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Message: <blockquote data-quote="Voadam" data-source="post: 3383291" data-attributes="member: 2209">You want to roleplay a dumb orc. Fine. You can do so no matter what your stats are like, that is a characterization you get across through how you portray the character.I can use simple words and make significant efforts to only do direct actions and pass up anything intellectual like puzzles or approach them simplemindedly, etc. However if you want your character to mechanically be good at a number of his class skills then he needs a high int for the bonus skill points. High int means the character has bonus skill points, is good at int skills, and determines how powerful his wizard magic will be. Even roleplaying an 18 int character, that does not mean they are brilliant at everything. Portraying them as dense but natural masters of skills works fine.Conversely a low int character can be someone who is smart but simply not good at skills and so has few mechanical skill points to use.Same thing for charisma which combines force of personalty and appearance. A strong force of personality but ugly character can fit a high charisma stat, a low charisma stat, or an average charisma stat.Every stat is a composite and can provide enough room for however you want to roleplay a character. The stats are not monolothic descriptors that tell you the one way your character should be played. Playing smart and social should not be limited to certain mechanical character builds IMO.Mechanically paladins and sorcerers want charisma for character power. Wizards and anybody who wants extra skill points want intelligence. Non melee, non heavy armor characters do not need high strength and mechanically benefit from putting their points elsewhere. Some classes and character types benefit from different mechanical stats differently. I think the game is balanced mechanically without requiring roleplay to map directly to the mental stats. That just limits playing smart, talkative characters to certain builds. In my 16th level game the paladin's highest stat is charisma, but he has put no points into diplomacy or other social skills and everyone cringes when he interacts with NPCs as he plays the usually ignorant but righteously arrogant and abrasive paladin full blast. He has amazing saves though, can heal a ton, turn really well, and smite for a lot of damage. Mechanically he is probably the toughest in the party, due in part to his significant charisma score.This does encourage all players to design the mechanics of their characters to be powerful. Nobody makes a high int, high charisma fighter who is worse at fighting, simply because they want their fighter to be a Roy Greenleaf type smart leader. To take an OotS example the choice is not between a mechanically gimped Roy and a mechanically maxed out Thog. Roy and Thog are both viable roleplay choices that make the game fun and the character power should be the same for both. When Roy and Thog are compared for combat they should be about equal if of the same level.</blockquote>

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