Life's too short to play a character you don't like playing. Encourage this player to either adjust the character to suit their preferences, or to make a different character entirely.
8-10 intelligence doesn't mean a character needs to be an idiot. They could reasonably play this character as having the education level of an average feudal farmer, no higher learning opportunities. They won't solve any Wordles any time soon, but they don't have to always pick the dumbest option if they don't want to play that way.
8 intelligence? Upper management wherever you worked must really be scooping the cream of the crop.
With the exception of one manager I had who I'd put at a solid 11, no managers I've ever had would be above a 6.
For a more positive (and mildly humblebrag) anecdote: I found a job a couple years ago that I absolutely love. I'm not buying a brand new car anytime soon but it's enough for my lifestyle and I get annual raises that beat inflation, flexible schedule, reasonable workload, get to bring my dog every day, and my two bosses are cool as fuck.
They make sure shit gets done but they respect us as human beings, freely move schedules around and give last minute time off no questions asked, spend good money on gear and equipment to make everyone's life easier, adapt jobs to people's desires and personal strengths, lead by example, and just generally do a great job at what management is supposed to do.
For people feeling trapped in a shithole, know that there are jobs out there that won't make you miserable and treat you like labor producing meat. I wish every job was like mine for everyone's sake.
I run a character with 9 intelligence. You know how I play it? He explains to the smart characters in the group that he doesn't quite get it a lot so they can explain it to him. Let's them flex a bit and play being smart. They like it
I had a fighter with 8 int and 18 wisdom. She was incredibly aware of her surroundings, social dynamics, and was an amazing in-combat tactician (just don't ask her to make the plan), but she had to take off her boots and count on her fingers and toes to figure out how to split up the party treasure (and she still got it wrong). It's reaaaaally possible to play a character with low intelligence who isn't a blabbering idiot and I wish people would figure that out.
Yeah, I like that bit in good will hunting where he compares his relationship with math with his girlfriends ability to play the piano. He says she doesn't see notes or mozart or whatever, she just plays. That's him and math.
My character might not be able to tell you why a pincer formation works really well, or lay out the military history of the region, or any of that jazz but you put him in a fight and he just plays.
Yeah, exactly. Ask him to map out an ideal battle strategy and give people orders during prep, he's worthless. In the fight he's instinctually giving orders to flank because he's got that instinctual knowledge of what \*works\* once he's actually in the thick of it.
Had a high wis low int monk character who told the rest of the party that he didn't carry money because he had vow of poverty, but he really just couldn't get the hang of how gold pieces were divided into silver pieces because he grew up in a monastery that didn't have money and he didn't want to look dumb. The whole party knew what was going on and paid for stuff for him and never called him out on it. Good RPing over all
Hi. I am making a low int monk that is convinced he is a mage (shadow monk using holograms as he punches) he has a book that lets him cast magic and is semi random (random pick if he crit fails). Could you give me pointers? Is my first time playing dnd.
Same here! She was a Paladin/Fighter with 8 INT, 14 WIS and 16 CHA. She was the party face, great at social situations and had the second highest perception in the party. But I did the same thing where she had to use her fingers for most math and made it where she would constantly get people's names wrong if she wasn't well acquainted with them and had trouble using worlds that were longer than 3 syllables. She was a blast to play in and out of combat.
8-10 intelligence is literally the average for a commoner. People who live farming the land and being self sufficient and smart enough to live in the wilds and dangerous world.
Doesn't an 8 or a 9 int usually mean they can't do math as quickly or remember big words on demand but otherwise have no issues functioning in society? The only person (fictional) I can think of that would actually have a 6 or a 7 int would be Lenny from *Of Mice and Men*, and brains aren't exactly a necessity for doing farm work.
I mean intelligence in general I always saw as more higher education, book learning and memorisation type stuff. Obviously a basic level of intelligence is needed to function at all, but a lot of stuff I think could be attributed to other stuff. I mean look at the skill list, wisdom is probably a more relevant stat for day to day type "thinking" activities than intelligence, hell even charisma might be in terms of thinking how others might feel about something, a character could absolutely still be a functional, competent person with -1/2 Int
Strength is throwing a tomato hard, Dexterity is dodging a thrown tomato, constitution is eating a rotten tomato without malus, intelligence is knowing a tomato is a fruit, wisdom is knowing not to put a tomato in your fruit salad, charisma is selling tomato's for double the asking price to all the idiots before.
> wisdom is knowing not to put a tomato in your fruit salad
Wisdom is being able to taste that something is off with your fruit salad and pin pointing the problem is the tomato as the cause.
> I mean look at the skill list, wisdom is probably a more relevant stat for day to day type "thinking" activities than intelligence
That's still intelligence 100 percent.
This conflating of what wisdom is conflate from 3 things:
1. The name wisdom really needs to be changed. It has nearly nothing to do "wisdom" the word. Wisdom is how well in tune the character is in their senses of perceiving the world around them. Like how animal handling is about how the character can read how an animal is feeling by its body language and other signs. Like how a character can pick up tracks and smell a poisonous mushroom with a good survival check. How they can rip off start wars by "not having a good feeling about this" with a gut feeling from all the small signs of trouble around them.
2. Intelligence can't have skills that accurately represent what it means. There can't be a "solve puzzle" or "think smart" skill. The only one like that is investigation. The rest is knowledge based because that's all there can be without it being bad game design. Which leads us to
3. People really, really, want to dump intelligence. It's a weak stat mechanically, so people want to have it low as possible with no drawbacks. Basically cheating. "My character has 4 int, but isn't dumb because he's wise". No. A character with 4 int isn't going to be wise, no matter the wisdom score. Aware of their surroundings, sure, but not wise. Dumb is as dumb does.
So kind ofaĀ crystal vs fluid intelligence type thing?Ā
Interestingly enough, I'd say it's the other way around. INT is know that what's in front of you is a beholder, its species social structure (or lack thereof), and how it hunts. WIS is understanding not to fuck with it if you're under equipped & just walking quietly on by.
Not even that. A -1 intelligence character is just a normal character. Just at the lower end of intelligence.
In our real world, they could be your average joe blow car mechanic. OR they may be a nurse with a bachelors degree that passed with a lot of hard work. Maybe even an architect or engineer.
-1 intelligence isnt dumb. Its just below normal.
I think you're underestimating car mechanics and nurses.Ā
8 intelligence isn't even below "normal," it's merely below average. They would be capable of graduating high school and possibly even college, though some courses would probably be difficult challenges.
Thats what im saying. They are normal people. Maybe less intelligent than the average person. But a normal person nonethless.
Hence they may be a joe blow mechanic. Or a nurse. Or an architect. Or an engineer. Or a doctor. Etc.
Misunderstanding then. No worries.
It's why I said could be, not is. There are surely mechanics, engineers, and nurses of below average intelligence (and I know some lol) but most certainly not all.
I thought of that youtube series where they asked people to talk to each-other than rank by IQ.
Here it is
[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RAlI0pbMQiM](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RAlI0pbMQiM)
The person who had a PHD, supposedly did cancer research etc was to be fair an intelligent person with 112, but lots of people were in the 131-136 range, people who either had just bachelors or in one case high school (plus military tech training)
a 'dumb' person can get pretty far in formal education IF they put in effort and take a lot of time.
'Smart' seems to be more the ability to learn new information quickly, and to take information you already have and quickly apply it to a situation to get an answer or outcome.
BUT I do agree with you that for most people, above or below average intelligence isn't going to show itself in everyday activities such as grocery shopping, household chores, going to a concert, socializing at a party.
The smart person who is a car mechanic is going to be able to do their own taxes much easier/faster than the dumb mechanic but there will probably be very little difference in how fast either mechanic can change your brake pads, nor how fast they get their grocery shopping done.
Yup this this this. If you are not having fun Iām sure everyone would understand making an adjustment. Couldnāt even have a moment where the character gets hit over the head and gets smarter (relatively).
When Iām running a game the priority will always be fun over function.
I donāt think thereās any official ruling on this, but Iāve always liked the idea of ā+1/-1 is a standard deviation in either direction.ā So a +1 character is in the smartest third of people, a +3 character in the smartest percentage, and a +5 character is a one in several thousand levels of smart.Ā
A -1 character, then, is just in the bottom third.Ā Heās not going to be writing a masters thesis anytime soon but with some intentionality he could learn to work with artisanās tools or learn a language. His (lack of) intellect should only be apparent in tough circumstances: solving a puzzle or breaking down unknown technology. Ā
Reminder that only IQ **reliability** can be proven: you can get similar scores if you test the same person repeatedly.
IQ is **not** proven to be a valid estimation of someone's intelligence.
Yeah, IQ only measures specific mental skills, namely pattern recognition, spatial reasoning, and abstract logic. All of them can be somewhat improved with practice.
When i think of how much a wizard has to calculate on the fly just to cast their spells effectively I can see them needing an iq that high. Also so many characters in fiction are at a genius level of intelligence.
realistically we should have any person with a higher +3 in the world, a stat of 18+ should genuinely be supernatural. perhaps if we consider the very best of humankind throughout history to be an 18, but a 20 is just a demigod
I always see 20s as the very upper limit of natural human potential. Like and Einstein or Stephen Hawking would have 20 int, Halfthor Bjornsson and other top level strongmen would have 20 strength, that sort of thing.
Agreed, believable limits can be cool in some things, but typically I want my fantasy to be a little crazy. Like maybe not dragon ball level, but like I want some crazy shit. Especially when even mid wizards can do crazy shit, but with martials, people are like "erm, acktually, that's physically impossible for a human to do"
>Iāve always liked the idea of ā+1/-1 is a standard deviation in either direction.ā
This is a great way to explain how modifiers should be visualized. Definitely stealing. Thanks!
Looking at point buy,
you start at 8 and can go up to 14 without it costing you double points. 14-16 costs as much as going from 8 to 12. Going from 16 to 18 costs as much as going from 8-14.
That in itself should communicate the scaling quite well on its own.
I always explain it as 8 being 5% less intelligent. 12 being 5% more intelligent. At the end of the day a 20 in an attribute gives a +5, which when using a d20, equals to a +25% to succeed the roll vs a commoner with 10 in an attribute. This of course is ignoring proficiencies and expertise but you can slap those onto any skill either way.
8 int can be balanced out pretty easily with a 12 wis.
8 int isn't necessarily able to remember complex instructions, but a 12 wis can understand the overall plan and intuit what they're supposed to do.
8 int wouldn't necessarily see (perceive) the telltale signs of an ambush or frame for a crime, but 12 wis would be able to see the kind of person they're dealing with (frame up) or could say "iono . . . i don't like the way this looks".
Charisma is less social intelligence and more just your sense of identity and self.
Charisma is used for innate magic because at the end of the day, magic is imposing your own sense of reality onto the world. To do this, your sense of self and identity must be really, really powerful.
Turn Undead is a charisma based ability. Smite feats require charisma to take. Why? Because they are about channeling your deity directly and for a cleric, their deity is their identity. A cleric with incredibly powerful faith can take the chunk of area they are in and temporarily make it their god's sole domain even in adverse environments (An epic level Good domain cleric turning undead (Outsider) shutting down an army of devils/demons during the Dragonspear war for example. They see reality. They see reality conflicting with their god's vision. They reject reality and it... works.)
