I keep seeing more good ideas, but I'm going to try an array first, I think.
The question I have about an array is that is there ANY build that requires an 18 pre-racial? I don't believe there is, but before I say "here's your array, the high stat is a 16", I thought I'd check first to see if anyone who cries about not being able to have a 20 is just a whiner or someone with a valid argument.
At one time, Paladins required a 17 CHA. They don't anymore. That is the only time I can recall that a character would be unplayable with a high score of 16.
Some people may whine and say they really need that 18 to make their Conan wannabe, or their Einstein wannabe, or whatever, but other than min-maxers and/or roleplayers with specific one-sided character concept, almost anybody can make every class work with a stat array whose highest stat is a 16.
On the other hand, there are some classes that don't play well if they have more than one or two dump stats, so an array that looks like 16, 16, 16, 8, 8, 8 would make it hard to play classes like paladins or monks or a few others. Not saying you'd do that, but it's worth maybe making a few arrays - one that has a couple really good scores and the rest are mediocre or junk, one that has several good scores and a couple that are mediocre or junk, and one that has all or most of its scores at least decent and with no junk.
The last time I did arrays, I had a bunch of them. About a dozen. On the left was the really imbalanced array and on the right was the perfectly balanced array, with a gradual progression from one extreme to the other.
What if, at 4th/8th/12th/16th level, you got 4 "point buy" points instead of +1 to a single stat?I tried that back in my 3.5 days. I loved it.
Since 3.0 I would set a min and max point-buy, then let players roll. As long as their stats fell within the min/max, we were fine, otherwise they got adjusted up or down to avoid builds that were too powerful or too weak. Then I would add 1pt of a point-buy per level (including 1st), anything over 18 (3.0 & 3.5) or 17 (PF) cost 4pts to increase. As mentioned it made raising low stats very easy, which some players availed themselves of. But most of the points were burned to raise the primary stat.
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Also useful is Rolled Point-buy, so you don't get to custom design your stats (similar to rolling), but everyone comes out even.
** spoiler omitted **
Can't find the original post to credit I'm afraid.
Majuba, I find this interesting, but I don't really understand how to implement it. Could I get a simpler explanation?
Just a little disconnect here. Leadership fear require a minimum lv 7 character to get....how could you have a cohort at 5th lv?she was played in an Urban political intrigue Campaign and survived to 16th level when the DM retired the campaign. she started 5th level and had a 3rd level cohort.years ago i played a Half Nymph Bard with starting stats on a 25 point buy of
5 Strength
14 Dexterity
7 Constitution
19 intelligence
14 wisdom
18 charismashe had 2 7s, but was she a filthy munchkin. especially when she couldn't wear armor? and couldn't take a hit?
i mean she was a scrawny and sickly little girl
+2 intelligence +2 charisma -2 Strength were the converted half nymph modifiersshe was maximum skills, but minimum survivability
by making herself seem harmless, she ignored a lot of enemy aggro
she gave requests politely whilst making dance like movements as part of her performance, like pointing at an orc's unarmed neck and saying "please slash him right there." she had cute nicknames for everyone and had an angelkin battle oracle cohort to fight for her.
other than being built as a support based noncombatant, would you personally considered her minmaxed? would you consider her optimized? not every 5 or 7 is a bad thing, characters can even have multiple and be challenged.
I would consider this character min/maxed but not optimized. Not optimized because a bards governing stat is cha and you chose to have int maxed instead of cha.
What type of 'adventures' was this character designed for?
My opinion, this character would a liability in most 'outdoor' adventures.
What type setting did you get to play her in? What level has she survived to so far?
the leadership requirements were houseruled to minimum level 3 instead of minimum level 7. still cost a feat though.
7 intelligence? You can barely talk right.
I would just like to point out that a character with an Intelligence of 7 isn't exactly mentally handicapped. You can still speak and read your racial languages provided that your Intelligence isn't lower than 3. There's a fair spread between 3 and 7 (a difference of 2 for modifiers). I don't see the problem in going below 9 on any one score. Most everyone has some kind of weakness or flaw. What isn't exactly "true to life" (if that's what you're going for) is creating characters that do not have some sort of flaw, be it a physical one, or a mental or social one.
