Discussion:When creating a character to what extents are the limits?

To what extent are the limitations on making a character?

I'm new to DnD, and was just recently invited to join some of my friends in their adventures. The problem is, when I was in the process of making my character (Halfling/Wild Sorcerer) I have no idea the limitations! I asked my buddies, but they didn't provide much help. If I wish the make myself an obnoxious brat with a really bad fake British accent, but happens to have very low intelligence points, would that be passing some kind of barrier? I'm a bit confused, so it would be nice if you clear this up for me (:

Badger 11:50, 5 December 2009 (MST)

Hi, welcome to DnD. Concerning your immediate question, it seems to be an entirely role-playing concern, not game play mechanic. Intelligence has no basis on what your character sounds like, or how they act. Intelligence refers to the amount of "book knowledge" they possess. There are, in my experience, few "barriers" between numbers on the sheet, and the manner in which you role-play.That being said, these are my thoughts and how I (and my parties) play, but may be different from other people's style. That's a great part about DnD, there is room for your group to play however they want, and it can be totally different from everyone else. One final note, if you are doing a 6 or 7 hour session of gaming (not unheard of for a typical game) the fake British accent might get old, and bothersome, pretty fast. --Badger 11:50, 5 December 2009 (MST)

jintoya

i also ran into a problem as a player last year where i was playing the "big dumb tank" and i as the player had an idea that i found was far too well thought out and complex for the character to come up with on its own and found myself wondering if exicuting a plan that is complicated while having fairly low int & wis scores would be considered metagaming or not, other than that i cant think of a time i questioned roleplaying vs game mechanic. i still dont know if it is or is not metagaming. --Jintoya (talk) 15:03, 17 February 2013 (MST)

The answer is more or less the simplicity of the solution. A character with Intelligence is as book smart as the average human commoner in Dungeons and Dragons, whereas someone with 15 Intelligence is beyond Steven Hawkings brilliant in the Dungeons and Dragons level. A plan needn't necessarily be intelligently designed either, it could just be realistically viable, or how common sense applicable it is; given that, Wisdom fits the score, and provided you have (in my opinion) a marginally better than average Wisdom of 11 to 12, a common sense tactic of, say, ambushing an enemy via the old "overturned merchant cart on the side of the road" shouldn't be out of your grasp at all, as you're clever enough with your common sense to realize that.

And then there's just a character having a stroke of genius atypical for them. Depending on the situation, and the frequency of this happening, I'd even let the most illiterate Barbarian play out a stroke of genius, as its entirely possible with the way his mind works he ended up on a very viable, practical solution. Now if it happens too often, then we'd have an issue. You'd be metagaming more or less if you knew ahead of time that the big bad evil guy has the Blink spell (without having some sort of provided in-game knowledge, like his journal) and you (or the Cleric) prepared Dimensional Anchor for no obvious reason and never did so prior.

--Argent Fatalis (talk) 15:41, 18 February 2013 (MST)

i see, well i think i was more or less int 12 and wis 13 with that character, i had a plan to overthrow an entire kingdom and we were coming up with a plan, my best friend stopped me in the middle of this overly complicated plan and said something to the affect of "your character isnt all that smart, how is he coming up with this plan?" i am always planning out loud (like mordin solaris from ME3) and preparing for a scenario, i blame it on my first dm, he was the kind that just liked the power that came with the dm throne he would punish me for seemingly no reason so my way of coping with it was to "turtle" as my group called it, instead of building regular defences and taking fewer risks like other turtles, i started planning, ive read all the core books and even memorised a good portion of the spells, so when there was a spellcaster i would start planning for the nastiest spells, eventually i planned far enough ahead that he started a new rule, he called it rocks-for-all (drop rocks on all of us). this was one of three dm punishments for when i pissed him off (not just me but i did it the most) and i never stopped making elaborite plans. i know noone really asked but thats the reason i asked the planning question, it happens often and is common occurence for me to have plans like that.--Jintoya (talk) 17:10, 20 February 2013 (MST)

Even common, average people in the modern world devise ways to undo entire nations by taking single actions. Especially in a fantasy scenario where you are hardly as limited as you are in reality, provided you're anything but a Commoner (or a Truenamer). It particularly comes down to the plan, as a Wisdom score of 12 or 13 should be a viable, realistic, reasonable solution; it might sound brilliant for the sole reason that its plausible, or it might incorporate too many elements and seem... Uncharacteristic for the individual. Its where the roleplaying element comes in, and it more or less is the DM's call, provided he or she has been paying sufficient attention to each character's behavior.

To avoid the issue, legitimately, a 13 or above in Intelligence (for "brilliant" plans) or 13 or above in Wisdom for (practical plans) is the best answer in your case, given you claim to have tendencies that result in plotting. As technically it is possible for the character at that point to devise such intricate strategies if you're going off what Wizards of the Coast said about stats and their real-life comparison, but a DM might houserule that as inaccurate.

Players shouldn't be punished for being played appropriately; its when meta game knowledge comes into play that it is an issue. We have one player among our ranks who meta games nearly every session in some fashion, minor usually, but at times greater. The DM has purposefully made his life more difficult as a character because he's more or less cheating, in a sense. There's a difference between having meta game knowledge and well thought out, viable solutions. As for a DM just flat out killing the party because they annoyed him, the real answer is to just outwit the party, throw a curve ball, put them on a side quest, give them a tremendous item of power which slowly ends up killing them, give their enemies insight and knowledge (usually the non-Charismatic person in the group who manages to talk a lot is a good choice to "gather" information off of by the DM). Or hell, just give them an enemy they can't easily beat (like a mini boss, more or less) and up the stakes; there are a lot of more interesting things than "rocks fall and you die" if you really want to assassinate PCs.

--Argent Fatalis (talk) 18:39, 20 February 2013 (MST)

thank you for helping me with my problem and also providing an intelegent and interesting conversation, you have done more than answered my question. perhaps we shal talk again in the future? with that said i need to go to work, a less than glorious task that makes me wish i had more ranks in proficiancy --Jintoya (talk) 08:35, 21 February 2013 (MST)

Ravenwng (talk) 23:28, 26 October 2013 (MDT)

This seems kind of funny. If memory serves, I was your DM at that time Argent. As for making his life more difficult, I just tried to leave him in positions where using metagame knowledge left him in a worse position than if he paid attention to the in game information. Like when the ghost/shade/spirits knelt before him in a position of offered fealty; metagame says they're bad so he should make them dead(er), but anyone in the game who saw that position and ignored metagame might hold that last attack (or explosion, in his case) and puzzle it out.

I guess that's my two cents on this topic. Don't punish the group for the actions of the individual. If possible, use it against them so they learn (hopefully) to not do it anymore. Or, laugh when the entire group plots their death. --Ravenwng (talk) 23:28, 26 October 2013 (MDT)

Mordred the dark (talk) 16:21, 14 October 2014 (MDT)

Just something on the whole can a stupid character come up with a good plan. I was in a game where the wizard and rogue were in-game arguing about the best way to do this. Either a) the rogue goes solo for a while tries not to get noticed assassinate max 3 guards and raise the gates or b) the wizard blows a few spells to move us past the walls somehow. During all this time the barbarian was looking around and saw that a river was passing through a tunnel. So he got up said that he was going swimming and jumped into the river. This caused the rouge and wizard to pause and watch as he drifted under the wall. All of this was with in-game rolls for spot and wisdom checks. So yeah smart players with dumb characters can devise strategies and hope that their buffon isn't staring into space.

Back to Main Page → Meta Pages → Discussions