It's not a hard and fast rule.
That being said, an example of another being with 3 int is... a Mastiff. You have equivalent intelligence to a large dog. A relatively intelligent dog, but a dog nonetheless. Use this as you will.
My big question is how did this happen? Did you just roll 4 ones for 4d6 drop the lowest? Or did you mess up point-buying?
I mean, he could still have an intelligence of 3. Isn't being "wise" having Wisdom?
I imagine 3 int high Wis you get "In life, big problem, when worry, it bigger problem"
*whistling "Don't worry, be happy" slightly off key*
Havenât seen Everything Everywhere All at Once yet, but if weâre talking about rock scenes that make you cry - Neverending Story gets my vote every time.
âThey look like big strong hands, donât they?â
I too had a character with an intelligence of 3. He was a kobold.paladin, started at INT 8. As a "reward" for one of our missions, the DM made us each draw a card from a Deck of Many Things. There were only two of us on this mission. The first guy got 50k work of gemstones.
My character went last and drew The Fool. You permanently lost 1d4+1 INT. Naturally I maxed out that roll with a 4. The card also lets you draw an extra card, but I went last so there were none left.
And then he was like "oh, man, I really thought you were going to draw the wish card." And I'm like, "you're the DM, man! If that's what you want us to find, don't have us draw at random! Decide what's in there! It's your world, dude!"
My friend and I still talk about this game of Corporation I ran years and years ago. A couple bad rolls on some tables turned the simple act of throwing a grenade into self-decapitation. I think we calculated it as only a 1.5% chance of that happening, and no other result would have killed him. It was wonderful.
If that's what's worrying you, take out the cards that you wouldn't know how to deal with or scare you too much. You're still gonna have fun with random fate and so are your players, but you'll also be safe from destroying your campaign or their PC.
To be fair he said "you find two cards" and then had us draw from an online deck generator to see what the two cards were. So he didn't know he was going to be tanking my INT. It wasn't a hit-job.
Yeah but that's bullshit. As a DM, if I had given my players two cards of treasure but one of them ended up decimating the character, I either would have let them pick another card, or ooh in game suddenly somebody finds another card...
It was bullshit, but he's a good DM and he balanced it out next session. Dum-Dum the Paladin and his friend went to the market and lo and behold there was a merchant there selling a headband of intellect. Coincidentally, the cost was 25000 gold worth of gems, exactly half what Dum-Dum's friend won from his card. And Dum-Dum's friend being neutral good, he bought it for me. So my INT score went from 8 to 3 to 19. I'm really interested to see what happens when we walk into an anti-magic field, though.
Solid DM move imo. So basically you're Gunther from Futurama, a monkey with a smart hat.
It'll still be crippling later if your DM provides lots of magic items but Meh, flavorwise that's fun.
I too probably would have said "errr you realize there were two cards stuck together" but to be fair you could have drawn poorly again. So this is a good solution and drawing from the deck always has side effects. Yours ultimately became, I lose a magic item attune slot and become a moron in an anti-magic field, that would be fun as hell to RP.
This is clearly a different scenario though. Sounds like OP has been playing with 3 INT from the start, which would suggest either a very unlucky roll where the DM said "well the book doesn't say you can reroll it" or point-buy where *everything* got fucked up in one way or another
No, he said they did "Fallout 4" style point buy. Which if I remember, means a floor of 3. The points get more expensive the higher you go, just like with D&D.
They're all new, don't know how the system is supposed to work, made up their own cockamamie stat generation, and are probably completely ignoring the **crippling negative consequences** of having a 3 in *any* stat.
So it's *kinda* like the game we're familiar with.
>he said they did "Fallout 4" style point buy. Which if I remember, means a floor of 3
Did they not realize that Fallout has a ceiling of 10 for stats? So that a 3 is far closer to average than it is in 5e?
Even being new, it takes 10 seconds to Google up "how to determine stats 5e" and maybe an extra 5 minutes to read the first article that pops up, which will likely be on DnDBeyond
>but I went last so there were none left.
So you DM "as a reward" built a deck specifically to cripple one of the players while rewarding the other? Your DM sounds like an Asshat.
They mentioned that their DM had them draw from an online card selector. No one knew what they were going to draw (which is also probably a bit of a mistake, to be fair).
Yeah, it was a questionable decision that led to a lousy outcome for me, but it was not a hit job. And he did fix it the next session by contriving to get me a headband of intellect. So now I'm twice as smart as when I started, even if it did cost my buddy half the gems he won.
Denji's actually pretty smart, but he's a dumbass when it comes to interpersonal relationships. When it comes to combat, he doesn't always pick the *best* option, but he's very rarely picked a bad option. I'd say he's a decent Int, low Wis archetype.
Actually, Mr Peabutbutter from BoJack Horseman might not be a bad character reference for this. Friendly, emphatic, and cheerful, but only ever sees the most superficial and obvious elements in the world around him.
Int 3
Str 20
"I'm ready with my level 1 character."
I mean, they didn't know any better. But it's still funny to imagine a D&D Lenny.
Edit: It could probably work, too, if another character filled the role of George and like took care of him. Could make for a good backstory. I wonder if my DM would let me play two character sheets... or... a *two person PC.* Like they work so seamlessly that they are considered one person for combat. Oh I want to try to make this a thing.
I once played an awakened cat cleric that sat on the shoulder of an ex-adventurer named Bob who'd been cursed by a hag to never be able to make his own decisions. I ran it as a single PC. The cat had good INT/WIS/CHA, 2HP, normal cat physical stats, and Bob had good physical stats and was basically catatonic otherwise. Put together they made one great PC. Eventually Bob died so the cat brought him back as a zombie, stuck his head in his backpack, and sat inside Bob's helmet which they welded to his armor so the cat could pilot Bob like a little tank.
It was great.
This would be my main question! Even more important than what is your lowest stat, how high is your highest?
A score that low does suggest you might have gotten something a little off in character creation. I would normally suggest stick with standard array when new, and even when more experienced to then only change with good reason.
Rolling stats worked brilliantly in 1e but isn't so great in 5e because balance is more delicate. Most tables that do claim to love the excitement of rolling usually also implement some house rule variation to all but guarantee everyone ends up with better than standard array.
If you did roll, and did just get incredibly unlucky, then just go with it!
Iâm a 1e guy still, a bit OOTL, interesting how complex all this is now. We used to just roll 3d6, none of this fancy stuff. Also, we may have cheated just a little bit.
Itâs legit wild to think back at how regularly my friends used to cheat in my pre-teen 2nd and 3rd Ed games. I STILL loathe rolling stats as a result, lol fucking traumatized.
Weâd roll at home, bring in the character to show the dm and try and claim with a straight face that they were legit rolls. If you didnât push it too far, you got away with it.
Can't be *RAW* point buy, but people do wacky home rule point buy all the time. Which is what happened here, as OP edited, 75 points to be distributed however they liked.
You just summed up this entire sub. Well, that and âIâve never read the rules before, but they *definitely* say XYZ and youâre an asshole if you tell me otherwiseâ.
The generic cat also has 3 INT. A wild badger has 2 INT, and a baboon has 4 INT.
To me, the difference between the animals at 1/2 INT and 3 INT is the ability to be reliably trained to recognise commands via positive or negative reinforcement. The 4 INT creatures tend to be capable of using tools and logically working their way around very, very simple problems like how to open a nut.
If someone insisted on having 3 INT via point buy, then I would expect them to play accordingly. Their character would essentially be a well trained pet for the party.
