Wisdom???

[Sadrik]

The way I see Intelligence vs. Wisdom for these skills is that a smart person memorizes facts and can recall them quickly, but a wise person can take what they know and see patterns in their experiences that they can apply to new experiences.

I'll try not to be argumentative but I'll just ask a few questions to solidify your thoughts on this:
A wise person cannot recall facts quickly in regard to wisdom based knowledge?
Being smart cannot see patterns in their experiences that they can apply to new experiences?

My point for asking those questions is that they both seem appropriate. I feel knowledge in any form should be both experience + book based. Not one or the other. You are not very knowledgeable if you have no practical experience to back it up.

 

[xechnao]

I think most people here take the wisdom and intelligence characteristics too universally and fail to see their meaning as intended within the D&D design.

Of course, it is not their fault, but rather D&D's fault which is not clear about this to the reader. Obviously, wisdom and intelligence as characteristics of the humans of the modern world (information age) are just nonsense, but as attributes of the adventuring profession within a medieval fantasy world can indeed describe two of its qualities that make a lot of sense.

A D&D adventurer with a high intelligence score is a person that has been exposed to a certain amount of knowledge about his world, an amount that the common person cant have access to if he so wished. The intelligence characteristic stat quantifies a solid advantage within the D&D world.

A D&D adventurer with high wisdom is one that has managed to see the true motivations behind and beyond the common beliefs of his world. Beliefs such as religious dogma and the like. What the medieval system really is beyond its religious propaganda. In fact few folk in a medieval society can distinguish dogma (propaganda) and the social system of their civilization. The wisdom characteristic stat quantifies a solid advantage within the D&D world.

This is it. Nothing more, nothing else. I guess Wotc designers that wanted to universallize 3.x and make D20 modern failed to see this by themselves and have confused players even more. This, or most probably they thought that the sacred cows of D&D had more value than make a game that makes a bit more sense.

 

[Camelot]

I'll try not to be argumentative but I'll just ask a few questions to solidify your thoughts on this:
A wise person cannot recall facts quickly in regard to wisdom based knowledge?
Being smart cannot see patterns in their experiences that they can apply to new experiences?

My point for asking those questions is that they both seem appropriate. I feel knowledge in any form should be both experience + book based. Not one or the other. You are not very knowledgeable if you have no practical experience to back it up.

The answer to both, in my eyes, is no. A wise person who is not intelligent will not recall information about magic or history, since they cannot memorize it well, but in certain situations, they will act on instinct because they have experienced this before.

An intelligenct person who is not wise will be able to memorize facts, but when it comes to piecing those facts together in new and innovative ways, they'd fail.

I guess Wisdom could be creativity, too, while Intelligence is school smarts. A nerd would not make a good boy scout.

 

[JustKim]

I'll try not to be argumentative but I'll just ask a few questions to solidify your thoughts on this:
A wise person cannot recall facts quickly in regard to wisdom based knowledge?
Being smart cannot see patterns in their experiences that they can apply to new experiences?

My point for asking those questions is that they both seem appropriate. I feel knowledge in any form should be both experience + book based. Not one or the other. You are not very knowledgeable if you have no practical experience to back it up.

Which muscle groups are represented by the Strength ability, and which ones are represented by the Dexterity ability? Dexterity allows you to move your whole body to dodge, tumble or balance, but Strength allows you to move your whole body to swing a weapon or climb a wall. Surely these are the same thing intrinsically! And if Constitution is your overall health, doesn't it represent the systems of your body? A person with healthy muscles should have a healthy body, right? For that matter, what's with this false dichotomy of mind and body? Isn't your brain responsible for both forming abstract thought and making your muscles function? Doesn't the body's health directly affect the mind?

What an arbitrary bunch of ability scores we have! How can you possibly draw a line between any two?

 

[aboyd]

For what it's worth, dealing with undead and the Animate Dead spell will really help to sharpen your ideas on Wisdom vs. Intelligence. The reason is that, at least in D&D 3.5, skeletons have Wisdom but no Intelligence. So you have to think pretty hard about what implications that has for how they handle your commands. With my concept of Intelligence basically being knowledge or accumlated facts stored in your brain, and Wisdom being your ability to make decisions, what I ended up with was skeletons who could make decent decisions in the moment, but with no accumulated data to help inform those decisions. So here is what I wrote on my private forum about it:

The animate undead spell leaves some wiggle room for the DM to determine how it works in detail. My interpretation is that because they do not have intelligence (which I consider to be accumulated knowledge), certain things do not work:

1. They have no memory of their past, and thus cannot take action on it (such as "take me to your home")
2. They don't understand spoken language anyway. Intelligence is required for that.
3. They could be ordered to understand/act on a keyword, as long as it was IN the command so it became part of what they could draw from.
4. Commands must be simple. The human brain without long term memory can only hold about a 7-digit phone number or 6 or 7 word sentence. I rule that commands up to 15 words are possible.
5. Orders don't stack -- there is no capacity to remember old commands, so they cannot follow orders such as "do anything the girl suggests." (Edit: I take that back, slightly. I think that they would act on the initial command, which would enable them to act on the subsequent command from the girl. However, upon getting the subsequent command, they would lose the initial command, and return to control of the cleric. Also, since the undead cannot interpret language, the girl would need to use specified hand signals or keywords or something pre-designated -- nothing open-ended. So for example, "Attack when she lowers her arm, flee when she circles her arm around her head" would be OK and come in at exactly the 15 word limit.)

