D&D 5E Geniuses with 5 Int

[Maxperson]

Maxperson, I don't understand why you keep bringing up this idea that Eloelle was lied to by her patron. That is not part of the scenario that Elfcrusher described in the OP.

It's the only logical conclusion. The patron gave her the answer. If the answer is incorrect there are two possibilities. The patron lied, or the patron was mistaken.

When Elfcrusher says Eloelle does not know the answer to the Riddle, what is meant is something like the following:

* Eloelle has 5 INT;

* Therefore, when Eloelle's player makes a check based on INT, the GM typically gives him/her no information, or false information - because that is what happens when a player does poorly on an INT check;

* Therefore, by the rules and conventions of the game, Eloelle's player is stuck in this position of ignorance or error as far as gameplay goes.​

Most of the time, it is a disadvantage to be stuck in a position of ignorance or error, because the context and consequences of action declarations are harder to work out.

Sometimes, though, it is an advantage to be stuck in such a position. ZoT (and ESP, and Domination used to interrogate, etc) is an instance of this: because if Eloelle's player is stuck in a position of ignorance or error as far as gameplay goes, when an evil cleric casts ZoT on Eloelle then all the evil cleric can get is ignorance and error!

Right. The evil cleric gets the incorrect answer. The ignorance and error portion.

Up to this point, I have said nothing about how Eloelle's player narrates her ignorance and error. Let's now add in that narration:

* Eloelle is mired in ignorance in error not because she is a fool, but because she is a genius who nevertheless follows the dictates of her patron to keep all truths hidden - hence she appears to be a fool;

* This appearance of folly continues even when s/he is subject to enchantments like ZoT, domination used to interrogate, etc, because her patron shield her from the magic and continues to demand that she spout ignorance and error.​

This cannot happen without altering the mechanics of Zone of Truth. There is no mechanical shield, so when she fails the save, she really fails it and has to tell the truth as she knows it, even if that truth is incorrect. The patron can demand all it likes, she either answers truthfully as she knows it, or refuses to answer altogether. She has no option to lie.

The overlay of that narrative does not change the gameplay of INT checks, or of ZoT, at the table. Eloelle's player does not have access to any more knowledge than that to which s/he is entitled in virtue of having a 5 INT PC. The GM's evil cleric does not have access to any less knowledge than that to which s/he is entitled in virtue of casting ZoT on a 5 INT PC.

The difference is never the less very profound. Different answers produce very different game results, even if the knowledge imparted is the same. The entire direction of the campaign can shift over that difference in narration.

Elfcrusher has tried to illustrate this by way of various thought experiments: Eloelle's player's narration could all be taking place on a blog; or be kept hidden from most of the players at the table; or be prefaced by an announcement: "I'm now going to do my Eloelle thing"; and nothing would change as far as gameplay is concerned.

I don't consider a profound shift in the direction of the campaign to be "nothing." Maybe you do. I don't know.

I take it that Elfcrusher is providing these thought experiments of the story-telling being divorced from play simply to drive home the point that the Eloelle narration is not a factor in action declaration or action resolution. In that sense, it is epiphenomenal.

The resulting lie will alter how the evil cleric reacts, which can shift the entire campaign. It is very much a factor.

Yet another would be another character (PC or NPC) realising that Eloelle has all the truths that she won't speak, and can't be forced to speak (due to the intercession of her patron) and hence coming up with some spell or ritual to extract them from her: mechanically, that would be something comparable to a Contact Other Planes or Commune Spell, and hence it wouldn't break anything to allow it to use Eloelle as the source of the information rather than other-planar beings.

This already exists. It's called Zone of Truth.

Part of the reason that I am sympathetic to the Eloelle narration is that I have something comparable in my 4e campaign. In that game, one of the PCs is a Deva invoker/wizard Sage of Ages. As a Deva, the PC has the Memory of a Thousand Lifetimes ability. As a Sage of Ages, the PC has +6 to all knowledge skills. At our table, the narration of the two is intertwined - the rationale for the player's successful knowledge checks, which give him (and his PC) access to information that can't be explained in terms of the actual play of the game (eg the character never visited the relevant library, or spoke to the relevant sage), is that he is recalling it from one of his thousand prior lives.

And this is great.

What would happen to this character in a ZoT? At the table, we have put no limits on what he can know from his prior lives - it is all narrated post hoc to give context to, and make sense of, successful knowledge checks. Is the player allowed to say, in response to queries under ZoT to which he doesn't know the answer, "I don't know", or is he obliged to roll a knowledge check which will almost always be an automatic success?

