Stat Yourself!


Homebrew and House Rules

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Using 3.5 stats...

Str 15 - max load 200 lbs over my head
Dex 11 - I'm crap for balance but my reflexes are decent
Con 12 - I don't get too sick and it's not debilitating
Int 10 - Yep, IQ of about 100
Wis 13 - Life has taught me not to be as naive as I once was.
Cha 14 - I've been known to change some people's minds, even convinced a few people to enjoy 4th Edition!

I think I'd make a good Crusader, Fighter, or Cavalier (PF) character.

Sovereign Court RPG Superstar 2011 Top 32

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Heh. This. I'll play:

Str 8 - I have spindly nerd arms. I can bench press 50 lbs. on a good day.
Dex 10 - I have good balance but poor ranged attacks (I can't throw for ^&%*&). Although I am pretty accurate with a gun...I'll chalk that up to BAB.
Con 13 - I almost never get sick, and can keep doing activities for a long time.
Int 18 - If you go by the 1/216 model; it's a 15 if you go by IQ/10 model.
Wis 10 - Wisdom is a tough one so I'm taking a 10 and calling it a punt.
Cha 8 - You know that guy who's always used in examples who has a poor Cha but put ranks in the interaction skills - that's me in real life.

I think that puts me at a 9 PB if you presume my human bonus went into Int. Seems somewhat reasonable although almost everyone overestimates themselves in these things.

Class/level wise, I'd probably be about a 3rd level expert - I am 14 years into my career at this point.

Sovereign Court

Using the Elite Array, because clearly I am the hero of my own story (also easier to essentially rank highest to lowest) :P

8 Str - I am a person of average health who does not work out, eats fairly unhealthily and has a sedentary job.
12 Dex - the highest of my physical stats - good hand/eye coordination from the few sports I do play, multiplayer gaming and interest in juggling/sleight of hand
10 Con - average, but I reckon I took the Endurance feat when I did the Duke of Edinburgh award to make up for it.
13 Int - I am educated up to degree level (Philosophy) and read widely, but I'm not a scientist.
14 Wis - with max ranks in Perception and Sense Motive because people/office politics. Also I'm stubborn.
15 Cha - because I like to think I make friends and influence people easily (although anyone claiming that is automatically suspect) with as many ranks as I have HD in Perform (Oratory). I only look average, though, so I dunno...

Otherwise, I probably have a load of widely spread skill points and the crappy +2/+2 skill feats, and my cool fantasy equivalent would be a Bard :D


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Oh, look... Everyone gives themselves high Int and good Wis...

How unexpected...


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Knott C. Rious wrote:

Oh, look... Everyone gives themselves high Int and good Wis...

How unexpected...

Yeah, it's almost like if you polled the weight lifting team and found they all considered themselves stronger than average.

.... or the juggling club and found they all considered themselves to be good at throwing and catching things.

It's a self-selected (and unrepresentative) sample. People with poor reading skills, for example, are likely to be less interested in participating on a text-primary forum about playing a nonphysical game with a thousand-page ruleset.

Just as an example, I note that a lot of people are citing standardized tests or IQ tests as proof of high intelligence. Most people who have applied to an American college will have taken a test like the SAT and ACT and therefore know where they fit in the percentile rankings, so intelligence scores in particular are not likely to be plucked out of thin air. Just having graduated from college at all puts you in fairly elite company -- the mean IQ of college graduates is about 115, one standard deviation above the norm, which for 3d6 is right about 13.5.

So, if you graduated from (an American) college and had a higher than average GPA,... yes, you probably have a 14+ intelligence.


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Or the human brain simply is not hard-wired for honest self-reflection. The sheer fact of the existence of confirmation bias attests to that.


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Orfamay Quest wrote:
Knott C. Rious wrote:

Oh, look... Everyone gives themselves high Int and good Wis...

How unexpected...

Yeah, it's almost like if you polled the weight lifting team and found they all considered themselves stronger than average.

.... or the juggling club and found they all considered themselves to be good at throwing and catching things.

It's a self-selected (and unrepresentative) sample. People with poor reading skills, for example, are likely to be less interested in participating on a text-primary forum about playing a nonphysical game with a thousand-page ruleset.

I honestly don't think RPG demand that much intelligence. All it requires is basic math... And even people who are not good with math learn how to add up modifiers and whatnot rather quickly with some game experience.

Orfamay Quest wrote:

Just as an example, I note that a lot of people are citing standardized tests or IQ tests as proof of high intelligence. Most people who have applied to an American college will have taken a test like the SAT and ACT and therefore know where they fit in the percentile rankings, so intelligence scores in particular are not likely to be plucked out of thin air. Just having graduated from college at all puts you in fairly elite company -- the mean IQ of college graduates is about 115, one standard deviation above the norm, which for 3d6 is right about 13.5.

