Post/Author/DateTime	Post
bolobaby 01-24-04, 12:40 PM	(This may have been covered in a previous post, but I don't see anything useful in the search capability.) OK, here's the problem as I see it... Wisdom can be considered common sense, perception, and intuition (per the PHB). "Aware of one's surroundings" is another way they describe it. Intelligence, on the other hand, is the ability to analyze information. In many ways, I don't see much of a difference. A character with an intelligence of 4 is supposed to be "stupid." But if he has a wisdom of 20, he has lot of common sense and is really perceptive. How can you tell the difference between when an action is "wise" and an action is "smart?" To me, these will often be one and the same. How does one go about roleplaying these stats?
strenoth 01-24-04, 12:47 PM	Ok, when it comes to math, language, making stuff, and any Intillectual persuits, this guys is hopeless. how ever, when it comes to intuitive things like reading people's emotions or getting a feel for whether or not some place is dangerous, that's where this person migth shine. Example: a guy and a girl are having a conversation that is a bit heated. An intelligent person might be following the logic of the conversation, able to pick apart their rationals etc, and be confused by how their argument seems to shift from topic to topic and otherwise not flow logically. A wide person listenitn to the same conversation might only understand a few words and even less of the concepts of what they are arguing about, but see past the surface of their words and know that the real reasont they are arguing is because one or both of them are emotionally hurt and are lashing out at the other (though maybe not be able to phrase it with such large words). Does that make sense to you?
evangelion1010 01-24-04, 12:51 PM	Math, science, magic.... the guy gets none of those concepts. problem solving with numbers... nothing. realizing somethings not quite right with the room, realzing something in the room doesn't quite add up, that the merchant might be trying to pull a fast one over you... hes very good at that. so roleplay him like the janitor who never finished 8th grade, but has been through so much that he just knows instinctivly the right thing to do. any problems the students come to him regarding right and wrong, what to do... he can help solve. so somewhere along those lines i'd suggest. hope it helps
bolobaby 01-24-04, 01:03 PM	How tactically proficient can this guy be on the battlefield? There is an example where smart and wise might get confused - the matter of tactics.
bolobaby 01-24-04, 01:20 PM	Here's another thing that gets me: this character with a 4 intelligence isn't automatically illiterate. So a cleric with a 4 int and 20 wis can read a scroll in the same amount of time it takes anyone else - one standard action. That just doesn't seem right to me.
Arthur_Pendragon 01-24-04, 01:24 PM	Well, the stats are similar, but not quite exactly the same. I tend to divide what they mean up this way: Int = Intellectual Knowledge, Book Learning, Puzzle Solving, High IQ Wis = High Insight (into human nature, into your souroundings, etc.), it also can mean spritual enlightenment. With a Wis 20 and a Int 4, I'd say he was the classic idiot savant. That means someone who by all appearences looks and acts mentally retarded (with an intellegence THAT low, since a 4 is nearly animal Int, I'd say he probably drools alot, talks in gibberish half the time, but is generally harmless, but every so often he will actually say something not only coherent, but deeply insightful.) You could handle it by letting him make normal wis based checks (skill checks, etc) but then force him to roll an Int check DC 10 (that is to say roll 1d20 + (Int Mod (which will be negative)) and try to beat a 10. If you succede, you get to explain more or less what you've seen or discovered. If you fail, you yourself preceive it, but your analytical capacities have failed and you are unable to form the correct words to tell your fellow party members, though you might act on it...) Ask the DM if Wis of 20 is high enough for you to occasionally get notes from the DM on some deep insight on to what is going on in an adventure (maybe figuring out one of the villians secrets or seein an ambush way a head of time), this level of occasional insight might be a good reason the party of normal adventurers would keep a character who would otherwise be kept at home in the care of his parents the rest of his life. I'd think VERY carefully about playing a character like this, as you will roleplay, but you won't be talking alot (at least not like normal people) and you won't be able to impress the ladies/guys either, because with an Int of 4 the character is extremely retarded, not just slow (as would be the case with Int 6 or 7).