There are some gaming systems that enforce a system of flaws upon each character. Pathfinder doesn't enforce flaws upon each character, though it allows players to do so. It's even encouraged, to a certain degree.
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7 intelligence? You can barely talk right.I would just like to point out that a character with an Intelligence of 7 isn't exactly mentally handicapped. You can still speak and read your racial languages provided that your Intelligence isn't lower than 3. There's a fair spread between 3 and 7 (a difference of 2 for modifiers). I don't see the problem in going below 9 on any one score. Most everyone has some kind of weakness or flaw. What isn't exactly "true to life" (if that's what you're going for) is creating characters that do not have some sort of flaw, be it a physical one, or a mental or social one.
There are some gaming systems that enforce a system of flaws upon each character. Pathfinder doesn't enforce flaws upon each character, though it allows players to do so. It's even encouraged, to a certain degree.
Being literate wasnt assumed just because you knew a language. Not sure if it was 3.x that had literacy and language as one skill. So yes, NOW its assume that 3 int is literate because they know a language.
Of course I could wrong and thinking of a diiferent game, like champions/heroes system. Thatsystem had language broken down to accents and idioms.
7 intelligence? You can barely talk right.I would just like to point out that a character with an Intelligence of 7 isn't exactly mentally handicapped. You can still speak and read your racial languages provided that your Intelligence isn't lower than 3. There's a fair spread between 3 and 7 (a difference of 2 for modifiers). I don't see the problem in going below 9 on any one score. Most everyone has some kind of weakness or flaw. What isn't exactly "true to life" (if that's what you're going for) is creating characters that do not have some sort of flaw, be it a physical one, or a mental or social one.
There are some gaming systems that enforce a system of flaws upon each character. Pathfinder doesn't enforce flaws upon each character, though it allows players to do so. It's even encouraged, to a certain degree.
If you use the Intx10=IQ rule of thumb, then yes a 7 Int character would in fact be mentally handicapped.
There are real people who are physically and mentally fit as well as charismatic. These types of people, in a fantasy world, would also likely be drawn to adventuring. Sure, everyone can point out their "flaws", but most people have stats that are between 9-12. 7s are atleast uncommon.
If you use the Intx10=IQ rule of thumb, then yes a 7 Int character would in fact be mentally handicapped.
It bears repeating that it seems the better math for a standard distribution puts 7 Int at an 85 IQ. Kinda slow, yes, but not handicapped.
There are real people who are physically and mentally fit as well as charismatic. These types of people, in a fantasy world, would also likely be drawn to adventuring. Sure, everyone can point out their "flaws", but most people have stats that are between 9-12. 7s are atleast uncommon.
7's are not uncommon as you might think. The average NPC stat array has one 9, and one 8 BEFORE Racial penalties. So races with a -2 to any given stat will generally have either a 7 or a 6 in there a certain percentage of the time.
A Basic Melee or Divine NPC has a 9 in Int, so the average Warrior/Fighter, Adept/Cleric, or whatever melee class or Divine caster class a non-Heroic NPC character with a race with -2 Int (such as a Suli) will have a 7 Int, and there's nothing in any of their descriptions that describes them as handicapped compared to humans.
"Slow-witted" is the description of Suli in general, but not handicapped.
It bears repeating that it seems the better math for a standard distribution puts 7 Int at an 85 IQ. Kinda slow, yes, but not handicapped.
If you use the Intx10=IQ rule of thumb, then yes a 7 Int character would in fact be mentally handicapped.
But still noticeably slow.
If you use the Intx10=IQ rule of thumb, then yes a 7 Int character would in fact be mentally handicapped.
It bears repeating that it seems the better math for a standard distribution puts 7 Int at an 85 IQ. Kinda slow, yes, but not handicapped.
There are real people who are physically and mentally fit as well as charismatic. These types of people, in a fantasy world, would also likely be drawn to adventuring. Sure, everyone can point out their "flaws", but most people have stats that are between 9-12. 7s are atleast uncommon.7's are not uncommon as you might think. The average NPC stat array has one 9, and one 8 BEFORE Racial penalties. So races with a -2 to any given stat will generally have either a 7 or a 6 in there a certain percentage of the time.
