My friend is running a campaign and one of his players, a notorious min/maxer, rolled a rogue. The rogue has a -1 int modifer, which I would assume would be game breaking for a rogue, but after further research it doesn't seem that intelligence even matters for the class. It seems logical that if you are a complete dunce you wouldn't know how a trap operates, so you wouldn't be able to disarm it, but this is never stated in the PHB. In the PHB it says that you can use wisdom to detect traps, and dex to disarm them. Since he rolled a drow, he also has benefits vs. mind altering spells which helps for some saves involving int. In previous editions of dnd it would be ruinous for him to have low int since he would have no skills, but I don't see any downsides in 5th. Am I missing something?
The downside is when he takes an action that has an uncertain outcome and for which the DM calls for an Intelligence check to resolve it, he has a lower chance of success than someone with a higher Intelligence score. That might include a trap that requires more intelligence than dexterity to disarm, such as a puzzle or the like. He still gets his thieves' tool proficiency in any case.
Personally, I wouldn't be throwing around names like "min/maxer" and would instead root for my teammate for building an effective character. That's what sounds like is missing.
Intelligence (and perhaps Charisma) is the most dumpable stat in the current state of 5e. That being said, a -1 modifier doesn't make you a drooling idiot; it can represent a variety of things. Rogues might have use of tool skills (diguise, forgery, etc) that do often base themselves off of Int; and one can always set up Int challenges (simple puzzles and the like) to emphasize it wasn't costless to abandon it.
If the DM were of a mind to punish low INT scores, he could set you guys up against psionic enemies. Most psionic powers call for INT saves. A mindflayer or intellect devourer would absolutely melt his brain.
Intelligence is not a core ability for rogues in this edition. And stop the "min/max" nonsense. Everyone min/maxes. It is what you do when assign abilities, skills, feat etc to your character. You take the useful ones (max) and avoid the useless ones (min). Some people are just better at it.
kalil wrote:
AaronOfBarbaria wrote:
iserith wrote:
Of course, it all depends on the kind of rogue he is trying to play. If he's more of a dangerous thug or a skilled burglar, but one who is, overall, just slightly less clever than average, then a low intelligence is in no way an obstance, either mechanically or thematically. What the player should note (indeed what all players should note), is that so-called "dump stats" come with a cost. In a well-conceived adventure, there should be occasions when having the lower stat will be a liability, even though the DM should not specifically target/punish a player for the low score. The penalty is enough. So, when PCs have to cross slippery ledges, they make Dex checks, and all those heavily armored but low Dex fighters, paladins, and clerics have to deal with it. On the other hand, consider the following Intelligence checks:
Other Intelligence Checks. The DM might call for an Intelligence check when you try to accomplish tasks like the following:
• Communicate with a creature without using words• Estimate the value of a precious item
• Pull together a disguise to pass as a city guard
• Forge a document
• Recall lore about a craft or trade• Win a game of skill (Basic D&D, p. 61)
A lot of what would be considered being "street smart" - the kind of intelligence I'd associate most with many rogues - don't have a great deal to do with a person's IQ as measured by the common tests for this kind of thing. If you were to build a street smart character you'd likely invest heavily in Wis and Cha based skills. Of course, the ability system used in D&D is too granular to really represent most skills very accurately so the DM is supposed to choose what the most relevant ability is, as illustrated among other things by the way tool proficiencies aren't tied to a single ability.
kalil wrote:
intelligence uses investigation which would cover a lot of trap finding. also scroll use at 13th+.
Discipline and training is more than enough to acquire most competences.
As long as a rogue doesn't have to deal with abstractions and adaptability beyond what can be learnt, by working harder if he isn't very intelligent, why would he needs to have a superior intelligence ?
Are every educated people, liars, thieves or minesweepers intelligent people ?
Intelligence can make things easier, but working harder can help too.
This rogue will never be a genius, that's all. And a lot of intelligent people fail where short sighted sociopaths or stupid opportunists succeed, just look at who rule the world ! 
The party wizard will have to find the traps for the dumb rogue.
TEAMWORK!!!
At my table, active search is INT based.
iserith wrote:
kalil wrote:
iserith wrote:
I thought it was obvious you didn't need Intelligence for rogues. If they were intelligent...they wouldn't be playing a rogue now, would they? 
I kid, I kid! 
