Int vs. Wis
Before we get into the nitty-gritty of “what my ability scores mean to me,” let’s start with something we can all agree on: D&D Stats Explained With Tomatoes is freaking hilarious. All agreed? OK then. Now that that’s out of the way, let’s start arguing with one another.
To begin with, even though the famous tomato example is amusing, it is not definitive. Allow me to draw your attention to this line: “Wisdom is knowing not to put a tomato in a fruit salad.” Think about that for a second. Is cookery necessarily Wisdom-based? What about those crazy molecular gastronomy gnomes? They seem pretty Int-based to me. And what if we’re talking about a sushi chef making the perfect cut on a fish? Wouldn’t that be Dex-based? Now we’re not even sticking to the mental stats. Aargh!
This is more than semantic quibbling. In the same way that a GM can make ad hoc calls to decide which ability score gets used in a roll (e.g. “You’re lifting weights to impress Her Highness? Give me a Strength… I mean… A Charisma check I guess?”), players get to make calls about the ways that ability scores themselves reflect character. All of this combines to mean something as unintuitive as it is unsettling: If our beloved tomato example isn’t definitive, neither are the ability score descriptions in the book.
You know those parts of rules that say things like “ignore whatever you don’t like” or “feel free to change things to fit your group?” This is one of those spots. Say you’ve got a low Constitution. Maybe that means you’re a Doc Holliday type with a chronic cough. Maybe your character is old and infirm. Maybe you’re overweight, or unusually thin, or cursed by dark magic, or any of a thousand other possibilities. Sure there are some ability scores that fit more naturally into certain rolls (I’ve got a high Strength, so I lift heavy objects for a living), but the same character trait can translate into Constitution (I lift heavy objects all day long).
So what’s my point in all this? Do not allow your stats to dictate your character. We’ve got a radical freedom at our fingertips, one made available by the weird Rorschach test of character creation. You’ve got the power to reinterpret those chicken entrails however you like. If you’ve got an affable lunkhead of a PC, you’re not somehow playing wrong because a low Charisma ought to mean a sullen personality. It’s not incorrect to treat a Dexterous character like Mr. Magoo, stumbling your way out of a fireball’s blast radius rather than dodging it like every other Legolas out there. These stats are a language to describe characters, not chains to bind them. Make sure you remember that as you roll up your next dude.
Question of the day then. Have you ever encountered an especially unconventional interpretation of an ability score? What was it? Let’s hear it in the comments!
THIS COMIC SUCKS! IT NEEDS MORE [INSERT OPINION HERE] Is your favorite class missing from the Handbook of Heroes? Maybe you want to see more dragonborn or aarakocra? Then check out the “Quest Giver” reward level over on the The Handbook of Heroes Patreon. You’ll become part of the monthly vote to see which elements get featured in the comic next!
This actually reminds me of one of your previous strips where the Sorcerer gets more chicks than the wizard because of his Charisma, but you mentioned how one could use their INT for flirting too. Similar tale.
I was partying with a group in a pathfinder game as a brawler when we have to rescue the princess from asmodeus cultist. They put her under a curse that put her into a deep slumber and were using that as leverage on the king, so we do what adventurers do and put a whole stop to that mess. We had a bard, a Magus, a cleric, and a fighter in the group, and it was the bard and magus trying to woo the princess.
The bard did what bards tend to do and rolled his diplomacy to try and woo the princess with a song and such. The magus, who had dumped charisma, went a different route; he convinced the GM that he would instead use his superior intelligence in regards to the curse she was afflicted, as well as regale her with details of the adventure they undertook to save her (this was covered with an arcana and history check respectively).
The rest of us didn’t really care to impress the princess but for the sake of cooperation we sorta split up into teams to help wingman for th bard or Magus, though it was growing clearer that the Magus has a stronger pull on the princess than the bard. It was most telling when the bard basically ended up doing exactly what the Magus did except with performance or diplomacy checks, so he inadvertently just ended up supporting the story the Magus told her.
Anyways we all get out sweet loot from the king including titles of nobility, and the Magus married the princess and has a claim to royalty. The bard was somewhat butthurt about this since he felt that the Magus stole his thunder (and to be fair to the bard the Magus did tend to throw his weight around a lot) but it became moot point after the bard had to leave due to life reasons. It was u fortunate too because while the Magus could spew garble as much as he wants we actually did need the bard for the day-to-day conversations. I later had to fill in the toll using a Skald though that is a story for another day.
