Post/Author/DateTime	Post
Pau_wolf 08-15-06, 08:56 PM	I'd like to know how does the ability scores work on characters. The player's handbook explains something but I'd like to know how to invite my player to act as if they had the ability scores of their characters. My brother had a PC with intelligence 9 and talked as if he was a scholar, during a fight he invented very smart tactics and so on. I don't want to limit his ideas or his role play, but he doesn't roleplays correctly if he always has smart ideas and is skilled in talking. His new character has a intelligence of 5, I really don't know what to do. How does charisma, wisdom and intelligence limit the roleplay? How can I make him have the right behaviour without limiting his creativity?
enlightened 08-15-06, 09:14 PM	My brother had a PC with intelligence 9 and talked as if he was a scholar, during a fight he invented very smart tactics and so on. I don't want to limit his ideas or his role play, but he doesn't roleplays correctly if he always has smart ideas and is skilled in talking. A person with a 9 INT should have no restrictions that you wouldn't also place on a person of INT 10(beyond the very small -1 on knowledge skills, skill points, etc.). But that is difficult to tell by just talking to them. In other words, they are nearly indistinquishable from an average person in terms of intellect. Most probably, the people that we deal with everyday in the real world have INT scores from 9 to 11 and situationally it is sometimes hard to tell who the 9s are and who the 11s are. But I imagine this thread will turn into another in which people complain about how unplayably low 10s are.
Drodain 08-15-06, 09:21 PM	with an int of 5, I'm talking about this because it is the most relevant. With an int of 5 he could probably still come up with good plans if he still had a good Wis, and could tell people what he thought with a decent charisma, he just would have no idea what anyone else was saying and would need everything in the smallest words possible. relevant would be a 20 point word for him. He might have trouble with words like decent. Thats how I would work it.
Lokathor 08-15-06, 09:24 PM	Int is a kind of IQ type of thing. With Int 5 you're about as smart as a Griffon. A good example might be Forrest Gump. Forrest Gump is actually as smart as or slightly smarter than an Int 5 person. Wisdom is how much you notice. A wolf has int 2 but Wis 12, because even though it can't formulate things and remember well it can still notice what's going on around it very well. A person with a low wisdom is the kind of person who can lose track of time and get themselves lost, even if they are smart. Charisma is your personality's strength and power. A person with low charisma can be persuaded by other people more easily because they literally don't have the internal power to "hold their ground" in an argument.
ccerose 08-15-06, 09:25 PM	If what the character is saying and doing is beyond his skills, you simply tell the other players to ignore his comments and tell your brother to stop meta gaming. That being said, even stupid fighters still have their skills. Which means they might still be able to pull off some fairly impressive tactics on the battlefield. You also need to take all their statistics as an entire package. Think of all the Ashley Simpson's out there with high charismas, but low intelligence scores. They can still be very persuasive even though they don't know that Chicken of the Sea is really tuna. If your brother has created a character with a low Int, but has a decent Cha and Wis, then that might help his character compensate a bit for being an air head. Despite that, I would probably rule against him giving out battle tactics to his party members, and beating smart NPCs in a test of brains. Lastly, set a limit to how much talking each player can do during combat. For my group, they are only allowed to talk as a free action during their initiative. It helps to keep the combat flowing and also prevents them from having undo influence on what each other is doing or planning to do.
Tisner44 08-15-06, 09:29 PM	This is a hard question and one to be careful with. You should probably speak to the whole group about it. A slightly lower than average intelligence is fine, with a 9 he can like a scholar if he wants, but make you hold his ideas to the confines of his knowledge skills. Also keep in mind that a fighter or combat heavy character can be good at tactics even without a high intelligence...this would be part of his experience as a fighter. With a 5 intelligence he has very limited language skills, he will still know how to speak his language but probably not like a scholar. Keep in mind that it depends on your playing style. Do you have your players speak in character or not...this is solely up to the the group and should be discussed with the group. Keep in mind that speaking like a character with a 5 intelligence may be a little annoying for some people after awhile. A low wisdom is just someone who lacks the "street smarts," They will generally believe what they are told or just don't question anything. They are usually very trusting of everyone or they could just assume everyone is lying...could be either extreme....they believe people are one way and can't be any different. A low Charisma, just means they aren't good with people. This could be roleplayed in many ways...annoying and talking alot, monotone voice, mean, sarcastic, or just shy won't talk to anybody at all. Keep in mind that low usually means about 6 or less, above that they might have some qualities just not to the extreme.
enlightened 08-15-06, 09:35 PM	Like everything, every group differs on how they think ability scores should be played. My personal recommendation is just to stay consistant. For example, you should consider a 5 INT to be just as low as you consider a 15 INT to be high. If your group doesn't play a 15 INT as being a super genius then you shouldn't play an INT of 5 as a super retard. I think that in most groups a 15 INT is pretty good but nothing to drop your books over. A 5 should be the same, pretty low but nothing to freak out about. Also, while many people will disagree with me, I've never been one to believe that your speech should be very affected by a low INT score. Even with an INT of 3 you should be able to function in society.
