Post/Author/DateTime	Post
Jodjod 04-07-06, 02:24 PM	I kinda see a lot of Strength 18 human fighters in D&D that are only of "medium" build and Intelligence 16 rogues that are described by their players as "fairly gifted". But what sort of level do the scores represent? I mean, it's easy enough to look at the Encumberance tables or compare strength to that of animals, but it still isn't terribly clear for any of the scores what the modern or historical equivalent of a person with 14 Dexterity or 22 Wisdom would be. So what's a 18 strength? Professional weight-lifter? Typical 'body builder' (that is, someone who has muscle but concentrates more on aesthetics than actual strength)? What about an 18 intelligence? Is that Newton, Da Vinci or Stephen Hawking?
Rocketboy13 04-07-06, 02:54 PM	I think this may be the most common question on the boards after alignment. The truth of the matter is, trying to translate these game concepts to real life tends to not work, there is no system which can clearly display a level of mental comprehension in three dimensions. And there is no definative test for constitution and dexterity either, as difficulty and percision of tests and performances are subjective. Even within the game a huge number of factors exist beyond ability scores that determine how powerful a person is, level, class, skill selection, and racial bonuses. To try and put this together properly would be an exercise in futility. However being the sport I am, here are some examples 18 Int- Bill Gates, Stephen Hawking would place much higher. 18 Wis- This is tougher, because even though most founders of religions had figures in the twenties, religious positioning is now determined by charisma rather than Wisdom, Joshua of Nazareth (or Jesus as he is more commonly known) would have both high charisma and high wisdom, Kong Zi (or Confucius) would have a high wisdom, but his charisma would be much lower. 18 Cha- Most tlevision spokespersons, midlevel politicians, and news casters would fit into this, the late Peter Jennings would probly rate in the high teens.
steventirey1985 04-07-06, 03:30 PM	18 Str - those people in the Worlds Strongest Man competitions 18 Int - people with 18 int have an IQ of 180 (roughly), so "insert name of someone with 180 IQ here"
Dench 04-07-06, 03:56 PM	An average person has 8 to 10 in all his stats... it depends what is the specialization of the person that changes his stats.
Seeker95 04-07-06, 04:02 PM	18 Intelligence is not quite "multiple by 10" to get IQ, but it gets a close approximation. The highest a human can attain in D&D "unassisted" is 26 (assuming an 18 to begin, with a 20th level career, adding the stat to intelligence each time, and then aging through all three of the +1 to Int categories). The lowest human Int score is 3. Scores below this represent damage. D&D's average human Int is 10-11 (10.5) The highest IQ "on record" is 228 for Marilyn vos Savant (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Marilyn_vos_Savant), although more modern standardized tests place her at 186. A normal "high" is generally set at 150. The lowest "normal" IQ is 70. Falling below that score generally requires some kind of barin damage. The "average" IQ is 90-109, representing 50% of the human population. So, for Int we get a range of: 3 - 10/11 - 18 - 26 For IQ we get a range of: 70 - 90/109 - 150 - 186 Int 03 = IQ 70 Int 10 = IQ 90 Int 11 = IQ 109 Int 18 = IQ 150 Int 26 = IQ 186 The two curves do form nearly identical bell curves. They do not form a direct "multiply by 10" conversion. Someone with better algebra than I could find the conversion formula required to allow for eqch of those to remain "matched".
Jodjod 04-07-06, 04:51 PM	Hmm, this is interesting. I figured that a typical TV personality would be somewhere in the 15 charisma range, while Stephen Hawking would be in the 20-24 bracket for intelligence. What I'm mainly trying to find here is a point of reference - I think it would help with character creation a great deal if one could relate to what a 16 in a stat actually meant. Any other opinions on the subject?
DDogwood 04-07-06, 04:57 PM	I kinda see a lot of Strength 18 human fighters in D&D that are only of "medium" build and Intelligence 16 rogues that are described by their players as "fairly gifted". But what sort of level do the scores represent? Seeker95 has a good definition for interpreting the Intelligence attribute. One of the biggest challenges in defining attributes is that there is not a great deal of consensus, in the real world, on what these terms mean. For example, physical strength isn't perfectly correlated with muscle size - there are people who are as strong as professional bodybuilders, but have much smaller muscles. By "strength", do we mean the amount of weight a person can lift, or the amount of force that person can deliver with a blow? The two are not the same, but the Strength attribute covers both. Likewise, Dexterity is hard to measure in a human. We can measure reaction times, hand-eye coordination, and acrobatic ability, but these things aren't strongly related (for example, the world's best videogame player can still be a clutz). Constitution measures endurance and the ability to resist damage, but these are caused by opposed factors in humans. The best tissue for resisting damage (apart from bone) is muscle, because it is dense and fast-repairing. But bodybuilders tend to have less endurance than many other athletes, because their muscles use more oxygen. Still, Constitution in D&D covers both. The mental attributes are even harder to define. Look up Intelligence, Wisdom, or Charisma on Wikipedia to see some of the problems involved in identifying these things. People don't even agree on what the terms mean, let alone how to measure them. So basically, the best way to measure attributes would be to look at the probability of having any given attribute, and use that to determine the percentile rank of that ability. Human ability scores range from 1 to 23 for physical attributes, and 3 to 26 for mental attributes. If we assume that these attributes fall on a normal distribution, and that each +1 modifier is equivalent to a standard deviation, we get the following: <1% will have less than 5 in an attribute. 2% of the population will have 6-7 in an attribute. 14% of the population will have 8-9 in an attribute. 68% of the population will have 10-11 in an attribute. 14% of the population will have 12-13 in an attribute. 2% of the population will have a 14-15 in an attribute. <1% will have a 16 or higher in an attribute. These are broad assumptions, though; a standard deviation could be larger than a +1 modifier.
