Sorry, alot of times it hard to see sarcasm and jokes from just words without facial expressions and vocal tones.
I know! Frustrating for me especially as you can imagine
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Example of roleplay that has nothing to do with stats or skills. Long time ago, mid to late 80's, started playing with a group of people who were trying to come up with their own roleplaying game system since 2nd edition did not do everything they wanted in a rpg, which really has no bearing on the RP example.
We were exploring an old dungeon complex and enountered some type of mold that emitted spores, of course I fail my save. Now my character was fatigued from respiratory problems. Every now and then during play I start breathing with a heavy rasp to remind everyone of what happened. A few hours game time later the party encountered a 'witches' shack and engaged the little old lady in conversation looking for any info on things in the dungeon, during the whole conversation I was doing my raspy breathing. Not sure if it just annoyed the GM or what, but the old lady gave my character some tea and it cured the respiratory problem.
No skills and no stats used for that roleplay.
'Reasonable' and 'average' are not synonymous.And yet an average intellect is, by definition, reasonable.
I'm curious why you would say this.
Just trying to define 'average intellect' in and of itself is a monstrous challenge. Thinking it has some sort of standard definition is a bit of a leap. Being certain that 'reasonable' is a characteristic of 'average intellect' is an even bigger leap.
If we look at the words individually to determine their relationship we find some interesting stuff.
Average: “In colloquial language average usually refers to the sum of a list of numbers divided by the size of the list, in other words the arithmetic mean.”
Intellect: “Intellect is a term used in studies of the human mind, and refers to the ability of the mind to come to correct conclusions about what is true or real, and about how to solve problems.”
So… already we are faced with the challenge of finding the average of intellects. Given that we are just guestimating here, we can get a fairly acceptable result, for our purposes, by simply defining our inclusion parameters. Do we want the average of all intellects ever, or something more narrowly defined? Such as modern day human intellects? Or American intellects? Or just intellects of healthy adults between the ages of 25 and 30 who live in Tampa Florida and work in retail? We need some idea of what we are basing this concept of ‘average intellect’ on.
Once we have that, we can get an idea of who it is we’re talking about. The next step is to see if the definition of reasonable fits.
Reasonable: having sound judgment; fair and sensible
Synonyms of Reasonable (for sake of clarity): Intelligent, Logical, Rational.
So, once you have your desired group by which you intend to average their intellect, and compare to the definition of reasonable… does it fit? Does it fit by definition?
For example, I could call a skateboard a ‘fast vehicle’. But I wouldn’t define it as such, nor would almost anyone familiar with a skateboard…and other vehicles. But, you could get it to go really fast if you where to, say, launch it from a catapult, or ride it out the back of a plane 50k ft up. Oh it’d go fast alright. By it still isn’t “fast” by definition.
So, while the average intellect of your desired group may indeed be capable of being reasonable at times… are they reasonable by definition?
I suspect not.
Just to toss an added twist to the 'you're not roleplaying right' concept...
How well do the players themselves actually rank on the intelligence chart? Or the charisma chart? or whatever chart...
I would consider myself around the 8-9 mark. I get decent grades, but I work REALLY hard to get them. Once the semester's over, I don't retain a whole lot. My parents think I'm about a 15, some people I know would rank me about a 5.
Charisma? I'm witty and fun to be around, so probably a 14-15 amongst friends, but about 6-7 around strangers. Around them I'm shy and withdrawn and tend to fold when confronted with differening opinions...
So seriously, if "I" have a 8 intelligence, and a chr of 7... and my character acts like I would... (what many people would call not Roleplaying at all...) Are the stats REALLY being misrepresented?
DM's do or try to know everything they can about the campaign setting... but there is a MAGNITUDE of things that I have no idea about Golarion at all.... Basic Geography, constellations, how to churn butter and mend armor... Crap that is common knowledge to 'characters' that for some reason MY character can get wrong in casual conversation pretty easily... Heck, most of my PCs probably sound like rain man. They can name any spell that needs to be named, but wouldn't know the name of the town he was in or the bartender he just spoke to... :)
It's easy to focus on 'battle tactics'... but frankly 'animal intelligence' tend to work out flanking and 'divide and conquer' techniques...
Just fuel for the fire ^_^
It's easy to focus on 'battle tactics'... but frankly 'animal intelligence' tend to work out flanking and 'divide and conquer' techniques...
Yeah, when people say 'battle tactics', it doesn't even occur to me that they could possibly even be referring to basic flanking.
Flanking is primal, primitive, basic, and instinctual. An enemy can only look in one direction, and if it isn't looking at you... well, it cannot defend itself.
Flanking happens naturally if you always try to go for the enemy's back, too. Ally 1 tries to go for enemy's back, and gets face to face confrontation; you go for enemy's back... now enemy has to face either you, your ally, or neither. Any way you slice it, his defenses are down.
So, you may not even purposefully be flanking on a conscious 'tactics' level and still do it naturally and organically, simply by trying to strike at the obvious weak point. The enemy's back.
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From a practical perspective, there's a difference between playing in a constant group where people can cover for other people's lacks, and a PFS group. In a PFS group there's no guarantee other player characters will cover for your weak characteristics, so buying down a stat may well get your character killed.
For example: in three separate scenarios I've been in, spellcasters have had to climb ropes in an emergency, and the ones that have bought down their strength have wasted valuable rounds trying to get up off the end of the rope. On one occasion, this nearly lead to my wizard being eaten by a seatiger. On two other occasions the wizard couldn't bring his firepwer tobear because he was too slow.
