Help with 17. level Wizard

[green slime]

I have no problem with people having different ideas of fun.

If you want to play poker where you see everyone else's cards the entire time, go for it.

But, if you are talking RPing, then yes, NPCs should be roleplayed in a reasonable manner based on their backgrounds and their abilities.

If a wizard is super-intelligent and a coward, he should not do stupid risky things.

That's bad DM roleplaying.

And a lot of times, people think of (what they consider) "cool ideas" (let's have him gate in a mega-monster that eats him) and then justify bad DM roleplaying with the concept that any roleplaying is good roleplaying just because the person had a weird random thought that he wanted to try. Nonsense.

Roleplaying is only good when the PCs and NPCs do things in character, not when they do things totally out of character.


Btw, I consider a cowardly intelligent wizard doing risky stupid things to be on par with a Paladin walking down the street and suddenly assassinating a child for no reason. Bad roleplaying is bad roleplaying, regardless of the "cool result' that would occur if it happened.

I understood the message in your original post. I may even agree with your conclusion. Its just that the delivery of it was somewhat less considerate than I would've hoped.

And tell me, do you ever, in RL, ever do things out of character? Never surprised someone with an act they didn't expect from you? Or are you just so completely 100% predictable? People in extreme situations will react in unpredictable ways. Whether Accountants, lawyers, or chimney sweeps. What's so difficult seeing that this truth could apply to wizards or clerics? Emotions are NOT rational.

I find Poker a boring game, which absolutely fails to stir any interest within me whatsoever. Did I post; POKER is no FUN? And conclude with the insinuation that people who do enjoy it, enjoy being spoon-fed lame ideas?

 

[KarinsDad]

And tell me, do you ever, in RL, ever do things out of character? Never surprised someone with an act they didn't expect from you? Or are you just so completely 100% predictable? People in extreme situations will react in unpredictable ways. Whether Accountants, lawyers, or chimney sweeps. What's so difficult seeing that this truth could apply to wizards or clerics? Emotions are NOT rational.

It is not a matter of playing 100% preditably. Nobody can do that. And nor should they.

It is a matter of not playing miles out in left field with regard to character concept.

Playing an intelligent character is often the most difficult because we are not as intelligent as people as the Int number of a given character. So, many "not so bright" actions can be choosen by high Int characters by the player or DM who play them.

But, knowing this, we should at LEAST attempt to not have these characters be suicidal in order to mesh in a cool storyline element. I consider that lame. Instead of picking the first spell to come to mind on the fly in the game, such a character's typical decisions and reactions (spell casting-wise for example) should be looked through, thought out and written down ahead of time in order to emulate greater intelligence. And, self destructing is not a good decision, especially when it is thought out ahead of time (as in this case).

PS. Playing a relatively dumb character is also very difficult for people to do because they bounce back and forth from doing very smart things with the character to doing overly stupid things. I cannot remember the last time somebody pulled it off well in one of our games, but it is not an easy thing to do.

I find Poker a boring game, which absolutely fails to stir any interest within me whatsoever. Did I post; POKER is no FUN? And conclude with the insinuation that people who do enjoy it, enjoy being spoon-fed lame ideas?

No, I was just pointing out that people could play any game they want anyway they want and have fun.

But just like the Paladin example, the Wizard example stretches the imagination into the breaking point.

I can be kicked out of a movie and suddenly realize that I am in a theater because something happens on the screen that is so bad or unbelievable based on the premise of the movie that I lose the imaginative quality that drew me into the movie in the first place. The same can happen with DND when somebody does something so out of character that I suddenly realize that I am playing a game as opposed to interacting in an experience.

 

[Whimsical]

Oh god! That happened to me when I watched SW: The Phantom Menace the first time. Whenever young Anakin spoke, it kicked me out of the movie. I realized that he's a kid actor, everyone else is an actor, everything around them was sets and special effects. Afterwards, I would be drawn in and be into the movie again, then he would speak again and kick me out! I blame Lucas. Out of the MILLIONS of kid actors he could had picked...Ok I'm done.

 

[Snowy]

I'm not too sure how other people see it but this seems to be loadind too much onto intelligence, wisdom is the perception stat, the epic intelligence wizard can remember dictionaries and thearaurus', he can perform 4 dimensional calculus in his head and exactingly memorise the words and gestures for spells. Doesn't mean that he can accurately assess opponents abilities or his own that seems to be the high wisdom character that has an intuitive understandign of their place in the world, can damn near read minds with their sense motive and rule their emotions (will saves?).

If theres gonna be someone so perfect that they have thought of everything and planned for it sensibly surely they should have a sky high wisdom AND intelligence otherwise their gonna create a fiendishly complicated plan but miss some things either from not noticing/realising the problem (LOW WIS HIGH INT), or their going to be aware of all the issues and ramifications of every single action but not be able to create the plan that will deal with them all (HIGH WIS LOW INT).

 

[KarinsDad]

I'm not too sure how other people see it but this seems to be loadind too much onto intelligence, wisdom is the perception stat, the epic intelligence wizard can remember dictionaries and thearaurus', he can perform 4 dimensional calculus in his head and exactingly memorise the words and gestures for spells. Doesn't mean that he can accurately assess opponents abilities or his own that seems to be the high wisdom character that has an intuitive understandign of their place in the world, can damn near read minds with their sense motive and rule their emotions (will saves?).

If theres gonna be someone so perfect that they have thought of everything and planned for it sensibly surely they should have a sky high wisdom AND intelligence otherwise their gonna create a fiendishly complicated plan but miss some things either from not noticing/realising the problem (LOW WIS HIGH INT), or their going to be aware of all the issues and ramifications of every single action but not be able to create the plan that will deal with them all (HIGH WIS LOW INT).

Although understandable, this philosophy brings too many "mental" variables into the equation for most people (including DMs) to handle.

Does he make a mistake because he is stupid, or because he lacks common sense?

So unless the character has high stats in both, it becomes an easy tool for the DM to explain away mistakes, but it still has a feeling of unbelievability.

DM: "Sorry, he has an average Wis, so although he reasoned it out with his super high Int, he didn't apply common sense."

Huh?

What the heck does that REALLY mean?

It means that DND has multiple mental-like stats which overlap a great deal in real life, but are segregated in the game. So, it allows a DM (or player) to cop out in high Int low Wis or low Int high Wis situations and say that the NPC (or PC) did something he should not have done (pro or con) either because one stat was low, or the other was high without it really making sense that the character figured out to do the action.

For example, the high Int low Wis example in the PHB is the absent minded professor. Does an absent minded professor REALLY make mistakes which results in his own death in real life? Probably not very often. But, for some cinematic reason, we are expected to except this in a game as believable. Hmmmm.

It doesn't seem that believable to me. Smart people make mistakes like everyone else, but smart cowardly people (as per the Wizard above) do not even get near dangerous stuff in the first place if they can help it. A smart cowardly absent minded professor would either allow others to run his experiements, or he would run them behind protective glass. A smart cowardly wizard would either allow others to fight for him, or he would do it from range in a manner where his opponents cannot find him. But neither the smart cowardly absent minded professor or the smart cowardly wizard would do suicidal actions.