It never fails: every week, there's another thread in which a well-meaning DM housrules egregious penalties for various social stuff for characters with low Cha scores, even if they have high social skill bonuses. And I'm totally sympathetic to their desire to do so, because, let's face it, for anyone other than Cha-based casters and paladins, Charisma doesn't really do a whole lot. You never see a thread bemoaning all the people who use Dex as a dump stat, because no one really wants to tank their initiative and ranged attacks and AC and Reflex saves all at once. But Charisma? Why not dump Charisma, mechanically-speaking?
So I propose trying an experiment. Let's re-define Wisdom as how well "in touch" with things you are, including your willpower (being in touch with your own convictions). And eliminate Charisma entirely.
Social skills remain skills; they become Wis-based instead of Cha-based. Bards rely on Wisdom because it dictates them being in touch with their music and performance and how they affect the audience; Paladins use WIsdom because it indicates how in touch with the spirit of righteousness and their spiritual oaths they are; Sorcerers use Wisdom because it indicates them being in touch with their Inner Dragon or whatever; clerics base channeling on Wisdom because it means they're in touch with the groovy Univeral Healing Vibe.
What this does is stops people from dumping Charisma. That's a problem you would never have to deal with, ever again.
But it also has pretty serious repercussions in terms of martial classes, because it removes the one "dump stat" that fighters, rogues, monks, etc. could usually count on for extra points they sorely need elsewhere. So the solution would be to give half-casters (paladin, etc.) an extra "X" number of points for point-buy, or an extra rolled stat (if rolling). Non-casters would get 2X extra points or two extra rolls.
How does that system work for multiclassing? I'd be happy to suffer through one level of fighter to get double starting points for a wizard or sorcerer.
Wouldn't this make wisdom a super stat?
As a thought experiment it is kind of easy to just delete charisma. Too easy, to the point where I wouldn't invest too much time defending its place in the game.
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Maybe classes could have inherent bonuses to key stats and start at a slightly higher number than 10, say 12 or 13.
Rogues with Dex and Con. Wizards could start with a 12 or maybe 13 in only intelligence. A Fighter might allow more flexibility and have a 13 in two of three from Str/Dex/Con or could start with 12 in Str, Con and Dex.
Wouldn't this make wisdom a super stat?
Dex is already a super-stat, so, yes. They'd be even, then.
How does that system work for multiclassing? I'd be happy to suffer through one level of fighter to get double starting points for a wizard or sorcerer.
And lose a full level of spellcasting? I sure wouldn't make that trade. But if it bothers you, check out TD's recommendation above, which would also work well.
Here's a thought, just kind of randomly shooting out of my head.
Make Charisma the POWER stat; all spellcaster and spell-like abilities' save DCs are Charisma based. This is pretty much all it does ... oh, and Use Magic Device.
Remove the stat basis from social skills; they all start at base zero. Make traits, perhaps, like Bruising Intellect that would let you apply a stat to one, if you really want to (including POW).
Now, it makes total sense for a fighter, rogue, or other non-spellcaster class to dump Char ... er, POW.
Just off the top of my head, it sounds like there is an issue with the intersection of the Charisma stat and what Charisma actually ends up doing for characters without class features which rely on Charisma. For these characters, Charisma is entirely about boosting Bluff, Diplomacy, Disguise, Handle Animal, Intimidate, Perform, and Use Magic Device.
So, if you don't care about those skills, and your class doesn't reference Charisma, you're best off dumping Charisma. And even if you do care about those skills, you probably need some Intelligence to afford them.
It sounds like a skill modifier boost is not enough for an attribute's functionality, that's all. The question is... what else could Charisma do?
Again off the top of my head:
-What if Charisma was used for things like save DCs of magic items? Instead of a wand's save DC being based on the minimum attribute level, what if the holder's Charisma determined it?
So, for a character with Cha 18 using a wand of glitterdust, instead of the DC being 13 as it is now, the DC would be 16.
And another thought:
A magic item which grants +5 to a skill, the equivalent of +10 to a stat when examining that stat's effects on the skill modifier, is 2500gp. For many characters, a 4500-gp circlet of persuasion is identical in functionality to a 36000-gp headband of charisma +6.
This quirk of the game isn't just Charisma-related. A Str-7 character can be the world's greatest rock-climber with just a few ranks of Climb. The character might be unable to do a single pull-up, but can scale the most difficult rock faces in existence with enough ranks. Meanwhile, simply with skill ranks, a Dex-7 character can become the world's greatest acrobat, an Int-7 character can learn all the world's languages, etc.
