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Scarey Nerd
2010-07-12, 04:16 PM
Yeah. You read that right.

Anyway, a CE murderous torturing psychopath with a superiority complex + WIS 1...

How would you envisage (I think that's a word) that playing out?

Keld Denar
2010-07-12, 04:18 PM
I would imagine a great and all-consuming fear of Alips.

EDIT: Oh, and Lamia.

Saya
2010-07-12, 04:20 PM
Perhaps a not too effective torturer because despite knowing how to torture, he doesn't understand how to apply it?

The-Mage-King
2010-07-12, 04:20 PM
Yeah. You read that right.

Anyway, a CE murderous torturing psychopath with a superiority complex + WIS 1...

How would you envisage (I think that's a word) that playing out?

...Already (http://www.giantitp.com/comics/oots0439.html) covered by the Giant.

Scarey Nerd
2010-07-12, 04:21 PM
...Already (http://www.giantitp.com/comics/oots0439.html) covered by the Giant.

If it plays out like that, I'm in. :smallbiggrin:

mabriss lethe
2010-07-12, 04:27 PM
well, for one, he should be a binder with Dahlver-Nar pretty much permanently bound. (both for the psycho-factor and the immunity to wisdom damage/drain)

Temotei
2010-07-12, 04:28 PM
...Already (http://www.giantitp.com/comics/oots0439.html) covered by the Giant.

I think he has a bit more Wisdom (http://www.giantitp.com/comics/oots0058.html) than 1...

The-Mage-King
2010-07-12, 04:30 PM
I think he has a bit more Wisdom (http://www.giantitp.com/comics/oots0058.html) than 1...

Noted, but it was a joke.

Yuki Akuma
2010-07-12, 05:06 PM
He would barely be able to perceive his surroundings. While Charisma is the ability to realise you are yourself, Wisdom is the ability to differentiate yourself from your surroundings.

So yeah, superiority complex makes a ton of sense. He may be a solipsist, too (that is, he believes he's the only real person).

NowhereMan583
2010-07-12, 05:23 PM
Perhaps a not too effective torturer because despite knowing how to torture, he doesn't understand how to apply it?

I imagine he'd really only understand human reactions on an academic level. Like, he's heard that torture is a way to get information, and it sounds fun to him (because he's a psychopath, as established), but he'd have to consult charts or instructions to figure out what to ask when, and how much pain is enough/too much. Generally, I think Saya's right about his effectiveness.

He might even get upset if a torture session doesn't play out like his research says it should. Because, if his victims aren't reacting as expected, they must be somehow breaking the rules.

Oh, and if you're DMing him, make sure to never describe an NPC's emotional state. You couldn't say, for example, "Bob the Commoner looks worried," because a character with a 1 Wisdom wouldn't be able to interpret the Bob was worried just by looking at him. Or, possibly, even by talking to him, unless Bob came out and said "I'm worried."


He may be a solipsist, too (that is, he believes he's the only real person).

He would likely be unable to think of and treat other people as if they were, in fact, real people, as he simply doesn't have the awareness to do so. The question, I think, would be whether he admits this to himself. Maybe he thinks the way he treats them is perfectly normal, or just a product of his superiority.

Ranos
2010-07-12, 05:30 PM
I'd say, almost blind, with a child-like (at this level, maybe even newborn-like) mindset. He has no empathy whatsoever, does not understand the world even a little bit. He's just...experimenting. Yeah, just like a baby, except much more powerful and dangerous. He just sees those blurry things moving about and tries to make them react, sometimes by shoving things into them. I'd imagine he would cry a lot when those things hurt him back, even as he cuts them into pieces.

He wouldn't survive long by himself. But with a backer who feeds him, takes care of him, and uses his childish mindset and talent for killing to his advantage ? Yeah, this could work.

Orzel
2010-07-12, 06:01 PM
His memory would also be shot. Not only would he forget what he did, he wouldn't be able to observe what he did nor make sense of it.

"Talk! Where is your leader" SLASH! SLASH SLASH SLASH SLASH! RIP!
"He's dead, man."
"But he's moving."
"That's because you are still hitting him. Right now."
"Explain the screaming."
"That's Jim. You're standing on his chest"
"How'd that happen? Oh well. Bring the next victim."
"I told you already. That was the last one."
"Who are you again.."

