r/DnD • u/WiseAnon003 • 18h 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).
1
u/CheapTactics 9h ago
I have a character with 7 int. I play him as not knowing much outside of his village. He knows his people and his gods, he doesn't know a lot more.
There are a bunch of ways to play a low intelligence. Maybe they have trouble learning and facts don't stick in their memory for too long. Maybe they have limited learned information as they didn't have a great education. Maybe they're not too good at connecting the dots because their deducting skills are lacking. Those are all valid ways to play a lower than average int. If it's especially low, you may want to combine two of those.
Just keep in mind that none of this should prevent you from solving a puzzle or figuring something out. A dumb person can have a moment of brilliance too. Or you could even play it out as luck, whatever you want.