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Isomenes
2007-04-01, 12:32 AM
Due to an unfortunate encounter with a Whisper Demon and its Allip minions, one of our party has a Wisdom score of 1. Now, we're hoping that it's damage and not drain, but the thing that really gets me is wrapping my head around playing that kind of Wisdom while retaining full Intelligence (24).

How does that work? Is there a good guide to the various ability scores that discusses this sort of thing? Does anyone have an interesting story about roleplaying the effects of dramatic ability loss?

Jannex
2007-04-01, 12:40 AM
When trying to figure out what an ability score represents, it sometimes helps to look at the skills it affects. Wisdom controls Spot and Listen, so Wisdom damage will make you less alert and perceptive. Wisdom controls Heal, Survival, and Sense Motive, so Wisdom damage will probably cause you to have a hard time making common-sense connections or examining a situation critically. Your high Intelligence means you still know and understand a great deal of information, but it's harder to apply that knowledge. Your thinking might be a little foggy, as though you've had a little too much to drink, or have gone too long without sleep. You're probably much easier to confuse. Wisdom controls Will saves, so you're probably less certain of yourself, more pliable. Combined with your diminished Sense Motive score, it's probably fairly easy to convince you of things, if they don't directly conflict with something you know. You're more trusting, less sure of yourself, and have a hard time "reading between the lines." At least, that would be my take.

Mewtarthio
2007-04-01, 12:46 AM
Due to an unfortunate encounter with a Whisper Demon and its Allip minions, one of our party has a Wisdom score of 1. Now, we're hoping that it's damage and not drain, but the thing that really gets me is wrapping my head around playing that kind of Wisdom while retaining full Intelligence (24).

How does that work? Is there a good guide to the various ability scores that discusses this sort of thing? Does anyone have an interesting story about roleplaying the effects of dramatic ability loss?

Picture a guy strapped in a chair, drooling, flailing his arms about, and screaming "I NO EVERYTING!!!!!1111ELEVEN!!!"

Actually, what's your Charisma score? That's important, too. As of right now, it's not too incomprehensible, though: Intelligence is really only your aptitude for learning.

I would not, however, portray him as significantly less confident or unsure of himself (beyond what you'd expect from a guy who's lost most of his higher brain functions). That'd be Charisma.

Isomenes
2007-04-01, 12:49 AM
Actually, what's your Charisma score? That's important, too. As of right now, it's not too incomprehensible, though: Intelligence is really only your aptitude for learning.


It's not too bad--15 or something. All other faculties relatively intact. I like the mentioned notion of a drugged fog, it makes sense from a pharmaceutical perspective. Mmmmm, codeine.

crazedloon
2007-04-01, 12:51 AM
I would say it is a guy who knows how to beat something but not wether it is smart to solo a dragon or take the team who would be needed to kill it with his plan :smallwink:

Dervag
2007-04-01, 12:53 AM
Your thinking might be a little foggy, as though you've had a little too much to drink, or have gone too long without sleep.A little?

Wisdom 1 is lower than the minimum possible for natural humans not under the influence of some wisdom-impairing effect. This suggests that you must be really, really out of it. Think of the silliest, least perceptive, and most pliable people you know.

Your character is worse than those people.

Think of them as being heavily drunk as far as thought goes. They'll do almost anything they can think of. They'll listen to almost anything and take it seriously, or they'll take offense at almost anything (depending on what kind of drunk they are).

They won't have the impaired coordination or other physical problems of a drunk, of course, but they'll probably talk and act as if they were drunk.

If his charisma is decent, he'll come across as a basically OK guy... like a friendly drunk. Remember that a pathologically low wisdom score does not stop him from dealing with other people, talking to them, or convincing them to help him. But it will stop him from recognizing inappropriate behavior, spotting flaws in his own assumptions, or noticing that someone is telling him to do something stupid.

Jack Mann
2007-04-01, 12:54 AM
Bad news. Unless your DM changes things up, it's drain. Find and NPC cleric and pay for restoration as soon as feasible.

Inyssius Tor
2007-04-01, 12:57 AM
Hmm... How about "insane conspiracy theorist"?

You can see the connections between everything. Your godlike intelligence means that you can logically deduce the plans of a Great-Wheel-spanning secret organization based on newspaper clippings; you can construct a perfectly reasonable chain of events explaining why you might be the only one who can see all this. Your above-average charisma means you can make an excellent presentation of your lunatic theories to anyone who'll listen. If you had the slightest grasp on common sense (or even sanity), you could tell how ridiculous you're being. You're probably even hallucinating, by this point.

brian c
2007-04-01, 01:02 AM
High INT and low WIS is the absent-minded professor; the character has genius ideas, understands the very power of the cosmos!!!!! and trips and falls because he forgot to tie his shoes.