Thorak 01-24-04, 01:32 PM	Picture the big, dumb guy who always has a sad smile on his face. He doesn't talk much, because he can't think of how to explain how he feels. He doesn't understand why things in the world are the way they are, but he does understand the pain and sadness of people around him, and is constantly affected by it. While he doesn't understand why, he realizes he probably never will, and so just tries his best to comfort those around him, and do what he can to make their lives happier. That's one take, anyway, by no means the only one.
The_Fan 01-24-04, 01:57 PM	You know the archetype of the wise worker? It's seen everywhere. The bartender with keen insight into his customers' lives. The greasy-spoon diner chef who knows just what's bothering you. The philosophising yokel who can tell you exactly what's what with the world while loading hay bales onto a wagon. They have a rather limited skillset, not a whole lot of knowledge, but their practical wisdom and insight makes them seem a lot smarter than they are.
Arthur_Pendragon 01-24-04, 02:17 PM	While the Wise Worker is a wonderful archetype, I'd still argue that is not his stats. The wise worker probably still has just an Int of 10, he is able to speak to your normally, and care for himself and his family. But this is an Int of 4. It's only 2 points above an animal's intellegence. This is not simply just a local uneducated yokel. An Int of 4 is an a metally retarded individual, not just uneducated. That 4 is a pretty nasty stat, and it sucks no matter were you put it. And a man or woman with an Int of 4 is going to act either mentally retarded or autistic. That is why I said think carefully if you want to use such stats. I'm just pointing this out, because if I was your DM, I'd make sure you would know the difficulty of playing such a low Int. I mean, like on Neverwinter Nights, if your Int is below 9 you can't talk correctly. Even the local yokel, as you put it, could talk normally.
bolobaby 01-24-04, 03:31 PM	Maybe a cross between Rain Man and Forrest Gump, with slightly less capable verbal skills.
Arthur_Pendragon 01-24-04, 05:25 PM	Yeah...something like that...:D
ManTimeForgot 01-24-04, 05:48 PM	A 20 wisdom is Buddha in terms of wisdom; we are talking about someone in tune with the flow of cosmic truth and all that. If this guy were a metaphysician he/she could explain how magic functions (without using words longer than 2 syllables). Of course a 4 int means that this person is not much smarter than most animals. A 4 int puts him just barely above the level of the Tarrasque (an eating machine whose purpose is to wreak havoc every so often). A 4 int means that if it came down to it and your character had to do math (with different numbers 3+2) or finish a puzzle (with 5 pieces) then there might be some problems. Even with a 20 wisdom, having a 4 int is dangerous. I doubt any except maybe the MOST good of my characters would even consider letting someone that unintelligent adventure with them. Your character would be admittedly less dangerous than the reverse 20 int 4 wis, but not by leaps and bounds. A 4 int means that your character enjoys really simple things in life (20 wisdom means you probably find some ultra spiritual connection or metaphysical revelation every time you do it) like fetching the ball or rolling a ball up a hill and catching it as it comes back down. A 4 int (with your low capacity for analyzing data) probably also means you have an attention span not much better than most animals. If you can imagine an attention span only slightly better than a gerbil (and its wheel), then that is probably about where your characters lies (admittedly your character will probably see the running on the wheel as some kind spiritual experience becoming one with the cosmos or something, but maybe not spoken in so many words). A 4 int means that your character will have problems understanding speech (dangerously low level of understanding) and cannot organize your thoughts. You are going to be the opposite of the absent minded professor in that you will be very in tune with your environment (notice lots), but won't have any clue what it all actually means. "Eat at Joe's" will likely be lost on your character. Thank You all and have a nice day. Signed, The Man Time Forgot
Dauntless 01-25-04, 12:10 AM	Originally posted by bolobaby Maybe a cross between Rain Man and Forrest Gump, with slightly less capable verbal skills. I'd actually argue that 'Rain Man' (which was actually what the savant called his brother, minor quibble) was the exact OPPOSITE of Forrest. Forrest is the correct choice here, high wisdom, low intelligence. The Rain Man character is instead high intelligence, low wisdom, an idiot savant.
