How would you rate your basic 6 abilities ?

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You're taking a simple example on a thing that can be divided into many sections, which is not acceptable. But either way, technically you have a point, and personally, I stick to actions made by limits of qualities of these 6 stats.

Correction : If he can't count over 4, and it goes 1,2,3,4, and the 4 is the last number in his ability to count, he shouldn't be able to realize 28 or 20 or 20 being less than 28 or 28 being over 20, because both are above 4, and he has no free slots after 4, and 4 comes last, as he as well clearly stated. If he would put 4 in slots infront of 1,2 and 3, he would then be forced to put all three numbers he knows behind, and then add 5 or above, into a fifth slot, including 20 and 28, but he knows not about these ,so he cannot.

 

And as for myself:

Str- 12: I am strong for my size but this doesn't mean much when I weigh only a buck fifty (150lbs).

Dex- 13: I was a wrestler and as such I became pretty agile.

Con- 15: Coming in close contact with all those dirty wrestlers made me resistant to many diseases. This all gets an additional boost because our coach was a mean sob, he would work us until we could barely move. Con takes a big hit because I smoke (quiting).

Int- 16: My strongest asset but I'm not going to talk about how smart I am.

Wis- 1?: I believe only others can judge how wise someone is; I have no answer for this stat. This score also measures will power (aka heart). Wrestling gave me a lot of heart; I will never cave in. If I am getting my arse kicked I will ask for more.

Cha- 13: My choir boy look allows me to tell lies easily.

 

One last time. Put the kiboch on stats dictating. You earn those things, you can't name them yourself. But then again, that was the topic...

 

No pleasure in imaginating a more uber chevy with bigger siz... stats, really. If I really needed to make an uber character in such a way as to reflect myself, I would go for fixed proportions derived from comparing my stats before inflating them.

Plus, I'd rather go for my own real stats, anyway - and even if they aren't exactly uber, I don't believe them to be low.

Strength: 12-14

This one is troublesome - I display more strength when carrying things or hitting things than lifting weights. In fact, I've never done weight-lifting. I punch 745 out of 1000 on a machine that believes 1000 to be out of reach, I can carry a backpack and two bags, I can have a pleasant walk carrying a girl in my arms etc etc, but I'm no good arm-wrestling, lifting weights and doing other such stuff. Almost no gym training ever, although I've proven stronger than gym-trained folks on some occasions.

Dexterity: 12 maybe?

There's no way I'm as clumsy as an average human. I'm no marksman, nor an acrobat, but I can sneak on practically anyone and dodge most attacks. I can dance nicely, though I take long to learn that well. I have nimble fingers and can handle my feet, have better reflexes than most people, but coordination is a pain. I would rate it 14, but I can't do too many DEX-intense things at the same time, so I'm giving it 12 - the lowest score with a positive bonus.

Constitution: 12-14 again?

I could find arguments for any score within the range 6-14. I don't care about such petty concerns as sleep, food, drink, rest, low or high temperature and the like. Physical damage doesn't stop me when I want to get something - I just don't really care and if I start to care, it's because I calculate. In boozing, I'm typically the last man standing. I intake amounts of caffeine that would kill a normal person. In tough conditions, I'm typically the last one to complain (except if there's someone to blame for getting in such circumstances, that is). Still, I have asthma and spine problems, plus I hated P.E. classes in school up to uni. All training I've ever had spanned over a short period of time. Again, that's exactly what made me able to do things without preparation when I need to. And I typically need to. In short: I can hold it all except when I actually can't. Means there are things my body won't do, or will do but will need time to recover.

Intelligence: 15-16?

IQ/10 is one way, and in that case, I would have a 15 (rounded up) in Stanford-Binet or 17 in Cattell (large scores are even bigger in Cattell). Still, those tests rely on maths and I suck at maths. I'm a humane arts guy I've learnt a couple of languages including dead ones. Renowned schools, good marks, awards, but not a genius. Definitely not a genius, I believe, though I do have some of those useful abilities related to memory, noticing things and attention span.

Wisdom: ?

Hard one. If I were really wise, shouldn't I feel as if I had a universe-sized penalty? Heck, I do feel like that sometimes. At my age, I'm hardly a venerable sage, although, as I said above, I have some of those abilities most people don't have. Not like I'm always lightning fast in getting things I have to study. Still, I typically am that fast in figuring things out. I've seen my part and whatever situation people consider, I almost always have been there and done that, or something close. Yeah, come to me if you need a willing eye and some feedback. People tend to rate me 16-17, but I can't really tell.

Charisma: 16-18

As with Wisdom, can't really tell. People rate it max (18), some even higher (20), but I feel that's definitely too high. On the other hand, I've seen things. People typically do things the way I want them done... and if you need to get away with something or pull it off, chev is your guy. Same if you want to pour some spirit into a team. Heck, I don't like bragging about things, so let's just stop here.

 

Hmm, interesting philosophical point. Would a truly wise person believe him or herself to be wise? Or is it the case that with great wisdom comes great humility? Maybe the wisest sage would rate his wisdom at 1 to reflect a conclusion that enlightenment is a realisation of that the infinite is unattainable.

Actually, the truly wise person may well consider the question itself to be pointless.

 

Wagh! A tri-post by chev.

I think it might be best to view wisdom as a person's willpower in this case. Think of why clerics require high wisdom and why wisdom effects your will save. Clerics must remain faithful to their god no matter the troubles presented to them, the stronger the faith in their diety the more powers that are bestowed upon them.

I guess when you rate wisdom you should rate how easily you can resist peer pressure, emotional problems and so forth. For example, if you're insane or mentally handicapped you would score low on your wisdom score. Just because someone is handicapped or insane doesn't mean they can't be intelligent people (have we agreed that intelligence is a combination of someone's ability to learn and apply their knowledge?) however it does mean that they are prone to emotional influences, 'over-reacting' or 'taking things the wrong way'.

It's common knowledge that some people can take a more emotional damage than others. So I guess wisdom should measure how much you can take and how resistant you are to being pressured or convinced into doing things. (i.e. your will save).

 

That's one thing, but WIS also reflects judgement and common sense. You may have high will saves, but that may come out of Iron Will feat or good will save progression for your class. Per 3E rules, a fighter with WIS 20 would have worse will save than some 10 WIS wizard after a couple of levels. Now imagine a paladin with some 18 CHA and Divine Grace.

I guess it's hard for a person to rate his own willpower, but assessing your own common sense is even more tricky, same for your judgement.

As for the classic "I know I know nothing", it's related more to knowledge than actual wisdom and, although relevant, it isn't absolutely accurate when it comes to wisdom. A very wise person wouldn't really think of himself as a very wise person, but would probably notice the difference between himself and other people and given the average WIS is 10, I guess the person would come to the right conclusion if asked. Guess overcoming false modesty is part of wisdom, and part of humility as well. After all, isn't false modesty a sign of dangerous pride?

Anyway, I can't really rate my very own self with reliable accuracy. I don't really see it as lower than 14, but neither as higher than 16, no matter what people say.

 

However with common sense and judgement, would you say that a smoker possesses less wisdom than somebody else since they are obviously showing less common sense or bad judgement by smoking? If that is so, what if they know it's a bad decision but they don't care about the consequences?

Still, wisdom is probably the hardest thing to measure, however I wouldn't tie it in with arrogance/modesty since that is personality and personality is covered by charisma - arrogance would lead to a lower charisma score than if the person was not arrogant.

If wisdom is a sign of good judgement and common sense would you say that a judge's primary attribute would have to be wisdom?

Actually, now that I think of it. Would it be good to give an example of a profession that has a primary attribute? Yes? Good. I'll throw up a few. My primary I mean that it is the most important and a person could be successful at this profession with this attribute very high (16+) and the others very low (8 or less).

Strength - Weight lifter. Fairly simple here. The more you can lift, the stronger you are.

Dexterity - Tight rope walker. Not much strength or constitution required. Pure balance.

Constitution - long distance walker. Not much strength and not much dexterity (fairly simple to walk).

Intelligence - data hoarder. Not really a profession but imagine someone who had a photographic memory and remembered everything and anything you told them.

Wisdom - judge is closest I can think of. He requires some intelligence for the sake of past cases as examples and knowledge of the law however that is it.

Charisma - super model. Don't have to be smart, just pretty and nice (i.e "I'm doing this for world peace!" thanks sister but what you're doing isn't helping world peace).