On a different occasion, my wizard had the chance to talk to a leader of a bunch of kobolds, since she was the only one who knew Draconic,and nobody had Diplomacy. She barely made the roll to make the Kobolds listen to an alliance proposal- if she had bought her Charisma down, the group would have ended up in a nasty fight right before the main boss.
So roleplaying or other considerations aside, in PFS play at least, buying down attributes makes one vulnerable, sometimes dangerously so.
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'Reasonable' and 'average' are not synonymous.And yet an average intellect is, by definition, reasonable.I'm curious why you would say this.
Just trying to define 'average intellect' in and of itself is a monstrous challenge.
It's not a monstrous challenge....
Each ability score generally ranges from 3 to 18, although racial bonuses and penalties can alter this; an average ability score is 10.
It's ten.
As for 'reasonable', when hypothesising an unknown individual, how much more 'reasonable' can you be than choosing 'average' as the intellect. Absolutely anything non-average is less reasonable, or at best, as reasonable.
'Reasonable' and 'average' are not synonymous.And yet an average intellect is, by definition, reasonable.I'm curious why you would say this.
Just trying to define 'average intellect' in and of itself is a monstrous challenge.
It's not a monstrous challenge....
Each ability score generally ranges from 3 to 18, although racial bonuses and penalties can alter this; an average ability score is 10.It's ten.
As for 'reasonable', when hypothesising an unknown individual, how much more 'reasonable' can you be than choosing 'average' as the intellect. Absolutely anything non-average is less reasonable, or at best, as reasonable.
Congratulations, you just failed to define average intellect. You quantified it. Now qualify it.
You are either engaging in sophistry here, or you have forgotten what sense you originally used ‘reasonable’.
I said, 'the player comes up with a reasonable answer'. 'Reasonable' meaning 'average', i.e. like a Reasoning score of 10.
You are trying to define ‘reasonable’ as ‘average’ here, in context of one’s ability to reason.
Essentially, you are making the claim, in a very strange way, that having an average intellect is the equivalent of being reasonable.And, to that claim, I would disagree. Most reasonable people would too.
If you instead meant “The player comes up with an average answer”, but for whatever reason, you used the word ‘reasonable’ on accident? Then… sure ok.
But ‘reasonable’ in the context of an answer that a guy with 7 Int comes up with and ‘reasonable’ for an answer a guy with 30 Int comes up with are rarely the same. What is reasonable for one is not at all reasonable for the other, often times. If that was the usage of the word you were shooting for.
Because, if so… you were trying to say something akin to “Then, during play, a situation comes up which requires reasoning and the player comes up with an answer that is reasonable for an average Int. But all the DM (who would play 7 Int as 'poor reasoning') sees is the player not playing his low score at all!”
I bolded the rephrasing. Is this what you meant?
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Okay, we seem to be fixating on my use of the word.
However the word can be used, the way I actually used it (a 'reasonable' answer) was 'not brilliant, not poor, but in between'. Reasonable.
As for reasonable = average, when postulating on the intellect of an unknown person, average is the most likely, therefore it's certainly not unreasonable for this person to have average intellect, therefore reasonable. And since any particular intellect that is not average is less likely than average, then a non-average intellect is either less reasonable or, at best, as reasonable. There is no more reasonable intellect to have than 'average' for this unknown theoretical person.
And all of this is, and was, in relation to the numerical ability scores. I'm aware of the average of 3d6 being 10.5, but a creature's ability score is an integer and the CRB itself defines 'average' as 10.
I make no apologies for discussing intellect in terms of a numerical score when not only my post but the entire thread is about a numerical ability score.
@Kazaan well said! That's a great way to look at it.
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It may be reasonable to expect that, meeting a completely random stranger on the street, you'd expect them to be of average intelligence barring any and all supplemental information. But if you talk to them and they show glaring incompetence (via completely failed knowledge rolls), that might lead one to believe they are of lower intelligence. The actuality may be that either the person is of lower intelligence, or they are moderately above-average intellect but unstudied in knowledges or simply even have poor rolls (what they studied ended up being trivia and the actual important information escaped them; standard college education). If you see them muscle-bound with a big weapon strapped to their back, however, you might immediately presume them to be below-average intelligence because most strong people who are good with a weapon will either be a professional soldier or officer if they are smart enough or a mercenary or street tough if they're too dumb for military service and the guy in front of you doesn't look like he's in military uniform. But that's just based on appearance and stereotype; he may very well be highly intelligent but puts on airs of not being so so people are caught off guard.
Moreover, the nature of the encounter can tell something about the person as well. If they've survived long enough to be a successful adventurer, they're probably not that much of a dullard; adventurers that stupid rarely live that long. But others just seem to be too dumb to die. It's rare for an adventurer to have just average intelligence; either they leverage it and use it to their advantage or they forego it entirely. So, by that logic, it's entirely unreasonable to expect that, given no other knowledge, a hypothetical adventurer would have "average" (10) Int. That's far less likely than having either 13 or 7 Int depending on whether they're a defensive Combat Expertise type or a full-out offensive type.
Interesting, but since this idea relies on the subject being an 'adventurer', and instead of being a person who's life has found them adventuring instead is created as an adventurer by a player using a system allowing him to assign ability scores....
Your idea simply doesn't intersect with mine. Thus, your idea of average/reasonable doesn't affect mine.
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Isn't that precisely what we're talking about here: players creating adventurers using a system?
It started that way. : )
It then became a diatribe against those seeming to refuse to role-play low scores, based on differing ideas of what a score of 7 'means' compared to real people.