BenjCano 01-25-04, 01:15 AM	You're looking at a Falknerian idiot man-child with a penetrating acumen and insight but little cognitive ability. Think about George from Of Mice and Men.
bolobaby 01-25-04, 01:34 AM	If I had a Ring of Wishes in real life, I'd use my first wish to cause every single copy of the Miniatures Handbook to spontaneously combust. I'd use the second wish to erase it from every computer and disc in the world. And I'd use the third wish to erase it completely from mankind's consciousness. Man... no offense, but those are some lame wishes. ;)
bolobaby 01-25-04, 01:50 AM	Actually, though, on the Forrest Gump analogy... Let's consider some of Forrest's finer moments: When Forrest drops his drawers to show the President the bullet wound in his behind, wouldn't that be considered a low *wisdom* moment? I mean, common sense dictates that you don't flash your behind in public, right? How about when he jumps off his moving boat to greet Lt. Dan? That seemed unwise as well as not smart. How do you differentiate? Some of the other moments, though, are right on track. Forrest in basic training showed him knowing exactly what the army expected from him. Or when Forrest decided to run after Jenny left him - he didn't know why, he just knew it would make him feel better. I guess the key question is - how do you differentiate between an unwise an unintelligent act? It seems to me that sometimes the two are indistinguishable. In fact, some players could effectively argue wisdom in the place of intelligence as they maneuver through the world....
BenjCano 01-25-04, 02:00 AM	Originally posted by bolobaby Man... no offense, but those are some lame wishes. ;) Oh no, precious. Good wishes. Good.
Amygdala 01-25-04, 06:04 AM	Autism is when you have immense trouble understanding that other people are anything more than objects. IE you dont realise that other people have minds. I would say an autistic would have a very low charisma. (From what Ive read most would place at cha = 1 but some people with autism dont have it so bad or they learn to interact with people through reasoning it out - they still find it very difficult understanding that other people have feelings etc, but they learn to get by.) But in a situation like this I would say that the d20 system falls apart. Everybody's mental stats are cross related. I guess you could play someone with high wisdom and low intelligence as an otherwise normal person with a very specific kind of brain damage that severely limits them on things involving mental quickness. You could give them the kind of amnesia that Guy Pearce has in Memento... or you could make it so that they are absolutely incapable of counting or performing maths with any number higher than 4... or you could do...err something else.. i ran out of ideas for now. As much as a person can be described using the d20 rules, I doubt whether you could find a human in real life who would transpose to those numbers. Unless maybe they were brain damaged. But... If you had a short memory I'm sure you would have a not-that-great wisdom as well.
SmiloDan 01-25-04, 09:08 AM	Someone with an Int 4 and Wis 20 might not be smart enough to know what is going on, but may be intuitive enough to do the right thing. Also, maybe play him like Cyril O'Reilley from "Oz" on HBO. He's brain damaged, but has moments of clarity. He's probably more of a 5 or 6 Int, and 17 or 18 Wis, but it's close.
Millennium 01-25-04, 09:49 PM	Low-Int, high-Wiz... Sounds like a guy who always says the right thing, but doesn't understand why it's the right thing to say or even that it's the right thing to say at all. He's the kind of guy who, in a war between two nations each intent on genociding the other, might ask who The Bad Guy is. In other words, someone with absolutely incredible insight, but little if any understanding. He operates entirely on hunches rather than logic, but his hunches are often so sound that unless he has to prove something, it may not matter much. In other words, you have someone who is simultaneously the world's best and worst detective. He will know in an instant who is guilty of the crime, but won't be able to piece together the evidence to prove it in a court of law. If you've ever seen an anime called The Slayers (there is a manga by the same name which also works), you might use Gourry Gabriev as a role model. He probably has a slightly higher Int and a slightly lower Wis, but the general idea holds true.
Falido 01-26-04, 09:50 AM	ever seen the tv serrie The Pretender? because i would play an 4 int 20 wis char very much like angelo form pretender. Meaning you have a lot of insight in people's feelings and stuff but you arent very smart and cant take good care of your self (well Angelo used to be normal but his brain got dammaged in some experiment but thats got nothing to do with your char :P)
Luminous Crayon 01-26-04, 10:06 AM	Originally posted by Falido ever seen the tv serrie The Pretender? because i would play an 4 int 20 wis char very much like angelo form pretender. Meaning you have a lot of insight in people's feelings and stuff but you arent very smart and cant take good care of your self (well Angelo used to be normal but his brain got dammaged in some experiment but thats got nothing to do with your char :P) That's actually a really good comparison, for anyone who's actually seen this somewhat rare show. I miss Pretender.