So, if you graduated from (an American) college and had a higher than average GPA,... yes, you probably have a 14+ intelligence.

Eh... Not really. It really depends on what course you're making and its difficulty.

And I really, really doubt people are that rational, fair and unbiased when it comes to judging their own intelligence... Pretty much everyone thinks they are smarter than average.

Who knows? Maybe everyone is being fair and accurate in their judgment... But I really doubt it.

I'm not saying I think everyone is stupid or dishonest... Only that humans have a tendency to overrate their own mental capacities.


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Lemmy wrote:
Orfamay Quest wrote:
Knott C. Rious wrote:

Oh, look... Everyone gives themselves high Int and good Wis...

How unexpected...

Yeah, it's almost like if you polled the weight lifting team and found they all considered themselves stronger than average.

.... or the juggling club and found they all considered themselves to be good at throwing and catching things.

It's a self-selected (and unrepresentative) sample. People with poor reading skills, for example, are likely to be less interested in participating on a text-primary forum about playing a nonphysical game with a thousand-page ruleset.

I honestly don't think RPG demand that much intelligence.

Demand? No. Similarly, being in the juggling club doesn't demand high dexterity, but people are not going to enjoy it as much if they're not dextrous.

All it requires is basic math...

And reading the thousand pages of rules to understand what's going on.

Remember that something like one US adult out of four reads at a 5th grade level or below. How many of them are going to pick up the Pathfinder CRB and understand it well enough to play? (I just tested -- the CRB is written at about 12-14th grade level , depending upon what test you run and which sample you pick. Sample analysis below:)

Spoiler:

Readability Formula Grade
Flesch-Kincaid Grade Level 12.3
Gunning-Fog Score 15.6
Coleman-Liau Index 13.6
SMOG Index 11.3
Automated Readability Index 12.2
Average Grade Level 13.0
Text Statistics

Character Count 1,824
Syllable Count 617
Word Count 365
Sentence Count 18
Characters per Word 5.0
Syllables per Word 1.7
Words per Sentence 20.3

To the extent that intelligence correlates with reading score (which it does -- there are a lot of reasons why someone might not read well, but not being smart enough to is certainly one of them), you can see that the writing of the CRB is a strong barrier to participation in PF.

Orfamay Quest wrote:

Just as an example, I note that a lot of people are citing standardized tests or IQ tests as proof of high intelligence. Most people who have applied to an American college will have taken a test like the SAT and ACT and therefore know where they fit in the percentile rankings, so intelligence scores in particular are not likely to be plucked out of thin air. Just having graduated from college at all puts you in fairly elite company -- the mean IQ of college graduates is about 115, one standard deviation above the norm, which for 3d6 is right about 13.5.

So, if you graduated from (an American) college and had a higher than average GPA,... yes, you probably have a 14+ intelligence.

Eh... Not really. It really depends on what course you're making and its difficulty.

Yes, there's some relationship between college major and average IQ, and there's also a relationship between particular schools and IQ (MIT grads average higher than South Jesus College of Springfield), but you don't want to go down that particular road, either.... the average IQ for physics, philosophy, math, economics, and engineering is about 130, which puts them at the 16-17 Intelligence level.

Quote:


Who knows... Maybe everyone is being fair and accurate in their judgment... But I really doubt it.

Well, that's why I dragged objective criteria into the mix. I'm fairly sure that most people are fair and accurate in their assessment of what number was written on their SAT test. I'm even more confident that they're accurate in their assessment of whether they attended college and whether or not they graduated. That's hard to be unsure about.

I think it's quite reasonable that most of the people in this forum are in the top quarter of intelligence, because this group has implicitly selected for intelligence. Goodness, even your most recent post -- just the words you used -- has a reading level of about grade 7, which makes it too difficult for the lowest quarter of US adults to understand. (Long sentences, difficult words like 'unbiased,' and so forth.) Simple math says that when you cut the lowest quarter out, the average of the remainder is going to be in the middle of the second quarter, at about the 62nd percentile, basically one standard deviation above the norm. If you cut the lower half out, the average of the remainder will be at the 75th percentile.


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Green Smashomancer wrote:
Or the human brain simply is not hard-wired for honest self-reflection. The sheer fact of the existence of confirmation bias attests to that.

How much honest self-reflection does it take to know if you graduated from college?

Sovereign Court

Lemmy wrote:
Orfamay Quest wrote:
Knott C. Rious wrote:

Oh, look... Everyone gives themselves high Int and good Wis...

How unexpected...

Yeah, it's almost like if you polled the weight lifting team and found they all considered themselves stronger than average.

.... or the juggling club and found they all considered themselves to be good at throwing and catching things.

It's a self-selected (and unrepresentative) sample. People with poor reading skills, for example, are likely to be less interested in participating on a text-primary forum about playing a nonphysical game with a thousand-page ruleset.

