D&D 5E Geniuses with 5 Int

[TwoSix]

Consider the Sphinx issue: if the party encounters the Sphinx riddle and the PC fails, he risks being eaten. But if the PC succeeds in figuring out the riddle but lies about it, he can wait until all the others are Sphinx Snacks and then answer the question properly, without ever having been at risk.

But that would be cheating. You, as a player, have a responsibility to frame your narration in a manner that doesn't violate the mechanical result. If you get a 3 on your Arcana check, you can't frame it in a way that would result in an outcome consistent with you having succeeded.

 

[Dausuul]

If I'm the new guy at the table and nobody thinks to enlighten me, I am very literally not playing the same game as the others at the table.

Well... yeah. If you join a new table, and they play a different way from what you're used to, and nobody tells you, you will not play the same way as everyone else at the table. If Elfcrusher joined your table, s/he would have the same problem. Welcome to D&D.

There is a difference, though. When you join Elfcrusher's table, you have more options than you realize. When you play your low-Int character as a moron, that's a valid way to play such a PC - it just isn't the only way. Elfcrusher at your table, however, has fewer options. If Elfcrusher makes a low-Int character and plays that character as a lovelorn genius, it's going to cause problems.

 

[MostlyDm]

No it isn't. There is a world of difference between actually failing a roll due to a penalty as you describe and- as Elfcrusher described- and actually having succeeded the roll and lying to others about it.
In the former, the PC failed to get the desired info due to a mechanical failure. In the second, the PC HAS the desired info and can act upon it...or suffer repercussions if it is revealed the PC knew the correct answer all along.

Consider the Sphinx issue: if the party encounters the Sphinx riddle and the PC fails, he risks being eaten. But if the PC succeeds in figuring out the riddle but lies about it, he can wait until all the others are Sphinx Snacks and then answer the question properly, without ever having been at risk.

If I had a character who wanted to use the "actually knows but voices tell her not to say" explanation, I would insist that they obey the dice. So if they failed a lethal intelligence check (to identify cyanide or whatever), I would expect their character does what the voices say even unto death. Thats the whole shtick of the character.

 

[MostlyDm]

Or, to use a personal, real-world example, one my current characters is a (houseruled race) hobgoblin sorcerer with 7 Str. I've described him as a big, burly guy...with a crippled right arm. He can use it to hold an arcane focus, but that's about it. I simply narrate him as never using melee attacks, and when he does fail athletic checks (not as often as one would think, since he has expertise due to a racial feature), it's usually because his arm isn't usable for the task. If he succeeds, it's something he's figured out how to do with one arm.

This is precisely why I don't think I could in good conscience refuse letting someone play Intelligence this way at my table.

I've absolutely allowed stuff like the quote above. A low dex character explaining it as having a club foot, for example.

As long as there's some consistency, and we have plausible in game explanations for the results of rolls, I'm basically satisfied.

 

[Ovinomancer]

So this thread, like many a similar one, is turning into "yes they are" "no they aren't".

Obviously neither side can prove their belief. But what exactly is lost by saying that stats are NOT definitional? That you can define it to mean whatever you want, as long as it doesn't affect game mechanics? What are you afraid of happening?

In the four example characters, as long as I describe the reason when I fail the roll, why do you care whether it's because my character is dumb vs. distracted (or whatever). Yes, as I've said, that makes me work harder. But, again, why do you care?

Well, to be fair, you're efforts are a refluff of game concepts. That flies at some tables, and doesn't at others. I recommend my excellent thread on what classes mean in fiction as an example. You're clearly in the 'refluff anything that isn't mechanics' camp. I spend a lot of time there as well, but I still have some quibbles with your efforts here.

Firstly, I'd allow most of your examples in my game. I'm pretty free with such narrative descriptions, so long as they're not abused. My issue in the other thread that this spawned from was representing an established literary figure as someone with a 5 INT, which notably doesn't follow any of your examples here as all of your examples are bad at INT, but for differing reasons. I've no problem with a character with a 5 INT being played as someone deeply flawed and those flawed being the reason they don't think well.

However, I think you're running into a bad issue with a free refluffing of what stats mean. This isn't like refluffing a longsword as a katana, because those are still both swords and used the same way. The fictional change there is slight. Refluffing stats to mean things different from the game text isn't a simple fiction overwrite, though, it's a change to a fundamental building block. 5e's pretty good for that because it's system design silos design elements, so you don't have the change cascade that 3 and 4e had, but still, touching those blocks can have serious knockon effects. Danny's slipperly slope isn't unreasonable if you allow fundamental building blocks to be reimagined on the fly during the game.