Zherog 04-07-06, 05:45 PM	An average person has 8 to 10 in all his stats... it depends what is the specialization of the person that changes his stats. Nope. 10-11 is the range for average in D&D.
Pegasos989 04-07-06, 06:00 PM	IQ 150 is CERTAINLY NOT INT 18 I have IQ 148 and I am absolutely not in any way the most intelligent person that can be as low levels (1-4, as almost all commoners are). I would count myself to have INT 14 or something like that. Maybe 13. So I would go with the IQ/10=int, which would put 1% of people at INT 14+ (seems logical to me). Sure, it is possible for a commoner to be able to get 18 in a stat with 3d6. The chances are 1/18, afterall. Still I would never put level 1 commoner the INT of 16 (exceeding several spellcasters that I have had, BTW) even though this would not be even rare in rolling stats.
DDogwood 04-07-06, 06:08 PM	I have IQ 148 and I am absolutely not in any way the most intelligent person that can be as low levels (1-4, as almost all commoners are). I would count myself to have INT 14 or something like that. Maybe 13. So I would go with the IQ/10=int, which would put 1% of people at INT 14+ (seems logical to me). One of the problems of measuring really high IQ scores is that IQ tests are designed to measure average intelligence. There is certainly a difference between an Int score of 14 and 18, but the tools we currently have probably can't measure it accurately.
Norsesmithy 04-07-06, 06:09 PM	Strength 18 is not "World Strongest Man" competition range. I weigh 210 lbs and am strength 16 according to the load tables in the PHB, and I know that is really strong, but 300 lbs over your head doesn't make you that elite of a individual, maybe 500 lbs over your head would be that epic, but certainly not 300lbs
meatrace 04-07-06, 06:10 PM	IQ 150 is CERTAINLY NOT INT 18 I have IQ 148 and I am absolutely not in any way the most intelligent person that can be as low levels (1-4, as almost all commoners are). I would count myself to have INT 14 or something like that. Maybe 13. So I would go with the IQ/10=int, which would put 1% of people at INT 14+ (seems logical to me). Sure, it is possible for a commoner to be able to get 18 in a stat with 3d6. The chances are 1/18, afterall. Still I would never put level 1 commoner the INT of 16 (exceeding several spellcasters that I have had, BTW) even though this would not be even rare in rolling stats. it al depends on the test, but 148 is significantly higher than the average, and above most scales definition of genius. the first IQ test I ever took was in 8th grade and the scale was 140+ is genius. i was 141. in 12th grade I took another, on a scale where 130 was genius, and I ranked 137. I think 18 is a fair cutoff for genius level IQ. just as an easier way to think about it, I think of a character's IQ as 100+10*int modifier. so 148 is, yeah, around 18. but remember, IQ (and therefore Int score) is just one's capacity for reasoning. actual knowledge skills would determine what one knows.
meatrace 04-07-06, 06:13 PM	Sure, it is possible for a commoner to be able to get 18 in a stat with 3d6. The chances are 1/18, afterall. Still I would never put level 1 commoner the INT of 16 (exceeding several spellcasters that I have had, BTW) even though this would not be even rare in rolling stats. and actually it's more like 1/216 (1/6^3), a little more common depending on rolling method ;). so let's just say .5% of people. thats about what MENSA requires as far as IQ...they figure half a percent of the general populace is in "their" range.
Darion Fenix 04-07-06, 06:24 PM	Strength is pretty easy to figure out since they give you the dead-lift capacity of character with X Strength in the PHB. Here are some general estimates based on those values and personal experience. 14-15 = A high school athlete, almost any adult male 16-17 = A high school lineman 18-19 = A college lineman 20-22 = NFL lineman 23-24 = Olympic lifters, world strongest man participants I don't have the exact values with me right now, but 23-24 seems to be the limit of human potential. You have to keep in mind that using 10.5 as the "average" ability score means all human in the world of an age category not effected by ability modifiers. So for every Conan the Barbarian there's a Tiny Tim to balance things out. I'm a big guy, college aged and a weight lifter so my strength score would be 17...nothing special when compared against the guys on the Red Raider football team; but amazing compared to the population at large. For physical attributes, I'd use the same system of comparison as above, but with an Olympic gymnast as someone with a 22 in Dexterity instead of a defensive tackle! For Intelligence, maybe something like... 14-15 = College student 16-17 = Master's degree 18-19 = Doctor/Professor 20+ = Hawkings, Oppenheimer, Hmm, this has given me some things to think about. I'll post back later if I have any insight on Wisdom or Charisma.