I honestly don't think RPG demand that much intelligence. All it requires is basic math... And even people who are not good with math learn how to add up modifiers and whatnot rather quickly with some game experience.

Based upon my experience at gaming cons - a lot of players NEVER actually learn how to add them up quickly. And make the same basic rules errors repeatedly.

Sovereign Court

Orfamay Quest wrote:
Green Smashomancer wrote:
Or the human brain simply is not hard-wired for honest self-reflection. The sheer fact of the existence of confirmation bias attests to that.
How much honest self-reflection does it take to know if you graduated from college?

It doesn't take an above average intelligence to graduate from college with one of the easier majors. It doesn't even take an average intelligence, so long as they work hard and aren't too far below average.


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Castilonium wrote:
Every single time I see this topic online or in real life, people give themselves very high int, moderately high cha, and low wis. This is the first time I've seen the majority of people give themselves high wis and low cha instead. Maybe it's due to the TTRPG gamer demographic becoming older, more self-reflective, and realizing that they're introverted nerds.

I think people who would understand, let alone answer, this particular question probably have a higher than average Int and lower than average Cha.

For myself, My IQ has been empirically measured to be at least 130 on multiple occasions. I've tested into MENSA, scored in the 89th or 90th percentile of the LSAT with almost no preparation, and excelled in honors and "gifted" courses throughout my academic career.

On the other hand, in the unlikely event that anyone doubts my Cha of 7, I invite them to review my posting history. ;-)


Charon's Little Helper wrote:
Orfamay Quest wrote:
Green Smashomancer wrote:
Or the human brain simply is not hard-wired for honest self-reflection. The sheer fact of the existence of confirmation bias attests to that.
How much honest self-reflection does it take to know if you graduated from college?
It doesn't take an above average intelligence to graduate from college with one of the easier majors. It doesn't even take an average intelligence, so long as they work hard and aren't too far below average.

No, but, oddly enough, most of the people who do graduate have above-average intelligences. You also don't need to be dextrous to join the juggling club, but most of the members are.


Knott C. Rious wrote:

Oh, look... Everyone gives themselves high Int and good Wis...

How unexpected...

Well... >_>

Ashiel wrote:

Wis 7 (I'm terribly unobservant, often too trusting)

Cha 7 (I have difficulties relating to people)

Just sayin'. :P


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Ashiel wrote:
[Typically, those interested in RPGs are usually those who are entertained and engaged with intelligence-based gameplay, including but not limited to - imagination, numbers, and abstract ideas.

Gamers are the smartest people around. Just ask any gamer. ;)

Str 10
Dex 11
Con 10
Int 11
Wis 11
Cha 10

However, I use some homebrew and 3rd party material (race, templates, traits, etc) that makes me completely broken and unplayable in any game.


Ciaran Barnes wrote:
Ashiel wrote:
[Typically, those interested in RPGs are usually those who are entertained and engaged with intelligence-based gameplay, including but not limited to - imagination, numbers, and abstract ideas.
Gamers are the smartest people around.

Well, gamers are nerds. And nerds are the smartest people around.

I think the medieval Scholastics had a name for that particular syllogism.

Sovereign Court

Orfamay Quest wrote:
Charon's Little Helper wrote:
Orfamay Quest wrote:
Green Smashomancer wrote:
Or the human brain simply is not hard-wired for honest self-reflection. The sheer fact of the existence of confirmation bias attests to that.
How much honest self-reflection does it take to know if you graduated from college?
It doesn't take an above average intelligence to graduate from college with one of the easier majors. It doesn't even take an average intelligence, so long as they work hard and aren't too far below average.
No, but, oddly enough, most of the people who do graduate have above-average intelligences. You also don't need to be dextrous to join the juggling club, but most of the members are.

It's not really comparable. Juggling is a niche hobby done for enjoyment which very rarely is financially beneficial at the very highest level of skill, so people only do it when they have a talent. College is pushed on everybody and is generally financially beneficial for most everyone who ends up with a degree. (Though much less financially beneficial for the easier majors now that so many people go - and the classwork has been dumbed down generally.)

Now - I do agree that the average college grad will be more intelligent than the average member of the populace, but I think it's a pretty gross overstatement to say that nearly all college grads are significantly above average intelligence. In Pathfinder terms I'd guess 12ish INT average instead of 10-11, mainly due to rather few at bottom end of the spectrum pulling down the average.

Silver Crusade

STR: 11 - I'd say I have average strength for my size (5'7", 125lbs) and I do have to carry heavy objects around quite a bit.

DEX: 18 - I'm extremely nimble on my feet and I'm also a very good bowler with one 300 game and currently holding a 217 average. Bowling is a finesse sport, not necessarily a power one.

CON: 9 - I do get sick every once in a while and it hits me pretty hard. My body feels quite a bit older than I really am some days.