But seriously, I think this is one area where using Investigation/INT would really pay off, and more than any other class I can see using INT instead of WIS for passive perception. So in bulk...yeah, I think rogues do need Intelligence.
Novacat wrote:
kalil wrote:
Int is, sadly, the biggest dump ability score for almost every game. It grants no static benefit (as it lost the bonus language benefit from the playtest), it has the fewest saves listed, and has really only Lore skills. Other than having one person with a descent Int, such as a Wizard, that can also train a few Lore skills, you will find few players choosing this option.
In my games, traps are found with Investigation and passive Investigation. The helps keep the Rogue (and others) more honest with their Int score. Of course, I also have a lot of social interation to keep Cha honest too
kalil wrote:
DIfferent clases,archetypes, and builds have different ability score needs.
The only way really to stop dump stats is roll for scores in order and do not let people assign their stats. If you use point but, the array or 4d6 drop the lowest assign how you like is more encourages dump sttas.
In 2E and 3E intelligence gave you bonus NWP/skills so it was at least good from something from a mechanics PoV.
Pity about the concept of dump stats, really. I, personally, like the idea of choosing your own stats rather than rolling - it seems more like crafting a whole new being.
Regardless of game benefits, I would look towards what I wanted for the character. If I wanted a genius rogue, I would make him high intelligence. If I'm ok with a dull-witted trapspringer, then I'll go for low-intelligence. Both sound like fun.
His character is about as smart as a yeti or a cyclops. Bugbears and kobolds are also of his intellectual ilk and they have no problems with traps - or do they? I don't have access to safety reports from kobold colonies showing fatalities caused by inept trapmaking.
The local pig farmer knows more about history, nature, arcana and religion than the rogue and that same farmer is a veritable Sherlock compared to the rogue's deductive capabilities. "Hmmm. I've lost a pig. I'll 'ave to follow the clues and find 'er!" is easy for the farmer to say. That rogue, however is the sort of gumshoe that fixates on the gum on his shoe rather than the mystery at hand. "Oooo. Sticky stuff!"
The rogue player has made a godly decision for his character's natural talents and that is his prerogative. Hopefully he has fun playing the character and doesn't just use his own (probably superior) intelligence for all gaming interactions. If he did, I would say he has made a conscious decision to Dump Intelligence rather than make a genuine RP character choice.
I've thought of using Intelligence (Investigation) for traps.
I was thinking of using :
Wisdom (Perception) to spot the trap
Intelligence (Investigation) to understand how it works (the specific mechanism or such)
Dexterity check using thieves tools to disarm it.
In that variant, if the Intelligence (Investigation) check fails, the rogue has disadvantage to his Dexterity check to disarm it.
So that Intelligence has an important part of the rogue.
But that would require 3 separate rolls for each trap.
You need method to detect traps. If it's a new revolutionary kind of trap, there's no Intelligence score to anticipate it, but Dexterity, training and experience can help for a quick reaction before or after springing this trap.
Intelligence is needed to establish methods to detect traps, but it doesn't require the same level of Intelligence to learn preestablished methods.
If we go this way, all combattants must also have a high Intelligence score to function and anticipate attacks to parry, dodge, or make an effective attack. But it would negate the fact that mental capabilities drop under stress and that training and experience then lead our actions.
I like to help the players make the types of characters they want to play. If my player wants to play a half orc wizard but worries that he is picking the 'wrong' race to go with the class, I'll see what we can do to make sure he can still 'wizard'. Just letting him say his sickly (loses his +1 to con) half orc spent a lot of time reading books growing up (+1 int), should help him feel better about chosing what he wants over what is 'best'.
As far as 'dump' stats, I try to make sure my campaigns give chalenges to the entire party and not targeted at weaknesses of the individual players. While it may be interesting to force the low charisma fighter to try to bluff his way out of a situation (especially when it results in hillarity), I'd rather let the guy who wanted the high charisma and deception skill get a chance to handle those situations.
Just let the low inteligence rogue know what your idea about when an investigation roll is used instead of a perception roll. If he's min/maxing then he's probably thinking that he can use perception for every roll that involves hidden things he wants to find.
An int score of 8 or 9 doesn't mean the character is a drooling moron.
