Which ability score would you boost?

Chow

You get an opportunity to lift up one of your real-life ability scores to 25, which is the absolute maximum and literally godlike. Which of them do you choose and why?

Coutelier

Hard to choose between Wisdom and Intelligence. You need both, I think, to really be a 'genius' on par with Da'Vinci, Einstein or Sherlock Holmes. INT, really just means having a really good memory and maths and logic skills, which I think would be useful as I'd win a lot of money on quizzes and not have to look on google all the time whenever I can only half remember something. And I'd get into less trouble for forgetting birthdays or anniversaries or christmas.

Madhax

I was torn between intelligence or charisma, but went with charisma.

I expect most people will agree with me on this one, having the RL equivalent of 25 charisma would have an astounding effect on one's life. I'd become the most beloved leader of people ever, likely using my peerless powers of persuasion to become President of the United States and bring about a golden age for the entire world. At least, that's my interpretation of a 25 CHA.

25 strength, dexterity, or constitution are limited to simply being impressive in modern society. Attempting to play sports with such scores might be fun for a bit, until someone accuses you of cheating and you have to explain how you achieved such superhuman powers. Having 25 strength would probably cause me to shatter people's bones with a simple handshake, and it would likely make me look like a freak.

25 intelligence or wisdom would also be exceedingly useful, especially intelligence, but I figure charisma will benefit me more. After all, with 25 charisma, I can get all the 25 intelligence people I want to work for me =P

Nonnahswriter

I feel that Wisdom would help with writing.

Howie

with 25 charisma, I can make the teller girl give me all the money in her drawer with just a smile.

Chow

Madhax said:

25 strength, dexterity, or constitution are limited to simply being impressive in modern society. Attempting to play sports with such scores might be fun for a bit, until someone accuses you of cheating and you have to explain how you achieved such superhuman powers. Having 25 strength would probably cause me to shatter people's bones with a simple handshake, and it would likely make me look like a freak.

I'm reasonably sure 25 constitution would make you functionally immortal, or at least a very hard to kill and long-lived.

Anduin

With boosted intelligence, I would be able to formulate a plan to boost all my other characteristics!!!

I would have the intelligence to form a plan to get the money, the car, the house AND the girl!!!

Errrrm... With intelligence, I would ensure I did not work for charismatic imbeciles!!! ( Sorry @Madhax )

With incredible intelligence I would learn to not waste endless time on pointless polls!!!

... doh!

ajwz

It strikes me that an intelligent person would vote for intelligence, but a wise person would vote for wisdom

Howie

With your god like intelligence, you sure know what I want. Now bow.

Riolathel

Constitution. I'd live to be 200+ with a con that high

rexreg

@Chow - thanx for including Comeliness...the group i play w/ on a regular basis uses this stat regardless of the system we are using...very underrated stat...

toanwrath

Regeneration would be awesome, and longevity wins me over. Intelligence and Wisdom would be the next two, then Charisma, followed by Strength and then Dexterity.

Anduin

Howie said:

With your god like intelligence, you sure know what I want. Now bow.

@Howie Surely an intelligent person will ask. Why?

(Then secretly form a plan of action where you would then marry them... But it would not work due to hyper intelligence causing an increase in the anticharismatic properties of geekness, a flaw in all intelligent peoples the world over)

On a side note, the person who is bowed to the most is HER ROYAL HIGHNESS QUEEN ELIZABETH II. Though I love and respect her. She is not the most charismatic person on the planet, she just had ancestors who had 25 in strength, followed by a few with 25 in intelligence... To be fair the QUEEN must be a ranger with a high con score with the special ability to summon corgis...

ajwz

Secretly judging anyone who votes for charisma as a shallow person

Howie

Charisma is the power to command, intelligent person wouldn't need to ask. By trying to argue, you are defeating the logic of the 6 stats, which would also defeat your reason to pick Int.

Chow

You two can argue about it all you want, while I stick around and give infuriatingly cryptic metaphors and koans that no one can understand.

TJ_Hooker

I just realized that having god like intelligence might actually suck. You would have no peers; only a few people in the world would even approach your level of intelligence. I think there's a point where the benefits from being a genius would start to saturate, and you'd just be increasing your isolation and overall distance from the rest of society.

I think charisma might have been a better choice. Wisdom sounds nice, but the definition seems too vague for me to really want to vote for it.

[Deleted User]

The user and all related content has been deleted.

Coutelier

TJ_Hooker said:

I just realized that having god like intelligence might actually suck. You would have no peers; only a few people in the world would even approach your level of intelligence. I think there's a point where the benefits from being a genius would start to saturate, and you'd just be increasing your isolation and overall distance from the rest of society.

I think charisma might have been a better choice. Wisdom sounds nice, but the definition seems to vague for me to really want to vote for it.

When the original Baldur's Gate came out, I tried to find out the definition. The most useful way I found was an article that machines/computers would have a very high INT, but very low WIS. So I've always thought of INT as being all the things computers are extremely good at; maths, memory, etc. And WIS being all the other, harder to clearly define stuff that makes humans much smarter than any computer; intuition, imagination, etc. It might have changed slightly in later editions.

So if you had 25 INT, but only 6 WIS, you would essentially be a super computer. If you had 25 WIS but lousy INT, you'd have flashes of brilliance and insight, but nothing would ever stick and be remembered for next time.

KingGhidorah

In this world? CHA. With INT following as a close second.

Xavioria

being gorgeous means alot to me...

Madhax

Chow said:

Madhax said:

25 strength, dexterity, or constitution are limited to simply being impressive in modern society. Attempting to play sports with such scores might be fun for a bit, until someone accuses you of cheating and you have to explain how you achieved such superhuman powers. Having 25 strength would probably cause me to shatter people's bones with a simple handshake, and it would likely make me look like a freak.

I'm reasonably sure 25 constitution would make you functionally immortal, or at least a very hard to kill and long-lived.

Enjoy a health dose of Alzheimer's and/or insanity as your mortal mind struggles to cope with your immortal body. Now, if you could get 25 wisdom AND 25 constitution, that might be tempting.

ajwz said:

It strikes me that an intelligent person would vote for intelligence, but a wise person would vote for wisdom

I consider myself to be an intelligent person. I wouldn't claim wisdom, but I'm sure that I'm not UNwise. And I'm decently charismatic. The pursuit of ultimate knowledge through either intelligence or wisdom is tempting... but I doubt I could help anyone but myself with such power.

Anyone gaining 25 in any attribute is going to be known worldwide. If you've got a 25 intelligence or wisdom, you'll be the best in your field. But will your ability to communicate and relate to others follow suit? I doubt it. A person with 25 intelligence would probably wind up something like the BBC Sherlock Holmes, a genius who alienates all around him because he can't figure out why everyone else doesn't keep up.

Charisma strikes me as the attribute that best compensates for average stats elsewhere, and best puts someone in a position to change the world with their power.

O_Bruce

Intelligence, mainly to improve my below pathetic learning curve. But that will never happen anyway, so in theory I could choose and justify any abillity score.

KidCarnival

Wisdom is worthless without making the experiences in my opinion. It would be like implanting someone else's life experience into my head; it's all theoretical and I would not have the emotions and context it came from. Intelligence would help me understand experiences better, and ultimately boost my wisdom. Just not over night, but spread out through my lifetime.

Sylph

Intelligence, so I could be a proper evil-genius

Lemernis

Wisdom. As much as I value intelligence. But intelligence without wisdom often actually does harm.

Chow

KidCarnival said:

Wisdom is worthless without making the experiences in my opinion. It would be like implanting someone else's life experience into my head; it's all theoretical and I would not have the emotions and context it came from. Intelligence would help me understand experiences better, and ultimately boost my wisdom. Just not over night, but spread out through my lifetime.

Neither intelligence nor wisdom is the experiences of life. Intelligence is the ability to learn, reason, and solve problems with logical thought and patterns; wisdom is the awareness, perception, and willpower, how in tune you are with yourself and your surroundings.

They deal with entirely different things in your head, and you can't really boost one with the other.

TJ_Hooker

Chow said:

KidCarnival said:

Wisdom is worthless without making the experiences in my opinion. It would be like implanting someone else's life experience into my head; it's all theoretical and I would not have the emotions and context it came from. Intelligence would help me understand experiences better, and ultimately boost my wisdom. Just not over night, but spread out through my lifetime.

Neither intelligence nor wisdom is the experiences of life. Intelligence is the ability to learn, reason, and solve problems with logical thought and patterns; wisdom is the awareness, perception, and willpower, how in tune you are with yourself and your surroundings.

They deal with entirely different things in your head, and you can't really boost one with the other.

I think I remember reading a post on here about how you gain a bonus to wisdom once your character reaches a certain age in D&D. Wouldn't that suggest that wisdom is at least somewhat based on experience?

Chow

TJ_Hooker said:

I think I remember reading a post on here about how you gain a bonus to wisdom once your character reaches a certain age in D&D. Wouldn't that suggest that wisdom is at least somewhat based on experience?

Yes, but you get the same bonus to intelligence and charisma as well. It doesn't mean that any of those abilities are actually based on your age: it just means that you get an additional bonus to each of them as you get older.

Coutelier

TJ_Hooker said:

Chow said:

KidCarnival said:

Wisdom is worthless without making the experiences in my opinion. It would be like implanting someone else's life experience into my head; it's all theoretical and I would not have the emotions and context it came from. Intelligence would help me understand experiences better, and ultimately boost my wisdom. Just not over night, but spread out through my lifetime.

Neither intelligence nor wisdom is the experiences of life. Intelligence is the ability to learn, reason, and solve problems with logical thought and patterns; wisdom is the awareness, perception, and willpower, how in tune you are with yourself and your surroundings.

They deal with entirely different things in your head, and you can't really boost one with the other.

I think I remember reading a post on here about how you gain a bonus to wisdom once your character reaches a certain age in D&D. Wouldn't that suggest that wisdom is at least somewhat based on experience?

Maybe a tiny bit, but obviously lots of characters start off with a high WIS despite having little to no experience of the world, so I don't think you can wholly equate the WIS stat to wisdom gained from experience. Getting older is maybe supposed to make you less rash and more thoughtful; although I'm not sure that's always true in real life.

KidCarnival

Some NPCs may have seen more of life despite being young. Plus, in game, it is a requirement for some classes and if you gave them realistic wisdom, they would suck and make things quite unbalanced. To me, wisdom in real life usually comes with experiences, leaning from mistakes, from others, and through self reflection. It's not something you're born with or a "you have it or you don't" deal (like charisma). So I do connect it to age.