I too am a straight male, but I can appreciate that JFK had a solid jaw line and a nice smile. I'd list him well above average, but fair enough. An actual woman or someone interested in men in general may have a different view.
The leaders you list were not generally leaders because of their personality. Well, Cleopatra as for example was leader by divine right. She had a good head on her shoulders, and was apparently attractive enough to catch both Caesar and Mark Antony's eye. I've never seen a picture of her, so I can't say. I always think of Joan Collins in that role and then.... Well, that's fantasy.
Joan of Arc was a nut case and a zealot by all accounts. Those types are going to have a following no matter what they look like. She also had the benefit of believing that she was on a divine quest and had a direct line to God. That's hard to stand up against. And if her intensity was such, and the timing was such that people actually stopped and listened to something she had to say, that doesn't "Necessarily" mean she had the CHARISMA to lead, merely that she was at the right place and in the right time and yelled loud enough. But again, who knows?
The female leaders that I associate are mostly fantasy. The one that springs to the top is a character from Blake's 7 named Servelan;
She had looks and style and a force of personality.
another (admittedly fantasy) female leader for me personally was Diana from the 80s TV show 'V'.
Admittedly both fantasy leaders, but both (in my subjective view) devastatingly beautiful AND strong personality.
For real life, again I would point to Anjolina Joli. The perfect combination of beauty and force of personality.
I see JFK as a decent example of good charisma, but i dont think he was particularly handsome; i suppose i am not gay, and perhaps not even a woman (... am a guy), but he was not at all classically beautiful. He was attractive despite his a bit above average looks. He wasnt ugly, but without chsrisma hed have been an average joe.
i feel like you sort of hit the nail on the head here though. charisma does NOT mean people are beautiful or extremely attractive physically. it's just personal magnetism basically.
it works the same in the real world, doesn't it, you wouldn't fall in love with a beautiful person with zero character or charm, would you?
I really hope that the discussion goes the same way in the actual CHA thread bc I will finally have something to say while feeling comfortable and reassured bc of professional reasons
what is funny is I actually met the guy who inspired 'Catch me if you can'. Talk about the perfect example of CHA NOT being appearance related. This short, fat and average looking balding guy looked like Jon Lovits. Yet, you really REALLY wanted to believe everything he said. He was so compelling, he could have told you that it was sunny outside and you would happily go out in any sort of weather. It was uncanny.
I know that counters the points I was trying to make, but I think the real point was that force of personality is an ATTRIBUTE of Charisma. Physical beauty is another attribute.
Not trying to curtail the discussion - apologies if it came across that way. I'm sure a split/merge wouldn't be too much of a problem when the time comes.
to be honest i feel like charisma is a lot easier to explain in real life terms (than for example wisdom), but it's harder to place in an rpg, because it's so difficult to measure (as opposed to intelligence).
High WIS Low CHA speaking to a mostly Low-Average WIS crowd : Would know their CHA is low, so would use other means to convince people (INT helps here) to listen to what they say
High WIS Low CHA speaking to a mostly High WIS crowd: Would know that they're speaking to people who can reason well wouldn't need to resort to INT related stuff.
High WIS High CHA : Would use CHA to string Low-Average WIS Crowd, and would use High WIS to convince fellow High WIS people
Low-Average WIS High CHA speaking to a mostly Low-Average WIS crowd: Will use CHA to convince people to go along with their horrible Low WIS plan
Low-Average WIS High CHA speaking to a mostly High WIS crowd: Lot tougher, will definitely either need overpowering CHA to sway High WIS people or some INT (or people with high INT to tell them what to do) to string High WIS folks along.
Low-Average WIS Low CHA: Good luck convincing people. High INT might help. But better to just find an even Lower WIS person with extremely High CHA and get them to do the convincing.
So as far as basic convincing people to listen to you goes, High WIS works better on High WIS while High CHA appeals to low-average WIS.
The problem with defining wisdom is intelligence, and vice versa. An exceptionally high score in either will result in a 'smart' person. Insight and perception vs logic. The annoying part is that a high score in either will let you reach the right conclusion. The key is to try to stress the differences; intelligence helps memorize things, wisdom helps you handle stresses better. Both can allow good or bad decision making, and both can even allow for self-reflection. If you wanted to merge a stat, this would be it!
@the_spyder, i must disagree on a couple points. Yes, jfk had a winning smile, but he had an utterly average featured face, abnormally normal actually. He would have been good at spying; very hard to describe anything not average about his appearance, other than his personality.
I used a quotation about cleo there... she wasnt considered physically that impressive, but really did have a great, audacious personality. She wasnt ugly, but was very charming in conversation. Ie charismstic, and likely intelligent.
Plenty of street preachers are certain of a divine mission, and are very much without a following. Charisma is the primary ability for cult leaders. Joan was very good at leading, despite being someone we would institutionalize today, or strongly medicate.
Well, i dont happen to be that into mrs jolie, sexually, but admit she is reasonably interesting personalitywise. I dont think she'd make an exceptional leader. Not many modern film actors are actually charismatic. modern cinema has numerous takes, and now computer editing, so there is more emphasis on looks than acting talent. This has been getting progressively worse over time. Imo, many of the best modern actors are in comedy. Exceptions exist, but are few. Music can have this problem too.
And yes, this rather offtopic. Might as well move them to the cha thread when shes around!
Not really, it makes sense to keep them separate because of how Mages and Clerics work.
INT refers to the ability to consume knowledge with minimal effort. Which is why Mages use this. The only thing common among Mages is that that they need to learn and memorize their spells. How they use them, why they use them is irrelevant in general.
WIS refers to the ability to use knowledge. Clerics use this because they don't need to "memorize" their spells. Gods give it to them. They don't sit and stare at their spell books because they don't have them, they pray to their Gods, and are granted those spells. And if the Gods deem that these Clerics will use these spells properly (WIS) they give them extra spells.
It's like how STR, CON, and DEX reflect a Body stat but separate aspects of it. Seperating the stats makes things simpler so that it doesn't take forever to figure out if something with 18 Body has 20 HP and +5 to Damage or 10 HP and +10 to Damage. Same goes for INT and WIS. Does someone with 18 Mind get extra spells from their God because he really knows how to adher to that God's guidelines or is just really, really, really, smart?
Edit: Or to put it another way, a High INT Low WIS weapon researcher can invent a really horrible weapon that can cause massive destruction to everything. And with minimal motivation might end up giving away the technology to someone who'll abuse it. A High INT High WIS (or even Average WIS) weapon researcher can do the same thing but think twice about revealing his findings because the end of the world is not a good idea. Even a Chaotic Evil character with High WIS will pause before destroying the world because it might mean that there'd be no place to be Evil anymore if he destroys the world.
@DreadKhan - As far as CHA is concerned I guess we are going to have to agree to disagree. And that's just fine.
As far as merging INT and WIS, I couldn't disagree more. Intelligence is something that physicists have in abundance. Wisdom is something that philosophers have in abundance. it is possible to be an EXTREMELY intelligent physicist and a complete dolt when it comes to philosophy. Likewise it is possible to be something akin to the Dhali Lama in terms of wisdom and still not that smart. Unlike beauty and charisma, they are completely separate and independent of each other. And they are not very alike other than being cerebral in nature.
