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Intelligence is the underdog stat

I love my wizards. And I love intelligent and educated and well-spoken people. That's why I'm tired of Int getting back-shelved and dissed as some kind of obscure statistic for bookworms. Whatever class requirements you look at, it's Wisdom, Wisdom and more Wisdom. Rangers? Wisdom. Paladins? Wisdom. Psions? Wisdom. And if any new class with a mental attribute makes an appearance, I bet my ass the required statistic is not going to be Intelligence. #neveragain Somehow this intuitive, clever, practical soil-between-my-toes type gets touted as so much superior to the hoity toity college-educated type. What do they know in those colleges anyway! Culture, science, literature... bah. Obviously logic is only good for a programmer's job. It's when you sit at the wheel of a tractor, a baseball cap turned backwards on your head, plowing through a prairie, that you know what life is all about. Or take the sorcerer class - a straight product for those who don't want to learn their craft but would just rather be born with it.

The original AD&D material seemed to have more respect for Int and more use for it. I don't know if this growing anti-intellectual bent is another reflection of the lowest-denominator capitalism or of the fear of offending the dumb demographic.

Comments

  • ThacoBellThacoBell Member Posts: 12,235
    What are you talking about? Wisdom is only a prime stat for divine magic, which isn't granted through study, but from the gods of the setting. Mages and Bards, which focus on acquired knowledge, focus on int.
  • scriverscriver Member Posts: 2,072
    r/iamverysmart
  • KuronaKurona Member Posts: 881
    In the context of the BG games Intelligence is also a good investment for fighter classes as buffer for the Mind Flayers' "Devour Brain" ability.

    In retrospect this is likely what @GreenWarlock was referring to.
  • tbone1tbone1 Member Posts: 1,985
    In the PnP games, they had value. Intelligence allowed you to learn more languages. Wisdom gave you bonuses against certain mental attacks like charm, confusion, and the smell of fresh blueberry muffins.
  • GrumGrum Member, Mobile Tester Posts: 2,100
    In BG, wisdom does nothing for Paladins or Wisdom. They just need the minimum. For non-clerics/druids it can be dumped without penalty.

    Int is needed for fighting mindflayers. If you dump Int then they will one shot you. A true power player (with insanely high rolling) would start with Int15 for any martial class. With the time for Int16 you can last 4 mindflayer hits.
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