A matter of roleplay.

[weckar]

Okay, simple question really. I've always used the mental stats to guide my core roleplay, but with my current lineup I really don't know what to do. It's because his abilities are rather... extreme....

He has a 22 Charisma, a 15 Intelligence and a 4 Wisdom (Yes, 4). He's Neutral Evil.

Any roleplaying tips on how this sort of mind would work?

[Urpriest]

Looks simply like a character with stupendously poor common sense. Basically, act like your actions have no consequences.

[weckar]

Yeah, that's what the wisdom would mean. I can't seem to mesh that with the social smoothness the charisma implies though...

[Snowbluff]

Well, wisdom is associated with sanity in most cases... you are insane. Have you ever seen Warriors of Virtue (http://thatguywiththeglasses.com/videolinks/thatguywiththeglasses/nostalgia-critic/10665-virtue)? Cuz you are the villain from that. Smart, handsome, but oof your rocker.

[weckar]

Hmmm, Komodo eh? Not a bad idea....
"Let me demonstrate my new awesome completely untested power!"

[Unusual Muse]

With that big a rift between INT and WIS:

One approach could be to make it a "Rain Man" situation; this character's brain is so hyperactive that he/she is a savant when it comes to whatever his/her area of specialty is, but totally lost in their head to the point that they have no grasp of simple things.

Another element of this type of ability split could be some degree of personality disorder. My observation is that really, really genius people are often "too smart for their own good," and think themselves into paradigms that end up looking like madness/antisocial tendencies/obsessive compulsive disorder. They completely buy in to their own deeply intellectualized beliefs/judgments about people and the world, and this divorces them from the generally-accepted norms of participation in the world.

EDIT: And I should add, these insane geniuses are often very charismatic. Reference the cult leader of your choice.

[Slipperychicken]

First thing you think of, stick to it like glue, and convince/intimidate everyone into thinking it's also a good idea. Good ideas are only good if people agree.

Changing your plan makes you an Idiot. Intimidate or spread rumors about Idiots who dare question the Plan.

[Asheram]

22 Charisma, 15 Intelligence and 4...

Barney.

[Snowbluff]

22 Charisma, 15 Intelligence and 4...

Barney.

From How I met your mother?

And yes, I mean Komodo. I went and watched the movie. He kept it hilarious. It made my day.

[BowStreetRunner]

Former U.S. Vice President Dan Quayle was fairly charismatic and smart (he was elected to federal office 4 times on his own and once sharing the ticket with George Bush, and has published several books), but was always putting himself in the most ridiculous situations which caused a lot of people to question his wisdom.

There are lots of roguish characters in literature who are charming, smart (witty) and never seem to have the wisdom to stay out of trouble. I personally like the role Francis Crawford of Lymond took on in Dorothy Dunnett's novel Queen's Play - while it was an affectation, he came across with enormously magnetic charm and sharp wit, but always acting the fool - in particular leading a troupe of France's young lords larking across the rooftops of Paris.

[weckar]

So, more specifically: the ability to make coherent plans, INT or WIS?

[BowStreetRunner]

So, more specifically: the ability to make coherent plans, INT or WIS?

Coherent plans = INT. That doesn't mean they aren't foolish plans.

With high INT you can reason well and should have a good memory. Technical knowledge will come easy to you. Doing complex tasks is within your grasp.

With high WIS you can effectively evaluate risk vs reward. You are able to decide on the 'right' course of action, within the context of your own morality. You have the common sense to make good decisions and the willpower to stand by your beliefs. Your intuition and perception help you keep from over-extending yourself and allow you to stay out of trouble.

Imagine the following personae:


High INT, Low WIS - a man stands outside and points to the weather overhead, describing in detail how the cumulonimbus clouds formed and the process of precipitation. He wears no raincoat and carries no umbrella and gets soaking wet.
Low INT, High WIS - a man hurries under shelter as the rain-clouds form. He may believe you when you tell him that it is just an atmospheric phenomenon, or he may believe it is the wrath of Zeus gathering overhead, in truth such matters are the province of men with more intellect than that with which he is gifted. However, he knows not to stand out in the rain unprotected and does his best to remain dry and warm until the storm passes.