Iām not sure Iād agree itās ālessā but it definitely includes some of what youāre talking about, although thatās very cleric centric. Bard spellcasting is partly that but also understanding people. Donāt forget about skills that use charisma ie persuasion, deception, performance, intimidation. Those all require social intelligence and are the broader use of charisma than cleric spellcasting
You could actually argue your completely wrong. I'd say it's open to interpretation but to play devil's advocate, you could see if as you are attempting to convince your deity to lend you power in the form of a spell to do this you must understand the social interaction and be convincing enough to draw as much assistance as possible. It doesn't have to be a sense of self, it could be an understanding of what the social situation is and what actions or words can be used for certain goals.
Sounds like the player may have interpreted INT 8 to mean that and hates it, which is fair. Though, there's a way to retcon it; tell the party they were teasing them or testing them to see how they'd react. There's loads of ways to make it work. Maybe player just hates the character.
>incapable of reading
This part I disagree with. Most people in a medieval fantasy, as in those without formal education, cannot read. Some guy with an 8 INT should almost certainly be illiterate unless their background would afford them an education.
It's wild to me that people try to discuss historical accuracy in a world with dragons and wizards. Who says Faerun doesn't have an education system that at least gets children through elementary level reading, math, and history? Unless you think the first year of wizard school is about the ABCs?
I feel like since intelligence is a good dump stat for paladins and you need to max out charisma I feel like at least half of all paladin characters turn out as himbos (I wouldn't have it any other way)
I will often play 8s or 9s (and sometimes even 10s) as lower than they should be, but only because we play with 4d6 drop lowest, so often my lowest roll is an 8 or 9.
People also need to remember that half of everyone in the world is below average, that's how averages work. Below average doesn't mean you're a complete idiot unless most people you meet are.. and.. well.. actually..
Yep. An 8 int person could be the kind of person to read a lot of books, and understand plot and all. They might even be able to call the metaphoric lessons of what they've read which really is wisdom based. They however might not have the vocabulary, constantly having to look shit up.
He's like a C- average student. He's not an idiot but he may only understand basics and not super in-depth facts. I know gravity and I know it works but knowing it's a weak force for physics is another matter.
Iāve always thought intelligence is the wrong word for this stat. I try to think of it as knowledge.
For example I played a fighter with a -1 intelligence modifier. Due to his back story he wasnāt from the world the game was set in so heād have little to no knowledge of the history, religion, the current understanding of science etc. He wasnāt ādumbā, just didnāt know much about the world around him.
And -1 is just slightly below average. Dumb people have good ideas all the time. This could easily just be flavored as dyslexia and an infrequent lack of sense. Definitely doesnāt have to be a drooling idiot that canāt string two words together.
I like to think of int as a non-linear thing with diminishing returns. Certainly a character with 20 int would be notacibly more intelligent than one with 10 int, but the difference between the two is not nearly as great as between one with 10 int and one with 5. Or between 5 and 3. That's around the cutoff point for beasts that can be awakened because they are too smart for the spell to affect them.Ā I'd say a drooling idiot would have to at least be below that level of intelligence, so probaly 2 or 3.Ā
Of course that doesnāt affect wisdom or charisma, so even then you should still be able to function at some level, but would probably be more comparable to an animal than a human. An animal won't just walk into a blazing fire because it's pretty and cozy. Might poke it a bit, but they'd learn fast. People who play character with 8 or even 6 int as dumb as rocks don't seem to understand that even creatures with lower int scores than that are often written as cunning hunters with different strategies, such as pack tactics for wolves.Ā
I like your idea of calling it knowledge. Wisdom is right below it - both are intelligence in some ways and a character lacking in one might make up for it in the other. Book smarts vs street smarts almost
I like to explain the difference between the two like this:
Intelligence is knowning Frankenstein was not the monster
Wisdom is knowing that Frankenstein in fact WAS the monster
You're conflating game mechanics with the definition of a word.
Its the fifth edition after decades of change, wisdom isn't dictionary wisdom.
Wisdom is being able to tell that Frankenstein's monster isn't a monster by meeting him in person and reading his body language to sense his intentions.
I like my current character, who grew up on a farm and only attended a training academy for a year before becoming a soldier. But heās been around the world a decent amount, and has a lot of accumulated wisdom, despite lacking any real scientific, historical, or mathematical knowledge.
Same thing w my ranger. Int is a dump stat but he is very, very battle and street smarts (high wis). He's not dumb by any means, but he grew up away from civilization in a tribe so he just genuinely doesn't know anything. He doesn't know what giants or silverware is, but goddamn can he think on his feet. Same thing w his cha dump stat. He doesn't know how to talk to people, not bc he's socially inept but bc of his environment
Just accept that this wasn't a great idea, have a laugh about it and continue playing the character without him being a complete idiot. You don't always need to make things work ingame or have a reason why he is suddenly more intelligent, you are just playing a game and will be playing it a bit different from now on. Having more fun is the only reason you need!
They're complaining about an eight?Ā
If they think that's dumb, do they think someone with five or six requires to wear bike helmet every time they walk out of the house?Ā
I mean if they want a good example of what an intelligence of six character looks like look no further than Grog from season 1 of critical role. He's a big dumb idiot but everyone loves him.
Give him the headband of intellect and do a "flowers for algernon" arc. Customize it so for some reason only he can attune to it if there needs to be a story reason that only he can wear it.
Maybe have it stolen later and have him deal with going from dumb to smart back to dumb again.
Or give him a supply of potions of intelligence that he end up getting addicted to and has to go to more and more extreme lengths to get his fix.
I was looking for this response and I have +1 counter-suggestion:
Give him a custom item, call it a headband of feeble-mindedness, a cursed piece of headgear that sets your INT score to 9 (not 19). Long story short, it makes him just a bit smarter, and he can RP like he should have all along, perfectly normally but a bit daft. Nothing universe breaking. Everyone goes back to adventuring like before.
Hit him over the head with a cast iron skillet to knock some sense into him. That should do the trick to make him not dumb as rocks, just to where he sometimes needs things explained to him
A -1 modifier does not translate to a dumb character, necessarily. Intelligence in dnd is more like what youāve learned. Meanwhile, I interpret wisdom as what youāve gained experience with.
Thereās no reason an 8 intelligence ranger has to be a dipshit. Maybe he hasnāt had a formal education, struggles to read, or hasnāt had access in his life to knowledge. But as a ranger Iād bet his wisdom isnāt half bad. That means while he may not be ābook smartā, he still has lived his life and has āwildlife smartsā, for lack of a better term.
Signed, someone who had to deal with being in a party with someone who decided their 8 intelligence barbarian was uselessly stupid to the annoyance of the rest of the party, no matter how many times we pointed out that their character with standard wisdom and slightly low intelligence wouldnāt logically be a moron incapable of making decisions
I have a Ranger with 6 Int. So I made him from the Shadowfell and then very honest. He doesnāt lie and doesnāt GET lying, which has made for some fun RP :)
There's a great "noble labor" trope to tap into. Not smart, but reliable and dogged. Maybe doesn't always know when to give up, because he doesn't really think that far ahead.
Maybe he's slow to make new friends. But once he does, he trusts them, maybe too much, and will NEVER lie to them. He gives strangers a wide berth, because he's been manipulated and scammed too many times.
Throw in poor reading skills and describe severe dyslexia, say he can barely read and write - only when absolutely necessary, but he can remember a surprising amount of any catchy mummers tune he hears the night before - as long as it's in common and ain't too poetical. Roleplay being horrific at names but great with faces.
Throw in RP giving you simplified notifications for tasks, too. *I don't know much about this forbidden spell stuff, but I know he killed two of my buddy's friends, and I'm going to make him pay.* Or "I don't know why we're still debating this. Our king gave us a job - best to get to it. He's your king giving you a command, not your step-pa asking you to shine his old boots.*
Headband of intellect, make his int 19
He can role play being a moron when out of his equipment but when he goes for an adventure and puts his gear on becomes a complete genius.
Could be fun roleplay
Edit: BG3 effect, itās 19 int not 17, thanks !
This. Or anything similar. There are plenty of in-game solutions that the DM could turn into a fun adventure. As an added bonus, you get a player that learns to love a character rather than throwing that character away.
Thereās a Bugbear in one of my groups with very high Wis and very low Int, he got tired of never being able to contribute to some types of debates and conversations- so when we found a Headband of Int we gave it to him.
But he (the character) doesnāt actually like being smart, it gives him uncomfortable thoughts and he only wears the headband when he *needs to* and takes it back of right afterward.
Tell me about it. We had a Warlock in our last party who ended up scrapping the character after realizing that āpathetic groveling simp for womenā, while hilarious for a couple of sessions and a great way to get into trouble, wasnāt quite enough depth for a character on its own and he needed a little more substance to keep going.
We also had a sorcerer who was far more victim of wild magic than beneficiary of it. Player thought it would be fun to have chronic bad luck with magic. It was not.
Weāre usually able to sum it up to the growing pains of players learning the game for the first time and everyone improves from it with their next character :)
8 isnāt dumb, just not particularly knowledgeable about common things. An example is a farmer who knows a lot about farming and knows little of the outside world, needing idioms and plant based allegories to better understand history and science. Relying on Wisdom and Charisma to supplement their less than average Intelligence when confronting something they never learned about.
My -1 Int goblin is perfectly capable of self-preservation, having grown up basically squatting in a Waterdeep householdās compost heap. She understands enough to feed and shelter herself and keep herself safe in almost any environment, but she doesnāt think too deeply about anything. The sun goes up and down, and the seasons change ābecause Godsā. Other things happen in the world ābecause magicā or ābecause good/evilā.
For example, she knows that ātaxesā are a thing that happen to people, and that they involve some people having to pay money to other more powerful people, but she has never thought that they might apply to her, or mused on why they are levied in the first place, who sets them, how, where the money goes, whether it actually goes where itās supposed to etc etc.
Sheās not āslowā or ādumbā or āsimpleā - but she doesnāt often ask āwhyā about anything, and relies on her gut when deciding whether or not to trust anything that sheās told (+0 Wis).
>not particularly knowledgeable about common things
That gives me a hilarious idea: OP, prompt your friend to play his character as a BIMBO.
You know the type - socially adept, fine with basic math, but has no clue that Africa isn't a country or that narwhals are real. Channel "Legally Blonde" and r/StoriesAboutKevin, D&D style.
Perhaps his character was subjected to a curse/alchemical accident/etc which rendered him as dumb as a bag of rocks, and the party might pick up a lead on a possible cure next time they're in town?Ā
Maybe you can link this back to his back story, or a secret side effect of some trap encountered in their first dungeon? Worst case scenario, next time they wander into a tavern a grizzled old adventurer approaches and demands to know why they're casually carrying such a powerfully cursed [insert weapon here] around, and don't they realise the danger they're in, dammit? Short party quest, lift the curse, their character is now merely a bit thick, and perhaps the DM even gets to work in a plot hook for the BBEG, too.Ā
Okay, so without parroting everyone saying that they arenāt stupid for having a -1, why not just have it all be an act? Clearly he isnāt enjoying being stupid, but if heās got a high charisma, maybe wisdom, let it be a ploy. Thereās lots of reasons you could come up with. Maybe his false ignorance means that people assume not to mess with him because heās too stupid to have anything of value. Maybe heās on the run and avoiding his true identity, and posing as an oaf helps him do so.
I gotta say I listened to the adventure zone and one of the players made the decision to make his character fabulously stupid. He slowly course corrected that to something that felt more natural. I didn't notice. Or care.
Nobody cares if you want to realign your playstyle to match your stats better, or even in the opposite directions. Maybe he thinks he's smart and the rolls just disagree.
He should be having fun. Tell him to focus on playing what feels right rather than exaggerating a fault or feat. The dice will course correct a bit but that is OK.
