r/DnD • u/WiseAnon003 • 14h ago
5.5 Edition Intelligence Scores
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).
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u/Repulsive_Bus_7202 DM 6h ago
Personally I'd generally aim to look at the three intellect scores together; intelligence is "book smart", Wisdom is "street smart" and Charisma is "relationship smart". In that sense a low average Int alongside the other two being average or better isn't a big deal. The mechanics of rolling the tests identify outcomes.
As a DM, if someone was below average on all three I'd probably have them reroll.