Roleplaying high & low stats in D&D 

My wife's character, Willow, has a 7 Charisma score. The party has actually weaponized her sleep inducing storytelling ability.

I played my 8 intelligence barbarian as smart in his areas (combat) and uneducated in most others. He also had a hard time with idioms and turns of phrase. Wasn't until the 3rd session I realized I had been playing Drax the Destroyer.

A perfect example of a high CHA character who is not traditionally attractive: Austin Powers A perfect example of a low CHA character who is traditionally attractive: Geralt of Rivia

As a medical professional, I fully support medicine being tied to wisdom. Someone trying to use intelligence for medicine is basically how students think. Reading the patient, observing their behavior, understanding that they are to embarrassed to talk about certain subjects etc. The math and pathophysiology are less than half the battle

the way my DM always explained INT vs WIS to us: "Low intelligence means you don't know things others might, low wisdom means you don't notice things others might. High stats mean the opposite."

I still remember my favorite CR shopping interaction between Grog and a shopkeeper. “I have an intelligence of (low number). I know what I’m doing.”

Part of the Low-INT experience is missing the plot. Literally. My best (only) character in a 4E campaign was a monk with INT as a dump stat. He didn't understand all the intrigues that were going on around him, often relying on his own tilted moral compass to decide what was right. And yet, he was also the moral center, the Heart of the group. Somehow. That was a character who lived in my head rent-free for a good two years~

"paying attention and doing vibe checks" had me giggling

Fun fact: everyone alive right now is just Ginny in a different shirt.

I was playing a classic meat head barbarian and while everyone was going around and trying to find a secret door using perception or investigation, I started roughly tapping on the walls with the back of my axe. When my party and DM asked why, I said "Well if its a door, it would sound different then hitting a wall wouldnt it?" Got was told to make a strength perception check at advantage. Found the door and then smashed it open.

My favorite way to do high int/cha but low Wis characters is to live life according to the rule of cool. "I know I can do that, but the bit that filters my intrusive thoughts doesn't always fire off correctly."

Wisdom is definitely a frustrating stat for me. I mean, IRL as an autistic, I'm very perceptive about everything -except- people. I literally can't help but notice a lot of stuff other people automatically tune out as background 'noise'. But I can't read body language and intent at all. So my forays into roleplaying have been especially hard with what is grouped under wisdom and how people expect you to play a high wisdom character.

I love WIS as a dump stat and have been playin my low-WIS bard for almost 3 years. Two ways I roleplay it are: 1. I simply don’t ask the DM questions that will lead to insight/perception checks unless there’s a really obvious or compelling reason to do so. Most things are taken at face value. 2. Since they’re also high INT, when making decisions I focus more on what I *can* do and don’t worry too much about what I *should* do. E.g. if a great investigation check leads me to a mysterious hidden button, I am for sure pressing it to learn more about what it does. Of course, it helps that my dice understand the assignment. On three separate occasions, I have rolled sub-5 for perception on watch, explained it as my character drawing pictures instead of paying attention, and then rolled 20+ for the quality of the drawings.

I love the timeline of the four mental stats: Intelligence, Ginny Sponsor Skit, Wisdom, Charisma

Remember that you don’t have to do these too! If you want to play a dumb wizard, play a dumb wizard! You don’t have to set a low intelligence to do that

I have a Player who plays a 3 Int Lizardman Cleric on my Table. His Character cannot speak common, only Draconic. Its Glorious and he is beloved by all. (also Elder Brains cannot sense him, his brain is just too smooth :D) He balances his intelligence out with a perfect wisdom score of 20 wich Represents his primal interpretation of the world around him. He runs on Instinct and trust towards his fellow "Lizardman" Friend,- the Parties Dragonborn Barbarian who is basically both his friend and handler.