I'd use the example of Robert Openheimer. There is (in my mind) no question that he was one of the most intelligent people of the last century. Yet he worked on, and made possible, the atomic bomb. Now, I don't choose to debate the wisdom of making/dropping the bomb, (that is for bigger brains than mine) but clearly the regret in Openheimer's mind when he uttered the words "I am become DEATH, Destroyer of worlds!" would seem to suggest that his wisdom and intelligence were not in sync somewhere along the lines, at least in his own mind.
An intelligent person may know how to build a weapon. But a Wise person is needed to determine when or if or how to use it.
@the_spyder i'm more less agreeing we can disagree in a civil manner.
You are aware of the irony in contrasting physics and philosophy, right? I dont disagree that a physicist uses intelligence vs a philosopher using wisdom, but both are, if you ask them, dictated by reason and logic. Philosophers were the creators of science; you couldnt have modern science without its founders, ie Thales et al. Keep in mind, ancient greeks figured out some really astounding things that didnt get understood fully for roughly 2000 years. Philosophy is stricly governed by reason, logic, etc, and it isnt a coincidence that Pythagoras did both.
Simply put, other than just choosing blindly, people make decisions that are reasonable to them. Philosophy and science use the same system of peer review for this reason: does it make sense to other people? Imho, reason is reason!
I disagree about the weapon perhaps... an intelligent person can use their intelligence (and empathy of the concious nature, ie 'how would I feel', which can be taught to those without built in empathy) to establish that using a nuke will create an incentive in others to at least HAVE them, as a deterent. Similarly, an intelligent person could via reason grasp that the deterent use is the best use for a non-selective wmd.
You could argue that someone incredibly unwise would make mistakes, but if they are intelligent enough, they learn from both their own mistakes and those of others. Perhaps wise people dont make mistakes? But i kinda doubt that. Sounding similar yet?
@DreadKhan - you are using faulty syllogisms and spurious logic to support your position. While it is true that Plato and Socrates and others are the fathers of modern thought, and that their "Philosophy" was the basis for most sciences, they also delved deeply into things that are not and can not be supported by the sciences. The very nature of religion (in most instances) presupposes that what is being discussed can not be proven. Some of the stuff that Neitzche and Crowley and Kant and others espoused had NOTHING to do with science. In short, philosophy and sciences parted company on just about every front a VERY Long time ago.
It is possible for two very different things to have the same beginnings and still be VERY different.
With the weapon example, again you are making an attempt to blend Intelligence and Wisdom by using an example of someone that has BOTH. Someone being intelligent in no way precludes them from being wise as well. And what you describe is in fact someone who is BOTH intelligent AND Wise.
My example of Openheimer was quite simple. Despite the clear and obvious path that the Manhattan project was taking, and even the stated goal, He forged forward. Despite his obvious and documented misgivings about the goals and eventual outcome, he continued to move the project forward. His statement (quoted above) clearly shows (to me) that he had the intelligence to create the weapon but he himself questioned his own wisdom in doing so. Therein lies the disparity.
The two are not equal by any stretch of the imagination, nor are they even correlated. the world is replete with people who very intelligently come up with ideas and devices and plans which often fall to evil ends. Wisdom would dictate that curing the patient by killing him is not a good way to go, yet the car industry continues to pump out vehicles that increase carbon monoxide emissions, the computer industry continues to create more and more plastic waste from non-recycled parts and 'wonder drugs' continue to have dangerous and even lethal side effects, yet still make it to the market. Science without wisdom.
Philosophy also, although it does have certain intelligence and a kind of logic to it, still hasn't provided answers to even some of the most basic of questions. what happens when we die? Lots of theories, but no facts. Is there a God? If you take a poll, there are loads of them, and lots of ways to look at any one. But again, no proof of anything. No reasonable scientist will simply agree to a result with no proof as so many, many philosophers and theologians do.. So much for the scientific Philosophy method.
In short, just because you can come up with an example of someone with BOTH, doesn't mean that one IS the other. I have a red pen and a green pen. it doesn't mean that Christmas is monochromatic.
Some of the stuff that Neitzche and Crowley and Kant and others espoused had NOTHING to do with science. In short, philosophy and sciences parted company on just about every front a VERY Long time ago.
You're doing exactly what you're accusing your debating partner of :
using faulty syllogisms and spurious logic to support your position.
The fact that philosphers (if you want to call Crowley that) such as the ones you mentioned meddled in sprituality, religion or even 'magic', does not justify the conclusion that philosophy and science parted company a long time ago. You can't draw any conclusions from the actions of a few and apply them to an entire field or discipline. That's like saying I got robbed twice in two weeks in London. Ergo: London doesn't recognize property rights.
The examples I indicated were not intended to be the only examples (outliers) but were merely some of Extreme note. In fact, quite a lot of what Plato and Socrates and just about any philosopher that you care to mention talked about were intentionally outside of what is currently considered science. Discussing 'The forms' or 'the myth of the cave' (not to mention what Thomas Aquinas got up to) just to name a few things are metaphysical in nature and quite outside of teachings in any scientific institute, yet form the basis for most Philosophy curriculum in just about any reputable University you care to mention.
As far as the rest is concerned, I don't think you can discuss philosophy without touching on spirituality and religion. If you can, then perhaps we need to start with definition of terms? As for "Magic", Ok, granted I opened that door with Crowley, but it doesn't necessarily have to mean that. I accept "Magic" as a separate discipline "akin" to philosophy but separate in nature. If you think we should discount Crowley on that basis, fine. But he is still considered a philosopher of some repute in most circles.
It is actually the fundamental thing that Charles Darwin struggled over. When faced with the science of Descent through modification, he had to re-value his religious and philosophical convictions and ultimately reject them in favor of the evidence of his own eyes.
At the end of the day, you can become a philosopher without even the ability (note ability, not opportunity) to complete grade school (or in fact any schooling at all). I doubt very much the ability to become a scientist that way. Sure Intelligence isn't always measured by knowledge, but that is the generally accepted way to gauge it.
My point in totality is that intelligence and wisdom are fundamentally different in nature such that one or both may exist within a person, but they are not tied or correlated.
If someone with high STR pushes a slab of rock, they can probably move it. If someone with low STR pushes a slab of rock, they can't move it.
But if someone with low STR and high INT pushes a slab of rock they'll just use science to make it move.
The end result for high STR and low STR with high INT is the same. The rock moved. But how the rock was moved differed greatly due to stats.
A high INT low WIS learning from their mistakes to become more "wise" requires the mistake to be made. Many mistakes depending on how low that WIS is. A high INT high WIS won't make that mistake to begin with, or require less mistakes.
For an ordinary person, this may not matter. Those mistakes are small in scale. But for a person in an important position, each mistake matters. Same goes for an adventuring party, they get exposed to greater danger than an ordinary person, mistakes made during life and death situations matter and their day to day dealings as they grow in power start reflecting that of someone in an important position.
Even if there was only one stat, a better result would be INT staying as it is and WIS being roleplayed. Since it makes more sense that INT being defining what a character can do stay a stat, while WIS being just a stat reflecting what a character would do become RP stuff.
Edit: D&D situation
NPC tries to talk the PCs into doing something that will result in the extermination of a small group of good and innocent magical creatures by making them believe that these creatures inflict pain and misery to the populace that the NPC is actually responsible for.
