..but I'm not THAT dumb!

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Originally Posted by CLAY MORE

The problem isn't from a mechanical standpoint: I know I've dumped INT (actually my DM dumped for me, it's my first character, he did it for me, and I think he did a good job nonetheless - non EK fighters usually dump INT). I can accept by limitations, and I can accept I don't even get to roll CHA to try convince NPCs because "I'm too dumb"... but I don't know what to do during those huge sizes of the campaign when there is a lot of talking and not much fightering. So I'm asking to you, seasoned veterans, if there's a way I can contribute to the party without trying to look smarter than the 16 INT rogue.

EDIT (12 wis, 10 cha)

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with a 12 wisdom and a 10 charisma you're really not an idiot. there's no reason your wisdom wouldn't let you get to the heart of things and express them simply. "He's lying", "She put something in her pocket she doesn't want people to see", "They seem to want to tell each other something". These aren't high logic but understanding questions. Also, if people think you're an idiot, they may say things in front of you they shouldn't, thinking you won't understand.

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Originally Posted by CLAY MORE

But that's metagaming :/
Both the DM and my fellow players are really strict against it.

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Oh! You are in that kind of group...

I would ask for a reroll, and make a character that fits better on the game

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Originally Posted by CLAY MORE

Seems fun.
To answer dork_forge (hope I got the name right, it's hard to multiquote from cell), I'm a strenght based champion. I think I don't really need that whopping 14 DEX because I'm wearing heavy armors and initiative is not that important for a defender like me. Yeah, I guess could spend my next asi for +2INT or the Keen mind feat (sadly it will take a while, I'm lvl 8 -joined at 5)... but it's crippling me as a fighting guy, isn't it? The system is somewhat harsh on melee martials.

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On the crippling aspect, if you're Strength absed then you only need +5 Str, feats are a nice bonus but unnecessary especially as you have Action Surge for bursts of damage. How did you get your stats? If it was point buyed then just ask to rebuy your stats, all you need to do is move two points from other skills to make it a 0 and take away your DMs problem (I strongly believe this should be resolved by the DM not being so... whatever this is, but if that's out of the question it's a viable option). If you do start your stats over as point buy at lvl 8 you have 3 ASIs to max out your Str (should only really take two) and patch any other stats/take a feat.

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Originally Posted by CLAY MORE

But that's metagaming :/
Both the DM and my fellow players are really strict against it.

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I feel I need to add my 2 cents to this. As the DM seems to think 8 Int is an idiot, the 16 Int rogue must be some sort of genius. They are three times as far from average! So is the player of the rogue also a genius? Probably not. So they are going to need some help getting the kind of ideas that the character should have. You (the player) are that extra brainpower. Help out solving the puzzles, but any ideas you have are roleplayed as coming from the higher Int rogue.

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Originally Posted by Mellack

I feel I need to add my 2 cents to this. As the DM seems to think 8 Int is an idiot, the 16 Int rogue must be some sort of genius. They are three times as far from average! So is the player of the rogue also a genius? Probably not. So they are going to need some help getting the kind of ideas that the character should have. You (the player) are that extra brainpower. Help out solving the puzzles, but any ideas you have are roleplayed as coming from the higher Int rogue.

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Exactly. Like has been said earlier: Puzzles are meant to be solved by players, not characters.

If puzzles were meant to be solved by characters, it would go like this:
- DM tells you there is a puzzle with levers and knobs to open the door, but doesn't bother to describe it further.
- Wizard announces he tries to solve the puzzle
- DM tells the wizard that they need to roll an Intelligence-Investigation check
- Wizard rolls a 12, (with a +7 because he is proficient) and tells the DM: "19!"
- DM narrates that the wizard cleverly solved the puzzle and the door opens.

Does that sound like fun to you?

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Originally Posted by Reynaert

Exactly. Like has been said earlier: Puzzles are meant to be solved by players, not characters.

If puzzles were meant to be solved by characters, it would go like this:
- DM tells you there is a puzzle with levers and knobs to open the door, but doesn't bother to describe it further.
- Wizard announces he tries to solve the puzzle
- DM tells the wizard that they need to roll an Intelligence-Investigation check
- Wizard rolls a 12, (with a +7 because he is proficient) and tells the DM: "19!"
- DM narrates that the wizard cleverly solved the puzzle and the door opens.

