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.
That's why I tend to refer to game stat as WIS, rather than Wisdom, because I think it means something slightly different from how we normally use the word in real life. You could probably improve it a bit through some mental exercises, introspection and meditation.
Intelligence is what I want!! Maybe other below average score and one godlike score will make me look like sheldon in big bang theory however it looks promising enough. Mmm... genius......
That's why I tend to refer to game stat as WIS, rather than Wisdom, because I think it means something slightly different from how we normally use the word in real life. You could probably improve it a bit through some mental exercises, introspection and meditation.
In the real world, all ability scores would be possible to increase through training and exercise. 1st and 2nd editions of AD&D, I believe, justified the lack of this possibility with that you've already done so, training yourself to your maximum capability before you begun your adventures. 3rd edition and beyond, instead, indeed gave an opportunity to increase them: every fourth level you got an extra ability score point that you could put anywhere.
So yes, in that edition you could do what you just described. Or you could instead do a whole lot of jogs and push-ups to increase your constitution, or lift heavy things for strength, or basically any other ability score.
It strikes me that an intelligent person would vote for intelligence, but a wise person would vote for wisdom
I sense both in this post.
I voted for wisdom personally because, while I like understanding how things work, Wisdom will allow me to understand WHY things work, which to me is more important.
I would pick intelligence, but I think you guys are underselling what a 25 actually means. At 25 int you are not Einstein or Hawking. A genius would be 18 int, those guys are probably 19 or 20. At 25 you have God like intelligence. You would be the best in every field. You would have no problem solving the toughest cutting edge problem that anyone currently was working on. Cancer, AIDS, the aging process, the tensile strength needed for a space elevator, you would have solved in the first year. Let's work on faster than light travel and traveling to other dimeinsions.
25 Wisdom. You are not Gandhi. You are Buddha, or Jesus Christ. You would be the greatest teacher, moderator, and judge the world had ever known. The world would unite behind your teachings. Of course you are going to be murdered for sure. Some zealot is going to be threatened by how you changed their world view.
25 Charisma. The world is going to worship you like a god and not necessarily in a good way. People will do whatever you say, no matter how bad it is for them or anyone else. The 25 Wisdom person would resist you but pretty much everyone else is screwed.
25 Constitution. You are never going to age, or get sick, or get hungry or tired. You are probably going to be able to survive just about anything that could possibly happen to you. You wouldn't have to worry about alzheimer's but eventually you might get bored. After everyone you know has died. Watch the highlander if you want to know what this would be like. (This would be my second choice, or at least it would have been before I had kids. I don't think I could handle outliving my wife and my children.)
25 Dexterity would be a lot of fun. At the very least you would be the best athlete that ever lived. You could easily dodge bullets, so sports should be pretty easy for you. And you could make a lot of money off of that. You could try to be a super hero, but without super strength or some other form of protection it would be pretty risky.
25 Strength. Super human strength. But, without any other super abilities to go with it, it seems like it would just put a giant target on your back. I am sure you could make money with it, but it would pretty much be the last thing I would pick.
25 Constitution. You are never going to age, or get sick, or get hungry or tired. You are probably going to be able to survive just about anything that could possibly happen to you. You wouldn't have to worry about alzheimer's but eventually you might get bored. After everyone you know has died. Watch the highlander if you want to know what this would be like. (This would be my second choice, or at least it would have been before I had kids. I don't think I could handle outliving my wife and my children.)
Favorite movie. :D Let me think. I'll give you all a big, boring wall of text about how these would apply to my life!
Strength: Eh! I could have a use for it...but then again, it wouldn't have much practical use. Intelligence: Hrm...I'm already above average in that department...while a little more smartitude wouldn't hurt, who would listen. I'd probably write down what I found out, and find some sort of crafty way to trickle it into people's heads. Wisdom: Become greater than even the greatest teachers? I do like enlightenment, but at the same time, who would listen. I'd be better off writing what I knew down, and finding some sort of subtle way to teach it to people. Dexterity: I've got some balance issues due to inner ear infections I suffered as a baby. This might come in handy, but not really for me. Constitution: I could use this...sure, I do run the risk of, you know, living forever, but I'd probably use eternal life to chronicle things and hide the chronicles in caches somewhere. To throw people off about my lifespan, I'd just fake my death and hide every so often, maybe take to wearing disguises...ooh! Then, I could open a bunch of trust accounts, and pose as my descendants! Sort of like Duncan MacLeod did in that one episode of Highlander. I also choose this because I have a bunch of allergies and food intolerances, and my family has a history of Cancer. Charisma: Have a legion of unswervingly loyal followers? Enough force of personality to come back from the dead as an even more badass revenant? Sounds interesting, and could really help with book sales! Then again, with great power comes great responsibility, and while I'm grumpy and kind of petty now, I'm afraid I'd become Hera with that much power. Comeliness: Why fix what's already perfect?
Ahh, this is like the Judgement of Paris, or that episode of Hercules where Iolaus took the place of Paris and Artemis took the place of Hera! So, here's the plan: I increase Constitution to 25, and amass vast amounts of wealth over time; then, through time, I learn how to increase my other scores, starting with Intelligence; next, comes Wisdom; then, Charisma; following that, Dexterity, and then Strength. Last, Comeliness. Then, SCARY WIZARD will be the master!
So, here's the plan: I increase Constitution to 25, and amass vast amounts of wealth over time; then, through time, I learn how to increase my other scores, starting with Intelligence; next, comes Wisdom; then, Charisma; following that, Dexterity, and then Strength. Last, Comeliness.
thanks for taking the time to write down exactly what i was thinking.
Why does 25 constitution exempt one from mental deterioration? I'm on board with it drastically extending life, but physically resilient people don't stave off mental illness any better than ordinary people. It's not the same as shaking off a cold. Staying active would help, certainly, but once you're past ~100 or so it would seem all but inevitable.
And even if you can avoid alzheimers, there's madness to consider. Watching everyone you've ever known and loved die, appearing the same age as your great-grandkids, keeping up with generation after generation of technology, fads, shifts in the language, etc. It strikes me as impossible.
Charisma - How to win friends and influence people for most; for those with a 25 charisma, it is about who to inspire and earn devotion, loyalty and commitment. This would give you the flexibility to become the world's greatest leader, the figurehead of a great religion, etc. or to go completely the other direction and make unlimited amounts of money while enjoying the friendship and companionship of people who would otherwise be well outside of your normal range.
For so many of the institutions in our societies it would take someone with this type of incredible charisma to break through the politics, special interests, etc. and galvanize real change. Intelligence or wisdom would not be enough, IMO, without the use of force. God like charisma could accomplish foundational change relatively peacefully.
Intelligence likely has the downside that TJHooker mentioned in terms of being intellectually isolated. There is the potential for great bitterness with this. It seems like the greatest contributions could be made with intelligence from an R&D perspective (cure for cancer? new energy sources? etc.) I think you can assume great wealth with this choice.
Strength or dexterity would be fun but fairly limited in comparison. I'm not sure how much personal happiness this would bring - especially professionally given that you would be so far superior to everyone else that there would not be satisfaction in besting them. A 25 strength football player could be like a grown up playing with toddlers; fun for a few games but shallow without a real sense of accomplishment.
Wisdom could offer great insights to the world (I am thinking philosophy) but without charisma to back it up this seems like potentially low impact. On the plus side, this high a wisdom seems extremely likely to lead to a very satisfying existence.
Constitution is another no-downside option for me. This seems like it would offer great health for the body and since the mind is an organ in the body I am assuming this means no Alzheimers, etc. as well (these are physical, not psychic ailments). That is no downside and very attractive but doesn't offer you the chance to impact the world unless you are already the kind of person who could do that. EDIT - Doppleganger95 brings up the true downside which is living on while everyone you love deteriorates and dies. When the love of your life is 60 and you are physically in your 20's and then you spend the next 20-40 years watching her and your friends die, then watching your children die, etc. that has the potential to ruin a person. Personally, I think I would be able to handle this but it is a real risk of being that out of sync with everyone in terms of aging and for some this longevity would be a curse.
