I have 3 Intelligence, and come from a culture where children name themselves...

[Lonely Tylenol]

So, I’m starting a new campaign where dwarves have names that are unpronounceable in common tongues, and so dwarves who set out into the world give themselves a name others can pronounce.

I also have three Intelligence (4d6, drop lowest; I rolled four 1s). None of my other stats are great, but I could make a decent Brute Fighter (starting with 17 Strength, 15 Con) if I apply Mountain Dwarf bonuses, so that’s my direction. (The other three stats are 11, 10, 10, so I’m not even capable of being a good Barbarian.)

I’ve decided that my character was cast out from his clan many years ago due to being unable to function as a member of society due to his inability to learn, or understand laws and consequences in the abstract sense. At some point, he’s lost what little semblance of culture he had from his clan, and become more of an animal given Humanoid shape than anything else, but for the sake of adventuring, he needs to have a name he refers to himself as, and for others to refer to him as.

So, what is my name?

[Sigreid]

Fluffy. You know, because dwarves are so hairy. And as a really dumb dwarf tank I think it's hilarious.

[Nidgit]

Obviously your name needs to be monosyllabic and simple.

Personally I'd go for something like Me ("I am Me") or Yor ("What's your name?" *points to self* "Yor? I am Yor?")

[Misterwhisper]

So, I’m starting a new campaign where dwarves have names that are unpronounceable in common tongues, and so dwarves who set out into the world give themselves a name others can pronounce.

I also have three Intelligence (4d6, drop lowest; I rolled four 1s). None of my other stats are great, but I could make a decent Brute Fighter (starting with 17 Strength, 15 Con) if I apply Mountain Dwarf bonuses, so that’s my direction. (The other three stats are 11, 10, 10, so I’m not even capable of being a good Barbarian.)

I’ve decided that my character was cast out from his clan many years ago due to being unable to function as a member of society due to his inability to learn, or understand laws and consequences in the abstract sense. At some point, he’s lost what little semblance of culture he had from his clan, and become more of an animal given Humanoid shape than anything else, but for the sake of adventuring, he needs to have a name he refers to himself as, and for others to refer to him as.

So, what is my name?

Ironaxe Stonebeard of House Orehammer, the dwarfiest name you could think of.

[Lonely Tylenol]

Obviously your name needs to be monosyllabic and simple.

Personally I'd go for something like Me ("I am Me") or Yor ("What's your name?" *points to self* "Yor? I am Yor?")

Funnily enough, “Me” is already what I have written on my character sheet, as a placeholder! The idea being, he is smart enough to have a concept of self (as even toddlers are), but not developed enough language or conceptual knowledge to separate “me”, the first-person pronoun, from “Me”, the name I call myself.

I might roll with this if I can’t find anything better.

[Nifft]

Obviously your name needs to be monosyllabic and simple.

Monosyllabic words:

- Int
- Smart
- Brain
- Think
- Wit
- Lore
- Wise
- Book
- Teach
- Right
- True
- Fact
- Antidisestablishmentarianism
- Mind

[MaxWilson]

Funnily enough, “Me” is already what I have written on my character sheet, as a placeholder! The idea being, he is smart enough to have a concept of self (as even toddlers are), but not developed enough language or conceptual knowledge to separate “me”, the first-person pronoun, from “Me”, the name I call myself.

I might roll with this if I can’t find anything better.

Is he even smart enough to have a theory of mind? At Int 3 he's only as smart as a dog. I can see a dog recognizing its own name, but introducing itself? I kind of doubt that. "Me" seems a little too self-aware.

Therefore I suggest a less self-referential name, a name that someone else might have bestowed upon him accidentally: Heyu, or Yu for short. As in, "Heyu, get out of my way," and "Heyu, clean this bar stool."

[Lonely Tylenol]

Is he even smart enough to have a theory of mind? At Int 3 he's only as smart as a dog. I can see a dog recognizing its own name, but introducing itself? I kind of doubt that. "Me" seems a little too self-aware.

