5e and Intelligence

[Phoenix042]

The proper question is why isn't there more mechanical payoff for general, non-class-specific usage of int.

I have a point-buy human fighter with:
16 / 14 / 14 / 10 / 14 / 12

And resilient (wisdom). None of my features directly reference dex or wisdom (since I'm strength-based), and I have only a single minor class feature that's in any way affected by con, yet those scores have a HUGE impact on my character's survivability and capacity to solve problems and accomplish things in the game world. Of my other party members, not ONE of them dumped Wisdom or Constitution, and only one has a positive int score. They play a rogue, paladin, sorcerer, cleric, and barbarian. They all have at least +1 wis and +1 dex, not because we are of the opinion that int isn't useful, but because we are burdened in our decision making by the obvious and inescapable reality that other abilities are generally MORE useful for each and every one of us.

The only exception to this is the cumulative value a party gains out of having at least one member with a decent int and some int-skill proficiencies, which is true of every ability. Comparatively, if one of our party members had an 8 Con, the whole party would be weaker for it, that character would be an obvious weak link, and he'd feel the burden of his low con during practically every play session.

Similarly, my high wisdom and my resilient (wis) pick have come up TONS of times, and I often feel like they contribute more to my survivablity than even my dex and shield master feat.

The point isn't that intelligence doesn't have value or benefits for non-int-casters, the point is that it doesn't have nearly as much mechanical impact for such characters as any other ability does for any other character.

It's not worthless, but it's hard to argue that it's not the weakest stat independent of class-specific usage.

When I put together a character, I try to consider the role-playing aspects of the ability; if I want to be clever, wise, or charming, then I want to invest in int, wis, or cha respectively. But when I want to be wise, my character happens to gain all these other, mechanically strong benefits out of my decision. When I want to be charming, I open myself up to lots of multiclassing options and benefit from a wide array of charisma-based features in all sorts of classes, like the battlemaster's rally maneuver, the inspiring leader feat, or the various charm abilities that make charisma skills more useful and can be picked and used by non-charisma casters.

Yet I feel like if I chose to play a "clever" barbarian, paladin, non-caster fighter or rogue, or cleric or sorcerer, or warlock, or bard, that I've just gained very little additional benefit for making that choice.

[AvatarVecna]

Here are some useful houserules I'm using in games I run:

1) Characters get additional proficiencies at lvl 1 equal to their lvl 1 Int mod (in any mix of tools and languages they want). They can give up two of those for a skill proficiency.

2) Knowledge checks on monsters are CR-based, and the better you beat the DC, the more information you get. This is particularly useful if you frequently use strange variant monsters or homebrew.

3) Any illusion spell that requires an Investigation check + interaction to disbelieve can now use an Int save instead of an Investigation check, at the player's choice. This means that rogues and wizards have at least baseline competency at dealing with illusions, while high-level monks and paladins are also fairly good at dealing with them.

My players have appreciated mechanics that give them some motivation not to build and RP dumbasses.

[Cynthaer]

Others have answered some of these, but I'll go ahead and give my answers to the OP directly.

Ok so as we all know that for anyone but wizards for the most part Intelligence is a dump stat.

"Dump stat" can be a contentious phrase, but I know what you mean. There are very few (sub-)classes that get any hard combat benefit from Int, so it mostly only shows up if (A) you're a Wizard or one of a couple of subclasses, or (B) you want to be ok at Investigation or knowledge skills.

Why though, was it so that they could not MC easily? A lot of people agree that wizard is the class that is best staying wizard 1-20 anyway.

Nah. Warlock was originally an Int class, but player feedback during the playtest was that people wanted it to be Cha like in previous versions. You can still see it in the fluff—for instance, the Great Old One patron writeup is all about doing research and uncovering unspeakable knowledge or whatever.

(Also, they don't generally restrict MC options for reasons like "we don't want Wizards to multiclass". The only MC "restriction" I'm aware of that's similar is that the Barbarian Rage feature was designed specifically to not be compatible with Sneak Attack, but that was just to avoid a certain case of stacking at-will damage increases. It's not really a comparable scenario to Wizards.)