Why does 25 constitution exempt one from mental deterioration? I'm on board with it drastically extending life, but physically resilient people don't stave off mental illness any better than ordinary people. It's not the same as shaking off a cold. Staying active would help, certainly, but once you're past ~100 or so it would seem all but inevitable.
And even if you can avoid alzheimers, there's madness to consider. Watching everyone you've ever known and loved die, appearing the same age as your great-grandkids, keeping up with generation after generation of technology, fads, shifts in the language, etc. It strikes me as impossible.
I guess I looked at Alzheimers as a physical disease that changes the make up your brain, so I figured 25 Con would protect you from that. I do think it would be tough to avoid having emotional and mental problems for most people.
I've never really seen why people consider it a massive drawback of immortality that they'll live on to see everyone they know to die. Odds are reasonably high that you'll end up seeing that anyway: at least your parents, grandparents, and other older relatives are very likely to croak before you do. And whenever one of them does die, you're not going to spend the rest of your existence moping about it: odds are you will have completely moved on within a year or two, perhaps still remembering them fondly and such things, but not crying yourself to sleep every night because they're gone.
If it really does get to you, what is stopping you from taking your life with your own hands anyway? Anyone that would live to be many centuries old and moping about their dead friends and relatives is just fooling themselves: by the very virtue of them still keeping going, they prove that at least for them, life eternal is still more than worth it.
@Chow - Everyone expects older relatives (parents, grandparents, etc.) to die before you and as much as people love their parents most adults have separate lives from their parents and form their own families, friends, etc. It is a different kind of blow to lose a child, spouse, etc. from losing parents and grandparents. As a more common example, there are almost no marriages that split after the loss of a spouse's parent or grandparent whereas a much higher % of marriages struggle or fall apart after the loss of one or more children. It isn't just the loss of the spouse but is also moving out of sync with them - a 20-something (physically) person married to a 60 year old is likely to be frustrated or unfulfilled in certain aspects of the relationship (sex life, physical activity, pacing of activities, etc.) and there will be a mix of guilt and sorrow for many people resenting the spouse's aging and the limitations it brings to the couple for the last 40 or so years of the spouse's life.
Once you get past your spouse and friends you grew up with, integrating into the next generation would be a real challenge for a lot of people. There would be a different cultural baseline (everything from politics and social mores to whether you grew up watching Howdy Doody or Spongebob or listened to Elvis or Kanye) so there would be a need for the person to stay "current" in terms of social activities and interests or to jump into the new ones in order to have a similar kind of connection to that next generation. That is challenging for a lot of people once they have emotionally passed that stage in their life even when you are talking about mid-30's divorcees trying to get back into the single lifestyle. Would it be easy to jump into clubbing with 20 something women if you just had your 90 year old wife pass and the last time you dated was 65 years ago? Things likely would be different from the first time you were 'out there.'
Suicide would still be on the table but that isn't much of a selling point. It would take a strong combination of resiliency, flexibility, anti-complacency, and curiosity for this to work. I don't think this re-integrating would be impossible but I do think it is something that not everyone would find themselves capable of doing. Someone who doesn't develop deep, strong attachments might have an easier run of it (no life-long friends, no wife or children, etc. to whom you are attached or for whom you are responsible so you can keep making new friends and doing things that are 'age' appropriate for your extended life).
@Chow In addition to what @AHF said, I might add a few more thoughts.
Firstly, I'm not sure just how tough 25 Constitution is. There's no real human comparison to draw from. How immortal are you? For all we know, it would be impossible to actually kill yourself if your body is so superhumanly resilient. Hell, it might even open you up to the possibility of eventually getting stuck: By your 600's or 700's, you're bound to have some extreme misfortune, right? Fall down a big hole or get caught under a falling building, and you might survive indefinitely, stuck in place. At least, until 25 strength guy comes and helps out.
Secondly, for an immortal to maintain normalcy in terms of relationships, they'd have to do something along the lines of maintaining different circles of friends in each generation, or at least shifting between different circles every time a new generation cohort is present. So if you're a baby boomer, you'd have to make a close circle of friends within the baby bust generation. Then gen X, gen Y, etc. Cultivating meaningful long-term relationships would be impossible. I value the friendship of the guys I've known since we were toddlers and I hope to remain friends with them my entire life, but there's no way to keep a friendship like that if you're immortal.
I don't see how 25 constitution would grant immortality. Certainly the D&D manuals don't mention that a higher constitution extends your lifespan at all. I could certainly buy it giving you enough health and vigor to live a few decades longer than normal but not more than that (IMHO).
Firstly, I'm not sure just how tough 25 Constitution is. There's no real human comparison to draw from. How immortal are you? For all we know, it would be impossible to actually kill yourself if your body is so superhumanly resilient. Hell, it might even open you up to the possibility of eventually getting stuck: By your 600's or 700's, you're bound to have some extreme misfortune, right? Fall down a big hole or get caught under a falling building, and you might survive indefinitely, stuck in place. At least, until 25 strength guy comes and helps out.
You'd be able to, like, run for long periods of time without needing to stop, and so on. You could be like my one uncle who was supposed to go permanently blind from severe brain injuries, and then regain eyesight. Also, regeneration, probably on a troll-like level. On the downside, if you got a headache, you'd need to take enough Advil to cure all the headaches in China for a decade. Basically, you'd make Grigori Rasputin look like your Average...ehh...Grigori. Might also be some other metabolic funny business... I doubt you'd be immortal...maybe gain, like the others say, a few extra decades, but in the event that you were, or you could research other ways to boost your ability scores, I would totally do that. And then I would erect a pyramid like Mumm-Ra rests in, and reside there.
Also, regeneration, probably on a troll-like level.
25 constitution would allow you to regenerate one point per ten rounds, or one in a minute. Trolls regenerate three in a round - thirty in a minute - but it starts only three rounds after being hurt, so it's not as instant.
That just makes 25 CON even less desirable in my eyes.
What good is an extreme level of endurance? Sure, you could be an ultra endurance athlete, but without putting in the work and pain to deserve to succeed at such feats. You'd never have to worry about sickness, which I guess is nice... but the ability to gain 25 in a stat in real life shouldn't wind up simply being an insurance policy against physical misfortune in your life.
Having 25 INT lets you create dazzling works, and having 25 CHA would probably let you take over the world. I'd rather live monumentally and die at an average age than live average for 150 years.
If you were too intelligent, people would seek you out to solve the matters of the universe If you were too wise, people would flock to you for advice and guidance If you had incredible strength, people would want you to open pickle jars (or be superman) If you had amazing dexterity you'd probably be working at a circus If you had great constitution you'd outlive all the people you love, tire of life and win a marathon or two
With great charisma, people would like you for you, and not for what you can accomplish or do for them.
Comments
Maybe other below average score and one godlike score will make me look like sheldon in big bang theory however it looks promising enough. Mmm... genius......
So yes, in that edition you could do what you just described. Or you could instead do a whole lot of jogs and push-ups to increase your constitution, or lift heavy things for strength, or basically any other ability score.
I voted for wisdom personally because, while I like understanding how things work, Wisdom will allow me to understand WHY things work, which to me is more important.
25 Wisdom. You are not Gandhi. You are Buddha, or Jesus Christ. You would be the greatest teacher, moderator, and judge the world had ever known. The world would unite behind your teachings. Of course you are going to be murdered for sure. Some zealot is going to be threatened by how you changed their world view.
25 Charisma. The world is going to worship you like a god and not necessarily in a good way. People will do whatever you say, no matter how bad it is for them or anyone else. The 25 Wisdom person would resist you but pretty much everyone else is screwed.
25 Constitution. You are never going to age, or get sick, or get hungry or tired. You are probably going to be able to survive just about anything that could possibly happen to you. You wouldn't have to worry about alzheimer's but eventually you might get bored. After everyone you know has died. Watch the highlander if you want to know what this would be like. (This would be my second choice, or at least it would have been before I had kids. I don't think I could handle outliving my wife and my children.)
