D&D 5E Geniuses with 5 Int

[Ovinomancer]

To elaborate a little, it is a characteristic of geniuses that they profoundly change the way we think about the world. This is hard to do and most people never achieve it. Only a very few people succeed.

(edit - added)

In D&D terms, the Hermit background might be good. The PC has made a great discovery, loses no opportunity to try to convince everyone that he is right and gets annoyed when people fail to understand him. Those who do understand him all agree that his discovery is a work of genius. None of this requires him to have any particular Int score. If he has a low Int and fails to solve mundane problems that require ability checks, it's because he is too pre-occupied with his own thoughts to bend his mind to the here and now. See? It works.

That's an... odd definition. It's outcome based: you have to change the thinking of people about the world in a profound way. Unless you do this, you're not a genius? Then, it remains to be seen that the hermit is a genius -- unless he changes profoundly the thinking of people about the world, then he's not, regardless of the depth of insight of his discovery.

EDIT: Also, this means that many religious leaders are geniuses, because they profoundly change thinking about the world for many, many people. Not sure that's a functional definition if a conversion counts as genius. Or, would you mean that the person must come up with the profound thoughts themselves? If so, L Ron Hubbard wants a citation for genius.

EDIT2: Oh, and my kids want genius certification. They definitely affected my thinking about the world in a most profound manner.

You're welcome to your individual definition of the word, but I'm not certain that's a very useful definition.

 

[Yardiff]

Oh man, I am so dense....I guess I couldn't believe what this whole thread is about. This whole thread is about not wanting role-play a low ability score.

 

[pemerton]

it is a characteristic of geniuses that they profoundly change the way we think about the world.

this means that many religious leaders are geniuses, because they profoundly change thinking about the world

Ovinomancer, I think you may have mistaken a necessary condition for a sufficient one.

(Qv: it is a characteristic of mammals that they are warm-blooded. This doesn't entail that an animal is a mammal just because it is warm-blooded.)

 

[pemerton]

Not sure exactly what corner-case pemerton is referring to.

Just for your information - I was thinking that the ZoT narration in the Eloelle scenario is a corner case, because - as written - ZoT treats as equivalent (i) PC knowledge (as a matter of shared fiction) and (ii) knowledge to which the PC's player has access in playing the game (which is what you are calling mechanics, I think, and which I have talked about as "access for gameplay purposes").

But the Eloelle scenario drives a wedge between these, because in the fiction Eloelle has knowledge (the truth that she has worked out in virtue of her genius) but the player doesn't have gameplay access to that knowledge, and indeed it would be cheating for things to be otherwise (because the player has put a 5 in the INT box on Eloelle's character sheet).

That is what leads me to describe ZoT, in the Eloelle scenario, as being a corner-case. (Remember, it was first raised in the thread in an attempt to show that the Eloelle scenario can't be maintained without breaking the rules. The reason it was chosen for this purpose is because it is a corner-case in the way I've described. But I agree with you that there is a feasible narration that doesn't break anything or require any cheating and allows the Eloelle narration to be maintained.)

I find it not only silly to try to parse the text...whether of Tolkien's work or the PHB...to prove that a narrow interpretation is the definitive one (rather than just one of many valid interpretations) but also kind of willfully unimaginative.

My response is a bit different from yours, but not wildly different.

I think it's natural that readings of the text will diverge.

I also think it's natural that for some people, they will think that there are good reasons that support their reading, and that others' readings are not as well supported.

But I think it's an error to describe those with whose readings one disagrees as having added to or departed from the text, as if this is meant to convey anything more than the bare fact of disagreement.

 

[pemerton]

This whole thread is about not wanting role-play a low ability score.

Not at all. This thread is about the variety of ways in which one might roleplay a low ability score.

There is Gygax's discussion of how to play a low DEX (agile and slippery in the grasp, but otherwise slow and clumsy).

There is [MENTION=205]TwoSix[/MENTION]'s hobgoblin with low STR (brawny, but with a withered dominant arm).

And there are [MENTION=6801328]Elfcrusher[/MENTION]'s examples of low INT (geniuses, but somehow blocked or precluded - by a patron, a tiger, the befuddlement of love, etc - from bringing the fruits of that genius to bear in any practical fashion).

These are all attempts at establishing fiction about the character which is consistent with the mechanical dictates of the low stat, but don't just read straight from the low stat to the character being feeble in respect of every personal attribute that the stat might measure.

