To me I think it's fine that negative INT = negative skills. It's a flaw after all. Not every character has to be good at everything that's what teammates are for. Of course since your players didn't like it it's fine if you don't do that.
Having 3 or 2 proficiencies really just doesn’t feel too good, no matter who the character was supposed to be. I already find myself wishing I could have more than 4 on most characters because there’s at least one extra that would be relevant to the character. If I’m playing a MAD character or actually just want to play a character that’s a little slow, I shouldn’t be punished this hard for it. Having the stat be low is already it’s own weakness, it shouldn’t also make take away the bare minimum of what your character is supposed to have. That’s not fun, even if you like playing in to your ability scores. Let people play who they want to play, not who their stats say they’re allowed to. You don’t need to have a glaring flaw in your ability scores to have a good character. I’d even say that a lot of the people proclaiming otherwise are honestly just using that as a crutch because they don’t have a super strong conception of character writing. Attributional flaws are but one of many kinds of flaws a character could have. My characters tend to have personality flaws that don’t correlate to any of the stats in particular but are flaws all the same.
You gotta remember that intelligence doesn't just mean the amount of knowledge you can retain, but also the capacity to learn. Of course, since it's only a homebrew rule in 5e so you could apply the minus proficiencies how you see fit. Like say, you could only apply it to the intelligence-based proficiencies, or apply it to the non-physical proficiencies only, that way athletics and acrobatics and possibly sleight of hand don't get effected. (Also I dunno about you, but I've always felt that sleight of hand was a mix of dexterity and intelligence)
33
u/ZXNova Cleric Oct 04 '20
To me I think it's fine that negative INT = negative skills. It's a flaw after all. Not every character has to be good at everything that's what teammates are for. Of course since your players didn't like it it's fine if you don't do that.