What, this comic?
https://www.handbookofheroes.com/archives/comic/wizard-vs-sorcerer
I think you’re referring to the scrollover text on that one: “You know that scene in ‘A Beautiful Mind’ where Russell Crowe uses his vast intellect and the power of math to score at the bar? Wizard never saw that movie.”
Past silliness aside, my favorite part of your comment is this line:
We all play this game from time to time. It’s the old player trick of, “I think it makes more sense for the story if I used my [insert much higher stat].” I tend to settle that situation in my games by making the DC higher for the “secondary skill” than the “primary skill” (borrowing a bit from 4e skill challenges). I sympathize with the bard, but I applaud the magus. He worked with the tools at his disposal to overcome the challenge in a characterful way. Seems like fair ball to me.
Aye, that’s the one.
And I agree, I’ve always been in favor of never limiting one self to a pigeon-holed role. One thing I tried to advise to the bard when I was supporting him was trying to change up from just lute playing and sweet words towards the princess and talk a bit about himself; flattery means nothing from a nobody. The Magus had the right idea to make the Princess interested in him for the things he knows and have done, and by the time the bard tried that tactic he basically said “yeah I was there helping him”.
Admittedly this of course can go the other way too. I’m sure you’ve seen your fair share of Diplomacy Horror stories or “when all you have is a hammer” tactics. One of the reasons I sympathized with the bard was because the Magus would often try and find someway to make himself important or useful to whatever was going on, which can be annoying when you’re tired of someone hogging the spotlight because they can do everything.
In any case, related to this comic that does bring me to another thing that I personally use at times: in 5e my half-orc ninja barbarian chef typically uses his Constitution instead of something like his Wisdom for using cooking tools because he “cooks with his gut”. I can usually get away with it until my GM made a plot about someone getting poisoned and didn’t remebered I had the Gourmad Feat. Suddenly I have to use my INT to figure out how to do stuff I’ve been following my gut on the past few weeks. I think he just wanted a more refined mystery investigation themed adventure instead of the usual murder hobo stuff we did.
You’ve got my sympathy on that one. There’s definitely fun to be had casting Maslow’s Hammer…
https://www.handbookofheroes.com/archives/comic/i-cast-maslows-hammer
…But that’s no excuse to act like a prima donna. There’s more to good gaming than mechanically overcoming obstacles, and you’ve got to learn to share the spotlight sometimes.
Aye, tis something my own GM brought up with me when I was playing my Skald. While to be fair, a recent subplot resulted in the death of my IC brother and mother, he was getting annoyed that I was so bent on revenge I sort of took front and center on things. Helped that as a Skald day spell Kenning does whatever our cleric can’t do at that very moment.
But I don’t want to rag too much in the Magus. He was actually the new guy in our group and we spent most of our early level teaching him the mechanics. Early on he was basically your classic fighter; all he did was roll damage and sit out until the next scrap, but not wanting to be useless he took the iniative to figure out what a Magus could do.
As with all things, knowledgr is tempered with experience. Kid wasn’t a bad player, he just didn’t know the ins and outs. Nowadays he’s a bit more chill and more focused having a coherent backstory and playing a character instead of a beatstick. Which he still isn’t good at but points for trying.
Kinda reminds me of the “Can I do the Thing” reddit post ( https://www.reddit.com/r/rpg/comments/4auazy/can_i_do_the_thing/ ), particularly the Fate entry.
In our Rise of the Runelords game one player (who I feel I mention a lot) is a very daft Hobgoblin kinetisist, who need even the most basic things explaining to him. He actually has an Int of about 11 or 12, he just argues that being a Hobgoblin he knows different things to what everyone else knows, and doesn’t know the things they do know. He also has a Wis of 7 and a very strange outlook on the world, which rounds out that concept pretty nicely.
On the subject of what to roll for a particular check, I like the 5e optional rule of mixing stats with different proficiencies. You want to impress the princess? Roll Charisma (persuasion). You want to impress her by lifting weights? Roll Strength (persuasion). You want to impress her by solving puzzles? Roll Intelligence (persuasion). The Constitution (persuasion) roll here is a bit of a frat boy move though.
