D&D 5E Removing INT, replacing it with?

[Tales and Chronicles]

I do like the idea but I suppose I’m wondering why animal handling and medicine arent part of Awareness/Acumin too.
Medicine is lore/survival really whereas animal handling goes into to the whole insight and empathy side of things. I suppose separating them maintains the 6 attributes but it seems to diminish Wis and only keep it as the the psyche-spellcasting stat.

I could see putting Animal Handling (formerly know as Animal Empathy) in CHA, as it was in 3.5 and Fantasy AGE (for those who know the game).

Medicine I could either see them as either a Acumen skill, or maybe a Dex skill, depending whether you see it as more of the knowledge of medecine or the act patching someone up with deft hands.

 

[DeviousQuail]

To keep the changes minimal I would rename Intelligence to Knowledge and Wisdom to Awareness. Knowledge gets arcana, history, medicine, investigation, nature, and religion. Awareness gets perception, insight, survival, and animal handling.

A character's intelligence, wisdom, decision making, and whatnot are tied to their roleplay and ideals/bonds/flaws instead of a number on the sheet. Knowledge also gets a slight boost by tying into more skills than any other attribute.

 

[TwoSix]

I'm a fan, while having to continually acknowledge the six stats are an unkillable sacred cow for the game line as a whole.

 

[LordEntrails]

Well, I disagree. You cant say: my character is athletic, so I I can handle all obstacles. Or my character is a dwarf, so I can take more hits, and that's that.

But a dwarf cleric with the soldier background should be able to know stuff about common pantheons, how divine magic works in his day to day life, how clerics are perceived in this world, the ways of the dwarves and the general functioning of a war camp, no?

Now, if said dwarf would like to know that this mystic symbol of the wall is. The DM could ask for a Int (religion or arcana) roll, sure. But I think it would be more interesting to say: ''nothing from you past education allows you to remember anything about such symbol''. So the player has to find a way discover the hidden truth about the symbol, making research or finding an NPC with such knowledge or whatever.

In this follow-up post of yours, it's like you are backtracking (which is ok, and part of my point). You do know you said this in the OP?

Characters either know stuff from their class/culture/background or they dont.

I get some of where you are going and such, but I think getting rid of Int or renaming it isn't a solution for the problems.

IMO, players shouldn't be trying to roleplay their mental stats, just like they don't roleplay their physical stats. (Does the high Str girl lift the game table over their head? Or the high dex guy do standing back flips between die rolls?) Now, that doesn't mean they don't roleplay their character's stats. Such as the high strength character tries to grapple and throw an opponent, or the high dex character does try to run along a parapet. Or the high Int sage spends time researching something in a library. Or the high Wis naturalist tries to work out why their is a new/sudden surge of wild wolves attacking the farm animals. Or the low Int tank just goes and picks a door in a room to open without checking for traps, etc.

Just like trying to roleplay a high Int character is hard to do well, so is roleplaying a low Int character.

I really think I'm rambling here and not making my point well at all Hopefully some of this makes sense though so I will post it and not just dump it.

 

[Horwath]

I'm a fan, while having to continually acknowledge the six stats are an unkillable sacred cow for the game line as a whole.

everything is unkillable until it gets killed

 

[DND_Reborn]

Believe it or not, back in like 1st Ed, your class allowed you to just "know stuff". There were so skills. The Wizard obviously knows magical lore stuff. The Ranger or Druid obviously know about plants and animals. The Thief obviously knows the value of gems and how to use rope.

Just to be clear 1E did have skills, the nonweapon proficiencies started in WSG and DSG (including rope use), and the system was revamped for 2E.

But I do understand and agree with your point about knowledge, which is different from skills, and by and large most of the skills in those books were not knowledge-based (a few were, such as Animal Lore and Plant Lore).

Anyway, back to the thread!

 

[Kobold Stew]

I could see this working, or at least worth trying. I'd add a few more tweaks, though:

1. Add the AC bonus to Acumen (and also saves such as Evasion) -- this does break Dexterity into fine motor control/combat and awareness/defense, which I see as a plus
2. Make somebody an Acumen caster (either Sorcerer or Wizard).

 

[MNblockhead]

I was skeptical, but after reading the OP a second time, I think it is a good approach. I would not do it in the D&D game I run, but I'm also stuck on alignment as a thing. So, really, there's no hope for me. But I would happily be a player in a game that ran like that.

 

[DND_Reborn]

In exchange, I'd make an Awareness/Acumen stat to:

• Put Perception, Insight, Investigation, Survival there. Leaving WIS
• Put Initiative there, thus lowering the all-importance of DEX.

I would just keep it INT and retool it to be the things you bulleted above.

After all, many of the things you discuss, such as who would know what based on race / background / class is really knowledge. INT is not knowledge in 5E.

You can certainly remove the INT-based skills, which are knowledge focused, and apply them elsewhere, but otherwise it feels like you are doing more work than you need to unless I am just completely missing your point??

I mean, I like the idea of retooling INT and the skills so you would have something like this:

Strength - Athletics (I would probably break this down myself)
Dexterity - Acrobatics, Sleight of Hand, Stealth
Intelligence - Insight, Investigation, Perception
Wisdom - Animal Handling, Medicine, Survival (I'd keep this here, personally)
Charisma - Influence (combining Deception, Intimidation, and Persuasion), Performance

Now you have just 12 skills instead of 18, or you can add more if you wanted.

 

[CleverNickName]

I don't want to remove Intelligence, I want it to be more useful. But that's not what this thread is about.

If I did want to remove Intelligence, I would probably remove all of the ability scores, and rework them into six new stats.

Physical: a combination of Strength, Dexterity, and Constitution.
Mental: a combination of Intelligence, Wisdom, and Charisma
Magical: a measure of one's affinity to magic, the supernatural, and the paranormal
Power: a measure of your character's ability to affect others in some way
Defense: a measure of your character's ability to resist others in some way
Luck: a measure of your character's good fortune.

Each stat is a number between 1 and 6. You "build" your character by distributing 21 points among those six stats however you like. A stereotypical "warrior" character would have 6 for Power and Physical, and 1s for Mental and Magical, for example.

All rolls and checks in the game would be made from a combination of 1d20 and two of these modifiers, and use opposed rolls (or a fixed DC, if there is no opponent around to make the check against). The highest result wins, ties are rerolled.

• To make a weapon attack, you would roll (1d20 + Physical + Power) and your target would roll (1d20 + Physical + Defense.)
• To make a spell attack, you would roll (1d20 + Magical + Power) and your target(s) would roll (1d20 + Magical + Defense).
• To convince a merchant to give you a bargain, you would roll (1d20 + Mental + Power), and the merchant would roll (1d20 + Mental + Defense.)
• To find a hidden switch in a bookshelf: roll 1d20 + Mental + Luck vs. DC X
• To avoid a fireball trap: roll 1d20 + Magic + Luck vs. DC X

I realize that by this point, we are no longer playing Dungeons & Dragons...we are playing a completely different RPG with vastly different dice mechanics. But that's what I think it would take to remove Intelligence (or any other ability score) from the game.