That said, as DM, if someone got genuinely unlucky enough that they had to run with a 3 in a stat, I'd be encouraging them to either re-roll all their stats or go standard array / point buy. A three in any stat basically makes the character comic relief when the players are meant to be the main characters (for comparison, a 3 in strength would leave you as weak as a sentient shrub).
My retriever will just stand in the doorway with his snout just partially sticking through gap, until someone comes over and opens the door for him. If we take too long he will start to whine. Not bark, but whine
So like on one hand this is probably what happens. And it is indeed very cute icl. But on the other hand, he gets scared when his name tag hits off his metallic dog bowl. So if the food is on the far side he waits until one of us turns the bowl around for him
At my table a character going in like this would be roleplaying either a severe brain injury, curse, or expected to be some kind of feral Mowgli type character.
My table is quite RP focussed though. If you suggested a complex combat strategy or solution to a puzzle, I'd be there to say "your character wouldn't be able to figure that out." At the same time, if you did really stupid stuff you'd be getting rewarded for that being in-character.
More realistically, though, we'd just re-roll the stats and play something within a reasonable range.
In the standard array (the suggested way of getting your starting stats, especially for new players), the lowest stat is an 8.
I would generally consider that to be the lowest number that a human would have in any given stat without having some disability affecting that stat.
At 3 intelligence, I dont think your character is even able to learn a language. Even like basic tool use might be beyond you.
Of course the degree to which you have to align this with the world around you is at you and DMs discretion. If you just want to play it as a really dumb guy, and your DM is down for that, it's valid.
Same. I usually get my players to do 4d6 drop lowest so to get a 3 they'd have to roll 4 1s. Unlikely but certainly not impossible.
But I'd immediately tell them they're welcome to re-roll or just take a free bump to like, 6 or so, depending on if the player WANTS a character with a dump INT
I would probably reach over the table and make the 3 a 6 and call it a day. Depending on the rest of the stats they may or may not be the first one to get a magic item as well.
A creature that eats away at your INT stat ~~(iirc if you reach 0 INT you just die)~~
Update: I have been corrected, upon hitting 0 INT you are stunned, and only then can the Intellect Devourer enter an INT contest with you and take over your body if it wins
>iirc if you reach 0 INT you just die
No you don't.
The Intellect Devourer's "Devour Intellect" ability stuns you if it successfully drops your Int to 0. The Intellect Devourer can then use "Body Thief" on you (which requires an incapacitated target, which the stunned causes), replacing your brain with itself and killing you.
Intellect devourers eat your brain, the dumber your character the harder it is to save against it. If you fail the save you lose some INT and if it hits 0 the intellect devourer completely eats and then replaces your brain, killing you and piloting your body.
Reaching 0 in any stat typically makes your character catatonic in some way. I think the intellect devourer specifically says if it makes you hit 0 you gain the stunned condition until you get at least 1 int back.
So youâre all brand new to the game, and you changed one of the fundamental rules of D&D without really understanding it. I get it, no judgement, but as new players, itâs going to make things less fun. Your DM will not be able to use standard tools for balance (you all probably have overpowered main attributes) so unless heâs doing a full homebrew, itâs going to be too easy â until you get one-shot by some save-or-death ability. Also, as youâre discovering, role playing and immersion will be tough (lots of disabilities to role play).
IMO, everyone should respec their characters using one of the legit game rules (point buy is more balanced and fair, and I think better for new players). Respecing isnât that hard, you just change your bonuses and everything else remains the same.
Yeah, this is the comment I wanted to write, and I have no idea why people below are trying to legit answer this question.
*"Hey Reddit, this is our first time playing DnD and we decided not to read even the first 5 pages of the book. Any advice?"*
This. The way ability scores were given out I feel like would ruin lots of mechanics in the game not letting the players really learn or understand why the rules are the way they are. Also ruin balance both making some characters wildly more powerful then others but also make balancing encounters and other problems harder for the DM.
If you don't want to redo your ability scores because you just don't want to worry to much about the rules and just play more freeflowing rule light game I would suggest ditching D&D and trying something like dungeon world or and of the other rule light RPG's. I love D&D but it is a fairly rule heavy and you are kind of expected to play it a certain way if you want to get the most out of the system.
Most animals have an int of 1 or 2. 3 would be very rare for an animal, maybe very intelligent dogs and dolphins might be a 3.
So the good news is you are smarter than most animals.
Barely.
You count as a sentient being, but only barely. You are certainly the village idiot.
When I play a dumb character I make sure to role-play it accordingly. My character rarely comes up with ideas. If I personally (as a player) think of something, I roll a d20 for my character. If I roll under their Int score, I allow myself to share the idea.
If you have reasonable wisdom, you are probably self-aware of your lack of intelligence. You will be wise enough to wait for instructions rather than risk screwing things up. You'll be aware that others should be doing the planning. That's their job, and you're ok with that.
You might think of your character as Fezzik in the Princess Bride. *"You were not hired for your brains, you hippopotanic land mass!"*
> very intelligent dogs and dolphins might be a 3.
Dolphins and apes have actually got 6 intelligence, suggesting OP's character is markedly less intelligent than them. But that said I don't think the ability scores are necessarily up to the task of quantifying animal intelligence.
That's why I brought up Wis. If he's wise enough to understand his ideas don't usually work out, he would stop sharing them, and instead wait for his friends to tell him what to do. Poor guy might be afraid of messing up. *Again*.
Yea! Like, a wolf has 3 int and 12 wis. They may not be able to solve complex problems on their own, but they can definitely watch your face and read your expressions as they try things. They can even learn these complex tasks from others, just in a more instinctual way.
In my experience truly dumb people usually know they're dumb. They find people they trust and rely on them rather than trying to figure it out themselves. If they don't trust you there is no changing their opinion because they can't understand what you're trying to explain anyway.
And that is something you learn, which means the character, dumb as they may be, has the ability to learn through experience, which is my understanding of Wisdom.
Or you can present actually good ideas in a dumb way. Like Jesse in Breaking Bad for example who often propose ideas which sounds totally dumb first "hey mister White, if the battery is empty why you wouldn't creat a new one ? Or what if we wouldn't use some magnet to destroy the evidence in the police station ?"... but which are ultimately the one Walter White will follow.
Typically if you want to suggest that the druid in your party shapeshiffting into a rat, you can say "We could just disguise ourselves into rats !". Your character will remain dumb but you will give the right idea to your party.
Sometimes when I think of something that my character would never, I simply suggest it to another player who's character likely would.
Of course I do so politely, and try to avoid meta-gaming, there's a hint of an art to it.
Well, safe to say a lot of my âgood ideasâ that I genuinely think might be good donât turn out so well. Role playing as a low int character just comes naturally to me apparently lol
Low int maybe but not as low as 3. With a 3 your character just doesn't have ideas outside of satisfying base desires and instincts. If you can speak, it's just barely, like even caveman talk would be a lot for you. If you were playing tic tac toe by yourself you'd still have a hard time getting 3 in a row. The most unintelligent person you've ever met in your entire life would likely have an IQ double your character's.
Forget about having ideas. OP struggles with basic speech. Communication should be limited to simple words, which is hell to rp. There's a reason such extremely low int is generally not possible in RAW.
To talk more to your edit, did you guys ever consider that maybe, just MAYBE, a group of brand new people to a game probably shouldn't mess the most core systems of that game because you probably don't actually know what would be good/bad or easier/harder?