 

With smokers it's tricky. While we would probably agree that being careless and not bothering to learn the possible consequences of one's action isn't wise, there's going to be some disagreement in evaluating the behaviour of a person who knows the consequences but doesn't care. Also, one easily exhibited example of willpower problems (addiction) has to be weighed against the totality of the person's behaviour in situations requiring willpower.

If you don't care about lung cancer risk, it's only reasonable you don't abstain from smoking. The problem is to what extent it is unreasonable to be careless about your health. After all, what do we know?

As for arrogance, I think charismatic people tend to be arrogant unless they make effort to stay humble. Also, they may or may not make that effort as the situation warrants (in their view).

If we consider intelligence as a key stat for a profession, I don't think data hoarder would do. There are people with excellent memory and not so impressive IQ, or people with great smarts who have poor memory, like titled scientists who can't find their glasses/wallets/slippers/keys. I'd rather tie intelligence with processing data.

When it comes to charisma, looks, comeliness and sex appeal don't make it. Super models may have great looks and maybe even above average communication skills as well, but what about leadership abilities? On the other side, there are charismatic leaders who aren't examples of stunning looks. What about religious leaders or presidents? They may well have been handsome but when they climb to the top they're rarely younger than late fifties or late sixties.

 

This reminds me of the old question: If two completely different people both possessed infinite, godlike intelligence and omniscience, would they be different any longer?

Switch intelligence to wisdom there. Because I think it something to consider, wether the wisdom that is in D&D is fundamentally flawed in the first place? Point being, can an evil person be wise? If yes, then wisdom can hardly be associated with humility and acceptance of one's low capacity of understanding of all things. Then, I think, anyone can tell his own wisdom by viewing his ability to understand the deeper, "common sense" kind-of things described before. Certainly I believe anyone with any amount of intelligence can gauge their own wisdom by reflecting their own views and success in matters of spirit and heart, on those of other people.

Let's put it this way. I've always thought people didn't get the meaning of what Sokrates or Platon or Aristoteles or whoever that was said. It wasn't about the seemingly humble behaviour of admitting he knew nothing. It was about the attitude, that spoke of him being always open for more, never assuming he knew enough to judge or to claim himself more than he was. A broadminded, accepting attitude, to put it the short and simple way. The kind, that would in our world fit someone who was impervious to prejudice, racism, and fear of unknown. This, I believe, is a trait only a neutral person might possess. Good and Evil, if we're to speak of the classical black and white, are both restricted to their own views. So wisdom is simply the ability to see all the different shades of gray, that most people seem to miss.

If someone said their wisdom was "1" because of humility, it would be nothing more but a humble act, not an act of wisdom. If someone said their wisdom was "1" simply because they thought it a good place to start developing and learning from, then that would be wisdom.

I wish I had better linguistic skill to describe what I mean. But I'm sure what I wanted to say got accross, more or less.

Edit: @ Chev

It's a tough one alright. In Finland one of the Idols finalists (made it second place, and no I do not admit to watching that show ) was the humblest "small-celebrity" I've probably ever seen. When he came to the show, he was nothing but a truck driver, and he practically cried when he recited his story of failing in school etc only because music had been his life since early childhood. A rather ugly guy, he was quoted to be the traditional honest, hard-working and caring Finnish man. He was hugely popular because so many common people could sympathise with him unlike with any other. The best example I can think of to show that it really is hard to determine "charisma".

As for intelligence, I can't help but think of the tests we were taught about back in school in psychology. There was a russian gyu who could remember a seemingly infinite row of figures even years after they were recited to him just once. But his problem, as usually is a problem of those with too good memory, was that he couldn't improvise. Because of his memory, he did not need to ever analyze and process information, which led to him being nothing but a huge datastorage, unable to do anything that he didn't know precisely beforehand. Give him 2 sticks and a rope, he wouldn't know how to combine them into one unless tought to do so first. This was claimed to be a common feature in all people with near photographic memory. Wether it was because they simply didn't need their cognitive, or improvisational abilities, or because that incredible memory came at the direct cost of their self-learning abilities, I don't know.

It was the same thing vice versa. People with below average memory had had to learn to improvise far better than the average person. So when put into a wholly new situation they were superb in learning new things by trying and improvising. But of course, they could hardly learn much beforehand to prepare for a coming test.

All levels of all stats, it seems, can be derived from different abilities. 2 people with 18 in intelligence can be completely different, each having their own strengths. Etc, etc.

