Anyone ever roleplay a headband of intellect wearer?

[Douche]

There was an episode of Futurama like this, where a monkey got a special hat that made him a genius.

I wonder if anyone has ever done a story like this, where they started as an 8 intellect character and ended up getting a Headband of Intellect.

I once was in a game where I played "low int" like in the good ole RPGs, talked like a sterotypical "throggar" barbarian the whole time. Made stupid decisions. I left before it came to fruition, but I wanted to obtain a Headband of Intellect to make my character no longer a simpleton.

[DMThac0]

I read somewhere once: "You can't play a character smarter than you actually are". The same holds true for Wisdom and Charisma.

That creates the only hiccup in what you're referring to, however that's not quite the answer to the question.

I played a wizard, I purposely gave him a 10 intellect, just enough to make him viable but not anything spectacular. I've referenced, to my players, that the stat bumps could easily indicate a level of education, 8 being high school equivalent, up to 20 where you are technically smarter than Einstein and Hawkings put together. So that gave a starting point for how I played my character.

As time went on I ended up getting him up to around a 16 intelligence, a major difference in his smarts. I had a blast changing how he spoke and making his entire personality shift. He went from a like-able person who did well in his field, but wasn't too familiar with anything else. He spoke with words that any lay person could understand. He was also eager to soak up any information he could. In the end he wound up being pretentious, wordy, and condescending to anyone he felt wasn't at his level of intellect. My players thought it was an interesting way to play him, and they wanted to punch him in the nose all the time.

[Monster Manuel]

I had one, once.

The first time I had the character put it on, I didn't play it off as any big deal. There were a few "woah, I understand trigonometry now!" jokes, and that was it. Played him as essentially the same character, just with a better memory and more of a tendency to think things through.

Then he took it off, and went back to being an idiot (needed the head slot for something else).

When he put it back on, that's where I had it get interesting. He went back to his lofty intelligence, but THIS time, remembered who he was before, and understood everything he had lost when he took it off. Got it into his head that, with the headband on, he was an entirely different person, and he was never going to go back to the simpleton he was before, ever again. Now I started shifting his personality around, even changed his name. Fun stuff.

[ZorroGames]

“Hey, I just had this brilliant insight but... I can’t quite find the words to explain it.”

Adjustment issues...

[ErHo]

I party is in the same boat, 1/2 Orc Bearbarian somehow granted the headband by the other members as a joke to his 6 Int score.

Other than the same jokes mentioned above, he really only uses it to pitch in on skill checks.

I'm disappointed in their creativity

[Avigor]

My recommendation for inspiration for an item that enhances one's intellect (perhaps more applicable if it increases an already high Intelligence but I'd argue applicable regardless) is also a slight spoiler for the Harry Potter fanfic series, The Arithmancer / Lady Archimedes (yes one of my favorite fanfics, I'm torn between eagerness to see the upcoming final chapters and pain that it's ending), so spoiler tag for anyone who just wants to read a more detailed explanation:
During the 7th Year Horcrux Hunt, Hermione manages to remove the Horcrux from the Diadem of Rowena Ravenclaw without destroying it, and discovers that she's the only person she knows who can actually handle it because of the way she's trained herself for years to use her subconscious brainpower for mathematical party tricks and such. As for what it does, it gives the wearer full conscious access to their subconscious brain power, unlocking eidetic memory and increasing overall processing speed, at the cost of disabling the subconscious to conscious filters, thereby making her hyper-aware of all of her sensory input at all times while wearing it. She has to take precautions to avoid being overwhelmed by distractions such as bright light, rough clothing, sounds of any kind, smells, the works; she even takes to using her wand to levitate chalk when she's using a blackboard for her work while using the Diadem. Her boyfriend, who I won't name as his identity isn't relevant, gets concerned about how carried away she gets when on a major work binge with the Diadem, forgetting to take proper care of herself, not sleeping properly, isolating herself, relying on cleaning charms instead of taking baths, using a fancy alchemical method she'd developed to convert wood and dirt into edible food (getting around the HP transfiguration rules by rearranging molecules instead of transfiguring them) in lieu of joining the rest of the hunt party for meals, etc, so he establishes a signal that he's about to take the Diadem off so she can prepare herself so the removal is less of a shock to her system. She even admits at one point that overuse can push her into a total breakdown.
Spoiler-free version: Roleplay the item as breaking down the barriers between the conscious and subconscious minds in order to give one more processing power and memory access. Pretend that everything is distracting, have the wearer react to bright lights and loud sounds in a manner similar to someone with a hangover, make them (or someone who cares about them) take it off from time to time because overuse can lead them to a mental breakdown, etc. Sensory overload distraction would counter the hyper-awareness with regards to Perception checks and the like to keep the mechanical influence purely on Intelligence, unless such an item was houseruled to also enhance Wisdom.

[DMThac0]

Roleplay the item as breaking down the barriers between the conscious and subconscious minds in order to give one more processing power and memory access. Pretend that everything is distracting, have the wearer react to bright lights and loud sounds in a manner similar to someone with a hangover, make them (or someone who cares about them) take it off from time to time because overuse can lead them to a mental breakdown, etc. Sensory overload distraction would counter the hyper-awareness with regards to Perception checks and the like to keep the mechanical influence purely on Intelligence, unless such an item was houseruled to also enhance Wisdom.

I rather like this, the overload of information, the inability to distill it effectively, and the toll it takes on the psyche. I may have to play with this concept as an NPC in my world...the mad scientist, but not because of a poor life decision, because he can see algorithms the same way we can see pollen on the wind. A mathematical synesthete!

[Dyndrilliac]

I would treat a character's relationship between them and their headband of intellect the same as The Thinker (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Thinker_(DC_Comics))'s relationship to his thinking cap. Sure, it can make dumb people smart, but it's intended to make already smart people omniscient with god-like intellect.

[Angelalex242]

In practice, headbands of intellects are not for wizards. Every wizard is going to start with int 16 (or 17) and quickly get to 20 with his first two ASIs. Since the headband sets your Int to 19, it's most useful for eldritch knights and arcane tricksters, who probably aren't maxing out their Intelligence.

[Arial Black]

My current PC is a Bar 1/War (fiendish bladelock) 5. Great rolled stats, but I have to live with Int 6.

Or I did, until I got my brand spanking new Headband of Intellect!

The role-play of this is inspired by the film Limitless, where taking an intelligence-enhancing pill allows you to fully access everything you've ever consciously or unconsciously seen, heard or otherwise experienced, and to make astonishing connections between every single piece of information.

Our hero suddenly got over his writer's block and finished his book in a day. Could now speak Mandarin because of being around people who were speaking it during his life, remember every sentence he ever read, and come up with unlikely connections.

My PC has no abilities which key off intelligence, and is not proficient in any Int-based skill. Although, pre-Headband, I could attempt any Int skill check I liked (albeit at -2), for role-playing purposes I never bothered to try because my PC is wise enough to realise that he is not the smart guy.

With the Headband I not only now get +4 to those Int skill checks, I choose to attempt every Int check because I can now make connections that I never could before. I even frequently ask the DM if I can, say, work out where in the building the treasure vault is most likely to be, where the exits are most likely to be located, and other such things; attempts that would not even occur to me before.

I also got Eyes of Minute Seeing, giving me advantage on (most) Investigation checks. Wearing specs even makes me look intelligent, despite being built like a brick shi outhouse! :smallsmile: