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Stormcrow
2007-01-17, 08:03 PM
We each of us understand the crunch aspects of our attributes but i want to understand the fluff aspects. For example. You dont need a ride check to ride a horse you need one to do fancy things.

In interested in the day to day things its assumed you can do without a check and what attributes really mean.

How strong IS a person with eighteen strength, preferably with a real world example.(Weightlifter?)

I'd like to see us get a 10-20 breakdown for each attribute so people can get a fair idea of where they fall, and to make it easier to explain your character to non gamers.

Raum
2007-01-17, 08:07 PM
There are examples in the PHB...pages 8-10. Not SRD though so you'll need to check the book.

Emperor Tippy
2007-01-17, 08:35 PM
18 Strength is someone who can lift 300 pounds over their head.
20 Strength is 400 pounds.

18 Dexterity is an Olympic class gymnast.

18 Con is one of the 20% who mange to survive full blown Ebola.

18 Charisma is someone like Bill Clinton (however you feel about the man he is an excellent public speaker).

18 Int is the Noble prize winner.

18 Wisdom is the guy who always manages to make the right decision even when he has no idea what he is doing. He can guess on every question on the SAT's and manages a 1200.

Shazzbaa
2007-01-17, 08:55 PM
18 Wisdom is the guy who always manages to make the right decision even when he has no idea what he is doing. He can guess on every question on the SAT's and manages a 1200.

What? No perception from that Wis?

I'd say 18 WIS is the person who, after talking to a stranger for a few minutes, can tell you uncanny things about said stranger: about their past, their family, and what sort of person they'll probably marry.
(I know people like this. Those who don't know better say they're psychic or something, but they themselves will tell you they can just pick it up from body language and other indirect cues. They're just that perceptive).

Would you consider IQ a worthwhile thing to look at for measuring INT? What IQ would you put an 18 INT at? I know several people who are over 130 that would barely be able to handle arcane casting... I can think of one guy who's over 150 that could probably cast pretty reliably, and I know one guy at 198 who could undoubtedly be a powerful wizard if arcane magic existed in this world (he works in computer programming-type things, so the connection is pretty easy to make, actually).

The two who are over 150 just have a noticable difference that sets them apart, in depth of understand, memorisation, and amount of things that they easily just know. I couldn't imagine anything below that being high-level spell-casting.

Raum
2007-01-17, 09:07 PM
IQ tests relate more to Wisdom than Intelligence in D&D terms. They primarily test for pattern matching skills...perception.

Shazzbaa
2007-01-17, 09:39 PM
Ahh. Okay then.

Wis, Int, and Cha are so subjective... Not only because they're hard to test (unlike Str, which is the most direct), but because they're so debatable even in a real life person. You can point at someone and say, "He's got a high Dex," or "He's got a high Strength," and it's generally pretty provable. But to say someone's got a high Wisdom or a high Charisma is sort of like telling someone that they're very mature -- it's a compliment, and there can be a general consensus that it's true, but if anyone disagrees it's merely a matter of opinion.

Int strikes me as highly debatable simply because it's hard to find a test that everyone can agree is a good measurement (I think my previous post is demonstrates this). It's easy to see who are the "smart kids," but the line between "good at test-taking" and "high Int" is hard to discern with real people.

Stormcrow
2007-01-17, 09:51 PM
Taking the words of *chuckles* Emperor Tippy in mind is it fair to say then that outside of a combat situation where tumble is the answer that a person with 18 dexterity could do flips and cartwheel type things quite easily?

Thomas
2007-01-18, 05:28 AM
How strong IS a person with eighteen strength, preferably with a real world example.(Weightlifter?)

300 lbs. overhead. The world record for the snatch (lifting the weight overhead in one movement) is ~460 lbs., which you could do with Strength 21.

The other ability scores can not be measured. Wisdom and Intelligence are especially impossible to measure, because just about all serious psychologists in the field have already abandoned the outdated IQ concept, and speak of "intelligences" (and skills), and there's still no real definition of or agreement about such qualities. They are, in essence, unmeasurable. You can only measure individual skills (and even that's often vague).

However, using the Strength as a baseline, and adjusting for the fact that whoever pulled that had probably been pumped full of steroids for years, we can assume that world-class athletes usually have Strength, Constitution, or Dexterity scores in the 18-21 range, and that recognized geniuses (Stephen Hawking, what-have-you) have mental scores in the same region. Sean Connery has Charisma 21, etc.


As for skills: in day-to-day use, you take 10. So if you have a bonus of +20, you can reliably do things with DC 30 in day-to-day (not in dangerous conditions - see the rules for taking 10) use, so long as the skill allows taking 10.

Zincorium
2007-01-18, 05:43 AM
300 lbs. overhead. The world record for the snatch (lifting the weight overhead in one movement) is ~460 lbs., which you could do with Strength 21.

The other ability scores can not be measured. Wisdom and Intelligence are especially impossible to measure, because just about all serious psychologists in the field have already abandoned the outdated IQ concept, and speak of "intelligences" (and skills), and there's still no real definition of or agreement about such qualities. They are, in essence, unmeasurable. You can only measure individual skills (and even that's often vague).

However, using the Strength as a baseline, and adjusting for the fact that whoever pulled that had probably been pumped full of steroids for years, we can assume that world-class athletes usually have Strength, Constitution, or Dexterity scores in the 18-21 range, and that recognized geniuses (Stephen Hawking, what-have-you) have mental scores in the same region. Sean Connery has Charisma 21, etc.


As for skills: in day-to-day use, you take 10. So if you have a bonus of +20, you can reliably do things with DC 30 in day-to-day (not in dangerous conditions - see the rules for taking 10) use, so long as the skill allows taking 10.

The scores of 21+ are best represented by extreme natural talent (base score of 16-18) combined with years of intense training (ability score increases) so if you decide that the athlete was, say, a level 12 strong hero (we're talking modern day, it seems appropriate) then a strength of 21 is easily doable.

Dhavaer
2007-01-18, 07:02 AM
[Disclaimer: I play Modern, which has a higher average score, so these won't be totally appropriate for D&D]

Strength
10 Str: Probably a fairly average first-world person who does little regular exercise and doesn't eat very healthily.

12 Str: Average person who does something fairly physical regularly, and eats fairly well.

13 Str: Slightly above average person. The guy in the office who works out on weekends and favours healthfood.

14 Str: Physical person, noticably above average. Likely does something physical for a living.

15 Str: Pro athlete level. Football, wrestling, fighting.

16 Str: Sports star.

18 Str: World's Strongest participant.

Dexterity
10 Dex: Klutzy but not dangerously so.

12 Dex: Normal person.

13 Dex: Possibly types slightly faster, moves through crowds more easily, etc.

14 Dex: Noticeably agile, possibly makes use of this in their occupation.

15 Dex: Pro athlete level. Basketball, cricket, etc.

16 Dex: Sports star.

18 Dex: Outstandingly graceful, is almost impossible to trip or unbalance.

Constitution
10 Con: Has more sickdays than most, possibly a minor, permanant illness (mild asthma).

12 Con: Normal person.

13 Con: Fewer sickdays than most, less affected by drinking or strenous exercise.

14 Con: Noticeably healthy; good skin, glossy hair, etc.

15 Con: Pro athlete. Marathon runner, boxer, etc.

16 Con: Sports star.

18 Con: Michael Malloy, Rasputin.

Intelligence
10 Int: Speaks fairly well but lack of intellectual ability is obvious after a brief conversation. Has difficulty estimating outcomes and probability, and subsequently takes risks and makes mistakes.

12 Int: Normal person.

13 Int: Wins at Trivial Pursuit more often than not, general good memory.

14 Int: Noticeably clever. Possibly put into a special workshop or class at school. Probably works in an intellect focussed job.

15 Int: Gifted. Possibly accelerated a grade in school. Very good memory. Almost certainly works in an academic field.

16 Int: Genius. Accelerated in school. Nobel prize winner.

18 Int: Prodigy. Graduated from university in teens, likely has multiple degrees. Photographic memory.

Wisdom
10 Wis: Oblivious. Misses social cues and probably gullible.

12 Wis: Average.

13 Wis: Wins at poker, good at detecting subtle emotions.

14 Wis: Noticeably alert. Picks up on lies easily. Probably works with people or in the wild.

15 Wis: Easily and unconsciously aware of surroundings. Probably very introspective.

16 Wis: Understands people at the first meeting. Has likely eliminated most self-deceptions.

18 Wis: Guru. Understands people and themself naturally and easily.

Charisma
10 Cha: Wallflower. Gets talked over a lot.

