D&D 5E Geniuses with 5 Int

[Guest 6801328]

Merriam-Webster.

Simple Definition of genius

1 : a very smart or talented person : a person who has a level of talent or intelligence that is very rare or remarkable


2 : a person who is very good at doing something


3 : great natural ability : remarkable talent or intelligence

Errr....maybe I remind you that you said there is exactly one definition of genius. You just listed three, two of them which even incorporate the word "intelligence."

 

[BoldItalic]

He will have difficulty remembering the correct paraphrasing of his students (penalty to memory check). He won't be able to reconstruct it via deductive reasoning when he does (penalty to logic & deductive reasoning).

He has a secretary who writes it down for him and reminds him about stuff. Basically, he plays the absent-minded professor who has far more abstruse things on his mind than mundane things like finding a pen.

Assuming he somehow actually received an education- as opposed to merely opening his own school like a con-man- how would he pass the tests?

He employed stand-ins to pass the test for him. He's a Rogue, remember? He cheated successfully.

When he teaches, he'll have problems constructing simple syllogisms. Any student who questions a logical argument construction will think circles around him.

He encourages the students to answer each other's questions. If they can't, he sets it as an exercise and sends them away to find the answer. It's sound education.

Any prolonged shop talk with other professors will soon reveal the truth of his intellectual shortcomings.

He flatters them that they are much cleverer than him. "I'm just a simpleton, you know," he declares, but they know he is a genius and that's the sort of thing a genius would say, so that proves it.

It takes wisdom, insight, persuasion and all kind of people skills to play the role he plays, but it doesn't take Int in the D&D sense.

 

[pemerton]

I see, so, in that example, LOL is lying inside the ZoT because she does know the answer?

<snip>

You say that this is fine because, mechanically, LOL doesn't know, and so when she says she doesn't know in the ZoT, that's not a lie mechanically. But ZoT doesn't check to see if what the character says is a lie mechanically, it checks to see if it's a lie within the fiction.

<snip>

I'm just confused at this point.

I don't think it's that confusing - or may be I'm confused in not feeling confused! (I'll rely on [MENTION=6801328]Elfcrusher[/MENTION] to correct me if necessary.)

At the table, the GM tells the player to roll a save vs ZoT. If the save succeeds, the player is free to stick to his/her standard narration of the PC.

If the save fails, the rules of the game require the player to have his/her PC hand over the information to which s/he has access - in this case, that is the information available to someone with an INT of 5. Assuming that information is false or wildly incomplete information (because that's what tends to happen when you make an INT check with a -3 penalty), the player is obliged to have his/her PC hand over this information.

In the fiction, this is narrated as the PC's patron (or love, or . . .) having protected him/her from the truth-telling magic, and the PC instead repeating the deception/error mandated by his/her patron (or tiger, or . . .).

Whether or not this makes for a good game, I think the basic idea is fairly straightforward. As far as the adjudicaiton of ZoT is concerned, it prioritises mechancial effect over a strict in-fiction reading. But that's not surprise, because we've already gone there in entertaining this approach to INT narration at all.

The rules are a tool. Their purpose is to allow players to build mechanical representations of their character concepts.

Isn't that's what's happening here? The player's concept is of a PC who is poor at achieving his/her goals by way reasoning/mnemonic endeavours (because his/her judgement is clouded, or s/he acts at the dictates of an external agent, etc). And s/he builds that PC by giving his/her PC a low INT, which means s/he is unlikely to succeed at action declarations pertaining to reasoning/mnemonics.

 

[Maxperson]

When I play, there are no secret notes, no moments when the DM takes a player aside, or anything similar. All the players know what's going on with all the characters. So at my table, this scenario you present would go differently than you seem to expect in your game.

See, Bob would know exactly what Elfcrusher is doing with Eloelle, and by casting ZoT Bob is intentionally engaging in that narrative, and is thus probably going to like it.

It seems to me that Eloelle's concept requires buy-in from the other players, but once they do, the game would work just fine.

I don't see that it really matters if Bob knows it or not. The mechanics of the spell say that Bob knows Eloelle failed to resist the magic, so if Elfcrusher narrates that Eloelle made the save, he's either creating a disconnect between the fluff and the mechanic, which breaks the game, or he's altering mechanics with his narrative. The same with his answer of, "I'm not going to tell you.", instead of "I don't know." or "insert correct answer here."

 

[Ovinomancer]

I don't think it's that confusing - or may be I'm confused in not feeling confused! (I'll rely on [MENTION=6801328]Elfcrusher[/MENTION] to correct me if necessary.)

At the table, the GM tells the player to roll a save vs ZoT. If the save succeeds, the player is free to stick to his/her standard narration of the PC.

If the save fails, the rules of the game require the player to have his/her PC hand over the information to which s/he has access - in this case, that is the information available to someone with an INT of 5. Assuming that information is false or wildly incomplete information (because that's what tends to happen when you make an INT check with a -3 penalty), the player is obliged to have his/her PC hand over this information.

In the fiction, this is narrated as the PC's patron (or love, or . . .) having protected him/her from the truth-telling magic, and the PC instead repeating the deception/error mandated by his/her patron (or tiger, or . . .).

