Post/Author/DateTime	Post
Maxxim 05-12-07, 11:07 AM	I'm starting a dwarven barbarian. Instead of the -2 charisma, he's going to get -2 intelligence, and I'm not putting any points there, so he will be at a 6 int. I'm going to make him really stupid (obviously). He won't talk very well, will be more of a hindrance in social situations, etc. But I need to come up with some good stuff for him to do as a result of being so stupid. Some things I'm considering: - he doesn't believe in magic, and thinks the party wizard is a fraud. If something "magical" happens, he finds extremely silly ways to explain it away. - he thinks he is a sorcerer who only knows 1 spell that makes him really big and angry. He always tries to cast it on other people and fails. Those aren't the best ideas, but it's all I have so far. It needs to be something fun to do, and sustainable over a campaign. Anyone have any ideas?
Westbound 05-12-07, 12:59 PM	Having a 6 Int doesn't mean your character is dumb. It could mean, simply, that your character has a poor memory or that he's blind, deaf, or both. Having a 6 Wis, on the other hand, means that your character is not the sharpest knife in the drawer, which would be more appropriate for someone who refuses to believe in magic when he sees it in action for himself. Intelligence is your ability to gather and retain information. Wisdom is your ability to understand information in context. You could have a 20 Int, but if you had a low Wis, like 4-6, it basically means you're an idiot savant like Dustin Hoffman's character in Rainman - excellent for intricate details and mathematics, but finds it tough to interact with his environment normally because he lacks basic understanding. A couple of ideas for behaving dumb - Insist that the Wizard/Sorcerer stay in front of you where you can see him. Especially in dungeons. You don't trust frauds, after all. Don't relent on this. If one of the other PCs is a cute girl, whether she's a dwarf or not, constantly hit on her. Tell her that you'd make beautiful babies together. To woo her, instead of picking flowers, you pick ears from the enemies you kill and you arrange them in a necklace for her. If she spurns you, tell her it's just as well, that you don't prefer beardless women anyway. Wherever you go, take a keg of beer with you, and drink from it repeatedly. Keep it on your back and hoist it on your shoulder to drink from it (it doesn't have to be a big keg). In combat, protect the keg - at all costs. Fly into a rage if anyone strikes the keg, whether it damages it or not. When you choose a mount, instead of a horse, ride a bull - everywhere you go. Insist it's a warhorse. Paint or tattoo, in big letters, the letter "L" on your left hand and the letter "R" on your right hand. Also, paint or tattoo your fingers, starting from left to right, the numbers 1-10, starting with your left pinkie as "1" and your right pinkie as "10." Same with your toes. Insist there is no number higher than 20. Assuming that you can't read, all of these symbols mean nothing to you. The story was that some sneaky wizard tattooed them on you so you'd know your numbers and your left from your right. When you gather wood for the fire, chop down entire trees and pile the logs together to start a fire. Don't bathe. Start bar fights, everywhere you go. If things are getting dull, just shout out "FIGHT!" and start swinging fists and throwing steins. Insist that all prophecies are about you. If you encounter a puzzle of some kind that you have to solve to get past a certain area...well, you know what to do.
Maxxim 05-12-07, 05:00 PM	I can switch it to -2 wis. The DM is letting me move the -2 cha from dwarves to whichever mental stat works for my rp goals. The only issue is taking an extra penalty on my already weak will saves. Those are all awesome ideas, except for making the wizard stand in front. I know my friend playing the wiz, he won't like that one bit. Instead of not believing in magic, I might go with the fact that he thinks he is a spellcaster who knows one spell. I remember someone on another thread talking about something similar, and it gave me the idea that maybe he carries around a "spellbook," with only one page filled in, and that is a finger paint picture of a big stick figure holding an axe. He swears it's his "me get big and angry" spell. Also, he will refuse to take middle watch at night, because he needs to get enough sleep to memorize his spell in the morning. Anyone else got more ideas?
Vulkhar 05-12-07, 06:15 PM	Well, I do not agree with Westbound about the Int/Wis-thing. Wisdom is the Stat on whom all those Spot, See, Survival,... depends, so someone low on Wis and High on Int might more be tending to either be physically impaired in regards to his senses or falling to strange delusions. High intelligence would give a wide berth of skills known and high scores on all those Knowledge/Spellcraft/.... thingies. Intelligence 6 would be extremely simpleminded. I would rather part the world in a simple scheme ("Guy is friendly, smile and laugh a lot, guy is unfriendly, shout a lot and be derogatory, guy tries to attack you or friend - all-out unrefrained mayhem"), allowing for hardly any schemes of gray between but allowing for sudden and unexpected mood-swings. He might even be conscious about being not so sharp and will probably look out for people who treat him well and show him how to survive his world. Count the words in all his sentences and try to avoid sentences with more than six words and words with more than two syllables. (Take your time to really count them. If he reacts a bit slow when it comes to verbal exchange, this will fit very well) A half-orc of mine really loved the word "bollock" and used it to refer to everything. Himself, people he talked to, people he talked about, the weather or any events..... He virtually exchanged every noun in his sentences with "bollock" and it became very fast evident to everyone, that he was really unable to change this speech pattern. He commented every "bollock" with a retarded laughter and showed no other signs of agression, so after the first few moments of irritation amazingly often his strange behavior was accepted. (His refusal to wash was more problematic, his raw-and-moving-vermin-diet was taken ambiguosly)
Fithero 05-12-07, 10:20 PM	Just have him sit there and 'ponder' alot... like pooh bear :P It takes him a while to sort things out in his head, but if he thinks on it for long enough, he might get it. Or not. When he is thinking... have him strike a 'thinking pose', frown, cross his arms and rub his chin or something like that.
