Character ability v. player volition: INT, WIS, CHA

[pawsplay]

Remember that Climb, Listen, Spot and Ride (or some version of the same) are all skills - there's no reason Thog couldn't have ranks in some or all of these.

We were supposing that Thog's verbal abilities were consistent with overall mental ability, not with a lack of opportunities for linguistic education. As I noted, if Thog simply has a low level of verbal expression because he is a barbarian, we cannot presume he has a low Int. But if he is a native of the same culture as the other PCs, and does not have an expressive language disorder, we would conclude his overall intelligence is very low. People who are not intelligent enough to order their own food at restaurants are unlikely to have ranks in Ride or anything else.

 

[ProfessorCirno]

We're getting into some insane hyperbole here.

I'm not demanding that characters with Int 8 act like mentally disabled individuals. I'm saying that characters with Int 8 should not act like world renown scholars. They can help solve problems, but I expect them to not act like super intelligent people. And when they do solve the problem, I expect anyone who did so to RP it out, not just snap their finger and declare they know the answer out of the blue.

I'm saying that Int 8 characters should maybe act a little thick, not that they should be gibbering idiots.

 

[Ariosto]

I'm saying that Int 8 characters should maybe act a little thick, not that they should be gibbering idiots.

Well, we're just going to disagree there, at least when it comes to D&D. I don't see pretending to be stupid as adding anything worthwhile to the game, any more than I would think it a great asset when playing Bridge or Badminton. Quite to the contrary, I find it a subtraction most likely to be downright annoying.

It is simply not compatible with the object of the game I enjoy, the game as I learned it, to introduce such a rule. If I considered it some sort of necessity to take the names of game factors so literally, then I would change "intelligence" and "wisdom" and "armor class", and probably some other terms.

 

[Ariosto]

In The Fantasy Trip, an "intelligence" score governs how many talents and/or spells a character gets. Some people worked up their views of Conan of Cimmeria and saw that all the talents required a very high score. That, they said, was a problem, because while Conan was certainly no dullard neither was he a genius.

Maybe, if you find and choose some way of making it a practical problem. In game terms, it's primarily a simple point system for "builds" as noted above (a trade-off with strength and dexterity) and secondarily a basis for "perception" rolls.

Maybe someone else is a "genius" apothecary or engineer or something; not our Conan, regardless of intelligence score.

 

[StarFyre]

My players are more of the acting/hardcore simulationist crowd...you should see the roleplaying we had in friday's session..not a single dice used for about 2.5 hours out of a 4 hour mini session (I say mini since normally we play saturdays for 10-14 hour sessions).

From experience, with my friends sister as an example, i found that letting peoplesolve stuff for real was much better. I had a dungeon, that for an actual logical reason had lots of traps and puzzles, but i make peoplesolve them for real. Int/wis checks only give clues. AT the start, she had issues with complex problem solving, etc. That was some years ago. Now..whenever she has to roleplay, orsolve something, or answer something..she'sright there in the front trying her best, and her problem solving has gotten better.

My decision..if this style can help someone actually get better at stuff in real life...more confidence, better at solving/crtiical thinking, etc..then screw the rules/dice rolls..my was is better.

However, since they are actor styleplayers, a few times they've had characters with very low stats in like int, etc and they have tried as well as they could to act it out realistically....in one game, with a freind DMing, one player had a very low int and wisdom, so he played someone of a mentally challenging person, whom the groupcleric, was able to bring over and sucumb to his religion/god (people with low wisdom, etc would IMHO be easier to sway to stuff like churches, gods, etc)...and that player acted following the cleric around and acting like some dumb follower..

it was brilliant roleplaying and we had to applaud it afew times after sessions...

Sanjay

 

[Voadam]

Remember that Climb, Listen, Spot and Ride (or some version of the same) are all skills - there's no reason Thog couldn't have ranks in some or all of these.

Well in 3e low int gives you less skill points. If Thog is an int 8 half-orc fighter he can only put one skill point per level into his physical skills. And listen and spot will be cross-class.

 

[Voadam]

In 4e, at least, you've got a ton of options for a high-int character that gets a lot out of his high int. Play a swordmage or tactical warlord with high int if you want to be a smart melee guy (or any other class with Int primary or secondary; warlock, avenger, bard, invoker, shaman, artificer, and psion all do).