The PCs have no prior dealing with the NPC or given reason to suspect them (successful Bluff check), they have not made a similar mistake (so no prior experience nagging at them), they have no prior experience or knowledge of those creatures other than the fear caused by the lies that the NPC is spreading (Knowledge Checks would be useless)
So all in all INT won't passively help here. The players would need to decide without any extra help from the DM to look in on the creatures instead of carrying swift misguided justice, which is usually the default option for most inexperienced groups.
As for WIS,
High WIS, possibly really high WIS (given all these circumstances) will counter that Bluff check with a Sense Motive Check that the DM rolls for the PC's, and the DM can say "You feel something is a little off" then let the players work on that. Which can influence their decision to look into the matter, make active Knowledge Checks by browsing through stuff in a library or whatever, all because someone in the party had enough WIS to get a slight nagging suspicion that something might be up.
Well Tiax, he's a gnome, and gnomes... well to put it politely, they're eccentric. Think Quayle's overweening ego, Jan's ridiculous stories, and the less said about Kalah, Neb and Mutamin the better. They even had a wisdom penalty in 2nd Ed - but that doesn't mean, in my view, that this weirdness overrides the gnomes' natural self-preservation instincts, which being a small race run very strongly in them.
Tiax's belief in world domination is of course crazy, but he's not Minsc crazy, where he gives in to rage and hurls himself suicidaly into battle. That's unwise. "Tiax shall rule... from a distance." He knows what it's about. A bit like Xzar. I mean, he has survived thus far as a priest of an utterly evil god, while holding a heretical view about becoming Cyric's successor. He must be doing something right.
In summary, crazy? Yes. Cunning? Moreso than we've previously believed......ya little monkey-spankers...
@Zyzzogeton, you are going to have a tough row to hoe if you are saying that high int is as likely as low int to make mistakes, and thats what I get out of your post. High intelligence low wisdom can be cautious, especially if they have lowish charisma and thus arent confident. Caution avoids errors if used judiciously. I for example do not consider myself exceptionally proficient in math, so i double check most of my work where feasible. This is intelligence in action. Cause and effect are understood via intelligence, or science would be wisdom based!
As for physical stats, anyone that had learned a bit about excercise is aware you have to exercise differently for each of those types of muscle. Bodybuilders generally stick to strength training each muscle group for maximum lifting capacity, and thus hypertrophy occurs. Dexterity is more like squash, tennis or badminton. You migyt get a bit more lifting ability by doing badminton, but you get more agility and coordination in your muscles. Constitution is obviously trained via cardio. Int and wis are far more similar than these. The fact that d&d has always had int and wis doesnt make it truly neccessary. Priests btw were historically taught in all major (actually, almost all period) faiths via memorization of dogma and doctrine. We in the West call it rote and discipline. It was hard, but required little resources to educate.
As to your dnd example, that only had any relevance if you already agree that wis and int are seperate. I argue its harder to convince someone that is intelligent of an incorrect or misleading set of facts. Intelligent people like neutral, 3rd party confirmation and empirical data to verify. Otherwise stated, i am saying sense motive could work fine via int, despite being wis atm.
@the_spyder No, I am definately not using underhanded tactics in this discussion, i am making int checks to defend my position! In other words, facts, which i shall have to elaborate upon. As was already pointed out by @Blackraven you cant argue that in good faith. For one, I mentioned Thales (obscure, but about the earliest) and Pythagoras, not Socrates and Plato. While the fact that a plumber cutting his own grass doesnt make him any less of a plumber is true, it isnt even necessary if arguing Plato and his Teacher: both were concerned primarily with the study of Truth, and how we can know it, as well as to a lesser extent Sociology. Fortunately for our scientists, the parts of Platos teachings that arent openly scientific (you offered no examples btw, working from my what i studied of both) were anyways, either by being Sociological (ie behaviour) or by questioning EVERYTHING according to what we know consider scientific scrutiny. Thats why they were scientists.
Now, does this mean all philosophy is intelligent? Not really, plenty is bad, just like science can be. Remember that BS autism/vaccine study? That is like bad philosophy. Questioning whether God (concepte, not judeo christian) exists and investigating it as well as we can is still science. Philosophy is more or less the scientific study of that which is impossible or impractical to study purely empirically; as a science, it must be logically consistent or be discarded. Once you can empirically study something, you neednt philosophise about it. Some concepts cant be studied empirically, hence continued philosophy today on moral anf ethical quandries. Where is @Thrasymachus we need more philosophy here!
...no, in my use of the weapon example i am describing a person making purely intellectual decisions based on facts; it may be wise to 'put yourself in anothers footwear, but it can also be intelligent, via the formula i explained. Im mildly (...such as it is) Aspergian, so i have to make empathy an active process. Intelligence can tell you that there are, in fact, other people, and those people can also perform actions. Therefor, it is intelligent to consider jow some will react.
I can also offer a contrary source of archtypical example of low wisdom: low chsrisma! Essentially, what you are claiming, Oppenheimr building a bomb grasping the larger ramifications stems from his interperson blindness: he was being self absorbed, a low charisma issue.
Technically you would be calling it dichromatic; monochromatic in light is one colour and black, in pigments it is one colour and white. Similarly, what you are calling scientific discoveried would have previously been refered to as empirical philosophy discoveries. Philosophy despite popular belief is not a field in which non-sense is tolerated! Philosophy does not have any inherent requirement that you discuss religion or 'spiritual' topics. Frankly, most philosophy is actually about ethics.
So. Much. Typing. For. Mobile. Thanks for reading if you dared!
The way INT and WIS are used to avoid mistakes is different.
Again this is more applicable to out of the ordinary situations, since again D&D isn't an ordinary life simulator. For example, a Mage with high INT in the face of a magical artifact that Identify can't fully ID. He gleans from his knowledge (gained through INT) that it has both overwhelmingly positive and negative effects. How he proceeds from that point on is dependent on his WIS. High WIS-Average WIS might stop the Mage from activating it Low WIS have him abandom caution.
Now let's add party members. A High INT Average WIS Mage might, in his interest inthe artifact, let slip what the artifact is capable of because his attention is more focused on it. Might even blurt out how to use it. Then the low WIS party members might end up activating it anyway. High WIS means the Mage would catch himself before giving away too many details because he knows his party members might decide to trigger it.
INT is like the characters ability to gather knowledge while WIS is his ability to make decisions with it. Will enough knowledge be sufficient to make a good decision, sure. The Mage with average WIS could also stop himself from giving away too much information if he's had experiences with just how stupid his party members can be. What High WIS does however is lower give him an internal warning bell that works on no of very little knowledge.
If my Fighter had enough CON, they'll have enough HP to survive getting hit repeatedly. But enough DEX might also be enough to dodge some of those hits and survive with less HP from having less CON. Should the defensive aspects of DEX and CON be combined?
As for my D&D example, like I said there is no conflicting facts that the PC knows of. Everything the NPC says is supported. Townspeople are saying the creatures cause the trouble, the NPC with overwhelming CHA convinces the PCs to go on a quest. What conflicting information can a High INT PC use to doubt the NPC?
Does it work because the stats are separate? Obviously, but I could use that line of thinking to justify an argument to combine STR, DEX, CON. They're all aspects of a person's Physical Prowess, why not combine them. And let weapon proficiencies do the combat side and since DEX/CON just ultimately prevent damage dodging or taking the hit, the HP derived from a all in one Body stat reflects both dodginess and toughness. And any example in D&D you provide to show otherwise only works because the stats were separated.
