Roleplaying high & low stats in D&D
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- เผยแพร่เมื่อ 29 มิ.ย. 2024
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► INDEX
0:00 Intro
1:30 Intelligence
6:00 Sponsored by Penny Dragon Games
7:20 Wisdom
11:05 Charisma
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My wife's character, Willow, has a 7 Charisma score. The party has actually weaponized her sleep inducing storytelling ability.
That's amazing. Manipulating the situation such that you accomplish your actual goal by failing at something different, in this case telling a riveting tale.
Omg thats amazing
*Party interrogating cultist*
Party: Who do you work for?
Cultist: I ain't a snitch, I'd rather die!
Party: OH, you ain't getting off that easy. We'll make you talk.
*Party pulls out Willow*
Party: Willow, why don't you tell this nice man about that one time you thought you saw a star shaped leaf
*30 minutes later*
Cultist: I'll tell you whatever you want, just please make it stop!
I shall use this against my enemies!!! Muhuhaha
that's actually genius
A perfect example of a high CHA character who is not traditionally attractive: Austin Powers
A perfect example of a low CHA character who is traditionally attractive: Geralt of Rivia
perfect 🙌
It's funny, cuz in the books he's describing as unattractive. Painfully pale and sickly looking. It's the Games that made him attractive, and the TV show followed suit.
@@chrisg8989Look, anyone who pulls as much as Geralt has something going for him.
@digitaljanus 🤣 It's amazing what a Genies Wish can do.
@@chrisg8989And I am glad for it lmao
As a medical professional, I fully support medicine being tied to wisdom. Someone trying to use intelligence for medicine is basically how students think. Reading the patient, observing their behavior, understanding that they are to embarrassed to talk about certain subjects etc. The math and pathophysiology are less than half the battle
ever have a patient that was the child of a doctor and had no shame about talking about their health
@JoelFeila I have had plenty of patients that did not have the slightest reluctance to tell me anything. Many elderly people talk about the most intimate details of their body like they were telling me about the vacation they just got back from
Yeah. It always struck me as a bit crazy that (at least in my country) getting to study medicine is only really possible for people with perfect grades in everything. Like academic skills are the most important thing for a doctor.
I had the grades for it but I would have been the worst doctor ever, as everybody who knows me agrees - definitely low wis. And then this system instead keeps people out who would be extremely suited for the profession.
I feel like there's a neat trick/alternate rule to marry both worlds, since while I do agree that wisdom is technically more tied to medicine than intelligence, the human body is complicated enough that you shouldn't be able to do much with medicine if your int is low per se.
Namely: To make a Medicine check, roll (d20) + (your WIS modifier) + (your skill proficiency IF your INT is 12+).
@tudornaconecinii3609 there is definitely a floor to how low your intelligence can be while being effective at medicine
I played my 8 intelligence barbarian as smart in his areas (combat) and uneducated in most others. He also had a hard time with idioms and turns of phrase. Wasn't until the 3rd session I realized I had been playing Drax the Destroyer.
Or Goku.
Yeah, in situations like that, you know what they lack so give them SOMETHING they can be intelligent with as a reason that they...neglected their general education a little more than average.
@@AzureIV Or knuckles
@@Jenna_Talia My boi!
I'm playing a low intelligence barbarian in a campaign right now, and whilst he isn't smart in a traditional sense, he has an uncanny knowledge of battle tactics and types of enemies due to his experience as a gladiator, and going up against all kinds of enemies and monsters. Because he'd often have to deliberately avoid using an enemy's weaknesses so as to maximise the entertainment of the crowds
the way my DM always explained INT vs WIS to us: "Low intelligence means you don't know things others might, low wisdom means you don't notice things others might. High stats mean the opposite."
The problem is that the skills corresponding to Int and Wis do not seem to agree with this. Religion is an Intelligence check and Medicine is a Wisdom check. Wisdom will inform you more about religion since although you can study religion, religions are essentially philosophies and philosophy is more closely associated with wisdom. You can intuitively figure out what is wrong with someone physically through wisdom, but if historical medicine is anything to go by simply trusting your gut instinct is not a good thing to do when it comes to medicine.
It only makes sense when you consider classes with Int as their main stat are meant to know stuff about the world, and your standard Wisdom classes like Druid and Cleric are meant to know about healing. But when you actually think about it, the cleric that heals you through the power of their god doesn't need to know jack about medicine, their god takes care of it. Your artificer who has studied machines their whole life also wouldn't know much at all about religion, but your cleric who has studied their own religion would know something about other religions in the world. But in terms of gameplay, your artificer naturally knows more about religion than your cleric even if your cleric took proficiency in religion.
... That makes no sense to me
One good comparison I've read somewhere (though this is just an excerpt): Intelligence means knowing that a tomato is a fruit. Wisdom means knowing that a tomato does not belong in a fruit salad.
@@agayfrog in the real world, yes, but dnd wisdom is not the same as the real life definition. Dnd wisdom is about what you notice, knowing tomatoes don't belong in a fruit salad is still int.
INT: Booksmart
Wisdom: Streetsmart
I have a Player who plays a 3 Int Lizardman Cleric on my Table. His Character cannot speak common, only Draconic. Its Glorious and he is beloved by all. (also Elder Brains cannot sense him, his brain is just too smooth :D) He balances his intelligence out with a perfect wisdom score of 20 wich Represents his primal interpretation of the world around him. He runs on Instinct and trust towards his fellow "Lizardman" Friend,- the Parties Dragonborn Barbarian who is basically both his friend and handler.
How did he get a stat that low?! Holy crap!
@@tiph3802 he rolled all his stats, 4 times 1, dropped lowest is 3 😂 don’t pity him too much, he also has 20 wisdom and as a cleric that’s very mighty
I love him already
With an INT score bellow sapiense can you really say he was a LizardMAN? To me it looks like this character was a sacred lizard hahah
I still remember my favorite CR shopping interaction between Grog and a shopkeeper. “I have an intelligence of (low number). I know what I’m doing.”
" What's an intelligence score?"
Part of the Low-INT experience is missing the plot. Literally. My best (only) character in a 4E campaign was a monk with INT as a dump stat. He didn't understand all the intrigues that were going on around him, often relying on his own tilted moral compass to decide what was right. And yet, he was also the moral center, the Heart of the group. Somehow. That was a character who lived in my head rent-free for a good two years~
My low INT character does have a strong moral compass, but, yeah, too much jibber-jabber about the plot or puzzles or arguing about what to do next, and she goes off to play with the druid's animal companion or starts wandering around. Sometimes in ways that set off traps, but often just cutting to the chase.
Luffy moment
Fun fact: everyone alive right now is just Ginny in a different shirt.
She's the DM of reality.
True
You too?
Plot twist: All this time the role of Ginny Di has been played by Gary Oldman.
@@kairon156 Oh no, you've found me out! But little do you know, so are you
I love WIS as a dump stat and have been playin my low-WIS bard for almost 3 years. Two ways I roleplay it are:
1. I simply don’t ask the DM questions that will lead to insight/perception checks unless there’s a really obvious or compelling reason to do so. Most things are taken at face value.
2. Since they’re also high INT, when making decisions I focus more on what I *can* do and don’t worry too much about what I *should* do. E.g. if a great investigation check leads me to a mysterious hidden button, I am for sure pressing it to learn more about what it does.
Of course, it helps that my dice understand the assignment. On three separate occasions, I have rolled sub-5 for perception on watch, explained it as my character drawing pictures instead of paying attention, and then rolled 20+ for the quality of the drawings.
I was playing a classic meat head barbarian and while everyone was going around and trying to find a secret door using perception or investigation, I started roughly tapping on the walls with the back of my axe. When my party and DM asked why, I said "Well if its a door, it would sound different then hitting a wall wouldnt it?" Got was told to make a strength perception check at advantage. Found the door and then smashed it open.
There is no skill. Your barbarian has figured out that hollow compartments sound different. You are told that a section sounds "donk donk bong". You should never want a skill roll.
You could say "I look up on the hat stand" and I would straight up say what's on the hat stand.
You sir, are a gentleman and a scholar.
My favorite way to do high int/cha but low Wis characters is to live life according to the rule of cool. "I know I can do that, but the bit that filters my intrusive thoughts doesn't always fire off correctly."
I think of low wisdom characters as the Queens of Bad Ideas. A higher intelligence might allow for them to be reasoned out of them, but maybe not.
@@suedenim yeah. There comes a point where even they can literally do the math. Storm a noble's house? Sure, why not. But a reinforced fortress filled with soldiers? Even they can count.
@@drunkenfarmerjohn42 Or they get distracted by their Very Bad Ideas. "Sure, there are a lot of soldiers, but what if we come in the back way, through the cave"
"The cave where the dragon lives?"
"Yes, yes, that's the one. What's your point?"
@@suedenim I mean, statistically, it's a wash. And worst case scenario, the bard has to take one for the team and bang a dragon.
Hi! That’s not what intrusive thoughts means.
"paying attention and doing vibe checks" had me giggling
My group has ditched “insight check” for “vibe check” and I love it
@@thatoneflowergirl9776 Is there more of a difference other than the name change?
I love the timeline of the four mental stats: Intelligence, Ginny Sponsor Skit, Wisdom, Charisma
I think it's possible to use intelligence for medicine as well- remember, rules as written, skills don't have to be associated with any single ability score. Intimidation can be strength if you're physically threatening someone and stealth can be charisma if you're trying to blend in at a party instead of actually trying to hide behind something. Medicine can be intelligence if you're trying to remember information about a certain disease or condition, but if you're actually trying to diagnose or treat someone, it's wisdom. Observing the patient in front of you and figuring out the symptoms and how to treat them is more important than recalling medical information you've memorized. Sure, you draw on previous knowledge to make your diagnosis, but that's what proficiency represents. Medicine is definitely a primarily wisdom-based skill.
absolutely, the DM could say to the player: "use your intelligence stat and make a medicine check" if the character needed to diagnose a medical issue. Or "make a religion check but use your wisdom stat" if the character wanted to "find faith" in a god, because it's essentially faith is about using your intuition
Yes, this is what I still am trying to bring to my players' collective attention. Many times I will ask for a skill check and give them two options of attributes to use, each one giving a different kind of result and maybe a different difficulty.
This this this this this! One of the great things about skills in 5e in particular is how it's basically two numbers to put together: ability modifier and proficiency bonus, (with the occasional PBx2 thrown in if you've got Expertise in something,) and there is a bit in either the PHB or DMG about using skills with different abilities. My favourite example is Intimidation with Dexterity, which is basically Bishop's knife trick from Aliens. Honestly, both players and DMs can and should get more creative with skills, because the possibilities can be limitless if everyone's on board!
I'm almost completely sure Medicine is a wisdom skill entirely so that healing classes have it on their primary ability.
@@moskusviagraI have a very tough lizardfolk and did intimidation with constitution once. Slammed a drink we already knew was poisoned, aced my con save, kept eye contact with the poisoner the whole time.