Isomenes
2007-04-01, 01:06 AM
Bad news. Unless your DM changes things up, it's drain. Find and NPC cleric and pay for restoration as soon as feasible.

Our druid's got us covered come the next rest stop on the turnpike. Oi...

Lemur
2007-04-01, 01:09 AM
With a high intelligence, this guy is gonna resemble an autistic savant. No, really. He's capable of accomplishing incredible mental feats, but at the same time, even basic tasks done to take care of himself will elude him.

It's quite possible that he'll be incapable of focusing on any given subject. His mind will continuously flit from idea to idea as they come to him. Conversely, he might be completely fixated on a single given thing, and unable to shift his attention away from it, no matter how trivial it is. For example, he may become obsessed with creating a mathmatical equation to describe the mating habits of monarch butterflies.

I've never actually seen the movie Rain Man, but I've heard it referenced a lot for stuff like this. I suppose if you've seen the movie, there may be some ideas about how a low Wis/high Int person might behave.

Mewtarthio
2007-04-01, 01:10 AM
High INT and low WIS is the absent-minded professor; the character has genius ideas, understands the very power of the cosmos!!!!! and trips and falls because he forgot to tie his shoes.

But we're talking WIS 1 here. That is severe mental impairment. He can't even function normally. I liked the insane conspiracy theorist idea, or a gibbering genius. He'll still be quite eloquent and have a strong sense of self, not to mention a great "force of personality," which means that people won't look at him and think "Oh, that poor madman" or "Ah, he's crazy; he's no threat."

Jannex
2007-04-01, 01:11 AM
With a high intelligence, this guy is gonna resemble an autistic savant. No, really. He's capable of accomplishing incredible mental feats, but at the same time, even basic tasks done to take care of himself will elude him.

Good point. At that degree of Wisdom impairment, this is pretty much what you're looking at.

Kalir
2007-04-01, 02:01 AM
I was thinking more along the lines of almost complete obliviousness. A few points:


Wisdom is representative of your perception of events around you
Objects do not have a Wisdom score
The mad scientist/absent minded wizard completely forgets the present while maintaining focus on the future, past, or nonexistent


How I'd play this guy is as someone who doesn't react to things around him. As in, shouting in his face might elicit a "Huh? Did you say something?" if you're lucky. Completely oblivious. Of course, when this comes to battle, this could be a big pain (do you even get to make initiative if you've failed your Spot check to see the enemy and your Listen check to hear your allies?).

Jannex
2007-04-01, 02:17 AM
Or perhaps you can think of him as someone who's had a complete nervous breakdown, or who's suffering from severe shock/trauma.

This might, in fact, be the easiest thing to do. When you go to such extremes as only having Wis 1, the world might just become a confusing barrage of shapes, lights, and sounds that don't make any sense, and the most logical thing to do might be to curl up into a fetal ball and wait for it all to go away (or for somebody to Restore your Wisdom).

Aquillion
2007-04-01, 02:40 AM
This might, in fact, be the easiest thing to do. When you go to such extremes as only having Wis 1, the world might just become a confusing barrage of shapes, lights, and sounds that don't make any sense, and the most logical thing to do might be to curl up into a fetal ball and wait for it all to go away (or for somebody to Restore your Wisdom).I would say that he's just one step away from that point. Curling up into a ball is the same as going catatonic, which is what you get if you hit Wis 0. (Isn't it? I can never remember.) Well, anyway, 1 in any attribute is one step away from uselessness, and should be played appropately...

That said, partially it depends on how your group usually handles such things, too. I know that if I'm playing a more combat-centered campaign, I'd get annoyed if someone went too far in RPing non-fatal stat damage. You should try and represent it, sure, but don't drag the party down with it... even if Wis 1 would make you foolish enough to get your entire party killed, you probably shouldn't, not unless that's usually the way you do things.

Indon
2007-04-01, 02:48 AM
Hmm. A superhuman intelligence complimented by a severe impairment to wisdom? Sounds like something from a Kim Stanley Robinson novel.


Namely, what happened to Saxifrage Russell in, I think Green Mars. He took brain damage and suffered severe anomia; he lost the ability to associate many things with their names. He recovered, eventually, but the entire time he was recovering, it was if his mind had a hole in it.