[Razanir]

Coherent plans = INT. That doesn't mean they aren't foolish plans.

High INT, low WIS makes those plans that are just dumb enough to work. The ones that work out well in the end, and are actually quite brilliant, but just sound dumb

[Gnome Alone]

I think this is in someone's signature around here: "Intelligence is knowing a tomato is a fruit. Wisdom is knowing not to put a tomato in a fruit salad. Charisma is convincing someone to eat it anyway."

Your guy's modus operandi, then, is to stridently convince everyone to eat his disgusting tomato fruit salad that he cobbled together with metamagicked genetic engineering or something, and which, terrifyingly, he does not even realize is gross.

[Dr.Epic]

Yeah, that's what the wisdom would mean. I can't seem to mesh that with the social smoothness the charisma implies though...

Suave, but extremely arrogant to the point it sometimes hinders them.

[BowStreetRunner]

Your guy's modus operandi, then, is to stridently convince everyone to eat his disgusting tomato fruit salad that he cobbled together with metamagicked genetic engineering or something, and which, terrifyingly, he does not even realize is gross.

You know...that almost sounds like something MEGAMIND would do.

[Stegyre]

Wisdom also controls will power and (for reasons I have never fathomed) sensory perception, so the character need not be foolish; he may just be (a) very weak willed, and (b) extraordinarily unobservant. Absent-minded professor is a trope to consider.

[Asheram]

From How I met your mother?


The very same :smallbiggrin:

[Ninjadeadbeard]

Highly charismatic. Pretty smart. Highly unobservant and uncaring about details where his 'gut-feeling' is concerned.

:xykon: If I still had ears, they'd be burning. Like those orphans down the road.

[Hyde]

Really, you'd be looking at every bond villain ever. Smart enough to come up with a dastardly plan, Charismatic enough to make people believe in him/ the plan, foolish enough to detail the plan at length to the hero while leaving him unobserved and adequate enough time and means to escacpe "certain doom".

[killem2]

If you are looking for characters to reference this type of play, I would suggest and expand on Urpriest comment:

Murdoc - from the A-Team, he's actually really smart, I would classify him as pretty darn charismatic, but he has almost no common sense when it comes to action.

Sugar - If you watch burn notice, Sugar, he's not exactly super intelligent, he knows what he's doing, I could see him being smooth when not being intimidated by Michael, but he's got no common sense either when to comes to getting in and out of a fight.

Sabin - Final Fantasy 3, his character is skillful, powerful, he is a very good looking character, I could see his charisma being fairly decent (15+), but he thinks with his muscles not his with wit.

[Zale]

Very Good at coming up with plans.
Awesome at getting people to go along with those plans.
Terrible at telling which plans are stupid plans.

[snoopy13a]

An imprudent con artist might not be a bad idea. You have a smart, charismatic person who could do anything he wanted, but he decides to pursue the high risk/low reward criminal path (which also suits his alignment).

He's the type of person who spends days dreaming up some complicated con with a low payout when he'd be better off getting a day job.

Although, these scores might demand a reroll; you can argue that no one with those stats would survive until adulthood.

[Eugenides]

Highly charismatic. Pretty smart. Highly unobservant and uncaring about details where his 'gut-feeling' is concerned.


I'd say this is perfect. He's someone that follows his instincts on a lot of things. With people and knowledge off the top of his head, he's amazing. his base intuition is perfect, spot on.

With other things, like predicting long-term consequences of his actions, he usually doesn't think that far ahead.

[Erik Vale]

It's at this point you play a sorcerer and have a well loved follower who you let guide you away from your more unobservant plans.
Or a cohort or some other.
Or you could play Barney as a Bard.
You could possibly ask to move some points from Int into Wisdom.

[Unusual Muse]

The more I think about it, the more I think that "Cult Leader" is the perfect archetype for these stats.

[Suteinu]

Sondheim's princes from "Into the Woods" come to mind: "I was raised to be charming, not sincere."