My current character is a low WIS, high CHA noblewoman -- its really fun, since I roleplay her low WIS as her being sheltered, naive, and assuming that everyone inherently means well. Its super easy to lie to her lol
She'd have gotten along splendidly with my Battle Butler (Way of the Ascendant Dragon Monk with the Courtier background). Among other things, he specialized in using his high wisdom to generally be the Jeeves to our Bard's Bertie Wooster, always making sure to steer him away from shady ideas (except for the Curse of Strahd campaign hook, where he'd been convinced that this would be a splendid hunting expedition), and trying to anticipate so far in advance he was prepared for almost any occasion. (My starting magic items - one common, one uncommon - were the spice pouch and alchemy jug so we'd always have tea, booze, drinkable water, and saltwater for cleaning)
@@danielmclellan1522 With how the campaign's going so far Delphine (my noblewoman sorcerer) desperately needs a butler. she's meant to be making her societal debut not investigating horrific magical experiments god damnit
Remember that you don’t have to do these too! If you want to play a dumb wizard, play a dumb wizard! You don’t have to set a low intelligence to do that
We all know that booksmart person who barely functions at the rest of life. Some of us even are/were that person!
The absent-minded professor is always a great trope for wizards
@@digitaljanus I feel called out ...
Just like how having a college degree doesn't actually mean anything. Especially when it's a degree in something pointless, usually called "__________ Studies"
that's where low wisdom comes into play 😸
My current party has a nice contrast between two high charisma characters. Both have an 18, but one goes out of their way to make a good first impression and charm every NPC the party interacts with, the other stays silent at the back of the group until it's time to make an Intimidation roll, play bad-cop in an interrogation or help create a diversion for one of the sneaky characters, they can command attention easily but no one would call them charming.
Haha "It's kinda depressing that I write these lines for you." Is the best fourth wall break I've heard today.
Wisdom is definitely a frustrating stat for me. I mean, IRL as an autistic, I'm very perceptive about everything -except- people. I literally can't help but notice a lot of stuff other people automatically tune out as background 'noise'. But I can't read body language and intent at all. So my forays into roleplaying have been especially hard with what is grouped under wisdom and how people expect you to play a high wisdom character.
I'm wondering if players, who use INT/WIS/CHA as dump stats, are signaling that they'd rather play a wargame instead. If you hit them with a social or puzzle dilemma, they might cry foul.
Same!! And I can get a vibe for an emotional state pretty easily bc I’ve got high empathy, but everything else is a mystery. Which means I’m great with animals (bc social cues aren’t as much a concern as pure emotion), but bad with people. Translated to D&D stats, that’d be like having a solid bonus to animal handling but a penalty to insight. But only insight checks regarding intention? Insight checks regarding emotion would have a bonus? It just makes no sense🥴
@@commandercaptain4664I dump charisma but use it anyway, it's great fun. Character is very smart but wonders why he can't get people to listen to him, and frustrated that shops seem to charge him more.
its a limitation of the stat system. Not everyone is overall physically strong, some are very leg strong but not grip strong, yet you can't recreate that.
The best thing you can do is have a character flaw that you don't read people easily, then your dm can give situational disadvantage. Of course, a dm should be giving situational advantage- like a character with the outlander background who is a druid should be better at recalling information about plants in their local area.
Its important to also remember that dnd is not the real world- in the real world, being good at reading animals is completely different to reading people, or being perceptive, yet in the dnd world all this stems from your wisdom stat so it works fundementally different, like how with charisma- a sweet old lady in real life won't be particularly intimidating, yet in dnd they would be as persuasive as they are intimidating.
@@asdfniofanuiafabuiohui3977 It's a limitation of the stat system that arised from player preference, to be fair. dnd 5e has a much more simplified skill system than older editions, because for most people, having a nuanced and complicated skill system is bookkeeping that takes away from the enjoyment of the game.
For example, in 3.5e, you would put an actual number of skill points into each skill, instead of merely being proficient/not proficient. So you actually had a very mechanically handy way to roleplay an autistic character: have high WIS but put 0 points into Sense Motive. 0 points into Sense Motive would make you quite bad at those rolls, worse than most of your party, even if your WIS modifier was high.
"... [B]ut they have very different personalities (and diets). " hits so hard, I laughed out loud at that
I like the idea of medicine being a wisdom skill. My real world job is a firefighter/EMT, and we use intuition, common sense, adaptation, and other things “wisdom-y”
One of my favorite ways to play my rogue who is slightly above average int but high wisdom relies on intraparty dynamics. He's great at finding evidence, noticing clues and gathering intel but doesn't always know what it means. He'll often collaborate with the party wizard to figure out the solution and trust her solutions because his gut trusts her brain.
Oh, this is great! I'm also going to play a high wis average int rogue, and "his gut trusts her brain" sounds like an awesome way to handle that!
This relationship reminds me of the one between Garret (the guts) and Dead Man (the brains) from Garrett P.I. series by Glenn Cook )
I read a Dragon magazine from way back that described high CHA but low WIS and INT as not telling the most clever jokes, but confidently landing the jokes everyone laughs at the hardest. That really stuck with me and has made “charming idiot” my favorite guy to be, on and off the table.
This was a debate alongside "what does alignments really mean?"
I live for the relationship with books and Ginny
One of my favorite feats in pathfinder 2e is Dubious Knowledge.
The DM rolls your recall knowledge and you don't know if youve succeeded or failed.
If you failed, they mix lies with the truth, but you don't know which are lies.
You can pretty much do that with any failed stat roll for a knowledge check. Seems weird to have such a waste of a feat.
Very helpful! I’ve recently made my first pathfinder 2e character. He’s a really medium ugly looking swashbuckler from Taldor. I found a noble family there that has a horribly inbred family tree 😂. So his skin has like no pigment, one of his eyes is always dilated to the max, he’s missing one ear, and he has 2-6 more teeth than a normal adult should.
but his charisma is decently high. It’s been a blast bringing him to life as the unconventional face of our party.
