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<blockquote data-quote="Chaosmancer" data-source="post: 8725295" data-attributes="member: 6801228">Not quite as much in my experience. After all, the d20 roll is a big swing. Big enough for the &quot;smart&quot; character to fail repeatedly despite their high bonuses. This means that for a character who is meant to be the smartest person in the room, they never come up with the plans, they never say the smartest thing at the table, and they don't even succeed on the rare rolls they get. Which really begins undercutting the concept. Now, alternatively, I don't try an enforce -1 intelligence or charisma to the degree others do. For example, I'm playing an elf barbarian right now who has an 8 Intelligence, and the DM and other players were surprised by how well spoken and erudite he sounded. So I told them, &quot;Imagine a 13th century catholic friar. Very intelligent. Now put him in modern day. Very Intelligent... for his time.&quot; The 8 represents that there are many modern things that my 200 year old jungle elf just doesn't know or didn't care to learn. Because an 8 doesn't make someone a drooling moron, like some people have insisted on playing or acting out at tables I've been on. I personally find Charisma and Intelligence just... particularly thorny elements for the game. And I would far prefer to call Wisdom &quot;Awareness&quot; to make it actually fit what it does.</blockquote>

[QUOTE="Chaosmancer, post: 8725295, member: 6801228"] Not quite as much in my experience. After all, the d20 roll is a big swing. Big enough for the "smart" character to fail repeatedly despite their high bonuses. This means that for a character who is meant to be the smartest person in the room, they never come up with the plans, they never say the smartest thing at the table, and they don't even succeed on the rare rolls they get. Which really begins undercutting the concept. Now, alternatively, I don't try an enforce -1 intelligence or charisma to the degree others do. For example, I'm playing an elf barbarian right now who has an 8 Intelligence, and the DM and other players were surprised by how well spoken and erudite he sounded. So I told them, "Imagine a 13th century catholic friar. Very intelligent. Now put him in modern day. Very Intelligent... for his time." The 8 represents that there are many modern things that my 200 year old jungle elf just doesn't know or didn't care to learn. Because an 8 doesn't make someone a drooling moron, like some people have insisted on playing or acting out at tables I've been on. I personally find Charisma and Intelligence just... particularly thorny elements for the game. And I would far prefer to call Wisdom "Awareness" to make it actually fit what it does. [/QUOTE]

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