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I seem to have this hangup with INT. I can't dump it with any character for one reason, skills and skill checks are 80% (give or take) of roleplaying. Almost everything outside of combat eventually requires skill checks. If you only care about combat, or you just rely on the party rogue to do everything for you, than it's probably not that big of a deal to you, but in my limited experience, rogues are not that honest and probably shouldn't be. Sometimes you just need to be able to jump, or converse, or know (anything), or just tie your own shoes. I'm not satisfied with anything below a 14 INT with any character and I rarely if ever play a character with INT as a main stat.
It's basically for this reason that I've decided to give a Sorcerer with Sage bloodline a go as my next character just to make it as simple as I can. I'll probably head toward Dragon Disciple with it.
Am I alone on this island? I'm interested in lots of opinions. If you can break me of this long-held belief, I'd be appreciative. On the other hand, if I'm right I'd like to know I'm not crazy.
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Nope, I'm 100% with you. I simply can't seriously play anything with INT 10 or lower (often I even don't go below 12). Even my mostly optimized fighters and barbarians won't go below 10.
It's not just the skills but mostly the fact that I like to reason, use tactics, make informed decisions and communicate OoC and IC on a certain level without breaking character.
Most of all, I highly dislike playing a stereotypical "Ug, Grok Smash" figure in a campaign with serious roleplaying.
It's basically for this reason that I've decided to give a Sorcerer with Sage bloodline a go as my next character just to make it as simple as I can. I'll probably head toward Dragon Disciple with it.
I feel compelled to point out that dragon disciple requires the draconic bloodline.
As to the primary topic my characters rarely dump INT for similar reasons.
- Torger
Nope, I'm 100% with you. I simply can't seriously play anything with INT 10 or lower (often I even don't go below 12). Even my mostly optimized fighters and barbarians won't go below 10.
It's not just the skills but mostly the fact that I like to reason, use tactics, make informed decisions and communicate OoC and IC on a certain level without breaking character.
Indeed I am very surprised if the int 7 barbarian that is barely able to converse suddenly starts to manouvre cautiously in order not to provoke an attack of opportunaty while trying to gain a position to flank someone and ready an attack, that will go off as the flank is achieved.
Most of all, I highly dislike playing a stereotypical "Ug, Grok Smash" figure in a campaign with serious roleplaying.
I wouldn't mind that too much if this was done consistantly, but the low int usually get really crafty when it comes to tactical behaviour and that's not correct.
And I usually make a fighter type int 12 so he has as extra skill at hand and rank 1 a couple of basic skills like swim, climb and a craft or profession.
Nearly every character I play has Int 12 or higher. Barbarians included.
@Snowleopard
I just loathe playing a stereotype; a character whose personality is completely dictated by the expectations of others.
It's the same reason I rarely play dwarves or paladins. Although I have to say that both Varric from Dragon Age 2 and the hilarious borderliner dwarves from Dwarf Fortress were inspirations to me.
I always make sure I have +2 Int and +2 Con before anything else, otherwise I consider my character to be bad. Probably because I never play anything like a Barbarian, but having those two bonuses pays off immensely by lv8 or so. +16 health and +16 skill points? Thanks.
Although, Wisdom is an important stat for roleplaying as well. You don't need intelligence to have intuition. A Barbarian with wis 14 and int 7 could function just fine in fights, because his instinct is what keeps him alive.
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I think people need to readjust how we think of the int skill value versus what it actually represents. An intelligence of 7 does certainly make you a dullard, but it doesn't mean you can't grasp basic concepts. Ideas like avoid peoples reach, or attack from opposite sides are basic concepts even animals (intelligence 2 or less) understand. Certainly a 7 int character wont have a very verbose vocabulary, and they probably don't have a great memory or an very strong understanding of math. But remember, there only 3 less than average.
Look at it this way, Einstein was a natural 20 in intelligence. There is more difference between the guy with 13 int and Einstein then there is between a guy with 7 int and 13 int (barely). So, the difference between the average person (10 int) and our dullard (7 int) is existent and a little noticeable, but probably not knocking on mentally handicapped yet either.
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I wouldn't mind that too much if this was done consistantly, but the low int usually get really crafty when it comes to tactical behaviour and that's not correct.
