How intellingent is a skeleton with a 13 Int?

[Hypersmurf]

INT 10 = IQ 100
INT 15 = IQ 200

But is IQ a linear scale? Is someone with 180 IQ considered "twice as intelligent" as someone with 90?

-Hyp.

 

[AuraSeer]

But is IQ a linear scale? Is someone with 180 IQ considered "twice as intelligent" as someone with 90?

No. In the real world, it's practically impossible to say what "twice as intelligent" means. About all you can really quantify is the number of people in the population who match that level of intelligence.

The exact meaning of a score depends on which test you took. But, IIRC from the scale I studied in college:

IQ 84 is the low end of average. 85% of all people are this smart or better.

IQ 116 is the high end of average. About 40% of the population are at least this smart.

IQ 132 is the minimum score for getting into Mensa. About 2% of the population is this smart.

IQ 148 is considered very high. Only 0.13% of the population is this smart. If you tested a thousand people at random, you'd expect to see only one score at this level.

The progression continues on. By the time you get to IQ 180+, you're theoretically looking at one person in tens of thousands. (I say theoretically, because most tests don't try to measure this high.) It's not supernaturally high-- this is where I tend to score :brag:-- it's just very uncommon.

If you absolutely must have a correspondence between real-world IQ and a D&D Intelligence score, you need to know how many people in your campaign have a particular Intelligence. (This is doable if you know what dice method each NPC uses for his stats.) Then you work backward, fit the bell curve to that of an IQ test, and line up the numbers. Do all that, and you'll end up with something very much like Kraedin's list.

Me, I'll probably use his list in the first place and save myself some work.

 

[maddman75]

No IQ is definatly NOT linear. The tests I took upon reaching maturity usually put me between 120 and 130. When I was 12 it was around 150. I was concerned until I learned I was catching up with the expectations of the test, not getting dumber .

I think the formula works pretty well. Personally, I'm well read and good at mathematics. I work in the computer field. This would give me an INT of around 16. Sounds fair, I'm smarter than most people, but have known people that could logic circles around me when I was at the University.

Also, IIRC the highest IQ ever recorded was Marilyn Vos Savant at 210. This would put her INT at 32, which seems like a good number to me.

Haven't tested in awhile, maybe I will soon.

 

[dcollins]

If you absolutely must have a correspondence between real-world IQ and a D&D Intelligence score, you need to know how many people in your campaign have a particular Intelligence. (This is doable if you know what dice method each NPC uses for his stats.) Then you work backward, fit the bell curve to that of an IQ test, and line up the numbers.

Once again, I totally disagree with this. The strict implication is that you cannot make a fantasy world in which everyone has, on average, less or more IQ than the real world. As the original designer wrote, INT can relate to how characters would test on a real-world adult IQ measurement, without that fantasy world's population matching the bell-curve of the real world. What you present is instead a model for how you'd go about constructing an IQ test on a different world.

Meanwhile, maddman's example above of the real-world high IQ score of 210 is further support to a linear relationship. If a real-world human had an INT of 32, clearly that's impossible to achieve for any human in D&D. But, if it indicated an INT of 21, then that's at least in the vicinity of the D&D rules (e.g., roll 18 + 3 level increases, say for a 12th level expert).

I'm beginning to think that everyone's fond of this match-the-bell-curves model if INT:IQ largely because it means that everyone posting to this thread (including myself) has an INT of 18, at a minimum. Woo us!

 

[Hypersmurf]

Meanwhile, maddman's example above of the real-world high IQ score of 210 is further support to a linear relationship. If a real-world human had an INT of 32, clearly that's impossible to achieve for any human in D&D. But, if it indicated an INT of 21, then that's at least in the vicinity of the D&D rules (e.g., roll 18 + 3 level increases, say for a 12th level expert).

26 : 18, + 5 level increases (what, the smartest person in the world can't be a 20th level expert?), + 3 age category increases.

Bump it to 28 with a +2 alchemical bonus for Mushroom Powder, and we're still not using any magic...

-Hyp.

 

[AuraSeer]

Also, IIRC the highest IQ ever recorded was Marilyn Vos Savant at 210.

That's a PR number. Long story short, there is no IQ test that measures such high scores with any degree of certainty. Scores at that level can fluctuate by dozens of points each time they're tested. (Depending on the test, the difference between a 210 and a 170 could be a single question.)

 

[RingXero]

couple of things,

one, regarding the skeleton attacks, did you consider that the skeleton were really 'mindless automatons' but just being controlled by some outside force (hidden necro)?

two, just seconding AuraSeer on the problem with high IQ test scores, usually people that consistantly score above 180, just say '180+' and leave it at that. The tests results are problematic at best above 200 anyway.

and one more, just because it was sugested by the designer back in AD&D(1e) that IQ=INTx10 doesn't make it so this time around or even back then, and said person could very well have not understood what IQ really is/stands for.

This whole INT/IQ issue also doesn't take into effect situational conditioning, or focused learning. You can take a person who can't read, can't speak more than one language and teach him to be a great small battle tactician, this person would score rather well on a test weighted to battle, but very poorly if warfare tactics was not included in the questions.


RX

 

[Hypersmurf]

and one more, just because it was sugested by the designer back in AD&D(1e) that IQ=INTx10 doesn't make it so this time around...

Especially since 25 was the ultimate, top, can't-be-beaten, possessed-only-by-the-most-powerful-deities score for any attribute (well, except Comeliness) in 1E... and a half-orc barbarian can pull off 24 Strength at 1st level in 3E...

-Hyp.

 

[dcollins]

...and one more, just because it was sugested by the designer back in AD&D(1e) that IQ=INTx10 doesn't make it so this time around or even back then, and said person could very well have not understood what IQ really is/stands for.

And yet it's more telling than any random person making up a relationship which suits their fancy and has absolutely no basis in anything published.