My current character is a low WIS, high CHA noblewoman -- its really fun, since I roleplay her low WIS as her being sheltered, naive, and assuming that everyone inherently means well. Its super easy to lie to her lol

I think it's possible to use intelligence for medicine as well- remember, rules as written, skills don't have to be associated with any single ability score. Intimidation can be strength if you're physically threatening someone and stealth can be charisma if you're trying to blend in at a party instead of actually trying to hide behind something. Medicine can be intelligence if you're trying to remember information about a certain disease or condition, but if you're actually trying to diagnose or treat someone, it's wisdom. Observing the patient in front of you and figuring out the symptoms and how to treat them is more important than recalling medical information you've memorized. Sure, you draw on previous knowledge to make your diagnosis, but that's what proficiency represents. Medicine is definitely a primarily wisdom-based skill.

"... [B]ut they have very different personalities (and diets). " hits so hard, I laughed out loud at that

Haha "It's kinda depressing that I write these lines for you." Is the best fourth wall break I've heard today.

My current party has a nice contrast between two high charisma characters. Both have an 18, but one goes out of their way to make a good first impression and charm every NPC the party interacts with, the other stays silent at the back of the group until it's time to make an Intimidation roll, play bad-cop in an interrogation or help create a diversion for one of the sneaky characters, they can command attention easily but no one would call them charming.

I read a Dragon magazine from way back that described high CHA but low WIS and INT as not telling the most clever jokes, but confidently landing the jokes everyone laughs at the hardest. That really stuck with me and has made “charming idiot” my favorite guy to be, on and off the table.

One of my favorite ways to play my rogue who is slightly above average int but high wisdom relies on intraparty dynamics. He's great at finding evidence, noticing clues and gathering intel but doesn't always know what it means. He'll often collaborate with the party wizard to figure out the solution and trust her solutions because his gut trusts her brain.

I like the idea of medicine being a wisdom skill. My real world job is a firefighter/EMT, and we use intuition, common sense, adaptation, and other things “wisdom-y”

I live for the relationship with books and Ginny

One of my favorite feats in pathfinder 2e is Dubious Knowledge. The DM rolls your recall knowledge and you don't know if youve succeeded or failed. If you failed, they mix lies with the truth, but you don't know which are lies.

We had player who's wisdom score was 4. Yes, SCORE. He played his character who had no self preservation. He would see a Frost giant and go: "HAH, I can take his guy alone," make fun and anger town major and other that kind of things (He was fairy barbarian)

I love how you break these down for people and roleplay it out so that people get a picture of how these can play out

I'm having fun as a high INT wizard in a PF1 campaign right now. She's from a backwater village, and her entire formal education is a few years' apprenticeship with a washed-up 4th level wizard, but she's a linguistic prodigy and can piece together a lot of arcana by leaning on her understanding of Draconic etymology (ayyyyy linguistics as its own skill in PF1) and by catching onto and connecting the dots between new information easily (super high Knowledge checks). She also started the campaign very un-curious, because her entire life plan was to use her handful of cantrips and 1st-level spells to make a solid living as the world's laziest dry-cleaner, but now she's been trapped in the Underdark for a few months and met a made a lot of weird enemies and weirder friends, and it's brought out the mad scientist in her a little bit.

I play a character with low charisma in my long-term campaign. He's a strong and capable soldier, rather strapping, and competent. He's polite, he listens to people, he genuinely cares for others' well-being. But he has a -THICK- accent and is difficult for NPCs to understand until they've been around him for a while.

I always use the Tomato system to explain stats. Str is the ability to crush a tomato Dex is the ability to throw a tomato or dodge a thrown tomato Con is the ability to not get hurt when hit by thrown tomato or survive imbibing a fermented tomato Int is knowing a Tomato is a fruit Wise dom is knowing you do not use a Tomato in a fruit salad Charisma is selling a tomato based fruit salad by calling it Salsa!