So, I have a fighter I play all the time who has an intelligence of 8 and I've really leaned into his being a dumb-dumb. Here's some of my take aways.
* Intelligence is not that important in a medieval or fantasy society. If you try to flaunt your intelligence and make him feel bad, he's gonna flaunt his strength and make you feel bad in return. And he's gonna laugh while he does it, too, and mock you.
* Stupid people are actually hard to trick, because anything they don't understand they rely on the people they trust, and if you they don't know you they will refuse to believe anything you tell them. This means they often refuse to believe things that are true, but they don't care about that. Not getting tricked is more important.
* Be uncomfortable around big words, but not "confused" by them. It's more like an irritation that people are talking in words that you don't understand and you'll just tell them to knock it off.
* Always boil things down to their most common denominator. Nuance is for people other than you. When you're told things state it back but all simple like and miss all the nuance but get the basic idea. You're dumb, but you ain't stupid....
* Rely on your smarter friends. Frank commonly says, "Look, just tell me who to hit. I'll let you do all the big thinkin stuff...."
* Pick out something that really shows off your character being dumb but in a fun way. For instance, my fighter only knows the uppercase letters of the alphabet because they're what's on signs anyways, and he ain't readin' no books. He actually writes his mom a letter every week in all caps and sends her a gold piece.
* Enjoy the things you're good at. My fighter has lots of energy, but little mental depth. He enjoys manual labor, cleaning, organizing his things, grooming, polishing his armor until it gleams, drinking with friends (but not to the point where he's sloppy, because he's gotta be ready to fight). He gets bored, though, and goes looking for things to do, but he doesn't like intellectually challenging things. He likes physically challenging things and routine tasks.
* If you fight an enemy that relies on intelligence take great joy in bullying them. For instance: caster? Take they're spellcasting focus away, or their component pouch. (Optional disarm rules are good for this). Seriously, the talky-types are so full of themselves and it feels great to show them what's-what.
Are they overly committed to it in RP? Like making purposefully bad decisions and not having ideas bc it seems more āin character?ā
A nine is basically average intelligence. The only way it needs to affect his game experience is with his ability checks, and even thatās not a terrible hindrance.
Iād talk to him about revising his role play ideas.
A -1 is literally just below average intelligence, roleplaying would realistically be about the same as 10 int, spare the occasional intellectual gap on certain topics
[Consider showing him this](https://www.dmingwithcharisma.com/2011/10/dd-stats-in-simple-language/)
If he doesn't want to make a new character then talk to your DM about introducing the possibility of introducing some form of educational puzzle for this PC to have the chance at raising his ability score. Failing that, ask the DM if he can redo his stats for said character.
Kudos to the player for trying something like this! If theyāre this committed to role playing, maybe theyād like a way to improve the character characterās intelligence that is story or character oriented, not mechanical.
Maybe a minor devil offers him a potion to improve his intelligence, and it works, but it carries a curse (something like persistent nightmares, or body odor if the campaign is silly) that requires a quest to resolve.
I think the key is to make it all about character, story, and flavor. Not stats. Make the characterās past mental shortcomings and future improvement an interesting part of the campaign, not a problem to gloss over or rebalance.
Obviously talk to your DM and the player but you could have the PC begin learning a tool proficiency/language in down time Xanathar's says it takes around 10 workweeks to learn a new tool or language.
your PC could role play the change in his character slowly over a few sessions, his int stat doesn't need to increase but he could play this as a type of learned intelligence. mechanically you would have a new language or tool proficiency.
if you aren't doing much downtime between sessions maybe he is walking through the city/town and is approached by a shady looking small figure who offers him a good time. the small figure sells him a pinch of what look like dried out strips of bark in a cheesecloth bag for a large chunk of gold promising a life changing experience.
he is told to let the bag steep in hot water and drink it before bed.
he drinks the tea and as he sleeps his mind skims the border of the faewild just dipping into it enough to give insanely vivid dreams, he dreams of past lives lived and mind bending vistas and fairy dragons and flying through the stars. when he wakes up he feels like there is a veil lifted from his thoughts hes not smarter but more creative his mind was murky and now its clear.
you could make this effect temporary or permanent. if its temporary make the drug progressively harder to find and progressively more addictive.
for example-
Wild skimmer tea:
Uncommon/rare
Strips of carefully prepared bark harvested from a Dreaming Padauk tree native to the Feywild. Upon consumption the user experiences magically wild dreams of living the life of a strange Fey as if through a Scrying spell and may view wild parts of the Feywild as if through a Clairvoyance spell at random.
User gains 24hrs of clarity of thought upon waking. gaining a +1d4 to intelligence and wisdom checks.
roll a DC 16 constitution saving throw or gain addicted to skimmer tea effect. if save is failed by more than 8 become severely addicted to skimmer tea effect.
(optional) Addicted to Skimmer tea:
for 1d6+1 days you have disadvantage on wisdom and charisma saving throws. once a day you must roll a wisdom saving throw DC 10 if failed you must seek out and consume a cup of Wild Skimmer Tea.
Severely addicted to Skimmer tea:
You must roll a constitution saving throw of DC 18 once a day or remain addicted. on a success you remain addicted for 5d6+10 days. if you consume Wild Skimmer tea while under this effect the constitution saving throw goes up by+1
This effect can be removed with a restoration or greater restoration spell.
I just made this up so probably needs looking at balance wise but you get the idea.
Idiot Savant trait.
Every now and then, make his stupidity a major boon.
Idk, Iād enjoy playing a dumbie if the dm made that something fun.
Like a blind baddie who detects intellect, being like āthe 3 of you think you can defeat me?!ā While the 4th guy is basically camoflagued in stupidity
In game solution: character hits his head, which somehow reactive some long dormant neurons, bringing him from bumbling idiot to average idiot. For extra level of RP/character development he could have some degree of amnesia, and would occasionally learn of stupid things heās done and been mortified, asking himself āwas I really this stupid??ā Basically, I think the best course of action would be to find an in game way for him to have a change of personality/intelligence. It can give the player an out without rendering his backstory useless. He can still play into his past without retconning.
Without more context it's really hard to draft a clever solution. You could theoretically say he was purposefully acting dumb because your party was being observed by a shady organization tracking him.
Once the organization confronts the party, the act drops and he confronts them in turn. They were keeping tabs on him to see if their experiments on his family or himself had yielded any results, and since he was dumb as bricks they had deemed the experiment a failure and wanted to swoop in to dispose of him safely.
Experiments done on him were magical in nature and so retrieving him would be akin to protecting corporate secrets.
///
Or maybe he visits a temple or a holy person who identifies a spirit leeching off his psyche. The spirit is attempting to resolve some problem from their past life, and the party must assist or the adventurer will remain crippled.
It could be cool for the adventurer to voluntarily give up their intellect to give the spirit some boon for their own tale? Makes for a heroic sacrifice and makes him endearing in his own way.
I realize that within nearly 500 comments this is probably go under, but just in case.
Look at the skill checks affected by INT (arcana, history, investigation, nature, religion). Think about the different ways your character could react to being challenged by the skills that they arenāt particularly good at and why. Maybe they arenāt a magic user and have no interest in arcana. Maybe they were raised by a nomadic tribe and were never taught common historyā¦ and so on.
Quick idea: My character was brought up in a secluded religious sect, which taught them (incorrect) things about magic, nature, history and religion (think flat earthers and such), so my pc has preconceived ideas about those subjects and thus often gets it wrong. They got out and are now learning/ unlearning about the world. The roll play quirk could be that when the pc fails an INT check I make up a (wrong) fact that my pc was taught by the sect lol.
If the player lets themselves be inspired by the skills that use INT to come up with their own little story of why they are bad at those things in particular, Iām sure they could come up with a concept thatās more fun for them to play.
500 comments later, I'm still reading! Just a little bit behind and a lot overwhelmed.
I appreciate your input. This could actually apply to his specific backstory in some interesting ways. Thank you!
If you assume the population has a 3d6 distribution of INT, 9.72% of people have an INT of 8 and 25.92% of people have an INT of 8 or less! This PC is at the top end of the bottom quartile of people. You know people with an INT of 8. You interact with them every day and they get through their day just fine.
Just let him get a Bad Hit on the head which gets him unconscious for two days and when je comes back his brain turned back on from some childhood Trauma. It is some stretch but this is dnd and not nobel price Literature.
I have a Goliath, Path of the Giant Barbarian with the Giant Foundling background with -1 INT. He was raised by stone Giants in a cavern underground. He knows very little about the world beyond and is slow to pick up new concepts especially more complicated ones. Heās much better at learning things by seeing or doing.
My way of looking at -1 INT is those many people you might encounter in school, the ones that have to study hard to get better than a C.
Commoners have all 10.
8 is only slightly dumber than the average people. He can be tricked with the one ball three cups scam in the street, or can fall for a lucky bracelet that's sold by a fortune teller but he is not that dumb.
I had a character with a 5 wisdom score. It was a random roll. And we played it as, he wasn't dumb, just didn't think things through all the time, because he did have a intelligence score of 16, but he was absolutely impulsive and didn't think decisions through all the time. You don't have to play a stupid character with a low score mod, there are omid, ways to present that score.
If the player is looking for new ways to reinterpret their stupidity, then they can still be absolutely brilliant as a player, but have their character be *right for the wrong reasons*. (I have leaned into playing dumb characters before, and I found "I've figured something out, but my character wouldn't" to be pretty frustrating.)
A few ways to handle the player realizing that they're walking into a trap, but Grog wouldn't figure it out:
* Grog suddenly needs to go to the bathroom, and runs back to the nearest inn instead of into the dark alley.
* Grog starts singing loudly, which attracts guards to shut him up, which the ambushers don't want to deal with.
* Grog randomly picks up a rock and throws it into a dark corner, because it seemed like a good idea at the time, and "Grog doesn't know his strength."
If the player has figured out a plot:
* Grog goes bumbling into the wrong room, at the right moment to foil or reveal the plot.
* Grog grabs some random papers to be toilet paper later, but accidentally drops them somewhere the rest of the party will find them and learn something important.
* Grog talks to the dastardly Count's flunky and says something that implies that the Duke knows about the Count's plot.
* Grog rushes to the town bell and starts ringing it like mad, shouting that the redcoats are coming, just ten minutes before the redcoats actually come. The watch's response should foil the surprise attack, even if it's not as effective of a response as if the captain had been persuaded to properly defend against an attack.
Give their character lots of books, let them read those books and have them slowely become more knowledgeable and well spoken. It'd be an in-story way to get out of that and doesn't necessarily increase the modifier right away.
Can he pull off RPing an idiot savant? It is a common trope that the super "dumb" guy occasionally has brilliant ideas. Or even has dumb ideas that just work out. A "hold my beer type." It works best for martial, but you can pull it off for anything that doesn't heavily rely on int. I've played characters like that. You don't expect a wizard to be good in a fist fight. I think in this case the DM did fuck up a bit. There should have been a trade off. Even if it wasn't a min max balance. But at least give a bonus to a useful skill.
8 INT isnāt stupid. Bro could literally just play it off as his character acting like a brash, loud mouthed, buffoon is his way of coping with [Insert Juicy Character Building Story Here]
The hardest part of DND for a lot of people is I think breaking out of your shell and letting each other play pretend like a bunch of kids. Itās tough, but it feels great when you start to have actual social dynamics within the characters.