25 Dexterity would be a lot of fun. At the very least you would be the best athlete that ever lived. You could easily dodge bullets, so sports should be pretty easy for you. And you could make a lot of money off of that. You could try to be a super hero, but without super strength or some other form of protection it would be pretty risky.
25 Strength. Super human strength. But, without any other super abilities to go with it, it seems like it would just put a giant target on your back. I am sure you could make money with it, but it would pretty much be the last thing I would pick.
Let me think. I'll give you all a big, boring wall of text about how these would apply to my life!
Strength: Eh! I could have a use for it...but then again, it wouldn't have much practical use.
Intelligence: Hrm...I'm already above average in that department...while a little more smartitude wouldn't hurt, who would listen. I'd probably write down what I found out, and find some sort of crafty way to trickle it into people's heads.
Wisdom: Become greater than even the greatest teachers? I do like enlightenment, but at the same time, who would listen. I'd be better off writing what I knew down, and finding some sort of subtle way to teach it to people.
Dexterity: I've got some balance issues due to inner ear infections I suffered as a baby. This might come in handy, but not really for me.
Constitution: I could use this...sure, I do run the risk of, you know, living forever, but I'd probably use eternal life to chronicle things and hide the chronicles in caches somewhere. To throw people off about my lifespan, I'd just fake my death and hide every so often, maybe take to wearing disguises...ooh! Then, I could open a bunch of trust accounts, and pose as my descendants! Sort of like Duncan MacLeod did in that one episode of Highlander. I also choose this because I have a bunch of allergies and food intolerances, and my family has a history of Cancer.
Charisma: Have a legion of unswervingly loyal followers? Enough force of personality to come back from the dead as an even more badass revenant? Sounds interesting, and could really help with book sales! Then again, with great power comes great responsibility, and while I'm grumpy and kind of petty now, I'm afraid I'd become Hera with that much power.
Comeliness: Why fix what's already perfect?
Ahh, this is like the Judgement of Paris, or that episode of Hercules where Iolaus took the place of Paris and Artemis took the place of Hera!
So, here's the plan: I increase Constitution to 25, and amass vast amounts of wealth over time; then, through time, I learn how to increase my other scores, starting with Intelligence; next, comes Wisdom; then, Charisma; following that, Dexterity, and then Strength. Last, Comeliness. Then, SCARY WIZARD will be the master!
I don't think I'm 'learned' enough yet so I'll take a spontaneous stat boost to exploit a loophole in the system thank you.
And even if you can avoid alzheimers, there's madness to consider. Watching everyone you've ever known and loved die, appearing the same age as your great-grandkids, keeping up with generation after generation of technology, fads, shifts in the language, etc. It strikes me as impossible.
For so many of the institutions in our societies it would take someone with this type of incredible charisma to break through the politics, special interests, etc. and galvanize real change. Intelligence or wisdom would not be enough, IMO, without the use of force. God like charisma could accomplish foundational change relatively peacefully.
Intelligence likely has the downside that TJHooker mentioned in terms of being intellectually isolated. There is the potential for great bitterness with this. It seems like the greatest contributions could be made with intelligence from an R&D perspective (cure for cancer? new energy sources? etc.) I think you can assume great wealth with this choice.
Strength or dexterity would be fun but fairly limited in comparison. I'm not sure how much personal happiness this would bring - especially professionally given that you would be so far superior to everyone else that there would not be satisfaction in besting them. A 25 strength football player could be like a grown up playing with toddlers; fun for a few games but shallow without a real sense of accomplishment.
Wisdom could offer great insights to the world (I am thinking philosophy) but without charisma to back it up this seems like potentially low impact. On the plus side, this high a wisdom seems extremely likely to lead to a very satisfying existence.
