3 int?

[BIGMamaSloth]

Im going to be a half orc barbarian and will be having three intelligence. Ive role played 6 or 5 intelligence but i could use some help really figuring out what to do with 3 int.

[RufusCorvus]

Grunt and drool a lot. 3 Intelligence is only slightly above a dog or a horse. You can speak, but you'll probably be worse at it than your average caveman.

[Morph Bark]

Grunt and drool a lot. 3 Intelligence is only slightly above a dog or a horse. You can speak, but you'll probably be worse at it than your average caveman.

Especially since your average caveman (assuming Neanderthal) has an average Int of 8 or 9.

[KillianHawkeye]

You probably have a hard time using two or more words in a row. You can't follow complex instructions, and take everything in the most literal way possible. You don't understand how anything works, which is why you enjoy smashing things so very, very much. Your grasp of morality--as well as the motives of others in general--is extremely primitive, so you tend to seperate people into categories like "friend" and "smash" and don't understand when the Paladin says you can't smash someone who isn't your friend. Hopefully, you have someone in the party who you've put your complete trust in, so they can help you make decisions that are above your ability to contemplate. If somebody asks you a question, don't be afraid to shrug and say "I dunno."

[Callista]

Not necessarily dumb as a brick; not if you look at the odds.

My impulse is to do this by the numbers. If you assume that the D&D world is populated by people who roll on 3d6 for stats, then the number of people who roll a 4 or lower is (4/216), or 1 in 54 people. (There's one way to roll a 3 and 3 ways to roll a 4, and a total of 216 possible 3d6 combinations.)

So you're looking at being the lowest INT in any average group of 54 people, basically the guy at the bottom of your high school homeroom. If you're looking at IQs, that's about 60 to 70, or the very top part of mild cognitive disability. This group of people, in adulthood, is living on their own and working to support themselves, usually at a relatively simple job, and will probably have a vocational diploma with the equivalent of about a sixth-grade education, plus possibly a certificate program. If you met them you would know they weren't especially bright, but it wouldn't be particularly obvious.

So you don't have to play them as extremely dumb; you've got more leeway than being forced to play a "cave man".

[BIGMamaSloth]

wow thanks a lot i was probably thinking ten dumb as brick thing but that last one put some new ideas in my head too!

[Galsiah]

if you posted your other mental stats, we could probably give you a better overview of how to play this guy's 3 int right

[Foryn Gilnith]

You're about as smart as a Tarrasque, a Grey Render, a Tendriculos, a Grick, or a Basilisk. If the behavior of the Grick can be seen as representative, teamwork is probably slightly problematic for you. Most of the example monsters seem fairly single-minded, focused entirely on their hunting drive, save for the Grey Render and its bonding patterns.

[BlueWizard]

This can be fun... I usually ended up getting my dumb PC killed doing something stupid. But, then I really got into my characters.

[The Dark Fiddler]

If you assume that the D&D world is populated by people who roll on 3d6 for stats...

You can't do that though; there's the standard and elite array of stats for a reason.

[Leecros]

Ahh, reminds me of a Wilder i played once. She had an int of 6 and would run around shouting "Heal! Heeeaalll!!" whenever someone got injured despite not actually having a healing spell and got powers based on how 'pretty' she could make them look.

as far as PC's go she was one of the least effective characters i've ever played , but she was entertaining to play...

After awhile she went on to be an Anarchic Initiate... Lemme tell ya, people who are not smart should not be allowed to pierce reality and punch a 10ft hole into the outer plane of Limbo...

[Coidzor]

Well, you can think of him as a phenomenally stupid human ala Fallout/Arcanum or as a very intelligent ape.

Although, debateably, the great apes are probably more accurately modeled as 5-6 Int in D&D.

A griffon is smarter than you though.

You can't do that though; there's the standard and elite array of stats for a reason.

Well, you can, the standard and elite array of stats are for when the DM doesn't want to roll for stats and wants to take a "typical" example.