Lets look at charisma and wisdom. Charisma has Warlock, Paladin, Sorcerer and Bard. Wisdom has Druid, Cleric,Ranger and one subclass of Monk.

For MC purposes Charisma is king with Warlock, Sorc and Bard being very big options. I mean most of the MC "optimizations" include Warlock.

I think a lot of us will agree that Paladin/Warlock and Paladin/Sorcerer are among the most powerful PCs depending on the level.

On the other side of the coin though is Wisdom where dips are more the fad. Take one or two levels of one and go all out on another.

Then in the rear we have Intelligence with only one class that even needs it for anything other than skills. The only MC that really comes up for them is Fighter 2 for Action Surge.

Why in their infinite wisdom did WotC decide that Intelligence was the crap stat? Are they worried that MC wizards would be crazy powerful or to limit the options to wizards in general.

Consider that it took the community a few years after 5e's release to work out all of these powerful multiclass combos. It's not really about liking or hating Int, or the power of multiclassing options. It's pretty much just that with Warlocks moved to Cha, there was one more Cha class and one less Int class than they started with.

If anything, the fact that they initially presented Warlocks as an Int class (instead of Cha like in previous editions) demonstrates that they wanted to have more classes using Int and fewer using Cha.

What are your thoughts on this? Should they implement another class that needs intellect or leave it be?

Well, whatever version of the Mystic eventually sees print, it'll be an Int class. The Psychic Warrior subclass for the Fighter should use Int a bit more than the Eldritch Knight, and if they end up making a psionic subclass for the Rogue (or Barbarian), that will presumably also use Int.

Incidentally, Crawford recently mentioned on stream that they generally design things top-down—that is, they have a concept for a race, class, or character archetype, and then try to implement that mechanically so it feels right.

They don't do much "hole-filling" design, in the sense of "there's no race with bonuses to both Str and Int" or "there aren't enough classes casting off Int". One consequence of this is you do end up with a "lumpy" distribution of content, where a lot of races may have Str bonuses and only a few boost Int, etc.

Personally, I think that this is probably the right approach for the kind of game they're making, and it's ok if not every stat is equally represented.

Should they introduce more Intelligence saving throw spells as there are so very few?

Not really. Ultimately the game is designed around Dex/Con/Wis (Ref/Fort/Will) saves, with other stat saves popping up as the occasional oddity. I don't see a real design benefit in diluting the defensive stats.

Should they shift an already existing class to intelligent casting? If you think this which one and why?

Thematically, Warlocks work just fine as either Cha or Int casters, depending on the nature of their patron and the "contract". If you let your players choose either, it doesn't hurt the balance of the game at all. I use this houserule in my game.

Other than that, eh. It's fine.

[2D8HP]

I second this one. Not every facet of design was some carefully considered choice.


I honestly think 5e works better when totally de-coupled from ability scores, but eh. Sacred cows.

Seems to me that they designed 5e to be more "coupled" to ability scores than old D&D.

---

Anyway, here's what I've seen that's made me regret not having a PC with higher INT in 5e:

1) Have a Dungeon crawl.

2) Have traps in the dungeon.

3) Have finding without triggering traps be an Investigation roll instead of a Perception roll.

It negated my "build" but (in combination with other factors) that DM was very impressive to me.

[Cynthaer]

Seems to me that they designed 5e to be more "coupled" to ability scores than old D&D.

Not sure if this is what Grod meant by it, but as far as characterization goes, I'm in favor of ignoring your stats the moment it starts causing you problems.

If you want to give your character a snooty academic's voice but their Int is "only" 10, go for it. If you want your character to be outgoing and flirty with 8 Cha, who am I to stop you? You'll tend to do poorly on "knowledge" and "flirting" checks, respectively, and as far as I'm concerned that is your stats influencing your characterization.

Now, some people get a big kick out of working out how to "properly" roleplay, say, a high-Cha/low-Int character, and more power to them. I'm in favor of anything that serves as creative inspiration to anybody.

It's just that sometimes I see people get stuck worrying about putting points into Cha because they "don't want to roleplay an ugly jerk", and there's a whole weird thing about Int where people think 8 Int is the stupidest possible person just because it's the lowest score a PC can take. At that point, just relax, put the points where you want them, and play it however you like. It's a game, not a chore.