You ever try d10 system? Rolling a pool of dice from STRENGTH + SOCIALIZE feels pretty good in this sort of situation. It always struck me that 5e was DL borrowing from that design.
I haven’t played d10, but it sounds like a really good way to deal with that issue.
How does it work with something which is purely one skill though? If you want to lift a heavy thing do you roll STRENGTH + STRENGTH?
Check out a character sheet:
https://www.deviantart.com/skraunn/journal/And-This-Is-What-I-ve-Made-673782539
The basic mechanic is rolling a pool of dice equal to Attribute + Ability. I believe feats of strength fall under Strength + Athletics. If a GM wanted to get creative for some reason, you could also roll Strength x 2, but this is generally outside the rules of regular play. The system itself allows for A LOT of creativity in dice pools. What situation might call for an Appearance + Technology roll, for example? Shenanigans.
Hmm, my high dexterity has allowed me to spot… a clerical art upgrade! Truly, the Generic Goodly gods have smiled upon him this day. Either that, or they really couldn’t stand to look at his normal form any longer.
Your eyes moved SO FAST you were able to pick up extra details….
In pathfinder I’m pretty fond of using Know:nobility based on charisma as a general “act appropriately in formal settings” skill.
Also various “skill based on [casting stat]” for special magical rituals (I see no reason why those should only be for NPC villains creating plots, and adding skill rolls allow players to give them a try.)
Molecular gastronomy really does sound like something requiring a much higher tech-level than the typical dnd-setting has.
However if we generalize the same problem exists with things such as a dancer, which really should have both dex and charisma, or a smith (strength in addition to int).
What’s the difference between a meticulous chef and an alchemist? Of course, my opinion doesn’t matter. It’s just the GM that you’ve got to convince.
Do you mean that you trade your Int bonus for a Cha bonus on the roll, but simply keep the skill ranks and skill-specific bonuses? How did you arrive at that clever bit of homebrew?
“Do you mean that you trade your Int bonus for a Cha bonus on the roll, but simply keep the skill ranks and skill-specific bonuses? How did you arrive at that clever bit of homebrew?”
Yes that’s exactly what I mean.
Thank you for the compliment, but I’m not entirely sure how I came up to it, but I’d guess it was heavily influenced from having played other games more open to doing that kind of thing, mainly various White Wolf games, GURPS and L5R.
How did you make those neat quote boxes by the way?
It’s just a greater than sign: >
Cool that you’re mixing and matching Ability/Skill rolls in 3.X. It’s an option in 5e and the main feature in dice pool games, but I hadn’t seen it applied to d20 system. Not a bad idea though.
I have thought about combo rolls before. Basically your dancer situation. Increase the DC and roll CHA and DEX and combine the rolls. This way, one statcan cover for the other. Say your character has amazing DEX but low CHA. He lets he’s feet do the talking. Opposite issue? Never broke eye-contact and never let off the charm to make up for a lack of coordination.
How far would you increase the DC? A straight up doubling? That was my first thought, but it has implications for average rolls thanks to the bell curve….
Yeah I thought of that too, since the farther you get to one extreme value on two dice, the fewer combinations actually exist (hence the curve)… maybe fifty percent rounded up? That also sounds “too easy” if that’s possible…
I’ve seen dudes go with an average of two ability score bonuses, but these system hacks always feel slightly off in terms of d20 system. That’s why I tend to error on the side of “let the player choose.” You could also go with “you can attempt both rolls, but only making one will one give a marginal success.”
My Kobold Slayer has a high Wisdom score.
He has also taken no less than two Scorching Rays and at least four melee or ranged attacks to the face for being the first one into a room when he should have waited on the others.
The first time was when he saw a dude sitting on a bed that we were there to kill. There was a wand next to him and he had his nose in a book. We had just broken into his home area in the cave so there was a high chance he should know we were there. Wisdom as others might tell us would say “This is obviously a trap! Don’t go any farther!”. But to him that only meant he had to be sneakier than the trapper. He was not. Hit neatives on that one.
He does have one of the highest Health Pools in the party despite being the physically smallest member at just over 2′ high though, so high risk high reward is less daunting a task to him.
I guess his “Wisdom” is “stay out of danger, unless it’s shiny, or will make you look awesome!”