The fox would disagree. They are renowned for being devious. Wolves are also known for cunning and excellent team work. So much so that they became iconic across cultures for this behavior. These are animals without higher reasoning skills, and a systemic value for intelligence of 2. If a wolf can work with a team using team tactics then an Int 7 character certainly can as well.
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I don't like *any* stat below 10. While I vastly prefer point buy to rolled stats (since I roll like crap), it seems that people are encouraged to 'buy down' their Int or, more commonly, Cha, to pump up whatever stat determines their damage numbers or save DCs.
When the only people in your party that don't have a Cha 7 (5, for the dwarf) are people like Bards and Sorcerers that *can't* dump Cha, it's a nuisance, because, like Int or Wis, Cha hardly ever seems to get role played at the table.
Even the players of the Cha 7 character who don't get all eloquent and socially ept when it's completely out of character, and who hide in the back and let others 'be the face,' are still kind of gaming the system, since a Cha 7 should not mean 'aware that one is socially clueless and politely letting everyone else handle delicate negotiations' but more likely to mean 'the boor who has no clue that he's not as funny / charming as he thinks he is, and will *absolutely* butt in and try to negotiate with the Queen.'
As for animals, probably a bad comparison. This is based off of 3.X D&D, which arbitrarily gave insects, which can use craft skills, learn and remember things, and even *do math,* an Int of 0. Animals, similarly, don't all fit that elegantly into an 'Int 2,' when an 'Int 2' toad is pretty much a fly-eating lump of meat, and an 'Int 2' fox or chimpanzee or elephant or dolphin or octopus or raven has a much richer mental life going on. Some sorts of animals, the tool-users, the ones with vocabularies of dozens of 'words,' the ones who can dream and anticipate and whatnot, I'd be inclined to range as high as Int 6 (with others, like the aforementioned toad or various lizards and fish whose entire hunting strategy is 'if something walks within an inch of my mouth, I lunge forward and eat it,' or many insects, as low as 1).
I feel compelled to point out that dragon disciple requires the draconic bloodline.
- Torger
Yes, I'm aware that it does, the build I was referring to is actually a cross-blooded build.
I forgot to mention, thanks to everyone for your comments. I appreciate that I am not alone on this. I need to start taking a similar approach to CON. I seem to worry less about that for some reason.
Agree with original sentiments. I might got as low as 10 Int for a character whose already getting tons of skill points (e.g. human rogue), but I need my skill points, at least 6 a level. I won't play fighters for this very reason. Why play a fighter with 2 skill points when I can play a ranger with 6?
I'd also point out with your sage sorcerer, why do anything else?? A human sage sorcerer is the pinnacle of power! Load up on all those tasty spells, take lots of metamagic, and go to work!
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CUDDLES NOT KNOW ALL WORDS UP THERE, BUT CUDDLES LIKES CUDDLE'S LIFE. CUDDLES ALSO LIKES HUGS. PEOPLE SAY TETORI A LOT WHEN CUDDLES HUGS. THIS GOOD, CUDDLES THINKS. CUDDLES ALSO LIKES FRIENDS. AND MAKING FRIENDS. THEN HUGGING THEM.
SOMETIMES CUDDLES MEETS BAD THINGS. BAD THINGS DESERVE HUGS TOO. SO CUDDLES HUGS. IF REALLY BAD, CUDDLES JUST HUGS UNTIL THEY GO ASLEEP. MAYBE WHEN WAKE UP THEY REALIZE THAT HUGS GOOD AND THEY BE GOOD.
Pants on head retarded?
....
(Creates int 20 charecter who wears pants on head just to make people think he's stupid)
@Kazaan and Set: thank you, your insights in INT (and CHA) have given me something to think about. I had always defined INT as basically IQ / 10. As 70 is the cut-off rate for intellectual ability, I considered characters with that or below to be seriously mentally challenged. There is just no way to roleplay that respectfully.
I've gotta keep in mind that DnD/PF is an abstraction, with little direct connection to reality.
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I have an INT 6 dragon disciple that I really, really enjoy playing. She's incredibly simple-minded, but I really try to avoid a lot of the "stupid character" cliches with her. She has pretty good charisma, a level of bard, and a rank or two in diplomacy so she's friendly and can present herself decently well (no caveman speech), although the sentences and ideas are very simple. She has very, very little understanding of metaphor and generally takes information at face value, which has led to quite a few misunderstandings. Especially in PFS scenarios where taverns are named after different types of establishments. At the same time though, she has average wisdom and thus is relatively aware of things going on, even if she doesn't always inderstand what's happening or why. She certainly has enough common sense to be fairly cautious in combat, although she cares less about that when she's raging.