12 Cha: Average.

13 Cha: Makes friends more readily than most.

14 Cha: Noticeably charismatic. Girl/guy who gets the girls/guys.

15 Cha: Star quality. Impossible to ignore or fail to notice.

16 Cha: Leading man/lady. Exceptionally powerful force of personality.

18 Cha: Commander. Easily gives orders and has them followed. Likely to have syncophants as well as real friends.

headwarpage
2007-01-18, 08:49 AM
In terms of mental ability scores, I don't think high scores are as rare as some people seem to think, but I can't prove that. I also don't think that they represent much of anything in real-world terms, except in a very broad sense. If I were to put a person with 14 Int and a person with 18 Int in front of you, you'd have a hard time telling which was which unless all other factors were equal. Level of education would be far more obvious than native intellect (by which I mean that a person of average intelligence with a PhD is going to seem smarter to most observers than a genius who never went to college), and the other mental scores would affect how they expressed themselves, obscuring the point further. I would suspect the same is true for the other mental ability scores. When I roleplay my characters, I just worry about whether the scores are high, average, or low, and only refer to the actual numbers for game mechanics.

Saph
2007-01-18, 10:25 AM
Strength, Dexterity, and Constitution are easy to measure, because they're physical attributes.

Intelligence, Wisdom, and Charisma aren't, which is why they're the interesting ones. :) Charisma is probably the easiest to measure, because it's the one that's on the surface the most. It represents force of personality, presentation ability, and social strength.

The really tough one is trying to figure out the borderline between Intelligence and Wisdom, because most mental activities require a combination of both. The shorthand way I used to use to explain it to new players was: "Intelligence lets you figure out how to do things, Wisdom lets you figure out whether you should be doing them in the first place." Another way to put it is that Intelligence is more useful for understanding things, Wisdom is more useful for understanding people.

But that's just my thoughts . . . Like Shazzbaa, I find it fun to try and map D&D things like alignments and ability scores onto people I know. Once me and my college RP group played a self-game, where the characters were the players. So everyone had to figure out their own ability scores. You can imagine some of the results. :) It's really funny for me now, looking back on it, but it was a big drama at the time.

- Saph

silvermesh
2007-01-18, 10:50 AM
IQ tests relate more to Wisdom than Intelligence in D&D terms. They primarily test for pattern matching skills...perception.
its not about perception, it's about learning, and the speed at which you learn.

pattern-matching isn't perception, it's comprehension. seeing the pattern is your perception, knowing what it means and correlating it to something else is comprehension. this is what is being tested.

IQ is directly correlated to D&D Intelligence.

headwarpage
2007-01-18, 10:55 AM
its not about perception, it's about learning, and the speed at which you learn.

pattern-matching isn't perception, it's comprehension. seeing the pattern is your perception, knowing what it means and correlating it to something else is comprehension. this is what is being tested.

IQ is directly correlated to D&D Intelligence.

I disagree. IQ is directly correlated to your ability to perform on an IQ test. Its correlation to anything else is debateable. It may have some bearing on intelligence, but that depends on what definition of intelligence you use. I have absolutely no idea what my IQ is, but I suspect that if I took an IQ test, the results would be higher than my intelligence justifies, simply because I test freakishly, ungodly, well.

HomerHT
2007-01-18, 10:57 AM
IQ is simply a measure of how well you do on IQ tests. It means next to nothing. Especially so after you reach the age of 15-17.

EDIT: Simu'd!

I like to think of intelligence as one's ability to learn. This makes sense in D&D because more INT means you get more skills and are able to grasp the mechanics behind magic, which would require a good learner.

As for Wisdom, I read this on a forum somewhere: "Intelligence is knowing a tomato is a fruit. Wisdom is knowing not to put a tomato in fruit salad."

headwarpage
2007-01-18, 11:02 AM
"Intelligence is knowing a tomato is a fruit."

Actually, that's an application of the Knowledge: Produce skill. That's one of the problems with measuring intelligence - it's much easier to measure knowledge, which is closely related, but not really the same thing.

pestilenceawaits
2007-01-18, 11:13 AM
I have always thought of intelligence and wisdom this way.
Intelligence is the measure of what you do know or your capacity to know. (book learnin)
Wisdom is your ability to apply what you know. It lets you cut through the crap and see what is really going on. (common sense)

Leush
2007-01-18, 11:34 AM
I'd generally agree with Davaer's estimates, escept that I'd stretch it out a bit: I'd move the lower bound to 8 and move the other ones down a notch. (appart from the top 2)

I'd also mentioned the light load/medium load/heavy load system for measuring strength, since d&d strength is an approximation of all strength, not just lower body/upper body strength. I'd average the max overhead and the light load/medium load/heavy load deduced strength.

