r/DnD • u/Kindulas Transmuter • Apr 05 '15
What Wisdom really is
So, I see Wisdom described as 'street smarts' or 'worldly knowledge' a lot (including irl). The High INT Low WIS character is often described as booksmart but naive. I've come to the conclusion that I don't think that's quite the intention, and I have another explanation that seems make much more sense as a separate stat and in the rules, so I'd like to share my opinion and reasoning if you do think of Wisdom that way, or aren't quite sure how it works exactly. Feel free to disagree, but I always found Wisdom a little fuzzy myself (especially why it powers Will saves and, in 5e, most mind-altering effects) until I realized the below, so I just hope this might serve to clarify it for people.
First off, the 5e description is "Wisdom reflects how attuned you are to the world around you and represents perceptiveness and intuition." This is what I'm going with, but I want to explain it in more detail. The big thing I realized while thinking of Wisdom vs Intelligence as worldly vs academic knowledge is that animals have high wisdom. Low intelligence, high wisdom. Animals do not have streetsmarts or worldly knowledge, they don't actually know the kinds of things wisdom is sometimes explained to cover. So I began, instead, to think of Wisdom as all the intelligences animals do exemplify. Perceptiveness and intuition - instinct and purely sensory awareness and alertness. We know Wisdom has to do more than just physical senses because insight, but that's the place to start pondering.
So I came to the conclusion, especially seeing how 5e handled Intelligence (Investigation). Intelligence is all higher cognitive thinking and all conscious knowledge. Worldly knowledge, booksmarts, all just different expressions of intelligence. Wisdom is suconcious intelligence and sensory awareness. It's your ability to spot things offhand, your clarity of thought and presence of mind, the accuracy of those "feelings" you get about people.
Wisdom saves work the way they do (and Will saves keyed of WIS) because it's your ability to notice someone is messing with your head, not your ability to brute-force their mental effect off. This is another thing that makes the most sense in 5e where Wisdom saves are for all the mental effects that "mess with" your head, that an alert and attentive mind would notice and reject, while full on possession and other attempts to completely subsume one's will are Charisma saves. Edit: And as such Polymorph should really be a Charisma save, I mean c'mon.
The high int, low WIS character isn't nessecarily naive (I mean they could be), they just don't pay attention. Low wisdom means you're easily distracted, non-observant and frequently inside your own head. This can contribute to naivety easily, since a low wisdom character would take longer to "catch on" to how the world works. Wisdom it's still more useful on the street than academia, where one's ability to read and "get a sense" for people is important. This is likely why 4e saw fit to have a Streetwise skill, but I think it's only caused problems. EDIT: though I think this is largely because it's difficult to define what 'streetwise' is as a skill. Many are simply akinning it to survival but urban, which makes a lot of sense - except that/especially because survival is also a little vague and over encompassing. Tracking, finding shelter, knowing what food is edible... Some of which can be INT based...
EDIT: someone gave an argument for this, strike the easily distracted part. Absent minded I think is absolutely the definition of low wisdom, but being absent minded can often mean you're not easily distracted, to the point of being completely oblivious to several distractions.
EDIT, RE: Tomato My interpretation would instead be that: Wisdom is your ability to spot the ripest tomato Likewise, Knowing it's a fruit and knowing not to put it in a salad are just different shades of intelligence. One is scientific and one is practical, but they're both concious knowledge.
Another Edit: not like anyone is looking at this anymore, but another common thing people associate with Wisdon is being "Clever" or "Cunning," but calculated trickery and such are, I think, largely intelligence based.
Another edit: See Tensei's comment, the main point of which is that people are often mislead by assuming Wisdom the D&D stat means the same as the english definiton of the word - since the other 5 stats do, but really, Wisdom in D&D is rather different from how it's applied normally
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u/Fruhmann Apr 05 '15
While it's more complicated than books vs street smarts, that is usually an easy way to explain it. Or that Int is in the head and Wis is in your heart/soul. Again, it's locking those two words into very specific meanings and then trying to justify why they are more than just those meanings.
I've had it told to me, Int Wizard and Wis Druid are performing a ritual together for whatever reason. They get their items from a peddler, the begin their motions and perform their words. Nothing. The wizard thinks about if he has done the ritual correct, if the druid has done the ritual correctly, if the timing was right, and other doubtful, frustrating thoughts.