As for how muscles works, I can also argue that someone who scores straight A's in school can still be duped. People with roughly the same experience and same ability to learn can still be either easily tricked or not in a matter they know little about or not. A multi award winning biochemistphysicist can look at a crime scene and not figure out if that a killer staged it. A detective who scored averagely can. A brain surgeon who knows how the different parts of the brain works can still be a horrible person to ask advice from. Or someone who can recite every psychology book they've ever read. While some dude who failed biology can still give good advice. So if all these aspects of a person's ability to use their mind can be combined into one stat then combining all the muscles into one stat should be fine.
Edit: BG example
Consider Melicamp, his actions show he has low WIS maybe even average WIS. But above average INT because, well, he's a Mage. Did he learn not to play with magical artifacts if you successfully complete his quest? Sure. But consider the cost, he had to live as a talking chicken for a month, and really only through luck and the kindness/greed of an adventuring party got turned back to human instead of some other horrible fate.
High WIS would have let him avoid that chance. He learned something at the cost of nearly losing his life (as a human or completely) that a high WIS character would instinctively know, or at the very least see and accdpt the reasoning behind Thalantyr's cautious teaching method instead of raiding his supply of magical artifacts.
@DreadKhan - my point was you were cherry picking your facts and still are. You hold up facts that appear to support your position and casually disregard those that don't. However, I do not wish to belabor the point further. Quite simply it doesn't matter that much if you can't see the flaws. We can agree to disagree again.
One point I will mention is thus. Scientists don't look for "Truth". They look for Fact. There are no absolute truths in science. Therein lies a key difference between intelligence and wisdom. An intelligent person looks for and at the facts. A wise person looks for the Truth of a situation. Can a scientist (or intelligent person) believe in an ultimate truth? Absolutely, but he (or she) is doing so because of their wisdom, not their intelligence.
@the_spyder i am assuredly not cherry picking facts. You attempted to argue 'some philosophers have been wrong (or argued illogical things, resulting in them being a joke among philosophers, ie Descartes proof of God) therefor all philosophers are illogical', while i pointed out that science has had the exact same problems, and still does. Science follows the same rules as philosophy, but they study very different subjects.
As someone that is studying engineering academically, and learning philosophy on the side, it is quite clear that both must follow the strictures of logic. Many of the founders of physics and geometry were, in fact, philosophers. Philosophers btw that didnt see any need to differentiate the various fields of logical analysis (ie math, physics, music, sociology), and called it all philosophy... aka love of knowledge. Philosophers present their interpretation of reality for others to criticize, scientists present their interpretation of data (aka a subset of reality) for criticism. Oh yeah, big difference here; two logic based disciplines that rely on peer review to verify assertions. *rolls eyes*
If you are serious about dividing up truth from fact (a point that frankly leaves me wanting to give you definitions), you are simply wrong about science. Modern science has moved beyond the concept of facts and the concrete universe proposed by Newton. Science is vastly more interested in truth, ie why a something happened, versus the old obsession of 'what' happens. Not meant to be rude, but you are claiming 18th century science (scienceology is a better word) is the last word in science. Quantum physics would love to have a sitdown talk with you!
That said, we can call this discussion; i post via mobile, and typing is brutally slow to a trained typer. We both feel the other is presenting 'unfair' arguments, so this isnt going anywhere.
@Zyzzogeton i dont entirely disagree with all aspects of your arguments, but i do feel your premise is still very much 'we always had wis, so we need to always have it', while i still think you could alternately explain all uses of wisdom via 3 explanations, and thus argue it isnt neccessary to the game (for clarity, my points are that wisdom can be replaced mechanically by intelligence for reasoning, charisma for social interaction uses which are ussually 'reading' people, and the other is basically summed up by lucky guesses!). Now then, i can comment on your arguements, so here we go.
I dont believe an truly intelligent mage would risk using an artifact they dont feel they truly understand, outside emergencies. Its plain stupid to perform high risk activities like using a msgic item you have only a cusory understanding of. Thus, i couldnt see a high int low wis doing what you are suggesting. IE requires too much suspension of disbelief.
Blurting out imho can be expressed very much by low charisma: its more a function of empathy, or a lack thereof. A high cha mage (or high int maybe) mage would have empathy enough to relate to others and realize that they might do something stupid, especially if they have lower int.
Your 'warning bell' example makes me uncomfortable, since without a logical explanation it just sounds like magical lightning bolt from the gods type of knowledge. Eh, sounds priestly! But im not sure how reasonable this is. Counter example thats kinda related to explain my view: wisdom vs naivity is something that throws a wrench into the works here, since wis ingame doesnt change much without serious effort (usually magical)... my example is basically the interactions between Amerindians and europeans. Amerindians werent unwise or stupid, just naive. So i dont really buy the whole magical knowledge use of wisdom. That, properly implemented is a function of experience imho, not wis.
No, i dont see the durability provided by cons as similar, because they behave diifferently; dexterity lets you avoid hits entirely, while constitution means you can survive more hits. I am not sure how this is similar to the argument that most wisdom uses are logic/reason based, and thus can be expressed instead as a function of intelligence. You cant express not being touched as a subset of being struck and not damaged! The better counter imo is that str and cons both affect endourance, but the big difference is that con based endourance is bodyweight based, while str endourance represents ability to lift adfitional weight repeatedly without becoming fatigued. Oddly enough, they dont transfer well.
Well, on your strict dnd example, a very high int (note, +16 int in 2nd edition is incredibly intelligent, 18 is an IQ approaching 200) should be scientific enough to hold off on making a decision when he has only some of the facts; in your example, the high int character would investigate imho, and move with some caution. The conflict in this case would be from the lack of verfication of the facts being presented. I dont see gullibility to that degree to be intelligent!
I can see what you are arguing here, but this is an aspect of education vs ignorance, and even a genius can be ignorant of a field of study. 3rd edition solved this nicely imho, with knowledge skills. If you have no education in a subject, you are limited in what you can figure out about it... in 3rd, you only know dc 10 aspects, ie common knowledge. But, high int does give a boost on this, but without training, your chemist might not realize a crime scene has been fabricated. Interesting counterpoint though, a specialist can actually apply their field to a crime scene! Thus, a physicist could notice 'those bullets wholes are at a funny angle...' and investigate further, and find that the scene makes no sense scientifically. Irony is that forensics is actually a branch of anthropology! As for the advice, id say a brain surgeon might have terrible chsrisma, and thus shouldnt give social advice! Most people want cha based advice anyways.
Erm, actually Ol' Melicamp is described by his master as a profoundly bad apprentice. He likely has close to the min int for a wizard, which though not low, isnt that high. Melicamp is disowned by Thalantyr.
@the_spyder i am assuredly not cherry picking facts. You attempted to argue 'some philosophers have been wrong (or argued illogical things, resulting in them being a joke among philosophers, ie Descartes proof of God) therefor all philosophers are illogical', while i pointed out that science has had the exact same problems, and still does. Science follows the same rules as philosophy, but they study very different subjects.