Suspending our disbelief, in order to bring any verisimilitude to our fantasy worlds, we have to avoid breaking the fourth wall. Our worlds must make sense as if they were real, breathing places. If the world you create can't exist as a self-contained entity in your imagination then you have failed. It would be a very strange world indeed which can only exist if it's creatures only exist by being created by 'player's' in our, 'real', world.
So, the population must make sense without any reference to 'players' whatsoever. The population is modelled in the game by the 3d6 bell curve, but the results of all that randomness must make sense as if they were not a game construct at all!
Rolling randomly, each ability will be between 3 and 18, with fully two-thirds between 8 and 13 inclusive. That said, this leaves one full third outside this range, half of that being 7 or less and the other half being 14 or more.
Then each ability is rolled, and no roll has any connection to or is affected by any other roll. Even though we can imagine these good and bad rolls averaging themselves out so that each set of six rolls is (roughly) equal to any other set, the realities of randomness mean that many, many individuals have much better sets of scores than average and equally many have sets much worse. The fact that point-buy doesn't reflect this is one reason why I hate point-buy!
Having randomly rolled every human in the world(!), this is the population against which our PCs are measured. However, we must imagine that the results of this (mammoth) effort are the natural result of this imaginary world, independent of any game rules in Real Life! (no wonder DMs are advised to use an average array for NPCs; who has the time?)
With this population, the average score in any stat is 10.5. However, since only integers are possible, '10 or 11' would be more accurate and the CRB calls it '10'.
In this population, you could easily come across a warrior with 18 Str. One in 216 chance. What can we surmise about the Int score of this warrior? Nothing. The roll for his Str was completely separate from his roll for Int. Just like the Real Life which the system is doing it's best to emulate, you can't tell anything about the intellect of a person by measuring his strength! You may imagine that the so-called 'law of averages' means that if a person has a great score in one ability then he is more likely to have bad abilities elsewhere 'to make up for it'. This fallacy is why casinos make more money than the mathematical house edge would suggest!
However, if you use a system like point-buy to create your PCs then if you decide on a Str of 17 and an Int of 10, you quickly realise that you could lower the Int to 7 to raise the Str to 18. Almost certainly a good idea for a class that has a use for Str but not Int.
This process is not reflected in the 'reality' of the game world! Creatures don't decide that they want to be Fighters then lower their Int to increase their Str! This is something only the players of the game do!
So the average warrior may have higher strength than average because being strong is a definate advantage in that profession. But this same warrior is not more likely to have a lower intelligence, because unlike the game a lower intelligence does not make for a better warrior!
Your supposition that fighters are much more likely to have an Int of either 7 or 13 is only true of the characters designed by the players of the game. It would certainly not be true of the humans in that world, who must conform to the 3d6 bell curve in order to be a realistic representation of a population. The game '7 or 13' doesn't represent Real Life distribution of ability any more than it represents the in-game population; it is only a construct of creating characters by choosing which ability has what score with a limited point-buy. Another reason why I hate point-buy.
So when I talk about an average/reasonable score, I'm either talking about the in-game population or Real Life populations, not the skewing of those averages because of various 'fair' methods of creating better-than-average heroes.
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That doesn't make sense to me. In this game engine, ability scores have an associated modifier. It doesn't make sense that the modifier is more reasonable than the score from which it is calculated.
If I were to frame it like that, the most reasonable modifier would be zero. I framed it in terns of ability score, so I said that the most reasonable score is 10.
There is no score that is more reasonable.
I have not been reading the entire thread. Please forgive me if I am restating what others have said.
I do not like to drop any stat below 8 because I fear ability damage and drain.
I'd have thought that would be a concern too but this was in fact debated earlier in the thread. I lost. :(
I have not been reading the entire thread. Please forgive me if I am restating what others have said.
I do not like to drop any stat below 8 because I fear ability damage and drain.
I'm surprised it isn't mentioned more often really.
i personally do not dump, but my sorcerer had a str of 10. One or two rounds against a shadow and he was down to a str of 1.
It was CRAZY... I can't imagine WANTING to start at 7 or less..
Isn't that precisely what we're talking about here: players creating adventurers using a system?It started that way. : )
It then became a diatribe against those seeming to refuse to role-play low scores, based on differing ideas of what a score of 7 'means' compared to real people.
Suspending our disbelief, in order to bring any verisimilitude to our fantasy worlds, we have to avoid breaking the fourth wall. Our worlds must make sense as if they were real, breathing places. If the world you create can't exist as a self-contained entity in your imagination then you have failed. It would be a very strange world indeed which can only exist if it's creatures only exist by being created by 'player's' in our, 'real', world.
So, the population must make sense without any reference to 'players' whatsoever. The population is modelled in the game by the 3d6 bell curve, but the results of all that randomness must make sense as if they were not a game construct at all!
Rolling randomly, each ability will be between 3 and 18, with fully two-thirds between 8 and 13 inclusive. That said, this leaves one full third outside this range, half of that being 7 or less and the other half being 14 or more.
Then each ability is rolled, and no roll has any connection to or is affected by any other roll. Even though we can imagine these good and bad rolls averaging themselves out so that each set of six rolls is (roughly) equal to any other set, the realities of randomness mean that many, many individuals have much better sets of scores than average and equally many have sets much worse. The fact that point-buy doesn't reflect this is one reason why I hate point-buy!
Having randomly rolled every human in the world(!), this is the population against which our PCs are measured. However, we must imagine that the results of this (mammoth) effort are the natural result of this imaginary world, independent of any game rules in Real Life! (no wonder DMs are advised to use an average array for...
This is all very well written and absolutely 100% correct in a world that is populated by the 3d6 rolling method.