It sounds like, when it comes to skill modifiers, attribute modifiers are pretty small in the grand scheme. Too small, as evidenced by the Charisma problem.
So, here's some food for thought:
-Why does each rank in a skill have to give a +1 to the skill modifier? Why do skills follow a linear progression?
-Matt
How does that system work for multiclassing? I'd be happy to suffer through one level of fighter to get double starting points for a wizard or sorcerer.And lose a full level of spellcasting? I sure wouldn't make that trade. But if it bothers you, check out TD's recommendation above, which would also work well.
Well worth it for a 30 point buy, since your DEX CON and INT/WIS could be sky high, and you could pick up, say, PB shot and Precise Shot for your touch attacks. To say nothing of starting with 10+ HP and a bonus to your Fort save. And Eldritch Knight never looked better.
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I'm also more inclined to boost charisma's importance than discard it because I dislike huge overarching changes as house rules.
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Why not dump Charisma? Because if you can't convince others to do what you want, then you're going to have a hard time of things. You'll have a hard time gathering information, making friends, and convincing people to confide in you. You'll find it difficult to lie convincingly. You telegraph your attacks, making feinting all but impossible. Covert operations become more difficult without magic items, items that cost money you could have spent on other things. Even animals won't take you seriously. These things can have a larger impact on a party's effectiveness than immediately apparent, and that impact can sometimes be difficult or impossible to correct later.
Sure, you can just have the party face deal with those things. That's fine. We don't expect the fighter to be good at spells, so if you want a single "Charisma specialist", that's a decent tactic.
Charisma plays as important a role as the GM allows it to. GMs are encouraged to create novel uses for skills by the CRB. So do so! There's no reason not to extend this to straight-up Charisma checks as well, if the situation warrants.
Not a bad idea Kirth, though I will admit I would not throw it in whole-hog. I'm considering giving my players the choice of CHA or WIS to will saves, but I havent had the chance to test it yet. With the right builds, both WIS and CHA can be ultra-stats (with specific builds, but still) so I'm leery of combining them. I'm also leery of giving characters different starting stat points, if only for bookkeeping reasons (and the multiclass issues). I'm not yet playing in games with such high system mastery that there is a significant difference between casters & martials.
Also:
I disagree with those stating the lack of importance of attribute modifiers. A few notes:
"A few ranks in climb makes you the best climber, even with strength 7": I disagree with this being somehow wrong; that is the entire POINT of training a specific skill. How many people who you know that have absolutely NO general knowledge, and arent particularly bright, but know a BUTTLOAD about some specific point of interest (low-int, but high ranks in knowledge (obscure 80's wrestlers)).
I would have a greater issue with this if it were reasonable, but there is NO reason a person with a high stat, without training, should UNIVERSALLY be better. High-cha, low-diplomacy: a strong personality (arrogant even) that simply cant be diplomatic; High-str, low-climb: the PC may be plenty capable of lifting his own weight, but he doesnt know what to grab onto while climbing!
With equal training, the high-stat guy will ALWAYS be better. But I have nothing against people acknowledging & shoring up their weaknesses. So I see no reason to remove that possibility.
I disagree with those stating the lack of importance of attribute modifiers. A few notes:
"A few ranks in climb makes you the best climber, even with strength 7"
I agree. You'll be the best climber you can be, but you won't be as good as a strong person with no training at all. And even with those skill ranks, you'll still be a terrible swimmer unless you train at that too.
Basically, it takes that much more training to be good at such things, and your full potential will be noticeably lower than the potential of people with higher relevant statistics. It's perfectly fine to invest effort and training (in the form of ranks) to succeed despite these limitations. But a fighter doesn't have a lot of points to burn, so if she dumps Charisma, she'd be spending her points to be adequate at a few uses of Charisma instead of learning to excel at a Strength or Dexterity skill.
I agree. You'll be the best climber you can be, but you won't be as good as a strong person with no training at all. And even with those skill ranks, you'll still be a terrible swimmer unless you train at that to.
Note that a single rank in a class skill gives the same benefit as an 18 in that skill's associated attribute. For example, a 10-Str character with a single rank in Swim has the same modifier as an 18-Str untrained character.
What a difference a lesson makes.
I am not discounting the importance of training at a skill, I am pointing out that the effects of training are very, very large in Pathfinder. Perhaps too large. And these very-large effects are part of what makes Charisma into the dump stat of champions.
-Matt
I agree. You'll be the best climber you can be, but you won't be as good as a strong person with no training at all. And even with those skill ranks, you'll still be a terrible swimmer unless you train at that to.Note that I am not discounting the importance of training at a skill, I am pointing out that the effects of training are very, very large in Pathfinder. Perhaps too large.
-Matt
Nah.
A character dumping Charisma can end up with a -2 or even a -3 modifier if playing a Charisma-challenged race. A face type would have a +4 or higher modifier. That's a 6 point spread playing conservatively. Seems pretty significant to me.
Even dumping Charisma from 10 to 7 results in a -2 penalty to every Charisma check. -2 matters, as any monk suffering from flurry-of-misses can tell you.
I like the idea. I would also combine STR and CON in to a single stat. This removes the issue for martial characters and greatly simplifies the system without losing much (if anything).
This gives 3 "super stats," so the question becomes what to do with INT? I think adding a 4th save based on INT would be a good idea. I think changing some skills to be based on INT might also help. Sense motive would be a good choice.
I'm working on a total class overhaul right now that will have all arcane casters using CHA instead of INT for a casting stat. The way I see it, based on the fluff descriptions for stats this is the way it SHOULD be anyway. I should have it ready for play test with my group by next weekend. I've had just about enough of seeing CHA as the universal dump stat myself.
If you build for it, Charisma is crazy good. I think by virtue of it being such a dumpable stat by default, lots of classes have abilities that key of Charisma. So I think if you're going to try to do away with it you really need to rework a lot of abilities otherwise you're going to get characters who add Wisdom to AC, Saves, hit, and damage several times over.
I'm working on a total class overhaul right now that will have all arcane casters using CHA instead of INT for a casting stat. The way I see it, based on the fluff descriptions for stats this is the way it SHOULD be anyway. I should have it ready for play test with my group by next weekend. I've had just about enough of seeing CHA as the universal dump stat myself.I wonder about this approach. Basically for a wizard to be good at spellcraft and knowledge checks he has to significantly temper his power. You'd take away the distinctiveness of the wizard from the sorcerer. I think there's value to having three different flavors of caster in the game, each with a different weakness.
Taking away the distinctiveness is kinda what I'm going for. There will be no wizard, sorcerer, cleric, or druid classes at all. There will be a divine casting sub-class and an arcane casting sub-class under the general Mage class. The existing abilities will be split up between the sub-classes with a handful left as generally available to either. I'm going to be very interested to see if any of my players pick a bloodline AND an arcane school. Skill point totals will also be governed by base casting stat for mages and base melee stat for martials, nobody will be getting bonus points based on their INT.
If con gets rolled into str and cha into wis I don't think int would be too left out. It does control skills and knowledge which is pretty hefty.
Simon, that's interesting. Post a thread indicating how this went. What about oracles? Can any caster select a mystery? I look forward to hearing about whether it ends up feeling like everyone is fairly generic or instead everyone is incredibly unique.
Don't want to threadjack Kirth's post further, but just wanted to answer this.
Only doing CRB classes to start, I'll also be reconfiguring a bunch of feats. After we've had a chance to work kinks out of the CRB stuff I'll start chucking in stuff from other books. Once I've completed it I'll probably upload it somewhere and link to it here for interested folks.
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I've always just let characters use Charisma or Wisdom (their choice) for Will Saves. This results in a lot more high-Charisma characters, and a fair number more low-Wisdom ones.
It makes the decision which to focus on come down to: Which do you prefer, the Wisdom skills or the Charisma skills?
This does result in a lot of PCs dumping Wisdom, but that tends to reflect the way players play their characters anyway. It also results in few people other than Clerics having both high Charisma and Wisdom, but that seems to reflect characters in fiction quite well, and even many in real life.
This also makes Paladins win at all the Will Saves forever, but I'm okay with that.
This is a much lower impact change than the one in the OP, which is useful if trying to use published material. All you need to do is look at NPCs Wisdom and Charisma and raise it a few points if Charisma is above wisdom, and maybe reassign Iron Will if it's no longer necessary (Succubus, I'm looking at you).
I've been thinking it would be fun to use as a "luck" stat like in video games. For example, perhaps your cha mod could be added to your "AC" when an enemy is confirming a critical on you. Don't know what that is called, would it be critical AC in this case?
It never fails: every week, there's another thread in which a well-meaning DM housrules egregious penalties for various social stuff for characters with low Cha scores, even if they have high social skill bonuses. And I'm totally sympathetic to their desire to do so, because, let's face it, for anyone other than Cha-based casters and paladins, Charisma doesn't really do a whole lot. You never see a thread bemoaning all the people who use Dex as a dump stat, because no one really wants to tank their initiative and ranged attacks and AC and Reflex saves all at once. But Charisma? Why not dump Charisma, mechanically-speaking?
So I propose trying an experiment. Let's re-define Wisdom as how well "in touch" with things you are, including your willpower (being in touch with your own convictions). And eliminate Charisma entirely.
What this does is stops people from dumping Charisma. That's a problem you would never have to deal with, ever again.
funny, up to the second paragraph, I thought you were about to suggest ditching WIS for a super CHA stat...
Altogether, I have an issue with having a different amount of built points based on the class. Seems sketchy. I see the logic behind, but there's got to be better solution...
It never fails: every week, there's another thread in which a well-meaning DM housrules egregious penalties for various social stuff for characters with low Cha scores, even if they have high social skill bonuses. And I'm totally sympathetic to their desire to do so, because, let's face it, for anyone other than Cha-based casters and paladins, Charisma doesn't really do a whole lot. You never see a thread bemoaning all the people who use Dex as a dump stat, because no one really wants to tank their initiative and ranged attacks and AC and Reflex saves all at once. But Charisma? Why not dump Charisma, mechanically-speaking?
I guess if that's a problem in a game you play in, it could be interesting to try. I've not experienced the problem myself. The actual penalty you get to a low Cha score is penalty enough for me. A lot of games I play in Cha IS used a lot, and I think those games would be poorer for losing it -- I think of, say, the game I played where we had the high Cha, low Wis sorcerer-Eldritch Knight who was awesome in his reckless charm (no common sense, convinced everyone his foolhardiness was the right way to go). It wouldn't make sense for him to say, suddenly be as good at Perception and Sense Motive or even Will saves (though those were decent due to his classes)... so for me, personally, it could potentially wreck a lot of concepts. So yeah, I don't think I'd have a use for that. Honestly, for games where Charisma seems useless, I'd rather add to what it can do than take it away. Wisdom is already very powerful.
If you do try it, it would be interesting to see the results, certainly.
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Why not dump Charisma? Because if you can't convince others to do what you want, then you're going to have a hard time of things. You'll have a hard time gathering information, making friends, and convincing people to confide in you. You'll find it difficult to lie convincingly. You telegraph your attacks, making feinting all but impossible. Covert operations become more difficult without magic items, items that cost money you could have spent on other things. Even animals won't take you seriously. These things can have a larger impact on a party's effectiveness than immediately apparent, and that impact can sometimes be difficult or impossible to correct later.
Sure, you can just have the party face deal with those things. That's fine. We don't expect the fighter to be good at spells, so if you want a single "Charisma specialist", that's a decent tactic.
Charisma plays as important a role as the GM allows it to. GMs are encouraged to create novel uses for skills by the CRB. So do so! There's no reason not to extend this to straight-up Charisma checks as well, if the situation warrants.
Clever Wordplay, Student of Philosophy, and Bruising Intellect--they don't completely obsolete the need for Charisma, but they come pretty close (at least for non-bards, sorcerers, or the like).
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And eliminate Charisma entirely.
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That's a problem (dumping Charisma) you would never have to deal with, ever again.
Can't argue with that logic 'though! :)
Clever Wordplay, Student of Philosophy, and Bruising Intellect--they don't completely obsolete the need for Charisma, but they come pretty close (at least for non-bards, sorcerers, or the like).Why not dump Charisma? Because if you can't convince others to do what you want, then you're going to have a hard time of things. You'll have a hard time gathering information, making friends, and convincing people to confide in you. You'll find it difficult to lie convincingly. You telegraph your attacks, making feinting all but impossible. Covert operations become more difficult without magic items, items that cost money you could have spent on other things. Even animals won't take you seriously. These things can have a larger impact on a party's effectiveness than immediately apparent, and that impact can sometimes be difficult or impossible to correct later.
Sure, you can just have the party face deal with those things. That's fine. We don't expect the fighter to be good at spells, so if you want a single "Charisma specialist", that's a decent tactic.
Charisma plays as important a role as the GM allows it to. GMs are encouraged to create novel uses for skills by the CRB. So do so! There's no reason not to extend this to straight-up Charisma checks as well, if the situation warrants.
I feel the need to point out that all of those use Intelligence. They're really good traits for the wizards and witches out there, but it does little for the people who have no spells and therefore cannot contribute anything to social situations. Intelligence will probably be a low stat for a Fighter or a Barbarian; at the very most they'll put it at 13 so they can pay the feat tax that is Combat Expertise.