ManTimeForgot 01-27-04, 08:39 PM	Yeah I miss pretender too. But you all will note that Angelo required caretakers. And I suspect that Angelo had a little more than a 4 int (the 20 wis I don't think I can debate as vehemently). I mean Angelo was capable of planning ahead and stuff. Though this is probably more a factor of the D&D stat system combining the qualities of the given statistics. I mean Angelo has speach problems and certain cognitive function problems, but he is still capable of reasoning and thinking about future events. But even barring the argument about Angelo's stats, the point still stands. The dude required supervision or he would get himself killed. This isn't the kind of person you bring on an adventure with you. This is the kind of guy you seek out when you are needing "sage" advice and are puzzled about something. You will note that that is roughly how Angelo is "used" on the show. Thank You all and have a nice day. Signed, The Man Time Forgot
pres_man 01-27-04, 10:40 PM	High Wisdom = can deal with any problem that he has dealt with in the past. High Intelligence = can deal with new problems with out any or very little past experience. So the intelligent fighter will get into flanking with the rogue, because he knows this is the best thing to do for the party. The wise fighter will do it because this has always been helpful, or he has been repeatedly told to.
Zelazny 01-27-04, 10:43 PM	Originally posted by bolobaby Maybe a cross between Rain Man and Forrest Gump, with slightly less capable verbal skills. When i read this thread that was the first thing that came to mind too :) Forrest gump, just.. even less intelligent.
Aucturos 01-28-04, 12:12 AM	Originally posted by ManTimeForgot Yeah I miss pretender too. But you all will note that Angelo required caretakers. And I suspect that Angelo had a little more than a 4 int (the 20 wis I don't think I can debate as vehemently). I mean Angelo was capable of planning ahead and stuff. Though this is probably more a factor of the D&D stat system combining the qualities of the given statistics. I mean Angelo has speach problems and certain cognitive function problems, but he is still capable of reasoning and thinking about future events. But even barring the argument about Angelo's stats, the point still stands. The dude required supervision or he would get himself killed. This isn't the kind of person you bring on an adventure with you. This is the kind of guy you seek out when you are needing "sage" advice and are puzzled about something. You will note that that is roughly how Angelo is "used" on the show. Thank You all and have a nice day. Signed, The Man Time Forgot It runs on TNT every morning at 8am in my area... I've seen the entire series twice... It's very engaging, and I'm going to miss it terribly when they finally take it off. I agree here. Angelo might be the sufficial character for the stats here. While he has taken initiative once or twice in his fight to reclaim his normality (after Mr. Rains destroyed the real boy's personality and sense of self 20years ago), while he was Angelo he could do one thing extraordinarily well: Get into people's heads. So much so that the could, without fail, predict what they would do. He would 'soak up' someone into his brain, until he became them, by viewing movies of them or reading news articles, seeing glimpses of personal lives if available. I think what the poster might have here is someone that goes beyond intuition, but might possibly border on prophecy. Say if a character suddenly has a change of plans for the future and decides that soon, he's going to backstab someone. Our idiot-savant character would know that ahead of time... And know, possibly 100% positive, who it would be, when it would be, and whether or not they'd really go through with it. Due to the lack of ability to communicate, it would be interesting for the idiot-savant to try and communicate these facts to the parties involved though. Perhaps he would follow the betrayer around all day, keeping a close eye on him. Perhaps he would follow the one betrayed and get angry whenever the betrayer is near...
