@kmal2t: No, you gave a dumb, hyperbolic example. I suggested the possibility that the exploits of the world's greatest heroes might have entered the common conciousness, and events related their exploits might then be considered basic knowledge a person of their world would have.
The downside of that is that the bards' versions of those exploits usually have nothing to do with actual events, and trying to emulate them will get you killed.
Look at how Hollywood treats bullets, for example. Common consciousness suggests that cars will explode when you shoot them in the gas tank, but that if you crouch behind a car door, you are safe. Mythbusters has, in fact, made a career out of showing how basic knowledge is wrong.
Which, in turn, suggests that a Knowledge check would in fact be an appropriate way to figure out what you actually, you know, "know" from those legends. If your character grew up paying attention to the tales of the Eight Great Heroes, that sounds like a reason to put one of your skill points into Knowledge.
@kmal2t: No, you gave a dumb, hyperbolic example. I suggested the possibility that the exploits of the world's greatest heroes might have entered the common conciousness, and events related their exploits might then be considered basic knowledge a person of their world would have.
"My kingdom has been at war with the goblins for centuries."
"Give me a Knowledge: Monsterology check to know what a goblin is."
"What?"
Obviously, this does not apply to characters from different campaign settings.
That's already somewhat covered by the knowledge skill, though. The DC to identify extremely common monsters (goblins being the given example in the text) is 5+CR. And anyone can make a knowledge check untrained as long as the DC is 10 or lower.
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Our party was in a dungeon, and ran across a puzzle gateway blocking our advance. A riddle was inscribed on the doorway.
After some discussion and thought, I happened on the answer, and proceeded to guide the party through the hazard in-character.
In this case, my dwarf had a 14 Int. Had he had a 7 Int instead, I would have explained the answer to my fellow players and one of their characters would have led the party through.
I take it there were no complaints with this? Or did it just get missed?
I take it there were no complaints with this? Or did it just get missed?
I think it's a great solution. Not everyone will play that cooperatively, though.
You entirely missed the point. If you don't want dumb characters to solve puzzles, then assign them Knowledge checks to solve. Now players who dump Intelligence and don't take lots of Knowledge checks are incapable of solving puzzles (unless they take sufficient ranks in a Knowledge skill, which could represent them being a savant in a specific area).Because I know when I play DnD I always make sure to get Knowledge: puzzles and brain teasers. You never know when you'll need to do a Sudoku.
The problem isn't in front of the players..its in front of the characters..you give some leniency on what their intelligence entails but you would allow people of average or more intelligence to work on the puzzle..if the puzzle required something like a knowledge of geometry or mathematics then you'd need a check. If the puzzle required you to read something then if a character can't read it he can't help until someone reads it to him. A normal puzzle would require some deductive and spatial reasoning that a slow character wouldn't have.
The puzzle is again presented to the characters so the discussion is assumed to more or less be in-character...otherwise if its too the players its just a total OOC fest. By contributing a great deal of your normal or above average intelligence to a stupid character you're abusing good roleplaying form.
There is no steak being thrown anywhere. Abusing the rules then blaming it on something else is just ethical delinquency like saying well I had to cheat on you honey that hot girl was just tempting me with her short skirt!
Lets compare this to combat.
The player's "role" is to make decisions for their character, but the outcome of those decisions is determined by the character's stats. Yes, a tactically savvy player is more likely to tip the odds in their favor, but it still relies on the characters ability to do the task in question.
Ex: The party is up against a villain, he's got some doomsday device. There is a precarious balanced object that is out of reach, but if disturbed could buy the party time.
The player of the wizard realizes this, but he doesn't have any appropriate spells to achieve this. So he picks up a discarded bow and takes a shot, unfortunately he's a wizard and for some reason dumped dex, and he doesn't roll very well, so the idea doesn't work.
If you want to prevent dumb characters who have nothing to indicate that they are smart, incorporate rolls that benefit from high Intelligence and skills based off Intelligence, like Knowledge Engineering for realizing how the mechanics of a physical puzzle work, or Knowledge History/Local/Geography/Nobility/Religion/Arcana for pieces of trivia that ensure solving a puzzle.