Does that sound like fun to you?

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It is more coherent than the following:
bob the vorpal giant barbarian rabbit with an int of 1 goes in the room and proceeds to solve a rubik cube despite its lack of hands because the player knew how to solve it without hands with only his mouth as he demonstrated on a real life rubick cube he did set to the same setup as the one in the game.
and both are better than "hey we are roleplayers and we concluded that none of our characters were able to solve the puzzle no matter the fact we as players solved it so they just walk away and hope some other group will go save the world and figure out the solution before tomorrow where the lord of candy will wake up and turn the whole world in candy thus killing most things"

In a fantasy world, is being turned into candy likely to really kill you, though? Maybe it's more like being turned into a cartoon candy version of yourself, especially if everything else changes to match. The food chain would obviously go from candy to candy to candy

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Originally Posted by Kyutaru

I think you may be overestimating the 8 Int impact. Having 8 Int is basically what every kid in school who complains that math is hard has.

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As someone who finds math difficult to understand but has the logical skills necessary to solve it once they figure it out and can read just about any book in a day, I disagree that this is what that intelligence level means. Different people are better at different subjects.

As other people have said, it's more like Intelligence 8 is slightly below average. Closer to that ****kicker that sits at the back of the class, although they're not necessarily going to be as badly behaved.

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Originally Posted by MaxWilson

I think you misunderstand what "average" is. What you're thinking of as mildly dumb is probably more like "average". Remember that if you have a college degree at all, you're in the top third of Americans (as far as formal education goes). If Int 10 is average, the 50th percentile, then those are the people who strike you as a bit simplistic and dim; Int 8 are the ones who barely passed high school; if they make it to college at all they struggle immensely.

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heheh. I am paying the price for my 'don't allude to IRL expertise you're not prepared to verify (by doxing yourself)' stance. I guess I can just say, yes, I am fairly well versed in population distributions and leave it at that.

I guess my main point would be: we don't have to define it that way. We're a long ways away from 3d6 being the standard attribute-determination method (and the standard distribution it implies), and non-PCs don't have their stats determined by PC methods any ways (I also think that 'what stats mean' should be made with PCs in mind, but recognize that as a more controversial stance). 8 and 10 can mean anything we declare them to be. To me, having all that unused real estate in the 3-7 range (because there's only really about one character type that people routinely want to play that is more than just mildly dumb) is a pointless waste of space that artificially squeezes together too many roles in the rest of the range.

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<example>
To me that's what Int 8 is like, and I can't roleplay characters that I can't comprehend. This guy I was studying with is clearly smarter than an Int 6 ape, but I can roleplay an Int 6 Ape or an Int 3 savage by just not talking or thinking at all--just do what my cat would do and completely ignore puzzles and astronomy and fusion altogether. It's a lot harder to roleplay someone with moderately low intelligence, who eventually comes to some kind of understanding of intellectual concepts, but it's not the right understanding. It's just good enough to pass the class eventually with a C grade.
I just can't mimic that. I try my best to help these guys in real life, but I can't pretend to be them.

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No comment on the savage, but having the Ape on the PC Int table is part of the problem, in my mind. Having a totally separate animal intelligence scale (such that we can distinguish between the smart animals and the dumb animals, and perhaps give some numbers that help us in determining whether an animal will get caught in the ranger's box trap or the like) makes sense. All having the Ape at PC-scale 6 is create a no-go zone for most PCs (Yes, as Friv mentions, great apes are smart, but we all know the one character we'd make that is 'dumber as an ape,' and Int 3 does a perfectly good job of representing that).

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I'd do it like this:
(1) Ditzy blonde, Int 8-11, depending.
(2) Dim-witted prince, again probably 8-11. It's just the male version of #1.
(3) Smart kid's dumb older brother, probably Int 10-12. He's not necessarily dumb, just in comparison to his genius kid brother.
(4) Street smart and charismatic fool, anywhere between Int 8-15, but Wis 6-9, depending on how foolish he is.

