My NPC cleric of Erastil has high wisdom, but below average intelligence (8). How should I roleplay him? He comes from a small, rural town in the middle of nowhere and he is lawful good.
What's his charisma?
He could be one of those people that smiles a lot does what is needed but is wise enough not to talk too much knowing he doesn't have much to offer up. Instead he stands there and nods when things sound right with his wisdom and possibly offers a little advance occasionally.
Trusting and slow to judge. When involved in combat, always delay to the last initiative count. Come up with outlandish answers to most questions ala Pinky and the Brain.
I look at Wisdom as common sense, practicality, and the basic ability to know the right thing to do or say at the right time.
I look at Intelligence as book-smarts, accumulated knowledge, and the ability to figure things out.
Following that guideline, your halfwit cleric :) should have a head full of folklore and wives tales, know just the right kind of yoke to make the most of that ox-plow, know how to get water out of a well, know how to tell when it's going to rain tomorrow, know just the right poultice for bedsores, etc.
He probably also puts ranks into Knowledge(Religion) even if he only gets one skill rank each level, so he knows the right prayers for all occasions, knows the rituals for marriages, funerals, new births, holidays, etc. - but he had to study harder than most of the other acolytes in the seminary to learn all this stuff, and probably still flubs it once in a while ("Dearly beloved, we are gathered here today to bless this couple in holy matrimonky. I mean magicpony. I mean, uh, in holy marriage.")
Buy if you ask him to do math, or solve a puzzle, or give a history lesson, or other stuff like that, he'll probably just give you a blank look, or tell you that "Such things are for high-falutin' city folk. Simple folk like us got no reason to clutter our heads with poppycock like that lest we be takin' on airs. Now, run along and see to your chores afore that storm comes in tomorra."
Or something like that.
What's his charisma?
He could be one of those people that smiles a lot does what is needed but is wise enough not to talk too much knowing he doesn't have much to offer up. Instead he stands there and nods when things sound right with his wisdom and possibly offers a little advance occasionally.
His stats are as follows
STR: 14
DEX: 8
CON: 12
INT: 8
WIS: 17
CHA: 14
More background: he is the younger brother to Rental Praast, the official town priest of Kassen (Crypt of the Everflame). He accompanies my wife's character (Ranger 3) on her travels.
Currently, they are approaching the city of Tamran (Masks of the Living God). This is the first time he's been to a city, so I want to show how out of his element he is.
Buddha then. Something along the lines of what DM_Blake suggested would work well or maybe someone a bit like a cross of Andy Griffith and Barry Fife (for the clumsiness).
As positively wretched as it is, you can lean on the "noble savage" stereotype. Say little, but what you do say should be incontrovertibly true and well-considered.
Keep to simple statements, but let your Perception succeed where others fail and give them the impression that you are really on top of things.
Don't suggest elaborate plans, or try to out-think the opposition. Instead, react to matters as they are.
Wide-eyed simple rustic, who is overwhelmed by the big city, until he has seen through all these facades, and realized that humans are pretty much the same everywhere. He will probably be easy prey for elaborate con schemes and things like that.
just my 2c
Stefan
Wide-eyed simple rustic, who is overwhelmed by the big city, until he has seen through all these facades, and realized that humans are pretty much the same everywhere. He will probably be easy prey for elaborate con schemes and things like that.
just my 2c
Stefan
Except for that wisdom which would help him see that the ruses are just that.
Now maybe if he was low wisdom and high intelligence he would fall for something like that.
Besides an Int of 8 isn't imbecile range. I would suggest most of us regularly work with someone with an Int of 8 probably without it causing any untoward problems. It's not until you get down in the 5~7 range you really start seeing the lack.
I once played a 2nd or 1st edition monk that had 3 Int and 15 Wis. Basically, he didn't know what was going on, but he always knew the right thing to do. Relied on instincts and his gut, not book learning. He was kind of based on the Age of Apocalypse version of Wild Child. Because he didn't know what was going on but always seemed to know the right thing to do, it was almost as if he was very lucky.
I would rely on luck, intuition, and instinct.
This is someone who lacks knowledge but makes up for it with his intuition, empathy, and connection to the divine. Where another character might resort to cleverness or careful logic, he'll draw on gut instinct and simple folk wisdom.