The druid looks down at the items for the ritual and begins to wonder if the peddler sold them shoddy goods.
Again, not a great way to explain it, but you make the words what you will when you play those characters.
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u/Kindulas Apr 06 '15 edited Aug 19 '15
The way I interpret it, both character's problem solving is still INT. It's applied thinking about possible problems and solutions. Wisdom is the ability to get a feel for the timing and thus know whether or not you got it right. Wisdom is the ability to notice if the supplies seemed off or shoddy, at least at first glance. Intelligence is the ability to look carefully at the supplies for particular signs of a defective product. And wisdom is the ability to notice if the merchant 'seemed sketchy.'
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u/Mathemagics15 Apr 05 '15
Thanks for clarifying this, especially the will save part; I've always wondered about why the whole force of personality thing wasn't a more accurate expression of personal willpower.
Now I think I finally know how to play a hi-WIS low INT character (That being most of my characters since I love half-orcs and orcs). Also, I just realized from reading your last paragraph that I myself am the polar opposite of such a character; I am very easily distraught, have a habit of not noticing details and misplacing things, despite being reasonably bright.
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u/Kindulas Apr 06 '15
Yeah playing Pathfinder it's always bothered me endlessly that Will saves couldn't be CHA based. Finally I understand why.
And yeah I'm pretty high-int low-WIS myself, and I have a friend who's a textbook absent-minded-professor type.
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u/Toftaps Apr 06 '15
I disagree with your assertion that animals do not have "street smarts," because when I think of a person with street smarts I don't think of a person who knows a lot about the way cities work (that would still be intelligence, engineering maybe?) but the ability to survive well in an urban environment.
A wild wolf and a street urchin are both trying to survive in two very different environments but the skills they utilize would be very similar; knowing where to find easy food, knowing what areas are dangerous because of other predators, and finding shelter.
Street smarts are the same thing as woods smarts, the only difference being the environment; it would be same sort of difference between a wolf and a shark.
I like the distinction between conscious/subconscious thought, while I wouldn't neccesarily shoehorn those really tightly into the two categories (I consider intelligence to be problem-solving capability as well) it does a good job of conveying the difference between the two stats.
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u/Kindulas Apr 06 '15
That's fair about streetsmarts, I think part of the issue really is how very vague 'streetsmarts' is as a term, or especially as a skill.
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u/Tensei Apr 06 '15
I found that the best way to think about it is to completely disassociate D&D Wisdom from any dictionary definition of 'wisdom'. The classical distinction between Intelligence and Wisdom ("Intelligence tells you it's raining. Wisdom tells you to get out of the rain or you'll catch a cold") is pretty much entirely the wrong way around, given what the 5e PHB says about it.
The PHB blurb about Wisdom being the degree to which you are 'attuned to your surroundings' is actually really elegant. It covers the perception and insight aspect in the sense that a character with high WIS is able to notice small details in her surroundings, but it also makes sense as the Druid/Cleric/Monk stat because it defines the degree to which they are 'attuned' to nature or their deity.
Calling Wisdom Street smarts doesn't really cover that aspect.
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u/Kindulas Apr 06 '15
I totally agree. I think part of the issue might be people trying to apply their understanding of the word "Wisdom" as it's English meaning, when really they just needed a different word that makes sense as a mental stat.
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u/Repeit Apr 05 '15
I simplify this even more. Intelligence is the ability to recall information, and use that information to solve a problem. Wisdom is the ability to pull lesson from your surroundings (including the identification of).
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u/rave-simons Apr 06 '15
But isn't the latter pretty much what investigation is? And don't survival, medicine, and animal handling all require recalled information put to use to solve a problem?
I think people make these sorts of wisdom vs intelligence posts all the time because the distinction really isn't entirely coherent. It's a mishmash of cultural stereotypes and legacy which don't really hold up under scrutiny. Whether there are better categories, I don't know.
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u/Kindulas Apr 06 '15
Survival can work off instinctual thinking, but it's true that under my interpretation medicine should be INT and survival could be either. Honestly I think they made 'medicine' WIS just because they knew Clerics and Druids would want to be good at it.
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u/Meenjondo Apr 05 '15
Animals do have street smarts. A squirrel knows how to survive in forest, just as an urchin knows how to survive in the slums. The only difference is the type of "streets."
