Even without really going into fine detail with the stats, one can play the game with few incidents. However those few incidents can be really perplexing because of different views of what the stats mean. Here are my own personal views of what the stats represent and I'll even give examples from the system that I believe support my views.
Strength - This I believe to be one's physical output. That's why it's used for damage. Not much to question here, moving on.
Dexterity - Dexterity doesn't just cover manual dexterity, it covers all forms of motor control from precision movement (sleight of hand, stealth) to full body reflexes (AC, Reflex Saves, Initiative) it also covers one's accuracy (ranged weapons) and coordination (acrobatics). It does not cover speed, and I've never seen any proof in game to support such a theory.
Constitution - Represents health (endurance) and toughness (fortitude saves). Hitpoints, representing both one's stamina and capacity for damage makes heavy use of this attribute.
Intelligence - While most people can agree that it represents intelligence, it bothers me a little bit. What bothers me most is that I have not seen someone capable of playing an intelligence higher than their own. Intelligence on its own is vague enough term that covers many aspects. Instead of using the term 'Intelligence', I'd like to say that it represents Comprehension, in other words the ability to pick up knowledge. Comprehension fulfills the notion of being able to learn skills more easily, picking up knowledge and languages, and comprehending magic. A player can play a character with a higher comprehension than themselves via the DM giving them information directly.
Wisdom - Oh god wisdom. What wisdom actually is in the real world, is experience. That's not what 'wisdom' represents in D&D. I'd describe wisdom and vigilance and discipline. Perception and professions make sense with vigilance and discipline. Clerics are vigilant and disciplined, as are Druids, as are Monks; well at least they're supposed to be. It also makes more sense that a vigilant and disciplined character would make their will save. Characters that are vigilant and disciplined could probably be described as wise, so maybe that's what they were going for.
Charisma - The ability to influence. Some people say that this is also beauty. However other than the hordes of monsters that have high charisma and look extremely ugly, let us use something that rings closer to the PCs. Charisma is used for the ability to manipulate magic spontaneously (Sorcerers, Oracles, Using Magic Devices). Magic is blind to the human's measure of beauty. Also while it's possible that Sorcerers and Oracles could look pretty, they could just as well look hideous being deformed from their bloodline or curses. You don't need to look pretty to lie, bribe, intimidate, handle animals, use magic, or even perform, especially in front of non-humans who don't share the human's perception of beauty. Let's say you are invisible, should you take a penalty to charisma because no one can see how pretty you are? It's also not a measure of friendliness. Friendliness is not something that gets a stat. I don't need to be able to manipulate people to have friends, and if I am manipulating people, are they really my friends? Quit trying to make things difficult, it's just a measure of influence. Where does it not make sense as influence?
Even without really going into fine detail with the stats, one can play the game with few incidents. However those few incidents can be really perplexing because of different views of what the stats mean. Here are my own personal views of what the stats represent and I'll even give examples from the system that I believe support my views.
Strength - This I believe to be one's physical output. That's why it's used for damage. Not much to question here, moving on.
Dexterity - Dexterity doesn't just cover manual dexterity, it covers all forms of motor control from precision movement (sleight of hand, stealth) to full body reflexes (AC, Reflex Saves, Initiative) it also covers one's accuracy (ranged weapons) and coordination (acrobatics). It does not cover speed, and I've never seen any proof in game to support such a theory.
Constitution - Represents health (endurance) and toughness (fortitude saves). Hitpoints, representing both one's stamina and capacity for damage makes heavy use of this attribute.
Intelligence - While most people can agree that it represents intelligence, it bothers me a little bit. What bothers me most is that I have not seen someone capable of playing an intelligence higher than their own. Intelligence on its own is vague enough term that covers many aspects. Instead of using the term 'Intelligence', I'd like to say that it represents Comprehension, in other words the ability to pick up knowledge. Comprehension fulfills the notion of being able to learn skills more easily, picking up knowledge and languages, and comprehending magic. A player can play a character with a higher comprehension than themselves via the DM giving them information directly.
Wisdom - Oh god wisdom. What wisdom actually is in the real world, is experience. That's not what 'wisdom' represents in D&D. I'd describe wisdom and vigilance and discipline. Perception and professions make sense with vigilance and discipline. Clerics are vigilant and disciplined, as...