One of the parts I really enjoy though is her ranks in knowledge:arcana, linguistics, and bardic knowledge. She LOVES to read. It can be almost as exciting as going on real adventures! She pores through every Pathfinder Chronicle that comes out. She rarely draws any coherent conclusions or retains much useful information from them, but on rare occasions her few brain cells will rub together the right way and recall something useful she read about in one of her adventure books.
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Dumped Int hardly means you're pants-on-head retarded. It just means you find it difficult to pick up new things, thus you stick to a few closely practiced skills. It just means you're not broad-minded; you don't need to talk in caveman speak, you can still understand tactical maneuvers at least as well and most likely better than most animals, etc. You lack the broad-mindedness represented by Combat Expertise to employ highly efficient defensive tactics, but that doesn't mean you can't fight defensively at all. Sure, without access to CE, you can't take the "smart" improved combat maneuver feats like trip or disarm, but that just means you can't figure out how to do it in such a way that you don't open yourself up to an AoO. [...]
I don't agree with all you say about Charisma, but your take on Low Intelligence Characters I can support fully. Int 7 means you're slow to grasp new things, you're that guy that laughs about the joke that was told 5 minutes ago because you finally understood it, stuff like that. You're not a drooling idiot that walks repeatedly against the wall, because you don't realise the door is two steps to the right.
About Charisma: I don't agree that a low charisma character has to have a pessimistic outlook on live and be all gloomy. It's certainly a possibility, but it's not necessarily the only one. He can be quite sure with himself in certain fields, like the ones he's good at, but might just be inexperienced in social situations.
I agree though that High Charisma = Super-model pretty, Low Charisma = Quasimodo is certainly not correct. Despite some GMs and Players trying to do that. "I have 18 Cha, I'm hot!" or "No, you got 8 Cha, which means your face is covered in warts and everyone throws up seeing you".
Maybe you look super hot, but you got a shrill voice, or speak before you think and constantly insult people without realising it. That's low charisma, though you look super great.
Maybe you have great ideas all the time, can see right through other people's plots, but your voice is so low and timid that most people don't listen to what you say or follow your advice.
The opposite is true too, some of the best character actors for example I would hardly call "pretty" but they're certainly bursting with Charisma.
In other words: Your appearance is totally up to you. If you make yourself super hot, but have a Cha of 7, think about why that is and play that way.
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You can roleplay just fine with an int score of 7. Speaking in character, interacting with others and so on don't necessarily have to involve skill checks.
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A headstrong person with good insights and advice but little skill in explaining his opinions? He/she kinda assumes that others will just accept what he/she says and follow his/her advice?
Basically a cliche college professor or teacher?
Or better yet a cliche father or grandfather
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Most of your players, by game standards, will have an 11 int.... by the PFS standards we're all a bunch of peasents, like it or not :). It's silly to impose minimums like that; especially since that sort of minimum request for RP is making it more difficult for the Monks / Paladins / Rangers / Barbarians / non-int class X of the world.
A 7 Int does represent a rather slow person. The difference between 10 and 7 may not look big, until you break it down and look at the curve (assuming 3d6 to generate the range of values, ignoring the +2 to a stat). If you look at a population you will come up with the following percent having a specific Int score (any true mathematicians please correct any statistical errors).
Int occurrence/ Percent of Percent of people
Score 216 people population below you
3 1 0.5% 0.0%
4 3 1.4% 0.5%
5 6 2.8% 1.9%
6 10 4.6% 4.6%
7 15 6.9% 9.3%
8 21 9.7% 16.2%
9 25 11.6% 25.9%
10 27 12.5% 37.5%
11 27 12.5% 50.0%
12 25 11.6% 62.5%
13 21 9.7% 74.1%
14 15 6.9% 83.8%
15 10 4.6% 90.7%
16 6 2.8% 95.4%
17 3 1.4% 98.1%
18 1 0.5% 99.5%
So a 7 Int score puts you in the lower 16% or a mid 80s IQ. Based on the following site http://www.iqcomparisonsite.com/IQBasics.aspx (I can make no claims to the accuracy of this site, just one I found) a 7 Int makes you a dullard.