Archmage Atrus 08-15-06, 09:45 PM	Also, if you're worried that he's just using Int as a dump stat and still getting away with it, here's a good idea: Make him roll for those brilliant tactics. Not, you know, all the time. But every once in a while, when he comes up with something that even you think "Holy cow, that's brilliant," make him roll an Int check. Not too hard - DC 10 or 15. DC 10 should be those which an average schmoe shoudl be able to come up with on the fly (IE, taking 10.) DC 15 is something that a real genius can think of off the cuff. (Taking 10 - IE, someone with Int 20.) If he fails, he can't do it. That'll teach him not to treat Int like a Dump stat.
SmokeJaguar 08-15-06, 10:06 PM	I recall the d20 Star Wars RCR having a sidebar all about roleplaying your mental ability scores. One thing that hasn't been discussed yet is the degree to which your group actually roleplays. Some groups don't roleplay very much, and play D&D as more of a computer game, where choices are made in order to achieve the best result. There's nothing wrong with not roleplaying, as long everyone has fun with it. I get the feeling this might be the case. If it is, I'd say be careful in mechanically restricting the players choices. Also, take into account how other characters could change if they roleplayed their abilities more closely. If you think this character should be played less inteligently, consider as well how you would go about dealing with a player with 22 INT. This represents inteligence beyond the scope of us real folks, so you might have to come up with ways of giving the player of a super-genius character hints on how to better reflect his incredible mental powers. I'd say, encourage him to roleplay more, but don't try to force him into it. I don't want to limit his ideas or his role play, but he doesn't roleplays correctly if he always has smart ideas and is skilled in talking Everyone plays the game differently. Correctness is something of an alien concept to an art form as dynamic as roleplaying. Focus on what's fun, not on what's 'right'. Oh one more thing, if you're using point buy, consider restricting players from dropping scores below 8. You could go lower, but I like to cap it off at 8. That said, I usually use the organic rolls system, so I'm not very experienced with point buy.
Rahlious 08-15-06, 11:17 PM	The player of an int 15 character might not come up with a good idea. But the player of an int 5 character might. That's the trickiest part, I think. If the int 5 character is going to be "in character" by not using his clever ideas, then the int 15 character has to (at least sometimes) come up with great ideas. But, he might not just because the player may never have great ideas. And the DM or anyone else won't be helping him. Players should try not to use knowledge that their characters wouldn't have. That's as far as I'd go. If a player with int 6 comes with a neat way to ambush the ogres as they travel through the forest, then I think that's fine. But if some player has a chemistry degree and wants his character to use knowledge from that to macgyver something up, then he should be exercising restraint. In that case, there are knowledge skills pertaining to that and the DM may not allow it still.
KmartKommando 08-15-06, 11:40 PM	Having a super-high Intelligence, most of the time, is a great thing to have. However, there is a guy at my company that is, I dare say, smarter than me, but he overanalyzes everything unecessarily and gets lost chasing details that have nothing to do with the problem at hand.
BrotherMarcus 08-16-06, 12:20 AM	A person with a 9 INT should have no restrictions that you wouldn't also place on a person of INT 10(beyond the very small -1 on knowledge skills, skill points, etc.). But that is difficult to tell by just talking to them. In other words, they are nearly indistinquishable from an average person in terms of intellect. Most probably, the people that we deal with everyday in the real world have INT scores from 9 to 11 and situationally it is sometimes hard to tell who the 9s are and who the 11s are. But I imagine this thread will turn into another in which people complain about how unplayably low 10s are. I don't know. 9 is dipping into ogre territory. This person is below average int. He may be equiped with a good enough vocabulary to talk like a scholar, but you should make him perform and INT check to pull off those plans.
enlightened 08-16-06, 01:36 AM	This person is below average int. He may be equiped with a good enough vocabulary to talk like a scholar, but you should make him perform and INT check to pull off those plans. Do you really see that big of a difference between a 10 and a 9? I mean, statistically, almost all of us posting on these boards and everyone that we know are INT 10s. I don't know. 9 is dipping into ogre territory. Do you feel that an 11 is high? Also, the fact that ogres do have an average INT of 8 or 9 shows instead actually how smart they are. In other words, almost human level......scary. It all depends on how you interpret the higher scores. If an 11 is high to you then a 9 can be considered low. I have seen in the various groups that I have played with over the years that there are many people who wouldn't consider, for example, a 13 to be anything at all, but then turn right around and say that a 7 is super low. If a 13 is so-so good, then a 7 should also just be so-so bad.
