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<blockquote data-quote="rollingForInit" data-source="post: 6767148" data-attributes="member: 6793360">In answer to OP's question: Yes, I think Intelligence is too weak compared to the other stats. It doesn't suck, but it's nowhere near as important for everyone as Dex, Con or Wis, for instance. Regarding role-playing ... I've never understood the whole &quot;Your character has too low intelligence to come up with that plan&quot;. The way I see it, any plan that a non-adventuring player that's got no training in combat/burglary/infiltration/etc can come up, a D&amp;D character can come up with. The majority of all D&amp;D players would have 8-12 intelligence, after all. And besides that, most adventurers have experience. A 40-year-old, Intelligence 8 Fighter who's a seasoned battle veteran should be able to come up with much more brilliant battle tactics than a really smart player. People put too much importance on pure intelligence if they say that the fighter would be too stupid to come up with a great idea. I just use Intelligence for memory/knowledge checks, Investigation, solving puzzles, riddles or similar mental feats. If a character has lower than average intelligence, I might ask a player to explain how this reflects. Perhaps the character had a poor education and has some wholes in their general knowledge. Perhaps the character is lousy at mathematics. Perhaps the character is bad at logical deductions. Perhaps the character has trouble learning certain things, like memorising phrases in a new language. All good ways to play low-int characters, but none of them means the character is too stupid to come up with a great idea.</blockquote>

[QUOTE="rollingForInit, post: 6767148, member: 6793360"] In answer to OP's question: Yes, I think Intelligence is too weak compared to the other stats. It doesn't suck, but it's nowhere near as important for everyone as Dex, Con or Wis, for instance. Regarding role-playing ... I've never understood the whole "Your character has too low intelligence to come up with that plan". The way I see it, any plan that a non-adventuring player that's got no training in combat/burglary/infiltration/etc can come up, a D&D character can come up with. The majority of all D&D players would have 8-12 intelligence, after all. And besides that, most adventurers have [i]experience[/i]. A 40-year-old, Intelligence 8 Fighter who's a seasoned battle veteran should be able to come up with much more brilliant battle tactics than a really smart player. People put too much importance on pure intelligence if they say that the fighter would be too stupid to come up with a great idea. I just use Intelligence for memory/knowledge checks, Investigation, solving puzzles, riddles or similar mental feats. If a character has lower than average intelligence, I might ask a player to explain how this reflects. Perhaps the character had a poor education and has some wholes in their general knowledge. Perhaps the character is lousy at mathematics. Perhaps the character is bad at logical deductions. Perhaps the character has trouble learning certain things, like memorising phrases in a new language. All good ways to play low-int characters, but none of them means the character is too stupid to come up with a great idea. [/QUOTE]

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