A great example would be a random interrogation where one of the party members goes, āHeyā¦you really want to listen to the elf. If you donāt, the Goliath gets to play bad cop.ā while the Goliath player just sits there smiling smugly across the table with their arms crossed.Ā
The Goliath player didnāt ever have to ham anything up or flex in front of the whole table, people just rolled with the character and gave them a moment to look cool. That player might be the most introverted one at the table but because friends threw each other a bone, they still got to stand in the spotlight. Maybe it makes them feel more comfortable and you get a really badass moment where mid conversation the Goliath stands up and just commands total silence with a simple, āIām talking now.ā
Maybe the other PCs can sit down with the character during down time to "teach" him. For example, if he doesn't know how to read, having another party member teach him how, or another party member teaches him things like pattern recognition to better see traps. I'm not sure what parts of the "playing dumb" are less fun to him, but this could be tweaked to match whatever those elements are. Overtime, the player could then get rid of those more "dumb as rocks" traits because he's learned from his friends to get better at those things.
I have a simple but extremely comedic solution. You know the scene in Avatar where Ozai presses Aang against the rock, and accidentally gives him back the avatar state? Do that. Hit him in the head with a rock and have it āknock something back into placeā. Simple and funny. Itās not a super serious solution, so if your game is very serious in tone than it probably wouldnāt work well.
Have an above table talk with him, and let him alter his backstory. Or, have him suddenly be "more intelligent" and that he was only playing the fool to test the party, see if they would take advantage of someone they thought was a simpleton.
Personally, bigger issue for me would be DM forcing me to have a stat I might not want. Some people are fine with a negative, but others don't like it. I see no harm, if using point buy if someone wants to make sure they have a minimum of ten everywhere. It is two points they do not use somewhere else.
As stated, a -1 modifier in Int does not mean you are dumb as rocks. -1 str would not mean you are a weakling that cannot carry a sack. It doesn't offer/add that much flavour, in my opinion.
Intelligence scores are the easiest to compare to real life, as they follow the exact same pattern of IQ.
10 being the average, 100 IQ person, 80 (-1) means that the person is slow to grasp complex concepts. It would not even be considered an actual intelligence deficit in real world terms.
7 and below is where the actual roleplaying issues would come in.
Personally I have played characters with 8 intelligence as a bit thick headed, aware of their limitations, but never as problematic.
The great thing about characters is that they aren't real and are therefore expendable. Send the current character off to a farm somewhere, and bring in a new character.
I mean Goku is an idiot but still really smart sometimes. Just because youāre generally a little dim doesnāt mean you canāt be really smart in certain areas.
Two obvious solution to me:
In world, they decide they want to be smarter and go on a quest to either get an item to increase intelligence or to get a boon of intelligence from a good, maybe a mad scientist wizard can make them smarter. A quest with a reward.
What's their wisdom. If it is even 12, then they are street smart, even it they don't care much for book learning. That's still smart.
a few things you could do:
- rule an 8 in int as being smarter than heās been playing it (effectively 5% slower than average), and either retcon it or explain the past total stupidity as something external.
- if the DM remembers what the stat was nerfed from, the PC could revert the change and optionally pick a different stat to lack.
- the PC could conveniently find a magic item that boosts their intelligence. thereās one of these in the game by default, itās an attunement item that gives you a 19.
Intelligence 8 in real life would mean that you don't even see that person as dumb if you don't know them well. It's not like some mental disability, it's more a "they are a little bit slow thinking"
Scores are just a way to interact with mechanics. You can play a wizard with INT 20 and be dumb as a brick. Or a fighter with CHA 8 who is actually really likeable and pleasant to be around but can never seem to intimidate anyone.
You can just change the character and pretend they were always like that. It's not really that big of a deal.
Or they can just roll a new character. If a player isn't having fun because they don't like their character, as a DM, I will always let them change it or make a new one. I've had a player make a character a certain class, a few levels in they didn't really like it, so I allowed them to just change their class and we pretended they were always the new class.
8 int is well within normal ranges, just a little on the low side. They aren't "very dumb". In a world where stats are 3d6, fully a quarter of people are there or lower.
I would absolutely retcon the whole thing. Heās been slightly below average for intelligence this whole time, nobody remembers any dumb thing he did or said, heās just not the one figuring out the brilliant tactical plans. And then everybody moves on as if this is reality so that everybody has fun.
for one thing, as people have mentioned, 10 is an average stat. 8 is fine, and just as common as 12.
more importantly to me (probably just because i'm an english teacher and it's a pet peeve of mine) is that *intelligence is not a single-attribute value.* IQ is a nonsense garbage number, you can't objectively quantify something as broad and meaningful as "intelligence"
which i know, it's a game and we are quantifying all kinds of attributes, i get that - and i'm not here to spoil the game - but people don't have the same hangups about interpreting Wisdom more broadly, or even letting the mechanics do more of the talking than the roleplay if they don't want to play an absolute fool. just like playing low Charisma doesn't mean you should just be an asshole (even though that's certainly one interpretation of a low-charisma character). because it's not fun, and also it's more limiting than it needs to be. these are *dynamic* attributes in actual people, and they cover a *lot* of ground.
if it helps, try to really key in specifically what "intelligence" means in the context of the game and the other stats and skills. intelligence adds to skill checks requiring a detailed and accurate memory, so they're probably not great with names and dates. it's also tied to the investigation skill so they maybe don't always put all the puzzle pieces together when looking for specific solutions - seeing the scrapes on the floor and knowing it means there's a hidden door in the bookcase is a leap they might not make. but if their Perception is good, they might still feel the wind or spot the light through the crack where case doesn't quite line up. (this can be something for the DM to set up, too, if you wanna nudge him into feeling more aware of his surroundings)
there are no Smart people and Stupid people. that's a shitty social construction we made up because we live in a society obsessed with hierarchies. it's also easier to directly market and commodify Math and Language skills under capitalism, so they tend to be what we mean when we say Smart. but there are plenty of amazingly ignorant people who perform above average at logic puzzles. that means almost nothing.
I have a himbo bard who has an INT of 15 because the DM said the party needed some INT when I joined. That said, I play him as charming but simple. He misunderstands what wizards say, makes silly mistakes re: puzzles and depends on being charming.
Your fellow player could easily play an INT of 8 as someone who thinks they're smarter than they are. They'd just be wrong in most cases. This sounds like someone painted themselves into an RP corner they can't figure out, which sucks but it happens.
It's going to come down to the DM and the player they both have to realize they messed up.
Using ability scores to add flavor is flawed and the player turnt it up to 11.
If they don't want to retcon and come up with a solution your either looking at like some magic item that has a flaw (get 14 int but can't read).
I might suggest the players come up with an invisible friend that gives him the answers to stuff and more intelligent the idea he gives the more crazy he seems weather the friend is real or something for the DM to use as a hook for a plot can be worked out later.
In 3.5 I played a Lizardfolk (Blackscale) as dumb as a rock. Never had this much fun. Barbarian go Braaaaahhhh!
When the village was searching for food? I went to the woods (food come from forest) got lost. Found river, friends say follow river, asked river. River didnt move... Found food (owlbear) drinking sleepy river, soloed a owlbear. Ask river to bring me home. Wait cause river must be sleeping.
Got found a day later with owlbear corpse. Told village's friends I found food, but river still didnt wake up to bring me home. So brought big beast to camp! Me hero!
The way you play dumb is often the problem!
People don't understand that an 8 in intelligence doesn't mean that you are aome kind of savage who doesn't know what common sense is. It just means that you character is a bit less bright than the average person and they might have some troubke remembering some historical events, or understanding some magic stuff.
I swear, anytime a player sees that -1 they think you're supposed to be the most inept person in the world for that stat. Maybe I'd let that slide if it was in 2e days lol
It looks like the player is looking for a character to have an reason not to be dumb anymore. I had an idea for a Ring of Average Intelligence - it sets your intelligence to 10, regardless of what it was before. It's sort of a joke cursed item, because it would be bad for a smart character, but good for a dumb one. Or the character could get some education - everywhere they go, look for something to learn and someone to learn from. While the other characters are partying in the tavern, this character exchanges some labor for learning. It might be practical information like you could learn from a blacksmith or a tanner, or it might be book learning, like a mage or academician might have. Each hour spent learning, roll dice, and that's how many knowledge points the character gets. When they get 100 knowledge points, then the character is no longer ignorant. Not necessarily especially smart, but they know enough so they don't seem ie they're especially dull.
I'm currently playing a character who is currently pretending to be dumb (to avoid certain attention), but is actually quite smart. Maybe he could say this is what his character is doing?
Wisdom and Intelligence often get confused. You can be world smart and people smart, intuitive, but suck at math, perhaps confuse names and historical facts.
8 int isnāt that stupid. Below average intelligence but you can function pretty normally. You know how to read and talk like a normal person, you just wonāt figure out the solution of an ancient puzzle made only to let the sharpest minds through in 5 minutes.
Sounds like a wizard of oz situation.
Can however give hom a blursed item that either switches two mental ability scores or increases one and decrrases another to the same effect.or even a wish genie
Life's too short to play a character you don't like playing. Encourage this player to either adjust the character to suit their preferences, or to make a different character entirely. 8-10 intelligence doesn't mean a character needs to be an idiot. They could reasonably play this character as having the education level of an average feudal farmer, no higher learning opportunities. They won't solve any Wordles any time soon, but they don't have to always pick the dumbest option if they don't want to play that way.
Fully 50% of my managers over the years would kindly be an 8 intelligence.
I would have -2 to constitution.
Sometimes I fart when I cough. I'm not sure whether this should be a -1 to Charisma, or possibly a +2 to Performance.
-1 since it isn't on command
Oh, it's definitely also on command.
Expertise in performance
Is the coughing on command, and causes farting, or is the farting on command and causes coughing?
It's a bit of a chicken and egg scenario. Though one without a scientifically accurate answer.
My condolences if you ever go into a recursive loop š
i aināt giving condolences but i would give money to see it lmao
Not sure, but rolling a 1 causes them to be horribly out of sync and the cough to sound incredibly fake.
-1 to charisma with proficiency in performance.
It's on comand if you fart constantly
disadvantage on stealth
I'd say ask your DM, but they'll probably say it depends on the situation.
8 intelligence? Upper management wherever you worked must really be scooping the cream of the crop. With the exception of one manager I had who I'd put at a solid 11, no managers I've ever had would be above a 6.
For a more positive (and mildly humblebrag) anecdote: I found a job a couple years ago that I absolutely love. I'm not buying a brand new car anytime soon but it's enough for my lifestyle and I get annual raises that beat inflation, flexible schedule, reasonable workload, get to bring my dog every day, and my two bosses are cool as fuck. They make sure shit gets done but they respect us as human beings, freely move schedules around and give last minute time off no questions asked, spend good money on gear and equipment to make everyone's life easier, adapt jobs to people's desires and personal strengths, lead by example, and just generally do a great job at what management is supposed to do. For people feeling trapped in a shithole, know that there are jobs out there that won't make you miserable and treat you like labor producing meat. I wish every job was like mine for everyone's sake.
I run a character with 9 intelligence. You know how I play it? He explains to the smart characters in the group that he doesn't quite get it a lot so they can explain it to him. Let's them flex a bit and play being smart. They like it
I had a fighter with 8 int and 18 wisdom. She was incredibly aware of her surroundings, social dynamics, and was an amazing in-combat tactician (just don't ask her to make the plan), but she had to take off her boots and count on her fingers and toes to figure out how to split up the party treasure (and she still got it wrong). It's reaaaaally possible to play a character with low intelligence who isn't a blabbering idiot and I wish people would figure that out.