Now that doesn't mean they can not be fun to role play. One of my favorite characters was a lawful neutral half orc fighter with a low int and chr. It was actually a lot of fun playing him as somebody that did not think for themselves, but followed orders like a good soldier. It also allowed a lot of room to grow the character via role playing.
This does not mean you act like an idiot in combat (that is instincts and training imo), but at a 7 Int you should not be doing any creative thinking in the party.
As noted above, I was not a math or stats major...so please point out any mistakes (constructively) that I may have made.
(P.S. Will try to sort out the formatting of the table.)
I do agree about IQ not being a definitive measure, but it serves as a basis for comparison in this "study". I mainly did this because I am going to start running Dragon's Demand on Sunday and one of the characters has an 8 Int score. The best part about this is that the player (based on my numbers above) would easily have a 16 or 17 Int score. He is the player that takes my best puzzle encounters and solves them in no time. We talked about the challenge of playing a character with a low Int score. Of course his response was relief that for once he didn't need to do the thinking.
Just to provide some examples of recognizable characters which have low int (possibly close to 7) would be Kamina from Tengen Toppa Gurren Lagann, Goku from DBZ, and Homer Simpson. To be certain, while these characters are idiots they can still make coherent sentences.
I believe an IQ of 80 does fit approxiamtely.
As a personal hero of mine, I would have to disagree about Homer.
"Oh, people can come up with statistics to prove anything. 14% of people know that."
(and yes we have gone off on a tangent)
A 7 Int does represent a rather slow person. The difference between 10 and 7 may not look big, until you break it down and look at the curve (assuming 3d6 to generate the range of values, ignoring the +2 to a stat).
Actually, the system assumes if you're rolling, you should use 4d6 drop lowest, which skews the dataset.
Assuming 1000 population, and the numbers from the site (which should be fairly accurate due to population size of sample set). Note numbers may be slightly off due to rounding issues for percentages, for example, score of 3 is actually only 0.77 persons, not 1.
Score Number Percentage Percentage Below you
----- --------- ---------- -----------
3 1 0.077% 0.0%
4 3 0.309% 0.077%
5 8 0.772% 0.386%
6 16 1.620% 1.158%
7 29 2.932% 2.778%
8 48 4.784% 5.710%
9 70 7.022% 10.494%
10 94 9.414% 17.516%
11 114 11.420% 26.930%
12 129 12.886% 38.350%
13 132 13.272% 51.236%
14 123 12.346% 64.508%
15 101 10.108% 76.854%
16 73 7.253% 86.962%
17 42 4.167% 94.215%
18 16 1.620% 98.382%
So, your 7 INT guy is actually in the lower 6%. That puts them at borderline mental retardation, not dullard. The 'average' IQ is actually 12.8 something.
It get's worse if you use the NPC stat arrays (which are supposed to represent common NPCs). 13, 12, 11, 10, 9, and 8 mean that there are simply NO NPCs with a 7 int in a human population. Which means that your guy is the village idiot outlier. :)
Remember that stats are symmetrical around 10 in Pathfinder, so if -2 to Int makes you seriously impaired, wouldn't +2 make you a genius? Do you roleplay those 14 int characters as Openheimers and 14 Cha characters as Don Juans? Then there's no reason to RP those 7 int characters as Og the impaired.
Only when you use Point Buy, but even then, they are skewed toward higher numbers.
Additionally, you get less for buying your stat down than you pay for buying it up, except for the first increment/decrement. If you buy your stat down by 3, you get 4 pts, but if you buy it up 3 pts, that costs you 3 pts. In other words, the system says that lowering your stat by 3 pts is more disadvantageous than buying it up by 3 pts is advantageous.
So the point buy system is inherently skewed toward higher average numbers. How high that skew is is directly proportionate to the number of build points.
Mathematically, as I posted above, the system is geared towards 4d6 drop lowest, which makes that 7 a real outlier, and even the point system says that 7 should be a major departure from normal.
I always thought the 4d6 was mainly for PCs as they are typically better than the average population, which is why I assumed 3d6. That and the typical NPC state line of 13, 12, 11, 10, 9, and 8 is the average of(and supports using) 3d6.
It is interesting looking at the numbers though. I think too often people view it as linear, when in reality it is not. The difference between 10 and 9 is much less than 9 to 8 (and so on).
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You are not the village idiot with a 7 intelligence.
