Making Intelligence More Important (Variant Rule: Intelligence Modifier Bonuses)

[Telesto]

So, the purpose of this thread is to give some kind of buff to Intelligence. My own players have taken to treating it as a dump stat, at my own advice, due to its lack of real buffs. Anyway, I'd like to hear the ideas of others, but I'm also introducing a rule to help give some bonus to higher intelligence.

Variant Rule: Intelligence Modifier Bonuses
Intelligence measures a character's ability to acquire and apply skills and knowledge. At each Intelligence modifier increase a character gains a specific bonus as detailed bellow.

Intelligence 12: When making an Intelligence skill roll the player may choose to roll a d4 and add the roll to their result. This ability may be used once and refreshes after a long rest.

Intelligence 14: The character gains an additional language of their choice.

Intelligence 16: The character gains proficiency in a skill of their choice.

Intelligence 18: The character gains another language of their choice, and the ability from having a 12 in intelligence refreshes after a short or long rest.

Intelligence 20: The character gains proficiency in an additional skill. When the player makes a skill check they may choose to gain advantage on the roll, this ability may be used once and refreshes after a long rest.

Thoughts? I think it's minor enough to make intelligence slightly more desireable, without overshadowing most other abilities.

[RaynorReynolds]

I like it. Not too overpowered, but still useful. Should any other attributes have similar changes?

[Telesto]

Charisma. I think those two are the closest to dump stat level, with Intelligence slightly worse than Charisma, if the boards have been any indication.

[Democratus]

At our table we use Intelligence as a tie-breaker for initiative.

The number of smart rogues and archers has increased as a result. :smallcool:

[AmbientRaven]

If everyone dumps it, guess your party knows very little about monsters/religion/history ect.

In every game I play the 4 lore stats (all int based) are very important for learning things (ironic isn't it?). if everyone dumped it we would be screwed

[TheFlyingCleric]

Charisma. I think those two are the closest to dump stat level, with Intelligence slightly worse than Charisma, if the boards have been any indication.

Skill checks requiring Charisma usually come up much more often than Intelligence skill checks, which makes the ability score a bit sweeter. For saving throws you're right; CHA saves are only slightly more common than INT saves. Although INT checks come up a lot when illusion spells are involved...


I also have some suggestions for the OP

Put the thresholds at odd scores, not even scores: The reasoning for it is that as you get a +1 modifier boost at the even scores, putting additonal features on odd scores helps even things out a bit. (You can see examples of this in the PHB with Armor STR score requirements as well as Multiclassing minimum scores
Remove the higher bonuses: Unless you make the bonuses so good that it would be sub-optimum to not take them, no one except wizards and perhaps Eldritch knights or arcane tricksters will end up with an INT score above 13 (Other classes simply lose too much from their main scores). This means that bonuses for scores above 13 basically just become extra class features for wizards. Now I do like wizards, but I also like clerics. Don't make the clerics too jealous



On a side note , I do like the idea of INT helping with intiative. I wonder what things would be like if Intelligence was used for initiative rolls instead of Dexterity? Fluff as quick-thinking or something.

[JumboWheat01]

On a side note , I do like the idea of INT helping with intiative. I wonder what things would be like if Intelligence was used for initiative rolls instead of Dexterity? Fluff as quick-thinking or something.

If it was a choice, that would be more interesting. If Intelligence was used instead of Dexterity, classes that are supposed to be quick on their feet and nimble, like Rogues and Rangers, would be severely out-classed by Wizards, who are the only class to really gain any benefit from Intelligence. And it would be absolutely terrible to Assassins, who rely on getting that first hit.

On the other hand, Dexterity does have an awful lot going for it. AC, Initiative, Damage and Hit, Stealth, Lockpicking and Trap Disarming... No wonder it's almost considered the God Stat of this edition.

[Alerad]

Don't tell your players everything. Make them take Intelligence checks (Arcana, Religion, Nature) to successfully identify monsters in combat.

I use the following system.
1 Check = 1 Action
DC 10 - Identify the monster (if they haven't fought it before)
DC 15 - Know the monster's attacks and abilities
DC 20 - Know the monster's resistances and vulnerabilities
DC 25 - If anyone scores that much I'll give them one-time inspiration to use this encounter

On your discretion some classes (Rogue, Ranger with favored enemy) can use a bonus action instead. Or remove the action requirement and make the checks automatic in the beginning of each combat.