Working with your DM on these skills can be absolutely game changing. I was struggling to come up with an idea that I felt my 14 int character aught to be able to figure out, so I just reminded my DM that my character was smarter than me and asked for help. He let me roll a history check and took advantage of aspects of my character that had been previously established in roleplay to suggest a few things my character would know about the situation. He was also the one who suggested I hype my charisma score up as appearing trustworthy. Love me some DM buy in on how to make stats work.

Ginny has no right having THIS MUCH chemistry with herself 😭❤️

SEE!!! I'm not the only one who has a ton of friends who isn't just me wearing a different shirt!

Very helpful! I’ve recently made my first pathfinder 2e character. He’s a really medium ugly looking swashbuckler from Taldor. I found a noble family there that has a horribly inbred family tree 😂. So his skin has like no pigment, one of his eyes is always dilated to the max, he’s missing one ear, and he has 2-6 more teeth than a normal adult should. but his charisma is decently high. It’s been a blast bringing him to life as the unconventional face of our party.

I explained my wizard's below average WIS with a serious case of nearsightedness. He couldn't see any details and would miss spot checks and could pick on the subtle npc's reactions required to read them accurately. Most of his spells were short range since he couldn't differentiate friends for foes past a few meters. He had to rely on his owl familiar for anything long range related.

Medicine is actually more of a perception thing. Knowing symptoms can’t help you if you aren’t good at insight and perceptions

When playing martial characters with low intelligence, I tend to let them fight intelligently. Fighting is something they've trained for, after all. For anything else, they go quiet and let others discuss what to do, with two exceptions: 1) if they have a lot of time to think something over, I'll let them come to an intelligent conclusion eventually; 2) if I have a bright idea, I ask the DM if my character can make an intelligence roll to have the same idea.

I've always felt that playing a low Intelligence character requires a lot of intelligence and quick wittedness. I DMed for a Barbarian with low Intelligence who kept us howling with laughter every session with his interpretations of things with his low Intelligence. Because he was so engaged in the sessions and actively thinking how his character could or would interpret things in a different way.

I played a low intelligence barbarian that had his mind partially broken by Auril in Rime of the Frost Maiden. He would have occasional moments of genius but then immediately flip back to not connecting the dots

I'm finally DMing again for the first time in a while and was just hoping I'd have 1 high int character to give them more background knowledge about the world but no dice

In the sponsor piece, I would like to bring one particular NPC case to the attention. It's the baker at Pekar's Place. I don't know if it's a masterful writing easter egg or a lucky coincidence, but in many Slavic languages (I'm Czech), Pekar (or its variants - in Czech, it's Pekař) literally means "baker" (and is quite a common surname to boot, which is to be expected with common professions).

In a 1e game long ago, there was a LG human cleric in our party with a 6 Int, and he didn't say very much. When he did, it was short simple words and phrases. But he had a high Wis, so he made really good decisions in a clutch, and unlike Jester, he was a healer. His name was Skulldug, and after we beat Strahd in I6, he was last seen wandering off into a field talking to a butterfly. (The player wanted to bring in another character for the sequel, which we never got to play.)

I love roleplaying low wisdom high intelligence so much... they're my little gremlins :3

Sometimes Int, Wis, and Cha seem to have a rock paper scissors relationship to me. Wisdom can assess someones Charisma Intelligence can evaluate someones Wisdom Charisma can influence someones Intelligence

I played a low INT Monk as someone who was book-studied in religion, but it took 1.5 times as long for him to get his training in that skill. So he could be learned on a particular subject, but it takes him a lot of effort to learn anything new.

I remember the stats like this. Strength is being able to rip an apple in half. Dexterity is the ability to juggle or throw the apple well. Constitution is your ability to not get sick if the apple is bad or poisoned. Intelligence is to know you have an apple in your hand. Wisdom is to know if & why eating that apple is good for you. Charisma is your ability to sell that apple or convince someone that it's a good one regardless of it being ripe or not.

