I personally feel that Intelligence is one of the more useless of the skills to put points in. As I see it, the only purpose it has is showing whether or not a character is an evil genius or ordinary. Whether he or she has 1 point or 6, that person can still post smart and doesn't have to act stupid just because their Intelligence is 1.



I'd like to suggest a more practical use for Intelligence that one can use in combat. It's called thinking fast, not to be confused with the Speed boxes. With speed, someone can run around me in circles at 100 mph, but that isn't thinking fast. If I stick out my fist, he'll run into it.

Speed doesn't slow down time, it just makes you move quicker. Reaction time, the time it takes for your mind to process an impending attack and react, is completely different and shouldn't be related to Speed.

Here's my point... if someone wants to dodge a bullet, even just 1, both his Intelligence and Speed need to be high. He needs to calculate where the bullet will fly, process the information, and move. The ability to have enough speed to move faster than a bullet will not make someone able to dodge without the thinking ability to process it. Therefore, we can avoid characters who have just 1 intelligence with no intention of ever dying just because they have a High Speed, and utilize their points in Strength/Fighting/Durability skills, making them more 'on par' with the brute-like characters like myself.

The Flash and Colossus are two separate characters, with different strengths. But The Flash with Colossus' strength and Durability is a little too much, in my opinion...

Thoughts?

With that said, I really think the Point system needs a revamp, and everyone have the ability to re-choose their statsheets.

QFT. If someone with low Int posts as if they are really well-versed, call them on it. Though Typicaly if you have really high intelligence you're already thinking fast and on your feet. That's why I stated in Gregor's application that even though he has 6 FP he can outfight almost everyone because his mind is constantly thinking of new strategies and adjusting old ones to fit the situation.

I understand how roleplaying works, and the separation between my character and myself in Real life. (Yes, my character is Sul-Fury) To me, Intelligence of 1 means 'normal'. And I intended to make a quest later to improve it to level 2, if it wasn't normal. My character isn't a brainiac, and I intended to reflect that in my roleplaying, yes.

What I was trying to say, was people who made their characters with an Intelligence level of 1 still have the ability to post with high intelligence. It doesn't stop them from doing that. I'm not saying that I do that. I made my character to have high strength/Durability, that's all. And that's how I intended it to be. I just didn't like the fact that the ability for people to make a character that can do everything, including my strengths.

When people create a character with maximum on everything, their excuses start to become lame, like "My weakness is copper" or stuff you'll never find on a battlefield, or think of using. How do you know his weakness is copper? You don't. You just get your butt kicked til you figure it out. What this post is intended for, is to make characters who want Speed/agility to be SEPARATE from characters with Strength/Durability.

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But on topic with the main discussion...

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Not to say that you're wrong. A character with the ability to dodge bullets should have high mind and speed stats, since a bullet goes faster than normal human reaction time you would need mental power greater than a normal human.

That's honestly exactly what I posted, in a summed up version.

No one's made superman. And any attempts that have been close have been thoroughly thwarted. I get what you're saying, but I won't let overpowered characters through.

Wouldn't RT be classified as Fighting Skill? That's what I didn't get about FS and INT, they both are basically the same thing. Skill is what you know about combat and are trained in to do, hence knowledge in itself.

As I understand it , a "1" in your stats is the equivalent to normal human intelligence. Anything above it would fall into the superhuman range. As I am a normal human being anything I think or say is par for my character's "1" intelligence. The only real application for a higher level of intelligence would be for creating devices or working in sciences that you actually do not have any experience in (ie: cybernetics, occult, weapons manufacturing) but can bullshit your way through enough to make an engaging narrative. The one true benefit is that, through writing about these technologies that we ,as players, do a bit of research on the subject and actually effectively increase our own knowledge.

I really think that to effectively use a super high intelligence would correctly would be to it in a "Metaplay" utilization. The logic behind it would be that your character is so smart that he can conceptualize ideas on a high enough level to come to a conclusion that incorporates OCC information. Otherwise Sul is correct, the stat is essentially useless in day to day play.