Taking a low intelligence score as a rogue is likely to have little impact on the character's adventuring career. It's a sound choice from a gamist standpoint, in that your character is a person you're investing a lot of time into, and you'd like to see them succeed, so maybe you put your 12 into wisdom and your 8 into intelligence because you think wisdom saves will come up more often. That's fine! It doesn't make you a min/maxer, and even if it did, who cares? Making an effective character is not necessarily detrimental to making a character that's enjoyable for the rest of the group.
Of course, maybe the player wants to play a character with low intelligence, and is prepared to roleplay that. Maybe he'll sit out on planning sessions or offer ideas in need of some fine-tuning by the smarter characters. Just because the choice is sound mechanically doesn't mean it's bad for roleplaying.
All that said, the OP claims that the player is a notorious min/maxer. So, in answer to the actual question posed by the OP: No, rogues do not especially need a high intelligence modifier in this edition. It's been that way since at least 3.5 (where anything above 10 was just gravy. What, were 8 skill points per level not enough?). However, trapfinding arguably goes under Intelligence (Investigation), so if the rogue doesn't invest in proficiency, he may have a hard time ever actually finding the traps he's supposed to disarm.
The main problem with Int-based checks seems to be that they often end up being rather unexciting if they're meant to determine if knowledge/deduction makes things easier (physical challenges to overcome can often be solved in a different way of the first approach doesn't work, Int checks are usually hit or miss and no retry) and potentially are roadblocks if figuring out the clue is what getting to the next step in the adventure hinges on. There are lots of things you can do with INT, but it's much harder to make them engaging for the players than with other stats.
Pangur wrote:
iserith wrote:
Renarius wrote:
A couple of approaches:
Social interaction
I use the character's INT score as an indication of how well a social interaction might play out when what is said, and how it is said, and the intelligence of the other participants is important. I do this because player's usually have a hard time roleplaying their INT score at the table. Plus it's no fun telling a player to stop having good-party-saving-ideas because of their low INT score, that other players can then pick up and run with. Nobody (usually) plays their low INT character at the table, and this is mostly a good thing to keep the game moving forward.
A dumb charismatic (low INT high CHA) character speaking to an intelligent individual is going to have a hard time just relying on his wink and good charm - but absolutely zero knowledge about a particular subject (imagine discussing the Crimean War to an historian - you better know your stuff), but that boyish charm can work wonders on any serving wench in the lower quarter who thinks reading is a waste of time.
Similarly, a high INT low CHA wizard trying to communicate ("My forlorn fellow, my friends and I that am accompanying them seek succor.") with long complicated words to the slovenly sloped forehead barkeep (Finger in nose... "Eh?") might have it just slightly harder than the dwarf with average INT and CHA who can speak in the vernacular of the barkeep ("Ale and some nancy elf wine for him with the fancy words"). Of course, the player with the high INT might try to dumb it down... but you get the idea.
Describe the score in real-world terms
I want to help my players bring their ability scores to life by describing them in real world terms. It's not just a +3 STR... it's "a ripped body hard as steel". Looking through a player's sheet it's easy to spot the highs and the lows, and so at the table I like to get my players to describe their best and worst stats - no point describing average stats. So your rogue player... he'd have to explain what that low INT score represents, and how (and if) it manifests to other people. Does he have poor diction (penalty to some social), poor vocab, poor memory (DM provides him false ones when dramatically inconvenient), no head for names and faces (more DM tricks), cannot read or write (which is only relevant if it comes up), cannot do basic arithmetic reliably (how much gold did you want exactly?), perhaps only a basic education on remote farm (so philosophical constructs, debating and concepts are well beyond him), no potential rank advancement in the thieves guild because he's seen as not too bright, etc...
It's important to not PUNISH the player for their low score(s) as they're actively adding good roleplaying fodder by being flawed, but it is important to provide consequence other than the mechanical -1 on n checks, but to do so in a consistent measured way that's good for the game and the story. Most importantly, the drawback(s) are all described in loving detail by the player. They've decided he's absent-minded, or a klutz, or a bit slow, or has the manners of a pig in an eating trough, etc. A low score could really help define a great flaw.
As a DM, I'd have fun with making him misremember the thieves guild's lieutenant's name, irritating said lieutenant, and then handing over the wrong amount of gold from a job because he got swindled by a street urchin moments before, because he recognised the boy as the guild leader's son, when it in fact wasn't at all. That session should be filled with lots of laughs and all due to a low INT.
Mistwell wrote:
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Beldak_Serpenthelm wrote: