Intelligence is not a superpower

[Xervous]

AIUI, the OP's complaint was about GMs who use high intelligence as an excuse to screw over the PCs. I think that's a legitimate complaint, but I think the problem in that case is not the idea of intelligence as a power per se, but rather a GM who applies that concept in a way that is not fair to the other players.

Regardless of the justification, the GM is still screwing over the PCs because that’s what the GM wants to do. If this is what everyone signed up for, great. If not, then it’s a problem.

[JoeJ]

Regardless of the justification, the GM is still screwing over the PCs because that’s what the GM wants to do. If this is what everyone signed up for, great. If not, then it’s a problem.

Absolutely. High intelligence is just the excuse, and not any better of one than anything else. I mean, how often do Lex Luthor, Dr. Sivana, or the Ultra-Humanite ultimately win?

[Quertus]

I am pretty strongly in agreement with the OP here. I think that there is space for *some* of those things, but that simply having high "Intelligence" is insufficient to guarantee such results.

Intelligence does not necessarily imply preparation … but an adventurer? They absolutely should be Batman. This goes for any adventurer, and all the more for ones with tons and tons of options, which Wizards have in spades.

Perhaps if the world were run honest, only those Wizards predisposed to being Batman would survive, and thus this statement would inherently be true.

But really, I think it is mostly orthogonal to stats. People sometimes come at it from the other end too - if a character doesn't have 20+ Int, it's unrealistic for them to make plans or think things through? Well I'm flattered you think I'm a super-genius (since I'm the one making these plans), but I'm really not.

Lol. There is also the role-playing element - is it reasonable for your character to see the things that you see? If so, that's a great argument; if not, it's an obfuscation.

As far as "assumed plans", like "I cast the right divinations and ask the right questions to find out who my foes are, what they're going to do, and how to deal with them. My character would know how to do all that, so just tell me the info"? To me, that's abstracting the entire game out of the game. So, not a fan.

Ditto.

Or things like Death Note, Code Geass, Sherlock, or even aspects of Dr Who, White Collar, Psych, the Mentalist, Black List, the Great Pretender...

But this is more about clarifying the argument. Is the issue e.g. players saying 'I invested in Int, so the GM should tell me what the BBEG's plans are and what spells he has prepared on the basis of this handwriting sample' when actually to do that they should have 30 ranks in Forgery and a bunch of Factotum levels or a backstory involving training from a secretive guild of investigative assassins rather than Int? Or is it that such a portrayal shouldn't be supported by the GM at all regardless of build? Or even, if the player happens to correctly guess the BBEG's plans out of character on their own (say, based on reading the GM) then, regardless of build or characterization, they should generally not use that? Or is it primarily an argument about GM limits rather than player limits?

Basically, is the issue the stat, or is the argument that the portrayal of a certain style of hyper competence is generally incompatible with tabletop games and/or good fiction?

Wow, what a dense/rich topic!

I imagine we'll each have our own opinion on this.

Certainly, there are plenty of GMs and plenty of modules which advocate the opposition utilizing intelligence to plan for things beyond what the GM has considered. In "Halls of the High King", Flamsterd is written as intentionally provoking the PCs to attack him, and his defenses are written as "assume that they defeat anything that the PCs throw at him". Can one player legitimately be expected to provide a challenge for multiple?

For players or GM, to what extent should they be limited to characters that they can successfully roleplay?

For players, to what extent should they require the system to empower them with these abilities, to what extent should they get GM buy-in, and to what extent should they rely on player skill?

Specific questions of what does the *GM* think would be required to get this information (your handwriting analysis example), and what to do when the *player* is able to deduce things that they want their character to know (your "reading the GM" example being one particular edge case of that larger question) could be informative for creating a general theory, or even worthy of analysis for their own sake.

[Kelb_Panthera]

With 3.5 at least, there's a detail that might throw a monkey-wrench in your criticism; int focused characters are superhumanly intelligent by mid-level.

That level 17+ wizard isn't just smarter than anybody you have ever or will ever meet, he's so smart as to make Einstein and Hawking look like blithering idiots by comparison. It's so far beyond anything we, as a species, have ever experienced as to be effectively alien.

3 is barely sapient.
10 is the average human
18-20 are men like Einstein

The average 17+ wizard is rocking a 24 at minimum and a min-maxed one could be as high as 36 without getting into esoteric, questionable system trickery. At the extreme, the wizard is as much more intelligent than Hawking as Hawking is smarter than Koko the gorilla that was taught sign-language. It's an utterly immense difference that's difficult to fathom.

Taking some liberties with the implications isn't just acceptable, it's necessary to portray it as even vaguely accurate.

[Willie the Duck]

The Cult of Intelligence runs very strong in TRPGs, college folk, and folks working STEM fields (including IT). The Cult of Science is one branch office of it. The Bohemian Cult (think literature & poetry reading) is another.

The thing is ... the vast majority of very smart folks I met when I was younger didn't ever do much with it. Even as I got older, I've met a bunch of people that think they're so damn intelligent compared to other people, but struggle to get a career going, struggling through a series of jobs instead.

Intelligence is nice but knowing what you want to do, ambition, work ethic, or motivation is better.

