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Character with low Int don't need to be morons, but they are bad at learning skills. One possible reason for being a slow learner is impatience. Ask him to read a book and he'll get bored and wander off. That might fit this kind of character
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18 strength is a lot of devotion to smashing things. With the 7 int as well I'd play him who always goes for shortcuts or direct routes, especially if he can break something or show off his physical prowess along the way.
It is my low level (2) Abyssal Bloodrager.
This stemmed from another thread asking about 7 Int so with all the stats present maybe it will help get an image. I want opinions not the wrongbadfun talks. He believes to be a dragon due to being raised by one. Sorta...He is half elf/orc and hates orcs with a passion. I play him as very rash and quick tempered but with enough sense to leave it to his 'lessers' who can relate to the vermin of the universe.
STR-18
DEX-14
CON-14
INT-7
WIS-12
CHA-12
Professional bodybuilder, strongman etc., who is agile for a guy his size. He's more street-smart than your average shmoe, and he's likable in a childlike way, but he has a noticable learning disability, just above the threshold to be functional in everyday life. So basically Rocky if he was even more ripped.
Addendum: I play 8-9 Int as simple or airheaded, 6-7 Int as functional but disabled, and 5 Int as mostly disabled, ie extremely slow to learn anything outside of 1 or 2 primary interests/simple tasks.
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Arrogance, iffy grammar and a smaller lexicon, and a huge attitude problem.
Not a bad person, per say, but rough and not the dumbest or automatically evil.
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I like to think of your ability modifier in an area as your character's standard deviation from the mean of the population.
So, with a -3 INT, you would be sitting at around 70 IQ points, with right around 2% of the population at around that intelligence level. I would play this person as having significant problems learning complex tasks and have a hard time reading if at all.
The highish scores in wisdom and charisma make it interesting. People wouldn't be able to tell that I'm not smart just by looking at me, and I carry on normal, everyday conversations without a hitch.
I would be socially aware enough that I might be embarrassed by my illiteracy or low reading comprehension level. I would make attempts to read and then somehow manage to get the other person to tell me what it says without them knowing that I didn't read it at all.
Correction, -2 INT, so I would definitely play them as literate but probably with an elementary grade level reading comprehension.
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The important thing is to not confuse intelligence with wisdom when roleplaying.
Intelligence is your speed of thought, the effectiveness of that thought, ingenuity, and puzzle solving. Book learning.
Wisdom is common sense, judgement, instincts, and capacity for patience. Street Smarts.
With a low intelligence, but better than average wisdom and charisma, you will take a couple seconds to understand the implications of things. You'll give good advice, but you'll probably use a mixed or misunderstood metaphor to do it. You'll be able to relate to people pretty well,, but might not understand what they are talking about.
Intelligence is notoriously difficult to define and the system relies on a huge amount of abstraction, so I wouldn't feel too pressured to play directly off of people's general expectations with a mental attribute. Start with the concrete consequences - less skillful, lower knowledge checks, etc. - and then work out the 'why' however you want. Maybe he's badly distracted all the time, maybe he's a world-renouncing hermit... or maybe he really is just as dumb as a brick. Who's to say but you? If people tell you that you should be doing more moronic drooling, tell them that you're rolling all of your skill checks properly and not making any dissertations on theoretic physics, so go away.
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Things I'm looking at...
1) The low INT, obviously. Everyone else has given you good ideas for that.
2) But he also has a POSITIVE CHA and WIS modifier. Wisdom measures a lot of things including common sense, judgement, willpower, hunches, etc. Charisma governs independency, force of personality, how good you are at giving off whatever feeling you want to give off (in this case you're a big scary Bloodrager), etc.
3) And finally he's a Bloodrager. He has RAAAGH!
Specific examples Pathfinder uses for things people with those mental ability scores do, by the way:
Dull-witted or slow, often misuses and mispronounces words
Can sense when a person is upset
Mildly interesting, usually knows what to say
So, to me, it sounds like you have a character that comes across as a farmboy idiot that's only good for fighting... at first. However, he's actually got a fairly good hunch as to when someone needs help or to be talked to, and he's probably fairly insightful.
A good character example, to me, would be Cameron from the Dragonlance series.
My 7 INT Bloodrager has the following tendencies to reflect his low INT:
- Fails to understand party member and NPC motives.
- Insists on simple solutions.
- Will not let the party take actions when there's a major disagreement.
- Acts quickly on gut instincts with no regard to consequences when his morality is offended.
- Remembers big words he's heard, but always says them wrong.
We have very similar stat blocks (I have slightly less WIS at 10 and some minor adjustments in the physicals to support Combat Reflexes). I also have a level of Brawler, which colors his combat choices significantly because I can justify it with Brawler's Cunning.
The character is in PFS and I introduce myself to the party by saying that "I explore, I cooperate, you report."