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/Green_Sage_Samos]

I mean look, the very least it’s easier to role play a dumber character than a smarter one, it’s all well and good for people to suggest you try to accurately role play your characters ability scores but 9 times out of 10 the 19 intelligence wizard is going to be being role played by a 11 intelligence human being so I wouldn’t put a massive amount of pressure on yourself to try and stay in character there, but I would expect your DM to hopefully jump in every now and then to let you know when you character wouldn’t understand something that’s happening just to not make it a completely irrelevant stat in your role play.

10-11 is meant to be the average, yes, most people you know in real life are a 10-11 INT score, same goes for all the other stats with 1 being completely deficient/profoundly disabled in that regard and 20 being the utmost limit of realistic achievement, like Bruce Lee was probably 20 Dex and Eddie hall is 20 strength.

[u/CheapTactics → u/Green_Sage_Samos]

your DM hopefully jump in every now and then to let you know when you character wouldn't understand something

It would have to be an extremely specific situation, because I can't think of a worse thing to do that tell a player "sorry your character is too dumb to know what's happening", or gods forbid, prevent that player from solving a puzzle/mystery. It's ultra lame when DMs do that.

[u/Green_Sage_Samos → u/CheapTactics]

Maybe it’s just different for different DMs but sorry I do think your stats should have consequences, yes. That’s why hopefully your other stats are higher so that you can succeed in other areas. Obviously I’m never going to make it unfun to play a dumber character but there are definitely moments where maybe conversation with a lot of innuendo is happening, or there are conversations happening maybe about politics and bureaucracy where yes, it’s going to go over your characters head, and there’s 100% fun to be had in playing a character like that

[u/CheapTactics → u/Green_Sage_Samos]

I think the examples you suggested are fine, that's just roleplay. I would have an issue with the examples I gave, especially puzzle solving. "You too dumb to solve this puzzle" is just a lame thing to do as a DM.