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Message: <blockquote data-quote="Willie the Duck" data-source="post: 8772049" data-attributes="member: 6799660">Fundamentally, we always have this issue with in-game smartness scores* in that how they likely would most benefit a character in an adventuring lifestyle would be that they would make good decisions, but that's almost always instead gated by player decision. *and for our purposes we'll ignore that games tend to mix and match terms and concepts of beneficial mental faculties every which way possible.Instead we have these alternate paths to making them useful like using the score instead of Str/Dex or gating abilities like Combat Expertise or extra reactions (or in mid-late 2E, getting to use the extra-languages granted for combat-focused proficiencies like fighting styles, specialization, bling-fighting, etc.). At a purely theoretical level, I think they all are approximately the same in value. Obviously 3e's specific implementation of the extra-abilities version did leave a huge span of score where there was no further benefit, but at the same time left open room for more Int-prereqed feats (whereas extra reactions works exactly if and only if extra reactions would be a significant tactical benefit). Maybe also one where Int allows you to get more situations where you get advantage on attacks. I tend to prefer these to 'replace' (normal combat stat with Int score) methods, if only in that the later are just replacing one hand-wavy abstract measure for another, and also because Str does have a benefit in combat (and, for all the grief Oofta is getting, they're not wrong that burly mighty knight character is a common fantasy gaming power fantasy that has systematically gotten most of its' niche eaten away in the currect system). Overall I wish that all attributes got individual and non-overlapping ways they benefited you in combat, but that is a significantly harder challenge to design. Plus, if the same is not done for interacting with the system in combat for spellcasters or the like, it again becomes another thing the martial classes have to be good at where the caster (or Moon Druid) gets to ignore some/all their stats. All of this is secondary to my primary preference of making class and level be the primary avenues of combat success with the role of attributes overall diminished (the real way, IMO, that we will get smart fighters or strong wizards, etc.).</blockquote>

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