Post/Author/DateTime	Post
#1 blackermetal Oct 24, 2014 21:46:06	So I'm involved in a casual 2nd edition campign, kind of weird setup -everyone is a human fighter to start. My character has an INT of 18, I'd like to eventually get into some magery down the line as he's going to allow as to multiclass as the story progresses. I don't know what this word means exactly but it sounds like it should apply here: homebrew.      Anyway, anyone have any ideas of the sorts of things a smart character (who cannot cast spells) can and should be doing? I'm kind of drawing a blank.  There haven't really been any puzzles or mysteries so maybe I just haven't had an opportunity. Still I feel like my INT should really distinguish me from everyone else. Maybe I'm having such a hard time because my real life INT is nowhere near 18. So does anyone have any suggestions for playing a super smart character?
#2 iserith Oct 24, 2014 21:50:14	Play the character however you want. When you have to make an Intelligence check of some kind, that's when the actual number will matter.
#3 Touc Oct 24, 2014 22:10:46	Yep, just roleplay it any way you want. Could be a brilliant but unfocused character who never has directed his genius talents to any particular talent. Could be he sees fighting as a series of patterns and is intrigued by memorizing swordplay like a dancing routine. Could be he would love to challenge himself with magic but sees no feasible way to afford it.  Any number of concepts will earn you props for roleplay even if there's no pending mechanical benefit.
#4 SterlingRat Oct 25, 2014 1:43:18	Perhaps as a youth, you were discouraged from showing your intellect and forced to join the army by your family. It will take time and experience before you can gain the confidence to follow your own path, and your father will never approve. Or maybe you were a magic savant, lauded as a youth and praised as the kind of mind that comes once in a generation. Unfortunately, one of the bad guys found out. They tried to recruit you, and you evaluated their methods... if you refused, your family would die - horribly. You faked your death and joined the army, hiding your intellect to blend into the crowd. You only pretend to be as dumb as everyone else so they can't find you.
#5 blackermetal Oct 25, 2014 10:47:30	Thanks, these ideas help.
#6 OrwellianHaggis Oct 26, 2014 2:18:32	What are your other stats like? The Player's Handbook suggests personality traits could be created according to high and low scores from every stat.   E.g. if you've an INT of 18 and an 8 in CHA, your character could be highly intelligent but not good at talking to others. With such a low CHA his only real contacts might be his family, or a very small group of similar friends (I'm thinking Big Bang Theory here).
#7 BRJN Oct 31, 2014 19:17:20	"Whose house does burn, must Soldier turn" - mercenary recruiting slogan (and tactics) during the Thirty Years' War.   As a youth, you were marked as bright and clever, and the plan was to apprentice you to a local wizard / send you to the Big City to study the Art in a real wizard college.  But a war broke out just a bit soon for that.  A marauding unit came to your village and burnt it down, planning to recruit the inhabitants as cannon fodder for the upcoming campaign.  You figured it out and split, just in time.  You met up with an Army unit responding to reports of trouble brewing, and directed them back to your village.  You returned too late.  You stuck with the Army, stunned and shocked and not knowing what else to do.  You signed up for basic training and asked your commanding officer about gaining training in magic.  As is the way of any bureaucracy, these requests take time to process, and the decision hasn't come through yet.  So you soldier on until the Good Word is given.   Maybe your high INT comes out in the form of loving crossword puzzles.  This marks you as unusual in a world where 99% of everybody cannot read or write; you can manipulate words as a child plays with toys.  Or you could create Sodoku grids in your down time.