Sacrosanct]

LOL, well if you don't care about game design, I suppose I'm not here to argue that you should. I'll just note that what you describe, a stat with no mechanics (we used to call it Charisma in 1st Ed, and we liked it so much we split it into another mechanic-free stat called Comliness ;p ) isn't a role-playing game. It's just role-playing, period. Without rules there is no game, and people like me who care about game design believe that better rules will make a better game.

Is that what you took from my comment? Dude, I AM a game designer, so I very much do care about and understand the importance of game design from a mechanical context. The point you're missing is that you seem to be arguing that people are forced into doing something they don't want because option X is mechanically inferior in some way (either due to lower frequency of being needed or just plain a lower modifier) to option Y. I'm here to tell you that not I, nor anyone I game with, feel forced or coerced by a rule to play a character in a different way than what we want to. We are not slaves to the highest maximized PC. If anyone I know wants to play an intelligent fighter, we do so, because it's the most fun to role play, and that extra +1 we might be missing somewhere else isn't missed at all.

Also, just so you know, I have played 1e nonstop from 1981 to 2012 when 5e playtest came out, so I'm more than familiar with how Charisma worked then. Judging by your statement, it seems clear that you never actually played 1e. Charisma did have a mechanic tied to it. A very important one. Reaction and hireling loyalty. If you think Charisma was a dump stat that had no impact, then you missed half of what AD&D was about.

 

[Saeviomagy]

In the past I've tied xp bonus/penalties to Int.
Ex: Pathfinder has a slow/medium/fast xp track. It's SUPPOSED to be for determining the pace of the campaign. I've just re-purposed it....
If you've got a negative int mod? You use the slow track. A 0 mod? The medium track. And a positive mod uses the fast track.

So everyone has a 12 int because you've made int the 'everything' stat. There is no stat more important than level.

I've also tied skills to it alot more closely in 3x/pf. No longer does being a rogue/bard automatically start you with more skill points. Class dictates what skills you've got an advantage on (if you put points in it), but to get points you've got to 1st invest in Int. Smarter people have more skills....

I think you've swung too far in the opposite direction here.

Is that what you took from my comment? Dude, I AM a game designer, so I very much do care about and understand the importance of game design from a mechanical context. The point you're missing is that you seem to be arguing that people are forced into doing something they don't want because option X is mechanically inferior in some way (either due to lower frequency of being needed or just plain a lower modifier) to option Y. I'm here to tell you that not I, nor anyone I game with, feel forced or coerced by a rule to play a character in a different way than what we want to. We are not slaves to the highest maximized PC. If anyone I know wants to play an intelligent fighter, we do so, because it's the most fun to role play, and that extra +1 we might be missing somewhere else isn't missed at all.

This is a pretty pointless argument "the rules don't matter so your argument is invalid". The rules obviously do matter, or we would have no need of game designers.

Mechanically speaking a non wizard 5e character has very little need of the intelligence stat. I personally take the view that only observable mechanics matter to roleplaying. ie - if I have a high strength, then I do not need to have a musclebound character: the observable mechanics are that I can lift a lot, hit things with heavy weapons and physically move targets around the battlefield. If we never encounter an anti magic field, I could claim that my character has the power of short range telekinesis. Or has a robotic suit.

The fact that intelligence only manifests in:
1. How well my character can disguise themselves.
2. How well I can 'investigate', whatever the heck that actually is.
3. How well I can perform craft skills. Maybe. Depending on the DM.
4. How well I resist certain illusion spells.
5. Whether I know esoteric facts (unless those facts are about anything that another skill covers)
6. How 'hard' I cast wizard spells.
suggests that intelligence is not a stat that influences my ability to come up with plans at all.

In fact I'm hard pressed to say what exactly it is that high intelligence characters DO, apart from manipulate arcane magic slightly more effectively. And that's the failure of the int stat in the current edition. It has few mechanical perks and no real correlation to anything in the real world.

If your intent as a game designer is that a mechanic is supposed to mirror something specific, then it's in-game consequences should mirror that thing's consequences.

 

[iserith]

I reward going beyond what is required in all aspects of the game. Proper role-play is expected. That's the reason we make characters that are more than just lumps of stats to begin with. Even Muscle John over there with an 18 Str, an 18 Con and an 8 in every other stat has personality and wants and needs and loves and hates. I expect his player to play his character accordingly. If the player has Muscle John do something incredible that goes above and beyond the call of normal every-day role-playing expectations, that's what earns rewards. XP rewards you enough for doing what you need to do in order to win. Inspiration, Boons and other goodies are rewards for going beyond that.

I don't see it this way. I don't have an expectation of how a player should roleplay his or her own character. That's not my role as DM. I'm there to describe the environment and narrate the result of the adventurers' actions. I don't see any uncertainty in a player having his or her character offer an idea to another character - or any value in assigning what amounts to a penalty (the ability check) because the player isn't roleplaying in a way the DM considers "proper." XP is awarded for overcoming combat, exploration, or social interaction challenges. Inspiration is awarded for playing to established personality traits, ideals, bonds, or flaws.