Maybe that’s what we should all do, write up what each stat means to our character.
As I’ve said before:
It is easy to roleplay as a high-STR character if you yourself are not strong.
It is easy to roleplay as a high-DEX character if you yourself are not dexterous.
It is easy to roleplay as a high-CON character if you yourself have low endurance.
It is not too difficult to roleplay as a high-CHA character if you yourself have low charisma (let thy skill rolls do the talking).
It is not too difficult to roleplay as a high-INT character if you yourself are not intelligent (skill rolls, notes and outside information).
It is extremely difficult to roleplay as a high-WIS character if you yourself have low wisdom.
It’s hard to play a high charisma character if you don’t possess basic social skills, the ability to make reasoned arguments/convincing lies and an understanding of how people think.
https://www.reddit.com/r/DMAcademy/comments/8lknrx/psa_high_persuasion_rolls_arent_mindcontrol/
You don’t need to roleplay a dramatic speech, but you can’t just “Do the thing.” (I roll persuasion) through it. You can say “I convince them to do the thing by pointing out x logical reason to do the thing” though.
squints eyes
Not sure if saying I lack wisdom or not…
I would say it’s more knowledge than just having a high “stat”
I don’t need to be suave if I have had enough examples (The Fonz, 007, any Nathan Fillion roll ever :P) to go by and time to formulate a response (minutes between turns that only translates to seconds in game).
It’s the same thing for skill checks, like we talked about a few comics ago.
I have FAR more computer knowledge than I do car knowledge, so I can prattle on about how I break into ‘X’ system, but I would have to stop after the words “I Hotwire the car to start it”. In reality I doubt I could do either of these things, but I KNOW enough about one to fake it.
Heh, there’s an idea! Character homework!
suspciousFry.jpg
I would think that changing your playstyle to “cautious” would be a pretty easy way to RP a high-Wisdom character. I guess you’re saying a a low-Wisdom person would have a hard time recognizing in-game warning signs of danger…?
“This is more than semantic quibbling. In the same way that a GM can make ad hoc calls to decide which ability score gets used in a roll (e.g. “You’re lifting weights to impress Her Highness? Give me a Strength… I mean… A Charisma check I guess?”)”
This is why 5E (Mostly) unmoored skills from abilities. If you read any adventure you’ll notice that when it calls for ability checks it’ll say “Strength (Athletics) check” This is because you can just as easily do a Constitution (Athletics) check to fill the role of the Endurance skill from earlier editions.
In the scenario you provided, that’d probably be a Strength: Performance check.
True that. It’s an advantage of bounded accuracy that this solution becomes viable. Of course, it’s far less intuitive than dice pool systems that do the trick better (Do I still add my proficiency…?), but it can perform similarly. Skill synergy in 3.5 was another trick to try and solve the problem, but it was even less intuitive.
In D&D a skill check equals one action, or at least that is how many people play it, it’s not bad, but in my group sometimes we use many skill and attributes checks for one action. For example lifting a standard use heavy box is a STR check, moving all the boxes in a warehouse would be, for example, a STR check to see if the PC can lift the box and then a CON check to see if he has enough energy to move all the boxes. In the example of lifting things to impress and old lady we would do a STR check to see if we can lift that thing, and then a CHA check to see how much we impress her. What you do if you fail one of the checks? Well maybe you can lift the heavy thing but then you fail the CHA check and then fail the bowels of the PC, in front of Her Highness. Maybe you have the CON to move all the standard use heavy boxes but the PC grab one of them and can not lift it or it falls and all that. We even use check to boost another check. You don’t have enough STR to lift a box? Do a DEX to grab the box, if you suceded you have a bonus to the STR check to lift it. When it is not a critical, for the story, check we use the fall forward mentality. Not all check are a success or fail thing, sometimes if you fail you can try again, other time you can just try another skill or attribute. More dice throw can be problematic, and combining success and failure can be tricky but is a system we like and use a lot, not all the checks are many-checks-one-action. Another thing we do is reinterpret the attributes in ways we can use them in many ways, for example moving the boxes with DEX instead of STR or using the CHA modifier to see how much is worth “under the hood” 😉
Speaking of attributes, who is the one with intelligence as his dump stat who suggested Wis vs Int as a comic?