Heaped librams cluttered the library shelves and walkways, so the party spread out to search, deciphering ancient glyphs in their quest to find the archmage's journal. Seeing Father Jenke sitting down in a musty armchair while the others searched, Sly Skennel glared at him. "Why aren't you searching?"
The cleric held up a slender volume. "Is this the one we needed?"
Grabbing it, Skennel recognized the archmage's spidery hand on its pages. "How did you find it so quickly?" he asked, suspicion filling his features.
"I just sat down where I would want to write, where the light is most pleasant. It was right here."
"Why didn't you tell us you found it?" the rogue demanded.
"You all seemed to be discovering such interesting books, I didn't want to make you stop," Jenke genially explained.
Lots of good approaches here already; I'll chuck in my 2 c.p.s to Smaug's hoard anyway...
Given that the character in question is a priest of Erastil, of all deities, being culture-shocked in a big city shouldn't be too hard at all.
Besides, I think Erastil makes a great model for high Wisdom, but perhaps lower Intelligence. Salmon know where to go to spawn. Monarch butterflies migrate thousands of miles. Bees can dance to other bees signaling just where a lot of nectar can be found. Bats can echolocate. Spiders spin webs, and a deer knows when to bound and when to freeze perfectly still. Beavers build dams that can reshape a vast stretch of terrain for centuries. Etc. Etc. Etc. Yet none of these creatures can write their lore down in a book...
I'm guessing your character can FEEL the sap rising in the trees, SENSE the immense slow turning of Golarion the planet, and KNOW that the ice melting in distant mountain crevasses, will soon be causing rivers to flood, and by how much... But half the time it's all but impossible to put any of this in words...
Feeling all the threads in the local ecology - all the myriad ever-shifting contingencies and interdependences...
A holistic, pattern-sensing awareness, not a dissecting analysis...
Another way to say this: having trouble thinking in abstractions. Everything's concrete, specific - but sometimes the reality the Wise person is trying to describe or explain is so varied & multipartite that what he or she says ends up coming out cryptic, poetic, almost non sequitors - like some of the replies of the Oracle of Delphi. Emily Dickinson's dictum: "Tell all the truth, but tell it slant." - Because how could you express the All in a sentence?
I'm thinking also of Taoism- the kind of things the Tao Teh Ching says.
Or in another direction entirely- River Tam, from Firefly/Serenity. Okay, she was admittedly crazy, but she grokked the hidden or deeper truth of all sorts of people, places, and things- though superficially it seemed like what she said or did was nonsensical...
Anyway, just my stream of consciousness addition...
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Except for that wisdom which would help him see that the ruses are just that.Now maybe if he was low wisdom and high intelligence he would fall for something like that.
Besides an Int of 8 isn't imbecile range. I would suggest most of us regularly work with someone with an Int of 8 probably without it causing any untoward problems. It's not until you get down in the 5~7 range you really start seeing the lack.
This.
This is exactly my motivation to play a low intelligence cleric of Sarenrae as thoughtful and somewhat slow, but also cunning and never gullible. He's always somewhat hotheaded, since his mental smarts don't work allow him to fashion elaborate plans quickly and on the fly like the more studious and quick partymembers.
That doesn't mean he jumps to conclusion on a whim, but instead contemplates decisions, sometimes long beforehand, snapping to action once he's solved enough of the possible outcomes of an important choice to make a clear enough judgment call. Or at least one that leaves his conscience clear.
What this means on the gaming table is that when the rest of the team either wildly theorize(like the high int ranger and the group paladin) or immediately condemn threats and call for action(such as the barbarian), my character waits to speak last, often hoping for a peaceful solution. He is the voice of reason in hostile times, but often fumbles when it comes to forming intricate contigencies mid-fight or in times of stress. Instead, when confronted with a situation where others have already acted, he, as befitting the servant of the divine fire, runs on intuition, hoping for his trust in the team to make the day.
Of course, it doesn't always work out right. Cue exploding distilleries and abrupt walls of fire placed without any sense of strategy. But hey, I get to play with my lack of 3.5/PF experience to the utmost!
Here's how I differentiate between Intelligence and Wisdom when these sorts of issues come up.
Wisdom involves the ability to accurately perceive things as they are without being fooled by pretenses.
Intelligence involves extrapolation and deduction. It is what helps you to see the bigger picture when you have only clues to work with... an incomplete puzzle to assemble.
If you look at a character like Sherlock Holmes, his Wisdom helps him to tell when someone is lying to him, to spot a scuff mark where there was once a tripwire attached, to notice that something has been recently moved by the patterns left in the dust around it.
His intelligence is what helps him to piece all the clues he discovered together, to know what will constitute proof and to theorize where he might look for it. (In many games, DMs will allow characters Intelligence checks to connect-the-dots when their players are unable to.)
In the case of your character, I could see him being very perceptive and relying on obvious, common-sense answers to the problems he faces. While he's not the sharpest knife in the drawer, he's not so much stupid as lacking in imagination and a bit limited in the number of things he's good at (though depending upon the key ability, he may be very good at those few things).
Hope this helps.
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I guess you could say your character is a confident fellow. Everything can be explained though his God. He appreciates intelligent people, but they just don't see the big picture. An intelligent man knows details well, but a wise man knows the outcomes of most things before other people do. A wise person can give direction and purpose because they are naturally "in tune" with the nature of things. They speak with conviction and their advice deals with interactions and emotions. As a general rule they deal with soft problems that can't be explained with math or science. Wisdom is the fuzzy unexplainable.
Thanks for all of your insightful posts; I am starting to see a clearer picture of him now.
I'll play him as an optimistic, thoughtful, and deliberate guy, whose words always seem to carry a kernel of wisdom. My wife and I had three sessions so far, and I seemed to have given her the wrong impression that he is "a little spaced out." During battles, she and the wizard (who both have high initiatives) always seem to be waiting on the cleric because he tends to go last in a given round (-1 initiative). She feels that she can rely more heavily on the party wizard, who is always ready to offer up suggestions and multi-layered plans which the party can then execute (18 int). Also, my wife told me that her ranger is falling for the wizard because of his aura of self-assuredness and his competence in battle (he specializes in battlefield control, which incidentally helps keep her safe). She says she feels bad for the cleric because she is starting to treat him like a source of healing and nothing more. This is ironic because the cleric has higher charisma than the wizard, who I play as callous, arrogant and a little disinterested in people (LN; Cha 8).
With regards to imparting folk wisdom about the way the natural world works, my wife's knowledge (nature) check far outstrips his as she is a ranger. I put his limited skill ranks in knowledge (religion) and heal, but I am not sure how I can play up those strengths.
Of course, I can explain any changes to the cleric's personality as maturity -- the entire party consists of 18 year olds after all. Ultimately, I want this character to be an interesting source of roleplay and interaction as opposed to just: "Hey, give me some healing!"
I imagine an old, uneducated, blues musician.
He has no idea what trigonometry is, but he's always right about why some girl/guy broke your heart.
Maybe he is just inarticulate?
He doesn't have the ability or vocabulary to get more complex ideas across to others. When people ask him what reasons he has to, say, not trust the Duke, or follow one clue but not another - he can't really tell them why.. just that he knows what the right thing to do is.
Maybe he is just inarticulate?
He doesn't have the ability or vocabulary to get more complex ideas across to others. When people ask him what reasons he has to, say, not trust the Duke, or follow one clue but not another - he can't really tell them why.. just that he knows what the right thing to do is.
That would work except for that charisma of 14. He's not bad at expressing himself (though he could be by player choice) he's actually rather friendly and well liked with good personality (by the stats).
I imagine an old, uneducated, blues musician.
He has no idea what trigonometry is, but he's always right about why some girl/guy broke your heart.
Brilliant - I was going to suggest "bartender", but yours is better... :)
And let me also say that I agree with Abraham in terms of the fact that 8 int isn't someone who's unintelligent the way some people are describing.
He's a little slower than most at figuring things out, and probably hates puzzles (not because he can't get them, but because he takes so much longer than everyone else to do ti), but his wisdom is very high, so he *understands* things.
For instance, to use the Blues Musician analogy, he'll always understand why some girl will break your heart, and be able to pick out that girl in a crowd ahead of time. He'll be able to predict that she's the only one in the room that you'll ever notice and be into, because she's that kind of girl.
Ask him to explain why, however, and he'll just say "It's your nature" or "She's just like your first girlfriend" or something else which is relatively simple (and pretty much bang on). Ask the character with High Int to explain it, and he'll start talking about how you've got this clear pattern of behaviour, and you're now only attracted to girls like that because of how it's changed you, and, and, and....
To the high-wis character, that guy's just complicating things. That's what's meant by "folk-wisdom" (which I think the OP got confused with knowledge nature) -- you *understand* the order of things (Wis) without the *knowledge* of why, exactly, they're like that (Int).
That would work except for that charisma of 14. He's not bad at expressing himself (though he could be by player choice) he's actually rather friendly and well liked with good personality (by the stats).Maybe he is just inarticulate?
He doesn't have the ability or vocabulary to get more complex ideas across to others. When people ask him what reasons he has to, say, not trust the Duke, or follow one clue but not another - he can't really tell them why.. just that he knows what the right thing to do is.
He sort of reminds me of the daughter's boyfriend on "Modern Family."
Besides an Int of 8 isn't imbecile range. I would suggest most of us regularly work with someone with an Int of 8 probably without it causing any untoward problems. It's not until you get down in the 5~7 range you really start seeing the lack.
This I agree with. At 8, he's not exactly an idiot, but he will find himself saying "Why I didn't know that!" or "Learn something new every day" to things most people take for granted. And with a 17 wisdom, he just might be able to see any flaws in someone else's plans or ideas long before you do, even if he doesn't quite understand what you're after.
Besides an Int of 8 isn't imbecile range. I would suggest most of us regularly work with someone with an Int of 8 probably without it causing any untoward problems. It's not until you get down in the 5~7 range you really start seeing the lack.In fact, if you want to compare the statistics, the standard deviation of 3d6 (think, typical NPC) is 3, while the standard deviation of IQ is defined to be 15. So you could work off the assumption that +-2 INT is approximately +-10 IQ. Hence 8 INT is comparable to an IQ of 90, in that they are both about in the 30th percentile of the population. Not spectacularly dumb...
Never thought of it this way...that clever.
For some reason, I picture this character with a pipe. When someone asks him a question, he'll pull reflectively on the pipe before saying something profound (and a bit trite), like you'd see on a greeting card.
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Never thought of it this way...that clever.Besides an Int of 8 isn't imbecile range. I would suggest most of us regularly work with someone with an Int of 8 probably without it causing any untoward problems. It's not until you get down in the 5~7 range you really start seeing the lack.In fact, if you want to compare the statistics, the standard deviation of 3d6 (think, typical NPC) is 3, while the standard deviation of IQ is defined to be 15. So you could work off the assumption that +-2 INT is approximately +-10 IQ. Hence 8 INT is comparable to an IQ of 90, in that they are both about in the 30th percentile of the population. Not spectacularly dumb...
Very clever, actually. I like this a lot more than the old idea that 1 point of Int was 10 IQ. This way the range from 3-18 Int is 65 - 140 IQ, instead of 30 - 180 IQ. Interesting.
This is someone who lacks knowledge but makes up for it with his intuition, empathy, and connection to the divine. Where another character might resort to cleverness or careful logic, he'll draw on gut instinct and simple folk wisdom.
Heaped librams cluttered the library shelves and walkways, so the party spread out to search, deciphering ancient glyphs in their quest to find the archmage's journal. Seeing Father Jenke sitting down in a musty armchair while the others searched, Sly Skennel glared at him. "Why aren't you searching?"
The cleric held up a slender volume. "Is this the one we needed?"
Grabbing it, Skennel recognized the archmage's spidery hand on its pages. "How did you find it so quickly?" he asked, suspicion filling his features.
"I just sat down where I would want to write, where the light is most pleasant. It was right here."
"Why didn't you tell us you found it?" the rogue demanded.
"You all seemed to be discovering such interesting books, I didn't want to make you stop," Jenke genially explained.
This. +1!
Dave,
The odds are irrelevant to me. Pc's are considered to be supreme examples of humanoid potential. They have much higher statistics than common towns folk. Just because the heroes break the demographics doesn't mean we should assume all do. Why its clever is because it establishes a great real world scale we can all relate to. As a ratio it could even be applied to other stats.
Very clever, actually. I like this a lot more than the old idea that 1 point of Int was 10 IQ. This way the range from 3-18 Int is 65 - 140 IQ, instead of 30 - 180 IQ. Interesting.Never thought of it this way...that clever.Besides an Int of 8 isn't imbecile range. I would suggest most of us regularly work with someone with an Int of 8 probably without it causing any untoward problems. It's not until you get down in the 5~7 range you really start seeing the lack.In fact, if you want to compare the statistics, the standard deviation of 3d6 (think, typical NPC) is 3, while the standard deviation of IQ is defined to be 15. So you could work off the assumption that +-2 INT is approximately +-10 IQ. Hence 8 INT is comparable to an IQ of 90, in that they are both about in the 30th percentile of the population. Not spectacularly dumb...
Quick tangent.
Anyone want to know where my first lesson in statistics came from? D&D. That's right good ole Gary gave it to me. Not in person of course, but in the Advance D&D DMG he had a mini lesson on bell curve distribution and what it means to the die roll and character's stats in comparison to the real world.
That is the sort of information that is missed when you skim the book and don't read it word for word, and the sort of information that has been completely left out for so long now.
There are many times when I meet a new player that really wants to be "into" D&D but is lacking basic information on the background of where the game comes from that I simply hand him my advance books. Questions like "Why don't elves sleep?" "Why are all dwarves short?" "Why does everyone hate gnomes?" "What is a Kinder?" "Why is the chimera like it is?" "How did monster (X) get ability (Y)?"
All this is amazing and important history that we need and must pass on to the future. It's not just "a game" that's being lost or forced evolved either. D&D is a tool for carrying on and teaching the future about our past -- about mythology, about history, about philosophies that have come before. This knowledge is vital to expanding and growing the human race intelligently, and it worries me that in an effort to "get to the game" we leave so much vital information and imagination out of it.
It is in fact this information and imagination that gives us the spark to play. We see and know what is happening in the game through this background through those myths and by that fuel our appetites for more. If we want this hobby to be more than simply a "video game on paper" we need to keep the spark alive and pass the information along.
So the next time you hear someone spouting off about how "x and y doesn't make sense and should just be gotten rid of" don't just wave your hand in the air at the "newb" that will "eventually get it" because he won't -- unless you give it to him.
Creative Director
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It's horribly cliched these days... but Forest Gump's a good rolemodel when you want to do a high wisdom but low intelligence character. Lots of insight but not that bright.
Of course, if someone at my game table talked every session in Gump-speak with Gump-sayings, I'd TPK the party out of spite. But the basic IDEA of a Gumpy character should get one in the right mindset, I would think.
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Mage: Okay, identifying this guy's boots. Gimme a second.
Cleric: My momma always said you can tell a lot about a person by their shoes, where the go, where they've been. I've worn lots of shoes, I bet if I think about it real hard I can remember my first pair of shoes.
Mage: Stop that. Boots of flying, who needs 'em?
Cleric: He says they was magic shoes. They could take me anywhere.
Mage: STOP THAT.
One way I think about it is that when you have to solve a very hard puzzle, a high INT character will likely try to solve it on their own, just by thinking about it. A high WIS character will recognize their own limitations, and know who to ask for help getting it solved most effectively/efficiently.
So your high WIS low INT character may not solve many problems on his own by brute force of intellect, but he'll have a knack for knowing who can best help him solve the problem (even if he can't explicitly recognize the type of solution required).
Check Durkon from OoTS for inspiration of such a character IMO.
High Wisdom, low Intelligence = lots of common sense, very little ability to work out problems, prone to leaps of insight but not very good at logically working out a situation step by step.
When my cleric of Orcus comes across a problem (Wis 20, Int 10) he usually can't figure it out but at least has the wisdom to realise this and not waste time over it, he then makes the wisest decision on how to proceed based on the information he can figure out.
Think also of the Gordian Knot problem. Not enough intelligence to figure out how to undo the knot but enough wisdom to come up with a practical solution.
Compare to a high Intelligence low Wisdom guy - he might be be to figure the problem out but will still make a foolish decision on how to proceed thereafter.
@ Lazurin
You missed my point.
I'm not arguing that PCs should be average, but rather that 18 isn't "superhuman" nor 8 by any means "sub-human".
R.
Maybe my reading comprehension is low, but your post seemed to be that the real world number of people who have a high intelligence was not analogous to the spread created by a roll of 3d6. While I think that's likely valid, My point was I dont really care as I dont see the PC's as examples of your average dude walking the streets of Corvosa. I dont think there is really an arguement here, just that I dont particularly care if equating a 1-18 scale to real world IQ produces a slightly squewed population as I dont apply the formula to the whole population just the Party and it still creates a handy touchstone for new players trying to grasp how strong or how smart they are.
I'm not arguing that PCs should be average, but rather that 18 isn't "superhuman" nor 8 by any means "sub-human".
...your post seemed to be that the real world number of people who have a high intelligence was not analogous to the spread created by a roll of 3d6. While I think that's likely valid, My point was I dont really care as I dont see the PC's as examples of your average dude walking the streets of Corvosa.
Knowing the relationship of how the 3d6 bellcurve relates to the real-world isn't particularly necessary for playing the game, but I for one like knowing how the statistics stack up. To me it's actually encouraging to see that 3d6 doesn't actually cover the whole gamut because the old 10 IQ/Int model just didn't feel right.
Does it give you a good idea of how characters stack up against one another and against other creatures in the world? Sure! But it's nice to know that a 20 Int isn't something the world sees only once in a generation.
IMO, it is vitally important to the verisimilitude of the world that the stats of ALL its inhabitants can be judged on the same scale. Heroes might get to use a bigger point-buy, or get to roll 4d6 and keep 3, but I do not subscribe to the idea that heroes are somehow subject to a different set of rules than folks who mind a shop or plow a field for a living.
At any rate, all of this is to say, "Thanks for the linkage Rezdave!" Knowing the actual statistical breakdowns doesn't hurt those who have no need of it but is useful to those of us who are preoccupied with the simulational aspects of D&D.
Great great thread! Especially since I'm stuck in the exact same position right now ('stuck' might be a bit strong).
Female Druid (2), was a Katapeshi shop girl:
Str: 17
Dex: 11
Con: 13
Int: 8
Wis: 19
Cha: 10
Trying to play her as practical, used to using her strength, but not really smart enough to realize the power it gives her. Suspicious trait = +10 Sense Motive, but I figure almost all her experience with that is eyeing people up in the street, and spotting cheats at her shop. Friendly, but not "knows the right thing to say" type (avg. cha).
It's tough, given my own Int/Wis is pretty much a flip of those.
I like the delay initiative idea!
If anyone has some suggestions for me, I'd appreciate it.
That would work except for that charisma of 14. He's not bad at expressing himself (though he could be by player choice) he's actually rather friendly and well liked with good personality (by the stats).Maybe he is just inarticulate?
He doesn't have the ability or vocabulary to get more complex ideas across to others. When people ask him what reasons he has to, say, not trust the Duke, or follow one clue but not another - he can't really tell them why.. just that he knows what the right thing to do is.
A very good point!
I will counter by saying that the Cha 14 is the reason the rest of the party does not get angry or frustrated with this Cleric for shrugging his shoulders every time they want him to explain himself.
:)
A friend of mine is very smart. He asked me over to his mother's home to help him hang some of her quilts up. He took out a tape measure, pen and paper, and a calculator and began all sorts of cipherin'. I was perplexed at all this. Finally, I asked him what he was trying to do. He said he was determining the best positions to place the clamps, but needed to find the exact center first. I picked up the quilt, and folded it in half pointed at the fold and said, " There is the center ".
My grandmother is an excellent carpenter and regularly impresses me with simple answers to complex problems like this.
I believe high wisdom can easily be thought of as "common sense". Or a razor like approach to problem solving. Much like taking a knife to the Gordian's knot. *shrugs*
greg
+1!!!
I'd have him put his hands together, close his eyes for a moment and then raise his hands to the sky and say,
"The Big Guy says we should........"