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Message: <blockquote data-quote="The-Magic-Sword" data-source="post: 6786578" data-attributes="member: 6801252">It was in response to the sentiment that you described in post #36 and more on the previous page- that tactical acumen should be confined to the player's ability to roleplay it manually. your specific question is entirely irrelevant, you are not socrates and I am not obligated to answer within the context of the socratic method, your question engages with an answer far larger and more fundamental than some convenient strawman, a construct that you've shown a marked tendency to create in this thread. when one roleplays a higher intelligence character, they do it with the aid of the game- they roleplay a character as they expect the personality to be presented for the concept in their mind, and the game mechanics shore up the difference between their levels of intelligence in order to make that intelligence a distinctive, very real advantage. Consider the roleplaying difference between a character with high or low intelligence, nothing obligates the less intelligent character to act without cognizance, and it would be a meaningless statement to suggest they should- what truly defines stupid? is the player obligated to take worse choices because of their score? How is that decided and enforced? of course its not an applicable concept, even the lowest conventional score, an 8 is still considered the intelligence of an average human being- the intelligence of a PC wizard (usually 16+) is a level of exceptional that may very well lie outside of real human experience. The game makes the difference between these two characters evident with mechanical numbers, the mechanics of a character have a distinct role in roleplaying- they supply the connection between how the character is played, who they are, and their ability to affect the world around them in a direct way. If A high-int spell caster is allowed to translate their character trait into a mechanical advantage that the game gives them to reinforce the impact of their intelligence on the world. it follows thatA character with strong leadership skills should be allowed to translate their character trait into a mechanical advantage that the game gives them to reinforce the impact of their leadership skills on the world. This should be true regardless of the player's personal abilities, a player who has low int should successfully be able to play a character with high int, a player with low strength should be able to successfully play a character with high strength etc. That's the advantage afforded to us by it being a narrative game, and not a physical game- we shouldn't carelessly diminish the nature of that advantage in a fit of pique as we look for excuses to invalidate what others find appealing. You present another strawman as well, earlier you challenged the notion of being given a mechanical right to boss around party members, but quite frankly this is ridiculous, a warlords abilities have always been written to "Grant" attacks and other benefits, the player is fully capable of not doing so- it also isn't necessary that these abilities be fluffed as direct orders, they can be encouragement, guidance, inspiration, banter, suggestions, narratively constructed opportunities that in a roleplay context have nothing to do with the warlord- all tailored to the individual parties preferences.</blockquote>

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