The PC you describe doesn't actually know everything. He just has access to a bunch of knowledge from past lives, so he can still have things that he doesn't know. That jives with Zone of Truth.

But ZoT would force that issue to be confronted. And it's not obvious to me that the only rules-consistent option is to say that the PC does know everything, and hence that there are no limits to what can be extracted via a ZoT spell. If the player simply wanted to declare "I don't know - in all my lifetimes I have never encountered that", I don't think that I - as the GM - could oblige him to make a knowledge check, which will almost certainly succeed (perhaps failing only on a 1 or 2, depending on the skill), and then hand over the information to the evil cleric.

Why would such a PC know anywhere near everything? Even with 10000 past lives, such a PC wouldn't know even half of everything. I don't see any need to rule that the PC knows everything and there are no limits as to what could be extracted. Heck, a simple question like, "What did I have for breakfast this morning?" would stump your PC.

 

[Maxperson]

If she failed the Int check, how does she have an answer to the Riddle?

Her patron gave to her. It's not her fault that he lied or was mistaken.

 

[Guest 6801328]

Her patron gave to her. It's not her fault that he lied or was mistaken.

Wait...how did her Patron give her a false answer? Where did THAT narration come from?

Are we talking about the same scenario?

 

[Maxperson]

Wait...how did her Patron give her a false answer? Where did THAT narration come from?

Are we talking about the same scenario?

He had to give her a false answer, or else she would be able to give the true answer despite the failed int check. If he is giving her true answers 100% of the time, you are violating both the int check mechanics AND the Zone of Truth mechanics.

Are you violating both of those by giving her true answers 100% of the time?

 

[pemerton]

He had to give her a false answer, or else she would be able to give the true answer despite the failed int check. If he is giving her true answers 100% of the time, you are violating both the int check mechanics AND the Zone of Truth mechanics.

Are you violating both of those by giving her true answers 100% of the time?

I quoted the OP not very far upthread. Here it is again:

Eloelle the Mistaken is a tiefling warlock, and she too is a genius. But her Patron is paranoid, and frequently when Eloelle is about to solve a puzzle or discover a clue, her Patron will suddenly whisper in her mind, "Fool! Don't share that knowledge with those worms you call your companions! You'll spoil my whole scheme!" So Eloelle intentionally gives her companions the wrong information. Sometimes they figure it out anyway, and they have concluded that she's just an idiot, a deception which suits her master's plans perfectly.

Eloelle is a genius. She solves every puzzle, discovers every clue, etc - but she does not tell anyone! Rather, at the behest of her patron, she spreads ignorance and falsehood. This is the narration that explains her 5 INT, that is, her inability to make decisions or convey information on the basis of sound reasoning and a good apprehension of the circumstances she is in.

In summary: she is a genius who seems to all outside observers to be a fool, because (at the behest of her patron) she keeps the truth hidden from everyone.

 

[pemerton]

Wait...how did her Patron give her a false answer? Where did THAT narration come from?

Are we talking about the same scenario?

There have been several posts over the past few pages where I've tried to raise this problem of misinterpretation with [MENTION=23751]Maxperson[/MENTION]. I've just had another go!

 

[pemerton]

This already exists. It's called Zone of Truth.

For reasons already discussed, that would break the game, because it would make a 2nd level spell as powerful as a 5th+ level one. In particular, it would give the PCs the benefit of access to genius-level knowledge although Eloelle's player only stuck a 5 into INT.

The PC you describe doesn't actually know everything. He just has access to a bunch of knowledge from past lives, so he can still have things that he doesn't know.

<snip>

Why would such a PC know anywhere near everything? Even with 10000 past lives, such a PC wouldn't know even half of everything. I don't see any need to rule that the PC knows everything and there are no limits as to what could be extracted. Heck, a simple question like, "What did I have for breakfast this morning?" would stump your PC.

Most of the time, in an epic level 4e game the information that villains might be wanting to extract is more dramatic than what some random person had for breakfast - though even then, the character may well have seen it as part of some vision of the future!

The mechanical issue is that the game does not have DCs for History, Arcana etc checks higher than the mid-40s. So whatever question is posed, the player has a very good chance of rolling a successful check. The actual constraint on the player's knowledge of backstory is how many checks he declares in a given session. It's a practical constraint arising from the realities of action declarations at the table, not a rules constraint.

If an NPC compels the PC to answer a question, though, on what basis can the player just say "I don't know" rather than make a check to find out - a check which will almost certainly succeed? The rules are not clear on this, and the narration that has grown up around this character doesn't help, because it deliberately establishes that his experiences and scholarship are virtually unlimited.