I love how you break these down for people and roleplay it out so that people get a picture of how these can play out
Working with your DM on these skills can be absolutely game changing. I was struggling to come up with an idea that I felt my 14 int character aught to be able to figure out, so I just reminded my DM that my character was smarter than me and asked for help. He let me roll a history check and took advantage of aspects of my character that had been previously established in roleplay to suggest a few things my character would know about the situation. He was also the one who suggested I hype my charisma score up as appearing trustworthy. Love me some DM buy in on how to make stats work.
I play a character with low charisma in my long-term campaign. He's a strong and capable soldier, rather strapping, and competent. He's polite, he listens to people, he genuinely cares for others' well-being. But he has a -THICK- accent and is difficult for NPCs to understand until they've been around him for a while.
So what do you do to RP the low Charisma?
SEE!!! I'm not the only one who has a ton of friends who isn't just me wearing a different shirt!
When playing martial characters with low intelligence, I tend to let them fight intelligently. Fighting is something they've trained for, after all. For anything else, they go quiet and let others discuss what to do, with two exceptions: 1) if they have a lot of time to think something over, I'll let them come to an intelligent conclusion eventually; 2) if I have a bright idea, I ask the DM if my character can make an intelligence roll to have the same idea.
I'm having fun as a high INT wizard in a PF1 campaign right now. She's from a backwater village, and her entire formal education is a few years' apprenticeship with a washed-up 4th level wizard, but she's a linguistic prodigy and can piece together a lot of arcana by leaning on her understanding of Draconic etymology (ayyyyy linguistics as its own skill in PF1) and by catching onto and connecting the dots between new information easily (super high Knowledge checks). She also started the campaign very un-curious, because her entire life plan was to use her handful of cantrips and 1st-level spells to make a solid living as the world's laziest dry-cleaner, but now she's been trapped in the Underdark for a few months and met a made a lot of weird enemies and weirder friends, and it's brought out the mad scientist in her a little bit.
Sometimes Int, Wis, and Cha seem to have a rock paper scissors relationship to me.
Wisdom can assess someones Charisma
Intelligence can evaluate someones Wisdom
Charisma can influence someones Intelligence
THIS! It should all just be one stat, "Wit" >_>
I agree that Wisdom and Charisma can oppose each other (Insight VS Persuasion/Deception/Intimidation) but not the others. How does Charisma influence a character's Intelligence? You can't bully, charm, or deceive someone into unlearning what they already know. At best you can make them doubt themselves. I also don't see how you use Intelligence to evaluate Wisdom. If anything it's Wisdom's insight that evaluates any of the mental stats.
@@SamCornick I read "Charisma can influence someone's Intelligence" as you can charm/flirt with a person and they, if you succeed, may be smitten and act stupid. Although I agree that intimidating, decieving, or performing don't seem like things that will make someone act dumb. Shrugs
@@3nertia There are some systems with that same approch. For grogbeards, it's mostly found on OSR.
@@nosotrosloslobosestamosreg4115 Oh, I'm aware that there are systems that already do this - I didn't mean to imply that I originated this idea, I didn't lol
Love your content, Ginny!
Intelligence and Wisdom was explained to me like this:
Intelligence is the ability to acquire information and recall it.
Wisdom is the ability to notice important information and interpret it.
Remember the Far Side comic where a life-raft with a fat, happy dog as the sole occupant is rescued by another boat?
An Intelligent character will know the breed of the dog, a Lab, and decide it is relatively a safe breed to approach.
A Charismatic character will see the fat, happy dog wagging its tail and be excited and relieved that the dog is in good spirits and waste no time in rescuing him.
A Wise character will see the discarded wristwatch and eyeglasses in the raft and deduce how this dog survived so far.
Will always love new Ginny content
I played a low intelligence barbarian that had his mind partially broken by Auril in Rime of the Frost Maiden. He would have occasional moments of genius but then immediately flip back to not connecting the dots
I'm finally DMing again for the first time in a while and was just hoping I'd have 1 high int character to give them more background knowledge about the world but no dice
We need to make int great again
I suppose you could always try to squeeze it into the campaign in other ways, depending on the characters. Maybe one was worldly, travelling with their family or something and picked up info along the way. Or worked on a ship and went port to port picking up info. Or maybe their grandfather kept pushing such info on them and they forget most, but an occasional nugget of info wormed its way into their head because of the (exciting story/he told it so often/etc). And I guess there are always NPCs (temporary followers, quest givers, bartenders) or journals/notes/environmental storytelling barring that to give out some much needed info.
You don’t need high int - fund from background reasons
@@justahologram2230Definitely. Bring back skill points!
As a player: when I give you a backstory, absolutely give me back general and specific knowledge I'd have been exposed to! Write up festival traditions for a holiday we'll be playing through and my character will absolutely be doing them and trying to get the rest of the party into it.
Medicine is actually more of a perception thing. Knowing symptoms can’t help you if you aren’t good at insight and perceptions
Yeah, and WIS vs INT is more a life experience vs book learning thing. If you had a life threatening illness would you rather have the doctor of 20+ years who's treated thousands of cases of that illness before, or the newbie doctor who read all about it in a book once?
This is very true. A lot of times, when I'm assessing a patient, there are little things that I can't necessarily articulate, but I notice them in the back of my mind. Those cues help me form a more accurate diagnosis, even if all I could explain to a colleague is, "He didn't look good. He looked like he was going to tank any minute. Turns out, he was going into sepsis. "
This reminds me of a fantasy book I read where a magic school had "doubt" as a subject, and a student character (aspiring vet) couldn't wrap his head around it, until the teacher came up with an example about diagnosing a sheep based on a hunch instead of obvious symptoms @@anneott7796
Twilight 2000 has a whole system for diagnosis, similar ailments, corrective surgery etc. But it is a simulationist system.