Flail_master
2010-07-12, 06:03 PM
Oh, and if you're DMing him, make sure to never describe an NPC's emotional state. You couldn't say, for example, "Bob the Commoner looks worried," because a character with a 1 Wisdom wouldn't be able to interpret the Bob was worried just by looking at him. Or, possibly, even by talking to him, unless Bob came out and said "I'm worried."


i shall keep that in mind :smalltongue:

QuantumSteve
2010-07-12, 06:28 PM
A char with 1 wis couldn't comprehend torture. He would know what pain is, but he would have no concept of what it means for something else to be in pain. He understands other thins exist, but only in as much as he can see, touch, taste smell, or hear these things. Even if someone said to him "I am in pain" he can't empathize enough to understand what that means.

If you look in the PH for an example of a creature with 1 wis, it says: Gelatinous Cube. Which only understands other things in as much that it needs to eat them.

Now, a char with 3 wis (i.e. human wis) That char could understand what other people are he could be a torturer, etc.

Keld Denar
2010-07-12, 06:49 PM
If you look in the PH for an example of a creature with 1 wis, it says: Gelatinous Cube. Which only understands other things in as much that it needs to eat them.

Lies! Cube is a being of great depth and bredth. HE IS A CUBE OF ACTION! (http://rustyandco.com/)

KillianHawkeye
2010-07-12, 06:49 PM
Now, a char with 3 wis (i.e. human wis) That char could understand what other people are he could be a torturer, etc.

There is no requirement for a human to have a minimum in any ability score except for Intelligence. Theoretically, you could have a human with Str 1, Dex 1, Con 1, Int 3, Wis 1, and Cha 1. It would literally be the most pathetic person you have ever seen.

Erts
2010-07-12, 06:55 PM
There is no requirement for a human to have a minimum in any ability score except for Intelligence. Theoretically, you could have a human with Str 1, Dex 1, Con 1, Int 3, Wis 1, and Cha 1. It would literally be the most pathetic person you have ever seen.

I say, its a hideously ugly malnourished brain-dead baby!

Morph Bark
2010-07-12, 07:01 PM
"It is but a scratch!"

"A scratch?! Your arm's off!"

"It's just a flesh wound!" *squirts blood all over the place*

Devils_Advocate
2010-07-12, 10:43 PM
Keep in mind that even Wis 1 is only a -5 modifier. That's bad, but not all that bad in the grand scheme of things. The only reason that Wis 0 is special is that that's arbitrarily hard-coded into the rules. If Wisdom were allowed to range down to -40 without that special case, that would arguably make more sense. (Similarly, I think that Int 0 works out to be an IQ of like 47 for a 3d6 distribution.)

Unlike Intelligence, Wisdom doesn't seem to clearly correspond to a particular real (if vague (http://cscs.umich.edu/~crshalizi/Russell/vagueness/) and difficult to define and/or quantify) quality, so it's hard to conceptualize differences in Wis.


There is no requirement for a human to have a minimum in any ability score except for Intelligence. Theoretically, you could have a human with Str 1, Dex 1, Con 1, Int 3, Wis 1, and Cha 1. It would literally be the most pathetic person you have ever seen.
A minimum of 1 is not the same thing as no minimum. Even a minimum of 0 is not the same thing as no minimum. Anyway, are you sure that Int is special that way for humans in general? I'm pretty sure that player characters are required to have Int 3 or higher, but not all humans are player characters and not all player characters are humans.

Normal rolling gives adult humans minimum ability scores of 3, and only the physical scores go down with age, but a flaw (http://www.d20srd.org/srd/variant/buildingCharacters/characterFlaws.htm#pathetic) may further reduce an ability score. Outside of character generation, things like spells and poisons may reduce ability scores as well. It's pretty clear that 3 isn't supposed to be a hard minimum on human Int like 0 is, for feeblemind (http://www.d20srd.org/srd/spells/feeblemind.htm) to work as it should.

Lhurgyof
2010-07-12, 10:51 PM
You're looking at someone who can concieve the world in only the way an ooze can. It hungers, it wants food. It gets food. If that, even.

Ozymandias9
2010-07-12, 11:09 PM
Yeah. You read that right.

Anyway, a CE murderous torturing psychopath with a superiority complex + WIS 1...

How would you envisage (I think that's a word) that playing out?

While I recognize that it's well outside the standard interpretation, I generally view an ability mod as representing the number of standard deviations a character is from the mean. Since we'd be looking at 4 standard deviations, it would come out to about 1 in 15700. That's not the the town idiot. That's the toothless hick who gets on the evening news using a gun instead of a drill to make a hole in the wall outside his children's room. Except he somehow manages to shoot himself.