The Gamemastery Guide puts the Village Idiot's intelligence at 4.
I am playing a high intelligence wizard with a 10 in wisdom and 12 in charisma. I role play him as someone who is genuinely try to be nice and help but comes off as "looking down his nose" and borderline rude.
Just when you are about to get mad at him he's picking up dinner or tells you about a spell he's just learned that he thought could help out.
I'm playing an elf and there is a dwarf inquisitor in the party. We are messing with the typical dwarf/elf animosity.
He dropped is charisma to boost another stat, so he role plays him as not speaking very much but attempting to say something poignant when he does with his wisdom.
My in character reaction: "By the Gods it speaks!"
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I feel like I've read this thread before...
Anyway @OP, saying that skill checks make up 80% of role playing is a complete farce. Playing your character, having goals, and making in game decisions are what make up role playing.
I hate how everyone on this forum seems to have it backwards, I see so many people talk about purposely not optimizing their character, or multiclassing for 'role playing' reasons, then bash people who want a mechanically sound player calling them the 'roll player' as if it was insulting.
Brotha, if you have to have your characters personality incorporated into the mechanics of your character sheet, to the point where you can make no decisions or act in character in any way without it being represented somewhere with modifiers and dice rolls, that makes you the roll player.
The distribution isn't symmetrical, but the effects are symmetrical. Which means Pathfinder is a Lake Wobegon-ish world not a simulation of the real world. That's fine, keeps life interesting.
Which doesn't really matter, you can have a symmetrical effect, but if the distribution plot makes it statistically significantly less likely to have negatives than positives, then your actual effects are not symmetrical.
Take bank accounts for example, they are also symmetrical in effect (you can have a -$100 balance and a +$100 balance). However, the distribution is skewed because the bank itself intentionally skews the distribution toward the positive (that is, they don't let you overdraw more than X dollars). So, while the bank account effect (Balance) is symmetrical about 0, the effective distribution is heavily weighted toward positive values due to limitations placed on the system (such as the 4d6 drop lowest, or the maximum buy back being stat 7).
Mechanically, -2 is exactly as much different from +0 as +2 is. So if someone with a -2 is so impaired that they cannot function in normal society, a person with a +2 is an outstanding genius.
IQ wise, someone with an 80 int is as non-functional as someone with a 120 IQ is functional, so nto sure why you bring that up. However, let's take a 4 IQ, they are as non-functional as someone with severe mental retardation (IQ 60ish), and the other end of the bell curve is the 140 mensa member (16ish iq?), who's equally as functional as the 60ish IQ is non-functional. Not quite seeing where your point is though.
As an aside, you're too narrowly focused in your distribution. You should be looking at the probability of having a 7 or lower when you roll 4d6 and drop the lowest 6 times.
Because we are only talking about INT, not all stats. Each stat has the same mechanics. Introducing other stats is only muddying the water. While it's true you have a higher chance of having a 7 accross 6 stats, that's meaningless in this conversation, because that has no effect on the likelyhood of having a 7 in a specific stat. The only way it would affect the Int percentages, is if you roll some or all the other stats before INT, in which case, then probability comes into play. But unless you do that, probability is not involved.
Also, your table is showing only the probability of having that specific stat, not the cumulative probability. There is a 5.29% probability of rolling a 7 or less.
So that last column, which lists 5.7% (which is the cumulative probability of having a stat 7 or less) is not in the table?
So, the probability of having no stat below 8 is roughly 0.9471^6 = 72% so while only about 3% of people will have an Int of exactly 7, more than 1 in 4 people will have at least one ability score of 7 or lower.
Which is, again, completely irrelevant. Your assumption is that you are as equally likely to be wise, charismatic, strong, healthy, and dextrous as you are intelligent. However, that is unlikely. Due to the skills system, people are predisposed not to dump int, and due to the HP system, people are predisposed not to dump con. Ergo, there is a built in bias against low con and low int. Low str for casters is also a bias, as is low cha for non spontaneous casters, and low dex for heavy armor builds. However, no class benefits from a dump to int and con. Ergo, despite the system assuming all stats are of equal value, they are not. You are much more likely to see a 7 cha or 7 str or 7 wis than a 7 int, due to the rules framework.
Scores of 7 or lower just aren't that rare.