Enough said, D&D does not cover the realistic range of human potential. Not that it has ever claimed to, of course.

[ August 30, 2004, 20:41: Message edited by: Foradasthar ]

 

It depends. Wouldn't the extreme intelligences you speak of (photographic memory and extreme improviser) actually have an intelligence of 14? It would be the combination of the two that would result in an intelligence of the 18s or higher. Realise that a score of 18 would only be possessed by about 5% of the world's population.

Rather than being based on one sole aspect of an ability, rather it is the average rating of all your combined aspects in that ability.

I've also thought about dexterity. Wouldn't it actually be a combination of a strength:weight ratio, balance and flexibility? The stronger you are for your size the more agile you are, balance and flexibility are obviously tied in with dexterity. However all of these three aspects are different things and strength:weight is dependent upon another statistic.

 

5% of population would have IQs 130+. Would really IQ 130 qualify for INT 18? What do I get then, according to the tests, 20? Nah, I don't feel anywhere near that. Look, I'm not dumb, but in honesty, do I look like anywhere near a genius? Hell no. And, in fact, I know people who're smarter than I and still don't look like a typical genius, nor a proper semi-supernatural INT 20.

[ August 31, 2004, 01:45: Message edited by: chevalier ]

 

Also, STR as defined by DND would involve how well you can hit stuff. This has little to do with strength, and all the more with dexterity, since it involves hand-eye coordination, attuning your movement properly etcetera. For hitting harder, that you'll need strength. Not for solely being able to hit something.

 

If AC is helped by armour, I guess having more Strength should help you bite through. Should also work against thick skins of monsters and such, but there's no way STR 20 could make you hit a monk more often than STR 8 in reality (as I see it).

 

Strength relates to 'to hit' for a simple reason - weapons are heavy. Try hitting someone with something you find heavy, it's very hard.

This is why weapon finesse only applies to rapiers, daggers etc. light weapons basically. Str defines not how well you can hit stuff, it defines how well you can hit stuff if you're trying to hit stuff with something heavy.

Try hitting someone with a pool que (sp? the stick you hit the balls with when playing snooker), then try again with an iron rod of the same length (hypothetically damnit! unless it's chev, hit him all you want ). You'll find it is far easier because the pool que is lighter and easier to wield whereas the iron rod is heavier.

 

Still, STR bonus applies even to daggers if you don't have Finesse. I don't see how huge strength would benefit you here.

 

I guess weapon finesse implies you know how to bypass some parts of the enemy's armor. Even full plate has vulnerable areas. A high strength probably implies you ignore finesse and just try to stab the dagger right through a breastplate or in the case of combat if you're stronger than someone else you can knock their weapon away further than if you were weaker. Doing so would put them at a disadvantage and allow you an attack.

 

Knowing that average stats are between 9 and 12,
I think these are my stats:

Str - 9 (average strength, but not that strong)
Dex - 12 (Good reflexes, good hand-eye coordination)
Con - 8 (Easily affected by bacteria and a slow healing rate)
Int - 15 (being a MENSA member, IQ-score is above 99,5% of other people's)
Wis - 8 (Prone to make bad decisions, insight in other people's character is quite good though.... a hard one, could be 8 but also be a 13...help me on this one)
Cha - 9 (Nothing special, high Int score makes me a good speaker...but really not a charismatic one)

It would be nice if you other people would be honest about this, it would make this topic a bit more interesting.

Funny how people seem to exaggerate when it comes to the intelligence score...

In terms of percentage only 1% would score above 14 for Intelligence,
Nice to see that al the geniuses swarm together on this board... :-S

btw....I'm back on the boards after a abcense of 2 year..

[ September 15, 2004, 23:53: Message edited by: Nightal ]

 

I think you mean 'above 17'. 18 is the highest a human can achieve (not even then actually, if you consider 3rd eidion where you gain ability points every so many levels - so somebody who was a gifted child could possess an intelligence of 23 or something in his old age).

 

If 0,0005% would score an IQ of 180, then 180 would compare to 18,
17 to 170, 160 to 160 and so on..

I gave myself a score of 15 having an IQ between 140 and 150.

Only 0,5% of the people score above 140, so would it be likely that *this* much people on this board have a Int score above 14?

And Intelligence does not rise when you age!