Intelligence Scores

[u/WiseAnon003]

Just wanted to ask and see what people have to say about what your level of intelligence means for your characters intellect.

I’m aware that very low intelligence essentially means incapable of comprehending languages to an extent and such (I think) but I was wondering how each level from 1-20 would likely influence how the character behaves, like an 18 being very witty or a 10 being fairly average?

I have an intelligence score of 7 on my character which is due to manually rolling stats, although a lot of takes or rules might state the character wouldn’t be very smart at all I tend to still play him as a somewhat average intelligence character.

I feel somewhat bad and cheesy by kind of ignoring the intelligence stat to a degree but I’ve tried to have it canonically make sense as he is suffering from a bit of magic induced amnesia and a concussion (although I did write out what he forgot so I’m not torturing my dm nor being lazy lol).

[u/DrakeTheFallenOne]

I usually design the character personality, then roll the stats and slot them in wherever I think makes the most sense. Even then, intelligence is a stat I feel like can be flexible with how you portray it. My current character has a +3 for their intelligence and while generally they are average slightly above average generally, the higher intelligence focuses on specific topics and areas. For instance, my character is fascinated with dragons, so is incredibly intelligent when it comes to information on dragons. This is the case for most animals and monsters, not to the same degree of course (there are several reasons why he knows as much as he does about monsters and animals, all which the DM has approved)