Behaving Intelligently
Schattensturm
09/08/2018, 11:38 am
Not that I remembered or anything…. >_>
I know you don’t 😛
Y’know, I never thought of the “bumbling lucky klutz” character archetype as Dex-based, but I suppose it makes as much sense as anything else.
Honestly? I’m kind of tempted to make that character now.
Be sure to take a bunch of the [Luck] feats from Complete Scoundrel and the Fortune’s Friend prestige class.
Oh Magoo! You’ve done it again!
I have started encouraging my players to figure out what they want to do and then make the relevant skill check, rather than simply using the one skill for a task. They have to a reason behind why they’re using certain skills, and it may have a different outcome, I think that it’s going well.
For instance, yesterday the party was trying to pick out the best mercenaries to join them on their quest. One player used insight to try and figure out who had the most skills, one player used perception to see who was the most dangerous/scarred/muscled, and another player thought about using investigation to orderly sort through everyone then remembered that he wasn’t there.
Right on. I think the game works best when we use language rather than mechanics to describe play. For example, I remember my party coming up to an intelligent door in an Exalted game. The stubborn AI wouldn’t open for us. The tactician of the party had maxed out his War stat, giving rise the the following ridiculousness:
Player: “OK. I’m going to roll War on the door.”
GM: “How does War apply to this situation?”
Player: “How doesn’t it apply to this situation? I’m good at commanding troops right? I make war on the door.”
GM: “I… Umm… Could you describe what you want to happen?”
Player: “I want the door to open!”
The door did not open.
I once ended up in the awkward situation of GMing a party containing a ‘Diplomancer Bard’ and an ‘I dumped CHA Barbarian’. At first glance that doesn’t sound too bad, right? Well rounded and equipped for combat and social situations. The problem was the player styles.
The bard was a very nervous player, who was absolutely convinced I was out to get them. To be fair, I was. The events of that campaign are why that party won’t ever trust an NPC cleric again (In my defence, it was only the one cleric that betrayed them). Every time the bard wanted to do something, she would carefully deliberate her options, choose her words carefully to prevent misinterpretations, and generally stall before rolling. This didn’t really mesh with my ‘lightning’ style of GMing that tries to keep the game moving no matter what (I’m a big proponent of ‘If you can’t find it in 30 seconds, make up a ruling’), but I tried for her.
The problem was that the barbarian never thought through anything and just did things. An example would be the time they arrived in a town and stopped a random peasant to ask which way to the castle. Now, I wasn’t gonna make a big deal out of it. There were several ways to find the castle, and I just wanted to know which they were using (Walk around blindly, ask, find a map, etc) for time concerns and encounters on route. The bard pulls out her die and tries to work out what to say to ask where to go, when the barbarian demands that the peasant tells him where the castle is. Having no reason not to, the peasant told him because I didn’t think it was a big deal. Definitely not diplomacy check material. That kind of thing went on throughout the entire campaign, where the bard would hesitate on just doing things to roll and the barbarian just did. And that’s how a 6 charisma character can handle social situations better than a diplomancer through guts and audacity.
And before you ask, yes the bard did manage to contribute to the campaign in several major ways that made her feel included, especially during the climatic boss battle which is affectionately called ‘How the lv 8 bard oneshotted the CR 30+ demon lord with a cantrip’.
I really do need to get around to that “why my players aren’t allowed to buy gun powder” strip….
I hope that bard wasn’t upset about being upstaged in social situations. That actually an interesting dynamic in terms of character development: The professional diplomat thinks carefully while the impulsive brute says what’s on his mind.
She was a little outraged at the start, but eventually got used to it. I distinctly remember the quote “You have 6 charisma. Shut up!” from the early campaign. However, she did mange to talk people into doing things her way often enough that she was satisfied.
It did lead to some amusing circumstances after they got used to it, when the barbarian chimed up during an encounter that actually required tact and diplomacy checks. It led to him being challenged to a duel by the noble he’d just insulted. And no, the insult wasn’t the result of a failed diplomacy check. He, completely in character, just flat out spoke rudely to the noble. And then botched his diplomacy check.
So the barbarian starts grinning wildly about the duel and bragging. After all, what can some skinny noble with a dinky little rapier do to the big burly dwarf? I barely managed to keep a straight face until the revelation several hours later that this kingdom considered weapons primitive. It was a mage duel.