But I've never played in a game, ever, that was populated by the 3d6 rolling method. So, in pactice the array is the method that the majority of the population uses, with notable exceptions for custom/important NPCs.
So, while you can argue for the theoretical truth to the 3d6 distribution, in practice such a game world doesn't exist. Or, I suspect isn't typical, at least.
And in a functioning world which is built upon NPCs having scores built from the standard array, the vast majority of scores will be 8+. Anything below that will be seen as deficient.
Of course within other societies, the races with negative modifiers, a 7 will be much more acceptable, if it is of the attribute they have that penalty. For these races a 6+ is the expected stat.
Most races with an attribute penalty have societal differences too, from human society anyway. If you look at all of the races with an Int penalty, for example, you'll likely notice none of them are especially known for their civilization building. They don't really make huge cities, they aren't particularly technologically advanced, most of them seem like savages as compared to your average human community.
Each of the races with bonuses and penalties to their stats has some common themes for how their societies deal it these deficiencies. Some don't deal with them very well, others thrive despite their weaknesses.
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On the topic of role-playing;
A human with an Int that many Orcs would regard as kinda slow isn't going to be the smartest guy around. Playing him, RPing him, like the Int score has no impact on who he is... well, that is not role-playing.
Well, it is actually. I take that back, it is role-playing... You could potentially role-play well, even if you ignore what your character sheet says. But there is a disconnect there. You are playing two games instead of one.
One of the interesting aspects of Pathfinder is that while it is a role-playing game, it is also a strategy game. Not incorporating your strategy character into the character you role-play is the disconnect. It should be one character, a unified whole.
Playing a hulking brute when things go into combat with his maxed out strength and dumped Int and Cha, and then in social or exploration ignoring the numbers and playing him like a brilliant socialite is playing two characters. You'd be trying to get the best of both worlds, and paying the cost of 1. Trying to always shine, needing the constant spotlight. 2. Trouncing any sense of believability.
As a player you should be trying to play the character you made, or even the reverse, and making the character you want to play. But making a character for their numerical advantages and then playing a wholly different character in rp... it just isn't cool.
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I’m not dissing the idea of dumping your stats either. I recently played a 7 Int Fighter. It was pretty fun, he had high Str and Dex, a glaive, and the In Harm’s Way line of feats.
RP wise, he was dumb but loyal, and desperately tried to defend his allies. But he made tactical mistakes (intentionally) from time to time. In social settings I looked for ways to comically express his general ignorance, and in troubleshooting or brainstorming he often offered useless but entertaining suggestions.
On the rare occasion where I as a player had a good idea, I rolled a private Int check, set my own DC, and if I failed I kept my mouth shut or wrote it down on an index card and passed it to another player if it was absolutely critical.
No one forced me to do any of that, nor would I ever want someone to force me to do any of that. But I wanted to, because I wanted to actually play the character I made.
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there are the attributes, and there are things a character's background and training teach them, that transcend the attribute score itself.
i don't care how low a fighter's intelligence score is, it doesn't change the fact, that to take a fighter level, they were drilled heavily in the art of combat and will likely have tactical knowledge way beyond their low intelligence or even wisdom score. even the dumbest fighter is at least halfway decent at battle tactics. and that is with an Int of 1 even.
there are some things drilled into a character so finely that it transcends the appropriate attribute. education does that kind of thing, it can take someone with a crippling learning disability and make them a tactical savant.
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Regarding the "Social Selection" concept, you have to look at it from the angle of the Stats guide you to your class. If you happen to be strong, either because you placed your rolls that way or you rolled straight and it happened to fill out that way, you'll likely go for a class that emphasizes Strength. In that case, it wouldn't matter if you also happened to be intelligent, a dullard, or anything in between, though being also highly intelligent will open more options (you could have undergone wizard training if you wanted to). But if you aren't as physically capable, it's reasonable to either not go into a physically demanding roll or to "fight smarter, not harder" and pick up Combat Expertise if you have the Int for it. But if you lack both power and Int... well, you'd probably go for what suits your other stats; Rogue or Sorc come to mind. Or, you'd just be a commoner and never picked up the life of adventure.
In a population modelled by the 3d6 bell curve, imagine a college for wizards. What are the students' Int scores like? We would suppose that they are pretty high on average, certainly higher than 10! (with the hated point-buy the average would be closer to 18!)
But what about the rest of the ability scores? Well, if each student was created as a PC...it depends on the method used to create the PC. If it's *cough*spit* point-buy then they will be nearly identical weak and personality-free clones. If it's a random method (4d6 drop the lowest, assign rolls to scores) then the vast, vast majority will have Int as their highest ability, and maybe Str and Cha might be their lowest, but this random method gives you an unpredictable set which may give unexpected inspiration...but you might not roll a low stat at all.
How does this compare to the actual student body modelled by the 3d6 bell curve? How would it compare to, say, universities in real life?
Although only the members of the wider population with a higher than average Int score would be likely to make it past the first few months, this tells us absolutely nothing about the other stats. Just like a real life university, some are stronger than others, some are clumsy, some are fit, some are foolish, some are the party-est people and others couldn't lead their way out of a wet paper bag....in exactly the same ratios as the rest of the population! And this follows real life!
I agree with you on the other part: a person's life choices are very much influenced by their aptitudes, but not dictated by them. If you're lucky enough to be both strong AND smart, this won't force you to be multi-classed, or to be a Magus. You could be a warrior just like your father wanted, just smarter than most. You could be a wizard just like you dreamed as a kid, but being a naturally strong 6'8'' brick s&!@house won't make your 18 Int worth less.
