D&D 5E So 5 Intelligence Huh

[Guest 6801328]

So a 5 Int character isn't smart. That's known. Can't count past 10, difficulty reading anything with more than 5 letters, can't remember names, places or events that happened too long ago (unless it was significant to the character), has trouble differentiating between silver, electrum an platinum coins, etc.

My 2 1/2 year old can do all of those (or, in the case of the coins, something equivalent) except the words of more then 5 letters.

Are you suggesting that a character who, according to the rules, is not only viable but is 2 entire steps smarter than a minimally viable character, is less functional than a 2 1/2 year old?

 

[AaronOfBarbaria]

Since It's pretty much impossible to game with a significant number of people and encounter none who think that a PC with 5 int is stupid and should be roleplayed that way, I'm fairly confident that this is a lie.

Come on Max, you have a high enough Intelligence score to know that is not what I said.

I've never encountered a player or DM with what the context of your posts in this thread suggest your standards for exactly how stupid a character with a particular below average intelligence score must be, which you consider the "norm" (what I said) - that is not the same as me having never encountered a player or DM that thinks a character with a lower than average intelligence score is comparatively less intelligent than a character with a higher score (what you are pretending I said).

 

[Hriston]

Earth math has nothing to do with it. It's a GAME, and in a game things can be different. This isn't the first time D&D has altered a definition.

D&D didn't alter the definition of IQ. You did, but assuming you're right, and "Earth math" doesn't apply in D&D, does that mean I can be attacked by 5 goblins, kill 3 of them, and declare victory because in D&D math 5 - 3 = 0?

 

[Umbran]

Just a reminder to folks who didn't read the previous page recently: Please keep it civil, and show basic respect to your fellow posters. Thanks.

 

[Hriston]

Your point is incorrect. You might as well say that Maxperson's assertion cannot be true assuming unicorns fart rainbows. The two things have exactly that much in common.

Sure, I could have dismissed [MENTION=23751]Maxperson[/MENTION]'s assertion with such an argument, and to be clear, I'm not of the opinion that an Intelligence score has any direct relation to an IQ score, but I've decided to take this particular assertion of his as a given for the sake of argument.

No, because IQs are not really normally distributed. They cannot be, because a normal distribution requires certain things be true of its data that are not true for the IQ data. Normal distributions require that the data have a mean and a standard deviation and ordinal data have no such values (and cannot).

But we are talking about IQ scores, not the data from which they are derived. IQ scores have a mean of 100 and a standard deviation of 15.

 

[iserith]

The odds that with the sheer number of people I've gamed with over the decades, while it's theoretically possible that it isn't the norm, the reality is that the chances of it not being the norm are next to nil. Have fun playing your way, but I'm exceedingly confident that your way is not the norm.

Remember, I'm not the one claiming my way is the norm.

 

[iserith]

I agree it doesn't tell us much. But it does tell us that the character is not as capable in the things that the PHB lists under Intelligence as someone with a higher score. It tells us that a 'normal' person has a score of 10, so that you should be less capable than a 'normal' person. So it's not meaningless, it has some useful information even, as you note, it lack a great deal of information. "Doesn't tell us much" is not the same as doesn't tell us anything.

But, overall, I find that you're willing to remove all agency from the players for their choices during character creation troubling. You've handwaved those away as utterly irrelevant to the play of the characters and only selected the four boxed of ideal, trait, bond, and flaw to be worth respecting, and then with one of the weaker aspects of 5e's design (total judgement on my part, I find inspiration to be awful, not in concept, I like bennie points, just in a boring, lackluster implementation). You say you respect player agency, but only in some contexts. I say I respect player agency even for character creation and you think that's a horrible idea. Clearly, we're not going to meet on this one.

When I hear the word "agency," I think of a player's ability to make meaningful decisions and change things in the game world. I'm not sure what you mean by "agency," but the way I handle things doesn't impact player agency as I understand it. If you're trying to tie agency to consequences, then I'm still good by that definition - that -3 modifier will come into play at some point.

 

[iserith]

If it's okay to say that you're not actually interfering with the action declaration by providing a clear path for which such declarations can be arbitrarily denied by a biased party, then it seems to be that it's equally fine to ask for an INT check to see if a player is smart enough to turn a dial to the correct answer, because I'm not saying they can't declare that, I'm saying the outcome is in doubt, and I'm asking for a check.

Same thing, we're both determining an alternate method for adjudicating an allowed character declaration in a situation in which we wish to encourage a certain kind of play and discourage another kind of play. Although, I'm certain you don't see it as an agreement.

It's not the same thing at all. The players describe what they want to do. The DM narrates the results of the adventurers' actions. That what you wanted to do fails doesn't mean you have been denied the ability to declare actions. If I declare that I want to turn the dial to "S" and you effectively tell me (roll or no roll) that I'm too stupid to try that, then you are denying my declared action. If you instead tell me that the dial is stuck and doesn't budge despite my efforts, that's just the narration of the result of the adventurer's action.

So we're in agreement that this is a step there where the play thinks of the answer, yes? You explicitly state that if the player states that question aloud, it's able to be adjudicated, but if they don't speak the question, no adjudication can take place, even if it's obvious that such a question occurred and was left unspoken, yes? If both are yes, then what's the real issue of me recognizing that the middle step, spoken or unspoken, is actually in doubt and asking for a check to resolve the uncertainty? Is it really only that the character didn't speak it aloud?

As above, the players describe what they want to do and the DM narrates the result of the adventurers' actions. There is no assumed middle step to test if a character can even think to turn the dial to "S." You can, however, call for a check if I take some other action along the lines of trying to deduce whether "S" is actually the right answer. But that's not the action that was declared in the example.

 

[iserith]

I believe the exact question Iserith is asking goes something along the lines of "Assume it is just a dial, with no significance and no markings. Can the stupid PC turn this dial in a counter clockwise direction? If so, why can't this stupid PC turn the marked dial in a counter clockwise direction, assuming everything else about the dials is the same(no magic or mechanism that locks the dial in place)?"

Correct me if I am wrong Iserith.

Right. It seems to me that there is no fictional circumstance that is complicating the player's effort given the parameters of the example, but some posters simply don't want this player to correctly answer the puzzle because the character has a 5 Intelligence.

 

[Maxperson]

You have misread my post. The phrase this conjuecture refers to your view of INT as a measure of an intelligence property, which it is more common to have a lot of in the gameworld than it is in the real world.

In the editions where IQ = int x 10, it's not conjecture. Those editions comprise a large majority of D&D.

But on the other thing - that IQ = INT*10 - the article by Brian Blume predates AD&D and so is (by your criteria) irrelevant. What are the other articles and official rulings? There are none that I know of for 4e or 5e. Is this another 2nd ed AD&D thing?

The FAQ is an official rules answer, so it's an official rule in 3e. I'm positive I saw it somewhere other than in that article in 1e, but I can't seem to find it in the clutter that is the internet. Oh, well.