High INT, Low WIS?

[Zhentarim]

What kind of character would that look like? Are there real life people like that?

[Thialfi]

I believe you are looking for the absent minded professor type.

Or the guys in the Jurassic Park movies that keep making dinosaurs.

[nedz]

"Ah, I've just figured out how to bypass the security locks on this doomsday device. Look, see"

[Zhentarim]

"Ah, I've just figured out how to bypass the security locks on this doomsday device. Look, see"

Laugh out Loud!

[J-H]

Someone who's somewhere along the asperger spectrum is likely to qualify.

[MrNobody]

Taking the definitions of both abilities from the SRD.

Intelligence determines how well your character learns and reasons.

Wisdom describes a character’s willpower, common sense, perception, and intuition. While Intelligence represents one’s ability to analyze information, Wisdom represents being in tune with and aware of one’s surroundings.

Putting the two together, i think that the character could be an absent-minded erudite, someone capable of abstractions but partially (or totally, it depends on how much its WIS is low) unable to apply what he knows to the real world, or someone so absorbed in his mental world made of theories, standard models and erudite quotes that he doesn't notice even the most obvious details.

Example
The group enters a temple
-Low-Wis-Guy: "What a fine example of dwarven architecture! Look at those pillars, they are for sure a copy of the one that adorned the ancient Temple ok Kragmal!"
-The Group's Scout: "Yeah, very interesting, but now let's look around and see if the area is safe"
-LWG: "You are right, dwarves usually protect their temples with several traps like pits, falling blocks, arrows from the walls..."
-Scout: "Ok, got it, now search for..."
-LWG: "... but we don't have to forget what Berronar O'Toole said in his Essay "On Dwarven Religious Architecture": the bigger the god, the deadlier the traps" so...
- Scout: "... so we are in a Moradin temple and.... FOR PELOR'S SAKE WATCH YOUR STEP!"
LWG triggers an unnoticed trap...

Obviously i overdid it, but with the necessary adjustment it should look something similar.

[Nerd-o-rama]

Did you ever play a Metal Gear Solid game?

Did you ever meet anyone by the last name of Emmerich?

Those guys. The super-scientist wizard who is fully capable of designing giant death robots without realizing they could be used as offensive weapons. The genius who puts her intellectual pride and need for revenge over her own safety and the fate of worldwide civilization. Every single goddamn thing Huey Emmerich did, ever.

[Thrudd]

Lots of real life people like that.
They would rely on logic and reasoning and knowledge, but have no intuitive sense, or don't trust their intuitive sense. Great ability to memorize things and identify patterns, but live in their heads most of the time, so they don't always have "common sense" that applies to every day life. They might try to analyze variables to figure out the solution to something that can't or doesn't need to be solved, like "should we go left or right". A character with better intuition would make a gut decision and say "when in doubt, follow your nose".

[Joe the Rat]

There's a few variations on this one.

Wisdom drives perception, Intelligence drives methodology. This person has the attention of a microscope: oblivious to most things, but with laser-like focus on what is in front of them.

With knowledge & lore being tied heavily to intelligence, "Bookwise, not Streetwise" works as well. (note this can work with high or low charisma too: You can know how to act in social situations, but do a lousy job of reading those situations.) Wisdom is also your sarcasm detector. That should be obvious, given how it relates to color vision.

Low wisdom can also be treated as having poor self control. Being impulsive, easily swayed, or having notable addictions can factor in to this.

I believe you are looking for the absent minded professor type.

Or the guys in the Jurassic Park movies that keep making dinosaurs.

Or the guys that keep making Jurassic Park movies?
[I kid]

[sovin_ndore]

Intelligence is knowing that a tomato is a fruit, Wisdom is not putting it in a fruit salad.

Pretty much in agreement on the 'absent minded professor' type. I will also take it a step further and point out that extreme disparity could even translate as psychosis. There are identified links between forms of Autism (such as Asperger's Syndrome) and extreme IQs. Other forms of savants could also qualify.

