A question for you all, how do you personally rp a low int char with high knowledge skills?
I would like to hear what you have to say, and whether it has it come up before, for good or ill. Also, how would you play it?
Some builds or characters have low int, but skills to play around with, e.g. bards that want to be able to fight, some melee or ranged rogues, monks if you only want to take acrobatics and have the rest free for other things, and fighters that really specialised in a knowledge. It is an amusing place to be in, running a character in the system. Your int is low, but what you know (or what you specifically know about one thing) is high. It came up with my vanilla monk, a true brutal brawler quite skilled in the boar style, wise but not a deep thinker, and then history checks came up through a discussion of Golarion history which he started passing easily.
It ended up being a bit fun, discussing whether the historical record on Illithids could be trusted. It was as if the brawler took a moment and walked into his historian's study and began to discuss the merits of the available historiography. We have a pathfinder npc historian with us, and the monk even beat them on a check (twice now). Correcting some of the mistaken info they were sharing with the party, filling the gaps in their knowledge. The dice do like to have their fun, and I like going with it, and yet am I not playing a low INT character?
Contrast the brawler in the know (that does well on the roll) to the high int spellcaster with a lot of knowledge that fails the checks. The char is played as smart and knowing, but fails when it comes to the hurdles.
This is a funny place in the rules, with a definite impact on rp. Clearly the dumb monk is a diligent student of history. The other thing is, with a high wisdom, they are certainly not just fools regurgitating facts. This can be the same for a low int high wis and knowledge ranger. Ah INT, you aren't really intelligence, level of learning or knowing.
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Easy enough, since there are many people like this in real life.
They know a lot of things, but are pretty slow on the uptake.
These are the kids that get on the honor roll because they spend every waking moment studying, as opposed to the guys who skim the books and get straight A's.
Slow on the uptake, but thorough and thoughtful in what they have managed to learn. First person posting has a monk avatar = ironic.
Yep, luckily though, any history check is knowledge history. So if you've got it, you are set no matter if it shifts topic (just time for a new check you dirty specialist). If it's nature, anything natural they can grasp.
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Simple: emphasize experience over book-learning.
"Hey! I saw a giant bug like that once! It dug itself out of the ground under Famer Grump's prize milk cow, and bit a chunk out of her. Then squirted some kind of juice out of its face, and the poor cow melted!"
"Wait-- King Olaf the Orcslayer? My gramma told me a story about him when I was a boy. She said he was betrayed by his chief advisor, who stole the king's magic warhammer and whacked the king over the head with it. She said the ghost of King Olaf still haunts the ruins of his castle."
"I've seen plants like that before. Don't touch 'em-- they'll give you a nasty rash!"
Fair call, though I am not sure how the monk would pass the ancient civilisation knowledge check if he hasn't done quite a lot of reading. Unless gramma is a lich, or sexy milf vampire queen, lol.
Any other takers and experiences? Or are low int chars avoided like the plague?
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Honestly, low Int characters tend to have relatively few skill points, so I tend not to invest those points in Knowledge skills.
That said, depending on the character, I could see picking one Knowledge skill for such a character to know a thing or two about. Probably practical things like knowlege (local), (nature), (religion), or (geography). Again, I'd play such a character like I mentioned above: relying on past experience over book learning.
Of course, it's possible to make a low-Int character who loves reading and obsesses over something in partciular. Maybe he is a history buff that can't stop reading and has a bunch of ranks in Knowledge (history).
It really all depends on the character you want to play and the backstory you want to write.
But from a "crunch" perspective, low-Int characters don't have a lot of skill points to spend, and should put ranks in things more immediately useful than Knowledge skills. Most characters with a low Int are in classes for which Knowledge skills aren't class skills-- meaning that they'll get the double-whammy of a penalty from Int and no class skill bonus. That means that investing skill ranks on Knowledge skills is not a particularly good investment.
If the skill is a class skill, you can still create a good number even if your int is 8.
I went for a knowledge skill for my monk so that although a brawler, they wouldn't always have to rely on others for knowledge checks. A character that actually knew things. Fighters being obscenely good at engineering or dungeoneering is another one, after all, they don't get many class skills, so at least knowing a lot about dungeons is a good idea.
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For any Knowledge but History I'd go with the 'experience, not book learning' route. That makes a lot of sense and fits thematically.
For History...I'd assume they read a lot of history at some point. Or had oral traditions handed down to them, depending on the character. Someone doesn't need to be smart to have read a lot. Heck, maybe he has a soft spot for historical romances...that have actually done their research.