And "envisage" is a word, but not quite the right one. You're probably looking for "envision." "Envisage" deals more with how one looks existing things, "envision" deals more with how one imagines something happening.

Serpentine
2010-07-12, 11:11 PM
Yeah. You read that right.

Anyway, a CE murderous torturing psychopath with a superiority complex + WIS 1...

How would you envisage (I think that's a word) that playing out?Well, for starters, I'd want to know what his other stats are, especially Intelligence and to a lesser extent Charisma. Anyway, I would associate Wisdom and in turn low Wisdom with one or more of the following:

- Instinct, innate abilities, skills and knowledge. He would have none.
- Common sense, life experience, sensibility. He would be extremely reckless and prone to a number of fairly basic errors and mistakes.
- Physical awareness of one's surroundings, the senses. He might be deaf or blind, but that's a very specific one. Alternatively, he might just pay no attention to the world.
- Sense of self in relation to one's environment. As mentioned, he might not have any comprehension of reality being separate from his own imagination. He might believe that he is the only living being in the universe, or that he himself does not really exist. If he were a spellcaster, he might consider his spells to be a reflection of his dreamlike control over a subjective reality. I would find this one quite interesting to work with.
- Understanding of others, empathy. He would have absolutely no comprehension that others are capable of feeling or emotion, much less understand them. This one is interesting to tie in with a torturer: I've heard it said that empathetic people make the best torturers. It seems like he either wouldn't be very good at it, or would be a sort of accidental torturer, or perhaps it might be related to other activities - e.g. he is curious about biology, so he disects people alive without understanding that they are feeling pain.

Ormagoden
2010-07-12, 11:23 PM
wis 1 = a new born baby just starting to crawl. Literally, like learning to crawl bumping into things being awkward rolling around, all the time, forever.

When owls wisdom is cast on it its more or less a 6 week old puppy.

Scarey Nerd
2010-07-13, 10:54 AM
Pleas have been made for other stats, and I shall oblige:

STR: 12
DEX: 14
CON: 15
INT: 15
WIS: 1
CHA: 24

He is a Derro Sorcerer, so is a spellcaster that is irrevocably insane from birth.

The comments made about his total and utter lack of empathy worry me, as I was intending for him to be a torturer who took great delight in inflicting pain on people for his own amusement. If the party wanted him to get information from someone, he would most likely oblige, as he would have tortured them to death anyway.

Seatbelt
2010-07-13, 11:02 AM
out of curiosity how did you get a 1?

Scarey Nerd
2010-07-13, 11:03 AM
out of curiosity how did you get a 1?

I rolled a 7 for my WIS, and Derro's racial madness gives +6 CHA, -6 WIS.

NowhereMan583
2010-07-13, 11:11 AM
The comments made about his total and utter lack of empathy worry me, as I was intending for him to be a torturer who took great delight in inflicting pain on people for his own amusement. If the party wanted him to get information from someone, he would most likely oblige, as he would have tortured them to death anyway.

Well, obviously he can still enjoy it. Just not in the way your standard sadistic torturer does. I imagine he wouldn't register other people's pain as being real, so he would think of the whole thing as a game. He enjoys torture the same way you enjoy playing D&D; it's just something that interests him.

Tengu_temp
2010-07-13, 12:05 PM
I fail to see how a Wisdom 1 character can't be a sadist. He will just be extremely reckless, lack any common sense, and have a hard time noticing even the most obvious emotions from other people. He'd still enjoy causing as much pain and suffering as possible.

Ranos
2010-07-13, 12:21 PM
Oh, I knew this reminded me of something.
Here's your wisdom 1 murdering psychopath. (http://www.mangafox.com/manga/ichi_the_killer/c001/3.html)

Skaven
2010-07-13, 01:06 PM
a murderous torturing psychopath with a superiority complex + WIS 1...

How would you envisage (I think that's a word) that playing out?

Here it is exactly. (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XnS49c9KZw8&feature=PlayList&p=CCF6AE2787891B37&playnext_from=PL&playnext=1&index=46)

Calmar
2010-07-13, 02:36 PM
I would imagine a great and all-consuming fear of Alips.