Seeker95 04-07-06, 07:34 PM	I have IQ 148 Sure, it is possible for a commoner to be able to get 18 in a stat with 3d6. The chances are 1/18, afterall.nevermind
Seeker95 04-07-06, 07:37 PM	Strength 18 is not "World Strongest Man" competition range. I weigh 210 lbs and am strength 16 according to the load tables in the PHB, and I know that is really strong, but 300 lbs over your head doesn't make you that elite of a individual, maybe 500 lbs over your head would be that epic, but certainly not 300lbsStrength 18 is not world's strongest man. Strenth 23 is. (Darion Fenix, you were right.) A human with an 18 as a mature individual can adventure through 20 levels and place all five stat bonuses in Strength, giving him/her a 23 Strength. No magical assistance.
Bulletproof_Condom 04-07-06, 10:08 PM	Look at the carrying capacities. Those give you a real world value for what a person of a given Strength score can lift without having to make any kind of check. A person with a Strength of 18 can lift 300 lbs. over his head. Intelligence score equalling IQ / 10 is quick and dirty, but it works. It kind of implies that characters with an Int of 3 are drooling simpletons with little, if any, bowel control. But then 3 is only barely sentient. Constitution is easy to test; hold your breath and time it. You should be able to hold it for a number of rounds equal to your Con score (i.e. for most people, just over a minute). Dexterity, Wisdom, and Charisma are tricky. You kinda have to approximate what a person of a given score would behave like. It's pretty arbitrary. Best thing you can do to test your friends' scores is play lots of darts and charades. High Charisma people stand out from a crowd and express themselves easily. High Wisdom people notice things and make observations that others miss. High Dexterity people have a very graceful way of carrying themselves and rarely drop or knock over things, even when drunk.
JulesCARV 04-07-06, 10:34 PM	Not to mention that while 21st century real-world bodybuilders don't have Manuals of Gainful Exercise +5, they do have anabolic steroids. That may screw up their health generally, but it my be good for a +1 or +2 strength bonus. I think that the 3d6 distribution -- the 3s and 18s being 1/216, 4s and 17s being 3/216, 5s and 16s being 6/216, 6s and 15s being 10/216, 7s and 14s being 15/216, 8s and 13s being 21/216, 9s and 12s being 25/216, and 10s and 11s being 27/216 -- is the most basic solution. It may not be a comforting thought to the 18 int wizard who realizes that even in a modeest-sized town of 2000 people, there are probably nine people who are as smart as he is, so he really isn't the foremost genius in the world, but he'll just have to live with that. ;)
Solaris 04-07-06, 11:03 PM	I'll just trot this out again in hopes that maybe someday it'll stick: http://boards.wizards.com/showpost.php?p=5797615&postcount=24
Solaris 04-07-06, 11:22 PM	I have IQ 148 and I am absolutely not in any way the most intelligent person that can be as low levels An IQ of 148 on which scale? On one popular IQ scale, that ranslates to an Intelligence score of 20. On another it translates to only 16. Without knowing the standard deviation of your IQ scale, we can't convert your IQ to D&D Intelligence. What the conversion comes down to is saying "this IQ is higher than those of x percent of the population, so we will translate it to an Intelligence score which is higher than thsoe of x percent of the normal human population in D&D." That's the only sensible, non-contradictory way to do it, and dividing by 10 doesn't work.
Bulletproof_Condom 04-08-06, 01:23 AM	The probabilities of rolling a specific ability score have nothing to do with the distribution of IQs throughout the population because Intelligence scores are not truly random. You roll six random results and then you pick the one you want to use for your Int. The actual cross section of all PCs and NPCs in play may match the real-world IQ cross section exactly, but we'd have no way of knowing. So yeah, Int x 10 is close enough.
Solaris 04-08-06, 01:42 AM	The probabilities of rolling a specific ability score have nothing to do with the distribution of IQs throughout the population because Intelligence scores are not truly random. You roll six random results and then you pick the one you want to use for your Int Originally, you rolled in order. But that's not really relevant anyway; just like rolling 4d6 and keeping 3, arranging your abilities to choice is simply one way to apply a bias to the selection of individuals from a general population which is still assumed to be distributed as 3d6. Int x 10 is not only not close enough, but it's mathematically not even in the same ballpark.
