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Message: <blockquote data-quote="tburdett" data-source="post: 326949" data-attributes="member: 4714">I've always had a slight problem with the way that Intelligence is handled in the D&D (and other) role playing games.Occasionally you will have an extremely intelligent player with an average or stupid character, or a player with an average, or less,  intelligence playing an extremely intelligent character.The first scenario doesn't usually penalize the character as much as the second.  Yes, you suffer a few penalties to your die rolling and your choices are more limited with regards to the feats and skills that you can choose, but your character benefits from the players intelligence.  I understand that some players will role-play this and lessen the problem, but not all players are willing or capable of doing this.The second scenario usually causes frustration for the party as a whole.  It's just not possible to convincingly role-play and control a character who is smarter than you are.  It doesn't take many misplaced Fireballs or Lightning Bolts to turn the party against you.  Casting Cone of Cold for the fifth time on the creature that everyone else knew was cold immune can also cause some small amount of party displeasure.I've come up with an idea to handle one aspect of this (in my opinion) problem.  This is a very rough draft.Knowledge Skill (Monster).Knowledge Skill (Monster) would be an INT based skill.  You would gain one skill point per level.  You cannot raise this skill in any other way.  (I haven't really considered the ramifications of allowing Wish, new Feats, etc to affect this, but my gut feeling is that it would be bad.)This skill would represent the knowledge that characters gain about creatures as they adventure, as they study ancient scrolls and tomes, as they listen and swap info with fellow adventurers, etc.The DC for this skill is 10 (or another number if this is too low) + the CR of the creature encountered.At first level this would give you a 50% chance to know something useful (an immunity, a special quality, a special attack, etc) about a CR 1 creature that you are encountering.For every (x) points above the DC you gain one additional piece of information.  (x = a number that I need help with)Optionally, a roll of 1 could result in the player "knowing" something that wasn't factual.Different skills (wilderness lore, etc) or classes could have an additional bonus (synergy or otherwise) for certain monster types.  A Ranger would get a bonus for his favored enemies and perhaps animals, druids would get a bonus for animals, plants, etc.  Clerics for undead.  You get the idea.The information provided initially would always be about the BASE creature type.  If the creature had a template and used a template ability, or had obvious template traits, a separate roll could be allowed to learn something useful about the template.  The same goes for half-(x) creatures.Any feedback, good or back, would be appreciated.</blockquote>

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