Whatever the Dm says is the easy answer. All interpretations are true is the one I go with.
I don't want to go through the whole list so I'll give a couple examples.
What does hight charisma mean? Beauty? The ability to convince people? The ability to make up for your poor looks with great presence? It can mean any and all of these things, or more, or none. It's up to the player to decide how the stat affects their character.
Case and point: An intelligence of 7.
I've had a player in my group who played a int 7 fighter as borderline mentally disabled.
I've had another who seemed perfectly fine in normal conversation, but could barely read and thought the best solution to most problems was bashing them.
Both are completely valid interpretations of int 7.
I have found that, while most agree what stats BASICALLY are, there is much room for interpretation on Wisdom and Intelligence. I've heard it put as basically as Intelligence is like one's IQ score and Wisdom is merely the ability to learn from one's mistakes and not do the same wrong thing twice. (This is where one player I know would say that that just leaves room for new and better mistakes.)
To be honest I always saw memory as falling under Wisdom. I've seen some really intelligent people with terrible memory. In fact I know a lot of people in real life who can pick things up easily enough but are scattered brained and absent minded (ie. High Int, Low Wis; I believe this kind of example might be given in the book). Memory, as I've seen it is a sort of discipline; some of the more quiet and disciplined people I know have insane memory, even if they can't figure out how to work a computer. Of course I've never seen any rules of any sort in the game for memory other than house rules (which it is determined to be Int).
Original post...
LOVE what you've written here. Very helpful. One question: You describe WISDOM as discipline, but how would you describe a CHAOTIC character with high WISDOM?
Original post...LOVE what you've written here. Very helpful. One question: You describe WISDOM as discipline, but how would you describe a CHAOTIC character with high WISDOM?
I'm not sure I've seen a 'chaotic' character played as wise... However if I were to describe what I'd expect, I'd say a character that is very vigilant and perceptive and dead set in his or her beliefs.
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Love the post. Nice work!
I've always tried to keep the stats in the broadest possible sense. They represent your character's ability to change/interact with the game world:
Strength - How much you can move physical things.
Dexterity - How precisely you can move and move things.
Constitution - How well you can resist the world's efforts to change you.
Intelligence - What you know about the world.
Wisdom - What you understand about the world.
Charisma - What the world thinks of you and/or how much you can move psychological 'things'.
Intelligence - While most people can agree that it represents intelligence, it bothers me a little bit. What bothers me most is that I have not seen someone capable of playing an intelligence higher than their own. Intelligence on its own is vague enough term that covers many aspects. Instead of using the term 'Intelligence', I'd like to say that it represents Comprehension, in other words the ability to pick up knowledge. Comprehension fulfills the notion of being able to learn skills more easily, picking up knowledge and languages, and comprehending magic. A player can play a character with a higher comprehension than themselves via the DM giving them information directly.
I don't disagree with your description. But, I do wonder how you reconcile this with the fact that a Rogue with Int 3 has greater skill than a Fighter with Int 12. So, while Intelligence certainly enhances comprehension, it shouldn't wholly represent it.
Original post...LOVE what you've written here. Very helpful. One question: You describe WISDOM as discipline, but how would you describe a CHAOTIC character with high WISDOM?
Chaotic hasn't meant 'random' for decades. A chaotic-aligned character could be highly disciplined, stoic, and above all else fight for freedom of expression, creativity and individual will above the strict laws of tradition and closed-minded rule.
I don't disagree with your description. But, I do wonder how you reconcile this with the fact that a Rogue with Int 3 has greater skill than a Fighter with Int 12. So, while Intelligence certainly enhances comprehension, it shouldn't wholly represent it.
O.o... I'm sorry, I don't follow. Are you saying that comprehension is a composite of Int and class?
Skill points from classes are effort and time.
While the fighter is learning to hit things hard, the rogue spends time learning skills. If the int 12 fighter spent his time learning skills (took a level of rogue) he'd learn far more skills than the int 3 rogue, because he has higher comprehension. However he spends his time learning to hit things well. This doesn't seem to be a problem or corner case to me.
I see all of the stats as being composites of largeyl related things.
Stength is a mix of size and muscle mass, if you use the wounds/vigor subsystem, Str is actually a more sensible statistic to base your wounds on, its how big and strong your body is.
Dexterity is fine motor control, reflexes and coordination. Little to be discussed.
Constitution is your fitness and health. This is why a wiry little rogue can have 14 Con. It represents stamina, and physical tenacity, not muscles or size, etc.
Intelligence as comprehension is actually a good description, its a very specific type of intelligence, though Iq is an okay measure (not of human intelligence but of what D&D Int is trying to measure.)
Wisdom is your awareness both of self and enviroment, being more aware of yourself lets you feel changes to your mind, and fight them (Will saves), it lets you spot things in your enviroment or changes in anothers facial expressions (Perception, Sense Motive), it lets you understand and use your gods powers, it lets you recognise a situation for what it is and apply common sense. It comes off as disciple, vigilance, common sense, but at its heart its a measure of awareness, thus the low int absentminded character. They know how to feed themselves, but sometimes fail to notice that need to, etc.
Charisma is influence, strength of personality, your raw persona. Well described above.
Constitution - Represents health (endurance) and toughness (fortitude saves). Hitpoints, representing both one's stamina and capacity for damage makes heavy use of this attribute.
In my mind it can also represent pain resistance. Someone who can ignore pain may be able to last longer (have more hit points) than someone who is sensitive to pain.
Intelligence - While most people can agree that it represents intelligence, it bothers me a little bit. What bothers me most is that I have not seen someone capable of playing an intelligence higher than their own. Intelligence on its own is vague enough term that covers many aspects. Instead of using the term 'Intelligence', I'd like to say that it represents Comprehension, in other words the ability to pick up knowledge. Comprehension fulfills the notion of being able to learn skills more easily, picking up knowledge and languages, and comprehending magic. A player can play a character with a higher comprehension than themselves via the DM giving them information directly.
The rules agree with you.
Intelligence determines how well your character learns and reasons
I would add that it probably to a degree represents analytical ability, which goes along with a mathematical comprehension required to perform wizardry (assuming wizardry is Hermetic-esque with lots of formulae and calculations).
Wisdom - Oh god wisdom. What wisdom actually is in the real world, is experience. That's not what 'wisdom' represents in D&D. I'd describe wisdom and vigilance and discipline. Perception and professions make sense with vigilance and discipline. Clerics are vigilant and disciplined, as are Druids, as are Monks; well at least they're supposed to be. It also makes more sense that a vigilant and disciplined character would make their will save. Characters that are vigilant and disciplined could probably be described as wise, so maybe that's what they were going for.
Wisdom describes a character's willpower, common sense, awareness, and intuition.
I quote that to point out the "intuition" part as I think that also feeds into the Wisdom aspects of Perception and Sense Motive--not just that you are actively vigilant, but know when to be, and have that sense that something's wrong or not.
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Assume your player is running an intelligence officer type of character and is attempting to figure out some political organization's strategy. When would you have him make intelligence checks vs. wisdom checks?
That would depend on the checks themselves. Knowing how the political organization is structured, for example, would be Int. Connecting the dots of the plot would be Wis, but only IF ever I'd allow something like that to be resolved by a character's check.
Using this definition, why is UMD based on charisma?
Design flaw. One of many.
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As a side note (I don't want to distract from the thread), you say "only IF ever I'd allow something like that to be resolved by a character's check". This raises the question, assume a -player- with a Wis 9 plays a character with a Wis 18. How do you simulate that if you aren't in the habit of allowing "something like that to be resolved by a character's check"?
You're absolutely right to point out that I wouldn't enforce my player's character's Wisdom limitations in this way. I'd expect them to play out the scenario and figure out whatever mystery I had planned using their own faculties, outside of what the sheet says. It's definitely a gap, and I'll need to be mindful of it in the future. Thanks.
Now back to the thread, assume that a character could learn more about a political organization's structure from the way it connects the dots (for example, the degree of centralization of power might be revealed this way). Would that be a Wis roll or an Int roll?
Centralization of power, or if I understand that correctly, 'who REALLY holds the power' would fall under Wis.