INT: 16 - I pick up on things quickly and I have the book smarts. Very good at math.

WIS: 10 - Can pick up on some cues and emotions.

CHA: 11 - Ultimate babyface but socially awkward.


Orfamay Quest wrote:
Charon's Little Helper wrote:
Orfamay Quest wrote:
Green Smashomancer wrote:
Or the human brain simply is not hard-wired for honest self-reflection. The sheer fact of the existence of confirmation bias attests to that.
How much honest self-reflection does it take to know if you graduated from college?
It doesn't take an above average intelligence to graduate from college with one of the easier majors. It doesn't even take an average intelligence, so long as they work hard and aren't too far below average.
No, but, oddly enough, most of the people who do graduate have above-average intelligences. You also don't need to be dextrous to join the juggling club, but most of the members are.

These physical stat comparisons are not accurate, nor reliable. That's what makes judging mental capacities so arbitrary and prone to confirmation bias.

There are consistent universal measurements that can be used for weight-lifting averages. There are computers that can measure reaction time in universal increments. There are hard caps on the number of flaming knives one can juggle.

I.Q. tests are incredibly unreliable and they are changed constantly. Someone who took one 15 years ago would probably get an entirely different score today.

Charon's Little Helper shares my point. In any school system brainpower is less rewarded because hard work is way easier to quantify results from. "But my IQ is 150!" "Well, you should have actually done your thesis instead of losing at beer pong."

As for the college argument, I have a question: Do you suppose doctors are smart? and I mean high int?

Edit: Ayy, ninja'd while I elaborated.


Charon's Little Helper wrote:
Juggling is a niche hobby done for enjoyment which very rarely is financially beneficial, so people only do it when they have a talent. College is pushed on everybody and is generally financially beneficial for most everyone who ends up with a degree.

Possibly, but graduating from college is definitely not pushed on everyone, which is why the six year graduation rate averages about 50%. And the less intelligent students tend to be pushed to the schools with the lower graduation rates (there's a very strong relationship between selectivity and graduation rates, in part because Harvard, or even U. Texas, doesn't want to admit people who will fail to graduate and drag their rankings down).

There are actually numbers on these things. First, college isn't pushed on "everyone" -- only about 65% of high school graduates go to college. Only about 75% of students actually get a high school degree, so a little less than half of the population goes to college in the first place. Now, there are a lot of reasons why someone might not go to college, but not being smart enough is certainly one of those, so the people who are getting weeded out even at this stage will shift the average.

Now, about half of the matriculating students will eventually get a degree, and again, the ones who graduate are not a representative sample.

So we would expect to see that college students, irrespective of major, have higher IQs than the general public. We would also expect that college graduates, irrespective of major, have higher IQs than the general public. And we do. Furthermore, I cited upthread a breakdown of college students (not graduates, just students) by major, and in no instance studied did the average student in a particular major have a lower-than-average IQ. So, again, just matriculating is strong evidence that you've got a higher-than average IQ (at least 11+), even if you matriculate into the social work program (which had the lowest average IQ among the majors studied).


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Green Smashomancer wrote:


I.Q. tests are incredibly unreliable and they are changed constantly. Someone who took one 15 years ago would probably get an entirely different score today.

This is simply not true. Studying reliability and validity of IQ tests is a cottage industry, in part because it's such an easy way to get publications.

Quote:


As for the college argument, I have a question: Do you suppose doctors are smart? and I mean high int?

According to Hauser, Robert M. 2002. "Meritocracy, cognitive ability, and the sources of occupational success." CDE Working Paper 98-07 (rev). Center for Demography and Ecology, The University of Wisconsin-Madison, Madison, Wisconsin, the median IQ for doctors (MDs) is just above 120. The 25th percentile -- meaning a dumb doctor -- scores at about 113;the 10th percentile -- meaning a really dumb doctor -- is still at about 106.

So, yes.


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I don't know what my point buy is, but by now I've killed enough rats to be at least level 2.

Sovereign Court

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Orfamay Quest wrote:
First, college isn't pushed on "everyone" -- only about 65% of high school graduates go to college. Only about 75% of students actually get a high school degree, so a little less than half of the population goes to college in the first place.

Right - but that doesn't contradict it being pushed on everyone. After all - just because eating healthy is pushed on everyone in elementary school doesn't mean that every kid eats their vegetables.

Culturally college is pushed on virtually everyone despite it not being a good fit for everyone, and despite trade school graduates making as much or more money than many college grads.


Orfamay Quest wrote:
Green Smashomancer wrote:


I.Q. tests are incredibly unreliable and they are changed constantly. Someone who took one 15 years ago would probably get an entirely different score today.

This is simply not true. Studying reliability and validity of IQ tests is a cottage industry, in part because it's such an easy way to get publications.

Quote:


As for the college argument, I have a question: Do you suppose doctors are smart? and I mean high int?

According to |unnecessarily long elaboration meant to make my statement sound more valid| the median IQ for doctors (MDs) is just above 120. The 25th percentile -- meaning a dumb doctor -- scores at about 113;the 10th percentile -- meaning a really dumb doctor -- is still at about 106.

So, yes.

Well, I'll have to admit to not having known about that first link. So, kudos there.

Though, you know doctors in pathfinder (which is the system we're talking about being represented in here, let's not lose sight of that) would not even be using an intelligence-based skill? Heal is their skill of choice so one of two things is true. Either graduating college means a mental stat is likely high not necessarily intelligence, and the diploma=int argument is even weaker. Or all doctors are Vivisectionists and thus, way cooler.

Edit: Also, it seems to me that you're denying Confirmation Bias is playing any part in anyone's assessments of their mental faculties.


Is this the gamer equivalent of comparing d!€£ size? Apologies to the ladies.


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I'm pretty sure. But some of us are holding rulers up against it and arguing whether to use the imperial or metric side, some of us are saying we should measure by thickness of our "diploma" and others are trying to convince others to hold it for them so they can answer a text and we're all like "no dude thats weird."


Green Smashomancer wrote:


Also, it seems to me that you're denying Confirmation Bias is playing any part in anyone's assessments of their mental faculties.

Not at all. But most of the people claiming to have high intelligence on this thread seem to have third-party validation of that claim.

Wisdom and charisma are harder to validate. But I find it exactly as unsurprising that a group of highly literate RPG nerds would rank high in intelligence as I do that a bunch of professional basketball players would rank high on endurance.


I think a lot of people have a different understanding of what an 18 represents than I do. Saying "I took karate - Dex 18" comes across as implying an 18 Dex is no big deal.

It would be like me saying "I played on offensive and defensive line in high school football - Con 18."

18 is cream of the crop IMO, not participating in run-of-the-mill sports/hobbies.


Str 10

Dex 9

Con 11

Wis 10

Int 12

Chr 12


Orfamay Quest wrote:
Green Smashomancer wrote:


Also, it seems to me that you're denying Confirmation Bias is playing any part in anyone's assessments of their mental faculties.

Not at all. But most of the people claiming to have high intelligence on this thread seem to have third-party validation of that claim.

Wisdom and charisma are harder to validate. But I find it exactly as unsurprising that a group of highly literate RPG nerds would rank high in intelligence as I do that a bunch of professional basketball players would rank high on endurance.

I can agree with that. I suppose I'm just cynical. Which isn't very wise, is it?

But we're geeks. Get it right. Although there is quite some overlap with tabletop RPGs specifically.

Edit:

Tormsskull wrote:

I think a lot of people have a different understanding of what an 18 represents than I do. Saying "I took karate - Dex 18" comes across as implying an 18 Dex is no big deal.

It would be like me saying "I played on offensive and defensive line in high school football - Con 18."

18 is cream of the crop IMO, not participating in run-of-the-mill sports/hobbies.

Also, this. This is another part of what I'm getting at. An 18 means the kind of person who's a huge mover-and-shaker in the world as far as I can tell. Regular people get a 3 point-buy for a reason.


Diffan wrote:
Cha 14 - I've been known to change some people's minds, even convinced a few people to enjoy 4th Edition!

CHA 20!

(I kid; I like 4th edition).


Tormsskull wrote:

I think a lot of people have a different understanding of what an 18 represents than I do. Saying "I took karate - Dex 18" comes across as implying an 18 Dex is no big deal.

It would be like me saying "I played on offensive and defensive line in high school football - Con 18."

18 is cream of the crop IMO, not participating in run-of-the-mill sports/hobbies.

If you just go by the descriptions, a lot of the "good" scores are actually really easily obtainable goals. Even though it says 10 is the baseline and 18 is amazing, in real life being able to often hit small objects is child's play for someone that practices

Also, don't childern in pathfinder have a +4 modifier to Dex? A slightly above average child could easily beat 18 that way.


I'm just basic NPC so I used the basic stat array.

13, 12, 11, 10, 9, and 8.

Str 9
Dex 11
Con 13
Int 12
Wis 10
Chr 8

My con is highest due to my fast healing. I recover from injury much faster than others. So much so my co-worker have started calling me Wolverine.

I put Chr lowest as I'm not Charismatic at all.


I'd argue being in the 98th percentile of intelligence puts one in the 18+ range, especially if you invested your +2 human racial into that statistic. A 20 would be the top end that puts you in the top .2 percent. That statistic is directly related to the measured real world IQ.

As for Wisdom and Charisma, that's heavily biased.

For strength I just used my real world carrying capacity, and constitution was based on my own abilities of endurance.