As for intelligence (or any other stat appart from strength), regardless of what it actually measures, I have this to say: 10.5 is by definition an average stat. In something which can't be easily quantified, I'd treat it as average, and work from there.

(With the strength measurements that I conducted on myself and many of my friends, I'd say that that it is accurate- some are stronger, some weaker, but it boils down to an average of about 10-11).

As for the others by definition 10.5 is average, go figure from there. The thing is, nowadays people like to have lots of pluses in their character sheet and then think that that's how the world works. Alas no! Average is average. An "Average" person should have the equivalant of 3d6 for each stat. In places where healthcare is bad, people who roll low tend to die younger, but that's about it- there isn't much natural selection on the human rate at the moment so stats shouldn't be changing much. ie +0 should be average +1 above average, -1 below average. Sensible? I think so. Hurtful for the ego? Definately.

Emperor Tippy
2007-01-18, 11:57 AM
A great line from a friend: Intelligence doesn't determine what you do, merely how effectivily you do it.

Shazzbaa
2007-01-18, 02:31 PM
Like Shazzbaa, I find it fun to try and map D&D things like alignments and ability scores onto people I know. Once me and my college RP group played a self-game, where the characters were the players. So everyone had to figure out their own ability scores. You can imagine some of the results. :) It's really funny for me now, looking back on it, but it was a big drama at the time.

Eeek, you guys, too? I'd like to take this moment to advise everyone here NOT to try this at home. :smallfrown: We did a slight variation of this in my college group, where everyone except the person himself was allowed to debate that person's scores. Mine ended up being quite a compliment, but listening to my roommate complain for days afterwards about how her Wisdom should be soooo much higher than 10....
It was a horrible mistake to attempt it, and I'm glad the game was abandoned.


I like to think of intelligence as one's ability to learn. This makes sense in D&D because more INT means you get more skills and are able to grasp the mechanics behind magic, which would require a good learner.
I agree with this definition of intelligence, which... well... makes it even more impossible to measure IRL.
In our game at home we've got a character who's very much the "stupid farmer," but his INT is higher than most of the other characters, even those far more eloquent and knowledgeable than he is. But then you have to realise... smart or not, he was raised on a farm. He can figure stuff out quickly, but he only knows what he's taught.

D&D Intelligence is very much a hidden trait in real life. Someone with high INT has high potential, but if his only class-skill is "dirt farming," then he's not going to get much of an opportunity to show off that potential, no matter how many skill points he gets.


"Intelligence lets you figure out how to do things, Wisdom lets you figure out whether you should be doing them in the first place." Another way to put it is that Intelligence is more useful for understanding things, Wisdom is more useful for understanding people.

As for Wisdom, I read this on a forum somewhere: "Intelligence is knowing a tomato is a fruit. Wisdom is knowing not to put a tomato in fruit salad."

Actually, if you live in the US, a tomato is a fruit and a vegetable at the same time. Scientifically, it's a fruit; but legally, it's a vegetable (because it counts as a vegetable for some kind of import tax). [/fun trivia]

Anyway, the problem with wisdom is that these are all good descriptions of the typical, day-to-day differentiation of being wise vs. being intelligent, but they're not necessarily or completely the difference between Wis vs. Int.

What does Wisdom represent in-game? It powers your Will save, your Sense Motive skill, and your Spot and Listen skills... also Survival, Heal, and Profession. Also, stuff for Clerics and Monks. Maybe some other things I forgot.

So Wisdom, then, could relate to Willpower and mental fortitude (will save). Somewhat related to this concept, it could be a connection to the spiritual or divine (clerics). It could be intuition of a similar nature (monks). It could be basic common sense, i.e., knowing a tomato doesn't go in a fruit salad (survival, heal, and profession -- your Wis bonus is just the common sense knowledge you're born with; actual ranks would represent practice and learning). But then it could also be perception regarding others -- being able to 'read people', as it were (sense motive), or it could be simple physical perceptiveness, awareness of the world around you (spot, listen, and to some extent survival).