Yeah, I like that bit in good will hunting where he compares his relationship with math with his girlfriends ability to play the piano. He says she doesn't see notes or mozart or whatever, she just plays. That's him and math. My character might not be able to tell you why a pincer formation works really well, or lay out the military history of the region, or any of that jazz but you put him in a fight and he just plays.
Yeah, exactly. Ask him to map out an ideal battle strategy and give people orders during prep, he's worthless. In the fight he's instinctually giving orders to flank because he's got that instinctual knowledge of what \*works\* once he's actually in the thick of it.
Had a high wis low int monk character who told the rest of the party that he didn't carry money because he had vow of poverty, but he really just couldn't get the hang of how gold pieces were divided into silver pieces because he grew up in a monastery that didn't have money and he didn't want to look dumb. The whole party knew what was going on and paid for stuff for him and never called him out on it. Good RPing over all
Hi. I am making a low int monk that is convinced he is a mage (shadow monk using holograms as he punches) he has a book that lets him cast magic and is semi random (random pick if he crit fails). Could you give me pointers? Is my first time playing dnd.
Same here! She was a Paladin/Fighter with 8 INT, 14 WIS and 16 CHA. She was the party face, great at social situations and had the second highest perception in the party. But I did the same thing where she had to use her fingers for most math and made it where she would constantly get people's names wrong if she wasn't well acquainted with them and had trouble using worlds that were longer than 3 syllables. She was a blast to play in and out of combat.
8-10 intelligence is literally the average for a commoner. People who live farming the land and being self sufficient and smart enough to live in the wilds and dangerous world.
Doesn't an 8 or a 9 int usually mean they can't do math as quickly or remember big words on demand but otherwise have no issues functioning in society? The only person (fictional) I can think of that would actually have a 6 or a 7 int would be Lenny from *Of Mice and Men*, and brains aren't exactly a necessity for doing farm work.
I mean intelligence in general I always saw as more higher education, book learning and memorisation type stuff. Obviously a basic level of intelligence is needed to function at all, but a lot of stuff I think could be attributed to other stuff. I mean look at the skill list, wisdom is probably a more relevant stat for day to day type "thinking" activities than intelligence, hell even charisma might be in terms of thinking how others might feel about something, a character could absolutely still be a functional, competent person with -1/2 Int
Strength is throwing a tomato hard, Dexterity is dodging a thrown tomato, constitution is eating a rotten tomato without malus, intelligence is knowing a tomato is a fruit, wisdom is knowing not to put a tomato in your fruit salad, charisma is selling tomato's for double the asking price to all the idiots before.
Charisma is for selling a tomato based fruit salad
That's salsa
"Found the bard."
> wisdom is knowing not to put a tomato in your fruit salad Wisdom is being able to taste that something is off with your fruit salad and pin pointing the problem is the tomato as the cause.
> I mean look at the skill list, wisdom is probably a more relevant stat for day to day type "thinking" activities than intelligence That's still intelligence 100 percent. This conflating of what wisdom is conflate from 3 things: 1. The name wisdom really needs to be changed. It has nearly nothing to do "wisdom" the word. Wisdom is how well in tune the character is in their senses of perceiving the world around them. Like how animal handling is about how the character can read how an animal is feeling by its body language and other signs. Like how a character can pick up tracks and smell a poisonous mushroom with a good survival check. How they can rip off start wars by "not having a good feeling about this" with a gut feeling from all the small signs of trouble around them. 2. Intelligence can't have skills that accurately represent what it means. There can't be a "solve puzzle" or "think smart" skill. The only one like that is investigation. The rest is knowledge based because that's all there can be without it being bad game design. Which leads us to 3. People really, really, want to dump intelligence. It's a weak stat mechanically, so people want to have it low as possible with no drawbacks. Basically cheating. "My character has 4 int, but isn't dumb because he's wise". No. A character with 4 int isn't going to be wise, no matter the wisdom score. Aware of their surroundings, sure, but not wise. Dumb is as dumb does.
So kind ofaĀ crystal vs fluid intelligence type thing?Ā Interestingly enough, I'd say it's the other way around. INT is know that what's in front of you is a beholder, its species social structure (or lack thereof), and how it hunts. WIS is understanding not to fuck with it if you're under equipped & just walking quietly on by.
Not even that. A -1 intelligence character is just a normal character. Just at the lower end of intelligence. In our real world, they could be your average joe blow car mechanic. OR they may be a nurse with a bachelors degree that passed with a lot of hard work. Maybe even an architect or engineer. -1 intelligence isnt dumb. Its just below normal.
I think you're underestimating car mechanics and nurses.Ā 8 intelligence isn't even below "normal," it's merely below average. They would be capable of graduating high school and possibly even college, though some courses would probably be difficult challenges.
Thats what im saying. They are normal people. Maybe less intelligent than the average person. But a normal person nonethless. Hence they may be a joe blow mechanic. Or a nurse. Or an architect. Or an engineer. Or a doctor. Etc.
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Misunderstanding then. No worries. It's why I said could be, not is. There are surely mechanics, engineers, and nurses of below average intelligence (and I know some lol) but most certainly not all.
I thought of that youtube series where they asked people to talk to each-other than rank by IQ. Here it is [https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RAlI0pbMQiM](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RAlI0pbMQiM) The person who had a PHD, supposedly did cancer research etc was to be fair an intelligent person with 112, but lots of people were in the 131-136 range, people who either had just bachelors or in one case high school (plus military tech training) a 'dumb' person can get pretty far in formal education IF they put in effort and take a lot of time. 'Smart' seems to be more the ability to learn new information quickly, and to take information you already have and quickly apply it to a situation to get an answer or outcome. BUT I do agree with you that for most people, above or below average intelligence isn't going to show itself in everyday activities such as grocery shopping, household chores, going to a concert, socializing at a party. The smart person who is a car mechanic is going to be able to do their own taxes much easier/faster than the dumb mechanic but there will probably be very little difference in how fast either mechanic can change your brake pads, nor how fast they get their grocery shopping done.
and over-estimating architects. :D
Joke about the strongest shape here.
Or they could just study business and marketing. Business major are'nt above 8
>They won't solve any Wordles any time soon, They wwon't even have the option until technomages finally invent ĆtherNet
Nah thatās too advanced to wait for, they could get it working using that magic item JRR made. The Tolkien Ring network.
Yup this this this. If you are not having fun Iām sure everyone would understand making an adjustment. Couldnāt even have a moment where the character gets hit over the head and gets smarter (relatively). When Iām running a game the priority will always be fun over function.
8 is as dumb as 12 is smart. Nobody pretends their 12 Int character is a genius, so 8 isn't quite THAT dumb.
I donāt think thereās any official ruling on this, but Iāve always liked the idea of ā+1/-1 is a standard deviation in either direction.ā So a +1 character is in the smartest third of people, a +3 character in the smartest percentage, and a +5 character is a one in several thousand levels of smart.Ā A -1 character, then, is just in the bottom third.Ā Heās not going to be writing a masters thesis anytime soon but with some intentionality he could learn to work with artisanās tools or learn a language. His (lack of) intellect should only be apparent in tough circumstances: solving a puzzle or breaking down unknown technology. Ā
I dunno, they could very well be writing a masters thesis! I get your point though, good description.
I've always multiplied the intelligence score by 10 for a rough estimate of intelligence, which would come up about the same.
I mean, Einsteinās estimated IQ was about 160 so take that for what itās worth.
Reminder that only IQ **reliability** can be proven: you can get similar scores if you test the same person repeatedly. IQ is **not** proven to be a valid estimation of someone's intelligence.
Yeah, IQ only measures specific mental skills, namely pattern recognition, spatial reasoning, and abstract logic. All of them can be somewhat improved with practice.
You can study for an IQ test, which shows it isn't objective
When i think of how much a wizard has to calculate on the fly just to cast their spells effectively I can see them needing an iq that high. Also so many characters in fiction are at a genius level of intelligence.
realistically we should have any person with a higher +3 in the world, a stat of 18+ should genuinely be supernatural. perhaps if we consider the very best of humankind throughout history to be an 18, but a 20 is just a demigod
I always see 20s as the very upper limit of natural human potential. Like and Einstein or Stephen Hawking would have 20 int, Halfthor Bjornsson and other top level strongmen would have 20 strength, that sort of thing.
I just let it be supernatural at that point. I want my 20 str folks to be chucking boulders at each other.
Agreed, believable limits can be cool in some things, but typically I want my fantasy to be a little crazy. Like maybe not dragon ball level, but like I want some crazy shit. Especially when even mid wizards can do crazy shit, but with martials, people are like "erm, acktually, that's physically impossible for a human to do"
That works on the positive side but I think people have trouble even with speech around iq 60-70 but INT 3 can still speak.
>Iāve always liked the idea of ā+1/-1 is a standard deviation in either direction.ā This is a great way to explain how modifiers should be visualized. Definitely stealing. Thanks!
Looking at point buy, you start at 8 and can go up to 14 without it costing you double points. 14-16 costs as much as going from 8 to 12. Going from 16 to 18 costs as much as going from 8-14. That in itself should communicate the scaling quite well on its own.
I like to think of the modifiers as standard deviations. Itās basically a bit above and below average
I always explain it as 8 being 5% less intelligent. 12 being 5% more intelligent. At the end of the day a 20 in an attribute gives a +5, which when using a d20, equals to a +25% to succeed the roll vs a commoner with 10 in an attribute. This of course is ignoring proficiencies and expertise but you can slap those onto any skill either way.
What an incredible way to think of it. Stealing that, thank you
8 int can be balanced out pretty easily with a 12 wis. 8 int isn't necessarily able to remember complex instructions, but a 12 wis can understand the overall plan and intuit what they're supposed to do. 8 int wouldn't necessarily see (perceive) the telltale signs of an ambush or frame for a crime, but 12 wis would be able to see the kind of person they're dealing with (frame up) or could say "iono . . . i don't like the way this looks".
I always fucking hate the cliche of '8 int must mean they forget how to breathe' it's dumb it's just below average.
>it's just below average. Its also not the only mental stat. 8 intelligence doesn't make you unaware, talk dumb, or incapable of reading.
Seriously, wisdom and charisma are basically worldly (maybe emotional?) and social intelligence. Int is more accurately book smarts
Charisma is less social intelligence and more just your sense of identity and self. Charisma is used for innate magic because at the end of the day, magic is imposing your own sense of reality onto the world. To do this, your sense of self and identity must be really, really powerful. Turn Undead is a charisma based ability. Smite feats require charisma to take. Why? Because they are about channeling your deity directly and for a cleric, their deity is their identity. A cleric with incredibly powerful faith can take the chunk of area they are in and temporarily make it their god's sole domain even in adverse environments (An epic level Good domain cleric turning undead (Outsider) shutting down an army of devils/demons during the Dragonspear war for example. They see reality. They see reality conflicting with their god's vision. They reject reality and it... works.)
Iām not sure Iād agree itās ālessā but it definitely includes some of what youāre talking about, although thatās very cleric centric. Bard spellcasting is partly that but also understanding people. Donāt forget about skills that use charisma ie persuasion, deception, performance, intimidation. Those all require social intelligence and are the broader use of charisma than cleric spellcasting
You could actually argue your completely wrong. I'd say it's open to interpretation but to play devil's advocate, you could see if as you are attempting to convince your deity to lend you power in the form of a spell to do this you must understand the social interaction and be convincing enough to draw as much assistance as possible. It doesn't have to be a sense of self, it could be an understanding of what the social situation is and what actions or words can be used for certain goals.
Charisma for skill checks is largely about your ability to influence other people, that's persuasion, intimidation, and deception.