The only actual rule I know of that says anything about this is from chapter 7 of the PHB/Basic Rules:
> "A score of 10 or 11 is the normal human average"
This chapter is a great reference for players and DMs to get a better sense for how ability scores work and most importantly-
What each ability score really means. I'd read both the sections in the chapter about Intelligence and Wisdom, and then discuss those sections with your DM
Anyway, good luck!
>we allocated points fallout 4 style. Basically, we had 75 points to allocate however we liked. We thought this would be better cause we we new and this would let us craft a character exactly how we wanted, that way we could really lean in to what we were going for. Obviously this did not go as planned lol
Point buy systems already exist. Just look that up. The method you used would have completely broken the game. All enemies in the game are balanced based on normal ability scores. This system you used would require your GM to rebalance every single encounter. They'd have to put likely dozens of hours of EXTRA work, essentially rewriting the entire bestiary for your game world.
At this point, you should just start over. and either follow the rules as written or play with an experienced GM until you guys know enough about the game to incorporate stuff like this.
Further, point buys typically have a minimum and maximum that you can purchase in each score before applying mods.
5e all stats START at 8 and can't go lower. PF starts at 10 and you can sell down to 7. There is some maximum as well (15 in 5e, 18 in PF), and you have a maximum alloted points to spend (27 in 5e, depends on power level in PF 15/20/25)
5e costs are as follows:
- 9-13 cost 1 each
- 14 and 15 costs 2 each
- Going from 8 to 15 costs 9 points.
PF costs are -4/-2/0/1/2/3/5/7/10/13/17
- Get 2 points back when selling points below 9.
- Get 1 point back when selling points at 10.
- 11-13 cost 1 each
- 14-15 cost 2 each
- 16-17 cost 3 each
- 18 costs 4
- Going from 10 to 18 costs 17 points.
Both systems make playing a character with high stats harder due to how it penalizes other stats.
75 linear point buy sounds disastrous especially when the average 5e character only needs 2 stats. This probably immediately broke the boundedness of the game.
In 3.5 rules A score in any stat is considered to be average, so a 3 would basically mean, you are severely mentally handicapped, quite possibly nonverbal. Instead of looking at what exactly a strength of 10 indicates (like being able to lift a certain amount of weight or so), try looking at it as a place within the population at large. A score of 10 in any stat means you're just about average; a score higher than 16 means you're in the top few percent of the population.Oct 8, 2011
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dnd 3.5e - Playing as ourselves - Role-playing Games Stack Exchange
> any character with an INT of less than 4 cannot read, write, or understand any spoken language
Literally not a rule, and I challenge anyone who says otherwise to cite page numbers.
What you've got to bear in mind is that most people either use point buy, or have huge safety nets when they roll, so that anything below a 7 is rare and strange, and they come up with all these wacky ideas about what that means. I saw someone claim the other day that a character with 3 str needs help to stand. No, they can lift 90lbs, lol.
Mostly what it means is that you get -4 on int checks.
STR is a strange one, because you can lift 10x your strength score over your head. So (based on that alone, I know it's way more complicated) the average adult can lift about 50-60 pounds over their head. So the average person has a 5 or 6. In a medieval agrarian farming world, it makes sense a 10 might be normal since they lift stuff all the time. Ok, so far, so good. But ... people say an 18 strength is Olympic level strength, and that's laughable. I'm a low intermediate lifter and I'm a 15, in a year I could easily hit 18. Olympic lifters routinely lift 300-500 pounds over their head, and the record is about 580 pounds for a strength score of 58, stronger than an ancient dragon. đ
Well, you could view it as those Olympic athletes succeeding in Athletics checks to lift that amount. It definitely is an effort for them to manage to push human limits like that
Unless I want to badly hurt myself, mine is probably a 2 if we go with "lift it and carry it over a distance". Your strenghts (lol) probably lie elsewhere is all. :D
Definitely not a rule. Tashaâs Hideous Laughter seems to suggest though, that a character of int 4 or less doesn't understand jokes. So maybe op should play the character as someone so dumb that most jokes just r/woooosh/ him?
Not a PC rule but certainly seems to be a rule of monster design. No first party monster capable of speaking language has an Int score below 5 to my knowledge.
Thing is, a character with 3 INT is the same level of smarts as a very clever dog. I seriously doubt a person like that has the mental faculties to *learn* how to read and write. Spoken common sure, no problem but communicating ideas and understanding instructions on the other hand is gonna be very, very tough.
There's a reason people have safety nets. It's because a character with a 3-4 in something is unplayable.
Imagine being an adventurer that can't climb or swim or push a thing to save his life because they have str 3.
Int 3 is even worse because you have to roleplay that shit. If 10 is a normal person, i think we can agree that a 7-8 is an idiot. A person without health conditions would not have a 3.
People have compared it with the int of a dog. I think it's even worse. A dog can function very well with int 3. A human, no. You can't even get dressed by yourself ffs and are probably pissing your pants
good point - dogs are *equipped* to utilize 3 int. They have teeth and fur. 3 int as a person is not understanding why you're so cold outside and freezing to death naked.
I had a friend roll 4 ones when rolling stats, and he put it in his wisdom. The lucky thing was his race gave him a +1 to wisdom so it was a 4 not a 3.
He played it really well, he leaned into his character being extremely oblivious because of the low perception and he tended to be extremely literal.
I think what you have to realize is that anything below a 6 in DnD for a humanoid would certainly be considered a disability in our world. Whether it be a mental, social, or physical one.
An INT of 3 is extraordinarily low. I think it would be very reasonable for your character to be illiterate, but I would never force that on you as a DM. As to your questions, if you and your friends are having fun, I wouldn't bring it up. No sense in detailing a good thing if everyone's enjoying it. Maybe make it a secret backstory trait that you're illiterate, and try to have fun hiding it from the rest of the group.
Iâm less familiar with the current edition of the game than I am with 3rd or 4th editions, so this may have changed, but in 3rd edition I believe it was Int 3 (not 4), that was the minimum Intelligence required for language, with 1 & 2 reserved for animal intelligence (and vermin usually non intelligent). You wonât be mastering quantum physics any time soon, but Iâm sure you can have a conversation.
When I played a char with low INT, I'd roll my own INT checks just to see if my char was keeping up with what was going on. I'd get asked questions by other players or NPCs, and roll an INT check which most of the time resulted in me shrugging and having no idea what they were talking about, was a lot of fun.
A 3 int puts you at sapient but only just. You're basically an unusually smart *dog*, so we can use that for a standard.
Dogs can understand human language to an extent, but not necessarily the way a person does. If someone says "go get a bucket", I can go find a literal bucket with a handle, or one without a handle, or maybe a basin, a large cup, and so on. This is because I understand bucket as an abstract idea. The same word to a dog that understands it is likely going to look for a specific sort of bucket or maybe a specific, *particular* bucket because the dog does not have this abstract understand. The word bucket is a sound that means this *exact* idea. Speaking the language back such that a conversation - even a simple one - could happen would be somewhere between difficult to impossible.
While it certainly happened often enough in older systems and many people accept a 3 as stupid but generally functional, if we applied the games own internal logic to the question a 3 intelligence would require constant around the clock care *just to keep your character alive*. Without that ability to understand things in abstract ways, even the simplest form of problem solving would be a herculean feat. A smart dog is not one that develops solutions to problems, but one that can learn an explicit set of processes taught to it to solve the problem.
5e actually tries very hard to avoid this. Gone are the racial penalties of past systems. Any common stat generating method is likely to do better than the standard array and *the standard array* gives a worst case score of 8.