When you argue that high intelligence makes one a big player, just remember that in the game there are substantially less people. So being in the top couple percent represents very few individuals. While in real life there are substantially more people in that group.


Pathfinder Adventure Path Subscriber

Intelligence is a tricky beast to measure, in part because a lot of IQ tests and standardized academic testing that's out there is subtly biased toward a particular social group (white, middle class, North American/European) and thus often require adjusting for differing cultural norms in order to be actually accurate. (My work involves review of psych testing/cognitive ability tests and this is a pretty big issue in determining someone's "true" ability Especially when you're working with someone who speaks English as a second language. But I digress.)

Another thing that makes it difficult to measure intelligence is that there's a lot of different types/subject areas. Personally, for example, I'm very good with language. It's always been an area of strength for me; I remember what I read with little to no effort, and I have decent enough evidence academically and professionally to believe that I'm most likely above average in that particular area.

Math, though. I wasn't kidding when I said I was bad at it. I need a calculator to even add most things past single-digit numbers. I never learned to long divide because it just didn't stick with me. I can't multiply in my head except for the 2s and 5s, and even then I need to count it out on my fingers. Anyone looking at my math skills alone would probably assume I barely graduated high school.

So looking at any one subject area in isolation often produces a skewed idea of actual intelligence level. This is, interestingly enough, aggravated in individuals with high IQs; a lot of people assume that those with a high IQ will be better than average in every area, when in reality, variance between skills is often greater in people measured as having higher IQs than people with average ones.

(Sorry for the cognitive ability ramblings. It's a particular area of interest of mine, so this got a lot longer than I intended.)


Green Smashomancer wrote:


Tormsskull wrote:

I think a lot of people have a different understanding of what an 18 represents than I do. Saying "I took karate - Dex 18" comes across as implying an 18 Dex is no big deal.

It would be like me saying "I played on offensive and defensive line in high school football - Con 18."

18 is cream of the crop IMO, not participating in run-of-the-mill sports/hobbies.

Also, this. This is another part of what I'm getting at. An 18 means the kind of person who's a huge mover-and-shaker in the world as far as I can tell. Regular people get a 3 point-buy for a reason.

There is certainly room for variance in interpreting a given stat, If you look at it mathematically, there is one chance in 216 of rolling an 18 on 3d6. If you use the old D&D distribution, almost everyone here would score a 14+ on Intelligence based simply on population norms.

If you assume instead that humans must be built on the Pathfinder NPC array, then no one has a score higher than 13 (or 15 if you allow the human racial +2) and a 16 is literally superhuman.

Oxylepy wrote:


I'd argue being in the 98th percentile of intelligence puts one in the 18+ range, especially if you invested your +2 human racial into that statistic. A 20 would be the top end that puts you in the top .2 percent. That statistic is directly related to the measured real world IQ.

Close, if you use the D&D scale. (18 is actually the 99.5th percentile; 17 is roughly the 98.5th.) Or impossible if you use the stat arrays.

But even the 99.5th percentile only means that you are the smartest person in a randomly chosen group of 200 people. That's the doctor or lawyer in a small village, or the valedictorian of a tiny high school. (My high school graduated about 700 people in my year, so there were almost certainly at least three people with 18's in any given score.) Michigan State graduates 10,000 people a year, so that's 50 people with 18+ in any given score. (And they're a fairly selective school, so it would probably be double that. There are probably 100-200 people with 18s in Strength, and they're all on some sort of athletic scholarship.)

But a 16+? One person in 20 (actually, 10 in 216) has that. That would be the best person in your fifth grade classroom.


Meraki wrote:
Intelligence is a tricky beast to measure,

... in comparison to what, Charisma? While I agree that IQ isn't a perfect instrument, it's actually pretty good compared to all of the other multifactor scores that go into any of the Pathfinder attributes. Dexterity, for example, explicitly incorporates "agility, reflexes, and balance," any one of which is difficult to measure in isolation, which do not necessarily correlate well with each other, and which are also strongly confounded by training. (Am I agile because I put a lot of points into the Acrobatics skill or because I have natural talent? How, in practice, do you separate the two?)

That's why I've been focusing on Intelligence and the self-reports there. We have a well-understood instrument (IQ) that has been studied to death precisely to make it as robust to the various confounding factors as we can. Furthermore, we have a tremendous number of huge studies involving thousands or tens of thousands of subjects, which gives us both extremely low error bars as well as an extremely good understanding of the distributions of scores. (Furthermore, we also know more about replicability and validity of IQ testing, possibly, than of any other psychometric instrument in existence.)


Druid 2 (I take my nature very seriously!)