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Hmm. Well, for #3, that's redefining the character as not actually dumb in the first place, otherwise it shows that I needed to spend more time on my examples. Regardless, I think this highlights that we've lost the ability to us the numeric value to capture any nuance (at least with the Int score), by constraining our range.

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Originally Posted by GM_3826

As other people have said, it's more like Intelligence 8 is slightly below average.

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Again, no, not really.

You've got:
Int 6: Apes
Int 7: ?
Int 8: ?
Int 9: ?
Int 10: Average Human

That's the spectrum right there. I take issue with the way the DM railroaded this guy into playing a dumbass, but I have no problem with treating someone with int 8 like a dumbass. If you were making a stat block for Moose from Archie Comics, for example, he'd have int 8. If you want to play a guy that's just a bit thick go with int 9.

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Originally Posted by Damon_Tor

Again, no, not really.

You've got:
Int 6: Apes
Int 7: ?
Int 8: ?
Int 9: ?
Int 10: Average Human

That's the spectrum right there. I take issue with the way the DM railroaded this guy into playing a dumbass, but I have no problem with treating someone with int 8 like a dumbass. If you were making a stat block for Moose from Archie Comics, for example, he'd have int 8. If you want to play a guy that's just a bit thick go with int 9.

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I think that 5e deciding to put animals nearly as smart as the average human was a bad idea.
I mean the ape just have to spend two asi in int and it is as smart as a regular human and start going to the office and fill paperwork while not being magical and it is possible due to npc new rules.
do not forget that with asi your "dumb as a brick" character(nope I think 8 int is far from that) instantly becomes as smart as an average human without transitory period of a few years: all it took was a week of training and gaining a level.
you should realize that animals ever having more than 2 int is an absurdity: they get as smart as humans with barely any effort due to that.
let us look at a phb human who got a really bad roll: he got 3 int.
He still knows how to read and write.
Now you have a monkey with 6 int.
It will be hard to justify you can not have the party ranger training the monkey to read, write and do sublime poetry.(since it have twice as much int points as needed for writing)

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Originally Posted by Rakaydos

Even an ape can use a smartphone/tablet interface to ask and answer simple questions.

Edit: https://truththeory.com/2017/06/20/b...h-words-watch/

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This. Exactly.

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Originally Posted by CLAY MORE

I'm having trouble roleplaying a character with below average INT (8) in what has become an intrigue-heavy campaign. I can be rude, impolite, rush and thick-headed like the dumb fighter I'm supposed to be, but I find really difficult to not contribute on investigations, puzzles, riddles, and diplomatic situations. Actually, everytime I try to say something above basic affirmations like "I'm hungry/tired/pissed", NPCs react like I'm babbling something incomprehensibile. I know, I'm doing wrong by trying to "act smart", because it's patently off-character... but If I stay by my side, and let the supposedly "smart PCs" do the deed, I feel like a castaway from most of the RPG pillar. Any advice? It's right to step back to the bookworms, and keep my (off character) deductions for myself ?

P.S.: No native speaker here, sorry if I'm "babbling something incomprehensibile" :')

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INT 8 isn't really dumb at all when you think about it. Consider that average (no mod either way) is 10-11. That's where approx. 50% of all the people in the world should be INT wise. An INT of 8-9 should just be someone that maybe didn't study that hard, or just isn't quite as quick witted as most people. Could be from lack of education, lack of interest in intellectual pursuits or just a lack of inclination.

I mean think about it...roughly half of all the people you know should have an INT of 10-11. Odds are you know someone that would have an INT of 8.....are they babbling idiots? not likely.


And yeah, after having worked at a Zoo and worked in public safety as an EMT... I would actually agree with apes being smarter, wiser and nicer than SOME of the human populace

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Originally Posted by Damon_Tor

Again, no, not really.

You've got:
Int 6: Apes
Int 7: ?
Int 8: ?
Int 9: ?
Int 10: Average Human

That's the spectrum right there. I take issue with the way the DM railroaded this guy into playing a dumbass, but I have no problem with treating someone with int 8 like a dumbass. If you were making a stat block for Moose from Archie Comics, for example, he'd have int 8. If you want to play a guy that's just a bit thick go with int 9.