In the sponsor piece, I would like to bring one particular NPC case to the attention. It's the baker at Pekar's Place. I don't know if it's a masterful writing easter egg or a lucky coincidence, but in many Slavic languages (I'm Czech), Pekar (or its variants - in Czech, it's Pekař) literally means "baker" (and is quite a common surname to boot, which is to be expected with common professions).
How did I not notice that?! Noice
Something that helps a lot is variant skill checks such as INT medicine, STR intimidation, CON athletics, WIS persuasion, CHA animal handling, or DEX performance for example
Intimidation should be STR not char. Period.
Sorry but i aint afraid of timmy the bard who weighs 100 lbs with a harp.
Brad the barbarian with a giant hammer that has blood stains on it...
Thats a bit scarier.
Tho DnD devs would suggest otherwise...
@@DIsturbios1234Not all intimidation comes from muscles. A "scrawny" wizard could fuck up your day in a thousand different ways from a barbarian, many of them just as severe or even far worse. And not all threats have to be strictly physical - lawyers and powerful businessmen can be some of the most intimidating people in the world. You don't have to threaten someone's life, you could just as easily threaten their livelihood, their reputation, their freedom, whatever they hold dear.
@@DIsturbios1234 that's an awful take. Most horror movies the villain is someone who you would not be afraid of walking by on the street. But in their element they have all the power.
I will generally ask the player to justify a non-standard roll for something and if they can come up with a reasonable excuse I allow it but adjust the DC for it secretly.
@@SophiaAphrodite Your take is even worse.
Specially since you just change DCs so casually like that.
"Oh this character is a martial so the DC for this skill check went from 10 to 20."
"oh the wizard wants to try? Then the DC is 5"
Lmao you belong on DnD horror stories.
We had player who's wisdom score was 4. Yes, SCORE. He played his character who had no self preservation. He would see a Frost giant and go: "HAH, I can take his guy alone," make fun and anger town major and other that kind of things (He was fairy barbarian)
A wisdom score of 4 being allowed on a hero is generally never going to play well as it screams min-maxing because we need to remember at level 1 they are not a new person, just new to the class. SO they would have died long before they reached level 1 Barbarian, hence the 8 minimum requirement to be a hero.
@@SophiaAphrodite It wasn't min-maxing at all. This player wanted to thorw 4d6 all stats, and when 4 of the dices was 1, I was like "Do you wanna roll that again?" he was like "No, Because this will be so much fun"
And boy, being navigator of the group in frozen tundra with that survival checks, it made people feel all the emotions in a good way.
What a blast of a campaing it was
In a 1e game long ago, there was a LG human cleric in our party with a 6 Int, and he didn't say very much. When he did, it was short simple words and phrases. But he had a high Wis, so he made really good decisions in a clutch, and unlike Jester, he was a healer. His name was Skulldug, and after we beat Strahd in I6, he was last seen wandering off into a field talking to a butterfly. (The player wanted to bring in another character for the sequel, which we never got to play.)
it feels so strange to be so early! but this vid is going to be super helpful for roleplaying! i want to share this- i have a character who has 16s across the board for all her skills, due to me adding her ASIs up for it to all be 16. her personality is very 'jack of all trades, master of none, but oftentimes is better than a master of one'
Last time I was this early, the OGL actually freed the expansion of the hobby.
I love roleplaying low wisdom high intelligence so much... they're my little gremlins :3
thank you for mentioning memory issues for low intelligence! i’ve been playing a low INT sorcerer, and her background in cartography means she’s super passionate about historical subjects and pretty well-traveled, so i’ve compensated by roleplaying her low INT as Significant Memory Issues instead. it’s been a lot of fun and i’m trying to get better at leaning into those stats!
I played a low INT Monk as someone who was book-studied in religion, but it took 1.5 times as long for him to get his training in that skill. So he could be learned on a particular subject, but it takes him a lot of effort to learn anything new.
Reading books works like this in Aquelarre and Call of Cthulhu. You can all read books but how long depends on INT and language skill.
I've been in love with BOOKS ever since I learned to read....
That being said, a high WIS can be someone with a lot of worldly knowledge-"Mutt" Jones from the Indiana Jones movies, while a low WIS would be the Curator from the same Movies....
Love all this info, and I'm definitely feeling inspired to work a bit harder at reflecting my character's actual scores!
Also - your script writing is just 🎉🙌🏻🎉
Being someone who has played older games I really like the concept of attributes has opened up. Just low CHA doesn't control appearance anymore a low INT doesn't mean you are illiterate or speak poorly anymore.
People are finding new ways to define their attributes and that is the rightc way to go. Play them how you want just make sure you are having fun.
Ginny trying to convince us it's just her acting : "None of them is me just wearing a different shirt"
then the truth slips out : " .....Put me back in the basement with the rest of the clones" 😉
I love these tips! My 8 charisma medic rogue has a stutter and often talks to herself while healing others or talks in circle. She has gained more and more confidence the longer she has stayed with her party, but any time she is around a stranger, she is extremely quiet or will talk with her stutter like she did at the beginning of the campaign. She has been so fun to play!
I remember the stats like this. Strength is being able to rip an apple in half. Dexterity is the ability to juggle or throw the apple well. Constitution is your ability to not get sick if the apple is bad or poisoned. Intelligence is to know you have an apple in your hand. Wisdom is to know if & why eating that apple is good for you. Charisma is your ability to sell that apple or convince someone that it's a good one regardless of it being ripe or not.
How to play low intelligence: don't take any notes at all.
Ginny has no right having THIS MUCH chemistry with herself 😭❤️
I loved you mentioning the deception/intimidation charisma character. Some people in my group were surprised when they realized my character had a high charisma because I role play him to be kind of a hot head at times. A lot of people just think of it has a charming person. It’s more complex than that.
