animal intelligence

[lunar2]

so, if we were to remove the restriction on the intelligence scores of animals, what Int scores would they actually have? i know most of them would still be in the non-sentient range, but dolphins/whales, apes/monkeys, and elephants should be pretty high. maybe 6, or even as high as 8? this is just hypothetical, i'm curious.

[KillianHawkeye]

You think animals should be as smart as Orcs? Trust me, they're not. I think Int 3 might be fine for any exceptionally smart animals, but higher than that and you're getting into Planet of the Apes territory (i.e., unnaturally smart).

Unless you're going for a fantasy talking animals thing, you should probably just leave animals alone.

[tyckspoon]

They'd still be at 2, mostly, because 3 is the breakpoint for sentience in D&D. If you changed that definition, you'd probably still get to 3 or at best 4; higher than that and you are in humanoid-like intelligences, which I don't believe we've seen demonstrated in any animals except perhaps the more intelligent great apes.

[lunar2]

You think animals should be as smart as Orcs? Trust me, they're not. I think Int 3 might be fine for any exceptionally smart animals, but higher than that and you're getting into Planet of the Apes territory (i.e., unnaturally smart).

Unless you're going for a fantasy talking animals thing, you should probably just leave animals alone.

i see you're a little behind the times on animal intelligence. that's fine. real animals sometimes outperform even humans at specific mental tasks (rats are better investors than we are, for example), and various animal species have been shown to have advanced intelligence across a variety of fields, especially language.


Intelligence: Reflects how well the creature learns and reasons. In most cases, it affects how many skills and feats the creature has. A creature needs an Intelligence score of at least 3 to speak a language; anything lower makes the creature no smarter than a typical animal. An Intelligence score of 4 to 7 represents a limited ability to reason and a certain low cunning. An Intelligence score of 8 or 9 approaches the typical human range. A score of 10 or 11 covers the human norm. A score of 12 to 19 reflects above-average to genius-level Intelligence. A score of 20 or higher represents superhuman intellect.

so, you need an intelligence score of 3 to speak a language. this gives even a beehive an intelligence score of at least 3 (individual bees can still be int -, since bees and ants have a "swarm intellect" thing going on). prairie dogs have their own language, as well, and most primates are capable of learning sign language.

4 to 7 represents a limited ability to reason and a certain low cunning. did you know that rats are better investors than humans? pigeons are too, but rats are actually aware of their own thought processes, whereas pigeons are not. ravens have actually been seen creating tools to gather food, and displaying problem solving skills. alex the african grey parrot could verbally count to 7, understood up to 10, and discovered the concept of 0 himself.

8-9 represents near human intelligence. i'd reserve this for dolphins and whales. the bottle nose dolphin is overall the second most intelligent species on this planet, behind only humans. and not even very far behind, at that.

Wizards was unfortunately just wrong when they decided that animals can't have an intelligence score above 2, since most mammals and birds are at least a 3, and many should be 4-7.

[Palanan]

I routinely ignore the Wizards approach to animal intelligence. I usually assign higher values as rough placeholders and then work from my own experience.

Different species have different flavors of intelligent behavior, so it's meaningless to try comparing them with a single number. What's clear from the past fifty years of research is that animal cognition covers a vast spectrum of ability and potential, and we're by no means as unique as we like to think.

[Edge of Dreams]

I like the system Runequest 6th edition uses for animal intelligence. The scale is the same as D&D where average human Int is around 10 to 12, and 18 to 20 Int is human maximum.

Animals have Intelligence values ranging from 1 (dumb insect, snails) to 7 (the most intelligent apes and monkeys). Usually, the Int score is the same for every member of the species, and limits how well the animal can deal with complex concepts of communication, training, and so on. However, the Int score is NOT used for calculating skills and combat stats. Instead, animals have a second ability score called Instinct.

Instinct represents the animal's innate ability to find food, hunt, evade predators, and so on in an intelligent-but-animalistic way. The Instinct score is often much higher than the Intelligence score, especially for animals like wolves and large felines that use clever hunting techniques. A very smart monkey could potentially have an Instinct score as high as 15 to 20.

This distinction is especially important when you see that Runequest uses Intelligence as part of the calculation for Initiative and how many Actions a character can take per round. The Intelligence/Instinct divide allows animals to have a realistic Intelligence score, but substitute their Instinct where appropriate so they don't get screwed over on critical combat stats and skill bonuses.

[Clistenes]

Hi, new here.

I always thought it's weird how chimps, who are able to use tools, learn sign language and plan ahead to some extent have the same intelligence as bats or weasels, while monstrous humanoids and magical beasts who are presented as utterly stupid and behaving almost like animals have much higher intelligence.

I think apes and cetaceans should be allowed to have intelligence 3, since that would allow three ranks for animal intelligence: 1 for reptiles, anphibians and fishes, 2 for mammals and birds, and 3 for apes and cetaceans.

[Absol197]

Hi, new here.

I always thought it's weird how chimps, who are able to use tools, learn sign language and plan ahead to some extent have the same intelligence as bats or weasels, while monstrous humanoids and magical beasts who are presented as utterly stupid and behaving almost as animals have much higher intelligence.

I think apes and cetaceans should be allowed to have intelligence 3, since that would allow three ranks for animal intelligence: 1for reptiles, anphibians and fish, 2 mammals and birds, and 3 for apes and cetaceans.

Don't forget cephalopods! Squids and Octopi, and especially cuttlefish, are quite brainy!

[Kornaki]

i see you're a little behind the times on animal intelligence. that's fine. real animals sometimes outperform even humans at specific mental tasks (rats are better investors than we are, for example)

This is a very strong overstatement. The experiment in question was a light flashes green 80 percent of the time, and red twenty percent of the time. It flashes a bunch of times, and then you're asked to guess what color it will flash next (if you get it right you win). Rats always pick green because it flashed more often, whereas if there's a long string of green humans will occasionally fall for the gambler's fallacy and bet on red.

The gambler's fallacy is essentially caused by human brains trying to overfit patterns to things. So our higher intelligence score is exactly what's screwing us over in this case.

Intelligence can't be measured as "how well you perform at your best task". Intelligence is a measure of your ability to reason through problems and process information. The fact that the human brain has crazy idiosyncrasies that cause us to fail at this at times doesn't change the fact that we are way better at this than every other species. Humans are bad at probability but this is not a good representation of the net sum of intelligence of a species. If the rule was the light flashed green 4 times and then red once, and repeated in that fashion,


That said I do agree that animal intelligence scores can be higher. A large part of our ability to learn to read and write is that we grow up in a society that teaches us to do this - that animals don't shouldn't be a reason to drop their intelligence score. On the other hand I think you're overestimating the intelligence scores of animals if you're giving them a score of 9. I think the right question to ask is: what price should a magic item be if I can put it on a dolphin and give it the ability to cast spells? Because I can put a 4k gold magic item on your 9 intelligence dolphin and make it a wizard, and that doesn't sound right

[roguemetal]

Why are we giving WILD animals intelligence? Do you mean instinct? Animals have decent instinct and the capability to learn, but by D&D terms intelligence has to do with skills, and could potentially give them the ability to craft or have knowledge skills which they absolutely shouldn't have. Sure, animals can be TRAINED to do relatively complex things, which is represented with TRICKS under handle animal. In the wild however, the most 'intelligent' actions of animals include using one or two tools, copying other animals to do two or three things, or have a form of communication. These natural abilities are NOT as good as what a human can do. Even a less than intelligent human could learn how to swing a stick or throw a coconut at a rock to open it, and it wouldn't require them realizing they can throw the coconut at any rock after three months of throwing it at the same one. Animals do not by any means have human-like intelligence, only the capability for it. Most of what animals are naturally good at, such as hunting, copying others, or having good instincts are instead products of WISDOM as per D&D description of Wisdom.


...monstrous humanoids and magical beasts who are presented as utterly stupid...
This is a matter of poor DMing, I honestly don't know of any animals that could act as smart as a Medusa or Orc... If you know of a dog that can set up traps without being trained let me know.

[MarsRendac]

I could agree with greater apes, and perhaps dolphins and elephants, having an Int ceiling of 3-4. Though as far as magical beasts with "humanlike" Int of 3-9, the fact that they're portrayed as being as dumb as animals is just a matter of a DM not fully utilizing their near-human intelligence.

[Novawurmson]

Here's the thing: Sure an octopus can open a jar (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ocWF6d0nelY), but can it make a glass jar? Sure, a gorilla can learn sign language, but can it invent a sign language and teach it to another species? I think animals are beautiful and wonderful (and we underestimate them frequently, as we do plants, which can talk to each other (http://inhabitat.com/plants-can-talk-to-each-other-by-clicking-their-roots/)), but the difference between animal intelligence and human intelligence is still pretty big. I would say some animals reach 5-6 intelligence, particularly pigs, dolphins/whales, and great apes.

Crows (http://www.cracked.com/article_19042_6-terrifying-ways-crows-are-way-smarter-than-you-think.html) are another story.

[RedWarlock]

I would agree about apes and cetaceans. They at least deserve to go up to the 3-6 range.

Apes learning sign, meaning they know and can communicate via a language. Same for cetaceans, though we're still working to decipher it. (I recall even hearing something about elephants displaying burial and remembrance rites on par with prehuman psuedo-religion, though it's been a few years.) That all ranks above a 2, in my mind.

[Yora]

D&D ability scores originated as 3d6 rolls which follow a normal distribution, which means that the difference between 3 and 5 is much more drastic than the difference between 10 and 12.
You get almost just as many 9s as you get 10s, but you get twice as many 5s and you get 4s, and three times as many 4s as you get 3s.
If you match Int scores with IQs and have them both following a standard distribution (which they should as that's how such things work in nature), and Int score of 4 would equal an IQ of below 70. Which compared to animals is still very high. Now in D&D, Intelligence can't be lower than 1, while in nature IQs could statistically go infinitely high or low. Calling it IQ 92 is just a lot nicer to say than IQ -8. But because of this, the entire spectrum of animal intelligence is crammed into 2 numbers, while humanoid intelligence gets 16 numbers plus, which makes things look rather strange.