Never said they were. I stated that 7 INTs are more rare, and gave the reasons for it. Again, unless you want to bring in builds, stat priority, etc, then INT has to be looked at by itself. Unless you want to build a major thesis around it. :)
From a purely 'draw simulation to real world' standpoint, 7 is borderline from a percentage of population standpoint, and the system heavily tries to skew you away from numbers below 10.
You are not the village idiot with a 7 intelligence.
The Gamemastery Guide puts the Village Idiot's intelligence at 4.
Which is a perfectly good int for a village idiot.
But the devs, by raw, made that an impossible value to have without GM fiat. The point buy system doesn't allow numbers less than 7 on a human.
From a 'rules available' standpoint, he's impossible. I really wish the devs had done an 'npc point buy' table to give some idea of what normal NPCs should have for stats when they have a really low or really high stat. Oh well...
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I am playing a high intelligence wizard with a 10 in wisdom and 12 in charisma. I role play him as someone who is genuinely try to be nice and help but comes off as "looking down his nose" and borderline rude.
Just when you are about to get mad at him he's picking up dinner or tells you about a spell he's just learned that he thought could help out.
I'm playing an elf and there is a dwarf inquisitor in the party. We are messing with the typical dwarf/elf animosity.
He dropped is charisma to boost another stat, so he role plays him as not speaking very much but attempting to say something poignant when he does with his wisdom.
My in character reaction: "By the Gods it speaks!"
Heh. Nice. Sounds like a fun table.
My druid has a wisdom of 20 now (at level 9) and an int and charisma of 10 each. Her situation is a bit unusual having grown up as a dryad without seeing civilization of any sort until she was in her teens, but she's pretty widely traveled now. I play her as sort of aloof and quiet, but when she does speak, I endeavor to make the moment memorable. Which is hard because my own wisdom is probably around 8 or so. We have a party sorcerer who does most of the interactions with NPCs, but my druid will speak when she feels a need, low diplomacy be damned. :)
You are not the village idiot with a 7 intelligence.
The Gamemastery Guide puts the Village Idiot's intelligence at 4.
Which is a perfectly good int for a village idiot.
But the devs, by raw, made that an impossible value to have without GM fiat. The point buy system doesn't allow numbers less than 7 on a human.
From a 'rules available' standpoint, he's impossible. I really wish the devs had done an 'npc point buy' table to give some idea of what normal NPCs should have for stats when they have a really low or really high stat. Oh well...
By RAW? Utter nonsense.
The point buy system is not the only way to generate stats, you could get as low as a 3 naturally, and a 1 if your race has a negative to INT.
The point buy system purposely places the limit at 7 to prevent massive stat dumping, and to prevent characters from becoming equal to the village idiot. The NPC array is there to make it fast and easy to generate NPCs, it's not a set in stone rule, you can play with the numbers for the sake of making a compelling character.
Knowledge(Nature) to identify a Wolf is a DC 11 check. So, you need 1 rank in Knowledge(Nature) since it must be trained; without that, you just think it's a big nasty dog. But we'll say you have 1 point in Know(Nature); what Int would it take to have a chance to not be able to recognize a wolf in calm circumstances? 8-9. That gives you a -1 Int mod netting +0 on the check so Take 10 wouldn't guarantee ID. Even then, you've got a 45% chance of correctly identifying the big snarling canine as a Wolf rather than just a big snarling animal. What would an Int of 7 get you? A 40% chance of success. You're only marginally less likely to realize what kind of animal it is. With an Int score of 3, a -4 modifier, you have a 35% chance. Even with an Int of 3, barely above that of the Wolf itself, you have over a 1/3 chance to correctly identify it as a Wolf while a person with 10-11 Int, the de facto average Int for a person only has a 1/2 chance and, with just 10 Int, you can always ID the Wolf in casual circumstances by taking 10. And this is with a mere 1 point in Knowledge(Nature) and it not being a class skill.
A couple things you may want to take into account, first of all common monsters (the example given is goblin, which I'd argue is less common than wolves) are a DC 5+CR so the wolf's knowledge DC is 6. That easily falls into the range for untrained knowledge checks. Second, a successful skill check gives you significantly more than just identification, it also gives powers and vulnerabilities. Mechanically that means that in a take 10 situation an untrained human with a 2 Int will still make the check, so by the letter of the rules you can't be "I wanna pet the big puppy" dumb without adverse conditions.