I’m using developmental benchmarks to determine roughly where he’d fit, and decided on between 18 and 24 months for developmental and behavioral benchmarks. At 18 months, children are just beginning to differentiate between themselves and their reflection in a mirror, and are moving from nonsense words into sentences of 2 to 3 words in length. So not only would he have a sense of self (though, developmentally, it would still be novel to him), he’d also be able to point at himself and say, “me” (or “you”, as other people point to him and he pairs others pointing at him and the word “you” together out of recognition), or, as the rogue to my left is now taking to it, “him”. Rather than being too self-aware, it seems to be about as self-aware as he’d be capable of, with just enough language and social experience to manage the pairing.

[Arathryth]

Enchantment?
...
...
...
Enchantment!

[Spore]

- Wit


I think that is far enough from a word that it looses all other meaning once you use it often enough as a name instead of its meaning as a noun. And the nickname could be "Witty".

[ImproperJustice]

Daisy: because it makes you smile, so it was the one word you learned.

Being the parent of a toddler who has a similar state of mind, you could go by the following summary of her vocabulary:

Dada (used to identify father and self)
Baba ( means book)
Up
Cup
More (means hungry)
Do Do (means baby shark)
La La (means Elmo)
Lee Lee (means blanket)

And of course:
No (which means yes, no, and everything else).

[thoroughlyS]

I think you should play off of the importance parents give to the nonsense words (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mama_and_papa) infants can form. I would go with "Babble", because it is entirely within reason that your toddler-level intelligence leads you to just rambling off gibberish.

[Teaguethebean]

I think you should go with Me it would be extremely charming and I think your party would love it also it could cause funny moments when people are talking about you but it just causes more confusion

[Tiadoppler]

Your name is "what"

As in
"Okay, kiddo, what is your name"

[Wilb]

MeadBeard Axehand.

He says his name while weaving around his axe "me be axe hand".

[SaintRidley]

Meep Mop. Because Meep Mop.

[BobZan]

Can't even be Groot, Groot is smarter

[nickl_2000]

With an intelligence of 3 you are at an animalist level, so you really should be looking at the earliest form of speech since you will be able to do little else.

The first sounds that my children developed were
Ma
Da
Ba
Pa
Ga
Wa

I would make most words the character can say be based on one or multiple versions of those.

WaDa or WaBa would make for a fine name and one that can be spoken by an 18 month old human (in fact WaBa is my 18 month olds favorite thing to say).

[Laserlight]

One of my first D&D characters, back in the early 80s, was a dwarf fighter. Roll four, take the best three; I rolled something like 1 1 1 3 and said "How do you define best, exactly? Can I drop the 3?"

Grog had an active vocabulary of five words: Grog, Dog (pet wardog who was smarter than his master), Drink, Orc, Gold. He could understand a few other words ("Stop!") but didn't use them himself.

Since Grog was heavily armored, he tended to be at the front of the party. When the guy at the front of the party says "Orc!" because that's his generic word for Enemy, but the enemy he just sighted is actually a Beholder, well, it's awkward.


One of Grog's most memorable moments was when we went into a room and discovered a sword on the floor.
Grog picked it up and shook it to see if it felt magic; nothing happened, so he tossed it behind him.
There was a metallic clatter, behind him, so Grog spun around, ready for action. There was nothing there except a sword lying on the floor.
Grog picked it up and shook it to see if it felt magic; nothing happened, so he tossed it behind him.
There was a metallic clatter, behind him, so Grog spun around, ready for action. There was no enemy there, just a sword lying on the floor.
Grog picked it up and shook it to see if it felt magic; nothing happened, and the cleric hastily said "Grog, hand me that."

[Misterwhisper]

One of my first D&D characters, back in the early 80s, was a dwarf fighter. Roll four, take the best three; I rolled something like 1 1 1 3 and said "How do you define best, exactly? Can I drop the 3?"

Grog had an active vocabulary of five words: Grog, Dog (pet wardog who was smarter than his master), Drink, Orc, Gold. He could understand a few other words ("Stop!") but didn't use them himself.

Since Grog was heavily armored, he tended to be at the front of the party. When the guy at the front of the party says "Orc!" because that's his generic word for Enemy, but the enemy he just sighted is actually a Beholder, well, it's awkward.