All this is very well modelled by the 3d6 bell curve, as envisioned by Gary Gygax before the current set of modifiers were even thought of.
It is not represented at all by point-buy!
I don't like point-buy. Have I mentioned that?
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This is all very well written and absolutely 100% correct
I'm happy with that. : )
We definitely disagree on how the population is modelled and what the scores of our heroes are measured against. For me, it's the 3d6 bell curve inherited from the beginning of our hobby and which models a population so well. For you, it's the array 13 12 11 10 9 8, which supposes that all humans are created equal and are limited to scores not far from average. My money's on me.
As to the role-playing of low stats, I agree with you in that my opinion is that it's better to role-play low scores. Where we disagree is that, because there are so many ways to play a low stat, no DM should impose his idea on how to play that low score on the player. Also, although I think that those who refuse to play low scores are missing out of a lot of fun, I don't think it's anyone else's business to tell people how to play their own PC just because they would play it a different way. In 35 years of playing I've yet to have play halted because a players acting skills weren't good enough!
[How does this compare to the actual student body modelled by the 3d6 bell curve? How would it compare to, say, universities in real life?
Although only the members of the wider population with a higher than average Int score would be likely to make it past the first few months, this tells us absolutely nothing about the other stats. Just like a real life university, some are stronger than others, some are clumsy, some are fit, some are foolish, some are the party-est people and others couldn't lead their way out of a wet paper bag....in exactly the same ratios as the rest of the population! And this follows real life!
I agree with you on the other part: a person's life choices are very much influenced by their aptitudes, but not dictated by them. If you're lucky enough to be both strong AND smart, this won't force you to be multi-classed, or to be a Magus. You could be a warrior just like your father wanted, just smarter than most. You could be a wizard just like you dreamed as a kid, but being a naturally strong 6'8'' brick s!%!house won't make your 18 Int worth less.
All this is very well modelled by the 3d6 bell curve, as envisioned by Gary Gygax before the current set of modifiers were even thought of.
The first point is countered by the second. The distribution you would find in a wizard school would be different than the distribution you should find in the general population.
Why? Because people’s aptitudes do affect the direction they take in life.
So, you will find less high strength folk in the wizard school, because they’re off training with swords, less high dex folk because they’re off picking pockets or playing with bows, less high wis and cha folk because they’re busy talking to trees, or rocks, or gods, or learning how to influence people or sing a melody.
Say a guy has 14s across the board. Where does this guy go? Sure, he might end up in the wizard school, but the world is his oyster, he can do just about anything well. You’ll see this particular distribution less in the wizard school.
The guy with 16 Str and 16 Int and 12s in everything else. Sure, you might find him in the school, but he is equally likely to end up a fighter type instead. You’ll see this distribution less in the wizard school. The guy with 16s in Int Dex and Cha, 10s in everything else, he might decide to be a wizard, but he might be a lot of things, a bard, a sorcerer, a rogue. He’s got options! You’ll see less of these guys in the school too.
The people you do find there will mostly be high Int guys. They’ll tend to have lower Str, modest dex, low-high con, low-modest wis and likely low-modest cha. And if they have modest pairs of stats other than Int, you’ll definitely see them less. Str/Dex, Str/Con, Wis/Cha, Dex/Cha, etc. What you’ll tend to see the most is people who have a more stereotyped distribution for wizards.
Tend to. Sure there will be the rare outlier, but most will fall into that pattern, because the people who don’t either A) have other options so only a % of them will pursue wizardry, or B) are straight up better suited to another path and a large majority will go a different route.
So the distribution you find at the wizarding school for Strength shouldn’t be the same as you find in the general population. It’ll tend to be lower. There will still be the odd strong wizard from time to time, but the distribution % is smaller for them.
We disagree again. In real life universities, are there fewer students with high Str than the wider population of people of a similar age, on the grounds that half of high Str AND high Int people will be working as lumberjacks instead?
Universities have different criteria and population representation than a wizarding school.
Random bit from the internet I haven't bothered to fact check, but seems about right "More than half the U.S. population 25 years of age and over in 2000, (52 percent) had completed at least some college education. Just under one quarter (24 percent) had a bachelor's degree or more. Nine percent had an advanced degree (master's degree, professional degree or doctoral degree."
So unless half the population in your hypothetical example has a couple levels of wizard, then it simply isn't a viable comparison.
A better approach would be to pick a specific highly intellectual field, one of the sciences like theoretical physics, or something like a technical field, computer sciences etc. Then ask if these people tend to fully map to the standard population distribution concerning all things aside from intellect.
I'd say no, personally.
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I can't come up with any figures either. But how could we? The real world doesn't measure Str, Dex, Con, Int, Wis or Cha in any meaningful consistent way for all abilities.
Put it another way. Would the real world population's abilities (if we could measure them) be better modelled by a 3d6 bell curve or the 13 12 11 10 9 8 array?
When Gygax invented the game, he used the 3d6 bell curve. As editions went by, alternatives to the straight 3d6 were provided so that the players could have better than average heroes, but by definition this didn't change the 3d6 standard against which these heroes are measured.
As more editions came and went, more options for creating PCs were provided, but the 3d6 standard was maintained. Even when point-buy appeared it was just another way to create heroes and didn't change the scale of what ability scores meant.
And even in Pathfinder, the various methods of creating heroes include the 'classic' 3d6. The scale against which scores are measured remains unchanged.
The 'array' idea, for both PCs and NPCs, is just another quick way of character generation, leaving that 3d6 scale untouched.