Suddenly Intelligence becomes more important.


Also, +1 to the idea of giving bonuses at odd scores.

[Belac93]

Well, for initiative, I like saying that the highest of Wisdom, Dexterity, and Intelligence is used as your initiative. Alternatively, use it as a tie breaker.

[JellyPooga]

Thoughts? I think it's minor enough to make intelligence slightly more desireable, without overshadowing most other abilities.

I kind of like the idea of making Int more valuable.

However, the biggest issue I have with this idea is that, as written, it functionally gives Wizards +2 languages, +2 skill proficiencies, Advantage on one check per long rest and +d4 to one check per short rest. They may as well be Class Features for them and it all feels a bit...Bardic. EK's and AT's will also enjoy this "freebie" (or at least encourage them to take a more aggressive route with their spellcasting). Is this, necessarily a problem? Perhaps not, but it's certainly something worth considering.

[Telesto]

Skill checks requiring Charisma usually come up much more often than Intelligence skill checks, which makes the ability score a bit sweeter. For saving throws you're right; CHA saves are only slightly more common than INT saves. Although INT checks come up a lot when illusion spells are involved...
True, which is also why I would personally make the buffs for charisma be less powerful than those for Intelligence. Something on the order of the 12 ability for Int as a 16 ability.



I also have some suggestions for the OP
Put the thresholds at odd scores, not even scores: The reasoning for it is that as you get a +1 modifier boost at the even scores, putting additonal features on odd scores helps even things out a bit. (You can see examples of this in the PHB with Armor STR score requirements as well as Multiclassing minimum scores

Great idea.


Remove the higher bonuses: Unless you make the bonuses so good that it would be sub-optimum to not take them, no one except wizards and perhaps Eldritch knights or arcane tricksters will end up with an INT score above 13 (Other classes simply lose too much from their main scores). This means that bonuses for scores above 13 basically just become extra class features for wizards. Now I do like wizards, but I also like clerics. Don't make the clerics too jealous

Tiering the bonuses does push people to consider it a potential higher investment. But, I guess a downward tier would work as well, with diminishing returns for higher scores past 15. With 13 adding a skill, and 17 a bonus language, and 15 could be the daily advantage on a skill. 19 could be the short rest for the 11 (previously 12) bonus refresh.


On a side note , I do like the idea of INT helping with intiative. I wonder what things would be like if Intelligence was used for initiative rolls instead of Dexterity? Fluff as quick-thinking or something.

That could easily be a separate variant rule. And I really like it.

[SharkForce]

it's quite simple.

you make sure that there is useful information that can be gained by a knowledge check.

if necessary, have the occasional NPC who has these knowledge skills use them once in a while.

you have now increase the value of the intelligence skills, which in turn increases the value of intelligence. problem solved. so long as there is useful information to be had from nature, history, arcana, and religion checks, intelligence can be quite valuable without doing anything more.

[ruy343]

I like your line of thinking - Intelligence has kind of gotten the shaft in 5e. Similarly, Strength has kind of gotten the shaft too - if you're not playing a barbarian, but you're planning to go melee, you're going to be a dex-based fighter, ranger, or rogue/fighter because they interact and support each other well.

Conversely, in my experience I see waaay too many Charisma-rich characters (After all, there are 3 classes that use it as a primary stat).

In an effort to encourage players to have a decent intelligence score, I have asked the players not to metagame, and required intelligence skill checks to reveal critical information. In the heat of combat, if a player asks why the monster wasn't being hurt, or what spell the wizard is going to cast, I won't tell them unless they roll the check.

In addition, in an effort to encourage strength and intelligence-based characters, I wrote a player class that's a fighter with a strong emphasis on Intelligence titled the Strategist (see my signature, below).

Now, going back to your idea, perhaps instead of rewarding ultra-high intelligence (which int-based characters will have anyway), provide penalties for those who are un-intelligent. Here are some ideas of possible penalties, ordered in a way that I feel is appropriate (please note that these effects are cumulative):

If your intelligence is a 9 or lower, you may not choose specific backgrounds (such as Sage) and start with 10% less starting gold
If your intelligence is a 7 or lower, as above, and you do not learn any languages granted by your background selection
If your intelligence is a 5 or lower, as above, and you start with one fewer skill from your class selection, and you start with an additional 10% less starting gold.
If your intelligence is a 3 or lower, as above, and you do not learn any languages granted by your racial selection.