I should add - I'm not at all worried about it as a practical issue at my table. I am pointing to it as something where the narrative and the mechanics around PC mental states, and access to information, and INT-type checks, can all come into a degree of collision. Just as is the case for Eloelle. I don't regard these sorts of narrations as house ruling, and so don't tend to regard the narrations that sort them out as house ruling either.

 

[Guest 6801328]

He had to give her a false answer, or else she would be able to give the true answer despite the failed int check. If he is giving her true answers 100% of the time, you are violating both the int check mechanics AND the Zone of Truth mechanics.

Ahhhhh. So because you fail to understand the simple, clean logic of the scenario I'm describing, you are actually narrating an entirely different scenario of your invention, with some more complicated interactions between mechanics and narrative. That's cool. If you play a character like Eloelle you are free to narrate it however you choose. Isn't that cool? Sometimes the beauty and elegance of RPGs brings a tear to my eye.

(I'm giving you the benefit of the doubt and assuming that you are proposing your own, alternate scenario, and not trying to dictate to me what mine must have been. Which, ironically given my earlier thought experiment, would be a degree of control freakiness that would suggest that you are the one who should be writing fictional blogs instead of participating in collaborative storytelling with other people, ergo the purpose of RPGs. Which is why I won't assume it.)

Are you violating both of those by giving her true answers 100% of the time?

In my version? No. How could I if the DM doesn't give me the answer? Which he won't because I failed the roll.

 

[Maxperson]

I quoted the OP not very far upthread. Here it is again:

Doesn't matter. Even if she has come up with the answer herself and the patron just doesn't want her to share. She A) has an answer to give via zone of truth, and B) the patron has no mechanical power to keep her from giving it.

Eloelle is a genius. She solves every puzzle, discovers every clue, etc - but she does not tell anyone! Rather, at the behest of her patron, she spreads ignorance and falsehood. This is the narration that explains her 5 INT, that is, her inability to make decisions or convey information on the basis of sound reasoning and a good apprehension of the circumstances she is in.

She still has no ability to succeed at a save she failed at or lie under a Zone of truth. She must either refuse to answer, thereby cluing in the caster that she has an answer, or tell the truth and give the incorrect answer that she knows.

In summary: she is a genius who seems to all outside observers to be a fool, because (at the behest of her patron) she keeps the truth hidden from everyone.

Which is fine, but doesn't exempt her from the Zone of Truth mechanics

 

[Maxperson]

For reasons already discussed, that would break the game, because it would make a 2nd level spell as powerful as a 5th+ level one. In particular, it would give the PCs the benefit of access to genius-level knowledge although Eloelle's player only stuck a 5 into INT.

No. She can refuse to answer under Zone of Truth, so it is not as powerful as the 5th level version. She just has no option to lie about it, so the part would know she is keeping the answers to herself. Also, if it would give the PCs access to knowledge greater than her 5 int, then it isn't the Zone of Truth breaking the game, it's the character concept itself. A broken concept needs to give before the game does. Without a house rule anyway.

Most of the time, in an epic level 4e game the information that villains might be wanting to extract is more dramatic than what some random person had for breakfast - though even then, the character may well have seen it as part of some vision of the future!

The mechanical issue is that the game does not have DCs for History, Arcana etc checks higher than the mid-40s. So whatever question is posed, the player has a very good chance of rolling a successful check. The actual constraint on the player's knowledge of backstory is how many checks he declares in a given session. It's a practical constraint arising from the realities of action declarations at the table, not a rules constraint.

Very good does not equal the perfect knowledge you described, though. He can still fail, so there is no need to decide that he has perfect knowledge. A 45 DC is still a 20% chance of failure. That's nowhere near perfect knowledge.

If an NPC compels the PC to answer a question, though, on what basis can the player just say "I don't know" rather than make a check to find out - a check which will almost certainly succeed? The rules are not clear on this, and the narration that has grown up around this character doesn't help, because it deliberately establishes that his experiences and scholarship are virtually unlimited.

I don't know 4e, but if it compels the truth, then there is no basis for an "I don't know" instead of a check. The check would have to be made and an answer given if the check succeeds.

I should add - I'm not at all worried about it as a practical issue at my table. I am pointing to it as something where the narrative and the mechanics around PC mental states, and access to information, and INT-type checks, can all come into a degree of collision. Just as is the case for Eloelle. I don't regard these sorts of narrations as house ruling, and so don't tend to regard the narrations that sort them out as house ruling either.

How does that narration collide in your game? All it does is give a reason for his success with knowledge skills. A PC with a +40 and no such narration would have identical knowledge. Being forced to tell the truth is working as intended in 4e, with or without that narration.