So the idea that a score of 7 is beyond human on the grounds that the recommended NPC array only goes down to 8...!
I can't come up with any figures either. But how could we? The real world doesn't measure Str, Dex, Con, Int, Wis or Cha in any meaningful consistent way for all abilities.
Put it another way. Would the real world population's abilities (if we could measure them) be better modelled by a 3d6 bell curve or the 13 12 11 10 9 8 array?
When Gygax invented the game, he used the 3d6 bell curve. As editions went by, alternatives to the straight 3d6 were provided so that the players could have better than average heroes, but by definition this didn't change the 3d6 standard against which these heroes are measured.
As more editions came and went, more options for creating PCs were provided, but the 3d6 standard was maintained. Even when point-buy appeared it was just another way to create heroes and didn't change the scale of what ability scores meant.
And even in Pathfinder, the various methods of creating heroes include the 'classic' 3d6. The scale against which scores are measured remains unchanged.
The 'array' idea, for both PCs and NPCs, is just another quick way of character generation, leaving that 3d6 scale untouched.
So the idea that a score of 7 is beyond human on the grounds that the recommended NPC array only goes down to 8...!
Well, not beyond human… but it indicates that something is wrong. They’re deficient in some way. Illness, injury, disorder, something went wrong somewhere.
I suppose the only stat with a direct corollary would be Strength, since it has weight figures that can be directly translated into real world figures.
A strength of 7 has a max load of 70 lbs. Since in game terms, adult humans (before aging penalties) are the only humans without a strength penalty, we should compare to adult humans IRL. The 20s is the most representative age bracket.
IRL, if an adult human, in their 20s, cannot lift more than 70lbs, there is a health problem, disability, or injury involved.
According to the 3d6 distribution, however, a full 16.2% of that demographic should have that strength score or lower. So, roughly 3 out of 20 people. 1 would have a 3/4/5 (avg 4), one a 6, and one a 7.
So out of 20 people, we should find a guy who cannot lift over 40 lbs? Another who cannot lift over 60, and the one who cannot lift 70 lbs? This seems… unlikely.
I’m having a hard time even thinking of someone I’ve ever met that would fall into this category. Between the ages of 16-34 and unable to carry around 70 lbs.
I’m not arguing that there aren’t people who cannot lift these amounts, just, not so prevalent in the population. And, those who you do find who cannot lift that amount are going to be young, old, disabled, injured, or ill.
But in game, those things should be represented by… conditions or templates or aging penalties. Not by 3d6 dice rolls. Base stats represent the variability you find within the species, not conditions afflicting an individual member.
The array serves the purposes of filling out an entire population while still maintaining individual diversity. Not only does it do this better in theory… but in actual practice it is used to generate that bulk majority of NPCs, and because in practice it is the method used, in practice the population represents the population that actually is used. And the population that actually is, is the population built off using the array.
For example: in three separate scenarios I've been in, spellcasters have had to climb ropes in an emergency, and the ones that have bought down their strength have wasted valuable rounds trying to get up off the end of the rope.
They would have been wasting these rounds anyway. Its only a 10% increase in your chance of success to go from a 7 to a 10 strength. Without climb ranks AND climb as a class skill strength is more or less very expensive and pretty much useless for helping your climb score.
Animating the rope with that animate rope scroll you were bright enough to bring and telling it to Knot so that its only a dc 5 to climb on the other hand...
My gnome deals with a dumped strength with his pumped con. He just casts magic weapon on his dwarven boulder helmet and dives headfirst down the hole.
For example: in three separate scenarios I've been in, spellcasters have had to climb ropes in an emergency, and the ones that have bought down their strength have wasted valuable rounds trying to get up off the end of the rope.
They would have been wasting these rounds anyway. Its only a 10% increase in your chance of success to go from a 7 to a 10 strength. Without climb ranks AND climb as a class skill strength is more or less very expensive and pretty much useless for helping your climb score.
Animating the rope with that animate rope scroll you were bright enough to bring and telling it to Knot so that its only a dc 5 to climb on the other hand...
My gnome deals with a dumped strength with his pumped con. He just casts magic weapon on his dwarven boulder helmet and dives headfirst down the hole.
It is more than a 10% increase, to go from -2 to +0.
Why do people think this? I hear it a lot.
DC 15
1d20-2: 20%
1d20: 30%
30/20: 1.5
50% increased rate of success.
We disagree again. In real life universities, are there fewer students with high Str than the wider population of people of a similar age, on the grounds that half of high Str AND high Int people will be working as lumberjacks instead?
No. In real life, we see fewer students with high Str because the college lifestyle does not encourage putting in the kind of physical activity necessary to maintain and develop physical attributes (as witnessed by the legendary "freshman fifteen," the weight so many students gain their first year).
You could turn it around -- there is463. a group of students in real life that are selected for high Str. Those are the varsity athletes. They are notorious for having what would be low Intelligence in D&D/Pathfinder terms. For example, the average verbal SAT score is about 500 (nationwide). At Clemson, the average verbal score for incoming freshmen is 607. The average verbal score for Clemson's football team is 477, and for the basketball team, it's 455.
At Universlty of Louisville, the average freshman score is 550; the average freshman-athlete score is 463.
Similarly, NFL athletes (which is as close as modern society gets to a Str-only profession) are routinely administered the Wonderlic test as part of recruitment. The average score for NFL players is only 20, much lower than the average score for engineers (29), librarians (27), nurses (23), or even bank tellers (22). (Things get even more amusing when you see how the Wonderlic scores break down by position played.)
The explanation for this is simple -- developing and maintaining any ability takes time and effort. The hours a student-athlete spends in the weight room or on the football field are not hours spent in the library or the chemistry lab.