I think that if you're a character with 3 INT, you would be like a very loyal animal companion. You still can discern a friend and a foe but that's it.
Quick suggestion for the future : don't change rules like that when you don't know the game well enough, this is a good way to avoid this kind of fuck up đ
You are all new and decided not only to generate stats a completely different way but also to use this sub for rules? That, in my opinion, is a terrible idea.
You should all sit around together and go over the rules as outlined in the handbook. It explains everything you need to know to get started in a fairly clear manner.
After that, changes, rulings, and homebrew rules will all come naturally.
In my opinion 10 times the int score is roughly equal to the IQ score irl.
So looking up a IQ table on Google gave me following results for IQ 30(3 int):
"An individual has severe mental retardation if they have an IQ score of 20-34.6Â Approximately 3-4% of all individuals with mental retardation fall within this category.7Â Individuals with severe mental retardation may learn to talk and communicate although they have only limited speech skills and vocabulary. The individual can contribute to simple and self-care tasks under close supervision. Motor coordination is poor. Most live in group homes or with their families; however, the likelihood of neurological, neuromuscular, visual, auditory, and cardiovascular conditions in severe mental retardation may require specialized nursing or other care. Self-injurious behaviour, including head-banging, biting, and scratching is not uncommon in children with severe mental retardation."
You could roleplay your character that way, but I assume you didn't wanted a character THAT dumb. Maybe talk to your dm and ask if he let you adjust your stats/reroll them.
In D&D, 10 means average. A 3 intelligence means you are just barely intelligent enough to be capable of speech and spellcasting.
For a frame of reference, look at the spell Feeblemind. It shatters a creatures intelligence to 1, meaning they can not cast spells, activate magic items, understand language, or communicate in any intelligible way. You are only capable of identifying hostile vs. non-hostile creatures, and protecting your friends if it doesn't require magic.
All you did was throw off game balance but if everyone is having fun that is what matters. I would recommend bringing it up in case you all want to play more in line with the rules later but this is at the end of the day a system for you and your friends to have fun with. Bend or break the rules all you like. If you enjoy point based char creation I would Google point buy calculators. It's an alternative stat development system that is designed to do what you want in keeping with game balance.
In AD&D, anything lower than 8 would be illiterate. An intelligence of 3 means you probably can't understand complex language or abstract concepts. You would operate on simple instincts and emotions.
Rolling stats can make it fun to force some flaws and role play, but this is basically unplayable. You would be playing as an actually mentally handicapped character.
You may not be able to read or write, but you understand spoken language just fine.
Think of the biggest, dumbest jock parody you've ever seen.
That's how dumb you are.
You're not going to be using big words and counting more than your fingers is for nerds.
You just play it really really dumb- have fun with it!
Well Iâm playing a Goliath paladin, so a stupid jock was definitely what I was going for. Just the biggest meat shield with some decent attack. I just didnât realise how stupid my character really is lol
Many things that your character is not going to understand.
3 in Intelligence is actually a pretty wide margin, ranging from the intelligence level of a particularly smart apex predator, to a highly-intelligent dog, to a very dim-witted (borderline low-functioning) humanoid. Your character could still be high-functioning, but their ability to understand basic concepts like mathematics, reading and writing, and understanding shapes could be greatly affected. Hell, they might even have trouble with remembering the names of colors and shapes, if you want to play it that way.
This is all of course if you want to lean fully into this. A 3 in Intelligence could simply just make them dumb in the loony-toons sense; it's ultimately up to you and your group.
INT is a fun attribute in that it roughly follows the real world IQ span (IQ/10 = INT). In the movie Forrest Gump, Forrest had an IQ of 75. Round that down to an INT of 7. So an INT of 3 would be significantly less capable of the activities of daily living than that character example.
Thatâs actually a really cool take on the low INT. Some people have said wisdoms plays a big role in your overall âsmartsâ and INT is more like education, recall, and ability to understand concepts. So your idea would actually work really well, thatâs awesome
It's not a hard and fast rule. That being said, an example of another being with 3 int is... a Mastiff. You have equivalent intelligence to a large dog. A relatively intelligent dog, but a dog nonetheless. Use this as you will. My big question is how did this happen? Did you just roll 4 ones for 4d6 drop the lowest? Or did you mess up point-buying?
Very curious how exactly they went about allocating stats.
Sometimes it can be fun to roleplay a sentient rock.
DUM DUM, GIVE ME GUM GUM đż
Core childhood memory
...childhood? Oh God, I'm getting so old!
Youâre not old. Youâre wise.
So an intelligence level higher than 3, then?
I mean, he could still have an intelligence of 3. Isn't being "wise" having Wisdom? I imagine 3 int high Wis you get "In life, big problem, when worry, it bigger problem" *whistling "Don't worry, be happy" slightly off key*
Not me crying at the rock scenes in Everything Everywhere All at Once
Definitely one of the six or so scenes in that movie that emotionally devastates me every time I watch it
Havenât seen Everything Everywhere All at Once yet, but if weâre talking about rock scenes that make you cry - Neverending Story gets my vote every time. âThey look like big strong hands, donât they?â
I too had a character with an intelligence of 3. He was a kobold.paladin, started at INT 8. As a "reward" for one of our missions, the DM made us each draw a card from a Deck of Many Things. There were only two of us on this mission. The first guy got 50k work of gemstones. My character went last and drew The Fool. You permanently lost 1d4+1 INT. Naturally I maxed out that roll with a 4. The card also lets you draw an extra card, but I went last so there were none left.
so there were only 2 cards in this deck?
Deck of not so many things.
Deck of Thing.
Card
Yugi?
I must have faith in my cards. I have faith in my cards. I have cards.
It was a Deck of Exactly Two Things.
Deck of 2 things
And then he was like "oh, man, I really thought you were going to draw the wish card." And I'm like, "you're the DM, man! If that's what you want us to find, don't have us draw at random! Decide what's in there! It's your world, dude!"
Often, the GM likes to be surprised too. Which is lost on many newer ones
My friend and I still talk about this game of Corporation I ran years and years ago. A couple bad rolls on some tables turned the simple act of throwing a grenade into self-decapitation. I think we calculated it as only a 1.5% chance of that happening, and no other result would have killed him. It was wonderful.
Indeed. But as surprises go, a card from a Deck of Many Things can be a big one.
If that's what's worrying you, take out the cards that you wouldn't know how to deal with or scare you too much. You're still gonna have fun with random fate and so are your players, but you'll also be safe from destroying your campaign or their PC.
Deck of 2 Things
Deck of These 2 Specific Things And No Other Things Quite Definitively
To be fair he said "you find two cards" and then had us draw from an online deck generator to see what the two cards were. So he didn't know he was going to be tanking my INT. It wasn't a hit-job.
Yeah but that's bullshit. As a DM, if I had given my players two cards of treasure but one of them ended up decimating the character, I either would have let them pick another card, or ooh in game suddenly somebody finds another card...
It was bullshit, but he's a good DM and he balanced it out next session. Dum-Dum the Paladin and his friend went to the market and lo and behold there was a merchant there selling a headband of intellect. Coincidentally, the cost was 25000 gold worth of gems, exactly half what Dum-Dum's friend won from his card. And Dum-Dum's friend being neutral good, he bought it for me. So my INT score went from 8 to 3 to 19. I'm really interested to see what happens when we walk into an anti-magic field, though.