As someone that is studying engineering academically, and learning philosophy on the side, it is quite clear that both must follow the strictures of logic. Many of the founders of physics and geometry were, in fact, philosophers. Philosophers btw that didnt see any need to differentiate the various fields of logical analysis (ie math, physics, music, sociology), and called it all philosophy... aka love of knowledge. Philosophers present their interpretation of reality for others to criticize, scientists present their interpretation of data (aka a subset of reality) for criticism. Oh yeah, big difference here; two logic based disciplines that rely on peer review to verify assertions. *rolls eyes*
If you are serious about dividing up truth from fact (a point that frankly leaves me wanting to give you definitions), you are simply wrong about science. Modern science has moved beyond the concept of facts and the concrete universe proposed by Newton. Science is vastly more interested in truth, ie why a something happened, versus the old obsession of 'what' happens. Not meant to be rude, but you are claiming 18th century science (scienceology is a better word) is the last word in science. Quantum physics would love to have a sitdown talk with you!
That said, we can call this discussion; i post via mobile, and typing is brutally slow to a trained typer. We both feel the other is presenting 'unfair' arguments, so this isnt going anywhere.
We are going to have to agree to disagree. I take your point that the sciences STARTED off with philosophers. However, modern science has no relation to what the 'scientists of the day' were looking at in 10BC. Quite frankly the very difference I pointed out (that of the difference between fact and truth) was a major driver for that.
In today's world, scientist never look for ultimate truth. They look for fact. And in that, they don't take anything as proven so much as proven Wrong. You are right in that they look at why things happen instead of How, but that is not the definition of Truth. That is simple cause and effect, which is NOT philosophy.
In any event, I wish not to continue this debate further as neither of us is talking on the same wavelength as the other. Quite simply it isn't that important that you see my view point. Good luck with yours.
I dont believe an truly intelligent mage would risk using an artifact they dont feel they truly understand, outside emergencies. Its plain stupid to perform high risk activities like using a msgic item you have only a cusory understanding of. Thus, i couldnt see a high int low wis doing what you are suggesting. IE requires too much suspension of disbelief.
Really? So I suppose you don't believe in the entire Gnomish race then? Because this is their main characteristic. They're curious to a fault.
Blurting out imho can be expressed very much by low charisma: its more a function of empathy, or a lack thereof. A high cha mage (or high int maybe) mage would have empathy enough to relate to others and realize that they might do something stupid, especially if they have lower int.
Empathy is an aspect of WIS.
Your 'warning bell' example makes me uncomfortable, since without a logical explanation it just sounds like magical lightning bolt from the gods type of knowledge
No it isn't. It's being aware all the time. Some people forget caution when excited, curious, or when they think they're relatively safe. High WIS allows them to remain vigilant passively without requiring decades of bad experiences to keep them on their toes.
because they behave diifferently; dexterity lets you avoid hits entirely, while constitution means you can survive more hits. I am not sure how this is similar to the argument that most wisdom uses are logic/reason based, and thus can be expressed instead as a function of intelligence. You cant express not being touched as a subset of being struck and not damaged!
And neither can you equate someone who is naturally wise to someone who has experienced way too much and is wise because of it.
(note, +16 int in 2nd edition is incredibly intelligent, 18 is an IQ approaching 200) should be scientific enough to hold off on making a decision when he has only some of the facts; in your example, the high int character would investigate imho, and move with some caution. The conflict in this case would be from the lack of verfication of the facts being presented. I dont see gullibility to that degree to be intelligent!
That's experience not INT. You can have a kid who is so incredibly smart but still gullible.
I can see what you are arguing here, but this is an aspect of education vs ignorance, and even a genius can be ignorant of a field of study. 3rd edition solved this nicely imho, with knowledge skills. If you have no education in a subject, you are limited in what you can figure out about it... in 3rd, you only know dc 10 aspects, ie common knowledge. But, high int does give a boost on this, but without training, your chemist might not realize a crime scene has been fabricated. Interesting counterpoint though, a specialist can actually apply their field to a crime scene! Thus, a physicist could notice 'those bullets wholes are at a funny angle...' and investigate further, and find that the scene makes no sense scientifically. Irony is that forensics is actually a branch of anthropology! As for the advice, id say a brain surgeon might have terrible chsrisma, and thus shouldnt give social advice! Most people want cha based advice anyways.
You can give bad advice and still be charismatic. People with really stupid plans (and them not knowing how stupid they are) can still convince people to follow them on those stupid plans. CHA's empathy aspect only applies to being naturally appealing not some deep understanding of human behavior.
Erm, actually Ol' Melicamp is described by his master as a profoundly bad apprentice. He likely has close to the min int for a wizard, which though not low, isnt that high. Melicamp is disowned by Thalantyr.
Nowhere does Thalantyr say Melicamp is slow on the pickup. All he says is that Melicamp is rash. Again brilliant kid, ends up taking too much supplements because they want to finish their current project. Ends up crashing and is rushed to the hospital. High INT? Yes. High WIS? No.
And the argument that it's always been that way? Of course that works. We have two classes that one of the two stats, that justifies the whole "it's always been that way"
Comments
The leaders you list were not generally leaders because of their personality. Well, Cleopatra as for example was leader by divine right. She had a good head on her shoulders, and was apparently attractive enough to catch both Caesar and Mark Antony's eye. I've never seen a picture of her, so I can't say. I always think of Joan Collins in that role and then.... Well, that's fantasy.
Joan of Arc was a nut case and a zealot by all accounts. Those types are going to have a following no matter what they look like. She also had the benefit of believing that she was on a divine quest and had a direct line to God. That's hard to stand up against. And if her intensity was such, and the timing was such that people actually stopped and listened to something she had to say, that doesn't "Necessarily" mean she had the CHARISMA to lead, merely that she was at the right place and in the right time and yelled loud enough. But again, who knows?
The female leaders that I associate are mostly fantasy. The one that springs to the top is a character from Blake's 7 named Servelan;
She had looks and style and a force of personality.
another (admittedly fantasy) female leader for me personally was Diana from the 80s TV show 'V'.
Admittedly both fantasy leaders, but both (in my subjective view) devastatingly beautiful AND strong personality.
For real life, again I would point to Anjolina Joli. The perfect combination of beauty and force of personality.
it works the same in the real world, doesn't it, you wouldn't fall in love with a beautiful person with zero character or charm, would you?
what is funny is I actually met the guy who inspired 'Catch me if you can'. Talk about the perfect example of CHA NOT being appearance related. This short, fat and average looking balding guy looked like Jon Lovits. Yet, you really REALLY wanted to believe everything he said. He was so compelling, he could have told you that it was sunny outside and you would happily go out in any sort of weather. It was uncanny.
I know that counters the points I was trying to make, but I think the real point was that force of personality is an ATTRIBUTE of Charisma. Physical beauty is another attribute.
High WIS Low CHA speaking to a mostly High WIS crowd: Would know that they're speaking to people who can reason well wouldn't need to resort to INT related stuff.
High WIS High CHA : Would use CHA to string Low-Average WIS Crowd, and would use High WIS to convince fellow High WIS people
Low-Average WIS High CHA speaking to a mostly Low-Average WIS crowd: Will use CHA to convince people to go along with their horrible Low WIS plan
Low-Average WIS High CHA speaking to a mostly High WIS crowd: Lot tougher, will definitely either need overpowering CHA to sway High WIS people or some INT (or people with high INT to tell them what to do) to string High WIS folks along.
Low-Average WIS Low CHA: Good luck convincing people. High INT might help. But better to just find an even Lower WIS person with extremely High CHA and get them to do the convincing.
So as far as basic convincing people to listen to you goes, High WIS works better on High WIS while High CHA appeals to low-average WIS.
@the_spyder, i must disagree on a couple points. Yes, jfk had a winning smile, but he had an utterly average featured face, abnormally normal actually. He would have been good at spying; very hard to describe anything not average about his appearance, other than his personality.
I used a quotation about cleo there... she wasnt considered physically that impressive, but really did have a great, audacious personality. She wasnt ugly, but was very charming in conversation. Ie charismstic, and likely intelligent.
Plenty of street preachers are certain of a divine mission, and are very much without a following. Charisma is the primary ability for cult leaders. Joan was very good at leading, despite being someone we would institutionalize today, or strongly medicate.
Well, i dont happen to be that into mrs jolie, sexually, but admit she is reasonably interesting personalitywise. I dont think she'd make an exceptional leader. Not many modern film actors are actually charismatic.
And yes, this rather offtopic. Might as well move them to the cha thread when shes around!
INT refers to the ability to consume knowledge with minimal effort. Which is why Mages use this. The only thing common among Mages is that that they need to learn and memorize their spells. How they use them, why they use them is irrelevant in general.
WIS refers to the ability to use knowledge. Clerics use this because they don't need to "memorize" their spells. Gods give it to them. They don't sit and stare at their spell books because they don't have them, they pray to their Gods, and are granted those spells. And if the Gods deem that these Clerics will use these spells properly (WIS) they give them extra spells.
It's like how STR, CON, and DEX reflect a Body stat but separate aspects of it. Seperating the stats makes things simpler so that it doesn't take forever to figure out if something with 18 Body has 20 HP and +5 to Damage or 10 HP and +10 to Damage. Same goes for INT and WIS. Does someone with 18 Mind get extra spells from their God because he really knows how to adher to that God's guidelines or is just really, really, really, smart?
Edit: Or to put it another way, a High INT Low WIS weapon researcher can invent a really horrible weapon that can cause massive destruction to everything. And with minimal motivation might end up giving away the technology to someone who'll abuse it. A High INT High WIS (or even Average WIS) weapon researcher can do the same thing but think twice about revealing his findings because the end of the world is not a good idea. Even a Chaotic Evil character with High WIS will pause before destroying the world because it might mean that there'd be no place to be Evil anymore if he destroys the world.
As far as merging INT and WIS, I couldn't disagree more. Intelligence is something that physicists have in abundance. Wisdom is something that philosophers have in abundance. it is possible to be an EXTREMELY intelligent physicist and a complete dolt when it comes to philosophy. Likewise it is possible to be something akin to the Dhali Lama in terms of wisdom and still not that smart. Unlike beauty and charisma, they are completely separate and independent of each other. And they are not very alike other than being cerebral in nature.
I'd use the example of Robert Openheimer. There is (in my mind) no question that he was one of the most intelligent people of the last century. Yet he worked on, and made possible, the atomic bomb. Now, I don't choose to debate the wisdom of making/dropping the bomb, (that is for bigger brains than mine) but clearly the regret in Openheimer's mind when he uttered the words "I am become DEATH, Destroyer of worlds!" would seem to suggest that his wisdom and intelligence were not in sync somewhere along the lines, at least in his own mind.
An intelligent person may know how to build a weapon. But a Wise person is needed to determine when or if or how to use it.
You are aware of the irony in contrasting physics and philosophy, right? I dont disagree that a physicist uses intelligence vs a philosopher using wisdom, but both are, if you ask them, dictated by reason and logic. Philosophers were the creators of science; you couldnt have modern science without its founders, ie Thales et al. Keep in mind, ancient greeks figured out some really astounding things that didnt get understood fully for roughly 2000 years. Philosophy is stricly governed by reason, logic, etc, and it isnt a coincidence that Pythagoras did both.
Simply put, other than just choosing blindly, people make decisions that are reasonable to them. Philosophy and science use the same system of peer review for this reason: does it make sense to other people? Imho, reason is reason!
I disagree about the weapon perhaps... an intelligent person can use their intelligence (and empathy of the concious nature, ie 'how would I feel', which can be taught to those without built in empathy) to establish that using a nuke will create an incentive in others to at least HAVE them, as a deterent. Similarly, an intelligent person could via reason grasp that the deterent use is the best use for a non-selective wmd.
You could argue that someone incredibly unwise would make mistakes, but if they are intelligent enough, they learn from both their own mistakes and those of others. Perhaps wise people dont make mistakes? But i kinda doubt that. Sounding similar yet?
It is possible for two very different things to have the same beginnings and still be VERY different.
With the weapon example, again you are making an attempt to blend Intelligence and Wisdom by using an example of someone that has BOTH. Someone being intelligent in no way precludes them from being wise as well. And what you describe is in fact someone who is BOTH intelligent AND Wise.
My example of Openheimer was quite simple. Despite the clear and obvious path that the Manhattan project was taking, and even the stated goal, He forged forward. Despite his obvious and documented misgivings about the goals and eventual outcome, he continued to move the project forward. His statement (quoted above) clearly shows (to me) that he had the intelligence to create the weapon but he himself questioned his own wisdom in doing so. Therein lies the disparity.
The two are not equal by any stretch of the imagination, nor are they even correlated. the world is replete with people who very intelligently come up with ideas and devices and plans which often fall to evil ends. Wisdom would dictate that curing the patient by killing him is not a good way to go, yet the car industry continues to pump out vehicles that increase carbon monoxide emissions, the computer industry continues to create more and more plastic waste from non-recycled parts and 'wonder drugs' continue to have dangerous and even lethal side effects, yet still make it to the market. Science without wisdom.
Philosophy also, although it does have certain intelligence and a kind of logic to it, still hasn't provided answers to even some of the most basic of questions. what happens when we die? Lots of theories, but no facts. Is there a God? If you take a poll, there are loads of them, and lots of ways to look at any one. But again, no proof of anything. No reasonable scientist will simply agree to a result with no proof as so many, many philosophers and theologians do.. So much for the scientific Philosophy method.
In short, just because you can come up with an example of someone with BOTH, doesn't mean that one IS the other. I have a red pen and a green pen. it doesn't mean that Christmas is monochromatic.
Otherwise interesting debate. Keep it up!
As far as the rest is concerned, I don't think you can discuss philosophy without touching on spirituality and religion. If you can, then perhaps we need to start with definition of terms? As for "Magic", Ok, granted I opened that door with Crowley, but it doesn't necessarily have to mean that. I accept "Magic" as a separate discipline "akin" to philosophy but separate in nature. If you think we should discount Crowley on that basis, fine. But he is still considered a philosopher of some repute in most circles.
It is actually the fundamental thing that Charles Darwin struggled over. When faced with the science of Descent through modification, he had to re-value his religious and philosophical convictions and ultimately reject them in favor of the evidence of his own eyes.
At the end of the day, you can become a philosopher without even the ability (note ability, not opportunity) to complete grade school (or in fact any schooling at all). I doubt very much the ability to become a scientist that way. Sure Intelligence isn't always measured by knowledge, but that is the generally accepted way to gauge it.
