D&D 5E Moving skills from Wisdom to Intelligence

[CubicsRube]

A discussion on ability score balancing had me thinking of a houserule I'd be interested to try out. What if all current skills under wisdom were moved under intelligence (except for insight, which moved to charisma).

Wisdom would then become the mental equivalent of CON, no skills but a very useful save.

What do you think would change/break/enhance with such a rule?

 

[Shiroiken]

Not really a good idea IMO. While Int is an underserved ability, there are quite a few knowledge skills already. The only one I'd move is Medicine, which seems it should be Int to begin with. As for Con, if you use the skills with different ability option (and I think everyone should consider it), athletics should come up fairly often with Con, as could Survival.

 

[CubicsRube]

You didn't really explain why you thought it was a bad idea. I feel like it would make INT much more tempting (and give value to players who choose to increase INT, not just wizards) while still leepong WIS a very important stat, due to the save.

 

[Dragonsbane]

It's not totally realistic, but it does spread out the stats and make them more equal, a good thing indeed.

 

[Minigiant]

Animal Handling
Insight
Medicine
Perception
Survival

All of these skills rely on casual perception, spotting signs, havng willpower, and using intuition. Those are all Wisdom.

So not a fan.

If you want to boost Int, I usually call for Int checks for active uses of "Lore" skill and Wisdom for passive or opposed checks.

 

[Flamestrike]

You didn't really explain why you thought it was a bad idea. I feel like it would make INT much more tempting (and give value to players who choose to increase INT, not just wizards) while still leepong WIS a very important stat, due to the save.

Int is becoming more useful with every supplement.

Int saves are no longer rare, and when one happens, they generate nasty effects (Stun etc).

 

[Li Shenron]

I am a bit lukewarm.

Intelligence is definitely the most common dump stat, even more than Charisma in 5e, so it can use some help, though it doesn't have to be necessarily by re-assigning skills.

Wisdom has all those skills partly because of the tradition trope that "dumb characters should be good at doing the right thing anyway", but it is a bit too good overall. Medicine based on Wisdom rather than Intelligence is just wrong, and bordering the miseducational, but it is sadly understandable in times like this. Wisdom is only occasionally a dump stat but not too often, mainly because low Perception means to be surprised more often, and secondarily because of mind-affecting spells.

You have 2 different but related issues at hand:

• it would be good if Intelligence was less of a dump stat
• it would be good if more non-Wizard would invest in Intelligence

If you only make skill changes (though I remind you that you don't even have to make a house rule, you can freely require Intelligence-based checks more often than Wisdom-based checks for any skill), re-assigning Perception to Intelligence is THE best shot for making it less of a dump stat, but it will also make Wisdom more frequently dumped. The other re-assignments however IMHO will only have a very small effect on increasing investments in Intelligence, except probably Survival which is a popular skill.

So overall it's not a bad idea, but for the purpose of encouraging investment, I would look elsewhere, for example replacing Dex with Int for initiative checks, or even granting bonus proficiencies based on Int.

 

[DEFCON 1]

If you don't want INT to be a dump stat, just make your players play less intelligently. If all the party are idiots, put an egg timer on the table and only give them 30 seconds to strategize important events.

 

[iserith]

If you want to see more opportunities for Intelligence checks to come into play, include more traps and secret doors in your game. The prerequisite to disabling a trap or opening a secret door is figuring out how they operate which may call for an Intelligence (Investigation) check. Whenever I see someone remark that Intelligence is underutilized in ability checks, it's almost always because there don't use traps or secret doors very often.

 

[Oofta]

With DM approval you can always apply the ability bonus to any check and include proficiency. So if you want to allow Int (Animal Handling) it's up to you.

However, I like the split between intelligence and wisdom and don't see a need for this. I have a brother in law that is, without a doubt, the most intelligent person I know. But he's the typical absent minded professor. Not particularly observant (perception) or reading people (insight). He's okay with animals but speaking as the "cat whisperer" of the house I can tell that he doesn't really "get" them or understand how they work.

So I wouldn't change anything, I think they're fine as they are.