[Oramac]

Well, for initiative, I like saying that the highest of Wisdom, Dexterity, and Intelligence is used as your initiative. Alternatively, use it as a tie breaker.

There was a thread here a few months back (that I can't find now. :smallmad:) that discussed exactly this.

Basically, it was the fact that all 3 stats factor in to Situational Awareness (https://www.google.com/search?q=Situational+Awareness&oq=Situational+Awareness&aqs=chrome..69i57&sourceid=chrome&ie=UTF-8), which is essentially what Initiative measures.

We came to the conclusion that allowing a player to choose which of the 3 scores determines their initiative would be the simplest solution without breaking the game.

====================

To the OP, I like the idea. It does give Wizards a bit of a power bump since they go for Int regardless, but it's minor enough that it probably won't matter much.

[Hooligan]

If everyone dumps it, guess your party knows very little about monsters/religion/history ect.

In every game I play the 4 lore stats (all int based) are very important for learning things (ironic isn't it?). if everyone dumped it we would be screwed

This.

I suppose (like so much of what we debate on here) the feeling of Int being a dump stat is very table-dependent; Lore checks come up nearly as often as perception checks in most 5e games I've been in.

[SharkForce]

Similarly, Strength has kind of gotten the shaft too - if you're not playing a barbarian, but you're planning to go melee, you're going to be a dex-based fighter, ranger, or rogue/fighter because they interact and support each other well.

uhhh... no. strength is doing great in 5th edition for any melee build. it is a completely viable option. heavy armour is great, athletics is an excellent offensive, defensive, and utility skill, raw strength governs jumping entirely, strength saving throws are commonly needed against melee opponents, it has a large impact on your ability to use shields or heavy weapons (which are probably the two strongest melee builds by a significant margin), it impacts your mobility if you're using heavy armour (which is the highest AC option available)...

there's nothing wrong with strength. i would much rather have a strength-based fighter or paladin, and with the right build i'd even rather see a strength-based rogue than dex-based. either one deals good damage and is tough, but only the strength-based character is going to be an expert at grappling and shoving, which is frankly much more powerful than your damage-dealer going first imo (now, if we're talking spellcaster, heck yeah dex is great... a high initiative wizard that can go first and CC the enemies before they act is a wonderful thing to have on your side).

[Cespenar]

Our DM is constantly letting our Wizard make Lore, History, Arcana and Religion checks to identify any monsters we encounter, also giving out some of their tactics/abilities/etc. on an especially high result. You could make that a group check, allowing players to insert bits and pieces they know together to better prepare against a creature.

[ES Curse]

The status of stats from what I've seen/read:
-STR: Kind of pointless? Yes, STR is important for GWF and PAM builds. But there are too many trade offs. The saving throw isn't terribly useful, and Athletics isn't that big of a game changer unless you like grappling. Otherwise, take DEX.

-DEX: Gives you initiative, really good skills like Stealth and Sleight of Hand, and a more efficient selection of weapon options than STR. DEX saves are really common, so you get that too.

-CON: Despite governing no skills or attacks/features, the extra HP and CON saves are pretty useful for not dying.

-INT: The reason INT feels so bad is because it has no defensive use (remember when you could use it in place of DEX for your AC modifier in 4e?) and only the wizard gets real offensive use out of it. INT saves are only important vs Intellect Devourers, which are an obscure and campaign-specific monster. Yes, the DM can buff knowledge skills to be more important as compensation. But all that does is make the "designated genius" more important at the expense of making the other characters look stupid. It just doesn't have the widespread application of CON and DEX.

-WIS: Governs more important skills like Perception and Insight, WIS saves are one of the go-to options for mental defenses, and a few classes actually use it for their spells. You may dump this for specific builds, but that's the exception rather than the rule.

-CHA: The saves aren't all that great and the skills are pretty all-or-nothing depending on your campaign and how important RP is. The 2 blasty spellcasters and a support caster use it, and sometimes the paladin makes it secondary or tertiary.

Basically, without looking at the actual class, I would view them as DEX > CON,WIS > CHA > STR,INT. STR and INT are useful for specific builds, but wind up as dump stats a lot because characters outside those builds have little if any use for them, whereas everyone likes extra DEX and CON.

