Should PCs be forced to act a certain way because of their stats?

[Umbran]

If I play a Fighter in 4e and I pump my INT so as to be allowed to think tactically, I'm crippling my PC at his core role of being a good Defender - a good Fighter - and the other players will be rightfully angry at me.

I didn't say you had to pump your Int. I'm saying you probably shouldn't use Int specifically as a dump stat and have it particularly low.

It is entirely reasonable for a guy with a 10 Int and training/experience to be a decent enough tactician. The lower you go from there, the less reasonable that becomes.

 

[Umbran]

In hardcore pre-2e, you roll 3d6 in order. And that's the PC you play. there are no re-rolls. And no pansy self-ganking because you don't like your PC.

And then you agreed to that, knowing the risk. There's still an acceptance on the player's part.

 

[Neonchameleon]

You know fine well that a Wizard will have higher INT, and a Cleric higher WIS, than almost any Fighter PC in 3e or especially 4e D&D. If I play a Fighter in 4e and I pump my INT so as to be allowed to think tactically, I'm crippling my PC at his core role of being a good Defender - a good Fighter - and the other players will be rightfully angry at me.

There are levels and levels of thinking tactically. And I'd give a lot of leeway to a fighter who learned to think tactically in the school of hard knocks even with Int 8. But I can think of a handful of ways to have an Int-primary fighter without crippling yourself at all.

1: Knight with Melee Training (Intelligence)
1b: Knight with multiclass Swordmage and the Intelligent Blademaster feat
2: Faintly refluffed thief with Melee Training (Intelligence) and Tactical Trick
2b: Faintly refluffed thief with multiclass Swordmage and Intelligent Blademaster
3: Faintly refluffed Bladesinger
4: Swordmage, sticking to the less supernatural powers.

If you want just an Int of 14 or so there's absolutely no reason you can't do this without any trouble at all and still stick to being a very effective Str-primary character. (Yes, all these characters are possibly slightly weaker than they might otherwise be - or possibly not in cases like the Pixie or Eladrin Knight where you get a racial +2 to Int but not Str).

Now if you want to go in as a brawler fighter who isn't strong, you have a hard time. But IMO the problem is a lot smaller than you seem to be implying.

 

[The Shaman]

INT 8 means reduced resources in that area for the PC to call on, it doesn't force the player to play the PC as a bumbling idiot.

Correctamundo.

 

[Voadam]

If the PC has higher stats than the player really does, the game sort of corrects for that. The GM uses more skill checks, etc to decide what happens, rather than taking what the player said literally. If the player proposes to do really dumb things, the GM might ask "Are you sure?" to act as a safety check.

If I as a DM say "You do what now?" It is not because their sheet says they are too wise to take their stated action, it is because I am surprised by their action.

I give no stat based hints. No extra skill checks for high ability scores. I take what players say in character and portray NPCs reacting to them. I allow players to propose and do dumb things regardless of their stats. Players can figure out things or not.

As a DM I don't tell the PCs what they think or how they feel unless I am artificially controlling their characters through magic in the game.

I'm fine with the int 20 wizard never figuring things out. I'm fine with the 20 wisdom cleric constantly being rash and foolish. I'm fine with the 20 charisma paladin being a jerk and consistently ticking people off.

From past games that were a ton of fun I kind of expect it.

The wizard and cleric can cast high level spells while the paladin smites powerfully.

 

[Argyle King]

Yeah, this is how I'd run it. I have no problem with the INT 8 half-orc PC being the Shaka Zulu or Genghis Khan of half-orcs; INT 8 only limits him in the ways the rules say it does, which is mostly Knowledge checks (& in 4e it affects your AC!), in 3e it means low numbers of skill points, etc. INT 8 means reduced resources in that area for the PC to call on, it doesn't force the player to play the PC as a bumbling idiot.

I wouldn't expect INT 8 to be a "bumbling idiot." In games where 10 is assumed to be 'average,' an 8 is only slightly less than average. However, once we start getting to the extremely low scores -a few examples have mentioned 3... 3 is barely capable of speech and learning skills according to D&D. As such, I would expect such an extremely low score to have at least some impact on how the character is played.