If you want archetypes from pop culture, many examples of this sort of social deficiency matching up with surprising insight and expansive knowledge exist. Examples include Walter (The Finder), Monk, L (from Death Note), House, or even Sherlock. They all have identifiable issues with dealing with normal people that classify them somewhere between 'eccentric' and socially deficient; but are so useful/knowledgeable that they are geniuses.

[Nerd-o-rama]

And don't forget,

Charisma is the ability to convince people to try a tomato-based fruit salad.

[Joe the Rat]

The catch there is that "social deficiency" falls more under low charisma (getting people to try a tomato-based fruit salad) - or as much so as wisdom. ASD is tricky to spot out on three stats, as there are pieces that don't fit without splitting functions or heavily factoring skill selection. You can be incredibly perceptive, but can have great difficulty in filtering the stimuli. You don't get people "intuitively," but brute force the processing to translate social situations. Or having incredibly sharp recall, but poor ability to process or connect information.

[Thrawn4]

Sheldon Cooper.

[Strigon]

I would imagine a computer as being very high int, but no wis.
They can figure anything out, remember details perfectly, and so on, but they are completely unable to work without direction. They just can't figure things out.

For a specific character, I might suggest Data from Star Trek: TNG. He's undoubtedly intelligent, but he just doesn't get subtext, or the implications of what is being done or said.
Conversely, I would consider Picard to be of average int, but quite high wis.

Another example, if you watched Fringe, would be Walter; loose grip on reality, lack of focus and attention to detail, but brilliant. That's another spin you could put on the character, if you wanted.

Simply put, int lets you gather information from what you see, feel, and hear. It also lets you recall that information freely.
Wis, however, lets you put that information together.

Actually, let me just put a list of what I consider to be high Int, low Wis characters.

Data- Star Trek
Walter- Fringe
River- Firefly
Twilight Sparkle- MLP: FiM
Charles Emmerson Winchester- M*A*S*H
Wheatley- Portal 2
Vizzini- The Princess Bride (Maybe)
C-3PO- Star Wars

Edit: And a ton of Super Villains (See: Megamind, Syndrome, etc.)

[Radar]

If you want archetypes from pop culture, many examples of this sort of social deficiency matching up with surprising insight and expansive knowledge exist. Examples include Walter (The Finder), Monk, L (from Death Note), House, or even Sherlock. They all have identifiable issues with dealing with normal people that classify them somewhere between 'eccentric' and socially deficient; but are so useful/knowledgeable that they are geniuses.

I wouldn't put L or Sherlock as people with low Wisdom (can't say much about the others). They have inhumanly developed percepcion of their surrounding, which is not a sign of low wisdom. They do have flaws connected to low wisdom (or very low charisma maybe) as well, so they simply can't be projected to D&D stats.

As a both fictional and real life example: xkcd.

There is also Leonard of Quirm. As a counterexample of a person with both INT and WIS in the dumps I'd choose BS Johnson.

[Strigon]

I wouldn't put L or Sherlock as people with low Wisdom (can't say much about the others). They have inhumanly developed percepcion of their surrounding, which is not a sign of low wisdom. They do have flaws connected to low wisdom (or very low charisma maybe) as well, so they simply can't be projected to D&D stats.

As a both fictional and real life example: xkcd.

There is also Leonard of Quirm. As a counterexample of a person with both INT and WIS in the dumps I'd choose BS Johnson.

Yes; Sherlock and House in particular would have very high Wisdom, but (depending on which version of Sherlock Holmes we're discussing) very low Cha.
Actually, House has high Cha; he can intimidate, win arguments, trick/manipulate people, and do a whole host of other things very well simply by having high Cha.
The thing is, in this case, Cha != popularity. A lot of despicable characters have very high charisma, and if they wanted to, they could be very well-liked. They just don't want to. House falls under this category.

[Storm_Of_Snow]

Alternatives could include the child prodigy - the kind of person that has at least one doctorate by the time most people are only part way through their degrees, but has no kind of knowledge of the world outside academia, or someone who's otherwise intelligent, but is in an abusive relationship that's just seen them put into A&E for the nth time, but still takes their partner back when they promise, for the nth time, to change.

Edit:

Actually, let me just put a list of what I consider to be high Int, low Wis characters.

