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Message: <blockquote data-quote="BoldItalic" data-source="post: 6869326" data-attributes="member: 6777052">I'm going to haul this thread back on topoic and ignore posts that argue for the sake of arguing that the question shouldn't have been asked. <img src="http://www.enworld.org/forum/images/smilies/ponder.png"  class="smilie" loading="lazy" alt=":hmm:" title="Hmmm    :hmm:" data-shortname=":hmm:" />Here's a backstory for a genius with an Int of 5:Merander of Threbes (Male Gnome Wizard-1/Rogue-17), Professor of Logic and founder of the School of Innovative Thought at Sageville University, is a well-known genius. Ask any of the sages who work for him, and they will tell you so and give many examples of world changing discoveries and inventions he has to his credit. He is best admired for breaking 2048-bit encryption with a carefully-balanced clockwork teaspoon.He has an Int of 5. How does he do it? He gets other people to do his research and solve problems for him, then takes the credit, that's how. Not blatantly, of course. He doesn't even realize he's doing it, but that's how it works.He has a maxim that he impresses on his students: any idea that can't be explained simply, is wrong. He sets his students difficult problems (DCs up in the low 30s) of the type where finding a solution is hard, but once a solution is found it is easy to see that it is correct. Creating the formula for a new magic item, for example, is hard but it's easy to test it by making one and seeing if it works.When a student comes to him with a possible solution, he challenges the student to explain it to him in simple terms. He role-plays and pretends to be a genius pretending to have an Int of 5, which isn't difficult for him, and if the student can explain his solution well enough for even him to understand it, it gains his approval. His technique is to say "let me see if I've got this right" and paraphrase the idea, adjusting the paraphrase until the student agrees that it is a correct paraphrase.He then sends the student away with a new problem while he, the professor, starts to publicize the paraphrase (which is genuinely his own paraphrase) whilst omitting to mention that it wasn't actually his idea that he was paraphrasing.He's been getting away with it for years.Now, forumites, you're a brainy lot. Who can explain to me exactly how to balance the clockwork teaspoon?</blockquote>

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