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Message: <blockquote data-quote="Oryan77" data-source="post: 2106409" data-attributes="member: 18701">As I mentioned in my post before, the way I see it, being smart doesn't mean you're better at solving puzzles/riddles or better at dealing with things in general. It just means you are knowledgable in your area of expertise (or several areas of expertise). I would think of your situation in game as your wizard being stumped (maybe he was over analyzing the puzzle) and the barbarian used common sense and figured it out first. If you as a player can't figure out a good plan, it's the same as your Wizard not being very tactical because maybe he's just a nerdy bookworm who knows everything about Arcane magic but not how to use it effectively. Sure he's a genius....but he's a genius at his craft, not at life and everything in general. Compare adults vs children when solving puzzles/riddles. A lot of the time adults are unable to solve them, but children do it easily. People say this is because children look for the obvious answers first while adults look at it more complicated. Things like "problem solving" and "tactics" don't completely rely on intelligence, so I don't assume a wizard PC played by a college professor will survive any better than my PC with the same build. He might have memorized all of his spells and won't need to refer to the books, but I might be able to use my spells tactically better than him.I'm not confident in the fact that I can play a 20 INT PC because I'm smart. I'm confident in playing it because if my own intelligence fails me, I can roll a check to use my PC's INT bonus. If I can't play something out myself, that's what my dice and skill checks are for. We aren't expected to play 20 INT PC's as if we were that smart. You're supposed to fall back on the skill checks. In my game, if players can't solve a puzzle, I give them each the chance to roll an INT check. And even then, it's still possible for the Wizard to roll low and fail it and the Barbarian rolls high and succeeds. When I began playing D&D, I wasn't very good at thinking outside of the box. When I started reading fantasy novels, it really helped me out. I use or ask people for general references to help me play better. I don't ask people for specific answers to overcome specific challenges in game though.</blockquote>

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