A Basic Melee or Divine NPC has a 9 in Int, so the average Warrior/Fighter, Adept/Cleric, or whatever melee class or Divine caster class a non-Heroic NPC character with a race with -2 Int (such as a Suli) will have a 7 Int, and there's nothing in any of their descriptions that describes them as handicapped compared to humans.
"Slow-witted" is the description of Suli in general, but not handicapped.
Yes, but we were talking about the effect on "realism" which would mean humans only, which would mean no -2s.
And the term handicapped wasn't used until the 19 hundreds, so it would be an odd term to use to describe a fictional fantasy race.
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We're talking about realism?
Why are we doing that? This is a game about people beating dragons to death with glowy magic swords and shooting fire from their hands.
Indeed, Rynjin. Well said.
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It bears repeating that it seems the better math for a standard distribution puts 7 Int at an 85 IQ. Kinda slow, yes, but not handicapped.
If you use the Intx10=IQ rule of thumb, then yes a 7 Int character would in fact be mentally handicapped.
But still noticeably slow.
Um average policemen IQ is 90.
We're talking about realism?
Why are we doing that? This is a game about people beating dragons to death with glowy magic swords and shooting fire from their hands.
"What isn't exactly "true to life" (if that's what you're going for) is creating characters that do not have some sort of flaw, be it a physical one, or a mental or social one."
Apparently that's what someone was going for?
If you use the Intx10=IQ rule of thumb, then yes a 7 Int character would in fact be mentally handicapped.
It bears repeating that it seems the better math for a standard distribution puts 7 Int at an 85 IQ. Kinda slow, yes, but not handicapped.
I'm not sure where the Intx10=IQ "rule of thumb" came from, but it's a pretty poor metric. The average IQ these days is about 88.5 according to the University of Hartford (an 8 by your metric). That would put scores anywhere between 3 (the minimum) and 13 (the maximum) by that method, or you'd have a lot of 3s skewing the scale away from the 18s. Highest recorded IQ sits at 225 (Christopher Hirata; a 22 or 23 by your metric) and highest estimated IQ was 250 to 300 (William James Sidis; a 25 to 30 by your metric). By comparison Garry Kasparov had a 19, Einstein was somewhere between 16 and 19 and Stephen Hawking only has a 16.
As these are all "mortal folks", if you wanted a better metric, you'd put the 88.5 as a 10 and probably pop Hawking up to an 18, giving you a more accurate "rule of thumb" that says Intx8.5=IQ. However, that's still a poor rubric as 7 would be "mentally handicapped" as would 8 (though just barely). An Intelligence score of 3 would work out to be 25.5 (lower than any recorded scores to the best of my knowledge). Heck, the UK banned a man from having sex for having an IQ of 48 (which would work out to be an Intelligence score of between 5 and 6). It's much more an exponential scale; William James Sidis should be sitting at 20. As he died at 46, he probably wasn't "level 20" with 5 ability score increases pumped into Intelligence (to put him at 25).
Someone who is more mathematically inclined than I am can probably figure out a more appropriate formula to calculate human intellect relative to Pathfinder Intelligence scores.
Davick... I wasn't going for verisimilitude, but I was accounting for that as a methodology that some gamers enjoy. I thought that it was made clear via my quotes and parenthetical remark.
Best wishes!
If you use the Intx10=IQ rule of thumb, then yes a 7 Int character would in fact be mentally handicapped.
It bears repeating that it seems the better math for a standard distribution puts 7 Int at an 85 IQ. Kinda slow, yes, but not handicapped.
I'm not sure where the Intx10=IQ "rule of thumb" came from, but it's a pretty poor metric. The average IQ these days is about 88.5 according to the University of Hartford (an 8 by your metric). That would put scores anywhere between 3 (the minimum) and 13 (the maximum) by that method, or you'd have a lot of 3s skewing the scale away from the 18s. Highest recorded IQ sits at 225 (Christopher Hirata; a 22 or 23 by your metric) and highest estimated IQ was 250 to 300 (William James Sidis; a 25 to 30 by your metric). By comparison Garry Kasparov had a 19, Einstein was somewhere between 16 and 19 and Stephen Hawking only has a 16.