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Int 6 is an Ape, but it's also a Boggle - a sentient trickster fae capable of sneaking around and playing elaborate pranks on people. It's also a gnoll, a species of weapon-using sentient beings, or a minotaur, axe-wielding stalkers. Quaggoths are Int 6 and have tribes with lorekeepers. Troglodytes have Int 6, and are listed as "too simple to plan more than a few days in the future", which is basically what the GM is declaring of this Int 8 character.

Basically, the Int scale is nowhere near as certain as you are claiming, and even if it were, the GM is telling a player they can't make social rolls because their Int is 8, which is just straight ludicrous.

*EDIT* Also, if we're doing Archie comics:

Moose: Int 6
Archie: Int 8
Reggie: Int 10
Betty: Int 12
Kevin: Int 14
...
Dilton: Int 20

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Originally Posted by Damon_Tor

Again, no, not really.

You've got:
Int 6: Apes
Int 7: ?
Int 8: ?
Int 9: ?
Int 10: Average Human

That's the spectrum right there. I take issue with the way the DM railroaded this guy into playing a dumbass, but I have no problem with treating someone with int 8 like a dumbass. If you were making a stat block for Moose from Archie Comics, for example, he'd have int 8. If you want to play a guy that's just a bit thick go with int 9.

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So according to you 25% percent of the humanoid population of dnd are so dumb they cannot have a proper conversation?

I think people are missing the point. In my opinion, I don't care if you are playing a 3 int cube of jelly, preventing a player from participating in solving a puzzle is wrong.

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Originally Posted by zinycor

I think people are missing the point. In my opinion, I don't care if you are playing a 3 int cube of jelly, preventing a player from participating in solving a puzzle is wrong.

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Yup .

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Originally Posted by zinycor

I think people are missing the point. In my opinion, I don't care if you are playing a 3 int cube of jelly, preventing a player from participating in solving a puzzle is wrong.

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Puzzles are a bad idea a whole. The players solve them not their characters so it isn't in any way rewarding in game. Riddles are the worse.

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Originally Posted by zinycor

I think people are missing the point. In my opinion, I don't care if you are playing a 3 int cube of jelly, preventing a player from participating in solving a puzzle is wrong.

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There's more than one point going on in this thread, but you are right in your point.

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Originally Posted by stoutstien

Puzzles are a bad idea a whole. The players solve them not their characters so it isn't in any way rewarding in game. Riddles are the worse.

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But, it is the players who are playing the game. How can it not be rewarding for them to attempt challenges and succeed?

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Originally Posted by CLAY MORE

The problem isn't from a mechanical standpoint: I know I've dumped INT (actually my DM dumped for me, it's my first character, he did it for me, and I think he did a good job nonetheless - non EK fighters usually dump INT). I can accept by limitations, and I can accept I don't even get to roll CHA to try convince NPCs because "I'm too dumb"... but I don't know what to do during those huge sizes of the campaign when there is a lot of talking and not much fightering. So I'm asking to you, seasoned veterans, if there's a way I can contribute to the party without trying to look smarter than the 16 INT rogue.

EDIT (12 wis, 10 cha)

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From this, it seems not like a stat problem, but a DM problem. Your DM is interpreting an 8 Intelligence as "extreme developmental disability" not "a little slow"... an 8 intelligence, 12 wisdom character is unlikely to disprove Fermat or independently invent gunpowder, but he's also not going to sell the cow for three magic beans.

I like the suggestion of playing the "rubber duck", and asking the basic-yet-useful questions. But it seems you need to talk to the GM, first.

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Originally Posted by zinycor

I think people are missing the point. In my opinion, I don't care if you are playing a 3 int cube of jelly, preventing a player from participating in solving a puzzle is wrong.

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Yup.

The DM can even narrate how the 8 (or 3) Int character stumbled on a solution to the puzzle. Narrating results of a players approach is a big part of what DMs do.

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Originally Posted by zinycor

I think people are missing the point. In my opinion, I don't care if you are playing a 3 int cube of jelly, having a player forbidden from participating in solving a puzzle is wrong.