Data- Star Trek
Walter- Fringe
River- Firefly
Twilight Sparkle- MLP: FiM
Charles Emmerson Winchester- M*A*S*H
Wheatley- Portal 2
Vizzini- The Princess Bride (Maybe)
C-3PO- Star Wars

Edit: And a ton of Super Villains (See: Megamind, Syndrome, etc.)

IMO, Data can be naive until he understands what's going on, then seems to load the appropriate wisdom modules, River Tam's psychologically damaged for most of her on screen appearances - at the end of Firefly she's probably more super-high Int, moderate Wis, and Wheatley's explicitly called a moron by Glados, so he'd be more likely low-Int, moderate-Wis,

Spoiler

Show

for booby trapping the switch,

with a dash of a stopped clock is right twice a day.

Sticking with Portal 2, Glados herself might qualify though, and Cave Johnson almost certainly does.

[Aetol]

It's explained this way in the 5E DMG :

A character with a high Wisdom but low Intelligence is aware of the surroundings but is bad at interpreting what things mean. The character might spot that one section of a wall is clean and dusty compared to the others, but he or she wouldn't necessarily make the deduction that a secret door is there.
In contrast, a character with high Intelligence and low Wisdom is probably oblivious but clever. The character might not spot the clean section of wall but, if asked about it, could immediately deduce why it's clean.
Wisdom checks allow characters to perceive what is around them (the wall is clean here), while Intelligence checks answer why things are that way (there's probably a secret door).

[Thrudd]

Yes, as you've all pointed out, don't confuse wisdom and charisma. Wisdom is perception and intuition. Intelligence is reason and memorized knowledge. Charisma is personality and leadership.

Low wisdom means you aren't great at noticing things around you or getting a feeling for the truth. You never "follow your gut" (or your "gut" is never right). High intelligence means you remember everything you've ever read and you are good at seeing patterns and calculating answers. Social ability and personality doesn't come into it. You don't make a decision until you have enough data to reason through it, and sometimes other people need to supply you with that data because you can't be bothered to look up from your book to see what's around you.

You will search your memory for encyclopedic knowledge of various races and monsters and history to figure out what might be ahead, but you won't look for tracks or notice droppings. You have blueprints and knowledge of architecture and dwarven construction trends in your mind to try to predict where the secret door might be, but you will not notice the feeling of the wall or sensing changes in air flow or a variation in the wear on the floor.

[Strigon]

...Wheatley's explicitly called a moron by Glados, so he'd be more likely low-Int, moderate-Wis,

I'm not convinced; he can recall facts quite easily, breeze through books, and everything else that D&D int seems to cover, but he's just so thick he can't think, which mostly falls under the category of Wisdom, as far as I can tell.

[sovin_ndore]

I still think that the ability to read people by logical overexamination, such as with L or Sherlock, is not really in line with Wisdom/Sense Motive. That strikes me as more of a Knowledge Devotion type effect, likely Intelligence based but providing advantage based on applying esoteric data knowledge.

Wisdom is all about gut reactions, providing a social intuition regarding emotional states or predicting short term actions (such as reacting to feinting in combat). Its situational awareness, its Zen and Mushin (Spot, Listen, Autohypnosis)... if you are thinking about it, I don't really classify it as Wisdom. Working with animals or picking up a trade in a fanatasy setting are usually more about developing rote actions or picking up the 'knack'.

[Dienekes]

I still think that the ability to read people by logical overexamination, such as with L or Sherlock, is not really in line with Wisdom/Sense Motive. That strikes me as more of a Knowledge Devotion type effect, likely Intelligence based but providing advantage based on applying esoteric data knowledge.

Wisdom is all about gut reactions, providing a social intuition regarding emotional states or predicting short term actions (such as reacting to feinting in combat). Its situational awareness, its Zen and Mushin (Spot, Listen, Autohypnosis)... if you are thinking about it, I don't really classify it as Wisdom. Working with animals or picking up a trade in a fanatasy setting are usually more about developing rote actions or picking up the 'knack'.

The D&D abilities don't really make sense. Wisdom is just more obvious about it, in that it is trying to be three completely separate things: awareness of your surroundings, strength of will, and common sense.