My point in totality is that intelligence and wisdom are fundamentally different in nature such that one or both may exist within a person, but they are not tied or correlated.
If someone with low STR pushes a slab of rock, they can't move it.
But if someone with low STR and high INT pushes a slab of rock they'll just use science to make it move.
The end result for high STR and low STR with high INT is the same. The rock moved. But how the rock was moved differed greatly due to stats.
A high INT low WIS learning from their mistakes to become more "wise" requires the mistake to be made. Many mistakes depending on how low that WIS is. A high INT high WIS won't make that mistake to begin with, or require less mistakes.
For an ordinary person, this may not matter. Those mistakes are small in scale. But for a person in an important position, each mistake matters. Same goes for an adventuring party, they get exposed to greater danger than an ordinary person, mistakes made during life and death situations matter and their day to day dealings as they grow in power start reflecting that of someone in an important position.
Even if there was only one stat, a better result would be INT staying as it is and WIS being roleplayed. Since it makes more sense that INT being defining what a character can do stay a stat, while WIS being just a stat reflecting what a character would do become RP stuff.
Edit: D&D situation
NPC tries to talk the PCs into doing something that will result in the extermination of a small group of good and innocent magical creatures by making them believe that these creatures inflict pain and misery to the populace that the NPC is actually responsible for.
The PCs have no prior dealing with the NPC or given reason to suspect them (successful Bluff check), they have not made a similar mistake (so no prior experience nagging at them), they have no prior experience or knowledge of those creatures other than the fear caused by the lies that the NPC is spreading (Knowledge Checks would be useless)
So all in all INT won't passively help here. The players would need to decide without any extra help from the DM to look in on the creatures instead of carrying swift misguided justice, which is usually the default option for most inexperienced groups.
As for WIS,
High WIS, possibly really high WIS (given all these circumstances) will counter that Bluff check with a Sense Motive Check that the DM rolls for the PC's, and the DM can say "You feel something is a little off" then let the players work on that. Which can influence their decision to look into the matter, make active Knowledge Checks by browsing through stuff in a library or whatever, all because someone in the party had enough WIS to get a slight nagging suspicion that something might be up.
Then again I suppose from what we see he may have had a rather short reign. So I suppose its a fair score for wisdom.
Tiax's belief in world domination is of course crazy, but he's not Minsc crazy, where he gives in to rage and hurls himself suicidaly into battle. That's unwise. "Tiax shall rule... from a distance." He knows what it's about. A bit like Xzar. I mean, he has survived thus far as a priest of an utterly evil god, while holding a heretical view about becoming Cyric's successor. He must be doing something right.
In summary, crazy? Yes. Cunning? Moreso than we've previously believed......ya little monkey-spankers...
As for physical stats, anyone that had learned a bit about excercise is aware you have to exercise differently for each of those types of muscle. Bodybuilders generally stick to strength training each muscle group for maximum lifting capacity, and thus hypertrophy occurs. Dexterity is more like squash, tennis or badminton. You migyt get a bit more lifting ability by doing badminton, but you get more agility and coordination in your muscles. Constitution is obviously trained via cardio. Int and wis are far more similar than these. The fact that d&d has always had int and wis doesnt make it truly neccessary. Priests btw were historically taught in all major (actually, almost all period) faiths via memorization of dogma and doctrine. We in the West call it rote and discipline. It was hard, but required little resources to educate.
As to your dnd example, that only had any relevance if you already agree that wis and int are seperate. I argue its harder to convince someone that is intelligent of an incorrect or misleading set of facts. Intelligent people like neutral, 3rd party confirmation and empirical data to verify. Otherwise stated, i am saying sense motive could work fine via int, despite being wis atm.
@the_spyder No, I am definately not using underhanded tactics in this discussion, i am making int checks to defend my position! In other words, facts, which i shall have to elaborate upon. As was already pointed out by @Blackraven you cant argue that in good faith. For one, I mentioned Thales (obscure, but about the earliest) and Pythagoras, not Socrates and Plato. While the fact that a plumber cutting his own grass doesnt make him any less of a plumber is true, it isnt even necessary if arguing Plato and his Teacher: both were concerned primarily with the study of Truth, and how we can know it, as well as to a lesser extent Sociology. Fortunately for our scientists, the parts of Platos teachings that arent openly scientific (you offered no examples btw, working from my what i studied of both) were anyways, either by being Sociological (ie behaviour) or by questioning EVERYTHING according to what we know consider scientific scrutiny. Thats why they were scientists.
Now, does this mean all philosophy is intelligent? Not really, plenty is bad, just like science can be. Remember that BS autism/vaccine study? That is like bad philosophy. Questioning whether God (concepte, not judeo christian) exists and investigating it as well as we can is still science. Philosophy is more or less the scientific study of that which is impossible or impractical to study purely empirically; as a science, it must be logically consistent or be discarded. Once you can empirically study something, you neednt philosophise about it. Some concepts cant be studied empirically, hence continued philosophy today on moral anf ethical quandries. Where is @Thrasymachus we need more philosophy here!
...no, in my use of the weapon example i am describing a person making purely intellectual decisions based on facts; it may be wise to 'put yourself in anothers footwear, but it can also be intelligent, via the formula i explained. Im mildly (...such as it is) Aspergian, so i have to make empathy an active process. Intelligence can tell you that there are, in fact, other people, and those people can also perform actions. Therefor, it is intelligent to consider jow some will react.
I can also offer a contrary source of archtypical example of low wisdom: low chsrisma! Essentially, what you are claiming, Oppenheimr building a bomb grasping the larger ramifications stems from his interperson blindness: he was being self absorbed, a low charisma issue.
Technically you would be calling it dichromatic; monochromatic in light is one colour and black, in pigments it is one colour and white. Similarly, what you are calling scientific discoveried would have previously been refered to as empirical philosophy discoveries. Philosophy despite popular belief is not a field in which non-sense is tolerated! Philosophy does not have any inherent requirement that you discuss religion or 'spiritual' topics. Frankly, most philosophy is actually about ethics.
So. Much. Typing. For. Mobile. Thanks for reading if you dared!
Again this is more applicable to out of the ordinary situations, since again D&D isn't an ordinary life simulator. For example, a Mage with high INT in the face of a magical artifact that Identify can't fully ID. He gleans from his knowledge (gained through INT) that it has both overwhelmingly positive and negative effects. How he proceeds from that point on is dependent on his WIS. High WIS-Average WIS might stop the Mage from activating it Low WIS have him abandom caution.
Now let's add party members. A High INT Average WIS Mage might, in his interest inthe artifact, let slip what the artifact is capable of because his attention is more focused on it. Might even blurt out how to use it. Then the low WIS party members might end up activating it anyway. High WIS means the Mage would catch himself before giving away too many details because he knows his party members might decide to trigger it.
INT is like the characters ability to gather knowledge while WIS is his ability to make decisions with it. Will enough knowledge be sufficient to make a good decision, sure. The Mage with average WIS could also stop himself from giving away too much information if he's had experiences with just how stupid his party members can be. What High WIS does however is lower give him an internal warning bell that works on no of very little knowledge.
If my Fighter had enough CON, they'll have enough HP to survive getting hit repeatedly. But enough DEX might also be enough to dodge some of those hits and survive with less HP from having less CON. Should the defensive aspects of DEX and CON be combined?