That last tip is so good, finding unique ways to roleplay high or low stats that still fit with what those stats means is a lot of fun. I remember making a high intelligence character that was illiterate, since there are a lot of ways of transmitting knowledge and plenty of ways to be logical without having the specific skills of reading and writing. He was a wizard from a society that transmitted magical knowledge through oral traditions instead of through classic spellbooks.
I explained my wizard's below average WIS with a serious case of nearsightedness. He couldn't see any details and would miss spot checks and could pick on the subtle npc's reactions required to read them accurately. Most of his spells were short range since he couldn't differentiate friends for foes past a few meters. He had to rely on his owl familiar for anything long range related.
Owl is being brave as they have an intelligence of 2 so they may not be able to differentiate friend from foe in all scenarios.
My favorite low int moment was playing my Goliath Barbarian and suggesting our cleric use illusion magic to make it look like the woodcutter’s house / piles was burning so he’d come running because he wasn’t home when the party showed up to talk to him. Cleric went along with the idea for like 20 seconds and then was like NO!
I think it depends on the stakes. Players stop dumbing down their PCs the moment it clicks that a cartel sicario with a machete can just kill them.
5:56 the sincerity in that tone is- perfect
I like that at the end about Charisma. The stat itself has basically nothing to do with good looks. Can be a grizzled old man who doesn't look better than a dehydrated piece of squid, half chewed... But his, as you said... "Force of Personality"... could be all he needs to lead a group. Even if you aren't qualified, a high charisma could make others want to follow or listen to you when otherwise they probably shouldn't, and it can inspire others to feats of greatness, or to push harder as well.
I've always felt that playing a low Intelligence character requires a lot of intelligence and quick wittedness. I DMed for a Barbarian with low Intelligence who kept us howling with laughter every session with his interpretations of things with his low Intelligence. Because he was so engaged in the sessions and actively thinking how his character could or would interpret things in a different way.
Same in the campaign I am running. one of the players has a Dragonborn barbarian with an INT and WIs of 8. Having to be aware enough to be unaware takes some serious RP skills and she is the group favorite. I even had a scenario where an Illithid wanted information from her. It was in her head but she could not articulate it. When she was alone he stole the information from her mind and wiped any knowledge of everything in that gap of time. No one actually caught on when she had no idea who the new person they were going to find was as that whole time was gone from her mind. Just that she simply was not paying attention.
I’m currently playing a low charisma wizard - he’s foreign, so there’s the social stigma, and then people don’t really trust his particular branch of magic (focusing on stuff to do with the body), so he can get off on the wrong foot with some NPCs very quickly.
I roleplay his charisma within the party as easily lead by the other players. He can irritate them with words (although since this is playing with real people this can be a fine line to tread), but when he does so he makes sure to make up for it with deeds (his decent wisdom means that he does notice when he’s annoyed someone, but that won’t stop him making that mistake again).
I feel like it's very tricky to explain away a low score in a mental attribute through external properties like xenophobia or distrust of profession. The issue is that when you talk to an NPC who *doesn't know* this about your character, the interaction should go better than with people who have stigma against you, but the reality of the rolls is that you still have a negative CHA modifier that you have to apply to your rolls, even though it doesn't actually make sense in context.
So personally I prefer to represent stigma with a disadvantage to the roll instead of actually fiddling with the ability scores.
Props to you if you can make it work tho.
Wizards are all heavily suppressed by the state in Esoteric Enterprises. This happens either way. There is no need to dump your PC down further. Not when the stake is getting killed by the SWAT team snipers.
@@SusCalvin My game doesn't have that
This breakdown of wisdom has honestly helped me so much in how I'm playing my latest character who is in a way a nice little inclusion of my autistic tendencies. He's an inquisitive rogue and is constantly taking notes and observing patterns and routines of others and his surroundings as a more tangible example to the party of how wisdom can work. He's caught a handful of deceptions simply by noticing when people break their typical behavior patterns, something I do all the time IRL to tell when someone is distracted or trying to hide something. He also will make meticulous notes of the camp site they stay in for long rests and during his watch meticulously check the perimeter for any alterations in his observations, which the DM has rewarded me with little tidbits like the location and direction of traveling game, following antagonists that for one reason or another did not approach during the night, and sometimes gives me advantage on my survival checks for my watch
The bit about how various skills are grouped under the abilities is part of why I really like Vampire Masquerade's approach of combining the dice of a base ability & a skill together. Gives the DM the ability to really tailor a situation, with a rough 5e parallel being a DM that lets someone, in certain situations, intimidate off their Strength stat rather than Charisma.
In one of my sessions just a week ago, my druid (high WIS, low CHA) offered the mayor of a small town to enrich all the fields around town using plant growth, in exchange for some information.
Pretty good deal right? But the thing is, by being in character, I accidentaly worded my offer that poorly and weird and offputting, that my DM actually FORGOT to ask for a persusation check and just made me fail.
Thats low Charisma for ya!
the way i like to look at wisdom is you have a heightened perception of what’s around you, but a focused cone around what is important to your character. maybe they’re perceptive about people, body language, etc. alternatively, things like medicine might be if somebody is hiding a wound, or a disease/infliction where you have to pick up on physical clues. it’s not perfect but it’s a bit easier for me.
this, imo an intelligent character that sees a wound knows it needs to be cleaned and bandaged, a wise character knows they need to figure out what inflicted the wound so they can administer the correct combination of healing herbs that counteract the venoms and microbes that are carried by what caused the wound. Part of why survival is also a wisdombased skill
If you decide that your PC does not notice a cartel hitman with an uzi, it does not stop the hitmen from killing a couple PCs.