 

[pemerton]

I'd have no problem allowing the player to declare they don't know without a check. They'd automatically fail any future checks on that topic, though, because they don't know.

Good point. I'd be okay with that as well.

Upthread, I suggested that the roll of a saving throw is something that happens at the table, in the real world, and doesn't obviously or immediately correlate to something happening in the fiction.

This characterisation of saving throws was rejected by [MENTION=23751]Maxperson[/MENTION].

Allowing the player to choose not to make a knowledge roll is treating the skill roll in the same way as I prefer to treat the saving throw: as something that takes place in the real world, at the table. If it was simply a model of ingame causal processes (as Maxperson asserts to be case for a saving throw), then the player would be obliged to make the check to determine whether or not the PC knew the information in question.
[MENTION=16814]Ovinomancer[/MENTION] has said, upthread, that ZoT talks in in-fiction terms (about creatures in the zone, etc), and that this is a reason for treating the ZoT saving throw in Maxperson's preferred fashion. But the rules for INT and knowledge checks are no different in this respect (SRD p 81):

An Intelligence check comes into play when you need to draw on logic, education, memory, or deductive reasoning.​

Clearly the "you" in that passage is talking about the character in the fiction, not the player in the real world. (Eg a player in the real world doesn't need to make an INT check in order to be permitted to draw on his/her education in the playing of the game.)

What, then, is the basis for treating knowledge checks in a different, more metagame fashion than saving throws? And why can Zone of Truth not be treated in the same way (which is what the Eloelle narration requires)?

 

[Yardiff]

Not at all. This thread is about the variety of ways in which one might roleplay a low ability score.

There is Gygax's discussion of how to play a low DEX (agile and slippery in the grasp, but otherwise slow and clumsy).

There is [MENTION=205]TwoSix[/MENTION]'s hobgoblin with low STR (brawny, but with a withered dominant arm).

And there are [MENTION=6801328]Elfcrusher[/MENTION]'s examples of low INT (geniuses, but somehow blocked or precluded - by a patron, a tiger, the befuddlement of love, etc - from bringing the fruits of that genius to bear in any practical fashion).

These are all attempts at establishing fiction about the character which is consistent with the mechanical dictates of the low stat, but don't just read straight from the low stat to the character being feeble in respect of every personal attribute that the stat might measure.

Where was this Gygax example agsin? 1e DMG? pg #?

 

[pemerton]

Where was this Gygax example agsin? 1e DMG? pg #?

Gygax's DMG, p 15:

The dexterity rating includes the following physical characteristics: hand-eye coordination, agility, reflex speed, precision, balance, and actual speed of movement in running. It would not be unreasonable to claim that a person with a low dexterity might well be quite agile, but have low reflex speed, poor precision, bad balance, and be slow of foot (but slippery in the grasp).​

How do we reconcile this character's slipperiness in the grasp with his/her tendency to lose grappling contests? By adopting a non-default narration of what is going on when, despite being slippery, s/he is repeatedly grappled by those of even ordinary DEX.

The same approach to narration is used by [MENTION=205]TwoSix[/MENTION] in the case of the brawny but low-STR hobgoblin.

The Eloelle scenario pushes this approach further again, but the basic spirit of it, and the relationship between mechanics and narration that are involved, is the same.

 

[happyhermit]

To elaborate a little, it is a characteristic of geniuses that they profoundly change the way we think about the world. This is hard to do and most people never achieve it. Only a very few people succeed.

...

That really is a strange strange requirement for a genius imo.

Under this definition, if I invent and build a time machine in my basement and use it to avert an impending apocalypse but nobody finds out, I am not a genius

 

[Maxperson]

Allowing the player to choose not to make a knowledge roll is treating the skill roll in the same way as I prefer to treat the saving throw: as something that takes place in the real world, at the table. If it was simply a model of ingame causal processes (as Maxperson asserts to be case for a saving throw), then the player would be obliged to make the check to determine whether or not the PC knew the information in question.

That's wrong. First off, a saving throw is forced on the target. Knowledge checks are not. Secondly, the player is just deciding what his character absolutely does not know. Similarly, you can have a PC intentionally fail a save. What the player could not do is decide absolutely what the PC does know. Like saves, all he can do is roll to see if he succeeds at the knowledge check. I treat both situations the same.