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Message: <blockquote data-quote="rollingForInit" data-source="post: 6768064" data-attributes="member: 6793360">I totally agree with this. An 8 Charisma character might be extremely talkative, nice and funny, but it doesn't mean the character has a forceful personality or is at all persuasive in arguments. Personally, I see Intelligence 8 as somewhat below average. They get a -1 modifier, so they can do most of the things an Intelligence 10 can. When I play characters with 8 Intelligence, I play them as having some sort of disadvantage. They could have a lack of general knowledge (bad education), they might have trouble memorising things by rote (learning a new language), have trouble with mathematics, or just not be very good at logical deductions. I try to treat the ability scores as being applicable only to the actual mechanics, as far as possible, and not have them affect the personality to any more extent than a player wants them to. Things such as coming up with battle plans (int), being talktative (cha) or coming with great advice (wis) feel more like background and personality traits than anything mechanical. If a player comes up with a plan, I wouldn't have them roll for it, unless the plan involves meta knowledge that the players have but the characters don't. Just like I wouldn't have a Con 8 character roll to see if they manage to ascend a stair or a Dex 8 character to roll for not cutting their fingers off while cooking.</blockquote>