There's a point-buy system in real life. Everyone get twenty-four "points," where a point represents an hour of an average day, which one can spend as one likes....
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In principal, a real college of wizardry would exhibit a truncated bell curve. You take the normal bell-curve for Intelligence, and put a soft cut at some point. The school likely wouldn't bother admitting anyone with less than 11 Int and, even then, you'd have to show some real ability to get around that limitation of being limited to level 1 spells to get far in the school. You'll likely find predominantly characters in the range between the first and second standard deviation; 14-19 Int with a marginal selection of excellent students sitting at 20 Int. You're not going to find 7 Int, 18 strength Fighters in wizard college so at the very least a good half, and more likely a good 5/6 or so of the population at large is going to be absent from this school. And, as stated, some of those characters, especially using rolled methods, will have high equivalent point buys. If someone rolls the equivalent of a 50 point buy, having not only high Int but also above-average to significantly above average in several other stats, they are, essentially, a prodigy. You're just as likely to get someone who happened to get a full 20 in Int but the whole array of stats would only work out to the equivalent of a 5-10 point buy.
I suppose there are differences between Britain and the U.S. From the documentaries I've seen (Animal House, Bring It On, Scream, Porky's) there seem to be the full spectrum of humanity in college. One big difference is that your college populations seem to be separated into discrete groupings: nerds, jocks, cheerleaders, goths etc.
It's different over here. There isn't as much expectation that an average person will go to university; you aren't considered a failure if you don't. And although it's free (well, kinda) you have had a higher standard of education at 18 over here than you have at 18 in the U.S. Even then, I could go to any university and see a pretty full spectrum for the other five ability scores. I wouldn't like to approach the rugby team and tell them that they are statistically weaker than average, or even less intelligent than average.
And the way I imagine a college of magic, there would be jocks there too.
The full set of six ability scores does mean that it's more likely that things average out in the long run. So smart characters have had their luck already. But this is of no help in assessing an individual, and this is as true in real life as it is in the game's population.
As to having better stats in areas where you put most effort, that's what the floating +2 is for. : )
And, as Moonwhisper said above, there are certain things concerning roleplay that will transcend low ability scores; qualitative things that simply can't be quantified (at least, not without making the system overly complicated and unwieldy). If you want to play your 7 Int character as a supreme dullard, you're free to do so. If you want to play your 7 Int character as having average "street smarts" even if lacking in "book smarts", you're free to do so. If you want to play your 7 Int character as having incredible capacity for certain things like tactical planning and puzzle-solving despite having low "book smarts", you're free to do so. The only thing you have limited control over are mechanical things; knowledge checks and Int checks and the like. You're free to play your...
On this last part, we agree completely.
In the case of modern colleges, they kind of combine Wizard's college, Fighter's College, Paladin's College, etc. into a single unit. That's why there's seemingly such an all-encompassing spectrum. But if you looked at a single department in such a school, ie. Science Majors only, you'll see what I'm talking about. I don't think a straight up Wizard's college would bother having a rugby team. Maybe Dimension Door Dodgeball...
No, there could easily be a rugby team at the wizard's college -- after all, MIT has a football team. They are just terrible, by the standards of the major (Division I) schools.
But MS's analysis misses several key aspects. Basically, football there is played for fun, and no one takes it seriously. That's why, for example, they've got a defensive back who stands only 5'9" and weighs only 145 pounds. At MIT, he's one of the best available defensive backs and a starter; at Clemson, he'd probably be a joke. (Johns Hopkins similarly has a 5'6" running back.)
So are the MIT football players representative of anything? Not really. Looking at them just as college students, they're highly unrepresentative because they're good enough to get into MIT. As college football players, they're unrepresentative for the same reason. As MIT students, they're unrepresentative because they're the best available football players. What you're seeing on the MIT football team are the hundred or so best football players out of more than 4,000 undergraduates. Naturally they're going to be talented by the standards of MIT, and possibly even by the standards of the public at large, although I suspect that few of them actually stood out on their high school teams.
Some classes are mad and need more points to create if their going to compete with the sad classes.
I don't think the 7 is the problem with point buy, I think it's 17 and 18. Simply put a mad class can't have a 17 or 18 without considerable nerfing of another vital stat.
Remove the ability to buy above 16 and grant at least 20 points and you get a much more balanced set of characters.
"Familiars are as smart as humans, but not necessarily as smart as smart humans".
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In principal, a real college of wizardry would exhibit a truncated bell curve. You take the normal bell-curve for Intelligence, and put a soft cut at some point. The school likely wouldn't bother admitting anyone with less than 11 Int and, even then, you'd have to show some real ability to get around that limitation of being limited to level 1 spells to get far in the school. You'll likely find predominantly characters in the range between the first and second standard deviation; 14-19 Int with a marginal selection of excellent students sitting at 20 Int. You're not going to find 7 Int, 18 strength Fighters in wizard college so at the very least a good half, and more likely a good 5/6 or so of the population at large is going to be absent from this school. And, as stated, some of those characters, especially using rolled methods, will have high equivalent point buys. If someone rolls the equivalent of a 50 point buy, having not only high Int but also above-average to significantly above average in several other stats, they are, essentially, a prodigy. You're just as likely to get someone who happened to get a full 20 in Int but the whole array of stats would only work out to the equivalent of a 5-10 point buy.