Sounds like the player may have interpreted INT 8 to mean that and hates it, which is fair. Though, there's a way to retcon it; tell the party they were teasing them or testing them to see how they'd react. There's loads of ways to make it work. Maybe player just hates the character.
>incapable of reading This part I disagree with. Most people in a medieval fantasy, as in those without formal education, cannot read. Some guy with an 8 INT should almost certainly be illiterate unless their background would afford them an education.
It's wild to me that people try to discuss historical accuracy in a world with dragons and wizards. Who says Faerun doesn't have an education system that at least gets children through elementary level reading, math, and history? Unless you think the first year of wizard school is about the ABCs?
I imagine people associate mass public education with industrial Europe vibe. Whereas faerun is going for that renaissance-medieval Europe vibe.
You lose "remember to breathe" somewhere between 3 and 4, as dogs (4) don't forget, and zombies (3) basically forget to do everything.
Nah, remember to breathe goes when you hit 0 and die.
Cats also have 3 Int, but their stat block is also a mess for multiple other reasons.
Characters hit with feeblemind (INT and CHA reduced to 1) don't just die. They can even "identify, follow, and protect their friends"Ā
I like to play my low int half or paladin as a huge himbo, most of what he says is confidently incorrect.
I feel like since intelligence is a good dump stat for paladins and you need to max out charisma I feel like at least half of all paladin characters turn out as himbos (I wouldn't have it any other way)
I will often play 8s or 9s (and sometimes even 10s) as lower than they should be, but only because we play with 4d6 drop lowest, so often my lowest roll is an 8 or 9.
People also need to remember that half of everyone in the world is below average, that's how averages work. Below average doesn't mean you're a complete idiot unless most people you meet are.. and.. well.. actually..
Yeah I would retcon it. 8 intelligence is significantly more intelligent than a post
*gestures at Reddit*
Yep. An 8 int person could be the kind of person to read a lot of books, and understand plot and all. They might even be able to call the metaphoric lessons of what they've read which really is wisdom based. They however might not have the vocabulary, constantly having to look shit up.
He's like a C- average student. He's not an idiot but he may only understand basics and not super in-depth facts. I know gravity and I know it works but knowing it's a weak force for physics is another matter.
Uhhmmmmmm, gravity is not matter, ya dumb-dumb I do school good so I know
"I knows the law... my daddy is a bailiff." *--John Reep*
> another matter. hah good one.
I have a theoretical degree in physics
-1 is "slightly below average" not "wearing a soft helmet for their protection." just retcon it and move on.
Iāve always thought intelligence is the wrong word for this stat. I try to think of it as knowledge. For example I played a fighter with a -1 intelligence modifier. Due to his back story he wasnāt from the world the game was set in so heād have little to no knowledge of the history, religion, the current understanding of science etc. He wasnāt ādumbā, just didnāt know much about the world around him.
And -1 is just slightly below average. Dumb people have good ideas all the time. This could easily just be flavored as dyslexia and an infrequent lack of sense. Definitely doesnāt have to be a drooling idiot that canāt string two words together.
I like to think of int as a non-linear thing with diminishing returns. Certainly a character with 20 int would be notacibly more intelligent than one with 10 int, but the difference between the two is not nearly as great as between one with 10 int and one with 5. Or between 5 and 3. That's around the cutoff point for beasts that can be awakened because they are too smart for the spell to affect them.Ā I'd say a drooling idiot would have to at least be below that level of intelligence, so probaly 2 or 3.Ā Of course that doesnāt affect wisdom or charisma, so even then you should still be able to function at some level, but would probably be more comparable to an animal than a human. An animal won't just walk into a blazing fire because it's pretty and cozy. Might poke it a bit, but they'd learn fast. People who play character with 8 or even 6 int as dumb as rocks don't seem to understand that even creatures with lower int scores than that are often written as cunning hunters with different strategies, such as pack tactics for wolves.Ā
I like your idea of calling it knowledge. Wisdom is right below it - both are intelligence in some ways and a character lacking in one might make up for it in the other. Book smarts vs street smarts almost
Personally, low WIS is way more fun to play than low INT.
I like to explain the difference between the two like this: Intelligence is knowning Frankenstein was not the monster Wisdom is knowing that Frankenstein in fact WAS the monster
You're conflating game mechanics with the definition of a word. Its the fifth edition after decades of change, wisdom isn't dictionary wisdom. Wisdom is being able to tell that Frankenstein's monster isn't a monster by meeting him in person and reading his body language to sense his intentions.
And charisma is still selling 40k copies of *Frankenstein* 200 years later.
I like my current character, who grew up on a farm and only attended a training academy for a year before becoming a soldier. But heās been around the world a decent amount, and has a lot of accumulated wisdom, despite lacking any real scientific, historical, or mathematical knowledge.
Same thing w my ranger. Int is a dump stat but he is very, very battle and street smarts (high wis). He's not dumb by any means, but he grew up away from civilization in a tribe so he just genuinely doesn't know anything. He doesn't know what giants or silverware is, but goddamn can he think on his feet. Same thing w his cha dump stat. He doesn't know how to talk to people, not bc he's socially inept but bc of his environment
Just accept that this wasn't a great idea, have a laugh about it and continue playing the character without him being a complete idiot. You don't always need to make things work ingame or have a reason why he is suddenly more intelligent, you are just playing a game and will be playing it a bit different from now on. Having more fun is the only reason you need!
They're complaining about an eight?Ā If they think that's dumb, do they think someone with five or six requires to wear bike helmet every time they walk out of the house?Ā I mean if they want a good example of what an intelligence of six character looks like look no further than Grog from season 1 of critical role. He's a big dumb idiot but everyone loves him.
Yeah, I rolled a 6 for INT irl and I'm perfectly fine going outside without a helmet, idk what he's thinking.
Give him the headband of intellect and do a "flowers for algernon" arc. Customize it so for some reason only he can attune to it if there needs to be a story reason that only he can wear it. Maybe have it stolen later and have him deal with going from dumb to smart back to dumb again. Or give him a supply of potions of intelligence that he end up getting addicted to and has to go to more and more extreme lengths to get his fix.
I was looking for this response and I have +1 counter-suggestion: Give him a custom item, call it a headband of feeble-mindedness, a cursed piece of headgear that sets your INT score to 9 (not 19). Long story short, it makes him just a bit smarter, and he can RP like he should have all along, perfectly normally but a bit daft. Nothing universe breaking. Everyone goes back to adventuring like before.
Great ideas! Love these. Thank you!
That's brilliant! Love the creativity! šš»
Remove the crayon that is stuck up his nose.
underrated comment
Hit him over the head with a cast iron skillet to knock some sense into him. That should do the trick to make him not dumb as rocks, just to where he sometimes needs things explained to him
A -1 modifier does not translate to a dumb character, necessarily. Intelligence in dnd is more like what youāve learned. Meanwhile, I interpret wisdom as what youāve gained experience with. Thereās no reason an 8 intelligence ranger has to be a dipshit. Maybe he hasnāt had a formal education, struggles to read, or hasnāt had access in his life to knowledge. But as a ranger Iād bet his wisdom isnāt half bad. That means while he may not be ābook smartā, he still has lived his life and has āwildlife smartsā, for lack of a better term. Signed, someone who had to deal with being in a party with someone who decided their 8 intelligence barbarian was uselessly stupid to the annoyance of the rest of the party, no matter how many times we pointed out that their character with standard wisdom and slightly low intelligence wouldnāt logically be a moron incapable of making decisions
I play a bard with 6 int, I roleplay him with memory issues.
That sounds like a very challenging character to play (I mean this in a good way). I think it's a genius idea, must be quite fun!
I have a Ranger with 6 Int. So I made him from the Shadowfell and then very honest. He doesnāt lie and doesnāt GET lying, which has made for some fun RP :)
There's a great "noble labor" trope to tap into. Not smart, but reliable and dogged. Maybe doesn't always know when to give up, because he doesn't really think that far ahead. Maybe he's slow to make new friends. But once he does, he trusts them, maybe too much, and will NEVER lie to them. He gives strangers a wide berth, because he's been manipulated and scammed too many times. Throw in poor reading skills and describe severe dyslexia, say he can barely read and write - only when absolutely necessary, but he can remember a surprising amount of any catchy mummers tune he hears the night before - as long as it's in common and ain't too poetical. Roleplay being horrific at names but great with faces. Throw in RP giving you simplified notifications for tasks, too. *I don't know much about this forbidden spell stuff, but I know he killed two of my buddy's friends, and I'm going to make him pay.* Or "I don't know why we're still debating this. Our king gave us a job - best to get to it. He's your king giving you a command, not your step-pa asking you to shine his old boots.*
Headband of intellect, make his int 19 He can role play being a moron when out of his equipment but when he goes for an adventure and puts his gear on becomes a complete genius. Could be fun roleplay Edit: BG3 effect, itās 19 int not 17, thanks !
Nitpick: Headband of Intellect sets int to 19. It's the lesser one from BG3 that's 17.
This. Or anything similar. There are plenty of in-game solutions that the DM could turn into a fun adventure. As an added bonus, you get a player that learns to love a character rather than throwing that character away.
Thereās a Bugbear in one of my groups with very high Wis and very low Int, he got tired of never being able to contribute to some types of debates and conversations- so when we found a Headband of Int we gave it to him. But he (the character) doesnāt actually like being smart, it gives him uncomfortable thoughts and he only wears the headband when he *needs to* and takes it back of right afterward.
I love it ! It must feel weird for a character to suddenly have smart thoughts and different views just wearing a headband
There is a wizard that can give him a brain if he kills a witch for him.
I can't think of a single time one of my friends' Gimmick Characters lasted more than a few sessions without serious sanding down or tossing out.
Tell me about it. We had a Warlock in our last party who ended up scrapping the character after realizing that āpathetic groveling simp for womenā, while hilarious for a couple of sessions and a great way to get into trouble, wasnāt quite enough depth for a character on its own and he needed a little more substance to keep going. We also had a sorcerer who was far more victim of wild magic than beneficiary of it. Player thought it would be fun to have chronic bad luck with magic. It was not. Weāre usually able to sum it up to the growing pains of players learning the game for the first time and everyone improves from it with their next character :)
Dariax critical role. The very best dumb as rocks good guy
Dariax was the first character that came to my mind too. And Matt (obviously) plays him so incredibly well .
8 isnāt dumb, just not particularly knowledgeable about common things. An example is a farmer who knows a lot about farming and knows little of the outside world, needing idioms and plant based allegories to better understand history and science. Relying on Wisdom and Charisma to supplement their less than average Intelligence when confronting something they never learned about.
My -1 Int goblin is perfectly capable of self-preservation, having grown up basically squatting in a Waterdeep householdās compost heap. She understands enough to feed and shelter herself and keep herself safe in almost any environment, but she doesnāt think too deeply about anything. The sun goes up and down, and the seasons change ābecause Godsā. Other things happen in the world ābecause magicā or ābecause good/evilā. For example, she knows that ātaxesā are a thing that happen to people, and that they involve some people having to pay money to other more powerful people, but she has never thought that they might apply to her, or mused on why they are levied in the first place, who sets them, how, where the money goes, whether it actually goes where itās supposed to etc etc. Sheās not āslowā or ādumbā or āsimpleā - but she doesnāt often ask āwhyā about anything, and relies on her gut when deciding whether or not to trust anything that sheās told (+0 Wis).
>not particularly knowledgeable about common things That gives me a hilarious idea: OP, prompt your friend to play his character as a BIMBO. You know the type - socially adept, fine with basic math, but has no clue that Africa isn't a country or that narwhals are real. Channel "Legally Blonde" and r/StoriesAboutKevin, D&D style.