[SharkForce]

dex doesn't give you more efficient weapon options than strength. a strength 20 character can use any finesse weapon just as effectively as a dex-based character. they are slightly more limited in long range weapons, but that's about the limit of it.

strength also governs your ability to knock enemies prone because athletics governs your ability to shove things prone, so the strength character can relatively easily get advantage on the great majority of their melee attacks. and also gives advantage to any other melee characters. and uhh... you're actually serious about the strength saving throw not being useful? strength tends to resist all kinds of effects that restrict your movement. on a melee fighter, those saves are critical.

dex skills are great too, don't get me wrong. dex is a perfectly viable build. but there is a trade-off. a dex fighter is not going to be very good at athletics, and yes, athletics really genuinely is that good of a skill for a melee character. sleight of hand is not a great skill (situational at best) though i'll agree stealth is an excellent skill.

for a melee character, strength is by far the superior stat, barring special circumstances (a rogue with the ability to hide as a bonus action makes it a bit better, but even then, the iron scoundrel build gets excellent value out of strength and can still be perfectly competent at stealth checks if so desired). it gives superior melee options and it gives superior mobility. strength is not a bad attribute in 5e.

also, if your paladin is only sometimes caring enough about charisma to make it secondary or tertiary, they should probably rethink that. that level 6 aura is powerful enough that if you had a class with no other abilities, i'd still want to have one in the party. it is, in fact, so good, that i would even consider it occasionally worthwhile to try and find ways to make charisma work as your primary attribute.

[Giant2005]

Maybe it is just an issue of semantics, but I think the reason intelligence is less favored isn't because intelligence is less useful, but because there are less playstyles that are reliant on it.
My homebrew (link in sig) focuses more on providing more options for intelligent characters rather than simply making intelligent characters more powerful. If we simply just beef up intelligence all on its own, then your basically run into one of two outcomes:
1. Intelligence is made slightly more powerful but not enough to encourage anyone but a wizard to get the benefits of it.
2. Intelligence is made a lot more powerful, and you end up with a party of super geniuses.

Wizards don't need a buff, and a group of super geniuses is just as bad as a group of morons imo.

[Telesto]

1. Intelligence is made slightly more powerful but not enough to encourage anyone but a wizard to get the benefits of it.
2. Intelligence is made a lot more powerful, and you end up with a party of super geniuses.

With the right application, though, you end up with PCs considering that a 10-16 in Int is a good investment, but not so much so they will have other stats suffer. In 3.5/Pathfinder Int really shined and PCs would consider investing more in it for the skills. This, in my experience, lead to a lot of PCs dumping Cha in favor of Int. It would be really nice if all stats were balanced in such a way that PCs would be hard pressed to choose a dump stat. With the old primary save stats still sticking with being the primary save stats, it makes it hard to dump any of them. This leaves the three non-save stats. With the boost to Dex putting it on par with Str for damage, that in turn makes Dex a much more valuable statistic. For Int, it isn't used often for saves, and only buffs the skills it is used for, the end result is a decent option for dumping. Cha also is primarily used only for the skills it buffs, again a good dump stat. The end result of this sets Dex/Con/Wis as the best investments (Str replaces Dex for heavy armor builds, though Dex remains important), while Int/Cha/Str make good dump stats. This is a problem, IMO.

[ES Curse]

As I mentioned, DEX/CON/WIS are good even for classes not focused on them because they provide benefits to things that all characters use like initiative, HP, and the Perception skill. The 4 classes that may want STR for 2-Handed weapon buffs (Barbarian, Fighter, Paladin, and Bladelock) still use it almost only for swinging weapons. DEX specialists get bonus initiative, better skills, comparable AC, and DEX saves on top of using it for their weapon attacks. CON is hard to compare to anything else because it's everyone's secondary or tertiary stat.

INT and CHA's relationship to WIS is similar to DEX/STR, but not as extreme. Only the Druid truly mandates WIS, though Cleric/Monk/Ranger get some good perks from WIS too. Similar to CON, some very important defensive/preventative options like WIS saves and Perception/Insight are tied to it, so dumping WIS puts you at risk in fairly common situations. CHA is used by Bards, Warlocks, Sorcerers, and Paladins and comes with some campaign-specific diplomacy skills; INT is used by Wizards and to a lesser degree AT/Mastermind Rouges and EK Fighters with skills that vary in use by how your DM wants to apply knowledge skills. WIS doesn't infringe on the domain of INT/CHA as much as DEX does for STR, but it's hard to think of a time when you would dump WIS over the other mental stats.