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D&D 5E So 5 Intelligence Huh

Maxperson

Morkus from Orkus
It's dropping with the goat.

As far as I can tell from a bit of Googling, that's a golden eagle weighing 4-ish kg (call it 9 lb) with a 2 metre wingspan. Wikipedia tells me that mountain goats weigh 100 lb or more (45 kg and up) with a body length of over 1 metre. It's not clear how much that goat weights, but a lot more than 4 kg! The eagle can't carry it, or lift it while flying.

I refer you to the earlier sites that I linked to, which talk about the amount of weight that an eagle can lift and carry.

That eagle is not falling. It has the goat in its talons and is moving it in a very controlled fashion. It may not have the ability to lift the eagle in flight, but neither is it just dropping. In any case, to even be able to control the downward flight like that takes more strength than the eagle is credited with by your site. Let's give you something 10x your weight to carry and see how well you control it while going down a mountainside.
 

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This is a game where you can speak with animals, so yes, frogs and apes can speak. If we're going to assume that an IQ test is being given in the game, it's equally valid to assume that the frog or ape can speak, count and even solve crossword puzzles. To deny the frog his test, because frog, is wrong. That only applies in the real world.

Personally, I think this is silly. D&D is also a game where plants, rocks, dead people etc.. can speak. Do they all qualify too? I think we're talking about mundane creatures here? And in any case, everyone knows that you kiss talking frogs!
 

Mallus

Legend
This is a game where you can speak with animals, so yes, frogs and apes can speak. If we're going to assume that an IQ test is being given in the game, it's equally valid to assume that the frog or ape can speak, count and even solve crossword puzzles. To deny the frog his test, because frog, is wrong. That only applies in the real world.
This is true. D&D posits a world where animals and even minerals can speak, and presumably, also solve crossword puzzles.

So why in the world would you hassle (or criticize the role-playing skills of) someone playing a stupid human being who happens to be good at solving riddles? Or any other intellectual challenge presented during the game.

I believe you just sunk your own battleship, old sport.
 

Maxperson

Morkus from Orkus
This is true. D&D posits a world where animals and even minerals can speak, and presumably, also solve crossword puzzles.

So why in the world would you hassle (or criticize the role-playing skills of) someone playing a stupid human being who happens to be good at solving riddles? Or any other intellectual challenge presented during the game.

I believe you just sunk your own battleship, old sport.

Aha! I've been waiting for that worthless and failed argument to be used. The good ole "Since some things are unrealistic in D&D, no realism at all is needed!!!!!" argument. It makes Trump's arguments look good, Mallus.

Realism is a necessity, even in D&D. It's not whether realism exists in D&D, because it does exist all over the place. It's where the line is drawn that matters. Playing a stupid PC as smart or even average crosses the line for a lot of people.

Iserith has made it known that realism doesn't mean much to him, so denying the frog the test based on "It's a frog." is kinda hypocritical. It's an argument based on realism.
 

Maxperson

Morkus from Orkus
Personally, I think this is silly. D&D is also a game where plants, rocks, dead people etc.. can speak. Do they all qualify too? I think we're talking about mundane creatures here? And in any case, everyone knows that you kiss talking frogs!

I don't see why a dead person couldn't take an IQ test if you can talk to it. The rock might be a stretch, though :)
 

pemerton

Legend
This is a game where you can speak with animals, so yes, frogs and apes can speak. If we're going to assume that an IQ test is being given in the game, it's equally valid to assume that the frog or ape can speak, count and even solve crossword puzzles.
From p 178 of the SRD, under the "Speak with Animals" spell:

The knowledge and awareness of many beasts is limited by their intelligence, but at minimum, beasts can give you information about nearby locations and monsters, including whatever they can perceive or have perceived within the past day.​

That minimum - which seems broadly consistent with the sort of information one might get from my pet cat, were one able to
speak with her - doesn't suggest to me that animals in D&D can take IQ tests, any more than they can in the real world.
 

