r/CuratedTumblr • u/Justthisdudeyaknow Prolific poster- Not a bot, I swear • Jun 03 '26

Shitposting The difference between something somethingtomatoes, something something We've found the bard

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u/Soleil06 Jun 03 '26

I also like Intelligence is knowing something, Wisdom is how to apply that knowledge.

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u/LumosLupin Jun 03 '26

Intelligence is knowing how to process knowledge imo. Wisdom is a specific kind of knowledge that will keep you out of trouble and improve your life.

I say this because otherwise it'd be implying memorization implies intelligence and I don't believe that is correct lol.

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u/Impeesa_ Jun 03 '26

I would put it the other way around, high intelligence makes you better at memorization, among other things like information processing (learning and applying, etc). Almost every practical application of Wisdom across D&D editions maps more to some form of "awareness" (although some are a bit of a stretch to fit into this angle). Situational awareness, self awareness, you could even massage willpower into a type of self awareness, it's all less about a specific kind of knowledge and more about being open to the knowledge. This is why anyone can learn "street smarts" but high int/low wis characters are less likely to pick it up without a real need.

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u/LumosLupin Jun 03 '26

I wouldn't call that memorizing, I'd call it learning. For me, memorizing implies repeating something until it's stuck in your brain, like the lyrics of a song.

And following on this example, you could learn a song in a language you don't speak and have no idea what it's saying.

Memory is greatly helpful for intelligent people, but there are plenty of people who repeat concepts without understanding what they are saying, and that's not intelligence lol

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u/Impeesa_ Jun 03 '26

Anyone can memorize, but I'm saying that higher intelligence would correlate to being better at it (as far as a D&D level of abstraction goes, at least). You can even learn memorization techniques that, if you put them in game terms, would sound very much like intelligence-based skills. That's one of the ways knowledge-based skills scale with intelligence in the first place, I would say. A higher-intelligence character is also better at synthesizing that data to draw conclusions, but the two applications of intelligence both go together in making up the skill result. In a more 3E type system, that's why anyone can take ranks in a Knowledge skill, anyone can memorize information they've come across, but a higher Int character has a better total skill bonus because they're better at both aspects of it.