That said, though, none of your examples really refluff INT too much. Instead, you're still working with INT being reasoning and recall, you're just changing the fictional description of why you're bad at those things. A 5 INT is still bad at reasoning and recall, but instead of saying that's because you're just dumb, it's because you have some other flaw that's interfering with normal thinking, be it a patron, insanity, crippling social anxiety, or the madness of love. All of that works for me, so long as it remains a constant during play. Being a genius except when you fail an INT check isn't playing a flaw, it's gaming the system with a canny description. That might not be a problem for you, but it is for others that prefer more fidelity in their games.

 

[TwoSix]

As long as there's some consistency, and we have plausible in game explanations for the results of rolls, I'm basically satisfied.

This right here. [MENTION=6788973]MostlyDm[/MENTION], you can be my AlwaysDM.

 

[Ovinomancer]

But that would be cheating. You, as a player, have a responsibility to frame your narration in a manner that doesn't violate the mechanical result. If you get a 3 on your Arcana check, you can't frame it in a way that would result in an outcome consistent with you having succeeded.

There's an argument in the other thread that if the player solves the riddle, he need never roll. He only needs to roll if his declaration introduces doubt. If the player just has his character state the answer, no roll needed. This works with this construct because it substitutes the player's ability for the character's ability in all cases that the player can work out action declarations to avoid the need to roll.

Personally, I find that to be as bad as direct cheating. Gaming the system so you don't have to cheat to get the ends you would otherwise need to cheat to achieve is a distinction without a difference.

 

[Ovinomancer]

If I had a character who wanted to use the "actually knows but voices tell her not to say" explanation, I would insist that they obey the dice. So if they failed a lethal intelligence check (to identify cyanide or whatever), I would expect their character does what the voices say even unto death. Thats the whole shtick of the character.

Consistency is key.

 

[TwoSix]

There's an argument in the other thread that if the player solves the riddle, he need never roll. He only needs to roll if his declaration introduces doubt. If the player just has his character state the answer, no roll needed. This works with this construct because it substitutes the player's ability for the character's ability in all cases that the player can work out action declarations to avoid the need to roll.

Well sure, but that's just pawn stance play, which goes back to OD&D (and is quite common in OSR play as well). It prioritizes smart gameplay by the player over inhabitation of the character's "personality".

 

[TheCosmicKid]

If I had a character who wanted to use the "actually knows but voices tell her not to say" explanation, I would insist that they obey the dice. So if they failed a lethal intelligence check (to identify cyanide or whatever), I would expect their character does what the voices say even unto death. Thats the whole shtick of the character.

I agree: to be fair to the game mechanics, the player is going to have to play the character this way. And the DM is going to have to withhold information from the player that the character "knows". I think this is precisely the problem with playing a low Intelligence like this. It creates an artificial player/character disconnect, and it paints the player's roleplaying options into a corner, effectively taking control of the character out of their hands.

Consider how this character might play out in a book or movie, without being tied to a low Intelligence score mechanic. She identifies the cyanide, and then has to decide whether her commitment to her patron is worth risking death for. This could be a key dramatic moment. She might dramatically renounce her patron and pour out the drink, or she might dramatically down the poisoned wine. Either way, it's good fiction. But playing this character at the table as Int 5, you can't get either dramatic benefit. The character can't choose to pour out the drink, because then she would be benefiting from an Int score she doesn't have, and when she does drink, it's not a dramatic moment, because the DM hasn't even told her the wine is poisoned. It's just, after the fact, "You take 38 poison damage, because the wine was poisoned. You knew it, but you chose to drink anyway because of your patron."

But if you build this character as somebody with high Int who just lies a lot, then the player can know what the character knows and can make the same decisions the character is making.

There's an argument in the other thread that if the player solves the riddle, he need never roll. He only needs to roll if his declaration introduces doubt. If the player just has his character state the answer, no roll needed. This works with this construct because it substitutes the player's ability for the character's ability in all cases that the player can work out action declarations to avoid the need to roll.

Personally, I find that to be as bad as direct cheating. Gaming the system so you don't have to cheat to get the ends you would otherwise need to cheat to achieve is a distinction without a difference.

If a riddle is a special, once-or-twice-a-campaign event, then I have no problem with the players solving it irrespective of their characters' Intelligence scores. It's an old, old trope for the fool to come up with the answer when everyone else is stumped. It wasn't Gandalf who got the Fellowship through the Gate of Moria, after all. So if the game plays out that way, great!

But if riddles are a regular thing and the player of the low-Int character is regularly solving them, I'm probably going to start asking for some Intelligence checks. Like you said, consistency is key.