Strength 12 (I am not a huge guy, only 5'4", but strong for my size)
Dexterity 17 (I can shoot a longbow with the best of them, shimmy up trees like a pole cat, and dodge very very well)
Constitution 9 (I smoke, running sux!)
Intelligence 14 (I have about a 136 IQ, no genius, but momma didn't raise no dummy ;) )
Wisdom 16 (lots of common sense, used to be advice guy, still am sometimes)
Charisma 8 (I can be very prickly, rather blunt and sarcastic to boot, which is at odds with being advice guy strangely enough)

Used my good old human +2 for Dex, because nimbly bimbly from treetop to treetop is a thing.

Liberty's Edge

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For the record, I mostly agree with Orfamay Quest on everything he's been posting.

I don't personally believe IQ tests measure intelligence in a direct fashion (I could get into it if anyone cared, but it would be deeply off-topic), but there's a wealth of data that whatever they do measure is strongly correlated with it.

And there are cultural biases built into the test, certainly, but those just make people of certain groups test worse because they don't get the cultural referents, they don't artificially inflate the scores of people of the cultures the test is biased toward except comparatively due to how averages on that test are calculated.

Or to put it another way: Those biases make some people's scores too low. They make nobody's too high.

Or to put it a final way: A low IQ score might be the inaccurate result of cultural bias. A high score can't be.

So...using a high IQ score as evidence for high Int is pretty valid. As are high scores in other standardized testing to some degree.

To use myself as an example (because mine are the only SAT scores I know) I took the SAT when they were doing the three part version, I got an 800 on Reading Comprehension, a 650 on Math, and a 600 on Writing (for the record, I write slowly and only wrote half the essay). And, as mentioned, I have an IQ of 138 or so.

Saying I'm a fair bit smarter than average is a pretty objectively true statement with a fair bit of empirical data to back it up. I generally figure all that adds up to a 16 or so rather than anything higher, but it can be argued up or down a few points (I'd be inclined to call it a 14 if Humans didn't get the floating +2).

The other scores are far more subjective, obviously, but even there, having the Int lets you examine all the 'ways to roleplay someone with XYZ mental stats' stuff and get ballpark figures for the others. Physical stats are a bit harder, but most people haven't been giving themselves overwhelming physical stats anyway.

And complaining that people are rating their Int too high is a bit odd unless they're actively ignoring any standardized testing they've been through.


Deadmanwalking wrote:


To use myself as an example (because mine are the only SAT scores I know) I took the SAT when they were doing the three part version, I got an 800 on Reading Comprehension, a 650 on Math, and a 600 on Writing (for the record, I write slowly and only wrote half the essay). And, as mentioned, I have an IQ of 138 or so.

Just to put this number in perspective, an IQ of 138 corresponds to the 99.12-th percentile.

That is to say, DMW tested better than 99.12% of the population, and is expected to have the highest test score in a group of 114 people. That's a pretty big room, frankly.

Quote:
Saying I'm a fair bit smarter than average is a pretty objectively true statement with a fair bit of empirical data to back it up. I generally figure all that adds up to a 16 or so rather than anything higher, but it can be argued up or down a few points (I'd be inclined to call it a 14 if Humans didn't get the floating +2).

If he wants to call the 99th percentile a 14, that is of course his choice. But in 3d6, a 14 is only the 83.8th percentile (that is, it's smarter than 83.8% of the population, and at least as smart as 90.7% of the population).


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The Sword wrote:
Is this the gamer equivalent of comparing d!€£ size? Apologies to the ladies.

Most of the female players in my groups have their own dice. :)


Ashiel wrote:
The Sword wrote:
Is this the gamer equivalent of comparing d!€£ size? Apologies to the ladies.
Most of the female players in my groups have their own dice. :)

And that is the bit of humor we needed in this topic to keep things light in this serious back and forth.

Also, don't forget that while one is rolling a 3d6 to determine scores in our comparison, we do also have a +2 bonus to an ability score. So realistically an 18 is rolling a 16 if you invested time into your own cognitive abilities.


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Around 16 years ago, I did a lot of research online about RPGs because I grew up on the bible belt and a lot of people I knew were upset about me playing "the Dungeons and Dragons". Many insisted it would make me suicidal (the opposite occurred), many insisted it would make me kill my parents (because that was actually one of the things it supposedly made kids do), and of course, there were concerns about satanism, magic, and whatever the hell else.

So, I did what any other average teenager would have done. I looked for some evidence, studies, or verification to these claims. What I actually found, however, was much to the direct contrary of every complaint lodged against it, combined with reports of positive correlations with lack of suicide and intelligence (though most every study I read noted that it couldn't determine whether RPGs caused higher intelligence or if people with higher intelligence were just attracted to RPGs).

Now, nearly 20 years later, I am both elated and bothered by the fact the ocean of the internet is now overflowing with positive blogs and community bits clogging up my google searches. It's great to see virtually nothing stigmatizing about the hobby appearing, though it's making it a huge pain to actually find any of the research papers I found way back when (and I don't expect you to just take my word for it).