It really depends on what the player wants to do. Is his plan "Lets attack them while they sleep!" I think that's a plan just about anyone could think up. Is his plan, lets send two men over to that ledge where they'll do this and that and send another guy over there where they'll do some other things, etc..." heck, even the 18 Int Wizard might have to make a check if the plan is complicated enough, shoot it might even be too complex for the rest of the party to properly execute!

A "good" battle plan, something middle-of-the-road-ish? I'd say an 8 at a minimum. I don't think that's unreasonable.

What happens when the Intelligence check is failed? The character retroactively doesn't come up with the idea?

 

[Sacrosanct]

This is a pretty pointless argument "the rules don't matter so your argument is invalid". .

That's literally the opposite of what I said in the first couple sentences. I think you need to reread what you quoted of me.

 

[Magil]

Personally I haven't seen many DMs actually use these rules, but in 4th edition, Knowledge checks would let you learn monster powers. This has been extremely important for the 4th edition DnD game that I DM, because monsters would tend to be homebrewed and have a variety of powers that could do a lot more damage to the party if they were not understood ahead of time.

I'm currently playing in some 5E games, but I may eventually convert the 4E game I'm DMing to 5E, if just to cut down the complexity at mid to high levels. I imagine I'd keep that part of it consistent--keep monster knowledge relevant to the players, make it important that they know what the monster is going to hit them with before it does so, and Intelligence becomes more valuable (as do knowledge skills in general).

It's not a perfect comparison, because knowledge skills like Nature and Arcana in 4E often had secondary uses (Nature took the role of survival in addition to monster knowledge for natural creatures, Arcana was used for interacting with and manipulating magical effects in addition to monster knowledge for magical/elemental creatures). But it's something worth considering, I think. Make lore important, particularly monster lore if your game is combat-focused, and Intelligence has more value.

 

[Mondobone]

Is that what you took from my comment? Dude, I AM a game designer, so I very much do care about and understand the importance of game design from a mechanical context. The point you're missing is that you seem to be arguing that people are forced into doing something they don't want because option X is mechanically inferior in some way (either due to lower frequency of being needed or just plain a lower modifier) to option Y. I'm here to tell you that not I, nor anyone I game with, feel forced or coerced by a rule to play a character in a different way than what we want to. We are not slaves to the highest maximized PC. If anyone I know wants to play an intelligent fighter, we do so, because it's the most fun to role play, and that extra +1 we might be missing somewhere else isn't missed at all.

I don't think anyone is arguing that they're being forced to so something they don't enjoy because the mechanics are inferior. I mean, my group of nearly entirely 8 int characters is not a group that doesn't enjoy roleplaying. We're all roleplaying our characters, we realize that we're not exactly brilliant and we act based on that information.

We also, though, try to play our characters in a manner we deem effective. Because if we're just roleplaying everything it isn't really a game, and we enjoy games. We enjoy challenges being placed before us and we enjoy trying to overcome those challenges. Building an effective characters combined with an effective party is part of that challenge. And even then, we aren't powergamers. Our barbarian didn't take a level of bard for any reason other than she wanted to play a drum. I know that a lot of my personal character creation choices are driven more by what my character would realistically have rather than what's mechanically most relevant.

But there comes a time where you do have to assign scores to your character. You have limited resources and they need to be divided. And when it comes down to asking "Well, how strong would my character be? Is he especially charismatic? Can he dodge arrows and roll through danger?" There's no real mechanical incentive or inspiration in most cases to say anything other than "His intelligence is probably only average." Not bothering to raise your int above the base 8 isn't a failure in roleplaying, it's a part of roleplaying inspired by a lack of mechanical relevance to intelligence.

 

[Hriston]

No, it's not even that. At least with roll play, you put everything into terms of modifiers and go by what those are.

Which is what several posters are advocating for by asking players to make an Intelligence check to see if they are allowed to think for their characters. I consider the freedom to decide what your character thinks, feels, and tries to do to be the most fundamental element of role play, i.e. assuming the role of your character.

What I'm referring to is ignoring the low modifiers or rating completely, because you as a player are smarter or more charismatic than your PC that used a dump stat for, and you're using player ability over character ability for those dump stats.

One side of this debate is advcoating for placing mechanical restrictions on players' rôle playing based on their characters' stats. Ironically, the argument is this needs to be done to ensure "good" roleplay. What this side doesn't seem to understand is if the dice are deciding what a character can and cannot think, then the player isn't actually being allowed to do any roleplaying at all.

 

[Sunseeker]

Inspiration is awarded for playing to established personality traits, ideals, bonds, or flaws.

I'm not sure why you're so vehemently ignoring the core stats as part of these things. They are the core stats for a reason, the very central definitions of a character, strong, smart, sexy, suave, etc... If a player isn't playing to them as well as other features of the character, again, why have them?

What happens when the Intelligence check is failed? The character retroactively doesn't come up with the idea?

No, as I said, I think 3 times now, their idea simply doesn't come across well in character. There are degrees to failure.