Oh, I know. I manage a department full of programmers, developers, and a few lawyers, and the battles over who are 'the smart ones' is amazing (and yes, there are a lot of people on this and boards like it who I imagine work in a place very similar). I also, like the OP, grew up in the intelligentsia culture, and honestly until my head injury injected a nice batch of humility along with some diminished verysmartness, was one of those guys. Nowadays I tend to use 'competent' as my go-to adjective, alongside 'smart' as roughly 'highly able to successfully navigate through life while accomplishing ones goals.' Regardless, my primary point was that worrying overly much about a Cult of Intelligence person overly valuing raw intelligence (in a TRPG) is like worrying about the guy who thinks overly highly of their salary, or sportscar, or that their fandom (comic, anime, Star Wars vs Trek, etc.) is objectively superior to other peoples, etc.

AIUI, the OP's complaint was about GMs who use high intelligence as an excuse to screw over the PCs. I think that's a legitimate complaint, but I think the problem in that case is not the idea of intelligence as a power per se, but rather a GM who applies that concept in a way that is not fair to the other players.

Definitely. Bad GMs are also an eternal thing. To me, I think the real question is whether a given system fosters that kind of thinking or not. Since we started with D&D style stats, I guess I'll think on D&D --
I think D&D does a few things that might contribute to the notion that the Wizard/Magic User stat also correlates to being a successful mastermind (examples: illithids and obviously liches and other monsters often types as evil genius schemer types have genius (17-18) intelligences, or the modern equivalent), but not much that a mastermind villain should be played omnisciently. The most I can think of is that in certain editions there aren't a lot of ways that a enemy genius monsters (illithid, lich, elder dragon) could do to stop a well-prepared group of high-level PC monster-slayers except break the rules somehow. Some things like 3e scry-and-die are otherwise very hard to stop, and this can push starting DMs to respond with something akin to 'uh, well, they would have thought of that and had countermeasures in place.' Other than that, I don't know exactly what they system is doing. I think it is mostly just straight up DMs not always being great, and the solution to that is more experience, being willing to accept critique, and groups being willing to work with DMs to grow.

[Xervous]

With 3.5 at least, there's a detail that might throw a monkey-wrench in your criticism; int focused characters are superhumanly intelligent by mid-level.

That level 17+ wizard isn't just smarter than anybody you have ever or will ever meet, he's so smart as to make Einstein and Hawking look like blithering idiots by comparison. It's so far beyond anything we, as a species, have ever experienced as to be effectively alien.

3 is barely sapient.
10 is the average human
18-20 are men like Einstein

The average 17+ wizard is rocking a 24 at minimum and a min-maxed one could be as high as 36 without getting into esoteric, questionable system trickery. At the extreme, the wizard is as much more intelligent than Hawking as Hawking is smarter than Koko the gorilla that was taught sign-language. It's an utterly immense difference that's difficult to fathom.

Taking some liberties with the implications isn't just acceptable, it's necessary to portray it as even vaguely accurate.

I’d be quicker to point to skill points for 3.5e

If we are going off classic assumptions that cap standard humans at level 6 it’s the 9+ extra levels the wizard has that are doing the heavy lifting for stuff like knowledge: magical intrusion countermeasures or what have you. The L15 10 INT barbarian who picked up proficiency from a feat is still +5 ahead of L6 18 INT Einstein. But for all these numbers we could be asking about the difficulty of climbing a tree...

[JoeJ]

The most I can think of is that in certain editions there aren't a lot of ways that a enemy genius monsters (illithid, lich, elder dragon) could do to stop a well-prepared group of high-level PC monster-slayers except break the rules somehow. Some things like 3e scry-and-die are otherwise very hard to stop, and this can push starting DMs to respond with something akin to 'uh, well, they would have thought of that and had countermeasures in place.' Other than that, I don't know exactly what they system is doing. I think it is mostly just straight up DMs not always being great, and the solution to that is more experience, being willing to accept critique, and groups being willing to work with DMs to grow.

What do the PCs do to keep their enemies from scrying them? Surely that would be happening after they've interfered with the BBEG's plans a couple of times. Assuming they have some protective strategy that works (and they should), the BBEG should be doing the same thing.

[AdAstra]

Yup, not much more to add. Intelligence is a fuzzy enough thing in real life and really doesn't map well onto an RPG, and there's a hell of a lot of fiction that treats being a genius or even just very smart as magic that lets you never be wrong or lack competence in anything.

[NichG]

The stat, as written, is fine. The "I should be allowed to break the game because I'm smart" or other such things, which mostly rely on bypassing the actual game and harming the fun of everyone else, while ignoring everything in the actual rules about what high INT means. Characters like that work really well in published fiction, because the author can cheat. Batman does have a superpower--it's called Authorial Fiat.

And GMs shouldn't do it either--in fact, I've seen it more from GMs (and discussion about GMs) than from players. Players accept, in my experience, that they're bounded by what the world and the rules say. GMs often want bad guys who aren't holding the idiot ball, by which they mean are hyper-competent and never make mistakes. Because super smart or something. Including being able to literally cheat and gain access to information that they couldn't have (ie things that the players, not the characters, were discussing).

In fiction? Sure. It works really well, because the author can stack the deck and knows the end from the beginning. In tabletop RPGs, it's a lot harder to do right. Because there's a shared ruleset and a shared world and no single person has all the access. And there's a game element.

So imagine a homebrew Xanatos class for D&D (or just abilities in some non-D&D system) with the following mechanics available, in both cases as something PCs can get access to:

Mastermind - Once per session, you can retroactively change off-screen planning decisions made about gear loadout, purchases, arrangement of spaces you control (such as positions and presence of traps).

Confident Conclusion - Once per session, you can issue a hypothesis about some circumstances within the game or setting and the GM responds truthfully with one of 'true', 'partially true', or 'false'.

Paranoid Contingency - The character is never surprised, and may act in surprise rounds following ambush (or otherwise cannot be unable to act due to lack of preparedness or due to not expecting a sudden attack). Whenever the character would be totally off guard and unable to act during ambush (such as if they are attacked while asleep, attacked through a wall, etc), they may choose to actually have been somewhere else within 100ft of that location, having left a decoy in place in anticipation of this circumstance.

Bat Shark Repellent - Once per day, the character can become immune to a single specific source of threat - a particular spell, a particular type of weapon (including for example the natural weapons of a particular type of creature, but not 'all natural weapons'), etc on the basis of having prepared a counter for exactly that threat. This can't be as broad as 'immune to this creature' or 'immune to my enemies' or 'immune to fire'. The immunity lasts for the remainder of the scene in which it is used.

Calm Mien - The character gains immunity to imposed existential horror, fear effects such as dragon fear that are instinctual rather than magical mind control, or other such forms of conceptually- or situationally- induced madness or paralysis.

Would something like that be okay in your book, since it doesn't tie those attributes to Intelligence in particular but rather constitutes dedicated training and experience (or at least, commitment to that particular archetype), and are equally available to PCs and BBEGs and come with the attendant opportunity cost of e.g. having to sink 5 levels into these things if its D&D.

Or is it still problematic because of how abilities like this interact with gameplay and/or narrative structure?

How about if it goes even further with a capstone ability? Such as Rewrite the Plot - Once per session, the character can narrate a theory explaining the factors and forces behind recent events to at least 80% of the people involved in those events. If no strong evidence can be brought forward to strictly disprove this theory, reality is rewritten such that the character's theory is exactly how things happened. If evidence that this theory is impossible is provided, the character suffers (X consequence) as backlash. The existence of such evidence is not enough to stop this power - someone has to point it out. Rewrite the Plot cannot openly change the current state of affairs as visible within the scene - someone who was wounded can't be healed or someone who is present can't actually be somewhere else. However, it can modify offscreen elements such as making it so someone who was thought to be dead was actually faking it.

Two (2) is the concept of brilliant mastermind at all (in fiction and especially in gaming).

To the first, yes really there should be two separate scores you might afix to a character -- Int and wizarding prowess (whether those two should go together I leave to another discussion), and... Brilliance? Genius? Something other than Intelligence. Whatever term we all agree a character like Ozymandias and Sherlock have, but Cobra Commander lacks.

To the second, yes quite often the method that the GM makes a villain seem intelligent if to give them some level of omniscience -- knowing stuff they shouldn't, not being fooled by things they should, sometimes just having the NPCs working in unison despite not being in communication. All of this is 'cheap' on some level, but on the other hand, if the DM isn't themselves a tactical genius, there are a limited number of ways for them to emulate this concept, if that's against what they think their PCs should be pitted in a given situation. At least it is better than PC computer games, where they make an opponent more challenging by letting them cheat in every conceivable way (Civilization games, I am looking at you).

Well, this is sort of my question to the OP. If we added a Guile stat to D&D, and someone min-maxed a character to have 40 Guile, would that actually resolve this issue? If we added explicit mechanics that specified how a PC or villain could pay for being this sort of mastermind, does that resolve it? Or is the objection to people liking to depict this archetype at all? Because the original post feels to me like it could be read as 'Intelligence gets too much credit, some of these things are Wisdom/unspecified stat', as 'players try to use a high stat to justify getting things that they haven't paid for', as 'hypercompetent characters are Mary Sues and have no place in fiction at all', or as 'people are overly fond of this particular archetype and its getting old, give it a break please'.

[Willie the Duck]

What do the PCs do to keep their enemies from scrying them? Surely that would be happening after they've interfered with the BBEG's plans a couple of times. Assuming they have some protective strategy that works (and they should), the BBEG should be doing the same thing.

It's been too long since I've been able to get a 3e group going, but I recall it being a real problem for PCs as well (especially if you have enough minions or known associates that you can't have 'magic item of non-scrying' on everyone). Kind of a epic arms race of 'why hasn't someone pulled the trigger on a war of extinction yet?' corollary to the Tippyverse. I'm sure someone will correct me on the specifics. I'm trying to find ways that the system itself encourages this negative DM tendency, and not coming up with much (so if this example has a hole in it, all the more to my main point that I'm not finding much).

I think perhaps what is missing is more discussions on what makes a good gaming experience and a good GM in the actual game books. That there is a cottage industry* in GM-ing advice blogs kinda points out that the issue. Everyone has to start gaming at some point, and GMing is a learned skill. There are more than a few known pitfalls, and it'd be good to see more of them expressly mentioned in the core books (the things most gamer will see, unlike anything we can put up in these forums).
*does it count as an industry if there's no money in it?

Well, this is sort of my question to the OP. If we added a Guile stat to D&D, and someone min-maxed a character to have 40 Guile, would that actually resolve this issue? If we added explicit mechanics that specified how a PC or villain could pay for being this sort of mastermind, does that resolve it? Or is the objection to people liking to depict this archetype at all? Because the original post feels to me like it could be read as 'Intelligence gets too much credit, some of these things are Wisdom/unspecified stat', as 'players try to use a high stat to justify getting things that they haven't paid for', as 'hypercompetent characters are Mary Sues and have no place in fiction at all', or as 'people are overly fond of this particular archetype and its getting old, give it a break please'.

There certainly are more than a few subjects in the mix. OP could certainly clarify more regarding what they'd like to see the most discussion. I'd be glad to do a deep dive on whichever they like.

[Telok]

What do the PCs do to keep their enemies from scrying them? Surely that would be happening after they've interfered with the BBEG's plans a couple of times. Assuming they have some protective strategy that works (and they should), the BBEG should be doing the same thing.

Warrior types? Not a bloody thing, even after being warned and offered assistance in getting defenses.

That's why when it was the BBEGs turn to use the tactic the mundanes were the scry targets and got scragged on round 2 before they did anything more than scratch off some temp hp. The cleric lasted another round and a half soloing a cr+3 fight. It took two additional attempts to get the psion who was out pawning magic trash at the time. That one finally went down (1 round KO) to 8 level 12 rogues camping the tavern with the party corpses and using scroll wealth-mancy to escape detection and overwhelm defenses (over 50d6+(more than 40) and some misc. saves). I think we were 16th level.

[PhoenixPhyre]

With 3.5 at least, there's a detail that might throw a monkey-wrench in your criticism; int focused characters are superhumanly intelligent by mid-level.

That level 17+ wizard isn't just smarter than anybody you have ever or will ever meet, he's so smart as to make Einstein and Hawking look like blithering idiots by comparison. It's so far beyond anything we, as a species, have ever experienced as to be effectively alien.

3 is barely sapient.
10 is the average human
18-20 are men like Einstein

The average 17+ wizard is rocking a 24 at minimum and a min-maxed one could be as high as 36 without getting into esoteric, questionable system trickery. At the extreme, the wizard is as much more intelligent than Hawking as Hawking is smarter than Koko the gorilla that was taught sign-language. It's an utterly immense difference that's difficult to fathom.

Taking some liberties with the implications isn't just acceptable, it's necessary to portray it as even vaguely accurate.

So? The rules don't say that having INT > X means you're omnicompetent. The INT score affects exactly and only what it says it affects. It doesn't give you hidden capabilities.

In that sense, INT is not a superpower. Super smart people may (depending on the rest of the characterization) have the listed powers, but it doesn't happen just by having super intelligence. The two are largely orthogonal (largely, because there are limits at the low end of intelligence where some of the powers don't make much sense).

The 5D chessmasters of the supers worlds don't just have "Super Intelligence". Instead, they have "Super Intelligence, Super Preparedness, (etc as appropriate)".

So imagine a homebrew Xanatos class for D&D (or just abilities in some non-D&D system) with the following mechanics available, in both cases as something PCs can get access to:

Mastermind - Once per session, you can retroactively change off-screen planning decisions made about gear loadout, purchases, arrangement of spaces you control (such as positions and presence of traps).

Confident Conclusion - Once per session, you can issue a hypothesis about some circumstances within the game or setting and the GM responds truthfully with one of 'true', 'partially true', or 'false'.

Paranoid Contingency - The character is never surprised, and may act in surprise rounds following ambush (or otherwise cannot be unable to act due to lack of preparedness or due to not expecting a sudden attack). Whenever the character would be totally off guard and unable to act during ambush (such as if they are attacked while asleep, attacked through a wall, etc), they may choose to actually have been somewhere else within 100ft of that location, having left a decoy in place in anticipation of this circumstance.

Bat Shark Repellent - Once per day, the character can become immune to a single specific source of threat - a particular spell, a particular type of weapon (including for example the natural weapons of a particular type of creature, but not 'all natural weapons'), etc on the basis of having prepared a counter for exactly that threat. This can't be as broad as 'immune to this creature' or 'immune to my enemies' or 'immune to fire'. The immunity lasts for the remainder of the scene in which it is used.

Calm Mien - The character gains immunity to imposed existential horror, fear effects such as dragon fear that are instinctual rather than magical mind control, or other such forms of conceptually- or situationally- induced madness or paralysis.

Would something like that be okay in your book, since it doesn't tie those attributes to Intelligence in particular but rather constitutes dedicated training and experience (or at least, commitment to that particular archetype), and are equally available to PCs and BBEGs and come with the attendant opportunity cost of e.g. having to sink 5 levels into these things if its D&D.

Or is it still problematic because of how abilities like this interact with gameplay and/or narrative structure?

How about if it goes even further with a capstone ability? Such as Rewrite the Plot - Once per session, the character can narrate a theory explaining the factors and forces behind recent events to at least 80% of the people involved in those events. If no strong evidence can be brought forward to strictly disprove this theory, reality is rewritten such that the character's theory is exactly how things happened. If evidence that this theory is impossible is provided, the character suffers (X consequence) as backlash. The existence of such evidence is not enough to stop this power - someone has to point it out. Rewrite the Plot cannot openly change the current state of affairs as visible within the scene - someone who was wounded can't be healed or someone who is present can't actually be somewhere else. However, it can modify offscreen elements such as making it so someone who was thought to be dead was actually faking it.

Well, this is sort of my question to the OP. If we added a Guile stat to D&D, and someone min-maxed a character to have 40 Guile, would that actually resolve this issue? If we added explicit mechanics that specified how a PC or villain could pay for being this sort of mastermind, does that resolve it? Or is the objection to people liking to depict this archetype at all? Because the original post feels to me like it could be read as 'Intelligence gets too much credit, some of these things are Wisdom/unspecified stat', as 'players try to use a high stat to justify getting things that they haven't paid for', as 'hypercompetent characters are Mary Sues and have no place in fiction at all', or as 'people are overly fond of this particular archetype and its getting old, give it a break please'.

In a hypothetical game where such fourth-wall-violating abilities are normal, that would be acceptable. It establishes that this is a power of this particular character. It's not just an unstated consequence of "being really smart".

As to the second question--I wouldn't like a Guile stat personally, but if it existed and had those powers as its description, I'd accept it (if the rest of the system was acceptable). Because then, having high Guile really is those powers. By definition.

I object to people smuggling in things to intelligence that
a) belong to other ability scores
b) constitute going beyond the rules purely for munchkinry.

I also feel, personally, that "hypercompetent" characters do not interact well with TTRPGs and especially poorly with D&D. It's an archetype that can work in other fiction due to the different constraints, but not one that works well (in my opinion) in D&D, for many reasons. It rarely plays well with the rest of the party (overshadowing or boring the rest of them by monopolizing the narrative) and warps the entire game's narrative around its own needs. And handles failure exceptionally poorly, which is a bad thing for a game where failure is always on the table (or should be).

[Willie the Duck]

I also feel, personally, that "hypercompetent" characters do not interact well with TTRPGs and especially poorly with D&D. It's an archetype that can work in other fiction due to the different constraints, but not one that works well (in my opinion) in D&D, for many reasons. It rarely plays well with the rest of the party (overshadowing or boring the rest of them by monopolizing the narrative) and warps the entire game's narrative around its own needs. And handles failure exceptionally poorly, which is a bad thing for a game where failure is always on the table (or should be).

Out of curiosity, three questions:
1) For a guileless player wanting to play a character with a decent amount of guile, what would you consider your preferred method?
2) For something like a mystery/detective game, what are your thoughts on clue mechanics, where a specific roll, instead of direct 'we check the ____ for missing ____' might uncover a useful clue?
3) If you the GM plans a "hypercompetent" antagonist character, have a set villain plan or lair or course of action prepared, and the players come up with a course of action you did not foresee, but honestly believe said character would have, what is the correct response?

I'm not advocating any specific thing, just trying to get a bead on your preferences. These are situations where I think clear best solutions are not easy or forthcoming.

[Morty]

With 3.5 at least, there's a detail that might throw a monkey-wrench in your criticism; int focused characters are superhumanly intelligent by mid-level.

That level 17+ wizard isn't just smarter than anybody you have ever or will ever meet, he's so smart as to make Einstein and Hawking look like blithering idiots by comparison. It's so far beyond anything we, as a species, have ever experienced as to be effectively alien.

3 is barely sapient.
10 is the average human
18-20 are men like Einstein

The average 17+ wizard is rocking a 24 at minimum and a min-maxed one could be as high as 36 without getting into esoteric, questionable system trickery. At the extreme, the wizard is as much more intelligent than Hawking as Hawking is smarter than Koko the gorilla that was taught sign-language. It's an utterly immense difference that's difficult to fathom.

Taking some liberties with the implications isn't just acceptable, it's necessary to portray it as even vaguely accurate.

So? The rules don't say that having INT > X means you're omnicompetent. The INT score affects exactly and only what it says it affects. It doesn't give you hidden capabilities.

In that sense, INT is not a superpower. Super smart people may (depending on the rest of the characterization) have the listed powers, but it doesn't happen just by having super intelligence. The two are largely orthogonal (largely, because there are limits at the low end of intelligence where some of the powers don't make much sense).

The 5D chessmasters of the supers worlds don't just have "Super Intelligence". Instead, they have "Super Intelligence, Super Preparedness, (etc as appropriate)".

Indeed, the rules are clear on what a high-level wizard's intelligence allows them to accomplish. It lets them cast spells that lesser spellcasters can't even comprehend. Depending on their skill selection, it might also give them a wealth of arcane knowledge. But there's really no need to extrapolate it onto entirely unrelated capabilities.

[Mechalich]

So? The rules don't say that having INT > X means you're omnicompetent. The INT score affects exactly and only what it says it affects. It doesn't give you hidden capabilities.

In that sense, INT is not a superpower. Super smart people may (depending on the rest of the characterization) have the listed powers, but it doesn't happen just by having super intelligence. The two are largely orthogonal (largely, because there are limits at the low end of intelligence where some of the powers don't make much sense).

The 5D chessmasters of the supers worlds don't just have "Super Intelligence". Instead, they have "Super Intelligence, Super Preparedness, (etc as appropriate)".

Comic books function on comic book logic and they do indeed allow hyper-intelligent characters to leverage their intelligence in unfair ways, most allowing for ridiculously unfair gadget-crafting that bears no resemblance to actual advanced production and assembly in the real world - things like Iron Man building a particle accelerator in his basement or Ant Man building a quantum realm tunneling machine (whatever that even is) in the back of a van.

This cheat is based mostly on implementation - they're giving the hyper-intelligent character free resources representative of money, time, and the work of skilled laborers. Many procedural or thriller shows do that same thing - giving the title character a whole posse of supporters who serve as the instruments through which their intelligence linked abilities are made manifest. The Mentalist is actually a very good example of this because Jane literally treats the team of highly trained state officers who work with him as extensions of his consciousness.