I envision a character with something like that needing to be reminded that he needs to eat, sleep, etc. before he actually does it. And every time you talk to him, you hear,

"I apologize. I forgot what your name was again."

Jannex
2007-04-01, 02:56 AM
I would say that he's just one step away from that point. Curling up into a ball is the same as going catatonic, which is what you get if you hit Wis 0. (Isn't it? I can never remember.) Well, anyway, 1 in any attribute is one step away from uselessness, and should be played appropately...

Reasonable, though I'm inclined to think it's a fairly small step. And from what he's said, he won't be in that state very long anyway, as one of his party members will get him a Restoration the next day.

Stephen_E
2007-04-01, 10:32 AM
I've played PCs with Wis as low as 3 before.
Combined with a decent int, or in your case an awesome Int, I would disagree with the gibbering idea, well at least while possible, it isn't necessary.

Important points. He's not an idiot. If you tell him to jump of a cliff he won't because he knows he'd get hurt. Tell him he in a illusion and that the only way to break it is to severely damage himself, and provide the meerest scrap of evidence and he'll take it.

Short attention span is likely.
Failure to connect actions with results. (Turn the bath tap on to fill it with water and wander off to play on a PC. When bath overflows won't feel there to be any significant connection between his turning the tap on, and the overlowing of the bath.
Basically the high Int means he will still be capable of concocting great plans, BUT those plans will need checking for glaring "and now we leave the burning building by the other exit. What do you mean there's no other exit?", Also don't trust him to carry out any plans.
Don't rely on anything that would be covered under commonsense to appear in his thinking. For exampel a Wis 1 person cooking might decide to cook mushrooms. He collects some mushrooms he had once before and feeds them to you because he's had them before and they tasted nice. The fact that he spent 3 days hallucinating after having them simply doesn't enter into the equation. We want nice tasting food. They taste nice. Therefore they're good food.

I'm guessing that you're a Wizard with 24 Int. I suggest that it is crucial they get your Wis healed fast unless they really want to findout the joys of combat magic with absolute 0 commonsense. "Yes I did 200hps of damage to the party, but I did 250hps of damage to the enemy". "Blinding the entire fighting group was fine, after all you lot only needed 10+'s to save and they needed 14+'s. How was I to know you'd all fail, and over half of them would pass"

Stephen

Isomenes
2007-04-01, 08:50 PM
I'm guessing that you're a Wizard with 24 Int. I suggest that it is crucial they get your Wis healed fast unless they really want to findout the joys of combat magic with absolute 0 commonsense. "Yes I did 200hps of damage to the party, but I did 250hps of damage to the enemy". "Blinding the entire fighting group was fine, after all you lot only needed 10+'s to save and they needed 14+'s. How was I to know you'd all fail, and over half of them would pass"
Stephen

The character is actually a psionicist of some sort; she's been moderately secretive about the full extent of her powers. Which makes me (out of character) dread the worst. In character I'm more or less guessing, despite having seen some flashy bits on occasion.

Rama_Lei
2007-04-01, 08:59 PM
Hmm... How about "insane conspiracy theorist"?

You can see the connections between everything. Your godlike intelligence means that you can logically deduce the plans of a Great-Wheel-spanning secret organization based on newspaper clippings; you can construct a perfectly reasonable chain of events explaining why you might be the only one who can see all this. Your above-average charisma means you can make an excellent presentation of your lunatic theories to anyone who'll listen. If you had the slightest grasp on common sense (or even sanity), you could tell how ridiculous you're being. You're probably even hallucinating, by this point.
Think The Question form DC Comics.

Woot Spitum
2007-04-01, 10:04 PM
I'd see this character as very spaced-out, appearing to lack any sort of awareness of the outside word .

ArmorArmadillo
2007-04-02, 12:39 AM
If you still have good Int and Cha, you just become a colossal bonehead. My character started the game with Wis 5; and here are some of his notable accomplishments.

1. Destroyed Dire Rat Effigy, remarked on gears and mechanical parts: "Wow, isn't it amazing that that's what we all look like on the inside?"

2. Felt need to constantly poke necrotic cyst of NPC, even though it caused him constant pain.

3. On hearing that cruel villain would be put in solitary confinement, instead demanded that she be put in somthing "Even more solitary than that."

Orzel
2007-04-02, 12:59 AM
Wis 1 and Nonnegative Int and Cha makes him literally the person who can't do more than 1 thing at a time. Like a slow computer with too many things running, he can't walk and chew gum. He can barely react to anything once he starts an action. He can barely react to stimulii and gets overloaded fast. He's always 1 step from sleep and says ouch 10 seconds later.