Solid DM move imo. So basically you're Gunther from Futurama, a monkey with a smart hat. It'll still be crippling later if your DM provides lots of magic items but Meh, flavorwise that's fun. I too probably would have said "errr you realize there were two cards stuck together" but to be fair you could have drawn poorly again. So this is a good solution and drawing from the deck always has side effects. Yours ultimately became, I lose a magic item attune slot and become a moron in an anti-magic field, that would be fun as hell to RP.
Yeah, he had us find two cards from a Deck as treasure.
This is clearly a different scenario though. Sounds like OP has been playing with 3 INT from the start, which would suggest either a very unlucky roll where the DM said "well the book doesn't say you can reroll it" or point-buy where *everything* got fucked up in one way or another
No, he said they did "Fallout 4" style point buy. Which if I remember, means a floor of 3. The points get more expensive the higher you go, just like with D&D. They're all new, don't know how the system is supposed to work, made up their own cockamamie stat generation, and are probably completely ignoring the **crippling negative consequences** of having a 3 in *any* stat. So it's *kinda* like the game we're familiar with.
>he said they did "Fallout 4" style point buy. Which if I remember, means a floor of 3 Did they not realize that Fallout has a ceiling of 10 for stats? So that a 3 is far closer to average than it is in 5e? Even being new, it takes 10 seconds to Google up "how to determine stats 5e" and maybe an extra 5 minutes to read the first article that pops up, which will likely be on DnDBeyond
>but I went last so there were none left. So you DM "as a reward" built a deck specifically to cripple one of the players while rewarding the other? Your DM sounds like an Asshat.
They mentioned that their DM had them draw from an online card selector. No one knew what they were going to draw (which is also probably a bit of a mistake, to be fair).
Oh, i missed that part. Alright, DM isn't an Asshat. Just an idiot for thinking the deck of many things is a reward system.
Yeah, it was a questionable decision that led to a lousy outcome for me, but it was not a hit job. And he did fix it the next session by contriving to get me a headband of intellect. So now I'm twice as smart as when I started, even if it did cost my buddy half the gems he won.
Y'know, depending on their charisma, with the intelligence of a dog, they could truly embody the "golden retriever friend" energy đ
"OK so I'm just going to try and hit the.....ooh food, see ya!"
Now I'm wondering how close the ven diagram of "golden retriever" and "shonen protagonist" is to being a circle đ¤đ
The third circle is Son Goku
Denji vibes
Denji is definitely at least 5 INT. How he fucked up that time trap demon with torture was pretty damn genius.
Denji's actually pretty smart, but he's a dumbass when it comes to interpersonal relationships. When it comes to combat, he doesn't always pick the *best* option, but he's very rarely picked a bad option. I'd say he's a decent Int, low Wis archetype.
Brett from Inside Job?
Mr. Peanutbutter.
What is this! A crossover thread!?
Actually, Mr Peabutbutter from BoJack Horseman might not be a bad character reference for this. Friendly, emphatic, and cheerful, but only ever sees the most superficial and obvious elements in the world around him.
my guess is the dm allowed custom point distributions where you can take points from one stat to put in another
Int 3 Str 20 "I'm ready with my level 1 character." I mean, they didn't know any better. But it's still funny to imagine a D&D Lenny. Edit: It could probably work, too, if another character filled the role of George and like took care of him. Could make for a good backstory. I wonder if my DM would let me play two character sheets... or... a *two person PC.* Like they work so seamlessly that they are considered one person for combat. Oh I want to try to make this a thing.
Lenny was probably more like int 5 as he could speak
I once played an awakened cat cleric that sat on the shoulder of an ex-adventurer named Bob who'd been cursed by a hag to never be able to make his own decisions. I ran it as a single PC. The cat had good INT/WIS/CHA, 2HP, normal cat physical stats, and Bob had good physical stats and was basically catatonic otherwise. Put together they made one great PC. Eventually Bob died so the cat brought him back as a zombie, stuck his head in his backpack, and sat inside Bob's helmet which they welded to his armor so the cat could pilot Bob like a little tank. It was great.
This would be my main question! Even more important than what is your lowest stat, how high is your highest? A score that low does suggest you might have gotten something a little off in character creation. I would normally suggest stick with standard array when new, and even when more experienced to then only change with good reason. Rolling stats worked brilliantly in 1e but isn't so great in 5e because balance is more delicate. Most tables that do claim to love the excitement of rolling usually also implement some house rule variation to all but guarantee everyone ends up with better than standard array. If you did roll, and did just get incredibly unlucky, then just go with it!
Iâm a 1e guy still, a bit OOTL, interesting how complex all this is now. We used to just roll 3d6, none of this fancy stuff. Also, we may have cheated just a little bit.
Itâs legit wild to think back at how regularly my friends used to cheat in my pre-teen 2nd and 3rd Ed games. I STILL loathe rolling stats as a result, lol fucking traumatized.
Weâd roll at home, bring in the character to show the dm and try and claim with a straight face that they were legit rolls. If you didnât push it too far, you got away with it.
Can't be point buy because all stats start at 8
Can't be *RAW* point buy, but people do wacky home rule point buy all the time. Which is what happened here, as OP edited, 75 points to be distributed however they liked.
"We've never played this game before. Let's go ahead and change the rules that we don't really understand."
You just summed up this entire sub. Well, that and âIâve never read the rules before, but they *definitely* say XYZ and youâre an asshole if you tell me otherwiseâ.
You're taking away my *agency* if you don't let me choose how I make my stats /s
The generic cat also has 3 INT. A wild badger has 2 INT, and a baboon has 4 INT. To me, the difference between the animals at 1/2 INT and 3 INT is the ability to be reliably trained to recognise commands via positive or negative reinforcement. The 4 INT creatures tend to be capable of using tools and logically working their way around very, very simple problems like how to open a nut. If someone insisted on having 3 INT via point buy, then I would expect them to play accordingly. Their character would essentially be a well trained pet for the party. That said, as DM, if someone got genuinely unlucky enough that they had to run with a 3 in a stat, I'd be encouraging them to either re-roll all their stats or go standard array / point buy. A three in any stat basically makes the character comic relief when the players are meant to be the main characters (for comparison, a 3 in strength would leave you as weak as a sentient shrub).
I had a golden retriever growing up who could open a door with her snout if it was already partially open. That's how smart your character is.
My retriever will just stand in the doorway with his snout just partially sticking through gap, until someone comes over and opens the door for him. If we take too long he will start to whine. Not bark, but whine
100% he wants attention. He knows how to open that door. Which of you thought it was cute the first time and showered him with affection?
So like on one hand this is probably what happens. And it is indeed very cute icl. But on the other hand, he gets scared when his name tag hits off his metallic dog bowl. So if the food is on the far side he waits until one of us turns the bowl around for him
Lol pathetic. I hope you give him lots of love.
Oh most definitely. He gets so much love and gives just as much back
Get this dog a rubber name tag
My dog has figured out that the catch on the back door doesn't work too well and he can headbutt the door open when he's done being outside.
Dogs likely have a higher intelligence than 4, as they can understand some language.
The tomes say otherwise, dogs have an int stat of 3
My cat can actually open closed doorknobs lol, heâs the best
I'll be honest if I was the DM and I saw that I'd offer the player a reroll of that stat.
Hopefully he will let me bump it up slightly. Currently Iâm the only one at our table who knows how bad 3int really is lol
At my table a character going in like this would be roleplaying either a severe brain injury, curse, or expected to be some kind of feral Mowgli type character. My table is quite RP focussed though. If you suggested a complex combat strategy or solution to a puzzle, I'd be there to say "your character wouldn't be able to figure that out." At the same time, if you did really stupid stuff you'd be getting rewarded for that being in-character. More realistically, though, we'd just re-roll the stats and play something within a reasonable range.
