How smart is a 3 INT in d20?

[Umbran]

On the other hand, unless the person has seen an ogre and it did harm to himself, chances are they wouldn't know.
[...snip...]
Even if they're told what one is, they won't make the connection that ogre=danger until some sort of physical stimulus.

Nope. You keep forgetting common sense is part of wisdom. Big, muscley thing with bad dental hygiene, a worse disposition, and a club the size of your thigh is pretty obviously dangerous. It doesn't take a chain of logic to reach this conclusion.

This character will generally be caught off-guard by things that are not obvious. Have him encounter an ogre-mage, and he's likely to be surprised. The magic power is not obvious to the eye as the muscles and weapon, so the low-Int character will tend to discount the possibility of such threats.

 

[DonaldRumsfeldsTofu]

Int doesn't equal IQ. Not even Int x10. The two just don't relate properly.

A low int person is simple. Straight forward. They don't use big words or make long-reaching plans. They think about the here and now rather than the future, because the future is a complete mystery. Their tastes and preferences would be for whatever they're familiar with, be it steak and potatoes or caviar; they like what they're used to. They would like straight forward humor and slap-stick over subtle word play or black comedy. It takes them a while to learn or 'get' something. They're uncomplicated.

It's important to note that an Int 3 is not just a lumbering 'graah, me smash yoo' idiot. You can have an Int of 3 and a Wis and Cha of 18. An Int 3 person can have buckets of common sense and great instincts - that's all handled by wis. An Int 3 person, upon seeing ogres attacking the town would know to go get help as soon as possible if they had even an average wis. Don't fight, don't hide, go get help.

Don't play someone with just a low int as if they were a mentally retarded person - the d20 equivalent of mental retardation would be a low int, wis and charisma all. A low int just means a character isn't what we'd considder to be "book-smart".



Forest Gump would be a good example of a character with a low int, but average wisdom and charisma.

I think you're over-estimating someone with a intelligence of 3. Forrest Gump and Chance the Gardener are probably examples of someone with an intelligence of 5 or 6. With an intelligence of three, you're only one step above a dog, and barely capable of grasping a spoken language.

 

[Sejs]

With an intelligence of three, you're only one step above a dog, and barely capable of grasping a spoken language.

And only one step above a monkey or dolphin, too. *shrug* Take it however you want to.

 

[random user]

Nope. You keep forgetting common sense is part of wisdom. Big, muscley thing with bad dental hygiene, a worse disposition, and a club the size of your thigh is pretty obviously dangerous. It doesn't take a chain of logic to reach this conclusion.

While I do think it depends on circumstance, I think it can go either way.

A "Big, muscley thing with bad dental hygiene, a worse disposition, and a club the size of your thigh" might just be a tall drunk human warrior who curses a lot but isn't actually cruel.

Sure an ogre stands a couple feet higher, but certainly common sense doesn't say that "height = danger."

While we quickly learn that "fire = pain" children, from the onset, at least, don't know that. It's certainly not common sense, it's a learned behavior.

There certainly are things which we are genetically disposed to associate with being dangerous (spiders for one, I can try and dig out the many psych studies that show this if necessary). So in theory you could say that humans in your campaign have a genetic disposition to fear ogres and thus wisdom would dictate a desire to flee.

And I certainly think that if a character with an int of 3 had been exposed to an ogre before, he would know that ogre = danger. If a character hadn't been exposed to an ogre before, nor exposed to a lot of violence before (which is possible if he lives in a small village / farm, and tremendously unlikely if he lives in a city), I don't think the character would know to associate something like a large club or axe with danger, much in the same way that a primative human would not be afraid of a gun until he saw what one could do.

And I agree with the above poster that a low int high wis character, after an encounter, will be more prone to associate false positives... ie if an elf once hurt him, he's likely to think that all elves will hurt him, at least until an elf goes out of their way to disprove it.

Also, back to the original topic, this can be hard to play, but someone with low intelligence often knows to do something but doesn't know why it's done. A probably bad example (if nothing else because it deals with the non-fantasy world), but the only one I can think of right now is something like: he may know that when the light is red he's supposed to stop, and when it's green he's supposed to go, but he won't understand that the light turns red on one side and green on the other side so traffic can flow.

 

[Silveras]

Intelligence determines how well your character learns and reasons. This ability is important for wizards because it affects how many spells they can cast, how hard their spells are to resist, and how powerful their spells can be. It’s also important for any character who wants to have a wide assortment of skills.

You apply your character’s Intelligence modifier to:

The number of languages your character knows at the start of the game.
The number of skill points gained each level. (But your character always gets at least 1 skill point per level.)
Appraise, Craft, Decipher Script, Disable Device, Forgery, Knowledge, Search, and Spellcraft checks. These are the skills that have Intelligence as their key ability.
A wizard gains bonus spells based on her Intelligence score. The minimum Intelligence score needed to cast a wizard spell is 10 + the spell’s level.

An animal has an Intelligence score of 1 or 2. A creature of humanlike intelligence has a score of at least 3.

The Players Handbook has a handy comparison table showing sample creatures for each range of Int scores.

 

[Trainz]

The Players Handbook has a handy comparison table showing sample creatures for each range of Int scores.

For one, they mention Gray Render (Int 3). In this critter's description, it says "A gray render attacks to kill, whether to bring down prey or to protect itself or those it has adopted. "

That doesn't look like a critter that has a hard time recognising a foe. Thus, an Int of 3 wouldn't really impact on your physical combat ability. It MIGHT impact on your ability to shoot arrows (complex missile procedure), but holding a sword and swinging it at an enemy wouldn't be a stretch. And yes, you are able to recognize an enemy.

 

[LightPhoenix]

Nope. You keep forgetting common sense is part of wisdom. Big, muscley thing with bad dental hygiene, a worse disposition, and a club the size of your thigh is pretty obviously dangerous. It doesn't take a chain of logic to reach this conclusion.

Actually, yes it does, it's just subtle in it's obviousness. Big=bad is a very logical conclusion to come too... one that by your own argument the Int 3 person would have trouble making. The same can be said of club=bad, yucky teeth=bad, muscley=bad, and so forth. If a thing has all of those traits, then it is bad. That's quite the chain of logical assumptions.

This character will generally be caught off-guard by things that are not obvious. Have him encounter an ogre-mage, and he's likely to be surprised. The magic power is not obvious to the eye as the muscles and weapon, so the low-Int character will tend to discount the possibility of such threats.

Again, the muscles=hurt association you're making is too logical a leap for something with an Int of 3.

For example, most animals don't distinguish between a big burly human and a tiny skinny one. A skunk will spray you no matter what you look like. A deer will likely run, a bear is likely to roar and make itself look big. In many instances they won't even make the distinction that you are a human... intrude on a gorilla's group, and they'll come and try to drive you off no matter what. A komodo dragon will try to eat anything that comes near it, elephant or mouse.

Now, an animal is Int 1 or 2, but is that really that big a step between Int 2 and Int 3? If it is, then my suggestion is that animals simply have no Int (like undead and Con), because you're not measuring brain function anymore, you're measuring intellect, which is pretty much absent from most animals.

Of course, there's a learned response, such as Pavlov described with his dogs, and later psychologists with humans. Until a creature has learned a response to something, there's usually a default response it takes, and that response is usually survival. So for example, if an Int 3 character has never seen an ogre, he'll probably just run away and hide, or posture if he thinks it's encroaching on it's territory. Maybe in time an Int 3 character will pick up a conditioned response that ogre=bad, or probably more likely club=bad... but he isn't capable of analyzing (to use your argument) a situation to determine all of these variables you and I think of as "common sense". To continue my argument, once club=bad is made, then all clubs are bad, even if held by someone that isn't threatening. You can't differentiate, because analysis is not possible.

The big problem here is that common sense is not solely a function of wisdom, as the PHB would have you believe. Common sense necessitates certain logical functions and analysis of situations that an Int 3 character would find all but impossible. Realistically, a character with an Int 3 is simply un-roleplayable, being hardly different at all than a chimpanzee.

 

[LightPhoenix]

For one, they mention Gray Render (Int 3). In this critter's description, it says "A gray render attacks to kill, whether to bring down prey or to protect itself or those it has adopted. "

You've just described simple instinctual animal behavior. That's exactly how most animals work. By that description, a Grey Render should have an Int of less than 3... or an Int 3 human is no better than a simple animal.

Also, prey is not an enemy. Prey is survival. Also, all animals fight to protect their young and themselves. That's not being able to differentiate enemies.

 

[Trainz]

You've just described simple instinctual animal behavior. That's exactly how most animals work. By that description, a Grey Render should have an Int of less than 3... or an Int 3 human is no better than a simple animal.

Also, prey is not an enemy. Prey is survival. Also, all animals fight to protect their young and themselves. That's not being able to differentiate enemies.

I beg to differ.

Yes, it may be akin to an animal's behavior. If I stand in front of a bear, it will be weary. If I initiate any kind of aggresive move (like lifting my arm to hit it with a stick), it will attack.

If the Int 3 fighter is in a dungeon with his party and there are two ogres, he will be weary. If they display aggresive moves, he will attack.

A dog (Int 2) can be trained to attack on command. The team wizard could very well tell the Int 3 warrior to attack the ogres, even if they aren't initiating attack.

 

[ph0rk]

Actually, yes it does, it's just subtle in it's obviousness. Big=bad is a very logical conclusion to come too... one that by your own argument the Int 3 person would have trouble making. The same can be said of club=bad, yucky teeth=bad, muscley=bad, and so forth. If a thing has all of those traits, then it is bad. That's quite the chain of logical assumptions.


Again, the muscles=hurt association you're making is too logical a leap for something with an Int of 3.

pick one.

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The int/wis/cha system doesn't exactly do a perfect job of modeling intelligence; then again we aren't really able to model or test for intelligence very well anyway.

I would play low int/med or high wis as not a twit, but bad memory, and severe lack of learned facts. Might get lost in town (what street name was that?) I could easily see an int 3 character not knowing an orc from a half orc, for example. Perhaps mistaking a troll for an orc in bad lighting -- all the common sense in the world doesn't make you a zoologist (xenologist?) - if you can't reason out enough traits to differentiate between taxa, you're SOL. (spotting all these things is great, but if you have the memory of a slug it won't help much unless you have a pad to jot it all down on...)

Many of the above posters are dragging philosophy into the discussion; whether or not one assumes green+big+teeth = bad is more of a way of looking at the world than fact or fiction.

that is, until it swings the club at you -- then you know.