So, again, as I mentioned in earlier posts, intelligence can become a superpower if the appropriate resources are acquired to maximize its leverage. This is one reason mastermind-type BBEG's tend to be CEOs or Generals or otherwise in charge of a vast array of resources. Take those away, and their threat drastically diminishes

Now, the trick is that, in fantasy games, all of the resources and leverage, and so forth that makes intelligence an awesome resource and arguably a superpower at superhuman levels, get rolled up under the umbrella of 'magic.' High Int makes you better at magic, and magic can provide for wealth, or for minions, or for civic authority, or for raw materials, or basically any other need. A wizard is already more powerful than a warrior, make them smarter too and of course their supremely dominant.

In 3.5 D&D we can actually model this mechanically. You can build characters out for any class/race combination but just arbitrarily start them with an Int of 30. Such a massive boost to stats will benefit every character to some degree, but it's going to help the fighter only minimally, the cleric only moderately, the rogue significantly, and it turns the wizard into a god.

Ultimately, every stat becomes a super-power if you increase it enough. Str, Dex, and Con, are well established tropes as such: super-strength, super-speed, super-toughness. Super-Int, Super-Wis, and Super-Cha are harder, but they still exist.

[PhoenixPhyre]

Out of curiosity, three questions:
1) For a guileless player wanting to play a character with a decent amount of guile, what would you consider your preferred method?
2) For something like a mystery/detective game, what are your thoughts on clue mechanics, where a specific roll, instead of direct 'we check the ____ for missing ____' might uncover a useful clue?
3) If you the GM plans a "hypercompetent" antagonist character, have a set villain plan or lair or course of action prepared, and the players come up with a course of action you did not foresee, but honestly believe said character would have, what is the correct response?

I'm not advocating any specific thing, just trying to get a bead on your preferences. These are situations where I think clear best solutions are not easy or forthcoming.

1. DMs should be aware and feed the player the things the character, based on the rules and the characterization, should know as part of the planning. More work for the DM, but open honest work.
2. I'd be ok with that, modulo details. But I want it to be explicit, not implicit.
3. Do better next time. Giving the NPC a mulligan after the fact doesn't sit well with me. After all, I have much more info and time to plan. So missing something is on me. If you're going to mulligan, give the party fair warning at session 0 (in generalities) and allow them the same benefit.

And I agree that this part comes down to personal taste and priorities.

[icefractal]

In 3.5 D&D we can actually model this mechanically. You can build characters out for any class/race combination but just arbitrarily start them with an Int of 30. Such a massive boost to stats will benefit every character to some degree, but it's going to help the fighter only minimally, the cleric only moderately, the rogue significantly, and it turns the wizard into a god.

Because Wizards use Int for casting. A high Int doesn't turn the Sorcerer or Cleric into a god, and those classes have the magic to get wealth/minions/civic authority like the Wizard does.

No question that casters have more tools to enable plans - but they have those tools because of their class, not because of their Int stat. You don't need a superhuman Int to make effective use of spells.

Now as far as whether it's unfair to compare character to player knowledge, I think "how my own spells work" is definitely in the character-knowledge wheelhouse. Seeking out someone else who has one very specific feat/PrC to combine with a second specific feat, neither of which the PC has? Ok, that's stretching it. But things like "I could cast multiple divinations and compare the results" or "I could use this spell that makes permanent minions .... to make permanent minions!" would be pretty odd not to realize.

[WindStruck]

Statistics will show that intelligence plays quite a significant role in one's success in life. From academic and scientific career potential, to people skills, managing your money effectively, being able to forsee consequences of your actions, knowing that lottery tickets are not a good investment, looking before you cross the street, knowing plastic bags are not children's toys (and never needing such warning labels).. everything adds up to a more productive life with more good things happening to you and less bad things happening to you.

But that said, you could probably look at Sherlock Holmes novels, but go no further than that. You might not be a mind reader, but you can probably tell that a guy who has a bunch of empty pizza boxes in his living room both likes pizza, and is a slob.

[Batcathat]

Statistics will show that intelligence plays quite a significant role in one's success in life. From academic and scientific career potential, to people skills, managing your money effectively, being able to forsee consequences of your actions, knowing that lottery tickets are not a good investment, looking before you cross the street, knowing plastic bags are not children's toys (and never needing such warning labels).. everything adds up to a more productive life with more good things happening to you and less bad things happening to you.

I would argue that quite a few of those areas aren't really dependent on intelligence, whether in the IQ or the D&D sense of the word. There are plenty of intelligent people with astoundingly bad judgement (including things like money management and plastic bag uses) and "people skills" are pretty much textbook charisma or possibly wisdom in D&D terms or EQ in IRL terms.

Not that high intelligence isn't good for a lot of things in life, of course, but not all of them.

[Pex]

Bat Shark Repellent - Once per day, the character can become immune to a single specific source of threat - a particular spell, a particular type of weapon (including for example the natural weapons of a particular type of creature, but not 'all natural weapons'), etc on the basis of having prepared a counter for exactly that threat. This can't be as broad as 'immune to this creature' or 'immune to my enemies' or 'immune to fire'. The immunity lasts for the remainder of the scene in which it is used.

HAHAHA

I absolutely get this reference. I rolled my eyes at that scene.

[Tanarii]

Statistics will show that intelligence plays quite a significant role in one's success in life.

No they don't. They very much show that it doesn't.

[Kami2awa]

Oh absolutely. My point was that smart people are just as prone to such cognitive biases and issues as less smart people. Being good at academic stuff (which is all a high INT means) doesn't free you from that.

And I've known many highly educated, quite intelligent people who have...irrational...beliefs. Ones that directly contradict the things they study. Humans are complex and are good at compartmentalizing our lives and believing multiple mutually inconsistent things simultaneously.

I think part of it is that if you are very knowledgeable, you know about a lot of true things that sound unbelievable. Steam engine in ancient Roman Egypt? Yep, absolutely true. A worm that detaches its abdomen, which swims away and mates independently of the worm itself? That's real. An experiment in what happens if you give LSD to elephants? Yep, that happened.

There's a BBC program called "QI" which is based on this - it's a near-impossible comedy quiz based on knowledge (or really, lack thereof) of such unlikely facts. The Unbelievable Truth, a BBC radio show, is similarly based on convincing other contestants of the truth or not of unlikely (but true) facts.

So in the face of the weirdness of reality, it's quite easy to give credence to equally bizarre ideas such as conspiracy theories or paranormal phenomena, that just might be real.

References:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Aeolipile
https://www.britannica.com/animal/palolo-worm
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tusko#The_elephant_on_LSD

[Mechalich]

No they don't. They very much show that it doesn't.

Higher intelligence is correlated with higher income and a large number of other positive life outcomes. The correlation is well established across a wide-range of studies. It's not especially strong, because intelligence is difficult to measure and there's a lot of co-founding factors, but it's a detectable and durable a result as just about anything in social science.

But this isn't really surprising. It's simply a result that says 'better inputs lead to better outputs.' Which, yeah, it would be pretty weird if that wasn't true. If you could come up with a metric that approximated any of the core D&D attributes, a higher score in any of them would probably correlated with better life outcomes (even something like increased dexterity drops your chances of, for example, dying in an auto accident).

Increased intelligence has in-game benefits in D&D, but so do all the other stats. These benefits may or may not be balanced, but that's not really the issue proposed by this thread. The question is rather whether or not there is some threshold where, having increased the score enough, intelligence becomes 'super-intelligence' and the player acquires some sort of specialized benefits.

Arguably, perhaps there should be. Super-strength, for instance, becomes transformational at a certain point. A character who can run through walls, leap tall buildings, and carry a truck on their back simply is not relating to their environment in the same way as someone who's just 'really strong.' The same is true of super-constitution (ie. superhuman durability), in that such a character can just ignore things, like cars, if they want too. And 3.5 D&D has a super-charisma build too - the diplomancer - which is built around the idea that if a character has stratospheric personal magnetism society will literally fall down at their feet.

A super-intelligence character, in D&D, might potentially be called the 'know-it-all' build. There are few, if any, knowledge checks I'm aware of that top DC 40. As such a character with a +30 to all knowledge skills can take 10 and make any possible knowledge check, meaning they, in a mechanical sense, know everything. That seems fairly transformational to me.

[Tanarii]

Higher intelligence is correlated with higher income and a large number of other positive life outcomes. The correlation is well established across a wide-range of studies.

It really isn't. Almost all studies show that there isn't any significant correlation. Meanwhile there is a very strong correlation with perseverance (or "Grit").

[PhoenixPhyre]

It really isn't. Almost all studies show that there isn't any significant correlation. Meanwhile there is a very strong correlation with perseverance (or "Grit").

There's a threshold below which it's strongly correlated. But that threshold is pretty low. Certainly well below "ordinary smart". And after that, the correlation is poor and plausibly becomes negative for very high values. But I don't have data for that last bit.

[Tanarii]

There's a threshold below which it's strongly correlated. But that threshold is pretty low. Certainly well below "ordinary smart". And after that, the correlation is poor and plausibly becomes negative for very high values. But I don't have data for that last bit.

It may be that significantly below average compared to average has some kind of correlation I'm not aware of. But correlation for even above average was all from studies that are decades out of date at this point. Everything points to many measures of "success" (which is a stupidly subjective metric btw) being determined mostly by personality and attitude.

[PhoenixPhyre]

It may be that significantly below average compared to average has some kind of correlation I'm not aware of. But correlation for even above average was all from studies that are decades out of date at this point. Everything points to many measures of "success" (which is a stupidly subjective metric btw) being determined mostly by personality and attitude.

Yeah. Combine that with the fact that most psychometrics doesn't replicate and is mostly based on very poor samples (college psych students, mostly) and you get a bunch of things that aren't that meaningful no matter how you slice it.

Just going on personal experience (not exactly scientific, I know), traditional markers for intelligence only loosely correlate with anything other than ability to learn academic stuff, and that's swamped by drive and motivation. I've known a fair number of really smart kids who sucked at school because they couldn't bring themselves to care enough to do anything. Usually the kind who coasted through earlier grades and so didn't know how to work once things required effort. Heck, I was in that same boat. Gras school was a major wake-up call.

[AdAstra]

Spoiler

Show

So imagine a homebrew Xanatos class for D&D (or just abilities in some non-D&D system) with the following mechanics available, in both cases as something PCs can get access to:

Mastermind - Once per session, you can retroactively change off-screen planning decisions made about gear loadout, purchases, arrangement of spaces you control (such as positions and presence of traps).

Confident Conclusion - Once per session, you can issue a hypothesis about some circumstances within the game or setting and the GM responds truthfully with one of 'true', 'partially true', or 'false'.

Paranoid Contingency - The character is never surprised, and may act in surprise rounds following ambush (or otherwise cannot be unable to act due to lack of preparedness or due to not expecting a sudden attack). Whenever the character would be totally off guard and unable to act during ambush (such as if they are attacked while asleep, attacked through a wall, etc), they may choose to actually have been somewhere else within 100ft of that location, having left a decoy in place in anticipation of this circumstance.

