Playing a Character Smarter than you

[Lady Starhawk]

My group will be going back to characters we started (in a Hero:fantasy game). I have bought my character's stats up and now have a character (basically an archer and a scout) with a 23 intelligence (10 is "average" so the scale is similar to D&D).

My question becomes how do you roleplay a character that's smarter than you. Our DM has us as players figure out the puzzles in game so it doesn't matter much that my character's that darn smart because. I can't figure out the puzzles, but no one has bought intelligence up that high before, most players are more interested in strength and dex so I don't know if the dm will allow checks to see if the characters can figure it out, or if he's going to make us as players figure it out.

It's easy to game with a character with great strength, dexterity and constitution, but I am having a smilar problem with sorcerer chars in D&D, I'm just not a very charismatic person, I am not smooth and I don't think of things well off the top of my head. Of course it's a little easier to fake charisma than intelligence, but it's still a problem for me.

So, other than sitting the DM down and talking to him (which I am going to do anyway) how can I play the character true to stats?<specifically intelligence>

Just wanting some advice.
Lady Starhawk

 

[William Ronald]

One possibility is to talk to the DM about making an intelligence roll against a DC class for a puzzle or other intellectual challenge. If you suceed, possibly the DM could give you a clue or an insight into the challenge.

Also, try non-traditional ways of looking at a problem. Some problems have more than one valid solution or have a non-obvious solution. Some puzzles, for example, are based on word play.

Another bit of advice is to try to spend a little time between sessions plotting on how the character might react to a problem. This can help you be prepared for unusual situations and give you a chance to have your character act more quickly.

 

[nsruf]

You could also change the way you look at Int, as it is bascially impossible to play someone smarter than yourself. So Int would only measure a PC's memory and speed of learning (skill points, skill checks, wizard spells), but not his creativity and problem-solving ability. These depend solely on the player.

 

[Ashwyn]

I've had to deal with this as a DM before, and what I did was give a number of hints equal to the character's intelligence modifier. It seemed to work well, but I have only been able to use it once, since the group I was playing with broke up. I hope that this helps in some small way.

 

[Avatar_V]

I just posted a new thread about this topic! LoL, must be a popular subject lately. Hmm.. I kind of like the hint idea. Although in my campaign everyone would probably just give their hints to the tacitly chosen 'group problem solver', ironically this character's intelligence is only average... hmm... still... the hints for int modifier is the best advice I've heard so far. I like it; I may use some version of that; I'll have to give it some thought.

 

[Kibo]

I typically stay away from riddles per se, and my problems are always somewhat ambigous. Mostly because I don't have a talent for creating riddles, and don't like the feel of canned ones. But when it does come up, I would make intelligence checks versus the relative obscurity of the circumstance. I never really had a firm number, I was looking for a rough magnatude of success. A bad failure might lead to a misleading hint, a high success for an NPC would result in an observation of some sort, somewhat tangential, that might drift into the answer. If a player was just going on some assumption, and it happened to be interesting, or particularly inventive, it immediately became the correct solution I planned all along. . Personally, if the players hand off their tips to the officially designated problem solver, of average int, I wouldn't mind that as long as they did it verbally. It'd be decent if the role-played it, but if they wanted to phone it in, and I had to infer the conversation, I suppose I could live with it. (And I should cut back on the puzzles, if they're not really taking to them).

For the most part some of my players knew me well enough to make pretty fantastic deductions based what I thought at the time would be taken as off hand remarks and later be recalled as foreshadowing.

I would really like to be able to lay out a prophecy, and not a lame one, but really high quality, and have it slowly revealed. I tried that once with mixed success. (If anyone has any good pointers for that, I'm all ears.) With prophecy it just seems like it would be so so simple, some general statements that aren't literal, with a flowery description of something good or bad. But I've never even been close to satisfied with my attempts at it.

 

[Zappo]

I usually avoid riddles like hell. Why an evil and powerful artefact/elder god/tome should be guarded by someone/something who will give it away/free it for anyone who can solve a stupid riddle is beyond me. Same thing for puzzles and such. If I lock an unbreakable door with an unpickable lock, I use either a key or a 12-digits combination, and certainly not a magical tic-tac-toe which will open the door if defeated, and definitely not a series of pressure plates which play notes when pressed and must be pressed so as to play "Happy Birthday" in order to open the door.

 

[Thanee]

Mental stats can only surpass your own with the help of the DM, it's that simple.

Bye
Thanee

 

[Umbran]

Thanee is basically correct. The only way to simulate mental abilities greater than your own is with the DM's active collusion.

A DM faced with such a PC would have to give hints on puzles, or extra information, that would allow the player to be more likely to figure out that which a less intelligent would miss. It isn't hard to do, but the DM needs to agree to it.

 

[Furn_Darkside]

A DM faced with such a PC would have to give hints on puzles, or extra information, that would allow the player to be more likely to figure out that which a less intelligent would miss. It isn't hard to do, but the DM needs to agree to it.

The skill system does a good job of helping people play characters that are smarter then them.

As for puzzles, our group does as Umbran quotes above.

The other dm in our group knows I can solve most puzzles (numeric or logic-based) within moments, but when it comes to spatial puzzles .. I can't wrap my mind around it. So, we have an Int check based on a DC = 15 (or higher if the puzzles demands it), you can get one hint a turn if you make the check.

IMC, I try to make sure puzzles are never story-stoppers. I will put them on treasures they find or an npc they meet may have one, but they could ignore the puzzle and it would not stop the adventure.

FD