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Personally, I'm biased against player oriented puzzles in the first place.

If the puzzle is for the character, allow every person's stats and capabilities to matter. Have multiple solutions to a problem.

If the puzzle is for the player, don't have stats ever be relevant. Don't have abilities ever be relevant. Inspire teamwork rather than the abilities of the individual. Or just straight up, don't do it.

The capabilities of a player, including answering riddles, shouldn't ever be relevant in a role-playing game. We should be inspiring people to better play their roles, and that requires a role to be relevant.




I'm pretty passionate about this. If you ever made a puzzle that relied on player ingenuity rather than character abilities, you were wrong.

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Originally Posted by Willie the Duck

There's more than one point going on in this thread, but you are right in your point.



But, it is the players who are playing the game. How can it not be rewarding for them to attempt challenges and succeed?

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Because the puzzle/riddles aren't involving the characters other than a after thought of how to RP the information into the game. A lv 1 barbarian with 8 Wis and int has the same ablity to solve a puzzle as a lv 20 wizard with maxed mental stats.
Nothing you do in game helps solve the puzzle.

Riddles are like the trivia questions they ask on so shows before and after a commercial break. Sure it's on the show but it isn't part of the show. They can be fun but if it is blocking the critical path it's the same as forcing you to keep guessing until you get it right to watch the show again.

Now you can apply puzzle elements into the game with grinding to a stop while the players try to remember which door always lies and which one always tells the truth.
Example:
Recently my players found the hideout of a mad gnomish alchemist who wants nothing more than merge all the primal planes into one. The hideout it riddled with portals to make getting around the massive complex easier for BBEG and his minions. The final fight envoled a 80 foot tall central chamber where the players had to figure out the patterns to get to the top to stop the dooms day OR they could attempt to run the gauntlet and fly, climb, toss the halfling up. The players have used all the different portal types prior so they could use what they learned in game to solve the puzzle.

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Originally Posted by TriciaOso

I think the problem is that your DM is being extremely punitive about the INT penalty, honestly. The idea that a dumb person can't be persuasive or charming is... not borne out by reality.

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This. An intelligence of 8 is below average. Usually it means reading big words is a struggle, especially complex concepts are hard to grasp, and you’re often forgetful. I’ve never heard it devolve a character into a grunting Neanderthal. If you were too dumb to be able to contribute to a conversation, how would you be smart enough to learn a fighting style?

I play a Wild Magic sorcerer with an intelligence of 8. He was a street urchin who had no formal education, so frankly it’s a wonder he knows how to read and write at all. He lacks the vocabulary at times for the thoughts he wants to get across and relies heavily on his charm. He’s also had no training or mentoring with his magic, meaning no Arcana proficiency. Frankly I’ve had a blast with him, but he’s definitely been allowed to contribute plenty of times.

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Originally Posted by Man_Over_Game

The capabilities of a player, including answering riddles, shouldn't ever be relevant in a role-playing game. We should be inspiring people to better play their roles, and that requires a role to be relevant.

I'm pretty passionate about this. If you ever made a puzzle that relied on player ingenuity rather than character abilities, you were wrong.

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Spoiler: Off Topic, Player Skill

Show

I passionately believe that games are for players, and if you want player choices (and therefore player skill) not to matter, you should be building a simulation, not running an RPG for human beings.

Spoiler: Simulations

Show

There's nothing wrong with simulations based entirely on extrapolating results based on character abilities--they can be fun--but simulations are toys, not games. You don't ask other people to sit around and watch you run the sim.

Do character abilities matter too? Often, sure! If I write an adventure where you have to win a certain ~8th level fight in order to save the princess, that's a puzzle where you-the-player are trying to figure out a solution which leverages you-the-character's abilities to maximum effect so you can beat the guards and win the adventure. You would be unlikely to win that fight if you were a 1st level Bard with 3's in all of your ability scores, so yes, character abilities matter there. (And the DM will have made sure that you don't have that adventure at first level, unless you want to.)

But if you're a crummy player who makes bad decisions, you may lose that fight even if you are 12th level.

