D&D 5E Don't play "stupid" characters. It is ableist.

[Voadam]

The two bolded parts above add up to bad faith play in my view: the character's defined weakness has been arbitrarily turned into an in-play strength.

Underplaying a character is fine in that even though you're playing something as a weakness the underlying strength is still there if-when you need it.

The only way I can see to build a Sherlock-Holmes Monk would be to roll stats and hope you get at least 5 really good rolls! (you could dump-stat Charisma perhaps)

Whereas I as a DM am much more interested in a player playing a fun and interesting roleplay concept than them trying to match roleplay to their character's ability stats. The latter adds zero to my enjoyment of the game.

I am perfectly comfortable with Sherlock Holmes monk being stat built to be equal as a combatant with Sherlock Holmes Wizard and not being a behind the curve monk to narratively play as Sherlock by making their MAD worse.

I generally feel any stat/class build can go with any roleplay characterization.

 

[Mordhau]

Side note: I agree it isn’t usually, but a player can always choose to roll their stats in order (if rolling is allowed of course), so there is the option to let randomly generated stats determine what kind of character you get, if you want that.

You can - but you can also roll your Bonds, Flaws and Ideals, which is actually a much better way to see what kind of character you're going to play today.

 

[doctorbadwolf]

Sorry, no go. One of the things an Int score defines is the general ability to learn (which is largely done via memorization, something specifically called out in 5e's definition of intelligence); so here it wouldn't matter whether your PC had previously been exposed to formal education or not, it still ain;t much of a learner.

So, learning disabilities = stupid. Got it. Awesome.

 

[Charlaquin]

I disagree, in that there's no check involved when a character comes up with a bright idea or a smart strategy or a brilliant plan; all of which are things a low-Int character might stumble into doing once in a while but aren't going to happen often if the player is honouring the stat score.

The 5e Player’s handbook describes Intelligence as (paraphrasing) education, deductive reasoning, and ability to recall lore. I don’t see any reason a character who is bad at those things should be unable to come up with a smart strategy or a clever plan. Moreover, I think as equal parts roleplaying and game, it’s important that D&D honor both player skill and avatar strength. Coming up with good plans and strategies is a part of player skill, and I wouldn’t forbid a player from doing so because of their stats. The reduction in avatar strength is sufficient.

But, that’s my preference. Yours may differ, and that’s fine. Enjoy the game any way you like.

 

[Charlaquin]

You can - but you can also roll your Bonds, Flaws and Ideals, which is actually a much better way to see what kind of character you're going to play today.

That is fun to do! But you do need to pick a background first to do that.

You could always go full random. Roll for race, roll for stats in order, roll for background, roll for personal characteristics, then pick a class that suits whatever person fate handed to you.

 

[Mordhau]

That said, I'd still take this "my character is smart but has had a very sheltered upbringing and no formal education" with a great big grain of salt in case you're just trying to carve yourself a loophole for later exploitation: the character hasn't had formal education but if ever exposed to such it'll be smart enough to take full advantage of it, quickly rendering that '6' meaningless.

Sorry, no go. One of the things an Int score defines is the general ability to learn (which is largely done via memorization, something specifically called out in 5e's definition of intelligence); so here it wouldn't matter whether your PC had previously been exposed to formal education or not, it still ain;t much of a learner.

The sheltered upbringing piece would IMO play more into Wisdom than Intelligence.

There' are rules that cover actually getting the opportunity to learn formal education in D&D. They're called proficiencies. If my 6 Int character picked up History then he would be as good at it as any other 6 Int character. If he wanted to picked up Expertise in Arcana he could through a feat and this would somewhat mitigate his low INT (Unless the GM ruled that he was too stupid to be a skilled expert - which would be a house rule).

The Int ability clearly doesn't affect the ability to learn anything. It only affects how good you can become on Intelligence skills.

You seem to act as if rules are being changed. No rules are beings changed! There is nothing here that can be exploited.

The only changes that take place here are completely outside the rules.

 

[Mordhau]

That is fun to do! But you do need to pick a background first to do that.

You could always go full random. Roll for race, roll for stats in order, roll for background, roll for personal characteristics, then pick a class that suits whatever person fate handed to you.

Yeah. But the point here is that roll ability scores to see who your character is is a pretty primitve way of achieving this end. There are much better ways in modern gaming to achieve this goal, that give you much better more usable information.

 

[Charlaquin]

Yeah. But the point here is that roll ability scores to see who your character is is a pretty primitve way of achieving this end. There are much better ways in modern gaming to achieve this goal, that give you much better more usable information.

I mean, to me the point of rolling ability scores is to see what class the character is suited for. I prefer to have more authorial control over personality and such rather than leaving that up to the dice, but randomly determining ability scores gives me an initial direction for the mechanical build.

 

[Mordhau]

I mean, to me the point of rolling ability scores is to see what class the character is suited for. I prefer to have more authorial control over personality and such rather than leaving that up to the dice, but randomly determining ability scores gives me an initial direction for the mechanical build.

Yes. This is because they do a much better job at telling you what you're good at than who you are.

 

[Charlaquin]

Yes. This is because they do a much better job at telling you what you're good at than who you are.

Yeah, exactly! Randomly determining what the character is good at appeals much more to me than randomly determining who they are.