The tomato thing reminds me a lot of this.
https://imgur.com/gallery/3bu24Mn
Which especially appeals to me because I love burgers.
Though, as mentioned previously, I don’t really believe in the alignment system.
You brought up cooking and…. yeah. Aside from Constitution you could argue the ability to cook falls under any stat. Like many things it’s more about how you’re doing it than what you’re doing.
I once had a Bard who was all about cooking and I described all of their spells as feats of combat cooking.
I imagine it would have made just as much sense to declare they were doing it with Int, Wisdom, or Dex if the mechanics allowed for that. Description would have gone totally crazypants if I’d had to do it flavored based on Strength though. 😉
Heh. Check out Lucius’s comment above:
Intelligence is knowing that a tomato based fruit salad is just a kind of salsa.
Well there’s a T-shirt poised to piss of nerds everywhere, lol
Ironically the cleric’s suggestion might also be more practical, given the amount of magical jewelry available in D&D world. A Ring of Invisibility or a Ring of Protection would both synergize well.
I dunno man… Give your girlfriend rings and you’re asking for all kinds of assumptions.
An Amulet of Natural Armor then
As for cookery, I think it would generally either be Profession(Cook) or Craft(Foodstuffs). Except at Benihana type restaurants where it would be Perform(Juggling)
What? You’re missing the critical cooking component of Strength!
https://tenor.com/view/popeye-meat-market-bull-punch-strong-gif-4297856
We kinda always measure Charisma as the “Looks good and is Social” Stat. But if you have low Charisma that means you are either Ugly or you have no social graces at all.
For uns that means, you Charakter can be pretty, but he’d better not open his Mouth for all the Obscenetys that he sets into the World. On the other hand your Chracter can be so Butt Ugly Looking at his Faces makes People Nauseous, but otherwise hes a somewhat decent Guy.
High Charisma means for us you look at least Averange or beautiful, and well you know how to move in Society.
Actually i have had most of my Fun with my Elven Ganger in Shadowrun. Elves usually have at least 3 Charisma, which his about averange for a Humand and everyone else. But he has a Quality that reduces his Charisma by one. It’s even called “Ugly but doesn’t care about it”. It’s really fun and the Attribut really helps to play totally against the Elven Stereotype. He’s loud Obnoxious, Ugly as Sin, not the sharpest Tool in the shed, and has a Temper that gets him and his Team regularly into Trouble.
As an amusing point of comparison:
Yet another point on which 5e shines. Lifting weights to impress the princess? That’s obviously a PERFORMANCE(STR) check.
Like many other instances, this moment of clarity comes from yet another person arguing badly against this style of unorthodox application of stats, making the claim that a strong burly guy could not apply that strength towards intimidation, but could only use his charisma.
He kept trying for an argument of “even if you’re scared of him physically hurting you, that doesn’t mean you automatically convince him to tell you the truth”
It was a hair pulling moment, because he was absolutely oblivious to the idea that the same thing applied to a normal intimidation(cha) check, and that’s what rolling the d20 was for; to determine if the skill actually WORKS.
To clarify, skills are your trained (whether formally or picked up along the way via observation and/or trial and error) techniques, while abilities are your natural capability.
Because of this, it’s easy to understand that your skills will leverage your base abilities as if they are tools, just like how using tools themselves can leverage different abilities depending on what it is you’re actually trying to do. (theives’ tools may be dexterity for opening a normal lock, but a combination lock might actually be wisdom, for listening for the clicks, or intelligence, for calculating the combination)
In the case of “lift weights to impress girl” this isn’t a simple athletics check. The goal is not to JUST get the weight lifted into the air, the goal is to look cool doing it. He is trying to influence people via non-verbal actions; clearly performance skill, but he is not just singing or some sort of poetry or just looking handsome, he is lifting something heavy; clearly leveraging his strength. Performance(Str) check it is.
But then there’s still a matter of “everything works in theory” and that’s why every check is 1D20+skill+ability and not just skill+ability. There’s always a chance something goes wrong in the actual execution of said task, that’s what the d20 is for.
When you think about it, the d20 is what brings reality to the game; the chance of execution diverging from expectations.
** clarification; “even if you’re scared of him physically hurting you” should be “even if HE is scared of YOU physically hurting HIM”