[GlenSmash!]

There is always the simple method of calling for more Int checks, or adding monsters that target Int saves.

Xanthar's did give intelligence a bit of a boost.

Training was changed from taking 250 days, to ten workweeks (10 days in a week for 100 days) and each point of intelligence modifier reduces that by one work week. So you're fourteen intelligence character would take only 80 days to learn a skill.

I really need to get to reading everything in XGtE. This sounds great.

I honestly think 5e works better when totally de-coupled from ability scores, but eh. Sacred cows.

I remember when it was announced that Skyrim would not use ability scores like previous Elder Scrolls games did. I wondered how much of a difference it would make. It turned out not much at all really.

I'd try a variant of 5e with no ability scores, but I think we're unlikely to see it.

[2D8HP]

Not sure if this is what Grod meant by it, but as far as characterization goes, I'm in favor of ignoring your stats the moment it starts causing you problems.....

....It's a game, not a chore.

Your post was awesome, and it made me reflect on something:

5e WD&D more than any other version of D&D that I'm familiar with does a better job of suggesting that role-playing is something you may do for fun, if you want, and here's some ideas for that.

Look (for example) at how Alignment used to be handled compared to how it is handled in 5e.

I'm pretty vocal about my complaints (is there anyone who hasn't seen them?), but I really think that adding backgrounds, ideals, etc. has improved the game.

[Eric Diaz]

Intelligence is NOT a crap stat, but it CAN be a crap stat for some PCs - like Charisma and even Str if you're not using variant:encumbrance.

How to fix it?

Heh... not sure it NEEDS fixing. Some people give one extra language/tool per Int bonus, or give you a starting gold bonus absed on Cha.

I DO think the sorcerer should be replaced by a Int-based mathmagician or psion, but that's just me.

http://methodsetmadness.blogspot.com...-5e-et-al.html



This is pretty straightforward: Strength, Intelligence and Charisma are the more "aggressive" abilities, either trough attacks (Str), skills (Cha with deception, intimidation, feinting, etc.) os spells (Int and Cha). Dexterity, Wisdom and Constitution is the more "defensive" ones.

But there is some nuance.

While Constitution has basically only defensive uses, Dexterity and Wisdom may be used to attack. With some caveats: Dexterity does NOT get added to damage in 3.x, and Wisdom is used for some spells. And Strenght can often protect through armor - although it won't help you with saves or avoiding "touch attacks".

Now, the first thing we learn from this is: sometimes, you can safely dump TWO aggressive stats, provided ONE of them is good enough. And you can dump ALL THREE if you can use one of your passive stats to attack. However, dumping ANY defensive stat is dangerous, because you can choose how to attack your foes... but not how your foes attack you!

[Speely]

^^ Good post by JellyPooga up there.

In games I run, characters miss out on quite a lot of loot, discovering easier ways to do things, and potential NPC assistance if no one makes Intelligence checks at certain points, and can succeed on those checks. Part of the game is unraveling the mysteries of the setting.

Seconded. Int on paper is pretty much a "lol wizard" ability, but a good DM can make it far more important merely by making information more important in the campaign. Everyone dumping Int might be more optimized, but they might never learn very important info related to their purpose.

I have come to look at Int as a tradeoff: Optimize and dump Int, and the party will be better at dealing with more (possibly needless) stuff, but they will be better at it. I swing this a bit by doing XP gain via milestones, not killing stuff. I reward high Int by kinda fudging how useful Int-based info is.

It's very much a DM-dependent ability outside of Wizards, so I choose to have it affect out-of-combat situations in key ways. I expand Arcana and History to give better results on average successes, specifically. This can have a huge effect on a campaign.

[Derpaligtr]

The issue with Intelligence is that it's easy to roll-play it, but hard to roleplay it. If you don't already have a high int, there ain't a lot of faking it.

Most of us are going to be 10 Int, that's the average. There isn't a whole lot of difference between 8 - 12. It's also an ability score that works with a more in depth skill system.

Intelligence shouldn't be an ability score, it should be a skill system.

[Vogie]

Intelligence shouldn't be an ability score, it should be a skill system.

Now that I could get behind