D&D 5E Bringing a Real World Character to a Fantasy World

[Son of the Serpent]

..
140 is Genius level, IRL average is between 85 and 105 depending on which region you live in.

I never took offial tests but did the Karpov test and some other tests for myself, and i reached a score between 135 and 145. Some more modern IQ tests try to measure also social intelligence, but that gets a bit esoteric.
I consider myself to be above average, but surely not in the world top 1% or even top 5%, well maybe within the top 10-15%, that is my guess, but only with those older IQ tests which are based mostly on logic.
But intelligence also has an aspect of learned knowledge, not simply learned facts, but facts and how to implement and combine them.
IQ tests only can test common logic combination skills, and someone who is illiterate or does not know mathematics could still be quite intelligent, but would fail miserable at the test.
IRL IQ of 160+ is very rare, Einstein is rated to have probably had 165.

So your scaling is somewhat off (as is the common base for IQ tests eventually, who knows?), if we assume Int 20 aka IQ 200 people to exist

Just to further illustrate what you said about iq differing signifficantly by region as it intersects interestingly with d&d scores and how they work, in most of the world the average iq is around 100. We consider two standard deviations above the norm to be profoundly gifted. In many african nations the average is roughly 70. Two standard deviations higher is 100. For those regions that is considered profoundly gifted, yet for most of the world that woupd be about average. 150 (not 140) is actually borderline genius and 160 is true genius benchmark (roughly). In those societies genius relative to the population would be 130, which would for most of the world yet again actually be "profoundly gifted". So it is an interesting question to ask, "should those with 130 from the region be considered a 16 int with knowledge skills just having a -3 miscellaneous modifier added or should they be translated into the game as a 13 int?

Iq is a fickle subject though. And for the record im just going to say really quickly that it is my opinion no one here is trying to offend anyone. Iq is just another grouping of facts to be discussed in the context of games. No need to assume any offense.

Iq distribution also varies by region in how wide or narrow the curve is. So another thing to consider is what width should be used? That question really does have an effect on the accuracy of the 1 through 20 possible int scores more than any other question. Furthermore it also differs by sex and neurology associated with conditions. For instance males with autism have particularly wide distributions that can be very low and very high. Certainly it can be assumed that elves gnomes and humans have very different bell curve widths. Its probably simpler to assume the width is the same between them though. But if it was very much different we would have to reexamine how racial modifiers worked if we wanted realism. But thays probably beyobd the cut off for fine detail so probably not to be worried about. Figuring it all out would probably take a lot of unnecessary complication anyway, but it is none the less interesting and assuredly effects the exact accuracy of the 1-20 ranged int scoring.

Its probably mostly accurate though.

 

[Coroc]

....

In many african nations the average is roughly 70. Two standard deviations higher is 100. For those regions that is considered profoundly gifted, yet for most of the world that woupd be about average. 150 (not 140) is actually borderline genius and 160 is true genius benchmark (roughly). In those societies genius relative to the population would be 130,
...
Furthermore it also differs by sex and neurology associated with conditions. For instance males with autism have particularly wide distributions that can be very low and very high.
....

I am totally with you, but please be careful these days when writing facts like these concerning challenged minorities (other than old white men), especially in social media other than the RPG forum here, where you can relate to a clear RP context. Some people these days tend to get offended so quick by pure facts, especially in the country i live in.

I got some slight autistic behaviour sometimes, and it makes me feel intelligent sometimes and stupid some other time

 

[doctorbadwolf]

IQ is just a bad measurement, is the thing. Trying to go beyond very vague benchmarks for people educated by mainstream western/western style education systems is...nearly useless.

DnD Strength 10 represents a fit person who does manual labor for a living. That is stronger than the modern American average, but at the average for most eras of history before our own.

Likewise, Int 10 could be lower than the average modern person from an advanced state with good education and nutrition, because it’s the average for a society with poor nutrition and little education.

Or, here’s the thing, we could not overthink this stuff, and just take the book at it’s word, let people imagine themselves how they want, and just play the game.

 

[Oofta]

..
140 is Genius level, IRL average is between 85 and 105 depending on which region you live in.

I never took offial tests but did the Karpov test and some other tests for myself, and i reached a score between 135 and 145. Some more modern IQ tests try to measure also social intelligence, but that gets a bit esoteric.
I consider myself to be above average, but surely not in the world top 1% or even top 5%, well maybe within the top 10-15%, that is my guess, but only with those older IQ tests which are based mostly on logic.
But intelligence also has an aspect of learned knowledge, not simply learned facts, but facts and how to implement and combine them.
IQ tests only can test common logic combination skills, and someone who is illiterate or does not know mathematics could still be quite intelligent, but would fail miserable at the test.
IRL IQ of 160+ is very rare, Einstein is rated to have probably had 165.

So your scaling is somewhat off (as is the common base for IQ tests eventually, who knows?), if we assume Int 20 aka IQ 200 people to exist

Which was my point earlier. What percentage of people have an 18 intelligence? If we knew that then maybe we could could make some correlation (or not, IQ tests are crap). On the other hand, if people think of people that would max out intelligence, those people have very high IQ scores.

I'm okay with the simple calculation, but that's because at a certain point IQ is kind of meaningless in any real world sense; the correlation is just a general yardstick.

Same thing as strength. Bench press? Dead lift? Caber toss? Arm wrestling? The real world just doesn't break down to the simplicity of D&D.