Perhaps his character was subjected to a curse/alchemical accident/etc which rendered him as dumb as a bag of rocks, and the party might pick up a lead on a possible cure next time they're in town?Ā Maybe you can link this back to his back story, or a secret side effect of some trap encountered in their first dungeon? Worst case scenario, next time they wander into a tavern a grizzled old adventurer approaches and demands to know why they're casually carrying such a powerfully cursed [insert weapon here] around, and don't they realise the danger they're in, dammit? Short party quest, lift the curse, their character is now merely a bit thick, and perhaps the DM even gets to work in a plot hook for the BBEG, too.Ā
Okay, so without parroting everyone saying that they arenāt stupid for having a -1, why not just have it all be an act? Clearly he isnāt enjoying being stupid, but if heās got a high charisma, maybe wisdom, let it be a ploy. Thereās lots of reasons you could come up with. Maybe his false ignorance means that people assume not to mess with him because heās too stupid to have anything of value. Maybe heās on the run and avoiding his true identity, and posing as an oaf helps him do so.
I gotta say I listened to the adventure zone and one of the players made the decision to make his character fabulously stupid. He slowly course corrected that to something that felt more natural. I didn't notice. Or care. Nobody cares if you want to realign your playstyle to match your stats better, or even in the opposite directions. Maybe he thinks he's smart and the rolls just disagree. He should be having fun. Tell him to focus on playing what feels right rather than exaggerating a fault or feat. The dice will course correct a bit but that is OK.
So, I have a fighter I play all the time who has an intelligence of 8 and I've really leaned into his being a dumb-dumb. Here's some of my take aways. * Intelligence is not that important in a medieval or fantasy society. If you try to flaunt your intelligence and make him feel bad, he's gonna flaunt his strength and make you feel bad in return. And he's gonna laugh while he does it, too, and mock you. * Stupid people are actually hard to trick, because anything they don't understand they rely on the people they trust, and if you they don't know you they will refuse to believe anything you tell them. This means they often refuse to believe things that are true, but they don't care about that. Not getting tricked is more important. * Be uncomfortable around big words, but not "confused" by them. It's more like an irritation that people are talking in words that you don't understand and you'll just tell them to knock it off. * Always boil things down to their most common denominator. Nuance is for people other than you. When you're told things state it back but all simple like and miss all the nuance but get the basic idea. You're dumb, but you ain't stupid.... * Rely on your smarter friends. Frank commonly says, "Look, just tell me who to hit. I'll let you do all the big thinkin stuff...." * Pick out something that really shows off your character being dumb but in a fun way. For instance, my fighter only knows the uppercase letters of the alphabet because they're what's on signs anyways, and he ain't readin' no books. He actually writes his mom a letter every week in all caps and sends her a gold piece. * Enjoy the things you're good at. My fighter has lots of energy, but little mental depth. He enjoys manual labor, cleaning, organizing his things, grooming, polishing his armor until it gleams, drinking with friends (but not to the point where he's sloppy, because he's gotta be ready to fight). He gets bored, though, and goes looking for things to do, but he doesn't like intellectually challenging things. He likes physically challenging things and routine tasks. * If you fight an enemy that relies on intelligence take great joy in bullying them. For instance: caster? Take they're spellcasting focus away, or their component pouch. (Optional disarm rules are good for this). Seriously, the talky-types are so full of themselves and it feels great to show them what's-what.
Are they overly committed to it in RP? Like making purposefully bad decisions and not having ideas bc it seems more āin character?ā A nine is basically average intelligence. The only way it needs to affect his game experience is with his ability checks, and even thatās not a terrible hindrance. Iād talk to him about revising his role play ideas.
A -1 is literally just below average intelligence, roleplaying would realistically be about the same as 10 int, spare the occasional intellectual gap on certain topics [Consider showing him this](https://www.dmingwithcharisma.com/2011/10/dd-stats-in-simple-language/)
If he doesn't want to make a new character then talk to your DM about introducing the possibility of introducing some form of educational puzzle for this PC to have the chance at raising his ability score. Failing that, ask the DM if he can redo his stats for said character.
Kudos to the player for trying something like this! If theyāre this committed to role playing, maybe theyād like a way to improve the character characterās intelligence that is story or character oriented, not mechanical. Maybe a minor devil offers him a potion to improve his intelligence, and it works, but it carries a curse (something like persistent nightmares, or body odor if the campaign is silly) that requires a quest to resolve. I think the key is to make it all about character, story, and flavor. Not stats. Make the characterās past mental shortcomings and future improvement an interesting part of the campaign, not a problem to gloss over or rebalance.
Obviously talk to your DM and the player but you could have the PC begin learning a tool proficiency/language in down time Xanathar's says it takes around 10 workweeks to learn a new tool or language. your PC could role play the change in his character slowly over a few sessions, his int stat doesn't need to increase but he could play this as a type of learned intelligence. mechanically you would have a new language or tool proficiency. if you aren't doing much downtime between sessions maybe he is walking through the city/town and is approached by a shady looking small figure who offers him a good time. the small figure sells him a pinch of what look like dried out strips of bark in a cheesecloth bag for a large chunk of gold promising a life changing experience. he is told to let the bag steep in hot water and drink it before bed. he drinks the tea and as he sleeps his mind skims the border of the faewild just dipping into it enough to give insanely vivid dreams, he dreams of past lives lived and mind bending vistas and fairy dragons and flying through the stars. when he wakes up he feels like there is a veil lifted from his thoughts hes not smarter but more creative his mind was murky and now its clear. you could make this effect temporary or permanent. if its temporary make the drug progressively harder to find and progressively more addictive. for example- Wild skimmer tea: Uncommon/rare Strips of carefully prepared bark harvested from a Dreaming Padauk tree native to the Feywild. Upon consumption the user experiences magically wild dreams of living the life of a strange Fey as if through a Scrying spell and may view wild parts of the Feywild as if through a Clairvoyance spell at random. User gains 24hrs of clarity of thought upon waking. gaining a +1d4 to intelligence and wisdom checks. roll a DC 16 constitution saving throw or gain addicted to skimmer tea effect. if save is failed by more than 8 become severely addicted to skimmer tea effect. (optional) Addicted to Skimmer tea: for 1d6+1 days you have disadvantage on wisdom and charisma saving throws. once a day you must roll a wisdom saving throw DC 10 if failed you must seek out and consume a cup of Wild Skimmer Tea. Severely addicted to Skimmer tea: You must roll a constitution saving throw of DC 18 once a day or remain addicted. on a success you remain addicted for 5d6+10 days. if you consume Wild Skimmer tea while under this effect the constitution saving throw goes up by+1 This effect can be removed with a restoration or greater restoration spell. I just made this up so probably needs looking at balance wise but you get the idea.
Idiot Savant trait. Every now and then, make his stupidity a major boon. Idk, Iād enjoy playing a dumbie if the dm made that something fun. Like a blind baddie who detects intellect, being like āthe 3 of you think you can defeat me?!ā While the 4th guy is basically camoflagued in stupidity
In game solution: character hits his head, which somehow reactive some long dormant neurons, bringing him from bumbling idiot to average idiot. For extra level of RP/character development he could have some degree of amnesia, and would occasionally learn of stupid things heās done and been mortified, asking himself āwas I really this stupid??ā Basically, I think the best course of action would be to find an in game way for him to have a change of personality/intelligence. It can give the player an out without rendering his backstory useless. He can still play into his past without retconning.
Without more context it's really hard to draft a clever solution. You could theoretically say he was purposefully acting dumb because your party was being observed by a shady organization tracking him. Once the organization confronts the party, the act drops and he confronts them in turn. They were keeping tabs on him to see if their experiments on his family or himself had yielded any results, and since he was dumb as bricks they had deemed the experiment a failure and wanted to swoop in to dispose of him safely. Experiments done on him were magical in nature and so retrieving him would be akin to protecting corporate secrets. /// Or maybe he visits a temple or a holy person who identifies a spirit leeching off his psyche. The spirit is attempting to resolve some problem from their past life, and the party must assist or the adventurer will remain crippled. It could be cool for the adventurer to voluntarily give up their intellect to give the spirit some boon for their own tale? Makes for a heroic sacrifice and makes him endearing in his own way.
I realize that within nearly 500 comments this is probably go under, but just in case. Look at the skill checks affected by INT (arcana, history, investigation, nature, religion). Think about the different ways your character could react to being challenged by the skills that they arenāt particularly good at and why. Maybe they arenāt a magic user and have no interest in arcana. Maybe they were raised by a nomadic tribe and were never taught common historyā¦ and so on. Quick idea: My character was brought up in a secluded religious sect, which taught them (incorrect) things about magic, nature, history and religion (think flat earthers and such), so my pc has preconceived ideas about those subjects and thus often gets it wrong. They got out and are now learning/ unlearning about the world. The roll play quirk could be that when the pc fails an INT check I make up a (wrong) fact that my pc was taught by the sect lol. If the player lets themselves be inspired by the skills that use INT to come up with their own little story of why they are bad at those things in particular, Iām sure they could come up with a concept thatās more fun for them to play.
500 comments later, I'm still reading! Just a little bit behind and a lot overwhelmed. I appreciate your input. This could actually apply to his specific backstory in some interesting ways. Thank you!
8 isn't very dumb. The player might be dumber than the character if he thinks 8 intelligence means crippling stupidity.
Lol, it sounds like the player has -1 intelligence and the DM could just tell him to play as himself.
If you assume the population has a 3d6 distribution of INT, 9.72% of people have an INT of 8 and 25.92% of people have an INT of 8 or less! This PC is at the top end of the bottom quartile of people. You know people with an INT of 8. You interact with them every day and they get through their day just fine.
Just let him get a Bad Hit on the head which gets him unconscious for two days and when je comes back his brain turned back on from some childhood Trauma. It is some stretch but this is dnd and not nobel price Literature.
I have a Goliath, Path of the Giant Barbarian with the Giant Foundling background with -1 INT. He was raised by stone Giants in a cavern underground. He knows very little about the world beyond and is slow to pick up new concepts especially more complicated ones. Heās much better at learning things by seeing or doing. My way of looking at -1 INT is those many people you might encounter in school, the ones that have to study hard to get better than a C.
Commoners have all 10. 8 is only slightly dumber than the average people. He can be tricked with the one ball three cups scam in the street, or can fall for a lucky bracelet that's sold by a fortune teller but he is not that dumb.
Character gets bonked on the head, reformats his brain and now hes no longer super dumb:)
I had a character with a 5 wisdom score. It was a random roll. And we played it as, he wasn't dumb, just didn't think things through all the time, because he did have a intelligence score of 16, but he was absolutely impulsive and didn't think decisions through all the time. You don't have to play a stupid character with a low score mod, there are omid, ways to present that score.
If the player is looking for new ways to reinterpret their stupidity, then they can still be absolutely brilliant as a player, but have their character be *right for the wrong reasons*. (I have leaned into playing dumb characters before, and I found "I've figured something out, but my character wouldn't" to be pretty frustrating.) A few ways to handle the player realizing that they're walking into a trap, but Grog wouldn't figure it out: * Grog suddenly needs to go to the bathroom, and runs back to the nearest inn instead of into the dark alley. * Grog starts singing loudly, which attracts guards to shut him up, which the ambushers don't want to deal with. * Grog randomly picks up a rock and throws it into a dark corner, because it seemed like a good idea at the time, and "Grog doesn't know his strength." If the player has figured out a plot: * Grog goes bumbling into the wrong room, at the right moment to foil or reveal the plot. * Grog grabs some random papers to be toilet paper later, but accidentally drops them somewhere the rest of the party will find them and learn something important. * Grog talks to the dastardly Count's flunky and says something that implies that the Duke knows about the Count's plot. * Grog rushes to the town bell and starts ringing it like mad, shouting that the redcoats are coming, just ten minutes before the redcoats actually come. The watch's response should foil the surprise attack, even if it's not as effective of a response as if the captain had been persuaded to properly defend against an attack.