One of Grog's most memorable moments was when we went into a room and discovered a sword on the floor.
Grog picked it up and shook it to see if it felt magic; nothing happened, so he tossed it behind him.
There was a metallic clatter, behind him, so Grog spun around, ready for action. There was nothing there except a sword lying on the floor.
Grog picked it up and shook it to see if it felt magic; nothing happened, so he tossed it behind him.
There was a metallic clatter, behind him, so Grog spun around, ready for action. There was no enemy there, just a sword lying on the floor.
Grog picked it up and shook it to see if it felt magic; nothing happened, and the cleric hastily said "Grog, hand me that."

Had a similar situation in 3.0 3.5.

Played a Grappling specialist, Shifter barbarian/master shifter who would turn into a were bear form and crush people but he had an INT of 4.
We soon noticed that the paladin's horse had an Int of 6.
I spent time with the horse and it would tutor me on things and nudge me when I needed it.

His game plan was always the same, Rage > Shift into were bear form > Charge > Grapple.
With the way you could boost skills and things back then, I could beat any creature in the MM at a grapple check without ever dropping dice.

More than once though I charged and attempted to grapple things that were a bad idea, like earlier where I charged and tried to grapple an Ocher Jelly.

Once he charged and grabbed a Black Dragon before it could get off the ground, ended up choking a dragon to death yelling, "Stop being a bad guy!"
It became so common that the DM just started throwing in some big thug in most fights to keep me occupied.

[Guy Lombard-O]

I think actually speaking words might well be beyond a 3 Int. Maybe just have him obey simple commands.

Until one of the party casters reaches higher levels. Then they should try an Awaken on him. I think it should work (he's basically a beast-man anyhow).

[GlenSmash!]

Hit or Hits. As in "I hit!" or "I hits!"

It is both the declaration of what he does and who he is.

[thoroughlyS]

With an intelligence of 3 you are at an animalist level, so you really should be looking at the earliest form of speech since you will be able to do little else.

The first sounds that my children developed were
Ma
Da
Ba
Pa
Ga
Wa
This is why I said it should be "Babble". Or, more appropriately, "Ba-bəl". A pair of simple syllables that even a toddler could say. But also one which has an actual meaning.

[Luccan]

“Me”, the name I call myself.


How about "Fa"?

[Snails]

How about "Hoo"?

As in "Who are you?" "Who is my favorite baby boy? Yes you are!" "Who dropped the bowl of stew?"

The comic potential!

Any Abbot and Costello fans out there?

[Vingelot]

He obviously needs to be called either Dunning, Kruger, or Genius.

[Azreal]

How about "Fa"?

Seems a long long stretch.

[nickl_2000]

Seems a long long stretch.

It is a long, long way to run.

That's for sure

[OracularPoet]

Hodor!

Hodor.

[furby076]

I’m using developmental benchmarks to determine roughly where he’d fit, and decided on between 18 and 24 months for developmental and behavioral benchmarks. At 18 months, children are just beginning to differentiate between themselves and their reflection in a mirror, and are moving from nonsense words into sentences of 2 to 3 words in length. So not only would he have a sense of self (though, developmentally, it would still be novel to him), he’d also be able to point at himself and say, “me” (or “you”, as other people point to him and he pairs others pointing at him and the word “you” together out of recognition), or, as the rogue to my left is now taking to it, “him”. Rather than being too self-aware, it seems to be about as self-aware as he’d be capable of, with just enough language and social experience to manage the pairing.

Don't put so much doubt on 18 to 24 months old. My daughter, by 15 months, knew how to sign language a few words (please, more, white, blue). She also had a sense of self at that age. We would say "who's cute"and she would respond "Me" or her name. She knew more than 2-3 word sentences was at 16 months. We were actually starting to worry as to when she would speak, then she just started...and now at 29 months won't stop (we love it). At 18-24 months old your character will easily be able to tell between himself and his mirror image. He will also know how to use utensils (though he may ignore it). He may start getting ready for potty training, but the group may wanna carry some diapers. Someone will need to help him bathe.

Honestly, not sure how you won't be bored playing this guy if you play him too dumb. I mean, other than combat, you will do absolutely nothing because your character is too stupid to do anything. There is a reason why point buy has 8 as min stat, and I highly recommend you ask your DM let you get that, or just ignore your 3 and play a character as if he had an 8 int....so you can, you know, roleplay. I wouldn't want this PC in my group. It would be too disruptive. Cute for maybe half a session, then I'd try and ditch him in the woods

[McSkrag]

Enchantment?
...
...
...
Enchantment!