And there were options for doing much the same in 3.x, even if some didn't work out as well as they could have.

You forgot wizard

As well as all the ones that don't have int powers: Cleric, Fighter, Ranger, Rogue, Paladin from the PH I believe.

Want to roleplay smart and be mechanically effective? Play these classes but not these other ones.

Aesthetically I prefer not limiting it that way.

 

[pawsplay]

We're getting into some insane hyperbole here.

I'm not demanding that characters with Int 8 act like mentally disabled individuals. I'm saying that characters with Int 8 should not act like world renown scholars. They can help solve problems, but I expect them to not act like super intelligent people. And when they do solve the problem, I expect anyone who did so to RP it out, not just snap their finger and declare they know the answer out of the blue.

I'm saying that Int 8 characters should maybe act a little thick, not that they should be gibbering idiots.

I think they should act like 90% of the people you have ever met, because 90% of the time, you probably can't tell the difference.

From the SRD: Intelligence determines how well your character learns and reasons. This ability is important for wizards because it affects how many spells they can cast, how hard their spells are to resist, and how powerful their spells can be. It’s also important for any character who wants to have a wide assortment of skills.

It has almost nothing to do with whether someone has good ideas, although reasoning can contribute. Intuition and knowledge are also sources of good ideas.

Wisdom describes a character’s willpower, common sense, perception, and intuition. While Intelligence represents one’s ability to analyze information, Wisdom represents being in tune with and aware of one’s surroundings. Wisdom is the most important ability for clerics and druids, and it is also important for paladins and rangers. If you want your character to have acute senses, put a high score in Wisdom. Every creature has a Wisdom score.

I'm not sure what you mean by "a bit thick," exactly, but if they have a Wisdom of 14, I wouldn't expect them to necessarily be dull. If they have a Charisma of 14, I wouldn't expect them to seem anything other than generally capable.

Saying someone should be a "bit thick" is way overinterpreting Int 8. At most, I'd say they are not exceptional at learning new skills. Int 3 is probably "a bit thick."

 

[Ariosto]

Well, it ticked me off a little when a fellow told me that my I 8 (in 4e, "built" by another) character should have prevented me from looking for traps. Not that anyone else in real life was "sharp" enough to think of it.

Mr. Your Character is Dumb got his own character stuck in the monster-laden pit that was perfectly obvious once I revealed it. Sure, I could play dumber than I am -- but there's no way for him to play less foolish than he is. I say that with some levity, because he is not a notably foolish or reckless person. The incident is more an illustration of how variable our judgment and temperament can be from occasion to occasion.

It is in response to just such memorable incidents that a persona's character tends in my experience to take shape.

 

[Nai_Calus]

4E I find abstracts things to the point where I can cheerfully just not care. If I can dumpstat STR to 8 and then use my massive intelligence to swing a sword as good as a fighter can and with as much force... Meh who cares, why not cheerfully assume that an 8 INT character is perfectly normal intellect-wise? (Which oh look, he kind of totally is.) (I don't have a character with an INT dumpstat, though I do use exactly that logic to cheerfully have my 18 INT Swordmage act perfectly normal and not like some know-it-all. He represents his high INT by being... Basically a historian. He's well-read and well-researched and travels the world looking for new bits of lore to add to his collection. He's not a super-genius. He's just fairly bright and educated.)

Some people would say that this makes 4e a bad system. I say it makes it a good system that doesn't try to tie your hands so much. I *like* my mechanics to be abstract and have little basis in 'reality'. But I'm not a simulationist, and I'm there to play a character and how he interacts with a story. Not interested in the slightest in whether or not I am roleplaying him absolutely perfectly to his stats. I do tend to build characters to *have* mental stats roughly in line with their capabilities as people, but find that it's impossible to perfectly model a person with a bunch of numbers... So I just shrug, get it vaguely close, and if Mr. 8 WIS has no common sense but is insightful and can tell what the people he's travelling with are feeling and thinking... Oh well, he can. Or maybe Mr. 18 WIS notices every little detail of things but can't read people at all. You can't model that in D&D anyway, so who cares? Play it if you want.

I'm a lot more interested in if people are playing interesting characters with fleshed-out personalities and motives than if they're perfectly portraying the random numbers on a sheet of paper.