I have a wizard with high INT but low WIS. I play him as the kinda guy who’s smart enough to do something really intricate and cool, but not smart enough to consider the consequences. He doesn’t make plans, he just kinda does things and expects it’ll work out. Like when the party needed him to fly but he didn’t have polymorph prepared, he simply misty stepped straight up twice and then used momentary stasis (chronurgy ability) without considering how he’d get back down again, having used his remaining spell slots on misty step. He’s the embodiment of “how can someone be so smart yet so stupid at the same time”
I usually would play Charisma as: High = you definitely stand out and are memorable (could be glamorous, or could be digusting), Low = You're like the person who gets passed on the street and no one even remembers seeing you, let alone describing you. You're like someone who tried out to be an extra on a TV show, but the people you were auditioning for ended up more interested in a spider web in the corner.
Ditto here, but it brings to question whether a thief or spy would benefit from a low CHA. Good for sneakin' and such. Or could it mean that a low CHA can't be taken seriously as a person?
@@commandercaptain4664 yeah, I'm not sure about that nuance. I guess it might be a question of whether the high CHA is like an aura or energy that someone just exudes, or if it's about behavior+looks, or maybe it's a mix of all that. So someone wanting to blend in might have a high level of control over how they present themselves?
4:41 "aren't you gonna talk about low intelligence, you specialty!" I'm dying 😭
I always use the Tomato system to explain stats.
Str is the ability to crush a tomato
Dex is the ability to throw a tomato or dodge a thrown tomato
Con is the ability to not get hurt when hit by thrown tomato or survive imbibing a fermented tomato
Int is knowing a Tomato is a fruit
Wise dom is knowing you do not use a Tomato in a fruit salad
Charisma is selling a tomato based fruit salad by calling it Salsa!
Ever since I was a child (grew up on 3, spent most of my days with Pathfinder) and the way we defined it was 'Int tells you it's raining, Wis tells you to get inside.' That isn't exactly accurate, but it worked wonders helping our players to roleplay far better.
my character has a -3 modifier to charisma and it's so much fun to roleplay. she's generally very deadpan, and she doesnt have much skill with using her words, but she's more honest than anyone else in the party. its so fun to roleplay, because most of the other characters are high charisma, which they use to constantly lie to themselves and others to justify their actions, but my rogue will just be very bluntly honest without any tact in calling them out on bullshit. i honestly love it so much. When we rolled stats (4d6, drop the lowest) I rolled four 1s. I will never change her charisma. She makes the game better by being who she is, and I love how the group functions as a whole with these things in mind.
I'm always delighted to see Books make an appearance in your videos. I wish they had their own channel,
I always view it at as Such:
Intelligence is Book Smarts.
Wisdom is Wise through Experience.
Charisma is Sociologically Skilled.
Awesome video! I appreciate how you recognized that ability scores should impact RP but also explain the nuances of roleplay. A 20 doesn't make you a god in that skill and a 6 doesn't make you incompetent, but it does tell you something about the character.
I like the idea of playing high-intelligence characters. As my persona is an Eldritch Knight Fighter, you can imagine that I like meshing brains and brawn. A character who investigates their target, gathers what they need to make the fight easy, and having the strength to end the fight quickly. Might even be the kind to write down extensive notes.
Int - the ability learn from your mistakes
Wis - the ability to learn from other peoples mistakes
Cha - the ability to find someone else to blame for your mistakes
One thing I'm curious about: What are your suggestions for how to participate in solving puzzles when roleplaying a low INT character? I love the problem solving aspects of DnD and other RPGs, but when playing a low INT character, part of me feels like I'm not allowed to participate in them because my character wouldn't know how to do that.
I think it depends on the puzzle. My mum is way more intelligent than I am (I mean, she's 'a finalist on Mastermind'-level intelligent) and in Trivial Pursuit, she'd kick my posterior every time. In Boggle, however, I always won because her brain would have her looking for longer words and while she was finding those, I was writing down five shorter ones. Sometimes, high Int can miss obvious solutions because they think in a more complex way.
This was really helpful. Thank you! Your explanation of wisdom was honestly the best one i have heard yet
first video i've seen of you and this was the perfect combination of informative and entertaining, A+! on the charisma skills i make them roleplay and then bonus or penalize it based on how well they did. that line about loaning the money vs spending it on a healer would have gotten a +2 out of me, that was amazing.
the strangest thing about some charisma skills, much of stuff like intimidation, negotiation, etc is about the other person as apposed to yourself. You could be the most charistmatic person ever - doesnt matter if the other person doesnt care. One person could be as intimidating as possible but if the other person knows they can beat you down, etc they wont care. My players have always found that a bit awkward.
"doesnt matter if the other person doesnt care" But that's exactly what a high charisma character should be capable of doing: using their force of personality to make others care. You don't need high charisma to convince someone of something, if the other person is already complaisant; but a high charisma character should be capable of convincing even an uncooperative target through rhetoric, manipulation, threats, or whatever is best suited for the situation. Of course, there are situations where you can't solve the problem with your charisma and talking, just like you can't solve all problems with sheer strength and physical prowess.
@@jahnukainen_8912 this. High charisma makes what you say CONVINCING. My character in a game stood a massive 5'2" tall and but she was a Bard and had the highest Intimidation score in the party. We talked a bit about how it worked and the summary was "No fucks given." She didn't care how big you were and I think a lot of peopel make the mistake of thinking bigger people are always automatically scary to smaller ones, when this isn't the case. I'm not exactly built like an Amazon so I'm used to people trying to intimidate me just by dint of size. Seen it all before and most of them were just hot air. Intimidation is about being convincing; it's making someone believe you both can and will do what you're telling them you will if they don't cooperate.