Darion Fenix 04-08-06, 01:46 AM	Commoners may have a 1/216 chance of rolling an 18 on any given ability score...but real life observations say otherwise. For an imaginative case study, take my campus. Of 30,000 students in the 18+ age range; how many would possess an 18 in Strength? Using the 1: 216 ratio you get ~139. Clearly not! Even on the sports teams an 18 strength is pretty exceptional. Best guesstimates, I'd say maybe 1:1,000 people with 18 Strength? And that's given a college campus with a higher than the normal populace concentration of athletes. At large, you could say only 1:5,000 people have an ability score that exceptional. My point being...heroes ARE certainly exceptional and talented beings, but not extraordinary. (Never mind levels past 4, the ability to cast spells etc). My estimated stats are in my signature, by all means I'm a suitable candidate for Fighter School. Oh, and any fighter with 18 strength is definitely going to be built like it... 48 inch chest, 17 inch biceps and the like. I wouldn't let one of my players get away with that sort of fudging going either way. "No, you have a 12 for Constitution, you certainly do not have the figure of a Greek god" My exception would be for Charisma where beauty and personality are balanced. So if you have an average Charisma, it's fine to be gorgeous as long as you role play an ice queen. Oh, and if I could weigh in on the Intelligence/IQ bit...Intelligence in D&D is based on education and the ability to learn (as indicated by the selection of Int based skills and the function by which Int increases the number of skills you have) while Wisdom relates more closely to perception, problem solving and good ole know-how. If anything IQ would indicate one's Wisdom score, not intelligence. Any intellectual question would be "What is pi?" A wise question would be "What is zen?" PS. - Have you had your rice today? :D
Solaris 04-08-06, 02:04 AM	Commoners may have a 1/216 chance of rolling an 18 on any given ability score...but real life observations say otherwise. For an imaginative case study, take my campus. A university campus isn't a fair sample of the general population. Intelligence in D&D is based on education and the ability to learn (as indicated by the selection of Int based skills and the function by which Int increases the number of skills you have) while Wisdom relates more closely to perception, problem solving and good ole know-how. If anything IQ would indicate one's Wisdom score, not intelligence. I think you're probably right to some extent; no doubt real-world IQ measures some mix of D&D Intelligence and Wisdom. I think the Player's Handbook descriptions of those two abilities suggests a stronger correlation with Intelligence, though, than with Wisdom. If the question of conversion is going to be meaningful at all, you're going to have to make some assumptions about that. Typically one assumes that Intelligence and IQ measure the same set of qualities. It's been suggested that some sort of weighted average might be appropriate, but people generally seem happy making the Int = IQ assumption.
meatrace 04-08-06, 02:32 AM	14-15 = A high school athlete, almost any adult male 16-17 = A high school lineman 18-19 = A college lineman 20-22 = NFL lineman 23-24 = Olympic lifters, world strongest man participants i'm 6'5" and 275lbs. i don't consider myself particularly strong, certainly average, but I am an adult male. based on the average of the ranges given in the PHB, i'm about 11str. maybe 12. i mean, you can lift 200lbs ABOVE YOUR HEAD?! you are the friggin' hulk! 200 pounds is a COUCH! go in your living room and lift your couch above your head and have someone take a picture. post it, and I'll believe you :) and Int is definitely IQ. wis might be measurable (at least in part) by one's eyesight, hearing threshold, memory, intuition, etc.
Bulletproof_Condom 04-08-06, 02:45 AM	...a general population which is still assumed to be distributed as 3d6.Yes, but if this assumption is incorrect, your entire thesis falls apart. Plus it doesn't take into account the number of people that have achieved that fourth Hit Die and put their point into Int prior to the measurement.
Solaris 04-08-06, 02:46 AM	Yes, but if this assumption is incorrect, your entire thesis falls apart. Make that defined then. The ability scores of the general human population in D&D are traditionally defined to be distributed as 3d6. The assumptions I make are that that distribution was intended by Gary Gygax to model a normal distribution (it was), that IQ and Int measure the same set of qualities (debatable, but generally accepted for these purposes), and that IQ in the real world has a normal distribution (it does).
Bulletproof_Condom 04-08-06, 02:48 AM	Then yes, the fictional population you've defined does not match the actual population. Unfortunately, it doesn't match the fictional populations in play in most players' worlds either.
Solaris 04-08-06, 02:50 AM	I'm not following you.
Bulletproof_Condom 04-08-06, 02:53 AM	I'm saying the Int scores of PCs and NPCs that are actually in play don't follow the 3d6 curve any more closely than the real-world population. Only hypothetical characters that use 3d6 in sequence for their stats do. So for those hypothetical characters, yes, Int x 10 doesn't work. But for the characters that actually exist, the adventurers and BBEGs of the infinite realms, Int x 10 is easy to remember, easy to imagine, and for all other purposes sufficient. Your thesis doesn't really prove Int x 10 is wrong; it just proves that real people's IQ isn't determined by a die roll. Now if you could prove that people with IQs of 200 perform more or less than 25% better than people of average intelligence at building something they've never seen before...
Solaris 04-08-06, 03:03 AM	I'm saying the Int scores of PCs and NPCs that are actually in play don't follow the 3d6 curve any more closely than the real-world population. It's true that the PCs in play do not use 3d6. The methods used for generating those characters are intended to result in a selection of a subset of characters which has a different distribution. It's like going to a university to select people; you're not selecting from the general population. The general population of normal humans in D&D has historically had its scores distributed as a bell curve approximated by 3d6, regardless of any skewed means by which particular individuals are selected from that population. If you assume that 1) In D&D, the normal human population has its intelligence distributed as a bell curve, 2) In the real world, the human population has its IQ distributed as a bell curve, 3) IQ and Int are the same thing, then the method of comparing the standard deviations of the two bell curves is the correct way to convert, and the method of multiplying or dividing by 10 is incorrect -- it doesn't work. The first two assumptions are correct. The third, while debatable, is generally accepted for the purposes of conversion. If you don't accept the third assumption, that's fine; I won't defend it. But then we either have nothing to discuss, or insufficient foundation for discussion.
Bulletproof_Condom 04-08-06, 03:06 AM	Yes, but one is a lot easier to do in your head. EDIT: Actually the point I was trying to make is that your first assumption isn't necessarily true, not only because of choice of ability scores, but in worlds with point buy and fixed arrays, but whatever. EDIT AGAIN: Yeah, I edited that second line out. We should probably stop doing that.
Solaris 04-08-06, 03:09 AM	Yes, but one is a lot easier to do in your head. It's a bit easier, sure. But starting with IQ of 100, and adding 5 points for every point of Int above 10.5 isn't really that hard. If you're gonna do it, you might as well do it right. Multiplying by 10 gives you a number with no relation to IQ. Besides, do you really need to know your characters exact effective IQ for roleplaying purposes in a world where IQ tests don't exist? I don't think anyone does it for that reason. It's just "hey, what would my Int be if I were a D&D character," or similar questions.
Solaris 04-08-06, 03:11 AM	Actually the point I was trying to make is that your first assumption isn't necessarily true, not only because of choice of ability scores, but in worlds with point buy and fixed arrays, but whatever. Those are still, just like 4d6, ways to select individuals with particular statistical properties. The general population you're selecting from is still assumed (defined, whatever) to have the distribution of 3d6.
Bulletproof_Condom 04-08-06, 03:12 AM	If it's random. I'm suggesting that it's not truly random for actual characters, just for hypothetical ones.
Solaris 04-08-06, 03:15 AM	Well, you could choose a particular character's abilities without bothering the distribution of the population. It's like walking up to Stephen Hawking and saying "you're my new character."
Bulletproof_Condom 04-08-06, 03:17 AM	Yeah, but the only characters whose IQ you'd be interested in are the ones whose Int was consciously chosen. I'm not knocking standard deviation or trying to disprove your method or anything, I'm just saying it's not really necessary.
Solaris 04-08-06, 03:20 AM	Not following you again. Really, all I can say is: 1) whatever my IQ happens to be, my population is distributed with mean 100 and standard deviation 15 (on one particular scale) 2) whatever any particular character's Int happens to be, his population is distributed with mean 10.5 and standard deviation 2.95 and hence the meaningful way to convert between our populations is by standard deviations. If you're smarter than x percent of your population, then you should still be smarter than x percent of the population after you convert; multiplying or dividing by a factor of 10 doesn't have this property.
Bulletproof_Condom 04-08-06, 03:28 AM	2) whatever any particular character's Int happens to be, his population is distributed with mean 10.5 and standard deviation 2.95 This is the part I'm questioning. A random ability score generated using 3d6 absolutely follows this curve. However the Intelligence scores of PCs don't. Not only because 3d6 is not the default method of stat generation, but also because ability scores are not generated in sequence; they are generated in groups and then assigned, point-buy notwithstanding. Your thesis only works based on the assumption that "everybody else" is using the old Gygax stat generation method which, depending on the DM and campaign setting, may not be the case (indeed in 2e Athas, "everybody else" is using 5d4). I submit that it is generally not the case. Of course you could work out conversions based on other stat generation methods, but that still leaves out point-buy.
Solaris 04-08-06, 03:34 AM	Correct; in a campaign world where a DM has decided that Int scores in the general human population do not have intelligence which is distributed as 3d6, then the conversion I gave will not work.
Bulletproof_Condom 04-08-06, 03:35 AM	So in those worlds, Int x 10 is sufficient. ...could you work out conversions for 4d6 drop, 5d6 drop 2, 5d4, et al?
Solaris 04-08-06, 03:49 AM	So in those worlds, Int x 10 is sufficient. Well, I wouldn't leap to that conclusion. I'd suppose it might be sufficient, depending on exactly how the DM decides Int scores are distributed (and, indeed, it's easy enough for him to arbitrarily say 'make it so'), but it doesn't follow necessarily. ...could you work out conversions for 4d6 drop, 5d6 drop 2, 5d4, et al? Less easily. The distribution of IQ is symmetric, while most of these other methods introduce a skew to the bell curve. When we're no longer dealing with normal distributions, it's less clear how to proceed. The conversion method I've presented relies on the fact that, no matter the mean and standard deviation of a normal distribution, there will always be 68% of the population within one standard deviation of the mean, 95% within two, 99% within three, etc. Lacking that shared property, the method breaks down. Presumably, however, if they thought about it, most DMs would want a symmetric distribution.
