Help me roleplay a "3" Wisdom

[Jürgen Hubert]

- Your character is utterly incapable of thinking about the long-term consequences of his actions. He might recognize that there are immediate consequences, but nothing beyond that. For example, he might think: "If I steal that jewel from the temple and get caught in the act, the temple guards will chase me." However, he might then conclude that this won't be a problem, since he is fast enough to get away from them - but the fact that he is now wanted as a thief throughout the city, or even the kingdom, is a problem he simply hadn't thought of.

- If there is some sort of problem, the character will come up with plans for "solving" them. These plans are utterly unrealistic of course, but the character will be confident that the problems are going to be sorted out. However, he will not make any actual preparations for these plans, always thinking that "there will be time for it later". And he will also automatically assume that his friends will help with parts of the plan - whether fighting the city guard or lending him a few thousands of gold pieces - and he will only tell his friends about the plan at the last possible moment, or (more frequently) when it is already too late. And he won't even have considered the possibility that his friends might say "no" or get upset at him!

- He will be utterly incapable of controlling his spending. He is an impulse buyer who will immediately purchase whatever might be "useful" to him, no matter whether it is actually useful or not - or whether he actually has such an item already (he has probably forgotten about them). Salesmen will have no problems at all convincing him to buy their stuff. The character then will later on deny that he had made any such deals to his friends - perhaps he has indeed suppressed the memory, perhaps he is embarassed for doing something foolish, or perhaps he thinks that denying Bad Things will make them go away.

In other words, he will be a pain in the butt to be around. His talents better be worthwhile to his party...

 

[dcas]

It means you have lousy observational skills, and you're bad at Will saves.

Beyond that, play whatever personality you like. There's no point constantly worrying about if you're playing him *whatever* enough. There's no reason the character's wisdom score has to be more than a minor note in his personality, if that.

I agree.

 

[Mishihari Lord]

Poor impulse control. If you have an urge, no matter how nonsensical, follow through.

As a thief, take anything not tied down -- regardless of who is watching, no matter how often you're caught. You'll pick up the king's scepter from next to the throne, while he is sitting on it.

That's what I did with my last low-wisdom character. It was a lot of fun.

 

[Shades of Green]

Intelligence is important here. If his INT is normal or high, you'll probably get a very, very cold and unemotional person, probably with very little common sense. The archetypical Mad Scientist(TM) probably has very low WIS - he might be very smart, but his schemes are whacky, obsessive, and disregarding of long-range consequences of morality.

 

[PapersAndPaychecks]

I'd disagree with some of the advice above. Don't confuse "low wis" with "chaotic"!

Mechanically, low wis means: Must be a thief; susceptible to mind-affecting magical attack.

Both the Gray Mouser (Fritz Leiber) or Cugel (Jack Vance) are good examples of low-wis characters from literature -- both intelligent, the Mouser's likeable, but they're both self-centred, susceptible to charm-type effects (particularly pretty women!) and they suffer from occasional but serious lapses of judgment.

 

[Nebulous]

I would think you are borderline mentally handicapped with a 3 wisdom. It would be fun to roleplay for a brief period of time, but eventually (soon probably) you would become a hindrance to the party, and in the world of fantasy monsters and abounding evil, a threat to yourself. Poor decisions, impulsive behavior and overall misconception about other's intentions would land you in heaps of trouble. IF roleplayed correctly anyway.

 

[Alratan]

I would think you are borderline mentally handicapped with a 3 wisdom. It would be fun to roleplay for a brief period of time, but eventually (soon probably) you would become a hindrance to the party, and in the world of fantasy monsters and abounding evil, a threat to yourself. Poor decisions, impulsive behavior and overall misconception about other's intentions would land you in heaps of trouble. IF roleplayed correctly anyway.

I'd say a character with 3 Wis isn't borderline medically handicapped, they're very severely mentally handicapped. I'd say they would be incapable of looking after themselves, and completely dependent on a full time carer. Think of a very extreme case of autistism, with a couple of other mental disabilities in the bargain.

 

[Kestrel]

Homer Simpson

"Doooonuts"

 

[hong]

I'd say a character with 3 Wis isn't borderline medically handicapped, they're very severely mentally handicapped. I'd say they would be incapable of looking after themselves, and completely dependent on a full time carer. Think of a very extreme case of autistism, with a couple of other mental disabilities in the bargain.

That would be a Wis of 2. Wis of 3 is within the range of possibilities for starting characters, and nothing in the books says you have to treat such a character as handicapped.

Nothing says that the difference between Wis 4 and Wis 3 has to be the same as that between Wis 3 and Wis 2. In fact, it's quite likely that the gap is much larger going from 3 to 2.

 

[smootrk]

Lloyd Christmas from Dumb & Dumber. Those guys actually knew stuff, but always misapplied meaning from those details; overactive imagination; lack of cause & effect realization; impulsive; ignorant of others' feelings... list goes on.