Voran 08-16-06, 05:38 AM	What sounds like a good plan, can be quite different with what IS a good plan. This also doesn't account for actually implementing the plan. I'm a fairly bright dude, with a decent amount of RPG background, so I can come up with what sound like really good plans for various encounters and the like, but whether or not they would work out 'in real life' I don't know, there are so many variables, which I think get nicely generalized through game stat scores. Think American Idol (or its equivalent), thousands of people who THINK they're great singers, sign up, only to find their perception of reality, and reality are quite different. So in a game sense, sure, let them make plans. But you can only make plans based on info you have right? And unless he's looking over your shoulder and peeking at your notes, hows he going to know what forces you've arrayed against the playerchars? How does he know the BBEG doesn't have a BETTER plan which involves making his henchmen/minions act like tactical retards to draw the playerchars in, etc etc.
Feriin 08-16-06, 08:14 AM	Do you really see that big of a difference between a 10 and a 9? I mean, statistically, almost all of us posting on these boards and everyone that we know are INT 10s. Actually most of the people I know would have an Int of 15 to 20. Most everyone I know are pretty intellegent.
oxybe 08-16-06, 12:09 PM	feriin, unless you're hanging out with mensa, i doubt most people you know are int 15-20 . since 18 is the highest natural human score possible, one can most likely say that int 18-20 is around stephen hawking intelligent. 15-18 would probly be the higher echelon of smarts & education (mensa). these people form the backbone of most institutions & are at the front lines of learning. most doctors would be in the 16-17 range while engineers/physicist/biologists would be 15-17. these guys have spent years in school & university, their brains are bulging from everything they had to learn. their jobs are demanding and requires people to know many diffrent things and how to handle themselves if things go wrong. a computer tech should be around 12-16, smarter then your average person, and often knowlegeable in other areas, due to their constant exposure to media, a good int is required since there is new material out regularly and keeping up with it is necessary to keep your job. having to learn new software, or even updates to current software is sometimes tricky. most teachers would be in the 14-17 range, while college/university profs would probly be one or two higher on average, grade & high school teachers are often well versed in diffrent areas of expertise, and even the specialized higher education teachers know more then just the class they are teaching. the main diffrence between a human and an ogre (as far as intelligence is concerned) is lifestyle. ogres have placed a higher priority on military training and force of arms. their naturally high strenght & large frame means that most problems that they encounter in their hostile environment can be solved by smashing it into a pulp, so they have no need for an intellectually advanced culture. it goes without saying however, that an ogre knows the benefits that being intelligent and adaptable can help you out in the long run, but he has no basic need to read up on medicine or history or technology, so he doesn't. why work out the specifics of building a better sword, when using a stout tree trunk will do? humans on the other hand, do not have any physical advantages over any creature, so it built it's higher societies through intelligence rather by force. though humans have always found a way to muscle their way through their enemies, they have almost always used advanced strategy & weapons (casles with reinforced walls, seige engines & explosives are fine examples of human warfare ingenuity). should ogres go out to human/dwarvem/elven lands and learn of their war tactics & engineering, one could have quite the delimma when ogres come warring in their muscle-powered engines (we needed horse power, ogres already have ogre power). now, intelligence alone will get you nowhere in life. knowledge will. someone with high intelligence will be a natural puzzle solver and have a well-rounded skillset, with a sprinkle of biology, physics, chemistry, and other subjects already built-in. anyone, given enough time and patience can learn anything. even if you have a 5 int, if you have 12 skill pts in knowledge(history), you should score as well as a 5th level wizard with that same skill maxed out on average. you have more knowledge built in, but you're a complete scatter brain. as was previously said, a fighter should have a greater knowlege of tactics then a bard, who should know more of history then a rogue, who knows more about blah blah blah. if you look at your class like a profession, then this should hold true. having said all this, a 9 int character can talk like scholar if he is well learned on the subject. a lvl 1 fighter with 9 int might not have the brains or experienced required to plan an attack on fortress, but a lvl 9-12 fighter should have enough experience to know how to properly attack a fortified area without too many casulties. if doing infiltration, change fighter to rogue. now, if the fighter was going all scholaraly-like when talking about magic...
Feriin 08-16-06, 05:53 PM	feriin, unless you're hanging out with mensa, i doubt most people you know are int 15-20 . since 18 is the highest natural human score possible, one can most likely say that int 18-20 is around stephen hawking intelligent. 15-18 would probly be the higher echelon of smarts & education (mensa). these people form the backbone of most institutions & are at the front lines of learning. Guess I hit some nerve with you, not sure why either. You have no idea who MY friends are. Among them I count a Lawyer, 2 Doctors, A colledge Physics Professor, A School Principle (who has been in the Army then worked on his doctorite in chemestry),A High School Mathematics Teacher , A High School Physics/Chemistry Teacher ( who worked for DOW , you probably use alot of the compounds he invented while there),A friend who works ar NASA, and YES a few of them are also in Mensa. Now if you want names and addresses and even phone numbers of my friends just so you can call them up, let me know. If they give me thier permission I'll send them to you.
Voran 08-16-06, 06:09 PM	Ouch, kinda looks like he hit a nerve too. To be fair, how often would you say we see stuff like "I took this totally legit test on the web and its said I'm a NE Wizard/Fighter/Kensai/Godling with 25 25 25 25 25 25 in all my stats! I'd say its safer to assume everyone is exaggerating when they post stat kinda stuff of 'real life' unless they give examples along with it. Such as the great description you gave afterwards, with the lawyer, NASA dude, etc. See if that had been posted originally, I doubt there would have been much of a misunderstanding. :)
Dauthi_King 08-16-06, 08:39 PM	I find when roleplaying, the nature of the character should affect it more then stats. Let’s say a orc barb has an int of 12 because he rolled high and the sorcerer has the same int because he decided that his cha, wis, and con were more important for his character. I still expect the player of the orc to act less intelligent then the sorc. I think stats are for determining mods for rolls not for rollplaying.
silvergamgee 08-16-06, 09:25 PM	feriin, unless you're hanging out with mensa, i doubt most people you know are int 15-20 . since 18 is the highest natural human score possible, one can most likely say that int 18-20 is around stephen hawking intelligent. 15-18 would probly be the higher echelon of smarts & education (mensa). these people form the backbone of most institutions & are at the front lines of learning. most doctors would be in the 16-17 range while engineers/physicist/biologists would be 15-17. these guys have spent years in school & university, their brains are bulging from everything they had to learn. their jobs are demanding and requires people to know many diffrent things and how to handle themselves if things go wrong. a computer tech should be around 12-16, smarter then your average person, and often knowlegeable in other areas, due to their constant exposure to media, a good int is required since there is new material out regularly and keeping up with it is necessary to keep your job. having to learn new software, or even updates to current software is sometimes tricky. most teachers would be in the 14-17 range, while college/university profs would probly be one or two higher on average, grade & high school teachers are often well versed in diffrent areas of expertise, and even the specialized higher education teachers know more then just the class they are teaching. More or less agreed, but I think you should probably knock a few points off the top end of your scales. If you look at it logically, a little more than 2 out of 3 people have an IQ between 90 and 110. It's familiar, though an artificial and biased scale. I've written a couple of papers about how we might one day be able to measure intelligence in a more accurate way, blah blah, you probably don't care and you'd be right not to because assigning a number to show a person's intelligence (in real life anyway) is useless. Anyway, 68% of people have an IQ between 90 and 110 (notice the eerie resemblence to stats if you take away the zero?). Divide that number roughly in half. Half the people will be smarter than that and half will be less intelligent. Of the remaining 32%, 27% will generally fall within 2 standard deviations, (which nicely correspond to ability modifiers) or about +2 or -2, giving you the IQ (and stats) between 60 - 89 and 111 - 140. Only 5% of the total average population will exceed these boundries (of which only 2.5% fall into the "genius" category). Theoretically, you can have people with IQ's ranging naturally into the low 200s or so and down to about 10 or so, but the numbers will be so small as to be significant only in an exceedingly large group. I hate stats, on to a separate tack. I find when roleplaying, the nature of the character should affect it more then stats. Let’s say a orc barb has an int of 12 because he rolled high and the sorcerer has the same int because he decided that his cha, wis, and con were more important for his character. I still expect the player of the orc to act less intelligent then the sorc. I think stats are for determining mods for rolls not for rollplaying. The only reason that an orc with int of 12 would seem stupider than the sorc with the same score is because of charisma or wisdom. How often have you thought someone to be very intelligent and you later realized that they were not very intelligent? A very charismatic or wise person can seem very intelligent simply because they are so personable and well spoken (charisma) or because they are so acutely aware of their surroundings and can catch on to small cues in their environments (wisdom). More of a hearty clap on your shoulder and a little more meat for your argument.