[Giegue]

If you want good advice on how to play this character I've got five simple words for you: EVERY CLICHE EVIL OVERLORD EVER. Seriously. The vast bulk of cliche evil masterminds while very charismatic and intelligent suffer from a lack of common sense, especially when it comes to dealing with team good. Voldemort from Harry Potter is a fine example of this. Most cliche' James Bond villains also fall into this trap. Heck, if I where you I'd read the infamous evil overlord list. It's great for a laugh, but will also help you find lots of ways to display your villain's poor wisdom at work. Seriously. Google the evil overlord list, it's a great read and may just help you out a tad with this guy's characterization.

Other then that, pay attention to the rest of the people in this thread, they have good ideas.

[Unusual Muse]

If you want good advice on how to play this character I've got five simple words for you: EVERY CLICHE EVIL OVERLORD EVER.

LOL! Pretty much! The whole "I should just kill you immediately, but instead I'll put you in an easily-escapable trap and tell you my whole genius master plan" thing would fit perfectly with these stats.

[Grelna the Blue]

Very Good at coming up with plans.
Awesome at getting people to go along with those plans.
Terrible at telling which plans are stupid plans.

This, I think. I've been playing one of these characters myself for years, from 3.0 to 3.5 to Pathfinder. She has 27 Int (4 from headband, two from a Tome), 16 Cha (2 from an item), and 8 Wis (Wis was only a 7 until her last stat boost at 12th lvl, though) and is a ton of fun to roleplay. At least until her last couple of levels, she was utterly convinced that given a sufficiently good plan and proper preparation, nothing seriously bad can or should happen to you. In point of fact, she is and has been usually prepared for negative eventualities. But that gives her a fearlessness in the face of danger that her abilities simply don't merit (I gave her the Courageous trait to help reflect that). And she gets flummoxed when she is genuinely surprised by events she hasn't foreseen.

In other words, the sort of person who calculates a 75% chance of success vs. a 25% chance of death (not failure, death) and thinks those are good odds. And does this repeatedly.

[Kumori]

LOL! Pretty much! The whole "I should just kill you immediately, but instead I'll put you in an easily-escapable trap and tell you my whole genius master plan" thing would fit perfectly with these stats.

The phrase "You got me monologuing!" comes to mind. Guess the movie for 5 points

[TuggyNE]

The phrase "You got me monologuing!" comes to mind.

So it does, you sly dog! :smalltongue: Incredibles, of course.

[weckar]

So yeah, over the top card carrying villain seems to be the consensus. Do what comes to mind first. Thanks guys.

Still, I actually had a RAW question concerning this character...
What would happen if due to an effect his WIS would drop to 0, or below? Say, due to ability damage?

[Studoku]

So yeah, over the top card carrying villain seems to be the consensus. Do what comes to mind first. Thanks guys.

Still, I actually had a RAW question concerning this character...
What would happen if due to an effect his WIS would drop to 0, or below? Say, due to ability damage?
Fortunately, you don't die. Only a CON of 0 can kill you, STR or DEX of 0 means you can't move and a mental stat of 0 means you're unconscious. Specifically:


Wisdom 0 means that the character is withdrawn into a deep sleep filled with nightmares, helpless.

[weckar]

Okay, fair enough. Can the stat legally go BELOW 0, though? For restoration timing purposes?

For example: With my 4 WIS, I take 2d6 Wis damage. A 7 is rolled. Am I at 0 or at -3? Would Naberius (Binder, ToM) be able to wake me in 4 rounds or in 1?

[Slipperychicken]

Okay, fair enough. Can the stat legally go BELOW 0, though? For restoration timing purposes?

Ability scores cannot be reduced below zero.


SRD
Keeping track of negative ability score points is never necessary. A character’s ability score can’t drop below 0.

[Kelb_Panthera]

This, I think. I've been playing one of these characters myself for years, from 3.0 to 3.5 to Pathfinder. She has 27 Int (4 from headband, two from a Tome), 16 Cha (2 from an item), and 8 Wis (Wis was only a 7 until her last stat boost at 12th lvl, though) and is a ton of fun to roleplay. At least until her last couple of levels, she was utterly convinced that given a sufficiently good plan and proper preparation, nothing seriously bad can or should happen to you. In point of fact, she is and has been usually prepared for negative eventualities. But that gives her a fearlessness in the face of danger that her abilities simply don't merit (I gave her the Courageous trait to help reflect that). And she gets flummoxed when she is genuinely surprised by events she hasn't foreseen.