Mewtarthio
2007-04-02, 01:01 AM
1. Destroyed Dire Rat Effigy, remarked on gears and mechanical parts: "Wow, isn't it amazing that that's what we all look like on the inside?"

2. Felt need to constantly poke necrotic cyst of NPC, even though it caused him constant pain.

3. On hearing that cruel villain would be put in solitary confinement, instead demanded that she be put in somthing "Even more solitary than that."

1 and 3 seem more a function of low Intelligence than low Wisdom. I think the person who posted "autistic savant" had it closest.

Kultrum
2007-04-02, 01:24 AM
that low of wis + that high of int mean yo know how to fix the problem, but you can't say more that two words on any one subject before changing topics to something completely different.

Slokkva
2007-04-02, 03:36 AM
High int low wis, best thing I can think of would be rainman....he is easily swindled, easly amused but can count cards at a 6 deck blackjack table.

I once had a barbarian that was very similar, but it was intentional.
He was a half-orc barb who had the profession "lumberjack".
At level 1 he had a 24 strength. That is only because the DM let me deduct points from both my int and wis scores and put that into my str. By the time I was done my barb had a 4 wis and 5 or 6 int.

So I made the story fit the char...to explain his unusal str, he was a lumberjack...he worked all the time chopping down trees for the local village he lived in.....to make the low wis/int scores feasable...Trug wasn't the only half-orc barb that was a lumberjack....he was however the only half-orc barb that was a lumberjack that used a huge sledgehammer to chop down trees instead of an axe....so hence the smashing trees rather than chopping would explain his extraordinary str since it would take alot longer to smash down a tree rather than chop it. It also was a good way fo him to learn the rage ability...after smashing at a tree for hours and it not fall over...you'd be pretty pissed too and prolly go into a rage from time to time.

The only hard part we had was the question...why didn't anyone teach him to use an axe...well they did, but with the low int and wis, Trug was convinced by a couple of pranksters that using the hammer would be better and quicker than the axe....no one bothered to correct it. Cruel cruel people I tell ya, but the end result was a super strong dumb guy.

I was pretty much an attack dog for the entire campaign...I just attacked when told to, never talked much, and did everything I was told by our group leader, as long as it wasn't to complicated. Sit stay follow attack sshhh was about as far as it went hahahaha.

One of my favorite fights was we went up against some orcs early on in our campaign....I crit failed an attack with my huge 2hand hammer...end up almost killing one of my party members, but they made thier reflex save to avoid it.
So I rage and grab the orc by the neck with one hand, and grab his lower jaw with the other...imaginw putting my middle finger and ring finger in his mouth and my thumb under his chin......then pulled very very very hard...
The orc didn't have much to say about it...har har har

And the only reason the DM let me do this is because I'm usually the DM, and I wanted to take a break and just play a char for awhile...so one of my players started thier own campaign. He was going to use some of my material, and since I knew all the answers to all the questions, we had to come up with a way to make the party think, rather than just look at me for the answer....it worked out rather well and I've never had more fun with a character.

Shadow of the Sun
2007-04-02, 04:15 AM
With wisdom that low, the stat that judges your ability to perceive things, I would house rule it that you were catatonic until you were de-drained.

Zincorium
2007-04-02, 04:23 AM
With wisdom that low, the stat that judges your ability to perceive things, I would house rule it that you were catatonic until you were de-drained.

Well, he's one point above being catatonic by RAW, so you're just adjusting that state upward (although I'm not clear on why you feel it's necessary) by one point.

My personal take is that the person has complete ADD and utter disregard for the world around them, essentially living in their own world while everything goes on around them. They'd be next to useless unless things were so obvious that there is no way they could misinterpret it, and that's fairly rare.

Tengu
2007-04-02, 05:37 AM
Very high intelligence but abysmal wisdom?
Act like Fighter and Red Mage (from 8 bit theater) combined into one terryfying person.

Rama_Lei
2007-04-02, 06:04 AM
Also, what is the party make-up? Does no one know Owl's Wisdom? Temporary, I know, but it'll do the trick for now.

Roderick_BR
2007-04-02, 06:42 AM
With a Wisdom of 1, he's probably oblivious, and blind to everything but the obvious. He can't pay attention to boring stuff, and has a short attention span. However, when he is concentrated, he can think quick solutions, and will usually reply anything asked without hesitation.

Dervag
2007-04-02, 09:31 AM
On the other hand, he will also reply to anything asked without considering the question carefully. Since his Listen score has dropped through the floor, he will tend to miss the 'fine print' of a question. So he will be able to answer the question he hears quickly and accurately, but the question he hears may not precisely match the question that is asked of him.

Again, I think that your best way to come up with an approximately-right roleplaying model for this character is a drunken genius.

alchemy.freak
2007-04-02, 11:01 AM
I would think a Wis score that low would be something like a Savant.

you are totally unperceptive drawing wild conclusions, and really not understanding any hidden meanings or undertones in regular speech.
but you would still be able to cast magic, and you would write poetry or draw or sculpt or perform other academic or artistic feats, but socially you would be totally unable to function

it wouldn't be like ADD, where the person just has a short attention span, although that may come with the territory.

Isomenes
2007-04-02, 11:15 AM
Also, what is the party make-up? Does no one know Owl's Wisdom? Temporary, I know, but it'll do the trick for now.

The druid in our party can get that, but first we need to identify what's wrong. The druid has Owl's Wisdom, but not memorized, and my bard only has Eagle's Splendor. Another day and Restoration will take care of it...if she gets that far.

Telonius
2007-04-02, 12:01 PM
What I'm picturing is somebody playing with a shiny object, a gold coin maybe, and giggling a little bit and maybe whistling while he tosses it in the air and catches it. He'll answer any question you have for him (since he's smart enough), and follow directions, but never takes his eyes off the gold coin. Unless he's distracted by a shinier object.

Deepblue706
2007-04-02, 12:56 PM
Due to an unfortunate encounter with a Whisper Demon and its Allip minions, one of our party has a Wisdom score of 1. Now, we're hoping that it's damage and not drain, but the thing that really gets me is wrapping my head around playing that kind of Wisdom while retaining full Intelligence (24).

How does that work? Is there a good guide to the various ability scores that discusses this sort of thing? Does anyone have an interesting story about roleplaying the effects of dramatic ability loss?

Here's how it'd probably work http://www.nuklearpower.com/daily.php?date=050219

Mewtarthio
2007-04-02, 03:16 PM
Here's how it'd probably work http://www.nuklearpower.com/daily.php?date=050219

Knowledge of nuclear physics is a function of Intelligence.

Deepblue706
2007-04-02, 03:34 PM
Gfawhaw!

Red Mage is the way to go, yo.

Black Hand
2007-04-02, 03:56 PM
Wisdom score of 1...the thing that really gets me is wrapping my head around playing that kind of Wisdom while retaining full Intelligence (24).

I've had that come up before a few years back, and the DM described it in very simple laymans terms:

There's a pile of Sh*t on the floor.
It looks like Sh*t
It smells like Sh*t
You know it's Sh*t...So you eat it.


Or just think of a child who knows better but does it anyways.

Maglor_Grubb
2007-04-02, 04:13 PM
You need some form of wisdom for your intelligence. I'd say for the outside world very low wisdom means you look like you have very low int -> you still have that voice of reason in the back of your head telling you precesily what's going on, analyzing anything you come across, and you probably identify yourself with that voice. Your the voice in someone's head telling him how the world works and what's exactly going on and what's behind it and what's behind that and what the meaning of life is, but this person just ignores you. The influence of intelligence on your actions is highly overrated, most of this influence is indirect, and this indirect connection is gone. But that's low wis, what you're talking about is almost no wis. Just go blank. The outside world is a strange place of pretty colours and lights. Your stoned to the 6th power. Yeah, that's probably the best way to do it. You're as stoned as man can be an then some more.

Stephen_E
2007-04-02, 08:35 PM
Keep in mind that there is a huge difference between 0 and 1 in DnD stats.

1 Str = very weak.
0 Str = Paraysed.
1 Dex = very clumsy
0 Dex = Paraysed.
1 Con = fragile
0 Con = dead.
So while 0 Mental stat = Catatonic, 1 Mental stat doesn't = nearly catatonic.
Wis 1 = -5 on your Listen tests. You will still pick things up. You will still make Will saves.

Stephen

Stevenson
2007-04-02, 08:46 PM
...Dear me, it's Hans Voralberg. I do hope that somebody gets what I'm saying.

You'll be kinda of tactless and imature, and not know what you're doing. But one of the finest geniuses on the planet.

Kultrum
2007-04-03, 03:07 PM
You would be the most cliche' absent minded professor ever.

Mewtarthio
2007-04-03, 03:53 PM
Glance at something written in stream-of-consciousness. Finnegan's Wake is a good pick. Now, try to sound like that out loud.