If the task MUST be solved by the characters, then you MUST engage the characters in a mechanical fashion. Otherwise you are only engaging the players, who use the characters as their mouthpiece.
Mechanics are part of roleplaying, the simplest way to enforce that stats affect roleplaying is to have them impact how that character interacts with the world. You don't need to come up with strange tables or modifiers, just require them to use their stats and skills (or pay for the lack there of).
You're complaining about how the cows wandered out of the barn, after you purposely left the barn door open.
I take it there were no complaints with this? Or did it just get missed?Our party was in a dungeon, and ran across a puzzle gateway blocking our advance. A riddle was inscribed on the doorway.
After some discussion and thought, I happened on the answer, and proceeded to guide the party through the hazard in-character.
In this case, my dwarf had a 14 Int. Had he had a 7 Int instead, I would have explained the answer to my fellow players and one of their characters would have led the party through.
I think that is an excellent solution, especially from a "having it make sense" perspective.
Basically, the smart characters get "outside" info from the other players to help mimic how smart they are, while the dumber characters can't rely on table talk from other players.
So, if I'm playing a d20 Modern character from Alaska who enjoys going outside, but also NEEDS to spend time indoors watching TV to avoid death, I've got to sink points into Knowledge: Nature if I want to know what a polar bear is and points into Knowledge: Monsterology to know that silver hurts werewolves?
No, if you're a d20 Modern character from Alaska who enjoys going outside, you should have spent some of your points on Knowledge[Nature], because that's what your character has learned. If you were a d20 Modern character from New York who never set foot outside of the Village, you wouldn't have. Or, for that matter, a recluse from Anchorage who has never set foot outside his apartment building.
This is despite the fact that I'm from Polar Bear country and silver/werewolves is a culturally saturated meme?
.... that somehow you managed to miss by not paying attention in polar bear company. If you'd paid attention, you'd have the Knowledge skill.
I'm not saying that every farmer should be able to rattle off every eye beam of a Beholder. You just seem to be going off the deep end in the other direction that Dwarf Fighters should be cripplingly unaware of their own environments.
Not at all. If you choose to make a Dwarf Fighter who is cripplingly unaware of his own environment, but is very good at climbing, that's your choice. But to make that choice and then complain that he's unaware of his own environment is rather silly.
The whole point of skill points is that no one can be good at everything; if you choose to be good at something, you are implicitly choosing not to be good at something else. Pick what you want to be good at, and live with the consequences of your choice.
Apparently listening to tales by a bard makes you an expert in tactics. If you grew up learning about war or grew up in a war area then MAYBE you should have taken a rank in knowledge: military/tactics/whatever instead of trying to get free stuff through a backstory.
So, if I'm playing a d20 Modern character from Alaska who enjoys going outside, but also NEEDS to spend time indoors watching TV to avoid death, I've got to sink points into Knowledge: Nature if I want to know what a polar bear is and points into Knowledge: Monsterology to know that silver hurts werewolves? This is despite the fact that I'm from Polar Bear country and silver/werewolves is a culturally saturated meme?
I'm not saying that every farmer should be able to rattle off every eye beam of a Beholder. You just seem to be going off the deep end in the other direction that Dwarf Fighters should be cripplingly unaware of their own environments.
The DC of asking one question about a werewolf is 7. With no ranks in whichever skill, and no bonus/penalty from Intelligence, 70% of farmers know that werewolves are vulnerable to silver.
Lycanthropes are humanoids, so they use Knowledge (Local). If it's a class skill and you have a 12 Intelligence, one rank means you can answer one question about werewolves on a roll of 2 or higher.
Assuming Lycanthropes are a problem in that area. If they aren't the DC becomes 12 and few people have heard of them.
The DC of asking one question about a werewolf is 7. With no ranks in whichever skill, and no bonus/penalty from Intelligence, 70% of farmers know that werewolves are vulnerable to silver.
I think your math is off, but your point is legitimate.
Expanding on it, who is the person who's most likely to mis-remember the old tales and think that you present a cross to the werewolf? I'd submit it's the person with a poor memory (low Int) who didn't pay a lot of attention to the stories growing up (no skill ranksin the appropriate skill).