But I digress, these are just the opinions of a old roleplayer that has been plugging away since before RP was done online. And even though it usually brings hisses from the crowd; That is how we used to use the stat in AD&D. If someone is going to waste attribute points on INT, then they should occasionally be able to use OCC information (when logically applicable) as a reward for allocating the points.

Intelligence covers you're mental capacity to do things, ie reaction time, education. Fighting skills cover your ability to fight, ie combat maneuvers, effective strategies to utilize against different opponents. They go hand in had but are completely different. Also 1 is a normal human that didn't receive the full benefit of a state provided education, high school dropouts, people with small learning disabilities, blah, blah, blah. 2 is more average.

1 is below average, 2 is average.

FS can represent training, but no amount of training is going to give you reaction time beyond human limitiations. If you plan on acting faster than bullets, you're going to need a few points in intelligence.

There's no reason for metagaming. A high intelligence character may be able to notice things that a normal one wouldn't and come up with plans or recognize weaknesses. There's still no reason that character should ever know something it wouldn't be able to obtain in the situation. This is freeform roleplaying, it is not stat-based roleplaying. The staff has just decided to make it stat-augmented. The stats are there to represent your character's abilities, not define them. If the GM decides to privately tell the character something that he or she thinks only that character would be able to notice with its high intelligence, then that isn't metagaming.

The real problem with INT is that it's easily abused by players that still have a lot to learn. I'm not going to say "bad" players because the only bad player is one that isn't trying to improve. If you have an INT of 1, your character probably shouldn't be hatching great plans and being able to put together enemies weaknesses to use against them. If you have a low intelligence and you're posting like your character is intelligent you're touching on metagaming and godmodding. The reason there is a stat limit is to make it easier for the staff to notice OP characters when they screen them, and they give A LOT of points to work with. If you've used up all your points and you only have a 1 in INT, you've made an incredibly strong character. A low intelligence should balance that out, and let the smarter characters have an advantage over you. (You've all seen a superhero use a smart plan to take out an enemy much bigger than him I'm sure.)

I think that some people are putting way too much emphasis on the stats, when the emphasis should be on the character they represent.

I am a high school drop out(I will let the rumor mill sort out the reasons for this)....and yet I am very intelligent. I do not believe the one should imply on the other, after all receiving that coveted piece of paper does not increase your IQ. Macdonald's employees around the world can vouch for that, (no offense implied to anyone currently employed at Macdonalds). Such generalized statements are often a source of misinformation.

A "1" in strength does not imply that you are a weakling, it implies that you have normal human strength. A "1" in speed doesn't mean that you are a turtle, it means you are capable of normal human speed. A "1" in durability doesn't imply that you are sickly and will die at a young age, it means that you are of normal human health. And so the INT stat should reflect that as well.

If this is not true than it points out a large discrepancy in our Power grid system. I will use strength as my talking point. Level 6 is capable of lifting an office building....Level 5 a house....Level 4 a car....Level 3 a horse... Level 2 Olympic level power lifter....Level one a normal human, perhaps 200lbs. It's not: A strength of "1" isn't capable of lifting their own bodyweight and are unable to walk on their own.

A "1" doesn't imply disability, like is being implied for the Int stat in the above post. No, it is a normal amount or otherwise we are going to have to start reevaluating all of our characters. Does a "1" in fighting skills dictate that you actually are so bad at fighting that you are even below a normal humans capabilities? How is that possible? Do you flail about like someone with palsy?

Well that's just my logic, It seems to be well thought out, but then again....I didn't graduate High School.

Not to be rude, but I don't care if you graduated highschool or not and it's not related to your character.

One doesn't imply the other, but one can explain the other. an INT of 1 doesn't imply severe retardation, just below average intelligence. An uneducated person is generally going to have less intelligence than an educated person. Is this always the case in real life? Not even close to yes. But it's an easy to convey the difference between a 1 and 2 in the stat.

and I'm not going by theory, I'm going by what the staff have decided. According to the ones running the stat system, 1 is average in most cases but with intelligence 2 is average.

Slamfist wrote:

1 is actually average on everything except EP and Intelligence where it is 0 and 2 respectively.