Bat Shark Repellent - Once per day, the character can become immune to a single specific source of threat - a particular spell, a particular type of weapon (including for example the natural weapons of a particular type of creature, but not 'all natural weapons'), etc on the basis of having prepared a counter for exactly that threat. This can't be as broad as 'immune to this creature' or 'immune to my enemies' or 'immune to fire'. The immunity lasts for the remainder of the scene in which it is used.

Calm Mien - The character gains immunity to imposed existential horror, fear effects such as dragon fear that are instinctual rather than magical mind control, or other such forms of conceptually- or situationally- induced madness or paralysis.

Would something like that be okay in your book, since it doesn't tie those attributes to Intelligence in particular but rather constitutes dedicated training and experience (or at least, commitment to that particular archetype), and are equally available to PCs and BBEGs and come with the attendant opportunity cost of e.g. having to sink 5 levels into these things if its D&D.

Or is it still problematic because of how abilities like this interact with gameplay and/or narrative structure?

How about if it goes even further with a capstone ability? Such as Rewrite the Plot - Once per session, the character can narrate a theory explaining the factors and forces behind recent events to at least 80% of the people involved in those events. If no strong evidence can be brought forward to strictly disprove this theory, reality is rewritten such that the character's theory is exactly how things happened. If evidence that this theory is impossible is provided, the character suffers (X consequence) as backlash. The existence of such evidence is not enough to stop this power - someone has to point it out. Rewrite the Plot cannot openly change the current state of affairs as visible within the scene - someone who was wounded can't be healed or someone who is present can't actually be somewhere else. However, it can modify offscreen elements such as making it so someone who was thought to be dead was actually faking it.



Well, this is sort of my question to the OP. If we added a Guile stat to D&D, and someone min-maxed a character to have 40 Guile, would that actually resolve this issue? If we added explicit mechanics that specified how a PC or villain could pay for being this sort of mastermind, does that resolve it? Or is the objection to people liking to depict this archetype at all? Because the original post feels to me like it could be read as 'Intelligence gets too much credit, some of these things are Wisdom/unspecified stat', as 'players try to use a high stat to justify getting things that they haven't paid for', as 'hypercompetent characters are Mary Sues and have no place in fiction at all', or as 'people are overly fond of this particular archetype and its getting old, give it a break please'.

Some of the class abilities are neat, though the Alert feat does most of what Paranoid Contingency does. However, DnD has few to no abilities that outright retcon events the way many of these abilities do. It very much changes the nature of things, though not in an inherently bad way.

I think Guile would not be a very fun stat as described because I really don't think cleverness should be codified in game terms at all. It'd be like GMs going "no your character can't think to do that because they have 8 Int" but even worse. Good ideas and clever planning should be something the players do, not something their characters are barred from or fed based on their numbers. Having a Guile stat would likely encourage the latter further.

[NichG]

Some of the class abilities are neat, though the Alert feat does most of what Paranoid Contingency does. However, DnD has few to no abilities that outright retcon events the way many of these abilities do. It very much changes the nature of things, though not in an inherently bad way.

I think Guile would not be a very fun stat as described because I really don't think cleverness should be codified in game terms at all. It'd be like GMs going "no your character can't think to do that because they have 8 Int" but even worse. Good ideas and clever planning should be something the players do, not something their characters are barred from or fed based on their numbers. Having a Guile stat would likely encourage the latter further.

I mean, a lot of this is to understand the OP's position, though I do tend to put abilities like these in systems I'm designing for my own campaigns - both D&D variants and completely separate ones. My design philosophy tends to be something along the lines of, abilities/expenditures aren't there to give players permission to do something they might be able to do anyhow via their out-of-character attributes, they should always strictly add new capabilities or affordances or determine things which are entirely within the game world. At the same time, I'm not going to hold tasks that engage with OOC ability sacrosanct and avoid creating mechanics which might help with those things. If you're very clever and can read me and figure out what I'm thinking (regardless of character attributes), fine! If another player wants to buy a power that makes me tell them what I'm thinking from time to time, that's also fine.

What I do tend to hold sacrosanct is decision power and ability to express their motives, both for PCs and NPCs. So I'm not going to make a power that lets you convince someone that they should go and kill the person they love just on your say-so, but it'd be fine for there to be a power that would e.g. read an NPC's motivations out transparently to reveal whether there happens to be anything they would prioritize over the person they love, such that they'd sacrifice their love to preserve that thing.

But that's my own design philosophy, and I wouldn't assume that another poster would necessarily share it.

[HeraldOfExius]

Intelligence should be as much a superpower as the other ability scores.

If you're allowing a high Dex low Str character to defy gravity doing acrobatics [like Legolas' bridge run, for example] that would (1) definitely needs a lot of strength to even approach them IRL and (2) just be impossible IRL, then it make sense to have the "Movie superintelligence" be used too. (Especially in 5e where Int is one of the weakest ability score). [And to have high Wis essentially mindread peoples at will, etc]

If you're restraining the other ability scores to be physically realist, then yes, high Int should absolutely be restrained in the same way, and you're totally right that the bonus peoples assume high Int would give are completely overblown. And, as you noted, that's probably the interpretation the nearest from the rules.

This pretty much summarizes how I feel about this. If having a physical ability score of 40 gives you super powers, then a mental ability score of 40 should probably also give you super powers. If the person with a physical ability score of 40 is just the guy at the gym, then the person with 40 intelligence is just the guy who knows a lot of pi.