As these are all "mortal folks", if you wanted a better metric, you'd put the 88.5 as a 10 and probably pop Hawking up to an 18, giving you a more accurate "rule of thumb" that says Intx8.5=IQ. However, that's still a poor rubric as 7 would be "mentally handicapped" as would 8 (though just barely). An Intelligence score of 3 would work out to be 25.5 (lower than any recorded scores to the best of my knowledge). Heck, the UK banned a man from having sex for having an IQ of 48 (which would work out to be an Intelligence score of between 5 and 6). It's much more an exponential scale; William James Sidis should be sitting at 20. As he died at 46, he probably wasn't "level 20" with 5 ability score increases pumped into Intelligence (to put him at 25).
Someone who is more mathematically inclined than I am can probably figure out a more appropriate formula to calculate human intellect relative to Pathfinder Intelligence scores.
Davick... I wasn't going for verisimilitude, but I was accounting for that as a methodology that some gamers enjoy. I thought that it was made clear via my...
The average IQ must be 100, that's the point (within a standard deviation 85-115). And your source is modern. Once you whip out scientific studies, it's hardly a rule of thumb. An Int of 22-23 being the highest recorded falls within the Mutants and Masterminds "rule of thumb" that a human character shouldn't have an intelligence above 24. IQ and an INT score are both abstractions, putting them together reduces the clarity of the actual intelligence of a character. It's not a good thing to use for in depth analysis, but as a rule of thumb, it's fine.
But more to the point, you can read and write and still be mentally handicapped.
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we have the following Game Aspects
Japanese Schoolgirls wearing black pajamas wielding tokugawa era daishos teaming up with native american shamans whom wear the hides of african beasts and transform into prehistoric shamans, medieval european knights worshipping roman gods, wearing renaiscance era armor built to withstand black powder bullets and wielding persian falchions, old men in robes whom can solve any problem by chanting mathematical gibberish and making funny hand signs, women in chainmail bikinis with massive swords akin to japanese zanbatou, raging like freaking vikings, and pouncing like south american jaguars, little girls dressed like victorian china dolls whom inspire their comerades to work harder through suggestive gypsy dances while they fire japanese daikyu, and blind swordsmen whom wear full plate and fight fairly well with polearms, ignoring the drawbacks of their condition as their god's curse becomes a blessing, on a quest to kill
flying intelligent fire breathing reptiles of massive size, sentient jello, brain eating purple skinned space aliens from beyond the stars, automated robots whom shrug off most magic, faceless, genderless, formless shapeshifters that can become anything like they were freaking dittos and attractive ginger females with bat wings, a tail and uncontrollable lust that clearly look like a young adult woman in her early 20s attending a halloween party with the hopes of impressing a young 20 something year old male with a massive libido.
The average IQ may be 100, but I'd say going by the NPC distributions (9 Int is common among "melee NPCs" and "Divine NPCs" while the only ones over a 10 Int are Skill NPCs and Arcane casters) 9 would be your best bet for that 100.
Pathfinder has literally everything, including the kitchen sink, why can't we have a guy with a 7 or even a 5 in the one stat they show the highest deficiency in, or in 2 stats with similar deficiency levels and connections.
I have been campaigning for an overhaul of the Point-Buy system (either changing the standard of how many points are allowed, or changing the system entirely) for as long as I've been on these boards.
Point buy is always going to favor SAD classes over MAD ones, which despite your proclaimed perfect balance can offer, doesn't really fix this problem.
I either want to see different classes receive different point buys, allowing for the MAD classes to have access to more above average stats to make their class abilities actually viable, OR changing the point buy system entirely to allow characters multiple good stats.
What it comes down to is this: a game where a wizard player can get two 18's is better than a game where a generalist cleric is unplayable.
I find point buy comparisons and standardization to be horridly misleading when it comes to terms of balance.
A paladin player with a stat array with a CON above 14 and a WIS above 8 ends up with a Point Buy value in the mid to high 30's, but god forbid he have a +1 or +2 for his will save at level 1 instead of a 0. Or an extra hit point that is worth 5 points in point buy for some reason.