I really like Deadmanwalking's idea. Everyone has to put points in Wisdom because will saves are the worst to fail and martials have it as their low save. If you could instead put those necessary points in Charisma you'd absolutely be able to make a talkey martial. Good luck catching a lie though, with your abysmal Wisdom your Sense Motive is tanked.
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I really like Deadmanwalking's idea. Everyone has to put points in Wisdom because will saves are the worst to fail and martials have it as their low save. If you could instead put those necessary points in Charisma you'd absolutely be able to make a talkey martial. Good luck catching a lie though, with your abysmal Wisdom your Sense Motive is tanked.
Which neatly reflects a fair number of likable and friendly fictional characters. :)
And Suspicious and similar Traits are pretty workable if you do want to be able to catch people in lies. Assuming you have the skill points for it, of course.
In the game I'm about to run, we have a Cha 14, Wis 6 Orc Barbarian Princess with a high Diplomacy...which is a ridiculously fun character idea that simply wouldn't be mechanically viable without that particular House Rule. Nor would it work with the OP's suggestion, since low Wisdom is as much part of the point of the idea as high Charisma.
Given the choice, I'd say combine INT and WIS. Those two stat 'concepts' are so close together anyway that new players have a TERRIBLE time separating 'how smart they are, and how wise they are...'
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As a house rule, I was considering making it so players receive zero traits to start with. For every bonus they gain to their charisma modifier, they would be allowed to receive one trait of their choice; for every penalty, they would be forced to choose one drawback.
This way, a high charisma provides a nice baseline power (on par with the saving throw bonus wisdom provides) and players who dump charisma would actually be hamstrung in group and social situations rather than simply taking a small penalty on diplomacy checks.
Given the choice, I'd say combine INT and WIS. Those two stat 'concepts' are so close together anyway that new players have a TERRIBLE time separating 'how smart they are, and how wise they are...'
I tell new players that INT just governs how good your memory is.
The mental stats are really seriously messed up.
INT governs memory, but is named for intelligence.
CHA controls erudition and the form of spellcasting where spells don't take 15 minutes to cast.
WIS measures holiness and perception.INT is not int. CHA is int. WIS is bogus.
There's really no basis for having three stats the way they work right now. Since WIS is bogus it can go. Since CHA is int it should be folded into INT.
If you're going to have multiple mental stats the first thing to do is throw out everything associated with the current stats.
I am probably going to give this to you, Atarlost.
I am more up for making cha a sort of derived stat, though.
Perhaps charisma should be the smaller of intelligence or wisdom. Then there could be a feat that just lets it be the higher of intelligence or wisdom.
Possible problem: cha casters now all have a feat tax. HOWEVER, they also now have either a high wisdom or a high intelligence since they did not have to buy "charisma" itself.
I don't see a dumb perceptive person as being particularly charismatic.
I also don't see a smart imperceptive person as being all that charismatic (see every socially inept genius in friction! They all have low wisdom and high int; Sherlock just uses the 3.5 rules for search).
Charisma suffers from...well, it suffers from being interpreted as "the prettiness stat."
It has potential for much more, though this seems rarely realized.
I like to think of Charisma as "Spirit." High-Cha characters are more determined, confident, enthusiastic, positive, bold, and perseverant. For this reason, I house rule Cha for Will saves.
On the other hand, I define Wisdom as "Focus." The more focused a character is, the more observant (Perception, Sense Motive) they'd be, and the more "in touch" he would be with his beliefs and his faith. (This is also a decent argument to keep Will with Wisdom.)
These are definitely RP descriptions though. My take on the suggestion: I wouldn't want to mess with the repercussions of removing an entire stat from the game. That's too big for me.
Charisma suffers from...well, it suffers from being interpreted as "the prettiness stat."
It has potential for much more, though this seems rarely realized.
Honestly, there isn't MUCH about Charisma that I think SHOULD have a 'stat' attached to it. Force of personality? Looks? Leadership ability?
All of those should be in the way the player is playing the character... There have been a LOT of situations (and a lot of threads) about people who either can't or won't 'play the stat' they chose...
Cut it right out.
Make the Wisdom the divine casting stat again and just hand out appropriate bonuses or penalties, based on what a player says or does in social situations.
Charisma suffers from...well, it suffers from being interpreted as "the prettiness stat."
It has potential for much more, though this seems rarely realized.
Honestly, there isn't MUCH about Charisma that I think SHOULD have a 'stat' attached to it. Force of personality? Looks? Leadership ability?