Undead without Intelligence are essentially running off the creator's knowledge. For example, without Intelligence, a zombie has no concept of what a road is, nor any other basic thing such as a room, a person, etc. Therefore, the creator's commands are "infused" with his/her own concepts. In other words, a zombie doesn't know what a road is, but if given the command "walk down this road until it ends" it will instantly acquire an impression of what walking is, what a road is, and what an ending is. These impressions would be shallow mirrors of the caster's own understanding. The undead then uses its wisdom to execute the job as competently as possible.

As for obstacles (such as a wall across the road), since the obstacle was not part of the command, the undead would have no concept of what a wall was or how to climb it. But the undead would have its ability to perceive things. So it would sense an unknown barrier, and circumvent it as best it can, probably without leaving the road. If the wall completely intersected the road, it's likely the undead would think that matched its impression of the road ending, and stop moving.

I formed most of my opinions about undead in this discussion. However, I differ in that I think undead DO have wisdom (which I consider to be common sense), so I believe they will execute commands without goofy ridiculous bunglings. However, their wisdom is only average, and without intelligence many things in the environment are unknown, so expecting better outcomes than that of a dim commoner would be asking for too much.

 

[JohnBiles]

Wisdom is the voice of experience and insight
Intelligence is the voice of logic and academic learning.

Intelligence tells you smoking is bad for you.
Wisdom enables you to quit.

In 4E, History, Religion, and Arcana are intelligence skills because they reflect knowledge, book learning and logic.
In 4E, Dungeoneering, Heal, Nature, Perception, and Insight reflect the intuitive and experiential nature of wisdom.

 

[N0Man]

As far as how I view them in game...

I think of Intelligence as relating to academic studies, understanding theories and principals, critical and analytical thought. Kind of a scientific and introspective type of mind suitable for understanding the mysteries of the arcana. Those with this attribute have an easier time understanding abstract ideas and the world of ideas or pursits of academics. Scientists and historians. Strange and unusual ideas are accepted more readily by this type, even embraced.

I see Wisdom as mind suited for practical ideas and skills. Those with this attribute are more extrospective (more aware of the physical world), have higher situational awareness, excel at skills that are hands on, practical, and easy to apply. They are also likely have more of a mind for tradition and accepted ideas. They are more likely to trust their senses, which are likely keen, more than than their intuition.

This view fits with the way skills are associated with these abilities as well, for the most part.

Personally, when using Insight to judge if someone is lying works with wisdom if it's based on signs and other cues that are presented, and when Insight is based off perceptions. However, when it's used as a more of a gut-feeling and intuitive skill, I'd like to lean towards Intelligence.

I readily admit that the Myers-Brigg Personality Assessment had some influence in the way I break up Int and Wis, but there are some interesting correlations between comparing Int vs Wis and Introspection vs Extrospection, in regards to the types of skills, classes and archetypes are associated with Int and Wis characters.

 

[Puggins]

With all the search parameters set, it will find or not find the file. There is no gray area. If you set the parameters to search for hidden directories an algorithm could be drawn up to do that kind of thing. The competency is in how complex the algorithm is, not in if the algorithm can make guesses and leaps of faith. The program is what it is, a complex one will pick up more in this case than a very simple one.

... which implies that any specific algorithm imparts a limited amount of "wisdom" to the computer. In this case, the ability to assimilate and process data is only as good as its algorithm, which is knowledge applied in a practical fashion as opposed to raw knowledge proper.

A better example of wisdom might be a wild tiger or other such predator. Many predators have very little training imparted from their parents (plenty have absolutely none), and none have the reasoning abilities that human do. But try sneaking up or hiding from a tiger hunting you.

Another example- you are standing in the middle of the forest, surrounded by the sounds of a wind blowing through the trees. Anyone can hear the rustling of leaves around them, but not many can here THAT rustling of leaves- the one that is out of timbre with the rest and implies that someone may be approaching you.

 

[Sadrik]

I readily admit that the Myers-Brigg Personality Assessment had some influence in the way I break up Int and Wis,

So type A personalities are have more WIS
and type B personalities are more INT
Hmm, I think having a high CHA is more type A

 

[Sadrik]

A better example of wisdom might be a wild tiger or other such predator. Many predators have very little training imparted from their parents (plenty have absolutely none), and none have the reasoning abilities that human do. But try sneaking up or hiding from a tiger hunting you.

Another example- you are standing in the middle of the forest, surrounded by the sounds of a wind blowing through the trees. Anyone can hear the rustling of leaves around them, but not many can here THAT rustling of leaves- the one that is out of timbre with the rest and implies that someone may be approaching you.

A good point, animals generally have more keen senses than we people do but they are limited by there intellect in determining what it is that they are sensing. For instance, their powers of deduction and logic are non-existent they may be able to notice a twig breaking in a wind storm but they may not know what it means, their response may be fear, curiosity or to defend them self. An animal may see a trap and still go into it. INT definitely has a role in perception. So where raw detection of sounds noises and things seem to be based on your species. Finding and resolving more complex clues, traps, noticing lies, etc seems to be more based on smarts.

What is a good way to model that?