Wisdom is so spread out that it's hard to point at what a high Wis represents, because it could be so many people. It could just be the guy who just makes sense and knows how the world works, or it could be the person I described earlier who can read people just by watching the way they walk; it could be a tribal man who knows little of the ways of the world but is always, always aware and nothing goes by him unnoticed, or it could be the unwavering man of faith with an unfathomable strength of will and mental fortitude that will never give in.

I continue to vote for Wisdom as the most confused stat of D&D.

Indon
2007-01-18, 02:46 PM
I'd have to say that it would be next to impossible to measure charisma, at least, in a non-magical world because the nonmagical effects of high charisma are indistinguishable from the effects of having a lot of ranks in Bluff, Intimidate, and Diplomacy.

Similarly, short of will saves to resist, say, cigarette addiction (the effects of which are indistinguishable from class advancement, I might add), Sense Motive is just another skill.

Finally, I feel you could estimate these reasonably, but you'd first need to estimate their class, their class' skills per level, and how high each of their individual skill ranks is; then fill up the blank with innate bonus (and calculate int by the number of skills known). Not the most viable method, that.

Maglor_Grubb
2007-01-18, 02:54 PM
The stats just represent to much different things to convert them to IRL. Because of this, you could have both a low wisdom and a high wisdom at the same time: a very intuitive thinker, a dreamer with refreshing new ideas and much spiritual enlightenment, who's not realy part of this world. He'd probably have a high int too, but he's certainly high wis (enlightenment, cleric-wisdom) as well as low wis (connection with the world around you, perception, ranger-wisdom).

Theodoxus
2007-01-18, 03:20 PM
The argument/discussion, while on one hand is fun and neat, and has a number of 'wow' and 'yay' factors, it is ultimately moot.

The numbers originally generated to represent attributes for characters are completely arbitrary. An 18 Int and an 18 Str are not the same in scale (despite whatever the point-buy method might state.) The game designers could have just as easily said an 18 Str could lift a max of 12 lbs as 300.

Likewise, placing interpretations upon what 'Intelligence' or 'Wisdom' or 'Charisma' means, outside of what is expressly defined in game, creates hazards.

And using common ideas such as 'pro athlete' or 'super star' as a basis... that's just silly. Lance Armstrong, arguably one of the greatest athletes at this time, barely managed to run a marathon. All the Strongest Men competitors would be destroyed in a professional American football (or even international football, for that matter) game.

Trying to squeeze obejctive attributes into subjective nomenclature presents hazards. There are specific, geometric progressions for game stats. A 14 is one step better than a 12, a 16 is one step better than 14. Unfortunately, the same progression isn't done for the sub-attributes (max weight, etc.) so it makes the chart unrealistic. But that's just further proof that it's arbitrary, and should never be used for 'real life'.

Be that as it may, it's fun to theorize... Just don't take it out of the realm of theory (in my opinion.)

Theo

Thomas
2007-01-18, 05:01 PM
[Disclaimer: I play Modern, which has a higher average score, so these won't be totally appropriate for D&D]

You know, none of those made sense, since the descriptions are way overboard compared to the actual game effects.


its not about perception, it's about learning, and the speed at which you learn.

pattern-matching isn't perception, it's comprehension. seeing the pattern is your perception, knowing what it means and correlating it to something else is comprehension. this is what is being tested.

IQ is directly correlated to D&D Intelligence.

It's pretty irrelevant, since IQ means nothing. IQ tests arbitrarily measure some attributes and skills and give you a score that tells you what your score in that test was, and nothing else. The results do correlate significantly (and I hope everyone understands what that actually means) with grade/elementary school success, but have no predictive value at all beyond that. University professors and prominent researchers - obviously very, very intelligent people - have scored scores like 80-90 in childhood tests (often partly due to the unremovable cultural and linguistic bias in such tests, which is the reason US minorities score/scored lower, on average, than "white" Americans). IQ tests completely fail to measure countless attributes, like whether you're capable of sitting your ass down in high school and college and learning what you're supposed to. (Which, really, is the only real requirement for academic success at such levels. You can generally go from idiot to idiot savant in a subject by simply bothering to study it.)


Intelligence as an ability score in RPGs is a handy but ultimately unnecessary abstraction. (Pendragon does great with Strength, Constitution, Size, Dexterity, and Appearance).

Wisdom, I'll agree, is an even more conflated abstraction. Willpower, intuition, perceptiveness, power of faith, etc. Right.