Generic Fighter 01-28-04, 05:08 AM	Well, Millenium, I think your on to something there;) . Gourry is a perfect example for this character but Bolobaby might never have seen The Slayers TV show or it's Manga version since it's not well known outside the Anime community, witch is a shame really because it's a perfect Anime for D&D players! It has dozens and dozens of ideas although most of them are best for DMs. I give it two thumbs up!:thumbsup: :thumbsup: Every one here should check it out though. Its just that good. Anyways to the point, this is the way I see it. A low Int doesn't mean your character is "mentally retarded". For that to be true your charecter would also need a low Wis and (probaly) a low Cha. A low Int also doesn't mean you automaticaly don't have any basic life skills such as reading, writing, math and speach. All it means is that the character only knows the basics of them; for example he could read a letter from his parents but not The Big, Big Book of Complicated Stuff, he could write a letter but only in print not cursive, he could do adding and subtracting but not multiplication and division and he could speak coherantly but not always grammaticaly correct or using technical terms not used in his chosen profession. Also a low Int doesn't automaticaly mean your character can't be good at something, it just means he can't be good at more than a couple things.
VirgilCaine 01-28-04, 10:33 AM	If this guy were a metaphysician he/she could explain how magic functions (without using words longer than 2 syllables). It's actually "metaphysicist"; a metaphysician is a doctor who treats deep-set ailments. Interesting discussion.
Ertai Planeswalker 01-28-04, 10:20 PM	Have you seen the Green Mile? Think John Coffy. And Angelo was near-clairsentient (Spelling!)
ManTimeForgot 01-29-04, 02:30 AM	Generic Fighter: A low intelligence might not mean retarded, but a 4 int certainly does. A 4 int means that you are a few int points above a dog. Your ability to use language is going to be significantly impaired, your math skills are going to suffer (counting beyond a certain point will be difficult), your higher reasoning skills (those things which are not "common sense") are going to suffer immensely (think no puzzles, the jig saw puzzle is out the window), and your going to basically require constant supervision. The dude will have good common sense, but common sense only takes you so far. With such a huge penalty to knowledges (which when untrained are int checks) this dude is going poison, maim, or otherwise hurt himself because he didn't know what something was dangerous or didn't know something functioned in some way. It might be common sense to not eat poison, but you have to know its hemlock and not something else, or it might be common sense to not walk under a shaky stone structure, but you have to be able to recognize that first. Thank You all and have a nice day. Signed, The Man Time Forgot
Legacy-Warrior 01-29-04, 02:45 AM	What this means to me. Int: Whatcha know and how well you learn it. Complex thinking, rational thougth process. Knowing stuff and concepts, and technical aptitude. Wis: Insight to what necessarily can't be put into books. Innate understanding of the way non-technical things work. Knowing self, people, and environment. Not a direct answer I know but I hope it give you some insight on how to play your character.
Mikal 01-30-04, 04:25 AM	Tom Cullen from the Stand is a good example here, I think
Luminosity 01-30-04, 07:42 AM	High wisdom may also be representative of contact with a cosmic entity. The character hears a voice, and always does what the voice tells him to do. My Druid plays his high Wis as a connection with nature. Spot and listen checks are enhanced because his surroundings work to warn him. He hears the cries of nature and listens to their pleas.
Xarrith 01-31-04, 11:44 AM	Originally posted by Thorak Picture the big, dumb guy who always has a sad smile on his face. He doesn't talk much, because he can't think of how to explain how he feels. He doesn't understand why things in the world are the way they are, but he does understand the pain and sadness of people around him, and is constantly affected by it. While he doesn't understand why, he realizes he probably never will, and so just tries his best to comfort those around him, and do what he can to make their lives happier. . M-O-O-N, that spells Tom Cullen! No, really, if you didn't get the joke, it's from Stephen King's "The Stand". Tom Cullen can be encountered in the book and in the movie version of it, and that's what Thorak's description reminded me of. Tom is mentally retarded, but only to the degree of like, a 3rd grader. After the plague that wipes out 99.9% of the population, Tom is *WISE* enough to survive on his own until someone else finds him. (Whereas, in the uncut version of the book, it's made very clear that plenty of average or smart people died after the plague because they were NOT wise enough to care for themselves and avoid danger). He knows or remembers how to avoid dangers, and how to provide for himself, but he's definitely around the 4 INT category. I think Thorak's suggestion is a pretty good way to look at a 20 WIS 4 INT character.