Ginny, you as "low charisma" is impossible. You're amazingly charming, incredibly motivating, and if we're allowing for physical attractiveness to be an aspect of Charisma, you're near the 20 mark by nature.
I think of Intelligence as “understanding what you know”; recalling information you’ve learned like the name of a city, what the name and properties of a wild plant are by sight, remembering the set rules of mathematical formulas, etc.
But Wisdom is “understanding what you don’t know”; figuring things out even though nobody has given you the specific answer (or formulas) to the question. It’s what let’s you find a plant you’ve never specifically learned about, but you can recognize certain traits like if it has milky sap, a vibrant color, a square stem, if any animals have eaten it, etc. to make an intuitive guess as to if the plant is dangerous or not. Or walk through an area you’ve never been before, but Perceive something off based on a strange patch of flattened and dead grass where something had been moved from. Or talk to someone for the first time and Intuitively understand if this person is naturally nervous or if they are trying to trick you.
Medicine I think uses Wisdom when you are in the heat of battle and need to make a snap judgement as to what’s wrong with the patient based on a quick survey of their condition; location of a knife wound, clammy, cold, feverish, bruising, labored breathing, dislocated joints, bite marks, burns, tremors, etc. You won’t know exactly what is wrong but you could recognize basic symptoms to determine that they are broadly under the effects of poison and if there is an obvious puncture wound, or that they are struggling to breath because they have an allergy are choking on food or water in their lungs.
Intelligence can be used with medicine to get a more timely and exact diagnosis. Exactly WHICH poison, etc.
Great takes ty! Very helpful with the charisma and wisdom descriptions.
woah I'm actually first??? hi Ginny :)
hi! 👋
Cutting away to The Books rather than simply continuing to read as Flannel Ginny or doing a voiceover with the text on screen is such a good way to maintain viewers' attention 1:42
On the thing about memory for intelligence, in a campaign im in we have a low int barbarian and all of their notes are one or two word notes that are the things that would stand out to Crunch. So we have the notes on what happened, and then we have the notes on what Crunch remembers happening.
Thank you Ginny for some awesome useful advice.
When I have players concerned about playing stats or afraid of min-maxing because they want to be strong but not total dunces, I present them as an, “order of operations.”
If the party comes across a tree blocking the road, the, “strong,” character’s first approach would be to try and move it themselves. The, “intelligent,” one might start looking for a rock and lever or block and tackle. The, “charismatic,” character might run back to town to talk those guards to come help. Any of those characters can try any of those, but which would they try first? The strong character isn’t too dumb to come up with the rock and lever, but they’re definitely going to attempt brute force first.
And the wizard uses fireball.
One thing to keep in mind, is that stats are not restrictions on what you can do, but reflect on how you do things. For example, if there is a puzzle with a ceramic statue you out of character realize you need to break it to get a key out of it, but your character is incredibility dumb, you can still solve that puzzle. Instead of suddenly realizing the answer though, your character might just go, 'ehh that is ugly' and smash it, and then someone else will notice the key.
My favorite example of high int low wis is Fizban (specifically the scene from Dragonlance when he picks the lock of the 10ft wooden cage he's in by casting fireball)
Loved this vid, I firmly agree with your perspective on these stats. Thank you for making this one. Well needed.
I had a monklock who was high wis, low int and I played her as someone who didn't always "get it" on the first go around but learned the lesson quickly. One of my favorite lines was "I'm pretty sure you're insulting me but I'm not sure how....."
At an old DM's table (in my first ever d&d game) he had something we could do called a vibe check, where we rolled insight to just kinda sense what's going on. It was really helpful as a new player to have something that represented wisdom well and also allowed us to have some fun always yelling, "Vibe Check," and waving around red flags we made.
Something my party did with the education part of a character’s intelligence: We have a tiefling pirate that when we first met was mostly illiterate. (Also very impulsive. He’s still impulsive.) It was pretty funny a lot of the time, as our DM would take any handouts or signs we read and physically black out words that he didn’t understand. This led to games of jeopardy with him trying to count the letters in a word and take a guess. Usually he just went based off of what he had, and antics ensued.
Once the party got closer, he would ask us for help reading things for him. My character, a homebrew witch with Wis as her main stat, has the highest int out of the three (a whopping 11 at the start. It has since increased out of what I like to explain as “necessity in desperate situations”).
She went to a bookshop and asked if they had a copy of “When you give an Imp a Soul” (play on When you Give a Mouse a Cookie). I got the book, and a few sessions later gifted it to our tiefling. She said she was going to teach him how to read, and over the course of several sessions and in-game months of travel, he can more or less read fluently now. Some big words may take him a minute, but it works.
To be clear, the tiefling was from a very small island town that was raided when he was about 8. Since then he’s been sailing and wandering the world, and never had an opportunity to get a proper education. My character may have been homeschooled, but her father is a small hobbiest author and her aunt lived in high society and taught her some formal etiquette. So I had enough of a background and understanding of being taught to do some checks and figure it out along the way.
Ginny D; solving the questions I never knew I had, and I love knowing. Never stop these videos you absolute legend!
omg, I've been struggling for years to put those points that you make into the right works, thank you!
I've been having this problem for so long that I even renamed Wisdom as Sensitivity (though Keenness was a good second option) to have a name that better reflects what an ability actually does.
When you're out in the wilds, and you notice drops of water falling out of the sky...
Your INT tells you that it's raining.
Your WIS tells you that you ought to find some kind of shelter.
Wisdom is experience, which tracks pretty well with medicine. You can read a bunch of books about surgery but its the experience that makes you good at it.
I have always wanted to see the completion of this series, thanks ginny. Also the wisdom video must have been a mess, but that rant was aces.
I don't normally watch your commercials, but this one was inspired! Very entertaining, thank you!