Maxperson

Morkus from Orkus
From p 178 of the SRD, under the "Speak with Animals" spell:

The knowledge and awareness of many beasts is limited by their intelligence, but at minimum, beasts can give you information about nearby locations and monsters, including whatever they can perceive or have perceived within the past day.​

That minimum - which seems broadly consistent with the sort of information one might get from my pet cat, were one able to
speak with her - doesn't suggest to me that animals in D&D can take IQ tests, any more than they can in the real world.

The "at a minimum" very, very strongly suggests, no outright states, that's the MINIMUM. The game reality is that the beast would know much more. If you want to limit your beasts to the minimum and not what the beast really would be able to know and say, that's up to you. Me, I'll go with more than the absolute minimum.
 

Ovinomancer

No flips for you!
Not at all. [MENTION=97077]iserith[/MENTION] isn't saying that the frog can't take the IQ test because of its INT score. Presumably, in iserith's game, a PC with a 2 INT can sit an IQ test.

Iserith is saying that the frog can't take an IQ test because it's a frog.

I made the same point about the giant lizard. It's a lizard. And therefore, for any number of reasons - its lack of cognitive skill, its lack of hands - it can't pick locks or use chopsticks. The fact that its DEX is rated at 12 has no bearing on these matters.

Which only goes to tell us that stats like INT and DEX don't exhaust our understanding of the cognitive and manipulative capabilities of a creature. We know that already because we know what frogs and what lizards are.

All the 12 DEX of the lizard is doing is telling me how to generate some necessary mechanical details for the creature (init, AC, etc).

All the 2 INT of the frog is doing is telling me that it can't escape from a maze spell.

Or let's take the giant ape, with an INT of 7. It can't speak, or read and write, or count, or solve crosswords puzzles. Does that mean a PC of INT 7 can't do any of those things either? To me it is obvious that those limitations on a giant ape are not consequences of it having an INT of 7, but consequences of the fact that it is an ape, not a human (or near-human) being. And I'm pretty confident that [MENTION=97077]iserith[/MENTION] agrees with me on this point.

Absolutely!

For instance (and unlike earlier editions of the game), 5e doesn't link the INT score to language learning. Hence, whatever exactly is meant by saying that INT measures recall and memory and reasoning, it clearly doesn't measure all of those things, because the game permits a PC to have a low INT yet know many languages. (Per the Basic PDF p 68, the training takes 250 days regardless of INT.)

Nor does INT place any limitation on tool proficiency. It is possible, for instance, to be a master lockpick with 3 INT.

So obviously INT does not encompass everything even within the domains of reasoning and recall, let alone other aspects of what would ordinarily be called intelligence.

The rules text actually says that INT measures the ability to reason (among other things - obviously it's possible for a human being to have poor reasoning but good memory, and it's not clear how exactly this impacts on the INT score). What form does the measure take? As I read the rules, it primarily takes the form of imposing a penalty on ability checks made to determine the outcome of feats of reasoning.

For instance, an INT check would presumably be made to find out how look it takes a PC to solve a crossword puzzle, or to see how far s/he can get (assuming that the GM hasn't actually drawn up a crossword puzzle for the players to solve). A character with a low INT would suffer a penalty, and hence be less likely to succeed at the crossword in a given amount of time. To me, that seems to be the main respect in which INT is a measure of reasoning ability.

Can a PC polymorphed into a frog take an IQ test?
 

pemerton

Legend
Can a PC polymorphed into a frog take an IQ test?
What are the polymorph rules?

In AD&D the answer is no - Polymorph Other gives the target the intelligence and competence of a frog. (If the change is via Polymorph Self then it's a different situation - the character's mental abilities are unchanged, though s/he may have trouble writing down answers.)

In 5e the answer is less clear, but is probably yes - Polymorph says that "[t]he target’s game statistics, including mental ability scores, are replaced by the statistics of the chosen beast. It retains its alignment and personality." The second sentence implies a general continuity of mental capability (a frog can't be aligned, for instance). So a PC polymorphed into a frog becomes more dim-witted (due to the penalty to INT) but still retains his or her essentially human personality, including alignment and, I would say, IQ-test-taking-ability.
 


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