All of those should be in the way the player is playing the character... There have been a LOT of situations (and a lot of threads) about people who either can't or won't 'play the stat' they chose...
Cut it right out.
Make the Wisdom the divine casting stat again and just hand out appropriate bonuses or penalties, based on what a player says or does in social situations.
The counter to this argument is that a shy person might want to play the super-charismatic bard and might not be able to in many cases if they have to do it for real.
Charisma suffers from...well, it suffers from being interpreted as "the prettiness stat."
It has potential for much more, though this seems rarely realized.
Honestly, there isn't MUCH about Charisma that I think SHOULD have a 'stat' attached to it. Force of personality? Looks? Leadership ability?
All of those should be in the way the player is playing the character... There have been a LOT of situations (and a lot of threads) about people who either can't or won't 'play the stat' they chose...
Cut it right out.
Make the Wisdom the divine casting stat again and just hand out appropriate bonuses or penalties, based on what a player says or does in social situations.
But then they can't complain about people dumping CHA! And they still will be grumpy about dumb fighters in their party but will have to own up to the fact they just don't like fighters rather than being able to b&#~* about stat allocation. Or something.
The counter to this argument is that a shy person might want to play the super-charismatic bard and might not be able to in many cases if they have to do it for real.Charisma suffers from...well, it suffers from being interpreted as "the prettiness stat."
It has potential for much more, though this seems rarely realized.
Honestly, there isn't MUCH about Charisma that I think SHOULD have a 'stat' attached to it. Force of personality? Looks? Leadership ability?
All of those should be in the way the player is playing the character... There have been a LOT of situations (and a lot of threads) about people who either can't or won't 'play the stat' they chose...
Cut it right out.
Make the Wisdom the divine casting stat again and just hand out appropriate bonuses or penalties, based on what a player says or does in social situations.
Yeah, I second this view; it's the main reason I dont want social skills to be nothing BUT roleplay.
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Given the choice, I'd say combine INT and WIS. Those two stat 'concepts' are so close together anyway that new players have a TERRIBLE time separating 'how smart they are, and how wise they are...'I tell new players that INT just governs how good your memory is.
I always played the two as book smart vs. street smart. I'm currently playing a street-raised boxer in a very... academic setting (she's essentially the hired muscle for a group of professors who are out on a massive research project). Her intelligence is bottom of the barrel and I even took the drawback that basically prevents her from ever making an int check ever, but she's a Martial Artist so her wisdom is higher than anyone else in the game. So, despite being the least intelligent member of the party, she serves as the voice of reason and drags all these excitably scholarly types back into reality before they get themselves killed in the search for knowledge.
For a more religious example, a high wis low int cleric would be a common, low-rank priest; much of what he knows even about his god is self-studied and he would often times be in error in the eyes of those above him in the church, but he lives among the people and has a great sense for what they need. He's more of a minister than a preacher.
There's a lot more to the power of the mind than just what you've learned from books and wisdom covers that.
Given the choice, I'd say combine INT and WIS. Those two stat 'concepts' are so close together anyway that new players have a TERRIBLE time separating 'how smart they are, and how wise they are...'I tell new players that INT just governs how good your memory is.I always played the two as book smart vs. street smart. I'm currently playing a street-raised boxer in a very... academic setting (she's essentially the hired muscle for a group of professors who are out on a massive research project). Her intelligence is bottom of the barrel and I even took the drawback that basically prevents her from ever making an int check ever, but she's a Martial Artist so her wisdom is higher than anyone else in the game. So, despite being the least intelligent member of the party, she serves as the voice of reason and drags all these excitably scholarly types back into reality before they get themselves killed in the search for knowledge.
For a more religious example, a high wis low int cleric would be a common, low-rank priest; much of what he knows even about his god is self-studied and he would often times be in error in the eyes of those above him in the church, but he lives among the people and has a great sense for what they need. He's more of a minister than a preacher.
There's a lot more to the power of the mind than just what you've learned from books and wisdom covers that.
There are philosophical concepts of explicit and implicit knowledge. Explicit is the stuff you know and can relate to anyone, basic rote knowledge that you acquire by study. Implicit knowledge is the stuff you know you know but have no way to describe or teach effectively, riding a bike, playing an instrument, etc. You can explicitly teach someone the basics of riding a bike, but it's near useless until they implicitly grasp it by performing the task on their own. Using this I would relate explicit to Int and implicit to Wis, and the skill kinda line up with it (IMO).