So if you dump Int and focus your attention/skills elsewhere, you're setting yourself up to be That Person.
I believe this is the second time you've used an analogy about animals (unless that was someone else) that really doesn't describe what's going on here. You haven't left the barn door open unless from the beginning you've allowed people use their own intellect freely even with a dumped intelligence stat. If someone says they're going to dump a stat you should let them know from the beginning its probably not a good idea and they need to play it appropriately.
if they dump Charisma to 6 or 7 I'd want an explanation of why and what it is about their character that makes them have such a low score. Are they incredibly ugly? Horrible breath? Incredibly annoying or rude? etc. I'd want to hash this out before the "barn" is even fully built.
You're focused on how the players are the problem. I'm telling you that there is an extremely simple and elegant solution that requires a barely measurable amount of effort to change from the GM. In fact, it only requires you to do what you are already doing in other situations.
Your stuck on the wrong part of the problem. You can simply avoid the problem altogether instead of having a more complex method of maneuvering through it.
I've been playing D&D for 20+ years. I don't want to ever waste my breath saying, "Ho! What strange, green men are these?" unless you've hauled out a little green man who is going to do something phenomenally different than a goblin.
So,... you don't want to role play? The idea that you know something that your character doesn't is phenomenally distasteful to you?
...So I can either tell a player before the game to RP it correctly if he goes that way and maybe correct him occasionally if he goes overboard..or I can institute regular intelligence checks for people. I think I'll choose the former.I believe this is the second time you've used an analogy about animals (unless that was someone else) that really doesn't describe what's going on here. You haven't left the barn door open unless from the beginning you've allowed people use their own intellect freely even with a dumped intelligence stat. If someone says they're going to dump a stat you should let them know from the beginning its probably not a good idea and they need to play it appropriately.
if they dump Charisma to 6 or 7 I'd want an explanation of why and what it is about their character that makes them have such a low score. Are they incredibly ugly? Horrible breath? Incredibly annoying or rude? etc. I'd want to hash this out before the "barn" is even fully built.
You're focused on how the players are the problem. I'm telling you that there is an extremely simple and elegant solution that requires a barely measurable amount of effort to change from the GM. In fact, it only requires you to do what you are already doing in other situations.
Your stuck on the wrong part of the problem. You can simply avoid the problem altogether instead of having a more complex method of maneuvering through it.
Just trying to help expand the understanding of how mechanics and roleplaying can intersect, but you clearly aren't interested.
So,... you don't want to role play? The idea that you know something that your character doesn't is phenomenally distasteful to you?
I've been playing D&D for 20+ years. I don't want to ever waste my breath saying, "Ho! What strange, green men are these?" unless you've hauled out a little green man who is going to do something phenomenally different than a goblin.
Or maybe he just doesn't want to slow the game down with something pointless.
Playing a game for 20 years and every time you roll a new character having to act surprised and wonder-struck whenever a common creature is seen is bound to get old mighty quick.
Your way is the method that allows this problem to exist.
Your summation of my suggestion is not accurate either. You've mischaracterized it in an effort to show how it's flawed, but its a mischaracterization, and the flaw resides there, not in my suggestion.
You don't even have to change how you are using the mechanics. My real point is actually that if you engage the players in specific ways, you are encouraging different types of behaviors.
When you present a problem with no mechanical solution, you can't b!~~@ that the players didn't follow the mechanics of the game to solve it. Either present the problem within the mechanics of the game, or realize that its okay the players step outside the mechanics of the game.
As a DM, I actually find that puzzles offer a nice change of pace because it engages the players differently than a lot of other situations. Yes, the characters are the ones technically there to solve the puzzle, but I don't put them in there for the characters, I put them in for the players. I don't see the point in getting angry over how the players solve the puzzle, because I specifically put it in for THEM to solve. I treat it differently than situations I want their characters to solve.
For example, we're doing a multiple session murder mystery right now. Solving the puzzle of who did it in an overarching sense, is a player puzzle. Each aspect of gathering clues an information though is a character problem. To get info, they have to succeed at checks. Perception checks to notice things, Charisma skills to get people to tell them things, Intelligence to know things or help them connect pieces of information.
