Player plans and character Int scores

[snailgosh]

How do you guys handle situations where a character's int score seems too low for a plan to be plausibly be devised by her?

My general take when DMing is “just let the players roll with whatever plan they want“, as limiting their options this way just spoils fun, but I can understand counterarguments regarding metagaming and immersion.

I've seen DMs rule the plan the players collectively made to be devised by the smartest character.
In this case, what would you do if all (but for one, not reasonably smart) characters were disabled somehow?
A situation like this just recently occured in the game I'm playing in.

[lytokk]

Its my belief that regardless of INT scores, everyone can always have a short burst of inspiration, in the same way a character with a low charisma score could appear incredibly charming every once in a while. So long as it doesn't happen all the time, it shouldn't be a problem.

In your example, the not smart character has conceivably spent a good deal of time around the smarter characters. While he's not as smart as they are, its reasonable to assume some form of tactics have rubbed off on him, enough so he could make some sort of plan.

What kind of plan did the character come up with anyway?

[Socksy]

You mean disabled like mentally challenged? Or disabled like unable to come up with a plan for some other reason?

What's the WIS on this character?

Make them roll below their INT on a d20 to come up with a cunning plan?

[snailgosh]

You mean disabled like mentally challenged? Or disabled like unable to come up with a plan for some other reason?

What's the WIS on this character?
I meant disabled as in “currently unable to participate in planning“, apologies for the ambiguation.

Keying it to WIS is an interesting idea. This particular character was a human cleric so his WIS is decent.
In my eyes WIS would be more intuition and less planning though.


What kind of plan did the character come up with anyway?
In this case it was no problem, it merely involved figuring out a mcguffin whose very similar brethren had been encountered on multiple occasions before and some lying.

I was asking in a more general sense

[lytokk]

Well, in a general sense, at least as far as I think, INT is knowing how to turn a rubix cube to move a dot without changing anything else. WIS is figuring it out on your own. Intuition as opposed to knowledge.

[snailgosh]

sort of an on the spot improvisation referring to plans then?

[Segev]

One of the tricks for simulating intelligence is to use the fact that you, as DM, know what the PCs are planning, and can translate your semi-omniscience into artificial planning by very smart NPCs.

If the intelligence of a plan is of concern wrt the intelligence of the PC coming up with it, ask them to roll an appropriate skill for planning. Knowledge:Tactics is often useful, though not always appropriate. If you can't think of one, just have them roll an Int check.

Then roll a similar skill or Int check for the NPC(s) you feel would be needing to prepare for it.

If the PC rolled higher, his plan was cunning and clever enough to work more or less as outlined and the enemies don't see through it nor have plans against it (unless you ALREADY had plans against it before you even heard what the PC thought of, in which case the NPCs just got lucky). If the NPC rolls higher, then either there is some exploitable flaw in the plan which the NPC can perceive, or the NPC is clever enough to have thought of somebody trying something along these lines and has a contingency plan in place.


You can also, in the case where the PC rolls significantly higher than you think the plan he's outlined needs, you can give him some pointers on flaws YOU see in it. Let him discuss them with you and the other players; perhaps he'll point out how it's not a flaw, and you need to rethink the reaction of the setting to his ploy, or perhaps he'll come up with a way to mitigate the flaw. Or he'll change it a bit to account for whatever details you point out.

If the PC rolls particularly better than the NPC, don't be afraid to give the PC a bit of "insight" into how he might think the NPCs are set up, what their plans might be, so he can work with more information that his character used induction and deduction to puzzle out as likely scenarios for which to account.


And finally, if the plan just seems way too good for how well the PC rolled, first check to see if anybody else in the party could roll well enough to serve as a contributor to the plan. If THAT doesn't work, you'll have to be a stickler for detail. There won't be room for the player to say, "oh, I forgot to say my PC did this." The PC is already operating beyond the edge of his cunning to have this plan in mind; mistakes will happen.



If you really want to be mechanically pedantic about it, you could set the DC for coming up with the plan, then, for every point by which the check fails, have one "mistake" spring on them. Something the PC(s) forgot to set up, something that was broadcast too clearly so it is countered, some detail arise that they didn't foresee. For every point by which the check exceeds the DC, give the PCs a "takeback" or a "retcon," such that they can say, "Oh, yeah, we totally brought the key we found in the last fortress, thinking it would be useful," even if the players didn't mention it and might have done something that would indicate they might have forgotten it. Or they can say, "On second thought, trying to bluff my way past the guard when I don't speak his language is foolish. I take back the attempt as my character realizes this fact before he steps out into the open."

Actually, this could be a good system for machiavellian planning overall. The opposed roll gives the winner that many "retcons" to override the plans of the loser.

[fishyfishyfishy]

There are plenty of people in the world who you might describe as having a low intelligence score due to mental disabilities. But many of those people are capable of coming up with clever solutions to problems. It might take some of them longer to do it than a average person, but they are no less capable. I highly suggest you don't limit your players based on your own perception of what the mental ability scores represent and instead encourage them to role play their character how they feel is appropriate.

[Vaz]

A Character can break down a door with enough time - a measly Venerable Elven Wizard with 3 strength has a -4 modifier to their check, but provided the door can be broken by a DC16 check, they have a 5% chance of breaking it down first time.