And, as Moonwhisper said above, there are certain things concerning roleplay that will transcend low ability scores; qualitative things that simply can't be quantified (at least, not without making the system overly complicated and unwieldy). If you want to play your 7 Int character as a supreme dullard, you're free to do so. If you want to play your 7 Int character as having average "street smarts" even if lacking in "book smarts", you're free to do so. If you want to play your 7 Int character as having incredible capacity for certain things like tactical planning and puzzle-solving despite having low "book smarts", you're free to do so. The only thing you have limited control over are mechanical things; knowledge checks and Int checks and the like. You're free to play your...
This is just me.
All this talk about transcending, qualitative and quantitive, 'book smart', 'street smart' is just attempts to justify not wanting to RP a low mental score.
Not actually ment as a flaming post.
3-18 (with a floating +2) is the natural range for human ability scores, not counting negative conditions like diseases, disabilities, damage, drain, etc.
To stop looking like a functional human being, you generally are going to need multiple abysmal statistics. Like Str 3, Dex 3, Con 3. Even something as simple as...
3 / 12 / 10 / 14 / 12 / 13 is pretty reasonable. I've met plenty of people that carrying more than 10 lbs. worth of stuff tends to slow them down or make them less comfortable. It could be as simple as carrying some heavy books around. But even a character with a 3 Strength can function just fine in a day to day life.
An adventuring life would be much harder but you're not crippled.
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All this talk about transcending, qualitative and quantitive, 'book smart', 'street smart' is just attempts to justify not wanting to RP a low mental score.
I was going to respond to this, but Kazaan did it so much better.
In addition to the huge variety of possibilities for the personality of the PC, there are many possibilities for the motivation of why a player chooses to play his ability a certain way, and 'cynically manipulating the game system' is only one.
Ascribing the lowest of motives to anyone not playing the way you would says more about you than it says about them.
No flaming intended.
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"the genius who knows pi out to a billion decimal places and solves Sudoku-Rubik's cubes several times per day" Int
"but forgets his address and can't figure out how to program his VCR (or DVR for you younguns" Wis
"tends to use words wrong." Cha
But like I said thats just me.
If you have a group of people you game with and they do things the same way or mostly the same as you, kool and have fun.
Also street smart needs just as many skill points as book smart.
Book smart = lots of knowledge skills
Street smart = lots of other skills like; bluff, appraise, sense motive, stealth, diplomacy, etc.
Having low skill points hurts both ideas.
That is, fundamentally, an untrue statement. The person who roleplays their 7 Int fighter as being intelligent in matters beyond the scope of mechanical aspects of having an Int score of 7 is roleplaying their low stat; they're roleplaying it in a manner that they feel like.
So how would you distinguish "not roleplaying their stat at all" from "roleplaying it in a manner that they feel like"?
One way, for example, that I would suggest distinguishing those two things is by thinking about how the character would change if it were suddenly given a huge, game-altering bonus to intelligence. (E.g. a +6 headband and a +5 book. How would Fighter McSwordthug suddenly behave differently if he had an 18 intelligence instead of 7?)
If there's no difference, then the player is not successfully playing the stat. If the player can't even articulate how there would be a difference, s/he's not even trying to play the stat.
A low stat can mean many things. What it can't mean is "nothing."
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3-18 (with a floating +2) is the natural range for human ability scores, not counting negative conditions like diseases, disabilities, damage, drain, etc.
To stop looking like a functional human being, you generally are going to need multiple abysmal statistics. Like Str 3, Dex 3, Con 3. Even something as simple as...
3 / 12 / 10 / 14 / 12 / 13 is pretty reasonable. I've met plenty of people that carrying more than 10 lbs. worth of stuff tends to slow them down or make them less comfortable. It could be as simple as carrying some heavy books around. But even a character with a 3 Strength can function just fine in a day to day life.
An adventuring life would be much harder but you're not crippled.
Nobaby has said Very few people have said that a 7 is non-functional. Just that scores markedly below average are noticable.
I suppose there are differences between Britain and the U.S. From the documentaries I've seen (Animal House, Bring It On, Scream, Porky's) there seem to be the full spectrum of humanity in college. One big difference is that your college populations seem to be separated into discrete groupings: nerds, jocks, cheerleaders, goths etc.
Yeah, those movies aren't considered 'realistic' in my experience.
In those movies they never seem to worry about 'lack of academic advancement' for skipping and failing all those classes.
I slacked off my first two semesters at CMU and was asked not to come back for a third.
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All this talk about transcending, qualitative and quantitive, 'book smart', 'street smart' is just attempts to justify not wanting to RP a low mental score.I was going to respond to this, but Kazaan did it so much better.
In addition to the huge variety of possibilities for the personality of the PC, there are many possibilities for the motivation of why a player chooses to play his ability a certain way, and 'cynically manipulating the game system' is only one.
Ascribing the lowest of motives to anyone not playing the way you would says more about you than it says about them.
No flaming intended.
Didnt perceive it in any way as a flame. This is just a discussion of how people see the game is it not?
I suppose there are differences between Britain and the U.S. From the documentaries I've seen (Animal House, Bring It On, Scream, Porky's) there seem to be the full spectrum of humanity in college. One big difference is that your college populations seem to be separated into discrete groupings: nerds, jocks, cheerleaders, goths etc.Yeah, those movies aren't considered 'realistic' in my experience.
In those movies they never seem to worry about 'lack of academic advancement' for skipping and failing all those classes.
I slacked off my first two semesters at CMU and was asked not to come back for a third.
Depends on the school, of course. CMU is (like MIT) at one end of the distribution. There are a lot of second-tier schools, and some downright bottom-feeders where all they care about is whether or not your tuition check clears.
But Animal House and Porky's are certainly not documentaries.....