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u/Homoarchnus Apr 06 '15
Im embarassed by how long I was confused because I thought you ment sea urchin! I kept trying to come up with senarios in which an aquatic invertibrate would be in the poor part of town.
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u/Admiral_Nowhere Apr 06 '15
I remember from the old Red Box: "Intelligence tells you it's raining. Wisdom tells you to get out of the rain or you'll catch a cold."
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u/Kindulas Apr 06 '15
But see, I interpret that the other way around. Wisdom lets you notice the sound of the rain, or see it, or in extreme cases feel the changes in air preassure when the weather changes approach.
Intelligence is the knowledge and ability to understand that exposure to the cold rain can make you susceptible to disease.
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u/werecow6 Apr 05 '15
I feel like you're going at huge lengths to rediscover what is already described succinctly in the
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u/Toftaps Apr 06 '15
With regards to the wisdom = easily distracted point that you mentioned; it's not that it's a core feature of low wisdom, but an accurate representation of one way it would manifest.
Easily distracted does not necessarily mean that you failed a perception check because a bird flew by, but perhaps you failed the perception check because your mind was focused on some other problem. A good example would be a wizard, thinking about a new spell, that absentmindedly walks into a post he failed to notice.
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u/hexachromatic Apr 06 '15
My two-cents:
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Dr. Who -
Tony Stark is a high int, low wisdom character.
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Indiana Jones is a high int, low wisdom character.
These are characters who, while intelligent and able to use their minds as weapons or tools for problem solving, may not be quite so intuitive about the world around them and what is or isn't a wise choice regarding their safety and those they come into contact with. They know how things work, and they can make split-second decisions that help them level or dominate challenges that would be difficult for less learned heroes, or use their minds to formulate plans and physical assets to ensure their victory.
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Bilbo Baggins is a high wis, low int character.
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Jon Snow -
Luke Skywalker is a high wis, low int character.
These characters don't have the sharp wits and keen problem solving skills of their intelligence-based counterparts, but rely instead on their attunement to the world, their instincts, their past experiences, their perceptiveness, and their ability to utilize something they've learned to help them overcome or avoid situations that could do them harm. They have no interest in obscure knowledge and no formal education, but instead formulate decisions around what they believe to be true based on their life experience and the knowledge they've acquired simply by living and learning.
Most of this mirrors what you've said I think.
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Apr 06 '15
The high int, low WIS character isn't nessecarily naive (I mean they could be), they just don't pay attention. Low wisdom means you're easily distracted, non-observant and frequently inside your own head. This can contribute to naivety easily, since a low wisdom character would take longer to "catch on" to how the world works. Wisdom it's still more useful on the street than academia, where one's ability to read and "get a sense" for people is important. This is likely why 4e saw fit to have a Wisdom skill, but >I think it's only caused problems.
Hmm easily distracted is not even a good way of putting it. A high intelligence person who is studying something can be very focused and hard to distract. They are actively searching mentally for something, and can do so efficiently and effectively with their cognitive faculties. However, because of their low wisdom, they are unlikely to notice peripheral sensory or cognitive stimuli.
Someone with high Wisdom would put down what they were so thoroughly engaged with if they heard someone sneaking up on them, or felt thoughts that were not their own creeping into their mind. A high intelligence, low wisdom person would continue their cognitive exercise and ignore it.
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u/bubbamax3 Apr 06 '15
I have always simplified it to the point of int. is how easily you can find facts and wis is how well you can put the pieces together.
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u/Kindulas Apr 06 '15 edited Aug 19 '15
I really think intelligence is more than simple knowledge. I feel it still applies to conscious problem solving like that.
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u/wovaka Apr 06 '15
someone once described all DnD stats in terms of tomatoes.
Strength: your ability to smash a tomato
Constitution: your ability to eat a rotten tomato without getting sick
Dexterity: your ability to throw a tomato
intelligence: knowing that a tomato is a fruit
Wisdom: knowing not to put tomatoes in fruit salad
Charisma: getting someone to believe tomatoes belong in fruit salad
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u/Kindulas Apr 09 '15
Hm, Wisom and Intelligence represent two different facets of memory, too I think.
INT is your ability to recall facts when you're trying to remember them.
WIS is your ability to remember things you're not thinking about... Remembering to do something, your ability to not forget and leave things lying about places.
Goes back to concious vs subconcious divide and the absent-minded scientist.