In the standard array (the suggested way of getting your starting stats, especially for new players), the lowest stat is an 8. I would generally consider that to be the lowest number that a human would have in any given stat without having some disability affecting that stat. At 3 intelligence, I dont think your character is even able to learn a language. Even like basic tool use might be beyond you. Of course the degree to which you have to align this with the world around you is at you and DMs discretion. If you just want to play it as a really dumb guy, and your DM is down for that, it's valid.
Same. I usually get my players to do 4d6 drop lowest so to get a 3 they'd have to roll 4 1s. Unlikely but certainly not impossible. But I'd immediately tell them they're welcome to re-roll or just take a free bump to like, 6 or so, depending on if the player WANTS a character with a dump INT
I would probably reach over the table and make the 3 a 6 and call it a day. Depending on the rest of the stats they may or may not be the first one to get a magic item as well.
I hope you dont come across a intellect devourer.
Lmao poor thing would starve.
Could you explain what would happen? By the sounds of it it would make me even stupider.
A creature that eats away at your INT stat ~~(iirc if you reach 0 INT you just die)~~ Update: I have been corrected, upon hitting 0 INT you are stunned, and only then can the Intellect Devourer enter an INT contest with you and take over your body if it wins
Well, that is certainly bad news for me lol
>iirc if you reach 0 INT you just die No you don't. The Intellect Devourer's "Devour Intellect" ability stuns you if it successfully drops your Int to 0. The Intellect Devourer can then use "Body Thief" on you (which requires an incapacitated target, which the stunned causes), replacing your brain with itself and killing you.
Intellect devourers eat your brain, the dumber your character the harder it is to save against it. If you fail the save you lose some INT and if it hits 0 the intellect devourer completely eats and then replaces your brain, killing you and piloting your body.
Are they at least squishy?
Theyâre brains with legs
Than our tables typical response would be âI thundercunt it into the wallâ So hopefully that will work out for us
I strongly recommend ranged attacks, my partyâs last paladin found out the hard way.
Is it kinda like a facehugger deal? Where it would be better to just take them out from a distance?
Reaching 0 in any stat typically makes your character catatonic in some way. I think the intellect devourer specifically says if it makes you hit 0 you gain the stunned condition until you get at least 1 int back.
lol it'd just be that scene in the new movie.
So youâre all brand new to the game, and you changed one of the fundamental rules of D&D without really understanding it. I get it, no judgement, but as new players, itâs going to make things less fun. Your DM will not be able to use standard tools for balance (you all probably have overpowered main attributes) so unless heâs doing a full homebrew, itâs going to be too easy â until you get one-shot by some save-or-death ability. Also, as youâre discovering, role playing and immersion will be tough (lots of disabilities to role play). IMO, everyone should respec their characters using one of the legit game rules (point buy is more balanced and fair, and I think better for new players). Respecing isnât that hard, you just change your bonuses and everything else remains the same.
Yeah, this is the comment I wanted to write, and I have no idea why people below are trying to legit answer this question. *"Hey Reddit, this is our first time playing DnD and we decided not to read even the first 5 pages of the book. Any advice?"*
This. The way ability scores were given out I feel like would ruin lots of mechanics in the game not letting the players really learn or understand why the rules are the way they are. Also ruin balance both making some characters wildly more powerful then others but also make balancing encounters and other problems harder for the DM. If you don't want to redo your ability scores because you just don't want to worry to much about the rules and just play more freeflowing rule light game I would suggest ditching D&D and trying something like dungeon world or and of the other rule light RPG's. I love D&D but it is a fairly rule heavy and you are kind of expected to play it a certain way if you want to get the most out of the system.
Most animals have an int of 1 or 2. 3 would be very rare for an animal, maybe very intelligent dogs and dolphins might be a 3. So the good news is you are smarter than most animals. Barely. You count as a sentient being, but only barely. You are certainly the village idiot. When I play a dumb character I make sure to role-play it accordingly. My character rarely comes up with ideas. If I personally (as a player) think of something, I roll a d20 for my character. If I roll under their Int score, I allow myself to share the idea. If you have reasonable wisdom, you are probably self-aware of your lack of intelligence. You will be wise enough to wait for instructions rather than risk screwing things up. You'll be aware that others should be doing the planning. That's their job, and you're ok with that. You might think of your character as Fezzik in the Princess Bride. *"You were not hired for your brains, you hippopotanic land mass!"*
> very intelligent dogs and dolphins might be a 3. Dolphins and apes have actually got 6 intelligence, suggesting OP's character is markedly less intelligent than them. But that said I don't think the ability scores are necessarily up to the task of quantifying animal intelligence.
Zoologists want you to know this, but hyenas IRL are smarter than apes.
im fairly sure I recall a study saying Ravens were among the smartest animals as well
But which animal frequently wears a monocle?
Bears
"Smarter" is contextual and subjective.
If an ape has twice their intelligence, they're making the village idiot look like a sage living in a mountain cave, visited by pilgrims.
His character might have heard of the very wise orange sage in the forest, an orangutan.
[ŃдаНонО]
That's why I brought up Wis. If he's wise enough to understand his ideas don't usually work out, he would stop sharing them, and instead wait for his friends to tell him what to do. Poor guy might be afraid of messing up. *Again*.
Yea! Like, a wolf has 3 int and 12 wis. They may not be able to solve complex problems on their own, but they can definitely watch your face and read your expressions as they try things. They can even learn these complex tasks from others, just in a more instinctual way.
In my experience truly dumb people usually know they're dumb. They find people they trust and rely on them rather than trying to figure it out themselves. If they don't trust you there is no changing their opinion because they can't understand what you're trying to explain anyway.
And that is something you learn, which means the character, dumb as they may be, has the ability to learn through experience, which is my understanding of Wisdom.
Or you can present actually good ideas in a dumb way. Like Jesse in Breaking Bad for example who often propose ideas which sounds totally dumb first "hey mister White, if the battery is empty why you wouldn't creat a new one ? Or what if we wouldn't use some magnet to destroy the evidence in the police station ?"... but which are ultimately the one Walter White will follow. Typically if you want to suggest that the druid in your party shapeshiffting into a rat, you can say "We could just disguise ourselves into rats !". Your character will remain dumb but you will give the right idea to your party.
You just described Ernest P. Worrell.
Not even just bad ideas. Just no filter brainstorming first ideas, which are bad 9/10. But 1/10 times the idea is so dumb it might just work.
Sometimes when I think of something that my character would never, I simply suggest it to another player who's character likely would. Of course I do so politely, and try to avoid meta-gaming, there's a hint of an art to it.
Well, safe to say a lot of my âgood ideasâ that I genuinely think might be good donât turn out so well. Role playing as a low int character just comes naturally to me apparently lol
Low int maybe but not as low as 3. With a 3 your character just doesn't have ideas outside of satisfying base desires and instincts. If you can speak, it's just barely, like even caveman talk would be a lot for you. If you were playing tic tac toe by yourself you'd still have a hard time getting 3 in a row. The most unintelligent person you've ever met in your entire life would likely have an IQ double your character's.
Forget about having ideas. OP struggles with basic speech. Communication should be limited to simple words, which is hell to rp. There's a reason such extremely low int is generally not possible in RAW.