Terjon of the Blue Rose 05-13-07, 12:16 AM	I hate posting after Westbound he tends to wrap things up quite nicely and usually has a number of good ideas. Still a high Wis low Int character is no sharper than the aforementioned savant (see animals). They would be highly intuitive but lack reason. You would be very curious but have a huge difficulty in learning as seen by the low skill points. This is a fun one to play... especially when dealing with a auto-reset trap. DM: You turn the door handle and receive an electrical shock. You: :confused: ... "I turn the door handle again :D !"
Maxxim 05-15-07, 04:48 PM	All very good ideas. I like the one about continually failing to realize something is trapped. And since we'll all have backup PCs ready, it's not too big a deal if this guy dies (as long as it was fun). I'm also thinking that in his opinion, everyone friendly to him is a dwarf. All enemies (or at least enemies that aren't actual animals) are either goblins or giants. Regardless of physical evidence presented to him. I know one PC is going to be a gnome. I'm going to continually question where he got such a silly name for a dwarf (albeit a short, ugly dwarf), and mention that I've never heard of a dwarven clan called "gnomes." What other people call humans are just tall, thin, beardless dwarves, and elves clearly do not exist at all. They are just dwarves magically disguised in funny-looking costumes. It could also be quite possible that someone who started out as a dwarf (friendly), turns into a goblin or a giant (an enemy) depending on my barbarian's mood.
Westbound 05-16-07, 03:05 AM	A high Wisdom but low Intelligence could mean that he's not very knowledgable, but could be a source of solid common sense. A person such as that might take more time to evaluate a problem to gain as much understanding as possible, or might be more willing to follow another's lead if they feel they are more knowledgable about a situation or a problem than they are. Dogs can be a perfect example of this. A typical dog is utterly loyal, and very territorial. Whenever something they don't know about enters their territory, they respond. My dogs do not know that the new visitor means them or myself any harm; all they know is that he's in their territory and they do not know him. He's an intruder, and for them that's all they need to know. They will bark (to alert the master), they will sniff (to get to know him better), and they will take their cues from me (to get their orders). That's what a decent amount of Wisdom coupled with a lack of Int does. At first, I didn't agree with Spot being based on Wisdom, but when I thought about it a little, I understood why. Wisdom is a character's ability to understand things in context. A person with a high Int might see things, but to Spot something important or interesting requires some Wisdom. Personally, I think learning, meaning skill points, should come from the Wisdom score, but I'm not going to change the rules at my table for d20. When I come out with my own RPG, I will.
Einvaldurinn_mikli 05-19-07, 02:21 PM	Now while INT 6 is rather stupid, it's not retarded. It's approximately IQ 80.
Dragonsblud 05-23-07, 04:18 AM	Nose picking. Horrible habit of the slow. Give him a book to use as a weapon something heavy to teach people lessons. Try to grapple like Lenny in of Mice and Men, you know grab a fist and squeeze totally acceptable in description of attack. And yet me personal fav was when my char was forced to fight a cow for grass because of misinterpretation. And int VS wis Look at Jay and silent Bob Jay has a high wis because of the spot checks he can make but low int because he is so specialized in skills. Silent Bob is totally a Monk vow of silence and skill monkey because Bob is Batman on weed
Saragon42 05-23-07, 07:43 AM	I've two friends in my group who have at one time or another played very convincing Big Dumb Guys, so what I'm going to mention here is almost entirely their work. -> With an INT of 6 and an average to good WIS, you'll almost certainly have a limited ability to solve concrete problems. That's everything from mathematical questions to which-block-goes-in-which-hole puzzles to understanding complicated documents. You will not, however, have a lot of trouble determining if someone's lying to you or isn't as they appear to be (this is mechanically represented by Sense Motive, a WIS skill.) A lawyer might be able to get you to sign something, but a con-man might have a hard time tricking you. -> You may be slow coming up with a response to questions or situations, but that doesn't mean you'll respond incorrectly. You may simply just take a while pulling together the words you need. (Simple words, but not inaccurate.) -> Don't be fooled into drawing parallels between your character and Lenny from Steinbeck's "Of Mice And Men" -- with even an average WIS you have little difficulty with questions of right or wrong, or what sort of behavior is problematic. Explaining why something was wrong and you had to correct it, however, may be a very different issue. -> You may not be able to follow every detail of a fast conversation; perhaps you pick up the gist of it and need the rest of the party to explain the finer points. -> Don't forget to be frustrated in-character. You're a little too slow for the world around you, and that generates a lot of frustration. I'm not suggesting you play a Big Dumb Angry guy, but you probably won't be able to manage a perfectly stoic demeanor either.
Saragon42 05-23-07, 08:57 AM	A few other thoughts: -> The general stereotype of someone with a high Intelligence and low Wisdom is someone with plenty of knowledge but a lack of common sense. You're playing the opposite, so you might have your character lacking in "book smarts" but who readily learns from experience -- you may not know to which deity the dank sanctuary was dedicated, but you've learned (the hard way) that places like this have a lot of evil magic, and probably some undead, and maybe a trap or two (though the details, if you're playing someone who has trouble with their memory, could be very fuzzy.) -> I'm not sure how much of the "dwarves are master craftsmen" stereotype your game will cleave to, but if that's the general perception of dwarves remember that you're going to be a very, very bad artisan without heavy skill investments. Crafts are INT skills because they depend on processes, picking the right materials, math (think about how much math a carpenter or furniture-maker uses, not to mention engineers), etc.