Dude, your references are out of control, everyone knows that.

[Lonely Tylenol]

Don't put so much doubt on 18 to 24 months old. My daughter, by 15 months, knew how to sign language a few words (please, more, white, blue). She also had a sense of self at that age. We would say "who's cute"and she would respond "Me" or her name. She knew more than 2-3 word sentences was at 16 months. We were actually starting to worry as to when she would speak, then she just started...and now at 29 months won't stop (we love it). At 18-24 months old your character will easily be able to tell between himself and his mirror image. He will also know how to use utensils (though he may ignore it). He may start getting ready for potty training, but the group may wanna carry some diapers. Someone will need to help him bathe.

Oh, I know. I work in special education, and have worked with the full range of abilities and needs children, going from “fifth grader who reads at college level” to “third grader who still packs a change of clothes in case of accident” and beyond. Trust that when I’m referring to developmental benchmarks, I’m referring to standards of growth and development—but everyone is different, and there will be outliers. I’ve already decided he’s capable of eating stew with a soup (with some spilling), walking up and down stairs (two feet per each step), responding to simple commands, and so on and so forth.


Honestly, not sure how you won't be bored playing this guy if you play him too dumb. I mean, other than combat, you will do absolutely nothing because your character is too stupid to do anything. There is a reason why point buy has 8 as min stat, and I highly recommend you ask your DM let you get that, or just ignore your 3 and play a character as if he had an 8 int....so you can, you know, roleplay. I wouldn't want this PC in my group. It would be too disruptive. Cute for maybe half a session, then I'd try and ditch him in the woods

There’s a difference between “can do” and “will do”... I can’t capably do much, but that doesn’t mean I won’t do anything. In the last session, I was asked to find the source of a noise upstairs in a keep, with three rooms along a hallway. I freaked out and threw the chamberpot down the hall after sniffing it, and I got lost twice (being unable to remember which rooms I had been in, I rolled randomly to determine each room I went into), but I eventually found the source of the noise! ...Or rather, it found me. And when I tried to go back down the stairs to lead it to the others, I fell and hurt my knee and cried a lot.

Anyway, point is, you can roleplay being terribly bad at something, which is exactly what I plan to do. And since everyone at this table is at least a decade-long veteran, and agreed to this character upon seeing it rolled, I’m gonna play it a decent span of time.

...And worst case, it does go sour for the party, and it’s a West Marches game, so that character uses up one of the three I’m allowed, and I move on to something else.

[iTreeby]

Your character should name himself "Big Time". You can also reply to most things with the phrase "Big Time!" or "Yeah, Big Time."

[stewstew5]

Is he even smart enough to have a theory of mind? At Int 3 he's only as smart as a dog. I can see a dog recognizing its own name, but introducing itself? I kind of doubt that. "Me" seems a little too self-aware.

You give dogs too little credit. They're pack animals and have a highly developed sense of you vs. I, communication, and group dynamics. What limits them from "introducing themselves" is poor vocal chords and a marked deficiency in data retention & application. Maybe a cockatoo?

[jdolch]

Personally I'd go for something like Me ("I am Me") or Yor ("What's your name?" *points to self* "Yor? I am Yor?")

I like that. Or maybe "Huh". Because everytime someone is saying something to him, he turns around, stares blankly and says: "Huh?" and after a while people started calling him Huh.

On a side Note: Normally I would say: Reroll your stats, I would be surprised if your DM wouldn't allow it. Now you seem to be rolling with this pretty well, so maybe it's ok. BUT I would make double sure that EVERYBODY in the Party is ok with having to basically babysit a mentally handicapped 3 year old through the whole campaign. Because as somebody who was there, done that and got the T-Shirt, let me tell you: It gets old really fast. Especially if that someone plays his low INT, High Str as "I just punch my way through every Situation". Sure this sounds hilarious and sometimes it is but, again, it gets old really fast if you have distract and micromanage the big baby at all times or any social situation results in a fight. Also if you actually play him as THAT stupid, he's not gonna live long. Remember Bubba from Forrest Gump? That guy is a frickin Genius compared to your guy.


