Modeling Holmes in D&D means that you have to take the best rolls, the best int and all possible modifiers into consideration when figuring out whether your model is the best or not.
I'm not talking about "modelling Holmes".
Upthread, the question arose - could a character with a less than 18 INT be Holmes? (And the 5 INT Holmes is really just an extreme instance of this more general claim.)
The answer is - if, in play, it turns out that the character with less than 18 INT solves the most puzzles, unveils more dastardluy plots than any other character who is salient in the game, etc - then the answer is "yes".
D&D, as actually played, is not a
model in any relevant sense. It is the result of the resolution of a series of action declarations. The stats of various characters are just one (and not always the most important) input into that process.
Now, if I was setting out to play a Holmes-like character, I would try and put a good score into INT because otherwise it may not be that likely that I will turn out to solve more puzzles and unveil more dastardly plots than anyone else. But putting the high score into INT in no way guarantees that I will be Holmes-like. All it does is give me a better shot at having my action declarations generate Holmes-like outcomes.
In Rolemaster, character's have scores in Reasoning and Memory rather than INT. I have played RM games where the character with the highest RE at the table was not the most Holmes-like, due to (i) differences in character skill-sets (another character might have better knowledge skills, for instance) and (ii) differences in player skill (another player actually makes more deductions). As far as this particular topic of discussion is concerned, D&D is not relevantly different from RM in its connection between character stats and the outcomes of play.
D&D models against the real world in it's material. Both are based on the common understandings of things, like intelligence, that we all have from the real world. I fail to even grasp an argument about intelligence, or relative ability of intelligence, without a consideration of the real world to lend it meaning.
As for the low mechanical impact of intelligence, you're correct that it is often minor. However, the premise of my argument re: Sherlock had nothing to do with that mechanical impact, and my, and others', arguments have been that INT is more than just the mechanical impact. Despite that, I was offered a purely mechanical rebuttal in the form of the 5 INT Sherlock. However, even a cursory examination of that model shows it has glaring flaws in its ability to actually model the fiction of Sherlock Holmes as the superlative detective because others less experienced but with high INT can outmatch him and the number of those that can do so are non-trivial. So the 5 INT Sherlock can't exist unless you add additional mechanical restrictions on other builds that prevent this disparity.
As I replied to Maxperson, I am not talking about
modelling the fiction of Sherlock Holmes. I'm not talking, for instance, about how I might build a NPC who was Holmes-like by ability and reputation.
I am talking about
playing a game of D&D, in which one player character turns out to be Holmes-like.
Hence I do not feel the force of your claim that "others less experienced but with higher INT
can outmatch him". The possibility claim here - the
can - turns on purely mechanical considerations, namely, that the less-than-stellar-INT Holmes-like character is not the most optimal mechanical build, within the D&D rules framework, for generating Holmes-like outcomes. (Similarly, starting your character with less than 18 or 20 in STR and CON is not the most optimal mechanical build for generating the toughest character around.)
But if it turns out, in the course of play, that the character in question is in fact unmatched in deduction and plot-solving, then what does it mean to contend that, nevertheless, in some sense that has meaning only in the mechanics but not the fiction, that character is not the best?
In the end, I am really just reiterating my post upthread (number 1181): to claim that the character is not the best because others
might do better is to take a real world fact, about the mechanical framework of D&D, and to project that into the fiction. It is a non-sequitur.
Upthread, [MENTION=205]TwoSix[/MENTION] made the point that not everybody plays D&D as a simulation. But even if playing the game with a process-simulation approach, I would still find it to be a non-sequitur. It is virtually impossible, I think, to play Rolemaster as other than a process-sim game, and for the 20 years that I played it I played it in a process-sim manner. Nevertheless, as I've said, the measure of Holmes-likeness of a PC is not just the RE score of the character. That score is just one input into action resolution.
If RM character A has better RE and knowledge skills than RM character B, but B's player actually declares more puzzle-solving and deduction-generating actions than A's player, then (especially with a bit of luck on the dice) despite the stats B is going to turn out to be more Holmes-like than A.
The fact that if B's player had character A then s/he might be able to generate an even
more Holmes-like performance is not really to the point. That is another fact about the real world, which has no bearing on the fiction, in which it is B who is the most Holmes-like personage around. (Whereas, perhaps, A is Holmes' friend who has memorised many textbooks but lacks the wit and intuition to bring those facts to bear on any of the problems that actually confront him/her - perhaps A is an ivory tower academic type.)
There are no rolls in the books. In the books, he is flat out the best based on intelligence and skill.
What does it mean to say "there are no rolls in the book"? The whole premise of this discussion is that someone is going to play a Holmes-like character. So we are positing the events of the book as outcomes of the process of a player of the game declaring actions, and then having those actions resolved.
If we were talking about reading a story,
and then projecting a set of D&D stats back onto it, of course it is natural to give Holmes 18 INT rather than 5 INT. But that's not what was being discussed. We're talking about
playing a game of D&D, and in the course of that having one of the characters turn out to be Holmes-like.
In a system like Amber diceless, it may well be that the only way to play a Holmes-like character is to have the highest INT at the table. But D&D is not a diceless system.
If we were talking about being a brilliant linguist, than in AD&D the only way to do that would be to have a high INT, because linguistic knowledge is determined by INT. But not in 5e; and in any event, Holmes is not famous primarily for his knowledge of languages.
If your result is less than the best, you have failed to model Holmes
Quite. But a stat is not a result. It's just an input into a process of determining results. And it's not the only input, and not always the most important one.
You're actually going with the assumption that Sherlock Holmes' fiction world was peopled with individuals with either very low INT and/or extremely bad luck such that only Sherlock Holmes was capable of being smart/lucky enough to be the best detective?
We have differing definitions of the word 'plausible.' Sherlock Holmes isn't set in a fantasy world, it's set in a world that, while fictional, is a mirror of ours at the time. Sherlock is better than the police, and is only rivaled by one person in the entire milieu -- Moriarty. Advancing an argument that the reality of that fiction is that everyone else is just dumber or unluckier is a very bold claim, and requires some bold evidence to take seriously.
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We're at the point in the argument that people are presenting outlandish claims just to try to hold onto the shred of an argument.
I'm talking about playing a game of D&D, and having a character turn out to be Holmes-like.
The XP chart for AD&D has wizards going all the way up to level 29, with an implication that further extrapolation is possible. But if I play a game of AD&D in which, in play, the only salient wizard is the 12 level PC magic-user, the fact that the game rules contemplate some abstract mechanical possibility is neither here nor there.
Similarly, if in a game of D&D one particular PC emerges, at the table, as the one who makes all the deductions and provides all the solutions to the nefarious plots; and if, at the table, there is a strong implication (not uncommon in D&D play as I experience it) that those plots are the most notorious in the gameworld (eg they are the plots that threaten existence as we know it, that only the PCs are competent to resolve, etc); then that character has emerged as being Holmes-like.
The fact that, in advance, one might have expected the character in question to have difficulty with this (eg due to a less than stellar INT score) is not relevant to the actual outcome. Sometimes outcomes are unexpected.
So far from being outlandish, in my current 4e game a version of this outcome is actually present, though in the context of STR and CON rather than INT. The PC dwarf fighter-cleric in my 4e game started with 16 STR and CON (max starting max stat in 4e is 20). Yet events in the game - the interactions of the player's action declarations, the outcomes of those declarations, the way I (as GM) have framed further fiction in relation to those outcomes, the player's choice of epic destiny (Eternal Defender, which features a STR-buffing daily power) which itself feeds off those prior events of play, etc - all bring it about that this character is the toughest dwarf in the gameworld except perhaps for Moradin. In fact, he has probably been the toughest non-divine dwarf since around 11th level, and certainly since 15th level.
As I've already pointed out in this post, when actually playing a game of D&D ability scores are only part of the picture. There are other mechanical inputs into resolution, as well as non-mechanical inputs into resolution; and it is the outcome of resolution that tells you whether or not a character is Holmes-like, or is the toughest dwarf in the world.
