How do you roleplay an Int 74 character?

[lord_banus]

A character with such a huge intelligence would be very adept at understanding complexity and so would have plans within plans within plans He would have vast networks of people under his control all working towards his goals.

Thats how I would do it.

 

[Brother Shatterstone]

So, how would you play a character with an Int of 74, but an average Wisdom, and a low Charisma?

As a very frustrated individual... He has the knowledge but probably has issues explaining his ideas to others. Maybe he has the habit of using big words and can't seem to find a way to break them down to laymen’s terms and even when he does describe them correctly people don’t see them, or him, as believable.

 

[Kae'Yoss]

You just take all your rulebooks to the game and read them up before you do anything. Oh, and of course the DM has to hand over all of his notes and tell you whatever you want to know.

 

[Zappo]

1 rank in any knowledge skill gives you a +33 modifier. You get at least 34 skill points per level. Basically, you know everything about any academic subject that you've done minimal study about. You can also instantly deduce anything that can be deduced from a bunch of information.

Imagine reading "Windows XP for Dummies" and a couple of web pages on C++ one evening, and building Windows XP from scratch during the following month (basically, the time it takes to type it in, very fast; you will not make any mistake and it will compile and run perfectly on the first try. Hell, forget compiling, you could write it in machine language).

Imagine casually leafing through the first ten pages of the most complex detective story, and ten years later saying who the killer was.

Imagine reading a couple of issues of a pop science mag, and thinking up the entirety of relativity and quantum mechanics before dinner.

Imagine knowing mathemathics. All of it. Since three days or so after birth, I guess. You still can't make simple calculations faster than a computer (when it comes to sheer speed, there's only so much a biological brain can do), but you don't need to, because you can find the analytical solution to any problem.

A 74 Intelligence is so high that you could probably emulate having a fairly decent Charisma as well, simply because you know everything about psychology and you can deduce from past reactions what is most likely to make people happy.

However, since you actually have a normal Wisdom and Charisma, you would probably go insane. I am a fairly intelligent person, and I sometimes feel Black Mage-style burning rage at the general idiocy of humanity (especially while reading a newspaper); I don't even want to imagine what that feeling would be if I had that kind of intelligence. It would be something like being surrounded by monkeys, all the time. Even worse, monkeys that you are supposed to respect as fellow human beings. Madness is certain. Then again, being hyperintelligent the character may find some way to avoid this.

 

[GoodKingJayIII]

A character with such a huge intelligence would be very adept at understanding complexity and so would have plans within plans within plans He would have vast networks of people under his control all working towards his goals.

So this is the man we need to make Robert Jordan's head explode!

 

[Kae'Yoss]

However, since you actually have a normal Wisdom and Charisma, you would probably go insane. I am a fairly intelligent person, and I sometimes feel Black Mage-style burning rage at the general idiocy of humanity (especially while reading a newspaper)

I know that feeling. It's the TV for me (or hearing about the newest TV show - I don't watch TV any more, but this crap follows you everywhere). You either go cynical or insane. Probably both.

 

[micr0c0sm]

Have you ever read the DUNE series - the mentats probably get the personality down, and Mua'dib (Paul Artreides SP?) you can consider hyperintelligent to the point that it was considered precognition.

Maybe he can access the vast store of past life knowledge. I saw a class somewhere that maybe I can dig up that had mechanics for asking previous benne gesserit (SP?) witches.

At least it should provide a base...

 

[Neil Aitken]

However, since you actually have a normal Wisdom and Charisma, you would probably go insane.

Here's an example from real life of exactly this scenario:
(excerpted from http://www.prometheussociety.org/articles/Outsiders.html)

/begin quote

"His name was William James Sidis, and his IQ was estimated at between 250 and 300 [8, p. 283]. At eighteen months he could read The New York Times, at two he taught himself Latin, at three he learned Greek. By the time he was an adult he could speak more than forty languages and dialects. He gained entrance to Harvard at eleven, and gave a lecture on four-dimensional bodies to the Harvard Mathematical Club his first year. He graduated cum laude at sixteen, and became the youngest professor in history. He deduced the possibility of black holes more than twenty years before Subrahmanyan Chandrasekhar published An Introduction to the Study of Stellar Structure. His life held possibilities for achievement that few people can imagine. Of all the prodigies for which there are records, his was probably the most powerful intellect of all. And yet it all came to nothing. He soon gave up his position as a professor, and for the rest of his life wandered from one menial job to another. His experiences as a child prodigy had proven so painful that he decided for the rest of his life to shun public exposure at all costs. Henceforth, he denied his gifts, refused to think about mathematics, and above all refused to perform as he had been made to do as a child. Instead, he devoted his intellect almost exclusively to the collection of streetcar transfers, and to the study of the history of his native Boston. He worked hard at becoming a normal human being, but never entirely succeeded. He found the concept of beauty, for example, to be completely incomprehensible, and the idea of sex repelled him. At fifteen he took a vow of celibacy, which he apparently kept for the remainder of his life, dying a virgin at the age of 46. He wore a vest summer and winter, and never learned to bathe regularly. A comment that Aldous Huxley once made about Sir Isaac Newton might equally have been said of Sidis."

For the price Newton had to pay for being a supreme intellect was that he was incapable of friendship, love, fatherhood, and many other desirable things. As a man he was a failure; as a monster he was superb [5, p. 2222].

/end quote

Also worth looking at is the Uncommonly Difficult IQ Tests website which contains numerous high ceiling iq tests and various articles on the nature of super-genius.

http://www.eskimo.com/~miyaguch/hoeflin.html

 

[Faerl'Elghinn]

As far as how to play a character with intelligence of that magnitude, I recommend Maximized Horrid Wilting, Persistent Shapechange, Persistent Haste, Quickened Tenser's Transformation, Quickened Polymorph Any Object, Extended Chain Contingency, Persistent Shield, Persistent Improved Invisibility, and a variety of hand-crafted epic spells (of which you can cast quite a few per day)... With the 3.0 rules, these spells are COMPLETELY INSANE. Lose your weapon? Polymorph Any Object a copper piece into a greatsword, yourself into a Stone Giant, and hit the sword with a Greater Magic Weapon. The next round, slap yourself with a Tenser's Transformation. Instant beatdown. 3.0 made the epic wizard waaaaaaay too powerful. Maximized Horrid Wilting... I do it all the time.

 

[Tinker Gnome]

Hmmm, i did not expect to get such interesting answers. Keep em coming.

I just thought of another way they could be roleplayed. You could play the person as being extremely shy, they are afraid to put their genius ideas out in the open because they are afraid others will not like them. Well, that was just an idea.