I did find RPGstudies.net, so I'll see if I can look up individual studies off this list and maybe others might be interested in a little light reading as well. However, I'm about to find some evening breakfast.


I'll play.

Strength 8
(Used to be much higher, given that I grew up on a working farm. But years of sedentary jobs and now disability has taken that edge away from me.

Dexterity 10
(Again, was once higher. I was a fencer in college and had really, really good reflexes. My mentor, another student, would throw silverware at me in the cafeteria and I'd always manage to duck, deflect, or catch it.

Constitution 12
(With the exception of stomach bugs, I'm immune to pretty much anything else. I seldom get a cold, the flu, or anything else)

Intelligence 14
(Had my IQ tested more than once. It comes out in the 142 to 146 range)

Wisdom 8
(I'm known for being really smart, but not always making the best decisions where life, the universe, and everything are concerned. But I think I have several adds in Perception, because I notice a lot of what goes on around me that others miss).

Charisma 20
(Not to brag but people like me. They really, really like me. I'm friendly, honest, always polite to strangers, kids, and pets, and even though I suffer from sometimes crippling anxiety, I can usually manage to put on a smiley face long enough to get by).


Ugh... IQ... another arbitrary term that I mostly find being used to fluff egos than to actually mean something. Many have claimed to have such and such high IQ, everywhere around me. I just wonder if those people ever realise that IQ isn't a number engraved in the back of their brain like a quality seal. It's an imaginary scale to measure certain kinds of thinking.

Honestly, I'm a bit sceptical about anybody claiming to be above 14 or 15 in any ability score. Let us not forget that 15 is twice as high as 10 (twice as strong, etc). 3.X was designed that way. Now, I'm not saying that it's impossible. I'm just a bit sceptical when someone claims to be more than twice as smart as the average human (I honestly wouldn't categorise the average rocket scientist to be above 14 or 15). And I really don't know of that many people who can carry around ~60lbs (~27kg) without any penalties to movement and such.

If I had to rate myself:
STR 12 (I'm well above average, though I'm not stronger than a pony)
DEX 8 (tubby, but I do have precision)
CON 13 (I hardly ever get sick and I can withstand a lot of pain)
INT 12 (Having seen a large varity of people in-action, I have to say that I'm not at the low end and not amoung the average person either. I'm not bragging, it actually makes me sad)
WIS 13 (I would like to think that I'm wiser than I am intelligent. I feel like I can relate to it more. I would also rate my Will and Perception as one of my stronger sides)
CHA 12 (Not that I'm charming or good looking, probably far from it, I'm sure. But I've been told that I have a strong and memerable character, a lot of people seem to remember me and my name after their first time meeting me (not sure if good))

Just so happens to be a MAD 10 point-buy as well. I'd say that that's very suitable.


Pathfinder Adventure Path Subscriber
Orfamay Quest wrote:
Meraki wrote:
Intelligence is a tricky beast to measure,
... in comparison to what, Charisma? While I agree that IQ isn't a perfect instrument, it's actually pretty good compared to all of the other multifactor scores that go into any of the Pathfinder attributes. Dexterity, for example, explicitly incorporates "agility, reflexes, and balance," any one of which is difficult to measure in isolation, which do not necessarily correlate well with each other, and which are also strongly confounded by training.

Oh, I wasn't comparing it to the other attributes. (Charisma, to my mind, would probably be the hardest one to actually measure objectively.)

Deadmanwalking, I don't actually disagree with anything you said in your post; I was just addressing the idea of objective measurement of intelligence in general and the issues that can sometimes arise with it. (It was a mildly unrelated tangent, which I probably should have made clearer.) Though it's true, the bias tends low rather than high with tests like that, so it wouldn't make anyone OVERestimate their intelligence.


I presume all the people claiming Int 12+ can fluently speak, read and write multiple languages, because of course if you can't then obviously your Int isn't as high as you think it is. I'd probably knock your Wisdom down a point or two at the same time for not recognising this as well as remembering that pride commeth before a fall.


Rub-Eta wrote:
And I really don't know of that many people who can carry around ~60lbs (~27kg) without any penalties to movement and such.

Really? I've known like, dozens of people who could do that. Heck, I knew a guy who could do a one arm pushups with multiple large guys on his back and this person was heavy. Like, very much fat, but also with muscles under it all. If you talk to lifters at all, even casual ones, they wouldn't bat an eye at that much weight spread out along their body.

The Sword wrote:
I presume all the people claiming Int 12+ can fluently speak, read and write multiple languages, because of course if you can't then obviously your Int isn't as high as you think it is. I'd probably knock your Wisdom down a point or two at the same time for not recognising this as well as remembering that pride commeth before a fall.

Naw, that's just the American drawback. They start with only 1 language.


A whole 1?


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Let's start rating the intelligence of people in this thread based on their arguments.

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