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<blockquote data-quote="Dausuul" data-source="post: 4978689" data-attributes="member: 58197">Of course he doesn't suddenly get a 14 Intelligence. He's still going to fail every knowledge check he makes. My point is, that should be the extent of the limitation. Character concepts seldom start out fully formed; they start as rough sketches that get filled in over time. The more you enforce roleplay &quot;rules&quot; based on stats, the less effort players put into filling in those sketches, because they're concentrating on not breaking the (nebulous, ill-defined, arbitrary) rules. A character with a low mental stat becomes a cartoon caricature, like Kronk in your example - a character who has clearly never developed or grown or changed, and never will.There are mechanical rules for how Intelligence affects the game. There are not, and should not be, rules dictating what you can and cannot figure out. If I had a DM boot me out of a game for playing a character &quot;too smart,&quot; I would demand the DM sit down and write me up an extensive guide for exactly how smart (or stupid) my character is allowed to be, because otherwise it's just an excuse for people to be the roleplaying police.You think &quot;This character is a big dumb oaf, always was, always will be, the end&quot; is a good story?This points up the silliness of the whole thing. You think Int 24 is godlike. But it's a perfectly attainable stat in 3E or 4E - not even that hard at the higher levels - so is it &quot;godlike?&quot; Or is it &quot;heroic,&quot; in the same way that PCs might have &quot;heroic&quot; strength beyond what any real-world person does? Or is it merely &quot;maximum human intelligence?&quot; You might think one thing, I might think another, and the rules offer little to no guidance.But all right, let's go by pre-3E standards and change the number from 24 to 18. That's maximum human intelligence, the smartest guy who ever lived. How can you justify this guy not being able to solve every puzzle he's presented with, if it's solvable by human minds? Why can I as player not demand the answer to every riddle the DM throws at me?</blockquote>

[QUOTE="Dausuul, post: 4978689, member: 58197"] Of course he doesn't suddenly get a 14 Intelligence. He's still going to fail every knowledge check he makes. My point is, that should be the extent of the limitation. Character concepts seldom start out fully formed; they start as rough sketches that get filled in over time. The more you enforce roleplay "rules" based on stats, the less effort players put into filling in those sketches, because they're concentrating on not breaking the (nebulous, ill-defined, arbitrary) rules. A character with a low mental stat becomes a cartoon caricature, like Kronk in your example - a character who has clearly never developed or grown or changed, and never will. There are mechanical rules for how Intelligence affects the game. There are not, and should not be, rules dictating what you can and cannot figure out. If I had a DM boot me out of a game for playing a character "too smart," I would demand the DM sit down and write me up an extensive guide for exactly how smart (or stupid) my character is allowed to be, because otherwise it's just an excuse for people to be the roleplaying police. You think "This character is a big dumb oaf, always was, always will be, the end" is a good story? This points up the silliness of the whole thing. You think Int 24 is godlike. But it's a perfectly attainable stat in 3E or 4E - not even that hard at the higher levels - so is it "godlike?" Or is it "heroic," in the same way that PCs might have "heroic" strength beyond what any real-world person does? Or is it merely "maximum human intelligence?" You might think one thing, I might think another, and the rules offer little to no guidance. But all right, let's go by pre-3E standards and change the number from 24 to 18. That's maximum human intelligence, the smartest guy who ever lived. How can you justify this guy [I]not[/I] being able to solve every puzzle he's presented with, if it's solvable by human minds? Why can I as player not demand the answer to every riddle the DM throws at me? [/QUOTE]

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