Reply to thread

Message

<blockquote data-quote="James Gasik" data-source="post: 9768289" data-attributes="member: 6877472">Yeah, it's one of the issues I have with mental ability scores in general.&nbsp; At what point do you draw the line from what the numbers seem to be implying and the player's own abilities?&nbsp; I used to have a guy in my group who was very good at solving puzzles, and any time an adventure included one, it was rare that he didn't instantly clue in on the answer.Given that many puzzles and riddles are intended to test the player (and many DM's take a dim view of &quot;rolling&quot; to solve such), it's hard to say &quot;hang on, would your character be able to solve things that quickly?&quot;, especially since &quot;Intelligence 13&quot; doesn't really mean anything beyond &quot;+1 on Int based rolls&quot;.I mean, how could anyone say &quot;well, Int 13 isn't enough to solve this puzzle but Int 15 is&quot; without having to admit that they're being completely arbitrary about it?&nbsp; DM's don't want you playing your character as being smarter than their ability scores would imply, but are equally loathe to give players a free pass when playing characters smarter or wiser than they are, a sort of &quot;ability score paradox&quot;.</blockquote>

[QUOTE="James Gasik, post: 9768289, member: 6877472"] Yeah, it's one of the issues I have with mental ability scores in general. At what point do you draw the line from what the numbers seem to be implying and the player's own abilities? I used to have a guy in my group who was very good at solving puzzles, and any time an adventure included one, it was rare that he didn't instantly clue in on the answer. Given that many puzzles and riddles are intended to test the player (and many DM's take a dim view of "rolling" to solve such), it's hard to say "hang on, would your character be able to solve things that quickly?", especially since "Intelligence 13" doesn't really mean anything beyond "+1 on Int based rolls". I mean, how could anyone say "well, Int 13 isn't enough to solve this puzzle but Int 15 is" without having to admit that they're being completely arbitrary about it? DM's don't want you playing your character as being smarter than their ability scores would imply, but are equally loathe to give players a free pass when playing characters smarter or wiser than they are, a sort of "ability score paradox". [/QUOTE]

Verification