Constitution is another no-downside option for me. This seems like it would offer great health for the body and since the mind is an organ in the body I am assuming this means no Alzheimers, etc. as well (these are physical, not psychic ailments). That is no downside and very attractive but doesn't offer you the chance to impact the world unless you are already the kind of person who could do that. EDIT - Doppleganger95 brings up the true downside which is living on while everyone you love deteriorates and dies. When the love of your life is 60 and you are physically in your 20's and then you spend the next 20-40 years watching her and your friends die, then watching your children die, etc. that has the potential to ruin a person. Personally, I think I would be able to handle this but it is a real risk of being that out of sync with everyone in terms of aging and for some this longevity would be a curse.
If it really does get to you, what is stopping you from taking your life with your own hands anyway? Anyone that would live to be many centuries old and moping about their dead friends and relatives is just fooling themselves: by the very virtue of them still keeping going, they prove that at least for them, life eternal is still more than worth it.
Once you get past your spouse and friends you grew up with, integrating into the next generation would be a real challenge for a lot of people. There would be a different cultural baseline (everything from politics and social mores to whether you grew up watching Howdy Doody or Spongebob or listened to Elvis or Kanye) so there would be a need for the person to stay "current" in terms of social activities and interests or to jump into the new ones in order to have a similar kind of connection to that next generation. That is challenging for a lot of people once they have emotionally passed that stage in their life even when you are talking about mid-30's divorcees trying to get back into the single lifestyle. Would it be easy to jump into clubbing with 20 something women if you just had your 90 year old wife pass and the last time you dated was 65 years ago? Things likely would be different from the first time you were 'out there.'
Suicide would still be on the table but that isn't much of a selling point. It would take a strong combination of resiliency, flexibility, anti-complacency, and curiosity for this to work. I don't think this re-integrating would be impossible but I do think it is something that not everyone would find themselves capable of doing. Someone who doesn't develop deep, strong attachments might have an easier run of it (no life-long friends, no wife or children, etc. to whom you are attached or for whom you are responsible so you can keep making new friends and doing things that are 'age' appropriate for your extended life).
In addition to what @AHF said, I might add a few more thoughts.
Firstly, I'm not sure just how tough 25 Constitution is. There's no real human comparison to draw from. How immortal are you? For all we know, it would be impossible to actually kill yourself if your body is so superhumanly resilient. Hell, it might even open you up to the possibility of eventually getting stuck: By your 600's or 700's, you're bound to have some extreme misfortune, right? Fall down a big hole or get caught under a falling building, and you might survive indefinitely, stuck in place. At least, until 25 strength guy comes and helps out.
Secondly, for an immortal to maintain normalcy in terms of relationships, they'd have to do something along the lines of maintaining different circles of friends in each generation, or at least shifting between different circles every time a new generation cohort is present. So if you're a baby boomer, you'd have to make a close circle of friends within the baby bust generation. Then gen X, gen Y, etc. Cultivating meaningful long-term relationships would be impossible. I value the friendship of the guys I've known since we were toddlers and I hope to remain friends with them my entire life, but there's no way to keep a friendship like that if you're immortal.
I doubt you'd be immortal...maybe gain, like the others say, a few extra decades, but in the event that you were, or you could research other ways to boost your ability scores, I would totally do that. And then I would erect a pyramid like Mumm-Ra rests in, and reside there.
What good is an extreme level of endurance? Sure, you could be an ultra endurance athlete, but without putting in the work and pain to deserve to succeed at such feats. You'd never have to worry about sickness, which I guess is nice... but the ability to gain 25 in a stat in real life shouldn't wind up simply being an insurance policy against physical misfortune in your life.
Having 25 INT lets you create dazzling works, and having 25 CHA would probably let you take over the world. I'd rather live monumentally and die at an average age than live average for 150 years.
If you were too intelligent, people would seek you out to solve the matters of the universe
If you were too wise, people would flock to you for advice and guidance
If you had incredible strength, people would want you to open pickle jars (or be superman)
If you had amazing dexterity you'd probably be working at a circus
If you had great constitution you'd outlive all the people you love, tire of life and win a marathon or two
With great charisma, people would like you for you, and not for what you can accomplish or do for them.