In much the same vein, there's a 5% chance that an Int/Wis 3 Barbarian can come up with a plan on the fly that the above 20th level Venerable Elven Wizard with Int boosting can consider his baseline.

Bear in mind that taking 20 is also available on it, so like said Wizard might take 2 minutes breaking down the door, the Barbarian might need to sit down and think for a lot longer than the wizard. If you feel that the party is continually punching above their mental capacity, (as in said example Barbarian is coming up with plans that are inherently more complex than simple advanced animal-like tactics), then you could have a word with the party, and say you're going to ask the party to write down their ideas, and have them roll the relevant Ability Check you decide on, and then reject it if they roll too low, or give them the option to take 20, in which case you could approve it - being fair, with a DC16 Int check being pretty much equivalent to what you'd expect from a college level student taking 10/rolling average, so at best, it's something any of us could really come up with.

Considering that it's mostly people of college level intelligence playing the games (or we expect so), it's not too hard to see that, with enough time, said Barbarian can come up with plans that are "above his pay grade".

[Millennium]

High INT allows a person to process more things, but this is not entirely a good thing. The human mind has a remarkable ability to ignore what it cannot process, but it can be almost compulsive about processing whatever it can. There's a reason for the stereotype of the eccentric and easily-distracted genius who always has his mind on 10 different things at once. If you've ever known an actual genius, odds are you've seen this for yourself.

There is also a reason for the stereotype of what would, in a more innocent time, have been called an idiot savant: someone of very limited intellect who nevertheless manages astounding flashes of insight. I do not mean for this to sound like a superpower, as there are limits. Forrest Gump was never going to invent the Theory of Relativity. But many people of limited intellect have a distinct ability to cut through the preconceived notions, irrelevant minutiae, common misconceptions, and even outright manipulations that can and do hinder "smarter" minds. If you've worked with people whose disabilities are mild to moderate, you've probably seen this for yourself. You've likely also seen a different form of this if you work with children often: with apologies to Bill Cosby, kids really do say the darndest things.

For these reasons, I do not help or hinder player planning just because the character has a high or low Intelligence score. There is plenty of room for a high-INT character to be unable to see the forest for the trees, and for a low-INT character to share surprising insights. If a player asks for help, I would certainly use the character's Intelligence score in determining exactly how I respond, but I would try to give some form of helpful response in any event.

[Socksy]

with a DC16 Int check being pretty much equivalent to what you'd expect from a college level student taking 10/rolling average

You suggesting the average college student has a 22-23 in INT?:smalltongue:

[Ingus]

At my table, I usually go along with players who do it.
It is fun and can be comedy if it is the Thog smash things barbarian who occasionally come up with the plan.

The key word is occasionally.
If the barbarian player devises the enigma to open a particular door, it is ok.
If the same barbarian is playing a living chess game with the Evil Overlord, something is wrong.
To an extent, one can pretend that the plan has been collectively devised, with the high Int characters with a major role in it.
Usually, though, I ask players to play in character for the purpose of plan building and (only if necessary) maybe toss some suggestion to the smartest ones

[jedipotter]

How do you guys handle situations where a character's int score seems too low for a plan to be plausibly be devised by her?



I generally let the player just use their own intelligence always. Even if they have a INT of 20, and they think it's a good idea to ''I touch the floating black orb that is surrounded by a pile of bones'' I don't say anything and let them do it.

So if you had a dim INT 8 character, I'd let the player come up with a complex plan.

[Vaz]

You suggesting the average college student has a 22-23 in INT?:smalltongue:

My point exactly. I rolled a 3 on my d20 for that Int check.

[Alex12]

At my table, I usually go along with players who do it.
It is fun and can be comedy if it is the Thog smash things barbarian who occasionally come up with the plan.

The key word is occasionally.
If the barbarian player devises the enigma to open a particular door, it is ok.
If the same barbarian is playing a living chess game with the Evil Overlord, something is wrong.
To an extent, one can pretend that the plan has been collectively devised, with the high Int characters with a major role in it.
Usually, though, I ask players to play in character for the purpose of plan building and (only if necessary) maybe toss some suggestion to the smartest ones

I'm not entirely sure I'm comfortable with this.
Let's use the chess analogy. At the table I play at, such a game would actually be decided by a real chess game between players and DM (with maybe a bit extra to account for spells and such.)
Suppose the guy playing the 22 Int wizard isn't very good at chess, while the guy playing the low-Int Barbarian is an expert at chess in reality (given the group I play in, this is entirely possible)? Obviously, the party in-character would expect the team smart guy, aka the wizard, to play the game, and the barbarian to stay out of the way. But in a situation like that, we'd want the best actual player to be playing. Which would be the barbarian's player.

In the PF campaign I'm currently in, I'm playing a character with the Naive drawback, and one of my party members is RPing a paranoid conspiracy theorist type character. Thing is, he tends to take stuff at face value, while I'm much less trusting. I've taken to using phrases like "speaking as his paranoia" to point out problems and difficulties that my own character wouldn't actually notice. Either that, or referring to a book that my character read.