When the players discuss the evidence they've found, I don't demand Intelligence checks from their characters. I just let the players talk, even if it's out of character, and discuss their theories.
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How quickly are you getting to Level 20+ that this starting over is a common occurrence? If you don't want to deal with being a noob then don't start at 1st level?
Part of the fun of being a new character is "learning" everything over again and the experience of trial and tribulation.
Not all games go to 20, remember?
And if you're doing a number of oneshots starting at any number of levels, identifying common enemies becomes a chore.
Especially with your philosophy that backstory explaining why someone knows something is stupid.
So, how do you propose you fix the problem kmalt? Do you have a solution that won't cause any problems between people? Iron isn't preemptively fixing I don't' feel like. More so trying to find a compromise so that he's engaging the players.
I'm not talking about players and how things they might do might be right or wrong. The fact that you think I am tells you are still stuck in looking at this from the wrong paradigm.
Stop looking at this as a problem players may/may not commit. It is limiting your thinking on the issue and leads you to only one possible way of dealing with this problem, a problem you are creating for yourself.
You are talking about dealing with a problematic player behavior, I'm not talking about that at all.
When you reply to me and you feel the urge to write about problematic player behavior, you aren't actually replying to me.
If people are rolling up chars before the game stars and someone dumps a stat, especially Intelligence it's going to set off a red flag.
I usually roll my character up before the game starts. Hard to play without one. Unless you mean it starts at character creation.
I think your overreacting about dump stats. Its not even a big boon to have a little more to another stat. Is it game breaking or something? What do you have against dump stats eh?
A gm should not let players abuse the system to get high stats and dump others for no consequences. part of dumping intelligence/Wisdom should be that you lose some of your "smart privileges" and lack of wisdom means your character should lack some degree of common sense...on the flipside you can be sure that someone who dumps strength/dex/con is going to have some kind of checks happen that use those skills and show what a fatbody he is.
Low physical stats doesn't mean fat... Similarly, not everyone is out to abuse the system. They already take mechanical penalties for the stats they chose, there isn't really a need to punish them more. Its vindictive if anything.
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Funny thing: not everyone plays with "dump stats". Some of us take stats and put them where we see fit RP wise. (Some GMs hate this.) Tiny example: I put the human +2 to an ability not in Wisdom, but in Constitution, for my RotRL cleric; this was due to backstory having an effect on decisions.
I don't see why there can't be a compromise. Players try to solve the puzzle, but don't come up with the answer in a reasonable amount of time? Let them roll against INT (or WIS if better suited) to get a hint. Often a hint will get the players where they're going.
Horse dead. Moving on.
So you are going to add MORE (as in extra, more than the norm) Str checks just to f!!* with the player who wanted to dump Str?
And people are always telling me "No, vindictive GMs don't exist stop trying to pretend they do!"
Fatbody is a term I and some others use to describe someone that's really out of shape. They could be skinny and just a weakass too.
And it allows people to excel at things their class specializes in and get that 20 stat they really want. And that's fine...
but I'm not going to allow someone to play as if 1, 2, or 3 stats don't even exist. I'm not going to bully that player and have them climb the gym rope every game, but I'm not going to allow them to avoid those stats and rely on others for those fields as if there's no consequences. I promise you that if you dump strength to 7, there will be more strength checks sprinkled through the game to let you know that you have a 7 strength. I'm not going to let you ignore it for an entire campaign.
They took a 20 and they took a hit to all their other stats... and? The point of point buy is that its already punishing when you try to do that.
No one can play with a 1-3. This thread started in society where the lowest you can play with is a 5, and that's really pushing it and ability damage becomes killer.
Sprinkling extra strength checks is probably one of the meanest and worst solutions. Why not just ask him not to play or to use those stats. its absolutely jerktastic and immature. They don't get to ignore it, they take a hit on their attack rolls! They take a hit to climb and swim!
You know how he includes it in play?
Reduced carrying capacity, along with melee to-hit and damage.
Shocking, I know, but attributes come with built in penalties and bonuses.