I have a low INT 8 high knolwedge religion Monk, who is familiar with all the ways of punching undead, without knowing how to read very well.
-So "That is a Hecuva, it's a skeleton that just won't die, no matter what you hit it with...unless you have silver weapons..."
I can't remember seeing any character that took many knowledge skills when they have a low int. The onyl example I can think of is a cleric with a low intelligence but Kno(Religion). The clerics usually just RP it as upbringing in the church and such.
Sometimes it's fun to play against type.
My 8 Int Orc Barbarian knows roughly 16 languages. It makes for fun times in RotRL because he's the trap guy of the group and every now and then we come across writing in Thassilonian or something that's like "This is a lever that does a thing" and everybody else in the party looks at him like "Why do you speak this language, seriously what?"
Sometimes it's fun to play against type.
My 8 Int Orc Barbarian knows roughly 16 languages. It makes for fun times in RotRL because he's the trap guy of the group and every now and then we come across writing in Thassilonian or something that's like "This is a lever that does a thing" and everybody else in the party looks at him like "Why do you speak this language, seriously what?"
I also knew a player that did that!
Average int warrior. Yes, they were playing a warrior, and they had a crazy number of languages and an insanely high linguistics.
It worked out in an amusing fashion, because the warrior didn't quite work alongside pf classes. So every three levels they would get a level of warrior for free to balance with the pf classes, which meant their bab got crazy and their skill points and max ranks actually started to get very amusing.
In a 12th level party the warrior was 15.
Sometimes down in the Mwangi expanse, he would find something written or carven in a hybrid pidgin tongue between two languages or more. If two, he would probably have both, if more he might need to make a check to sort it out, but he could vague it up with what he knew.
I sometimes play low cha characters with lots of stuff invested in diplomacy. Same concept, but very doable.
I have heard of rogues doing that. Yes, he is a bit ugly and smelly, but we are just captivated by whatever he says.
A lot of my friends at table-tops argue that cha does not determine good looks, but only social status. In fact, I don't know where this came from, but a lot of people will say good looks, okay roll for hotness and you roll 3d6. I'm sure something can be found on youtube or if you google it.
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Being a father of 4 who still enjoys the cartoons my younger ones watch, there is nothing wrong with low int but being very knowledgeable in a certain area. I could come up with some cartoon charecters off my head like sheen from jimmy nuetron (knowledge-ultraman) or timmy from fairy godparents (knowledge-crimson chin) just off the top of my head. Hell if u live in the south or ever seen the stereotypes (unfortuantly there are alot who fit it like a tee) just think of the car mechanic who never graduated 5th grade but can tell u whats wrong witb ur car and be able to fix it without the help of a computer but needs calculater to do simple math and can barely speak proper english.
I've been more concerned with how to make my low-Int character not be stupid, because I felt I needed to play intelligently to, well, survive the campaign. While the character died to a fight the GM did a bad job of telegraphing that we should run away from (we saw no way to run without sacrificing all our gear and quite possibly not surviving anyway)...
My solution was twofold. First, make him take a while to come up with the good ideas. Intelligence 8, he'll figure it out, but it will take him ten minutes where a smarter character would get it instantly. Number two was essentially his backstory and goals - he came to the right conclusions the wrong way, through flawed logic and bad assumptions, and then made a bad call. Basically he determined that the Church must be corrupt and in league with demons because it treated him badly... so he's going to pledge himself to other demons. Then a hydra ate his face at level 2 and the replacement character was quite a bit smarter.
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I've been more concerned with how to make my low-Int character not be stupid, because I felt I needed to play intelligently to, well, survive the campaign. While the character died to a fight the GM did a bad job of telegraphing that we should run away from (we saw no way to run without sacrificing all our gear and quite possibly not surviving anyway)...
My solution was twofold. First, make him take a while to come up with the good ideas. Intelligence 8, he'll figure it out, but it will take him ten minutes where a smarter character would get it instantly. Number two was essentially his backstory and goals - he came to the right conclusions the wrong way, through flawed logic and bad assumptions, and then made a bad call. Basically he determined that the Church must be corrupt and in league with demons because it treated him badly... so he's going to pledge himself to other demons. Then a hydra ate his face at level 2 and the replacement character was quite a bit smarter.
Yeah wasnt to smart meeting up with a hydra at level 2 lmao