In other words, the sort of person who calculates a 75% chance of success vs. a 25% chance of death (not failure, death) and thinks those are good odds. And does this repeatedly.

Only addressing the bold. Mass deletions are a pain when you can't just drag and click.


To be fair, this is D&D we're talking about. If the chance of success without dying is 75% that's actually pretty good odds. a 25% chance of death isn't necessarily a 25% chance of failure, and unless you can't get access to a raise dead spell death is a only a setback.

Being able to come back from the other side and say to your buddies, "It worked, didn't it? :smallamused:" is a, sometimes rather amusing, part of the system.

[Deophaun]

Going with the plan thing, I think the high Int covers coming up with good plans. There's no worry that he won't be able to distinguish between the good and bad ones. However, whenever something doesn't go as the plan requires, his usefulness drops precipitously. He requires everything to act within a box, and cannot understand why everything keeps escaping from it and doing their own thing. With his low wisdom score, he cannot deal with anything that acts outside his understanding, which means he is liable to stick with a plan well after it has already been shown to, if not failed, need adjusting. In fact, the plan's inadequacies will prove to him that the plan was more vital than ever, and if only the party were more committed or devoted more resources to it, it would have worked like gangbusters.

[Kaeso]

Personally, I'd say the following.

Charisma is the easiest of the mental stats to define. It's a persons physical attractiveness, but also his "aura", his means to get people to do what he wants, by his own will or against it, without needing to resort to brute force. This can be the stereotypical, silver tongued bard who can manipulate people through flattery, but a different type of high charisma character could be the tribal leader with such a powerful aura, none dare speak up when he's speaking, or perhaps the general who can, through sheer force of personality, take a ragtag band of mercenaries and lead them to the gates of hell and back. They don't need to be attractive or verbose per se, they just need a certain "aura" that makes people respect and/or fear them.

Intelligence, in my personal opinion, is mostly analytical and brute knowledge. It is the ability to process information, see patterns and absorb facts. This can be an alchemist who knows everything about every plant there is to know, a mathematician that solves complex arethmic as a part of his morning exercise or a brilliant general that knows all kinds of neat and nifty tactics.

Wisdom on the other hand...hmm, a lot of people claim it's some kind of "gut feeling", but I'm inclined to say it's more to that. What stats is wisdom tied to? Spot, listen, sense motive...these are all perceptive skills. I believe wisdom is the ability to perceive and observe things in their surroundings and understand them. A high wisdom character could be a sherlock holmes, a priest who knows and understands the ways of the world, a philospher or a general who can react to his opponents moves by "knowing" what he's thinking and reacting to it.

So, to go to the overlapping theme, a general with all three stats would be a general that can keep his troops in line and motivated, has knowledge of a lot of good strategies and can "predict" the moves of his opponents. A low cha general would have good strategy and good reactive abilities, but be unable to keep his troops in line. His plans might fail due to low discipline in his ranks. A low int general, on the other hand, would probably be purely reactive, but his plans would fail because he doesn't know what tactics and strategies do and don't function. He would probably know what his enemy is planning by perception and drawing conclusions from that, but he wouldn't know how to react. A high cha, high int and low wis general would have very motivated troops, great strategies but be unable to react to his enemy's plans. If we go to the extreme, this would be the kind of general that locks himself in his room for days, thinks up a brilliant strategy, enforces it and sticks to it no matter what the enemy does.

[sabelo2000]

I think this is in someone's signature around here: "Intelligence is knowing a tomato is a fruit. Wisdom is knowing not to put a tomato in a fruit salad. Charisma is convincing someone to eat it anyway."


Stealing this. NOW. Thank you.

[Slipperychicken]

Stealing this. NOW. Thank you.

You could at the very least credit the guy in your sig, so it's not complete theft :smalltongue: