Roleplaying a Dump Stat - Intelligence
I recently got dragged into a game where I had to roll for my ability scores. I rolled fairly decently with 17, 14, 13, 11, 9, and… 5.
As I’m playing a Warlock and I write this blog, I decided to just throw that 5 into Intelligence as my dump stat (Look! I referenced the site!). Of course, that brings me to the question, what even does a 5 Intelligence look like?
I know most people just react with “You can’t form a cohesive sentence. You are big dumb.” but that isn’t helpful or fun, so I decided to think about it and how I would roleplay a terrible Intelligence, while still having a high Charisma and moderate Wisdom score.
Intelligence
Let’s start at the beginning. What does Intelligence provide a character?
Intelligence is a character’s ability to recall accurate information and make logical leaps. It helps you reason out why and how things work, deducing their relationship to one another.
So an average intelligent person should be able to figure out that when X happens, Y will happen if they learn about it or watch it happen. Likely, someone will understand “Cause and Effect” for their actions and be able to imagine what the effects of their actions will cause. (Though, this might start blending into Wisdom when it becomes predicting how someone might react, Intelligence is more useful for predictable patterns and not to deal with squishy humans and their emotions.)
They can also utilize context clues when reading a dense novel to understand what unusual words mean or be able to glean what new slang means. Lastly, they can recall information they once read, heard, or saw from years ago to some degree of correctness.
Boiling it down, unintelligent creatures will struggle with recognizing patterns, understanding big words or concepts that haven’t been explained to them and broken down into tiny portions, and being unable to guess logical cause and effect.
Dump Stat & Roleplaying
So, how does this affect a player’s ability to roleplay?
Well, firstly, throw out your thesaurus as you are not coming up with synonyms or antonyms. Your vocabulary will be basic and repetitive. You will use simple words, like good and bad, to describe your experiences. You definitely won’t be talking about the complex flavor notes of a wine you’re throwing back at the tavern.
But! That isn’t to say you aren’t tasting those flavor notes or that you can’t enjoy them, it is that you aren’t able to get deeper on the description of that wine than just “good,” “I like it,” and “more please.” That level of nuance is difficult for you to put into words and so you are going to stick to simpler phrases.
In addition, big concepts are hard to keep in your head at a single time. While you might understand all of the plan and all the words used, you are not going to be able to keep multiple steps in your head without practice. If you and your party is making a battle plan and it involves you doing multiple things in a specific order, it is not something you are going to be able to keep in mind when things actually start going.
However, if this is a task you have done many times, you could accomplish it. Like if you and your party practice battle maneuvers over and over, you will be able to do complex battle maneuvers, but you probably won’t be able to deviate very far from it.
Interactions with Higher Stats
Now, we have talked about your limitations in regards to just Intelligence, but a single person isn’t just a single stat (unless you are a hexblade paladin). How might you behave with stats that are higher or a lot higher than your Intelligence?
Strength
You have learned that strength is a good way of getting what you want and you often resort to using your strength when things don’t go your way. You likely are strung along and tricked by other people so that they can use your muscles for themselves and their own wants.
Dexterity
You are good at keeping your balance, quick fingers, sneaking around, and relying on your natural speed to not be caught or noticed. You often love any task that requires a lot of fine motor control and repetitive tasks (or tasks that you have learned after a lot of practice), like working with clockwork constructs, dismantling locks on a door, or even tailing a single creature for a long time in the city.
Constitution
You are especially healthy and people are likely to treat you in the same way they treat someone really strong. You may get sent to do the worst jobs that involve filth, like working in a sewer or collecting corpses, as you can wave off almost any disease. If you are also expressly strong, you are likely to be someone’s favorite henchman.
Wisdom
While clever words can easily confuse you, you are wise enough to know when someone is using you for their own purposes and when they don’t have your best interests at heart. You can tell when someone means well, and you probably have more animal friends as they aren’t going to judge you for your Intelligence or lack thereof.
Charisma
While you may not be smart, you do have a natural instinct of getting people to like you, fear you, or believe anything that comes out of your mouth. Perhaps those people even assume that because you have low Intelligence that you couldn’t possibly tell a believable lie or that you might have your own plans, which makes it easier for you to control them.
Your Score
The other thing to think about is your specific Intelligence modifier. For the last part of this article, here is how I think of each score up to 10:
-5 | You only know a few words and can identify friend and foe, you react to stimuli without thinking through the full circumstances
-4 | Animalistic, you know who is friendly and who isn’t, you rarely talk (if ever) and rely mostly on instincts, you take the most straightforward option when it comes to completing tasks or making decisions
-3 | Simple words and phrases are how you communicate most of the time, you can understand it when someone wants you to do a complex task, but it has to be broken down into small components, you can’t remember more than a handful of items from a list
-2 | You can string together multiple sentences into a cohesive whole (you might use the wrong word sometimes), however your vocabulary is still limited and you still require direction when it comes to complex tasks or reasoning out cause and effect, you struggle to remember a list of items
-1 | You don’t have a problem with talking or sharing your thoughts, though you lack some refinement and may use simple words more often to describe complex ideas, you struggle on puzzles but you can eventually work it out with a few hints, and you struggle to remember a long list of items but can get most of them
0 | You are of average Intelligence
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