Love your content, Ginny! Intelligence and Wisdom was explained to me like this: Intelligence is the ability to acquire information and recall it. Wisdom is the ability to notice important information and interpret it. Remember the Far Side comic where a life-raft with a fat, happy dog as the sole occupant is rescued by another boat? An Intelligent character will know the breed of the dog, a Lab, and decide it is relatively a safe breed to approach. A Charismatic character will see the fat, happy dog wagging its tail and be excited and relieved that the dog is in good spirits and waste no time in rescuing him. A Wise character will see the discarded wristwatch and eyeglasses in the raft and deduce how this dog survived so far.

Something that helps a lot is variant skill checks such as INT medicine, STR intimidation, CON athletics, WIS persuasion, CHA animal handling, or DEX performance for example

Will always love new Ginny content

thank you for mentioning memory issues for low intelligence! i’ve been playing a low INT sorcerer, and her background in cartography means she’s super passionate about historical subjects and pretty well-traveled, so i’ve compensated by roleplaying her low INT as Significant Memory Issues instead. it’s been a lot of fun and i’m trying to get better at leaning into those stats!

Ever since I was a child (grew up on 3, spent most of my days with Pathfinder) and the way we defined it was 'Int tells you it's raining, Wis tells you to get inside.' That isn't exactly accurate, but it worked wonders helping our players to roleplay far better.

it feels so strange to be so early! but this vid is going to be super helpful for roleplaying! i want to share this- i have a character who has 16s across the board for all her skills, due to me adding her ASIs up for it to all be 16. her personality is very 'jack of all trades, master of none, but oftentimes is better than a master of one'

Ginny trying to convince us it's just her acting : "None of them is me just wearing a different shirt" then the truth slips out : " .....Put me back in the basement with the rest of the clones" 😉

My favorite low int moment was playing my Goliath Barbarian and suggesting our cleric use illusion magic to make it look like the woodcutter’s house / piles was burning so he’d come running because he wasn’t home when the party showed up to talk to him. Cleric went along with the idea for like 20 seconds and then was like NO!

I usually would play Charisma as: High = you definitely stand out and are memorable (could be glamorous, or could be digusting), Low = You're like the person who gets passed on the street and no one even remembers seeing you, let alone describing you. You're like someone who tried out to be an extra on a TV show, but the people you were auditioning for ended up more interested in a spider web in the corner.

In one of my sessions just a week ago, my druid (high WIS, low CHA) offered the mayor of a small town to enrich all the fields around town using plant growth, in exchange for some information. Pretty good deal right? But the thing is, by being in character, I accidentaly worded my offer that poorly and weird and offputting, that my DM actually FORGOT to ask for a persusation check and just made me fail. Thats low Charisma for ya!

Just wait til the DM reads the part about “Variant Skill Checks” I had a player use a Charisma(Slight of Hand) check when they used their MageHand to catch a weasel. I had to explain that they add their Charisma mod to their Slight of Hand skill because this was the first time they ever did that

On the thing about memory for intelligence, in a campaign im in we have a low int barbarian and all of their notes are one or two word notes that are the things that would stand out to Crunch. So we have the notes on what happened, and then we have the notes on what Crunch remembers happening.

Love all this info, and I'm definitely feeling inspired to work a bit harder at reflecting my character's actual scores! Also - your script writing is just 🎉🙌🏻🎉

I love these tips! My 8 charisma medic rogue has a stutter and often talks to herself while healing others or talks in circle. She has gained more and more confidence the longer she has stayed with her party, but any time she is around a stranger, she is extremely quiet or will talk with her stutter like she did at the beginning of the campaign. She has been so fun to play!

I’m currently playing a low charisma wizard - he’s foreign, so there’s the social stigma, and then people don’t really trust his particular branch of magic (focusing on stuff to do with the body), so he can get off on the wrong foot with some NPCs very quickly. I roleplay his charisma within the party as easily lead by the other players. He can irritate them with words (although since this is playing with real people this can be a fine line to tread), but when he does so he makes sure to make up for it with deeds (his decent wisdom means that he does notice when he’s annoyed someone, but that won’t stop him making that mistake again).