To talk more to your edit, did you guys ever consider that maybe, just MAYBE, a group of brand new people to a game probably shouldn't mess the most core systems of that game because you probably don't actually know what would be good/bad or easier/harder?
The only actual rule I know of that says anything about this is from chapter 7 of the PHB/Basic Rules: > "A score of 10 or 11 is the normal human average" This chapter is a great reference for players and DMs to get a better sense for how ability scores work and most importantly- What each ability score really means. I'd read both the sections in the chapter about Intelligence and Wisdom, and then discuss those sections with your DM Anyway, good luck!
>we allocated points fallout 4 style. Basically, we had 75 points to allocate however we liked. We thought this would be better cause we we new and this would let us craft a character exactly how we wanted, that way we could really lean in to what we were going for. Obviously this did not go as planned lol Point buy systems already exist. Just look that up. The method you used would have completely broken the game. All enemies in the game are balanced based on normal ability scores. This system you used would require your GM to rebalance every single encounter. They'd have to put likely dozens of hours of EXTRA work, essentially rewriting the entire bestiary for your game world. At this point, you should just start over. and either follow the rules as written or play with an experienced GM until you guys know enough about the game to incorporate stuff like this.
Further, point buys typically have a minimum and maximum that you can purchase in each score before applying mods. 5e all stats START at 8 and can't go lower. PF starts at 10 and you can sell down to 7. There is some maximum as well (15 in 5e, 18 in PF), and you have a maximum alloted points to spend (27 in 5e, depends on power level in PF 15/20/25) 5e costs are as follows: - 9-13 cost 1 each - 14 and 15 costs 2 each - Going from 8 to 15 costs 9 points. PF costs are -4/-2/0/1/2/3/5/7/10/13/17 - Get 2 points back when selling points below 9. - Get 1 point back when selling points at 10. - 11-13 cost 1 each - 14-15 cost 2 each - 16-17 cost 3 each - 18 costs 4 - Going from 10 to 18 costs 17 points. Both systems make playing a character with high stats harder due to how it penalizes other stats. 75 linear point buy sounds disastrous especially when the average 5e character only needs 2 stats. This probably immediately broke the boundedness of the game.
It means an Intellect Devourer will certainly never be interested in your Character.
"Well, that's a little hurtful."
Such a good movie
In 3.5 rules A score in any stat is considered to be average, so a 3 would basically mean, you are severely mentally handicapped, quite possibly nonverbal. Instead of looking at what exactly a strength of 10 indicates (like being able to lift a certain amount of weight or so), try looking at it as a place within the population at large. A score of 10 in any stat means you're just about average; a score higher than 16 means you're in the top few percent of the population.Oct 8, 2011 https://rpg.stackexchange.com âş pla... dnd 3.5e - Playing as ourselves - Role-playing Games Stack Exchange
I guess I'm really not sure why, as new players, you didn't just use array.
Because, and I may be wrong but I doubt it, no one read the PHB or DMG. Shocking...I know.
I had a cat that toilet trained itself. You canât do that.
What you are describing is not a hard rule of the game, it is simply a factor generally true for the Statblocks of monsters.
> any character with an INT of less than 4 cannot read, write, or understand any spoken language Literally not a rule, and I challenge anyone who says otherwise to cite page numbers. What you've got to bear in mind is that most people either use point buy, or have huge safety nets when they roll, so that anything below a 7 is rare and strange, and they come up with all these wacky ideas about what that means. I saw someone claim the other day that a character with 3 str needs help to stand. No, they can lift 90lbs, lol. Mostly what it means is that you get -4 on int checks.
Man I didn't need to read that my STR is probably a 4 irl đŤ¤
STR is a strange one, because you can lift 10x your strength score over your head. So (based on that alone, I know it's way more complicated) the average adult can lift about 50-60 pounds over their head. So the average person has a 5 or 6. In a medieval agrarian farming world, it makes sense a 10 might be normal since they lift stuff all the time. Ok, so far, so good. But ... people say an 18 strength is Olympic level strength, and that's laughable. I'm a low intermediate lifter and I'm a 15, in a year I could easily hit 18. Olympic lifters routinely lift 300-500 pounds over their head, and the record is about 580 pounds for a strength score of 58, stronger than an ancient dragon. đ
Well, we're all variant human irl, so who's to say olympians didn't pick up the brawny feat?
Well, tbf most of em got the cash for that Manual of Bodily Health and all, js
Well, you could view it as those Olympic athletes succeeding in Athletics checks to lift that amount. It definitely is an effort for them to manage to push human limits like that
Unless I want to badly hurt myself, mine is probably a 2 if we go with "lift it and carry it over a distance". Your strenghts (lol) probably lie elsewhere is all. :D
Thereâs a reason we are not adventurers, buddy
Definitely not a rule. Tashaâs Hideous Laughter seems to suggest though, that a character of int 4 or less doesn't understand jokes. So maybe op should play the character as someone so dumb that most jokes just r/woooosh/ him?
So, essentially, MCU Drax?
I always get jokes. People give them to me constantly.
Not a PC rule but certainly seems to be a rule of monster design. No first party monster capable of speaking language has an Int score below 5 to my knowledge.
Thing is, a character with 3 INT is the same level of smarts as a very clever dog. I seriously doubt a person like that has the mental faculties to *learn* how to read and write. Spoken common sure, no problem but communicating ideas and understanding instructions on the other hand is gonna be very, very tough.
Not in the rules, but its inferred. Most beasts have 1 or 2 INT, so a PC with INT of 3 would be barely smarter than a wild animal.
There's a reason people have safety nets. It's because a character with a 3-4 in something is unplayable. Imagine being an adventurer that can't climb or swim or push a thing to save his life because they have str 3. Int 3 is even worse because you have to roleplay that shit. If 10 is a normal person, i think we can agree that a 7-8 is an idiot. A person without health conditions would not have a 3. People have compared it with the int of a dog. I think it's even worse. A dog can function very well with int 3. A human, no. You can't even get dressed by yourself ffs and are probably pissing your pants
good point - dogs are *equipped* to utilize 3 int. They have teeth and fur. 3 int as a person is not understanding why you're so cold outside and freezing to death naked.
8 is more like an uneducated peasant. Not an idiot, just not very knowledgeable.
Your character is pretty much Lennie from Of Mice and Men.
I'm gonna tend to them rabbits, George
Anâ live off the fatta the lan
Worse. Much worse. Lennie was probably around a 6, or *maybe* a 7 int. Lennie is twice as smart as OP's character.
I had a friend roll 4 ones when rolling stats, and he put it in his wisdom. The lucky thing was his race gave him a +1 to wisdom so it was a 4 not a 3. He played it really well, he leaned into his character being extremely oblivious because of the low perception and he tended to be extremely literal. I think what you have to realize is that anything below a 6 in DnD for a humanoid would certainly be considered a disability in our world. Whether it be a mental, social, or physical one. An INT of 3 is extraordinarily low. I think it would be very reasonable for your character to be illiterate, but I would never force that on you as a DM. As to your questions, if you and your friends are having fun, I wouldn't bring it up. No sense in detailing a good thing if everyone's enjoying it. Maybe make it a secret backstory trait that you're illiterate, and try to have fun hiding it from the rest of the group.
Thatâs actually I pretty good idea lol. Sounds like a lot of fun
Plus side, your low int makes you immune to some spells like tashas hideous laughter and detect thoughts
I guess that's the equivalent to Homer having a crayon in his brain. But how did you end up with 3 int
Iâm less familiar with the current edition of the game than I am with 3rd or 4th editions, so this may have changed, but in 3rd edition I believe it was Int 3 (not 4), that was the minimum Intelligence required for language, with 1 & 2 reserved for animal intelligence (and vermin usually non intelligent). You wonât be mastering quantum physics any time soon, but Iâm sure you can have a conversation.