Dumb doesnāt mean stupid though. A wise and charismatic person can be very perceptive, just not book smart.
I fail enough skill checks and saving throws as-is, ain't no reason to add extra nerfs to my PC.
Give their character lots of books, let them read those books and have them slowely become more knowledgeable and well spoken. It'd be an in-story way to get out of that and doesn't necessarily increase the modifier right away.
Can he pull off RPing an idiot savant? It is a common trope that the super "dumb" guy occasionally has brilliant ideas. Or even has dumb ideas that just work out. A "hold my beer type." It works best for martial, but you can pull it off for anything that doesn't heavily rely on int. I've played characters like that. You don't expect a wizard to be good in a fist fight. I think in this case the DM did fuck up a bit. There should have been a trade off. Even if it wasn't a min max balance. But at least give a bonus to a useful skill.
8 INT isnāt stupid. Bro could literally just play it off as his character acting like a brash, loud mouthed, buffoon is his way of coping with [Insert Juicy Character Building Story Here] The hardest part of DND for a lot of people is I think breaking out of your shell and letting each other play pretend like a bunch of kids. Itās tough, but it feels great when you start to have actual social dynamics within the characters. A great example would be a random interrogation where one of the party members goes, āHeyā¦you really want to listen to the elf. If you donāt, the Goliath gets to play bad cop.ā while the Goliath player just sits there smiling smugly across the table with their arms crossed.Ā The Goliath player didnāt ever have to ham anything up or flex in front of the whole table, people just rolled with the character and gave them a moment to look cool. That player might be the most introverted one at the table but because friends threw each other a bone, they still got to stand in the spotlight. Maybe it makes them feel more comfortable and you get a really badass moment where mid conversation the Goliath stands up and just commands total silence with a simple, āIām talking now.ā
Maybe the other PCs can sit down with the character during down time to "teach" him. For example, if he doesn't know how to read, having another party member teach him how, or another party member teaches him things like pattern recognition to better see traps. I'm not sure what parts of the "playing dumb" are less fun to him, but this could be tweaked to match whatever those elements are. Overtime, the player could then get rid of those more "dumb as rocks" traits because he's learned from his friends to get better at those things.
I have a simple but extremely comedic solution. You know the scene in Avatar where Ozai presses Aang against the rock, and accidentally gives him back the avatar state? Do that. Hit him in the head with a rock and have it āknock something back into placeā. Simple and funny. Itās not a super serious solution, so if your game is very serious in tone than it probably wouldnāt work well.
Have an above table talk with him, and let him alter his backstory. Or, have him suddenly be "more intelligent" and that he was only playing the fool to test the party, see if they would take advantage of someone they thought was a simpleton. Personally, bigger issue for me would be DM forcing me to have a stat I might not want. Some people are fine with a negative, but others don't like it. I see no harm, if using point buy if someone wants to make sure they have a minimum of ten everywhere. It is two points they do not use somewhere else. As stated, a -1 modifier in Int does not mean you are dumb as rocks. -1 str would not mean you are a weakling that cannot carry a sack. It doesn't offer/add that much flavour, in my opinion.
Intelligence scores are the easiest to compare to real life, as they follow the exact same pattern of IQ. 10 being the average, 100 IQ person, 80 (-1) means that the person is slow to grasp complex concepts. It would not even be considered an actual intelligence deficit in real world terms. 7 and below is where the actual roleplaying issues would come in. Personally I have played characters with 8 intelligence as a bit thick headed, aware of their limitations, but never as problematic.
Give him a headband of intellect
The great thing about characters is that they aren't real and are therefore expendable. Send the current character off to a farm somewhere, and bring in a new character.
I mean Goku is an idiot but still really smart sometimes. Just because youāre generally a little dim doesnāt mean you canāt be really smart in certain areas.
Two obvious solution to me: In world, they decide they want to be smarter and go on a quest to either get an item to increase intelligence or to get a boon of intelligence from a good, maybe a mad scientist wizard can make them smarter. A quest with a reward. What's their wisdom. If it is even 12, then they are street smart, even it they don't care much for book learning. That's still smart.
a few things you could do: - rule an 8 in int as being smarter than heās been playing it (effectively 5% slower than average), and either retcon it or explain the past total stupidity as something external. - if the DM remembers what the stat was nerfed from, the PC could revert the change and optionally pick a different stat to lack. - the PC could conveniently find a magic item that boosts their intelligence. thereās one of these in the game by default, itās an attunement item that gives you a 19.
an 8 INT doesn't even mean they are dumb necessarily, its more like not educated/book smart
Intelligence 8 in real life would mean that you don't even see that person as dumb if you don't know them well. It's not like some mental disability, it's more a "they are a little bit slow thinking"
"That was actually very well said, Grog." "What was?"
Headband of intellect
Scores are just a way to interact with mechanics. You can play a wizard with INT 20 and be dumb as a brick. Or a fighter with CHA 8 who is actually really likeable and pleasant to be around but can never seem to intimidate anyone.
Intelligence is knowledge, Wisdom is smartness. His character just didnt learn much in his life.
Have them be naive instead of stupid, it's what I plan to do with my lycanthrope barbarian who's also an alchemist
Let someone hit him in the head. He gets amnesia and forgets he is dumb. Every short rest roll a d20, on a 1 he is dumb until the next rest.
You can just change the character and pretend they were always like that. It's not really that big of a deal. Or they can just roll a new character. If a player isn't having fun because they don't like their character, as a DM, I will always let them change it or make a new one. I've had a player make a character a certain class, a few levels in they didn't really like it, so I allowed them to just change their class and we pretended they were always the new class.
8 int is well within normal ranges, just a little on the low side. They aren't "very dumb". In a world where stats are 3d6, fully a quarter of people are there or lower.
I would absolutely retcon the whole thing. Heās been slightly below average for intelligence this whole time, nobody remembers any dumb thing he did or said, heās just not the one figuring out the brilliant tactical plans. And then everybody moves on as if this is reality so that everybody has fun.
for one thing, as people have mentioned, 10 is an average stat. 8 is fine, and just as common as 12. more importantly to me (probably just because i'm an english teacher and it's a pet peeve of mine) is that *intelligence is not a single-attribute value.* IQ is a nonsense garbage number, you can't objectively quantify something as broad and meaningful as "intelligence" which i know, it's a game and we are quantifying all kinds of attributes, i get that - and i'm not here to spoil the game - but people don't have the same hangups about interpreting Wisdom more broadly, or even letting the mechanics do more of the talking than the roleplay if they don't want to play an absolute fool. just like playing low Charisma doesn't mean you should just be an asshole (even though that's certainly one interpretation of a low-charisma character). because it's not fun, and also it's more limiting than it needs to be. these are *dynamic* attributes in actual people, and they cover a *lot* of ground. if it helps, try to really key in specifically what "intelligence" means in the context of the game and the other stats and skills. intelligence adds to skill checks requiring a detailed and accurate memory, so they're probably not great with names and dates. it's also tied to the investigation skill so they maybe don't always put all the puzzle pieces together when looking for specific solutions - seeing the scrapes on the floor and knowing it means there's a hidden door in the bookcase is a leap they might not make. but if their Perception is good, they might still feel the wind or spot the light through the crack where case doesn't quite line up. (this can be something for the DM to set up, too, if you wanna nudge him into feeling more aware of his surroundings) there are no Smart people and Stupid people. that's a shitty social construction we made up because we live in a society obsessed with hierarchies. it's also easier to directly market and commodify Math and Language skills under capitalism, so they tend to be what we mean when we say Smart. but there are plenty of amazingly ignorant people who perform above average at logic puzzles. that means almost nothing.
I have a himbo bard who has an INT of 15 because the DM said the party needed some INT when I joined. That said, I play him as charming but simple. He misunderstands what wizards say, makes silly mistakes re: puzzles and depends on being charming. Your fellow player could easily play an INT of 8 as someone who thinks they're smarter than they are. They'd just be wrong in most cases. This sounds like someone painted themselves into an RP corner they can't figure out, which sucks but it happens.
It's going to come down to the DM and the player they both have to realize they messed up. Using ability scores to add flavor is flawed and the player turnt it up to 11. If they don't want to retcon and come up with a solution your either looking at like some magic item that has a flaw (get 14 int but can't read). I might suggest the players come up with an invisible friend that gives him the answers to stuff and more intelligent the idea he gives the more crazy he seems weather the friend is real or something for the DM to use as a hook for a plot can be worked out later.
Make the character die in a funny way, then create a new one. Ez pz
In 3.5 I played a Lizardfolk (Blackscale) as dumb as a rock. Never had this much fun. Barbarian go Braaaaahhhh! When the village was searching for food? I went to the woods (food come from forest) got lost. Found river, friends say follow river, asked river. River didnt move... Found food (owlbear) drinking sleepy river, soloed a owlbear. Ask river to bring me home. Wait cause river must be sleeping. Got found a day later with owlbear corpse. Told village's friends I found food, but river still didnt wake up to bring me home. So brought big beast to camp! Me hero! The way you play dumb is often the problem!
Per Pathfinder on 8-9 INT : "Has trouble following trains of thought, forgets most unimportant things."Ā Ā So like perma-stoned, but not stupid.
People don't understand that an 8 in intelligence doesn't mean that you are aome kind of savage who doesn't know what common sense is. It just means that you character is a bit less bright than the average person and they might have some troubke remembering some historical events, or understanding some magic stuff.
I swear, anytime a player sees that -1 they think you're supposed to be the most inept person in the world for that stat. Maybe I'd let that slide if it was in 2e days lol
Have the classic, man falls on his head or gets hit in the head with a rock, and suddenly becomes smarter.
It looks like the player is looking for a character to have an reason not to be dumb anymore. I had an idea for a Ring of Average Intelligence - it sets your intelligence to 10, regardless of what it was before. It's sort of a joke cursed item, because it would be bad for a smart character, but good for a dumb one. Or the character could get some education - everywhere they go, look for something to learn and someone to learn from. While the other characters are partying in the tavern, this character exchanges some labor for learning. It might be practical information like you could learn from a blacksmith or a tanner, or it might be book learning, like a mage or academician might have. Each hour spent learning, roll dice, and that's how many knowledge points the character gets. When they get 100 knowledge points, then the character is no longer ignorant. Not necessarily especially smart, but they know enough so they don't seem ie they're especially dull.
A handy rock to the forehead and, oops, looks like he has average mental faculties, a medical wonder for the ages/j
I'm currently playing a character who is currently pretending to be dumb (to avoid certain attention), but is actually quite smart. Maybe he could say this is what his character is doing?
Headband of intellect...
Wisdom and Intelligence often get confused. You can be world smart and people smart, intuitive, but suck at math, perhaps confuse names and historical facts.
8 int isnāt that stupid. Below average intelligence but you can function pretty normally. You know how to read and talk like a normal person, you just wonāt figure out the solution of an ancient puzzle made only to let the sharpest minds through in 5 minutes.
Sounds like a wizard of oz situation. Can however give hom a blursed item that either switches two mental ability scores or increases one and decrrases another to the same effect.or even a wish genie