good wis, bad int/chr --- roleplaying advice?

Particle_Man

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I am trying to figure out how to roleplay a half-orc fighter, Neutral Good, with the following mental stats: Int 4, Wis 14, Chr 4. Any advice on how to roleplay it?

[Note: All comments about munchkinism will be cheerfully ignored].
 

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Intuition. You know something is wrong, or when someone is lying to you but you can't explain it. And you can't articulate much, so you might not feel you have to.
 

High wisdom means you are tough to charm and influence so you are stubborn. You don't convince others well so even if you set your heels in about something, others might go along out of exasperation but be angry at you for doing so.

The other way is he's very stupid and uncommunicative, but very aware natural senses wise (spot and listen are wisdom based).

Quotes "Huh?" "No!" "I don unnerstan, me no like it though."
 


Well...
Low reasoning capability with the 4 INT.
No force of personality with the 4 CHA.
Good instincts with the 14 WIS.

If people can confuse him with logic and reasoning, he will become confused. Because he has a small force of personality, he will more readily agree with others if they can overcome his misgivings that come from his instincts. My call is this guy will turn into a toady; a bard would be able to convince him of almost anything by just exerting his personality and confusing your fighter.

This is opposed to Gump; I think that guy had a fairly high CHA. Even if he became confused, he had sufficient CHA to support his WIS, and he would stick to his guns.

He might pipe up when he doesn't like a situation, but I imagine the party leader will soon be able to convince him how it isn't bad.

[EDIT] I had a fighter similar to yours in RttToEE. 6 INT, 11 WIS, 7 CHA. Unabashed munchkinism he was. Basically he ended up doing what one party member said, and would believe him no matter what. Gorbie believed him because that guy (Gareth) was nice to him and made sure my orc had plenty to eat and drink every day. That's all it took to win over his mind. From then on, he would have killed other party members if Gareth had directed him to. Be prepared to be bored - you won't really be able to participate in tactical or complex discussions. If the DM holds you to your ability scores, that is.
[/EDIT]

[ignore]

Are you a member of the Lolly Pop Guild?;) :D

[/ignore]
 
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Hmmm. . . . this is an interesting one.

I would play the character somewhere between a very, very smart dog and a 3-year-old child.

This is what I mean:

(I'll be using 'you', etc. to refer to the character.)

Int: A dog has a 2. You have a 4.

The single biggest advantage here is that you can communicate (probably like a young child -- say, 3 years old). But still, (as mentioned the previous post) your ability to express yourself is limited. This would include vocabulary, sentence structure, and complexity of ideas.

Your ability to learn is probably closer to the dog than the average 3 year old (who are quite intelligent and can learn amazingly fast). You learn slowly, and mostly pick up new 'tricks' via rote practice, and it helps to have a trainer :p. (But the few things you do know, you do very well . . .) There's a definite limit on the level of complexity that you can handle.

Another trait you might have is that you live in the present; the past and future are mostly beyond your comprehension. Thus, you only learn about cause and effect through experience, not observation and reason.

Wis: A dog as a 12. You have a 14.

Dogs can be very perceptive. They often seem to sense things the average person misses. You could especially play this one up if the DM lets you take the Scent feat.

This could also relate to your 'Neutral Good' alignment. You have an instictive sense of 'good person' (I like them and trust them) and 'bad person' (I don't like them and don't trust them). The downside here is that an evil person with a high bluff who looks good will very easily lead you astray,

As the previous poster said, this is all about intuition. But be careful to separate conclusions based on this from conclusions based on reason.

Cha: A dog has a 6. You have a 4.

Cha refers to your force of personality. You have perhaps as much influence on another person as a big but passive dog (i.e., a dog with lower than average Cha). They note your presence, but you have a hard time influencing them.

In general, other people will be dismissive of you. It is easy to ignore both your presence and especially what you say. If you ask for something, another person will perhaps treat the request with the seriousness they'd give to a request from someone else's child.

Overall, I personally would find this character difficult to roleplay because he has a hard time communicating and influencing others. If you have a good idea, first you have to decide whether or not your character would have thought of it. If it is 'simple' or 'intuitive' enought, you can tell the others. But then, if they're roleplaying well, will they accept your idea or ignore it (due to your low Charisma)? That would be very frustrating.

But hey, I hope you have fun. And I'm sure they're many other takes on the character which will prove more interesting than my rambling ideas. Good luck.
 

Particle_Man said:
I am trying to figure out how to roleplay a half-orc fighter, Neutral Good, with the following mental stats: Int 4, Wis 14, Chr 4. Any advice on how to roleplay it?

[Note: All comments about munchkinism will be cheerfully ignored].
I actually have the same problem with a character I'm playing, an orc druid with mental stats of 6 INT, 15 WIS, 7 CHA. I deal with it thusly: he is wise enough to understand that he is not smart or charismatic. He never makes hasty decisions, preferring instead to let intuition guide him through the slow process of critical thinking. He says little, preferring instead to listen to what others have to say and weighing everythng before making a decision. And since he knows that he is an imbecile, he took steps to gain possession of a magic item that gave him clarity - a circlet of intellect +2 :)

He is a challenging character to play but immensely rewarding all the same.
 

Play him as a very smart animal.

Sense Motive roll -- I circle the stranger, sniffing at his scent and reading his body language, since words are confusing.

Tim wins Sense Motive vs. stranger's Bluff -- Tim starts to growl and bristle at the stranger.

Always answer in grunts. Only answer questions that are short and made of simple words. Come up with funny sounding grunts for "Yes", "No", "NO WAY!", "I dunno", "After I eat", "Huh?", "ANGRY!" and "SCARED!".

Try to flirt with NPCs using the above grunts.

It could be a lot of fun.

-- Nifft
 

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