Reply to thread

Message

<blockquote data-quote="Mannahnin" data-source="post: 8188088" data-attributes="member: 7026594">Thomas, that approach seems unplayable to me.&nbsp; How do you define &quot;whether the character is actually sharp enough to come up with something&quot; in any objective manner which we can agree on at the table for a ruling? Do you require EVERY idea any character has to involve an Intelligence check, or the party can't use the idea?&nbsp; Or do you as DM just overrule the players sometimes?&nbsp; &quot;Sorry, Thag is too dumb to figure out the word puzzle and none of the rest of you did it, so you're not getting through the door.&quot;Dumb people can have bright ideas or flashes of insight on occasion.&nbsp; And despite amusing hyperbole and idioms, no one in our games is playing a character &quot;dumber than a box of rocks&quot;, or of even animal intelligence, even if they have a 3 Int.I think the game functions much better when players can make good decisions for their characters, and it's left at their discretion whether they want to personify a low mental stat by dumbing down their own performance.&nbsp; A low Int score can be adequately represented by them portraying the character as generally not bright even if they do have the occasional good idea or spot the solution to a puzzle.&nbsp; And by the mechanics of not being good at Int-based skill checks to get info from the DM.</blockquote>

[QUOTE="Mannahnin, post: 8188088, member: 7026594"] Thomas, that approach seems unplayable to me. How do you define "whether the character is actually sharp enough to come up with something" in any objective manner which we can agree on at the table for a ruling? Do you require EVERY idea any character has to involve an Intelligence check, or the party can't use the idea? Or do you as DM just overrule the players sometimes? "Sorry, Thag is too dumb to figure out the word puzzle and none of the rest of you did it, so you're not getting through the door." Dumb people can have bright ideas or flashes of insight on occasion. And despite amusing hyperbole and idioms, no one in our games is playing a character "dumber than a box of rocks", or of even animal intelligence, even if they have a 3 Int. I think the game functions much better when players can make good decisions for their characters, and it's left at their discretion whether they want to personify a low mental stat by dumbing down their own performance. A low Int score can be adequately represented by them portraying the character as generally not bright even if they do have the occasional good idea or spot the solution to a puzzle. And by the mechanics of not being good at Int-based skill checks to get info from the DM. [/QUOTE]

Verification