4:41 "aren't you gonna talk about low intelligence, you specialty!" I'm dying 😭

I like that at the end about Charisma. The stat itself has basically nothing to do with good looks. Can be a grizzled old man who doesn't look better than a dehydrated piece of squid, half chewed... But his, as you said... "Force of Personality"... could be all he needs to lead a group. Even if you aren't qualified, a high charisma could make others want to follow or listen to you when otherwise they probably shouldn't, and it can inspire others to feats of greatness, or to push harder as well.

I like the idea of playing high-intelligence characters. As my persona is an Eldritch Knight Fighter, you can imagine that I like meshing brains and brawn. A character who investigates their target, gathers what they need to make the fight easy, and having the strength to end the fight quickly. Might even be the kind to write down extensive notes.

I've been in love with BOOKS ever since I learned to read.... That being said, a high WIS can be someone with a lot of worldly knowledge-"Mutt" Jones from the Indiana Jones movies, while a low WIS would be the Curator from the same Movies....

I had a monklock who was high wis, low int and I played her as someone who didn't always "get it" on the first go around but learned the lesson quickly. One of my favorite lines was "I'm pretty sure you're insulting me but I'm not sure how....."

the way i like to look at wisdom is you have a heightened perception of what’s around you, but a focused cone around what is important to your character. maybe they’re perceptive about people, body language, etc. alternatively, things like medicine might be if somebody is hiding a wound, or a disease/infliction where you have to pick up on physical clues. it’s not perfect but it’s a bit easier for me.

I have a wizard with high INT but low WIS. I play him as the kinda guy who’s smart enough to do something really intricate and cool, but not smart enough to consider the consequences. He doesn’t make plans, he just kinda does things and expects it’ll work out. Like when the party needed him to fly but he didn’t have polymorph prepared, he simply misty stepped straight up twice and then used momentary stasis (chronurgy ability) without considering how he’d get back down again, having used his remaining spell slots on misty step. He’s the embodiment of “how can someone be so smart yet so stupid at the same time”

When you're out in the wilds, and you notice drops of water falling out of the sky... Your INT tells you that it's raining. Your WIS tells you that you ought to find some kind of shelter.

Awesome video! I appreciate how you recognized that ability scores should impact RP but also explain the nuances of roleplay. A 20 doesn't make you a god in that skill and a 6 doesn't make you incompetent, but it does tell you something about the character.

Travis Willingham is a god for how well he portrays a dumb as bricks character while staying entertaining.

At an old DM's table (in my first ever d&d game) he had something we could do called a vibe check, where we rolled insight to just kinda sense what's going on. It was really helpful as a new player to have something that represented wisdom well and also allowed us to have some fun always yelling, "Vibe Check," and waving around red flags we made.

One of my friends played a low Intelligence character in a Vampire the Masquerade campaign, the hard part for him was how he had to actively inhibit his own problem solving abilities in certain scenarios.

Something my party did with the education part of a character’s intelligence: We have a tiefling pirate that when we first met was mostly illiterate. (Also very impulsive. He’s still impulsive.) It was pretty funny a lot of the time, as our DM would take any handouts or signs we read and physically black out words that he didn’t understand. This led to games of jeopardy with him trying to count the letters in a word and take a guess. Usually he just went based off of what he had, and antics ensued. Once the party got closer, he would ask us for help reading things for him. My character, a homebrew witch with Wis as her main stat, has the highest int out of the three (a whopping 11 at the start. It has since increased out of what I like to explain as “necessity in desperate situations”). She went to a bookshop and asked if they had a copy of “When you give an Imp a Soul” (play on When you Give a Mouse a Cookie). I got the book, and a few sessions later gifted it to our tiefling. She said she was going to teach him how to read, and over the course of several sessions and in-game months of travel, he can more or less read fluently now. Some big words may take him a minute, but it works. To be clear, the tiefling was from a very small island town that was raided when he was about 8. Since then he’s been sailing and wandering the world, and never had an opportunity to get a proper education. My character may have been homeschooled, but her father is a small hobbiest author and her aunt lived in high society and taught her some formal etiquette. So I had enough of a background and understanding of being taught to do some checks and figure it out along the way.