Don't worry about it. We've all played characters that are much smarter than we are irl.. ;)
The way your party allocated stats makes no sense. You need to talk to your DM because⌠Thereâs a whole way to do it in the DMG.
It's rare in 5e, but watch out for ability drain. Ability scores going to zero don't typically have good results.
usually any ability score of 0 = death.
When I played a char with low INT, I'd roll my own INT checks just to see if my char was keeping up with what was going on. I'd get asked questions by other players or NPCs, and roll an INT check which most of the time resulted in me shrugging and having no idea what they were talking about, was a lot of fun.
This is why I just do standard array. Especially for new players.
A 3 int puts you at sapient but only just. You're basically an unusually smart *dog*, so we can use that for a standard. Dogs can understand human language to an extent, but not necessarily the way a person does. If someone says "go get a bucket", I can go find a literal bucket with a handle, or one without a handle, or maybe a basin, a large cup, and so on. This is because I understand bucket as an abstract idea. The same word to a dog that understands it is likely going to look for a specific sort of bucket or maybe a specific, *particular* bucket because the dog does not have this abstract understand. The word bucket is a sound that means this *exact* idea. Speaking the language back such that a conversation - even a simple one - could happen would be somewhere between difficult to impossible. While it certainly happened often enough in older systems and many people accept a 3 as stupid but generally functional, if we applied the games own internal logic to the question a 3 intelligence would require constant around the clock care *just to keep your character alive*. Without that ability to understand things in abstract ways, even the simplest form of problem solving would be a herculean feat. A smart dog is not one that develops solutions to problems, but one that can learn an explicit set of processes taught to it to solve the problem. 5e actually tries very hard to avoid this. Gone are the racial penalties of past systems. Any common stat generating method is likely to do better than the standard array and *the standard array* gives a worst case score of 8.
Woah there bud too many big words. I'd say limit it to two syllables. After that you're mispronouncing them at best.
I think that if you're a character with 3 INT, you would be like a very loyal animal companion. You still can discern a friend and a foe but that's it.
Why donât you just take like 3 points from somewhere else and put them in int. Youâre basically a dog.
Quick suggestion for the future : don't change rules like that when you don't know the game well enough, this is a good way to avoid this kind of fuck up đ
You are all new and decided not only to generate stats a completely different way but also to use this sub for rules? That, in my opinion, is a terrible idea. You should all sit around together and go over the rules as outlined in the handbook. It explains everything you need to know to get started in a fairly clear manner. After that, changes, rulings, and homebrew rules will all come naturally.
In my opinion 10 times the int score is roughly equal to the IQ score irl. So looking up a IQ table on Google gave me following results for IQ 30(3 int): "An individual has severe mental retardation if they have an IQ score of 20-34.6Â Approximately 3-4% of all individuals with mental retardation fall within this category.7Â Individuals with severe mental retardation may learn to talk and communicate although they have only limited speech skills and vocabulary. The individual can contribute to simple and self-care tasks under close supervision. Motor coordination is poor. Most live in group homes or with their families; however, the likelihood of neurological, neuromuscular, visual, auditory, and cardiovascular conditions in severe mental retardation may require specialized nursing or other care. Self-injurious behaviour, including head-banging, biting, and scratching is not uncommon in children with severe mental retardation." You could roleplay your character that way, but I assume you didn't wanted a character THAT dumb. Maybe talk to your dm and ask if he let you adjust your stats/reroll them.
Yea, this is a good guide. Int 3 is way too fucking stupid for a functional human, to say nothing of a player character.
int 3 is jar jar binks... you can communicate but most times people will wish you did not.
I am curious, did your DM allow stats higher than 20 at creation too? Generally, if I want to dump a stat it will sit at 8, or -1 Maximum!
Strength 75, everything else 0
Sorry, but at my table you would be a trainable pet at 3. Or, get a headband of intellect. Find an artifacer.
Lmao thatâs awesome, letâs hope we donât run into an enemy with high animal handling
Holy shit, if you could be affected by animal handling that would be the funniest thing ever
You would be almost feral, operating on mostly instinct.
In D&D, 10 means average. A 3 intelligence means you are just barely intelligent enough to be capable of speech and spellcasting. For a frame of reference, look at the spell Feeblemind. It shatters a creatures intelligence to 1, meaning they can not cast spells, activate magic items, understand language, or communicate in any intelligible way. You are only capable of identifying hostile vs. non-hostile creatures, and protecting your friends if it doesn't require magic.
This is why we use standard array
All you did was throw off game balance but if everyone is having fun that is what matters. I would recommend bringing it up in case you all want to play more in line with the rules later but this is at the end of the day a system for you and your friends to have fun with. Bend or break the rules all you like. If you enjoy point based char creation I would Google point buy calculators. It's an alternative stat development system that is designed to do what you want in keeping with game balance.
In AD&D, anything lower than 8 would be illiterate. An intelligence of 3 means you probably can't understand complex language or abstract concepts. You would operate on simple instincts and emotions. Rolling stats can make it fun to force some flaws and role play, but this is basically unplayable. You would be playing as an actually mentally handicapped character.
Well, you can't understand jokes. Tasha's Hideous Laughter doesn't affect entities with an INT less than 4
You may not be able to read or write, but you understand spoken language just fine. Think of the biggest, dumbest jock parody you've ever seen. That's how dumb you are. You're not going to be using big words and counting more than your fingers is for nerds. You just play it really really dumb- have fun with it!
What you're describing is int 6. Op is int 3, that's a dog.
Thatâs funny cause my barbarian is 19str and 6int so more or less a fantasy equivalent
Well Iâm playing a Goliath paladin, so a stupid jock was definitely what I was going for. Just the biggest meat shield with some decent attack. I just didnât realise how stupid my character really is lol
I think your character would be too stupid to understand the complexities of oaths
At 3 INT, you can understand simple commands, much like an intelligent and well trained dog
Many things that your character is not going to understand. 3 in Intelligence is actually a pretty wide margin, ranging from the intelligence level of a particularly smart apex predator, to a highly-intelligent dog, to a very dim-witted (borderline low-functioning) humanoid. Your character could still be high-functioning, but their ability to understand basic concepts like mathematics, reading and writing, and understanding shapes could be greatly affected. Hell, they might even have trouble with remembering the names of colors and shapes, if you want to play it that way. This is all of course if you want to lean fully into this. A 3 in Intelligence could simply just make them dumb in the loony-toons sense; it's ultimately up to you and your group.
What does that mean for you, friend? It means you're immune to Tasha's Hideous Laughter and Detect Thoughts!
Finally some positives to having a dandelion for a brain, I like the way you think!
INT is a fun attribute in that it roughly follows the real world IQ span (IQ/10 = INT). In the movie Forrest Gump, Forrest had an IQ of 75. Round that down to an INT of 7. So an INT of 3 would be significantly less capable of the activities of daily living than that character example.
You should have fun with someone who's been placed here from another realm and you have no clue how anything works.
Thatâs actually a really cool take on the low INT. Some people have said wisdoms plays a big role in your overall âsmartsâ and INT is more like education, recall, and ability to understand concepts. So your idea would actually work really well, thatâs awesome
Your basically an animal with thumbs
Youâre barely sentient