 

[Janx]

Yes, because it's not codified in the rules, therefore you don't have to do it. The battle cry of rules lawyers everywhere.

This is the crux of why I started this thread that all the other "Should a player with high XYZ have an advantage hinted at.

There's already precedent from the social skills thread of last month that some GMs like Umbran and myself do not make PCs roll social skill checks against each other (or in effect against a PC).

One reason for that is the passive resistance to any forced action upon a player. If I cause a game effect to force your PC to act a certain way, there is a probability that you will resist it, probably in subtle ways.

Therefore it is simpler to avoid some of those scenarios (like rolling a persuasion check against a PC and telling the player he HAS to agree to something an NPC sad).

Additionally, there is the argument that the aspect of decision making is FOR the player, not the PC. Thus, using dice rolls to determine what the PC decides is not ideal design.

These points apply to this topic as well. Protecting player choice as the PC's choice and avoiding disagreement resistance by players over forced actions.

The rules do not offer any guidance on the issue. Sure, the stats are called Bravery and Intelligence. But the rules do not cover how the PC acts or is required to decide on things.

My concern is that if you don't systemize it, you have no business managing it. Because you aren't setting a level playing field for what is expected.

If you want me to wear 31 pieces of Flair, then make the minimum be 31 pieces of Flair." Conversely, if you're not going to do so, then you have no business hassling me because I'm only wearing the 14 required pieces of Flair.

Bear in mind, I bet you that most of the people agreeing with my stance do in fact role-play their low stats as a weakness of some sort. I bet you nobody here would actually play a 3 INT PC as the guy with all the right answers (they might play him as a guy who THINKS he has all the right answers). They would in fact portray him differently than a 10 INT or 18 INT PC.

But that doesn't mean we'd support a full expectation that everybody play that way. That in fact, some alternative interpretations of the character may be valid, despite what we intially assume of the low stat we see. Especially because the rules do not manage or contradict such an interpretation.

I'm not even advocating a "every way is OK, there's not such thing as badwrongfun" mentality. I simply see that if you handed me a set of stats, I could come up with an portrayal of character that is valid, yet violates your expectation of behavior by strict interpretation of the stats.

I see that as a situation that the RAW (as akin to Consitutional debates and the Founding Fathers Intent) doesn't cover it, and therefore there's no reason to choose an interpretation that restricts alternatives playstyles.

It's not like the topic is Criticial Fumbles which has a pretty clear write-up by Monte (the Founding Father of 3e) on why they are a bad idea and thus are not part of the RAW.

In fact, can we get Gary, Dave, Skip, Mentzer or Monte to comment on the topic of how they expected players to roleplay with regards to stats?

 

[LostSoul]

The character's Bravery attribute affects every single shot the character takes in the gunfight. The player cannot ignore the effect of the attribute.

That's the beauty of it.

That sounds like a brilliant mechanic. How does Bravery change over time, if at all?

 

[Argyle King]

Here's a question which has been on my mind since these threads have cropped up...


Should a smart GM have an advantage?

Would players object to monsters with low mental stats being played with a high level of tactical awareness? For sake of example, let's say the PCs are fighting a group of mindless zombies, and the zombies start to use advanced flanking maneuvers, react to contact with the PCs by adjusting their tactics in response to what the PCs use, and etc.

 

[Janx]

That sounds like a brilliant mechanic. How does Bravery change over time, if at all?

So how could D&D stats be wired up to be just as crucial?

In 2e and earlier, I recall a Reaction Roll that basically would be used on initial contact with NPCs/monsters. So quite literally, having a low CHA could get you into more fights, or less favorable attitudes by EVERY NPC.

I would suggest accounting for the entire party's total CHA modifier in this check. That way, it's not just the Face's number, but the fact that he has this entirely unlikable chap standing behind him that he deigns to associate with.

For intelligence, I had once considered the concept that your intelligence constrained the language you could use. lower intelligences meant you couldn't use pronouns and articles. higher intelligence meant you could use larger words. That's all I got. I'd be curious to see a workable "use this mechanic to apply Intelligence to applicable situations"