:biggrin: :biggrin:

Grumman
2010-07-13, 02:52 PM
I fail to see how a Wisdom 1 character can't be a sadist.
He could not be a sadist in the conventional sense, because he cannot derive entertainment from the suffering of others if he cannot perceive suffering.

He could be a sadist in the sense that he likes causing harm, but he's just as likely to torture a rock as a person.

Yuki Akuma
2010-07-13, 02:56 PM
Nah, rocks don't move, so he has trouble perceiving them. People move, and movement is easier to register than light - therefore he's better at seeing things that move!

Of course he's half-blind and completely inattentive anyway.

Also: no he would not have no skills, that's Intelligence.

Tengu_temp
2010-07-13, 02:59 PM
He could not be a sadist in the conventional sense, because he cannot derive entertainment from the suffering of others if he cannot perceive suffering.

He could be a sadist in the sense that he likes causing harm, but he's just as likely to torture a rock as a person.

Who said a Wisdom 1 character can't perceive suffering? He just has a harder time doing it than normal people.

Grumman
2010-07-13, 03:06 PM
Who said a Wisdom 1 character can't perceive suffering? He just has a harder time doing it than normal people.
"Harder than normal people"? A shrieker, a fungus whose perception of the world is binary, has a higher Wisdom than this guy.

NowhereMan583
2010-07-13, 03:08 PM
I'm concerned about the whole blind/deaf thing. I'm inclined to think that a low Wisdom doesn't affect physical abilities, and that the resulting low Listen/Spot checks are a result of apathy or inattentiveness rather than physical handicap.

Tengu_temp
2010-07-13, 03:10 PM
"Harder than normal people"? A shrieker, a fungus whose perception of the world is binary, has a higher Wisdom than this guy.

And at the same time animals, who view the world more simplistically than humans, have above-average wisdom.


I'm concerned about the whole blind/deaf thing. I'm inclined to think that a low Wisdom doesn't affect physical abilities, and that the resulting low Listen/Spot checks are a result of apathy or inattentiveness rather than physical handicap.

Seconded. Same with high wisdom - you don't get a bonus to perception skills because your eyesight or healing are better, you get one because you pay more attention to your surroundings.

HunterOfJello
2010-07-13, 03:10 PM
If a character had a wisdom score that low, i would try using some of the rules from Heroes of Horror for developing fears, phobias and despair for all sorts of reactions.


The player could roll a d4 to see how badly they react to any given situation.


An evil character with 1 Wisdom could be so afraid and paranoid that they hurt others in fear or being hurt themself.

LibraryOgre
2010-07-13, 03:15 PM
While not RAW, I would argue that a person with a 1 Wisdom, like someone with a 1 Int, can't really be considered sentient in a meaningful way. We're not talking severely disabled, here... we're talking less aware of one's surroundings than an anemone. This person would respond only when directly stimulated (i.e. touched), and then with no real conception that this will impact the world around them.

I'd have the same argument about Cha 1.

Tengu_temp
2010-07-13, 03:21 PM
around 0,5% of all half-orcs are vegetables, then?

Scarey Nerd
2010-07-13, 03:23 PM
around 0,5% of all half-orcs are vegetables, then?

6.25%, to be precise :smalltongue:

Tengu_temp
2010-07-13, 03:28 PM
6.25%, to be precise :smalltongue:

The chance of rolling 3 on a 3d6 is 1/216, which is slightly below 0,5%.

LibraryOgre
2010-07-13, 03:40 PM
around 0,5% of all half-orcs are vegetables, then?

RAW which allows scores that low, combined with my interpretation of scores that low? Probably. When you consider that an intelligence of of 1 or 2 is the equivalent in abstract reasoning of a dog or horse, and then think about that applied to awareness of self or awareness of others...

For an explanation of why, assume such half-orcs (or whatever race allows salad scores) are simply non-responsive... they're the "ones who didn't make it out of character creation" as we used to say.

Oh, and the percentage is 0.885%, assuming 1s and 2s are "salad" range; those coincide to 3s and 4s on a straight 3d6 distribution. That coincides to a 2 in 216 chance (as there is 1 combination on 3d6 that leads to 3 and 1 that leads to 4 out of 216 possible combinations).

ericgrau
2010-07-13, 03:43 PM
He would seem a bit tortured himself, almost as if unable to tell the difference between himself, victims and anything else for that matter. Real batty. Not someone that should be in an adventuring party - whether the party is good or evil - except if used in a manner similar to a caged animal... released only when needed and at a safe distance.