That being said, the monster id system has some fairly major issues (like it's technically harder to tell what a really big red dragon(DC32) is than it is to identify a baby(DC 16)) so I'd take that with a pretty big grain of salt.
By RAW? Utter nonsense.The point buy system is not the only way to generate stats, you could get as low as a 3 naturally, and a 1 if your race has a negative to INT.
The point buy system purposely places the limit at 7 to prevent massive stat dumping, and to prevent characters from becoming equal to the village idiot. The NPC array is there to make it fast and easy to generate NPCs, it's not a set in stone rule, you can play with the numbers for the sake of making a compelling character.
Please check the rules on Intelligence, you cannot have less than 3. Even with racial modifiers.
Please check the NPC section of the book. Rolling stats is in the PC section, not the NPC section. NPC section has only fixed stat arrays for NPCs.
The GM can do, via GM Fiat, anything he wants (which I said in the post you quoted, but you ignored). By what's written however, PCs use die roll (4d6 drop lowest being the suggested standard), or point buy of various levels. NPCs use Stat Arrays.
Anything else is GM Fiat, which I accounted for in the post you quoted.
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Neither INT nor even CHA have anything to do with roleplaying. Ever!
INT is for extra Skills, Spells and some Skill modifiers. It has NOTHING to do with how you roleplay your PC. Period.
And the PC with a 7 CHA can still be roleplayed by the Player who talks quite a bit at the table. The PC may not do any Diplomacy or Bluff checks, but that has NOTHING to do with how the Player roleplays the PC.
Consider...
We tacitly agree that the wimpy person who's never been strong enough in real life to lift more than a remote control can play a Ftr with a 20 STR.
Further then, we must also agree that an inarticulate, uncharismatic person can play a heavy Diplomacy/ Bluff PC.
- But how does that Player roleplay a PC who takes control of social encounters when he or she can not get through a sentence without stuttering?
The DM MUST allow it and accept the roll for Dimplomacy checks without regard to how the Player butchered the over-the-table dialog.
If the weakling Player can play a strong PC then the uncharismatic Player can play a charismatic PC!
Ditto for unintelligent people.
So let's get back to the OP and my point.
Since we can now unconditionally accept that a Player can choose to roleplay any type of PC he or she can legally build (without being a jerk to the rest of the group, of course, by interpreting Chaotic or Lawful as being an A$$ Hole to everyone), the group must accept the intention of the player to roleplay a certain type of PC.
It's not fair (nor fun) to the uncharismatic player if he or she can't be allowed to play a charsimatic PC.
Because of this, we as Players MUST look at the RAW for Ability Scores, NOT what we think they should (or do) mean or imply. INT in D&D doesn't have jack to do with what we think it does -- what it does in real life. It means extra Skills, extra Spells and the modifier for some Skills. THAT'S ALL.
YES!
Consider...
We tacitly agree that the wimpy person who's never been strong enough in real life to lift more than a remote control can play a Ftr with a 20 STR.
Further then, we must also agree that an inarticulate, uncharismatic person can play a heavy Diplomacy/ Bluff PC.
- But how does that Player roleplay a PC who takes control of social encounters when he or she can not get through a sentence without stuttering?
The DM MUST allow it and accept the roll for Dimplomacy checks without regard to how the Player butchered the over-the-table dialog.
If the weakling Player can play a strong PC then the uncharismatic Player can play a charismatic PC!Ditto for unintelligent people.
So long as you acknowledge the followiing, I agree...
A) The PC can roleplay his 7 INT guy however he wants. He can roleplay as a great thinker and tactician. But that doesn't MAKE his character a great thinker and tactician. It makes him Bobby Hobbes (spot the TV show reference for 5 pts!), a less than bright guy who's good in a fight and thinks he's brilliant but he's really just good with guns and fists. He may think he's god's gift to women, and he can roleplay him as god's gift to women, and roleplay that all women swoon in his presence. But again, he's just Bobby Hobbes, a guy who's good with a gun and his fists, and women find him creepy and icky and they don't stay around him if they can help it. Because that's what he is, he's a creepy, icky, thinks he's way smarter than he is 7 int and 7 cha fighter who's good at punching people and shooting things.
What I have a problem with is people who cry 'do not tell me how to roleplay my 7 cha guy by having NPCs dislike me when I open my mouth!' when they do nothing to show why NPCs should like them (IE:, no circlet of persuasion, no diplomacy ranks, every skill rank in Perception and Ride).