Ditto for riddle games. If there's a giant guarding a bridge who won't let you pass unless you beat him in a riddle game, I may give you the option to choose between

(1) I tell you the riddle, and then you must solve the riddle with your actual human brains and tell me the correct answer; or
(2) choose someone in the party to roll a DC 20 Int check;
or you may even choose the third way and
(3) Action Surge a bunch of GWM attacks and kill the giant while he's surprised.

But no matter which option you pick, there will be some way that you could theoretically make decisions that are bad enough that you would lose. I will not give you a situation where player skill doesn't matter, because those situations aren't fun for the players or the DM.

Meaningful play is based on the feeling of agency, which in turn is a perception that the choices you are making as a player matter.

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Originally Posted by stoutstien

Because the puzzle/riddles aren't involving the characters other than a after thought of how to RP the information into the game. A lv 1 barbarian with 8 Wis and int has the same ablity to solve a puzzle as a lv 20 wizard with maxed mental stats.
Nothing you do in game helps solve the puzzle.

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One thing we do in LARPs is have mental stats able to garner a clue from the storyteller. So if your character has 3 points spent in Wisdom, you may be able to glean insight into the puzzle from the marshal. Perhaps he tells you what type of cipher was used for the code, something your naturally insightful character was able to figure out from experience. So while no one has an advantage in solving the puzzle by default, the wizard with maxed mental stats might be able to ask the DM for hints that his character would have discerned on his own.

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Originally Posted by Damon_Tor

Again, no, not really.

You've got:
Int 6: Apes
Int 7: ?
Int 8: ?
Int 9: ?
Int 10: Average Human

That's the spectrum right there.

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I don't find cross comparisons of monster stats to player stats especially useful. Monster stats are at least partially based around giving them specific saves or ability bonuses (or mitigating crippling penalties) instead of being an actual attempt to directly compare them to people.

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Originally Posted by Kyutaru

One thing we do in LARPs is have mental stats able to garner a clue from the storyteller. So if your character has 3 points spent in Wisdom, you may be able to glean insight into the puzzle from the marshal. Perhaps he tells you what type of cipher was used for the code, something your naturally insightful character was able to figure out from experience. So while no one has an advantage in solving the puzzle by default, the wizard with maxed mental stats might be able to ask the DM for hints that his character would have discerned on his own.

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I don't know much about LARP but I am envoled with SCA/HEMA and a trend I see is people tend to have a persona that is mostly in line with RL self vs tabletops has a big allure of being able to be anything. The math geek can be the hulking barbarian and the wheelchair bound player can be a rogue darting around the roof tops.(this is an actual player I see a lot and he always has similar characters.)
I hate to use the term all inclusive but it may be the best one.

I got into this in the stat dumping thread, but it's relevant here too. The standard deviation of a 3d6 roll is just under 3, which puts 8 int easily within one SD of the mean. That means that 8 int is whats called "clinically normal." Compared to exactly average, it's the sort of difference that isn't really noticeably without a lot of observation and data gathering. Overall, an 8 int character would be worse at puzzles than normal, but at any given point they might be doing equal to or better than another int 10 person.

Someone else mentioned playing the role of the rubber duck, and that's a great idea. An 8 int person might also favour simple theories over complicated ones, so taking on that role might be good. I've seen smart people outsmart themselves by complicating a simple problem, so playing as a counterbalance to that tendency might be good.

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Originally Posted by Kyutaru

Yeah, this is what I was getting at. You almost literally cannot try to be smarter than the 16 int rogue because he has genius-level prodigy intelligence. Someone with 18 int is probably beyond even Elon Musk, capable of almost psychically knowing the answers to everything. When you hit that 20 int stage, you're the inventor of the time machine and fully comprehend planar physics that operate in non-Euclidean geometry scenarios.

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He beats the 16 int rogue on Int tests 30% of the time and ties another 4%. Those are the rules of the game. Claiming Int means more than that is you making up houserules. He can in fact beat the rogue, pretty often at that.

Any int down to 3 is a functional character able to learn various proficiencies and to be literate and skilled, that fifth edition gives apes a 6, just indicates that either Int doesn't mean the same thing for animals, or that D&D apes are a lot brighter than ours.