Bulletproof_Condom 04-08-06, 03:57 AM	You also have to consider the possibility that the distribution of IQs of a hypothetical game world genuinely do not match the distribution of IQs of the real world, either by design or apathy. Maybe people on Oerth are generally smarter than people on Earth. Any DM can simply choose to make Int x 10 the correct conversion to IQ and allow the hypothetical population to follow whatever curve is convenient. Math is a nice tool, but this is just a game we've been debating. Dear lord, what time is it?
meatrace 04-08-06, 05:47 AM	making int*10=IQ makes nearly all PCs geniuses. in the game I run the person with the lowest int score has a 13. that makes him a sub-genius. with solaris' method he's above average to the same degree that 115 is above average to 100. the argument you're making, condom (may I call you condom?) is that the entire world's average scores are hopelessly thrown off by the presence of adventurers, who are superhuman. your AVERAGE commoner is gonna have an int of 10 or 11. maybe 8 if they're a farmer, maybe 13 if they're an architect (though I guess he'd be an expert, well whatever). PCs pick their scores and have above average abilities. this does not make solaris' calculations wrong it just shows how adventurers are exceptional people to begin with. while statistically near-impossible, you can have a person with all 18s. i can think of no examples in real world, someone who is a perfect being for lack of a better term, but his presence would not make the rest of us any more or less likely to be like him. and personally, I think it's easier and quicker to think int bonus*10+100=IQ. easy to do. an 18 is 140. 20 is 150. fractions thereof (i.e. odd numbers) add 5. while I think this is a fun debate, its by far unnecessary. though having an accurate approximation of one's character's IQ makes it easier to roleplay him. FYI, I would have almost exactly a 17 int. my str and con are 12. though there's no hard and fast way of measuring the others, being honest with myself I'd say dex 10, wis 13, and cha 10. I'm a 2nd level expert with improved unarmed strike and skill focus knowledge(music). oh and I'm human.
Bulletproof_Condom 04-08-06, 01:24 PM	making int*10=IQ makes nearly all PCs geniuses. I disagree, but that's mostly because I have a lot of high IQ friends. Mechanically in the game and practically in real life, being extremely intelligent doesn't, in and of itself, constitute a huge advantage. Indeed, certain careers in certain places have stopped hiring people over a certain intelligence. the argument you're making, condom (may I call you condom?)...I'm ambivalent about this. I'm just tossing a wrench in the apparatus to test it, really. Note, I never said Int x 10 was perfect. I called it "quick and dirty." My point is that it's good enough for most people because, theoretically, most people spend less time thinking about this game than we do.
Seeker95 04-08-06, 02:50 PM	making int*10=IQ makes nearly all PCs geniuses.I disagree, but that's mostly because I have a lot of high IQ friends.How does your having a lot of high IQ friends give you any foundation upon which to disagree with meatrace's statement?
Bulletproof_Condom 04-08-06, 02:52 PM	My friends numerically test as geniuses, but they're not that special. None of them have cured cancer or anything. So to me, Int 15 is just about as smart as Jon.
meatrace 04-08-06, 03:50 PM	My friends numerically test as geniuses, but they're not that special. None of them have cured cancer or anything. So to me, Int 15 is just about as smart as Jon. I can say the same. ok I have my share of near-retarded friends as well, but truth is that, and I hope I'm not being arrogant or conceited in saying this, gamers are generally smarter than the general populace. IQ-wise at least, because we persue a hobby that exercises our mind more than, say, fishing. not that that means squat, as you pointed out, but your personal experience in the relative IQ of friends certainly doesn't prove myself or solaris' suppositions wrong.
Bulletproof_Condom 04-08-06, 04:14 PM	Let me rephrase then: It's not that Int x 10 doesn't make nearly all adventurers geniuses, it's just that I don't necessarily think this is wrong. I have no problem with genius adventurers running around having seen what actual geniuses are capable of and finding few discrepancies. It would be interesting to compare the Int scores of playable wizards to the IQs of professional experimental physicists. It's about the same education level I think. The whole standard deviation thing is perfect for translating real-world IQs to a 3d6 roll. My contention is that Int x 10 = IQ remains sufficient for translating PCs to the real world because they aren't using 3d6. I never said it was perfect or exact. Indeed a character's IQ probably has more to do with roleplaying than with bonus skill points. I'm just saying that it's good enough. And the FAQ agrees with me.
Solaris 04-08-06, 06:36 PM	And the FAQ agrees with me. The FAQ is perpetuating an incorrect myth. Somewhere, in the dark history of D&D, someone decided to make the claim that multiplying by 10 was how to convert. Because it gave a range which was more or less agreeable with the upper and lower limits of human IQ scores, it stuck. It's been spread around ever since. That doesn't make it correct, however. It was pulled from someone's posterior orifice, and adopted because most people lacked the math to figure out the correct way. If someone hasn't specifically said "Intelligence scores in my campaign world are different from how they have historically been in D&D", then it's probably fair to assume that by default they're playing D&D as most people know it, and that the general population has their Intelligence scores distributed as 3d6. That's how D&D has always worked. The problem is that with point buys and other rolling methods becoming more popular, people are losing sight of those roots. If you want to take the artificial step of saying "Int scores in my campaign are distributed such that multiplying by 10 gives IQ", then go for it. It's pretty arbitrary, however, doesn't have any effect on the game, doesn't relate to what most people think of when they think of converting Int to IQ, and amounts to adjusting your definitions solely so that your desired conclusion can be reached. But for most other people it would be fair to assume that the general population --- PCs are merely a statistically different special subset of that population, so you don't consider them separately --- has that distribution. In that case, we can correctly convert with the method of standard deviations, and in that case, multiplying by 10 does not give anything resembling IQ.
Solaris 04-08-06, 06:48 PM	Let me rephrase then: It's not that Int x 10 doesn't make nearly all adventurers geniuses, it's just that I don't necessarily think this is wrong. I have no problem with genius adventurers running around having seen what actual geniuses are capable of and finding few discrepancies. The problem here is that, in common usage, the word "genius" has erroneously come to be interpreted as "superlatively" intelligent, rather than merely "exceptionally" intelligent. When we're converting Int and IQ, there's no point in thinking in such wishy-washy terms when we can be more precise and say "if your IQ is higher than x percent of the population, then your Int should also be higher than x percent of the population." Percentiles are much more useful here than adjectives.
Bulletproof_Condom 04-08-06, 07:00 PM	Yes but my contention is that your assumptions about what percentages of the population bear what Int score isn't necessarily correct. You've provided a great translation of real-world IQ to a 3d6 curve. But playable Ints aren't generated that way. Hence the conversion is no more or less valid than Int x 10. Saying "well if they didn't pick your method, then they picked mine" is presumptuous. And now we're going in circles.
Solaris 04-08-06, 07:01 PM	There's one point you're not understanding. It's not "playable Ints", it's all Ints, of which playable ints are a subset which you do not treat separately.
Bulletproof_Condom 04-08-06, 07:03 PM	Yes but you can't measure all the Ints of nonexistant. You're just assuming that they follow a 3d6 curve. I'm challenging that assumption.
Solaris 04-08-06, 07:03 PM	Saying "well if they didn't pick your method, then they picked mine" is presumptuous. Not when mine is a universal default which people would have to explicitly decide not to use.
Bulletproof_Condom 04-08-06, 07:04 PM	Where is it defined as such in this edition?
Solaris 04-08-06, 07:04 PM	[deleted]
Solaris 04-08-06, 07:05 PM	By not explicitly re-defining, this edition has inherited its definition from previous ones. It still uses 3-18, with a mean of 10.5. There's no reason to assume they've changed anything else about that distribution. They certainly never mentioned it.
Bulletproof_Condom 04-08-06, 07:07 PM	They mentioned it on PHB p. 7.
Solaris 04-08-06, 07:10 PM	They mentioned it on PHB p. 7. You're still having trouble understanding the fact that 4d6 and other methods are used to select statistically better individuals from a general population which is still distributed as 3d6. If they were saying that the 4d6 method was how the general population was defined, then they would NOT say that 10-11 was the average --- the average of the 4d6 method is 12.24. So, which is it? 4d6 for the population, or a population average of 10-11? You can't have both because they're contradictory. Good grief. That page even supports what I'm saying! Are you deliberately wasting my time? The average ability score for a typical commoner is 10 or 11, but your character is not typical. The most common ability scores for player characters (PCs) are 12 and 13. (That's right, the average player character is above average.)
Bulletproof_Condom 04-08-06, 07:26 PM	To be fair, it is only impossible to get an average of 10.5 using 4d6 drop if the results are kept truly random. Conscious choices of players and DMs obviously skew the data. But I'll concede the point. The correct way to translate between the IQs of real people and the Ints of characters who generate their stats using 3d6. Now explain to me why this method is still valid for characters that generate their Ints using 4d6 drop, point buy, or those that have any sort of racial modifier to Int.
Solaris 04-08-06, 07:33 PM	Now explain to me why this method is still valid for characters that generate their Ints using 4d6 drop, point buy, or those that have any sort of racial modifier to Int. Basically, because they're still people. Consider doing a random survey of IQs. If you do your survey correctly, across the population (say by rolling a dPhonebook), you'll get an average of 100. If you do your random poll at a University science faculty, you'll get a higher average. Now think of rolling character stats as doing a random survey. If you roll the best 3 out of 4d6, you're conducting your survey at the local adventurer's club. If you do 3d6, you're doing it across the whole population. Point buy is an even less random (i.e., completely non-random) way to conduct the survey. When the time comes to convert between populations, you use the statistics of the two populations -- physicists and PCs are still human. And humans don't have racial modifiers to Intelligence. If they did, then we'd shift the mean from 10.5 and convert as normal. Basically, the key is to view the action of rolling a character as a selection, not a creation. Think of your character as already living in the D&D world, having been born there as a regular guy, and rolling the dice just helped you pick him out of the millions.
Bulletproof_Condom 04-08-06, 07:38 PM	How does this method account for actual people with exceptionally high IQs? You're not going to suggest that they're all 8th level, are you?
Solaris 04-08-06, 07:47 PM	No, we don't have levels. We just have a smooth bell curve for IQ. What we do is assume that people in D&D are people like us, and that 3d6 is therefore a model of a hypothetical population which has a smooth bell curve for its IQ --- people in the Forgotten Realms are still people, right? So we convert between the real world's bell curve and a bell curve which has the same statistical properties as 3d6. If we're not happy to assume that people in D&D are basically people, then we have no basis for comparison or conversion. I mention all this in my earlier linked post where I describe the method.
Solaris 04-08-06, 07:52 PM	Ultimately, the game is a model, and we're not going to be able to account for every odd feature (we're talking about a world, after all, where you can increase your IQ by stabbing orcs). But relative to two or three reasonable assumptions, we can fairly convert between Int and IQ.
Solaris 04-08-06, 08:11 PM	How does this method account for actual people with exceptionally high IQs? You're not going to suggest that they're all 8th level, are you? It is a valid point, though. Like wondering how Wisdom fits in, since IQ probably is some combination of Int and Wis. We could probably bring Level into the equation... perhaps by shifting the mean by 1 point per 4 levels, or something, I don't know. And we could bring Wis in by using a weighted average of Int and Wis instead of just Int. But the cost of "realism" here is complexity; hence the simpler assumption that IQ = Int. And there's also the fact that with levels we're again talking about a special subset of the general population... There's nothing wrong with making more complex assumptions, though, and working from those. But I'm inclined to leave that as an exercise for the more dedicated reader :)
Seeker95 04-08-06, 08:15 PM	Bulletproof, you're mixing up statistics, samples, and real world IQ with some gods-only-know-why hang-up on the 4d6 method of PC-stat generation. How PC-stats are generated is irrelevant to a conversion of game-world Intelligence scores to real-world IQ scores. All that matters in such a conversion is the range of scores. From the range, you can generate two curves that require a formula for equivalency. In the game world, the normative lowest is 3, the average is 10-11, the normative maximum is 18 and the absolute unassisted maximum is 23. In the real world, the normative lowest is 70, the average is 90-109, the normative maximum is 150, and the absolute maximum is 186. Map these to each other, and you get the foundation upon whcih to develop a conversaion formula. The only point at which it would appear a "Int*10=IQ" conversion forumla would work is for the conversion of game-world-average to real-world-average. At no other point in the comparative curves does this formula match. "Int*10=IQ" is missing a constant required for matching the non-average points of equivalency. The approach you are taking is akin to claiming that converssion of C to F simply requires multiplying by 2.12 since we know that 100oC = 212oF. This does not account for the other points at which we know equivalent measurements: -40oC = -40oF and 0oC = 32oF. Without the constant, a simple multiplication does not account for the variance in the range between each "degree".
Bulletproof_Condom 04-08-06, 08:19 PM	Didn't Marilyn vos Savant test as 230?
Solaris 04-08-06, 08:26 PM	It's always been my personal opinion that she's full of crap. But see http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Marilyn_Vos_Savant#What_is_her_IQ.3F
Raun 04-08-06, 08:28 PM	Sorry, didn't read it all, but I had to add my 2 copper pieces. By stat: Str 3: You're as strong as a 4 year old! Str 10: Average Office Job Person who doesn't really work out. Str 14: Blue Collar/Construction Worker Str 18: Professional Athlete - NFL Safety/RB Str 20: Hard Core Pro Athlete - Larry Allen (put up 225lbs up 43 times...) Str 25: Worlds Strongest Man Dex 3: Crippled, walker Dex 10: Average Joe Dex 13: High School Basketball Player on average Dex 18: Pro Hockey Player - those guys are amazing with the hand/eye coordination Dex 20: Master Fencers Con 3: Death Bed Con 10: Average joe: 8 minute Mile, 5 sick days a year that are real bad Con 14: Well Conditioned Weekend Warrior Con 18: Any high level athlete, ie olymic Int 3: Paste eater Int 10: Average Joe: managed to graduate high school Int 14: College Grad with honors/Master's Degree Int 18: Brilliant/savantish, Incredible memory, borderline Autistic Int 20: Great minds of the world a la Hawkings, or Gates Wis 3: Valley Girl? Ok, worse Wis 10: George 'W' Bush - I'm not lighting up politics here, but c'mon! Wis 14: Very shrewed, see through people lies and BS, well organized Wis 18: Super insight, looks at all the angles they can think of before making decisions, a la Colin Powel Cha 3: Me! (just kidding!) Rude, Crude, Socially unaccepatable Cha 10: Get's along just fine, though not increidbly successful in dating Cha 14: Great story tellers / top 100 musician / Local models Cha 18: Top 10 musicians / Orrators (Bill Clinton was brilliant) / Super Model hot I didn't really read much, but I just wanted to pass my piece along. Basicaly, since most of America falls in the 10ish range, we all kind of fade away from a distance.