Whether or not this makes for a good game, I think the basic idea is fairly straightforward. As far as the adjudicaiton of ZoT is concerned, it prioritises mechancial effect over a strict in-fiction reading. But that's not surprise, because we've already gone there in entertaining this approach to INT narration at all.

Isn't that's what's happening here? The player's concept is of a PC who is poor at achieving his/her goals by way reasoning/mnemonic endeavours (because his/her judgement is clouded, or s/he acts at the dictates of an external agent, etc). And s/he builds that PC by giving his/her PC a low INT, which means s/he is unlikely to succeed at action declarations pertaining to reasoning/mnemonics.

No, ZoT does not require that got hands over the answers. I posted the spell, fit goodness sake. ZoT requires that you tell the _truth_ on a failed save, and LOL is not telling the truth within her own narration. LOT'S narration is in direct confrontation with the mechanics of ZoT.

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[Guest 6801328]

You don't think a player who takes out a contract on a player who doesn't want to PvP is not disruptive? Or one who takes advantage of the DMs invitation to "participate in the fiction" to claim that he's making nuclear weapons?

I will call it disruptive, so I guess we'll just have to disagree on that.

You are definitely changing a statement in the core rulebook about what the Intelligence score is.

False. As I've pointed out several times, the text in the books only says that Intelligence is related to those skills/tasks. It does not define what the relationship is. It doesn't, for example say "Somebody with a higher Int score is all-around superior at these tasks than is somebody with a lower Int score." Now, I think that's a probably a fair interpretation, but it's not actually written. So when you guys get on my case about "rules" so I'm pointing out that RAW actually gives so much leeway in interpretation that it's barely a rule.

When you've got two competing brands of "truth", that's always a paradox risk factor.

Sure. And I'm saying the risk can be mitigated with creative storytelling.

I believe that you believe that, but I also ask that take a step back and consider seriously the implications of what you've been saying re: players who tug on the dangling plot threads of your narrative being "uncooperative".

"Tugging on the dangling plot threads" sounds benign. I think it comes down to the purpose: are you supporting the player by giving them challenging opportunities to roleplay the character they've created, or are you annoyed that they're using a non-canonical definition of Int so you're looking for ways to undermine their fiction? Surely you can acknowledge that those are two very different things?

 

[pemerton]

That's a great example. You're right, it might drive some of the people here crazy. "No, he turned back into a person because that's how long Hex lasts! If you let him get away with that you're giving him too much power! What happens when he gets hit with a permanent polymorph?!?! He'll just invoke his god!"

You hit the nail on the head, that's exactly what happened. I should dig up that thread, that was a good one.

The thread is here.

And here's he post about the paladin. Your post is 3 down: "I would lay good money on the fact that several posters will have a visceral reaction against that anecdote." The first of those reactions is in fact one post earlier than yours:

If I acted the paladin character, I might wonder after the battle:
1) Whenever an evil caster turns me into a frog, will the Raven Queen always turn me back to normal a minute later?
2) When an evil caster turns someone else into a frog, will the Raven Queen always turn them back to normal a minute later?
3) If an evil caster affects me with another foul spell, will the Raven Queen save me too, or does she only help with frog-related spells?
4) If (gods forbid!) I ever fell out of the Queen's favor, will she still save me? Would I be a frog forever? Or would I revert to normal after a minute whether or not I have the Queen's favor?
5) If I seek a wizard for advice, will he laugh and sing: What's the Raven Queen got to do with, got to do with it...?

The player's narration was nice for that moment, but it's still 'disassociated' from the big picture.

I DO respect players contributing to the narrative and making it more interesting and imaginative world. I just don't know that ad hoc narratives make the entire story plausible and consistent enough that resolves concerns of 'disassociation' for everyone else, except to those who are already on board.

We can see there all the same worries about repeatability and a lack of correlation between mechanical constrains and ingame causal constraints.

The rules are a tool. Their purpose is to allow players to build mechanical representations of their character concepts.

There's another way to look at the rules as a tool: their purpose is to ensure that action declarations play out as the player desires. So, if I want a PC who is likely to fail (or at least have trouble) when engaged in reasoning/mnemonic tasks, I give the PC a low INT.

(EDITED to delete bizarre double post. Pages 11 and 12 disappeared there for a while.)

 

[pemerton]

he's either creating a disconnect between the fluff and the mechanic, which breaks the game, or he's altering mechanics with his narrative.

I'm not sure what "disconnect" means here. If it means "you can't read the fiction directly off the mechanics without some additional creative injection", that's true but doesn't break the game.

 

[pemerton]

No, ZoT does not require that got hands over the answers. I posted the spell, fit goodness sake. ZoT requires that you tell the _truth_ on a failed save, and LOL is not telling the truth within her own narration. LOT'S narration is in direct confrontation with the mechanics of ZoT.

But I've dispelled the confusion, as I promised to do.

You've also more-or-less repeated back what I said - that this approach to ZoT prioritises mechanical effect (ie the handling of the players' entitlement to possess or deploy information within the play of the game) over a strict-infiction reading.

You mightn't like it, but you're no longer confused about it.

 

[TwoSix]

I'm not sure what "disconnect" means here. If it means "you can't read the fiction directly off the mechanics without some additional creative injection", that's true but doesn't break the game.

I'm pretty sure "disconnect" is being used as a synonym for "disassociated", because we can never ever escape that term.