You give dogs too little credit. They're pack animals and have a highly developed sense of you vs. I, communication, and group dynamics. What limits them from "introducing themselves" is poor vocal chords and a marked deficiency in data retention & application. Maybe a cockatoo?

All of that is true. But they run almost on pure instinct. So everything that's covered by that instinct they do pretty well. But they are (except in very rare cases) unable to plan. My dogs have seen me open the room door hundreds of times. They could easily jump up on the handle and open the door and they still can't do it because they can't plan in "What if" scenarios. The thought of "What if i just jump up and press the handle down?" never enters their mind. If i would lift them and use their paws to open the door and do that a couple of times and reward them for it, then they would learn it and could do it. I am not gonna do that for obvious reasons but you get my point.

Now an interesting Question is: If i would show them how to open the living room door, would they then be able to transfer that knowledge to open other doors?

Edit: Notice how D&D stats are a bit wonky? So you have INT3, which on one hand is basically mediocre animal level. On the other hand. INT3 mechanically means you have a modifier of -4 on your Int-checks. this means you still have a reasonable chance to accomplish DC15 (medium) tasks. (As in you can do it about 10% of the time)

[Laserlight]

My dogs have seen me open the room door hundreds of times. They could easily jump up on the handle and open the door and they still can't do it because they can't plan in "What if" scenarios. The thought of "What if i just jump up and press the handle down?" never enters their mind.

Zoe Mutt, our Lab/Chow, figured out on her own how to unlatch and open our sliding glass door. Gripping the wooden handle with her teeth made splinters which cut up her mouth, but she persisted until she got it open. I put pepper oil and bitter apple on the (replacement) handle but that did not dissuade her. I eventually had to wrap the (re-replacement) handle with rope so she didn't leave blood on everything near.

[Sirithhyando]

"you" is definitely the best choice, because :

http://4.bp.blogspot.com/_YFeJU1zVO3I/TP0CYODc-VI/AAAAAAAAA4U/hWqd8xKjyuM/s1600/33424_1334430122985_1298032240_30782717_4988766_n. jpg

[LtPowers]

With an intelligence of 3 you are at an animalist level, so you really should be looking at the earliest form of speech since you will be able to do little else.

I think that's difficult to support.

Speech does not correlate directly with intelligence. There are beasts (which by definition do not have INT scores above 3) in the MM that have language.

The primary obstacle to a very young child's speech is not intelligence but muscle control and coordination. In fact, children exposed to sign language often start forming words and sentences earlier than those exposed to aural language. Despite the manual dexterity needed to sign, it's still easier than coordinating lips, tongue, and vocal cords.

From these facts, I would conclude, then, that an adult humanoid with INT 3 would be perfectly capable of speaking any word intelligibly. He may not understand every word he hears, but he knows what words are and uses the ones he knows correctly. The main speech-related limitation for an INT 3 humanoid would be vocabulary.

It also doesn't take much intelligence for a creature to learn what names are and how they're used. Young children often have difficulty pronouncing certain phonemes, which can result in garbled nicknames for family members, but for an adult humanoid that shouldn't be an issue. The character in question should be able to identify individuals by name and pronounce those names correctly.

As for his own name, the character would likely pick an existing word that he found appealing in sound, or a noun that represents something appealing. Probably limited to two syllables.


Powers &8^]

[FieserMoep]

Bam Bam of course.
Use a wooden cudgel for bonus points.

[PastorofMuppets]

Aren’t you not sentient with a 3 intelligence? I am pretty sure I read that 5 is the minimum to be considered self aware.

[FieserMoep]

I think there is some fundamental line at Int 4 regarding some spells?
In high fantasy faerun stuff from 1-4 is sentience I'd say and stuff from 5-X is sapient.

[greenfunkman]

'Bop'

'I Bop'

[Beleriphon]

Aren’t you not sentient with a 3 intelligence? I am pretty sure I read that 5 is the minimum to be considered self aware.

In theory non-intelligent undead like zombies and skeletons are sentient. They can tell themselves from not themselves. You're referring to sapient which usually defines higher level intelligence processes like planning and memory.

[Battlebooze]

I like the idea of naming him after his favorite food, or activity.

Stew.

Hammer.

Smash.

Crush.

Soup.

Pork Chop.

Bacon.

I think I like the food names the best. "Bacon kill monster!"