[Amphetryon]

Intelligence is about understanding processes; Wisdom is about understanding consequences.

For a high INT/low WIS example: Leonard of Quirm.

[Mando Knight]

I'm not convinced; he can recall facts quite easily, breeze through books, and everything else that D&D int seems to cover, but he's just so thick he can't think, which mostly falls under the category of Wisdom, as far as I can tell.

Any source of actual intelligence he shows is from the extra processing power of being connected to the testing mainframe. Even the breezing-through-books thing feels more like a farce used to try to assert himself over Chell and GLaDOS, given that the entire facility is falling apart on his ears and everything else that shows him to be an absolute moron.

[nedz]

Intelligence is about understanding processes; Wisdom is about understanding consequences

Everything is Process + Structure / Everything is Connected

[Keltest]

Any source of actual intelligence he shows is from the extra processing power of being connected to the testing mainframe. Even the breezing-through-books thing feels more like a farce used to try to assert himself over Chell and GLaDOS, given that the entire facility is falling apart on his ears and everything else that shows him to be an absolute moron.

Indeed. Furthermore, he certainly notices the facility is falling apart, he just has no idea what that means or what to do about it.

[ArcanaFire]

I'd consider myself to be one of these people. I know a lot of facts. I can remember a lot of things that I've read. At the gaming table people tease me a lot because sometimes I'll grab for a more esoteric word when a simpler one would have sufficed.

However, once a member of our party showed up late and when we asked him why he said "I found a boxer wandering down the street and decided to help". The entire table thought "dog", but I was picturing a heavily concussed Muhammad Ali. They have never let me forget it.

A high int, low wis character is, similarly, likely to know a lot of things but lack the common sense. They might come up with overly complicated solutions to problems. For example, there's a door in front of you and the high int, low wis character comes up with a complicated plan involving an explosive with exactly the right amount of certain chemicals to blow off the lock without damaging the door but the party will have to go and grab these materials. While he's explaining this, a character with a higher wisdom score just pulls the hinge pins out and opens it the other way.

[Strigon]

Any source of actual intelligence he shows is from the extra processing power of being connected to the testing mainframe. Even the breezing-through-books thing feels more like a farce used to try to assert himself over Chell and GLaDOS, given that the entire facility is falling apart on his ears and everything else that shows him to be an absolute moron.

That's... pretty much D&D's definition of Intelligence, isn't it? The ability to work with facts and figures, but not necessarily do anything with them?

[Zhentarim]

I'd consider myself to be one of these people. I know a lot of facts. I can remember a lot of things that I've read. At the gaming table people tease me a lot because sometimes I'll grab for a more esoteric word when a simpler one would have sufficed.

However, once a member of our party showed up late and when we asked him why he said "I found a boxer wandering down the street and decided to help". The entire table thought "dog", but I was picturing a heavily concussed Muhammad Ali. They have never let me forget it.

A high int, low wis character is, similarly, likely to know a lot of things but lack the common sense. They might come up with overly complicated solutions to problems. For example, there's a door in front of you and the high int, low wis character comes up with a complicated plan involving an explosive with exactly the right amount of certain chemicals to blow off the lock without damaging the door but the party will have to go and grab these materials. While he's explaining this, a character with a higher wisdom score just pulls the hinge pins out and opens it the other way.

I aced both the ACT and SAT test, graduated highschool with a 4.0, and know lots and lots of esoteric facts. I have a poor memory for things that do not interest me, and once I was so engrossed in a college paper that I didn't even notice my dog screaming and dying in the pool a few feet away when the neighbor down the street could. I walk into doors and generally don't notice my surroundings (anything outside of my thoughts) unless I apply special effort to do so, and even then its very hard for me. I'm also easily swayed and intimidated by others, and need my mother to push anything through that may require facing resistance. I handle diplomacy pretty well, though, and I know how to dish out intimation but rarely do since I can't handle pressure well.

[Nerd-o-rama]

Isn't Wheatley's entire purpose to fail at whatever he tries? Like, literally that's what he's programmed to do? That's somewhat of a special case compared to a free-willed individual.