The actual in game application of stats only really matters early game, once leveling and class progressions equal it, then dwarf it, then you realize that stats aren't really that important.
One cannot introduce a point buy system and also not expect stat dumping. It's simply not how the system was intended to work, if it was, then stat dumping would not be possible in the first place.
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I'm not sure where the Intx10=IQ "rule of thumb" came from, but it's a pretty poor metric. The average IQ these days is about 88.5 according to the University of Hartford (an 8 by your metric).
If you use the Intx10=IQ rule of thumb, then yes a 7 Int character would in fact be mentally handicapped.
It bears repeating that it seems the better math for a standard distribution puts 7 Int at an 85 IQ. Kinda slow, yes, but not handicapped.
All depends on where you look. I found a site, statisticbrain.com, that shows the US is at 98, UK is at 100, and Hong Kong is at 107 for the average.
If we use this, what does that put a 3 for IQ?It bears repeating that it seems the better math for a standard distribution puts 7 Int at an 85 IQ. Kinda slow, yes, but not handicapped.
If you use the Intx10=IQ rule of thumb, then yes a 7 Int character would in fact be mentally handicapped.
Assuming it's linear, a 3 would be 65. Considering a Standard deviation of IQ is defined as 15 points, this would be 2.33 Standard deviations, which is approximately a percentage point. Given the chance to roll 3 on 3d6 as 216, if we're using that as our metric, it's off, but reasonably close, considering how small the percents are. For other values, though, the percent error on a 3d6 vs actual values on a normal curve, are fairly low (usually under 5%)
1) IQ isn't a linear scale; an IQ of 50 doesn't mean you're half as smart as someone with an IQ of 100.
2) Real IQ is subjectively based; it's a measure of what a person knows for their age relative to their culture compared to the guidelines that culture provides for what they should know for their age.
3) IQ is based on a fundamentally flawed conjecture from the likes of Freud that people have singular driving factors and doesn't take into consideration the principals of lateral/multiple intelligence paradigms that existed before Freud and have now started to experience a resurgence.
4) Average, colloquially, can be used to refer to two different things; mean or median. The mean is the sum of all values divided by the total number of values and is used to calculate SD. Median, however, is important in comparing where the numerical "middle" of the population is. If the median is less than the mean, it means that most people fall below the average due to a small number of large results that drag the average in one direction. If the median is greater than the mean, it means most people fall above the average. For Example:
1, 4, 4, 5, 7, 10, 15, 20, 35, 70, 100
A list of 11 numerical values. The median value is 10; the number in the very middle of the list. The mean value is 24.6. 8 of these 11 numbers is below the average value; the majority is below average. So the correct phrasing of the aforementioned claim that "the new average IQ is 85" is actually, "the new median IQ is 85" meaning the majority of people are below average IQ.5) Even trying to relate Intelligence to IQ is a fallacy to start with because IQ governs what you know compared to what you should know while Intelligence, in the game, is base potential. To figure out IQ, you'd need to compare a character's Knowledge skills compared to some guideline of how many skill points they "should" have in those Knowledge skills for their level.
6) If there's any point at which a...
1) That's not what I was saying. My point was if 10 INT means 100 IQ, and 7 INT means 85 IQ, then my point was if it was linear, then IQ could be found out as 50+(5*INT). Both follow a normal distribution, more or less (assuming 3d6 rolls for the average human), so it's not all that unlikely that the 50+5*INT maps roughly to IQ.
2&3)And are you saying PF doesn't treat INT subjectively? A lot of it is subjective, and/or abstracted. Neither are perfect systems, and neither really sum up the grand total of knowledge or cognitive faculties
4)Doesn't matter. IQ is a normal distribution, by definition. Both averages, mean and median, are exactly the same.
5)Unless you're dealing with different ages, where you get bonuses or penalties to mental skills, INT also does that. People don't get cultural modifiers based on where they're from. Races do, but in the real world we don't have several sentient races, so we don't have a paradigm for this.
I prefer rolling, Point Buy is a min-maxers favourite, so if you want less cheese, go with rolling.
Plus, I hate having to decide how to spread them so I prefer rolling for that reason. My preference for a well-rounded character contributes to this too.
If I can break your game with point buy then I can do it with rolling.