As for my D&D example, like I said there is no conflicting facts that the PC knows of. Everything the NPC says is supported. Townspeople are saying the creatures cause the trouble, the NPC with overwhelming CHA convinces the PCs to go on a quest. What conflicting information can a High INT PC use to doubt the NPC?
Does it work because the stats are separate? Obviously, but I could use that line of thinking to justify an argument to combine STR, DEX, CON. They're all aspects of a person's Physical Prowess, why not combine them. And let weapon proficiencies do the combat side and since DEX/CON just ultimately prevent damage dodging or taking the hit, the HP derived from a all in one Body stat reflects both dodginess and toughness. And any example in D&D you provide to show otherwise only works because the stats were separated.
As for how muscles works, I can also argue that someone who scores straight A's in school can still be duped. People with roughly the same experience and same ability to learn can still be either easily tricked or not in a matter they know little about or not. A multi award winning biochemistphysicist can look at a crime scene and not figure out if that a killer staged it. A detective who scored averagely can. A brain surgeon who knows how the different parts of the brain works can still be a horrible person to ask advice from. Or someone who can recite every psychology book they've ever read. While some dude who failed biology can still give good advice. So if all these aspects of a person's ability to use their mind can be combined into one stat then combining all the muscles into one stat should be fine.
Edit: BG example
Consider Melicamp, his actions show he has low WIS maybe even average WIS. But above average INT because, well, he's a Mage. Did he learn not to play with magical artifacts if you successfully complete his quest? Sure. But consider the cost, he had to live as a talking chicken for a month, and really only through luck and the kindness/greed of an adventuring party got turned back to human instead of some other horrible fate.
High WIS would have let him avoid that chance. He learned something at the cost of nearly losing his life (as a human or completely) that a high WIS character would instinctively know, or at the very least see and accdpt the reasoning behind Thalantyr's cautious teaching method instead of raiding his supply of magical artifacts.
One point I will mention is thus. Scientists don't look for "Truth". They look for Fact. There are no absolute truths in science. Therein lies a key difference between intelligence and wisdom. An intelligent person looks for and at the facts. A wise person looks for the Truth of a situation. Can a scientist (or intelligent person) believe in an ultimate truth? Absolutely, but he (or she) is doing so because of their wisdom, not their intelligence.
As someone that is studying engineering academically, and learning philosophy on the side, it is quite clear that both must follow the strictures of logic. Many of the founders of physics and geometry were, in fact, philosophers. Philosophers btw that didnt see any need to differentiate the various fields of logical analysis (ie math, physics, music, sociology), and called it all philosophy... aka love of knowledge. Philosophers present their interpretation of reality for others to criticize, scientists present their interpretation of data (aka a subset of reality) for criticism. Oh yeah, big difference here; two logic based disciplines that rely on peer review to verify assertions. *rolls eyes*
If you are serious about dividing up truth from fact (a point that frankly leaves me wanting to give you definitions), you are simply wrong about science. Modern science has moved beyond the concept of facts and the concrete universe proposed by Newton. Science is vastly more interested in truth, ie why a something happened, versus the old obsession of 'what' happens. Not meant to be rude, but you are claiming 18th century science (scienceology is a better word) is the last word in science. Quantum physics would love to have a sitdown talk with you!
That said, we can call this discussion; i post via mobile, and typing is brutally slow to a trained typer. We both feel the other is presenting 'unfair' arguments, so this isnt going anywhere.
@Zyzzogeton i dont entirely disagree with all aspects of your arguments, but i do feel your premise is still very much 'we always had wis, so we need to always have it', while i still think you could alternately explain all uses of wisdom via 3 explanations, and thus argue it isnt neccessary to the game (for clarity, my points are that wisdom can be replaced mechanically by intelligence for reasoning, charisma for social interaction uses which are ussually 'reading' people, and the other is basically summed up by lucky guesses!). Now then, i can comment on your arguements, so here we go.
I dont believe an truly intelligent mage would risk using an artifact they dont feel they truly understand, outside emergencies. Its plain stupid to perform high risk activities like using a msgic item you have only a cusory understanding of. Thus, i couldnt see a high int low wis doing what you are suggesting. IE requires too much suspension of disbelief.
Blurting out imho can be expressed very much by low charisma: its more a function of empathy, or a lack thereof. A high cha mage (or high int maybe) mage would have empathy enough to relate to others and realize that they might do something stupid, especially if they have lower int.
Your 'warning bell' example makes me uncomfortable, since without a logical explanation it just sounds like magical lightning bolt from the gods type of knowledge. Eh, sounds priestly! But im not sure how reasonable this is. Counter example thats kinda related to explain my view: wisdom vs naivity is something that throws a wrench into the works here, since wis ingame doesnt change much without serious effort (usually magical)... my example is basically the interactions between Amerindians and europeans. Amerindians werent unwise or stupid, just naive. So i dont really buy the whole magical knowledge use of wisdom. That, properly implemented is a function of experience imho, not wis.
No, i dont see the durability provided by cons as similar, because they behave diifferently; dexterity lets you avoid hits entirely, while constitution means you can survive more hits. I am not sure how this is similar to the argument that most wisdom uses are logic/reason based, and thus can be expressed instead as a function of intelligence. You cant express not being touched as a subset of being struck and not damaged! The better counter imo is that str and cons both affect endourance, but the big difference is that con based endourance is bodyweight based, while str endourance represents ability to lift adfitional weight repeatedly without becoming fatigued. Oddly enough, they dont transfer well.
Well, on your strict dnd example, a very high int (note, +16 int in 2nd edition is incredibly intelligent, 18 is an IQ approaching 200) should be scientific enough to hold off on making a decision when he has only some of the facts; in your example, the high int character would investigate imho, and move with some caution. The conflict in this case would be from the lack of verfication of the facts being presented. I dont see gullibility to that degree to be intelligent!
I can see what you are arguing here, but this is an aspect of education vs ignorance, and even a genius can be ignorant of a field of study. 3rd edition solved this nicely imho, with knowledge skills. If you have no education in a subject, you are limited in what you can figure out about it... in 3rd, you only know dc 10 aspects, ie common knowledge. But, high int does give a boost on this, but without training, your chemist might not realize a crime scene has been fabricated. Interesting counterpoint though, a specialist can actually apply their field to a crime scene! Thus, a physicist could notice 'those bullets wholes are at a funny angle...' and investigate further, and find that the scene makes no sense scientifically. Irony is that forensics is actually a branch of anthropology! As for the advice, id say a brain surgeon might have terrible chsrisma, and thus shouldnt give social advice! Most people want cha based advice anyways.
Erm, actually Ol' Melicamp is described by his master as a profoundly bad apprentice. He likely has close to the min int for a wizard, which though not low, isnt that high. Melicamp is disowned by Thalantyr.
I am enjoying this btw, very thought provoking.
In today's world, scientist never look for ultimate truth. They look for fact. And in that, they don't take anything as proven so much as proven Wrong. You are right in that they look at why things happen instead of How, but that is not the definition of Truth. That is simple cause and effect, which is NOT philosophy.
In any event, I wish not to continue this debate further as neither of us is talking on the same wavelength as the other. Quite simply it isn't that important that you see my view point. Good luck with yours.
And the argument that it's always been that way? Of course that works. We have two classes that one of the two stats, that justifies the whole "it's always been that way"