[Jallorn]

You probably have a hard time using two or more words in a row. You can't follow complex instructions, and take everything in the most literal way possible. You don't understand how anything works, which is why you enjoy smashing things so very, very much. Your grasp of morality--as well as the motives of others in general--is extremely primitive, so you tend to seperate people into categories like "friend" and "smash" and don't understand when the Paladin says you can't smash someone who isn't your friend. Hopefully, you have someone in the party who you've put your complete trust in, so they can help you make decisions that are above your ability to contemplate. If somebody asks you a question, don't be afraid to shrug and say "I dunno."

A few of these stray into the realm of Wisdom and Charisma. Int is cleverness and book-smarts.

Depending on your other stats, I feel that you should play him as rather childlike. That is, he just simply doesn't understand a lot. if he has a high Wis, he should be aware of this, though he's also probably very perceptive of others as well in that case. Basically, he's dumb, he knows just about enough to get by, and even that is a little questionable. He is almost certainly going to be acting mostly on instinct, rather single minded, and very unthinking, so bad at planning.

[Leecros]

Well, you can, the standard and elite array of stats are for when the DM doesn't want to roll for stats and wants to take a "typical" example.

well technically a DM can do anything he/she wants.


there was a guy in my one group(we took turns DMing a campaign) and five minute into every story he started an asteroid hit the planet and everyone died. Rocks fall, everyone dies FTL


it got annoying to the point where we just quit letting him DM...because we'd spend half an hour making characters only to have them die five minutes later...

[Coidzor]

well technically a DM can do anything he/she wants.


there was a guy in my one group(we took turns DMing a campaign) and five minute into every story he started an asteroid hit the planet and everyone died. Rocks fall, everyone dies FTL


it got annoying to the point where we just quit letting him DM...because we'd spend half an hour making characters only to have them die five minutes later...

How, pray tell, does having characters running around who've had their stats rolled translate into rocks fall, everyone dies, no one has any fun, change DMs?

[KillianHawkeye]

How, pray tell, does having characters running around who've had their stats rolled translate into rocks fall, everyone dies, no one has any fun, change DMs?

I don't think those were meant to be related.

[Susano-wo]

I'd have to second or third the "you are not book smart, but depending on wisdom, you might have a lot of intuition with high WIS, and strong personality with high CHA.

You can look at other INT 3 critters for int level, but I much prefer a generalized view of it. It allows you to play the char you want. THe 3 INT is represented, and is a situational as well as statistical disadvantage, but doesn't need you to figure out exactly how smart int 3 is.

Incidentally: what are the lowest range of INT 4 monsters? since even going with strict INT 3 is X mentality, you can be anywhere up to the border of INT 4

(oh, and just because something is 1 number higher, does not *necessarily* mean that its just a little bit better. To put it a differnt way, you could say you are 1.5x smarter than the smartest animal (animals are way smarter than DnD gives them credit for, even by human standards, but that's another discussion)

[Claudius Maximus]

Just watch Forrest Gump. Maybe be a bit dumber than that, but not too much. Your character should at least be functional, but dumb as a brick.

[Lev]

Barbarian with low int = Animalistic


Most people can't even fathom how someone with low int functions because of the negative connotations that people have with it in society.

It's just more simple, don't be calculated-- but that doesn't mean be a buffoon, it just means add less steps involved in your actions. There is a large clarity to having low Int, less to get in the way of the application of Wis.

The wizard might stop and plan things out, but the Barbarian knows what needs to happen now, he can sense the situation out and see the answer, not that he has all the right information, but he can easily make an A to B plan, but maybe never an A to C to B plan.

[Leecros]

How, pray tell, does having characters running around who've had their stats rolled translate into rocks fall, everyone dies, no one has any fun, change DMs?

the point i was making was

well technically a DM can do anything he/she wants.

followed up by a personal experience of this phenomenon happening


the secondary point is that while there is the standard and elite array of stats. Does not mean that a DM has to use it and could very well roll up whatever NPC he/she wants....even every villager if he really felt content to. Granted i'm not sure why one would since you would be rolling all day long...but i have seen stranger things.



that should answer your question unless i didn't understand it correctly.

[Ravens_cry]

3 is, basically, as dumb as a person can get. They don't really have a Past or a Future, they live in the the ever present Now. They might intuitively make some good judgement calls (high wisdom), they might have other people drawn to follow them (high charisma), but they don't plan this. They rarely plan anything; they just Do. The line between action and thought for them is blurry, and impulsive would be a good description of them. If someone angers them, they will let them know and rarely with words. The refined, but pointless, things will probably just frustrate them, like almost any form of manners and taboo. Polite society will consider them crass, brutish and savage, and will probably be right.
You want to play (alignment) dumb? Well here's your chance because three intelligence is dumb.

[Ragitsu]

The Joker has Int 3?

[Illithid Savant]

Just curious, but why do you have 3 intelligence?

[Callista]

You can't do that though; there's the standard and elite array of stats for a reason.

...which is mostly convenience. Do you really want to roll stats for every Random Joe NPC? It's impossible to convert the standard array (10, 10, 10, 11, 11, 11) to anything like IQ anyway; that array has a standard deviation of 0.55, and a score of 3 on that scale, converted to an IQ bell curve with a standard deviation of 15, is equal to an IQ score of -105... which is negative, and obviously nonsensical because the variance is too low. Real people are a lot more variable than that.

If you use the elite array (15, 14, 13, 12, 10, 8), then you end up with a mean of 12, which is 1.5 points higher than the mean of 3d6, and a standard deviation of 2.6. Assuming an SD15 IQ scale with IQ 100, and correcting for the artificially high mean so that it falls at 10.5, you end up with an IQ conversion of 57.

3d6 has a standard deviation of 3.24, and results in an IQ score of 65 for an INT of 3.

I'm assuming that you are using an average stat value of 10.5, not 12; so, basically, if you want to use the elite array, your conclusions aren't all that much different from the 3d6 version unless you're going to say that 12 INT (which gives a bonus) is average.

Whether you're using an IQ of 57 or 65, there really isn't that much difference in how it plays out, and it is not cave-man grunting in either case.

Not that you couldn't, if you wanted, play it like that; I mean, hey, it's your character. I'm just saying you don't *have* to, especially if you've done the nerdy statistics on it.

[Ragitsu]

Just curious, but why do you have 3 intelligence?

I saw the question.

Then, I saw the avatar.

I smiled.

[Amiel]

You'll be driven by primal instinct and have an extremely short attention span; you'll keep looking at and attending to shiny things.
You'll also keep messing up with any instructions given; to you, the most straightforward approach is the best approach.
You'll also probably engage in repetitive actions. As in, repetitive, repetitive actions.

[busterswd]

Wisdom would also affect your behavior.

High Wisdom means you have good intuitive understanding. Think idiot savant: you've got the right instincts to function at your life's calling (so you're naturally good at fighting, etc.) and can sense when people are upset, angry, a threat, etc. from their tone/poise, but you're not the best at vocalizing your thoughts nor does abstract thinking really do it for you.

Medium Wisdom probably means you're like Lenny from Of Mice and Men. You know people want you to do things and will go through the motions, but don't understand why they get upset when you do them wrong. If you're evil, you're probably closer to a sociopath and what others want of you just doesn't matter.

Low Wisdom... well, you're a little braindead, and probably close to a mindless brute/savage. You do what your body wants, when it wants it, and are incapable of questioning it.

[TroubleBrewing]

... you tend to seperate people into categories like "friend" and "smash"...

... Can I adopt this for a signature? This was seriously the funniest thing I've read in a while.

[Foryn Gilnith]

Incidentally: what are the lowest range of INT 4 monsters? since even going with strict INT 3 is X mentality, you can be anywhere up to the border of INT 4

The smallest elementals are INT 4, as are Nessian Warhounds, Gibbering Mouthers, Chimeras, Chokers, Shadow Mastiffs, Udoroots, and Prismasaurus. Very clear ability to use tactics and prioritize targets, with (in the Chimera's case) the ability to understand the concept of flattery. Still quite simple-minded.

[Person_Man]

Hulk/thog Smash!!!