This is not only useful for me who has only been playing D&D for about a year but also It's useful for someone who for some reason has decided it's a good idea to build their own campaign from scratch.

can't believe you called books your friend. thats platonic tension if i've ever seen it

One thing I'm curious about: What are your suggestions for how to participate in solving puzzles when roleplaying a low INT character? I love the problem solving aspects of DnD and other RPGs, but when playing a low INT character, part of me feels like I'm not allowed to participate in them because my character wouldn't know how to do that.

The bit about how various skills are grouped under the abilities is part of why I really like Vampire Masquerade's approach of combining the dice of a base ability & a skill together. Gives the DM the ability to really tailor a situation, with a rough 5e parallel being a DM that lets someone, in certain situations, intimidate off their Strength stat rather than Charisma.

I'm always delighted to see Books make an appearance in your videos. I wish they had their own channel,

"your intelligence might even be in the double digits" killed me

I play a low-ish Wisdom Wizard (to represent that she's still a child especially as for an Elf), and one of her notable actions was removing a glove to get a hand reading from a *VERY* suspicious fortune teller. Because it's an interesting new experience! Who needs common sense!

I was just looking into this a few hours ago! EDIT: Hol’ up, the rest of the clones?

I once roleplayed a very low CHA character like a drunk Boomhauer. It was fun.

"I have an intelligence of 6, I know what I'm doing."

I kinda struggle betwen roleplaying stats and just having them for functional purposes. I mostly use stats just as a vague direction. My favorite character so far, Tokki, was a cleric with high wisdom, but due to her sheltered upringing she was naive and trusting to others, but perceptive and observant to environment. And despite low intelligence she had good memory about people and events she has some emotional connection with, but forgetful otherwise. For example, she was very devoted to Selune and could recite some text dedicated to her no problem, as well as recall both myths and recorded history regarding her, but forget a rumor she heard just a week ago.

i think a great way to handle the mental scores is to also consider how a deficiency in one can impact a surplus of another. i once rp’ed a low-wis/high-int warlock (not optimal, i know) who came from a very sheltered background. lots of technical knowledge but little real-world experience, so he had a tendency to be fleeced or be mistreated because he didn’t have experience keeping his guard up with strangers. but as a result, much of his charisma ended up being conveyed through his enthusiasm, sincerity and obliviousness - he was a little clueless, to the point of sometimes inspiring concern! all of these traits are happening in concert, so it makes sense that some are developed at the expense of others.

I have always wanted to see the completion of this series, thanks ginny. Also the wisdom video must have been a mess, but that rant was aces.

17 wisdom, flaw is “there is no room for caution in a life lived to the fullest”

this video is great of course, but can we talk about how FUN these ads are? it's pretty much the only channel where i dont even think about skipping the sponsorship segment!

Wisdom is experience, which tracks pretty well with medicine. You can read a bunch of books about surgery but its the experience that makes you good at it.

One thing to keep in mind, is that stats are not restrictions on what you can do, but reflect on how you do things. For example, if there is a puzzle with a ceramic statue you out of character realize you need to break it to get a key out of it, but your character is incredibility dumb, you can still solve that puzzle. Instead of suddenly realizing the answer though, your character might just go, 'ehh that is ugly' and smash it, and then someone else will notice the key.

Ginny D; solving the questions I never knew I had, and I love knowing. Never stop these videos you absolute legend!

I don't normally watch your commercials, but this one was inspired! Very entertaining, thank you!

A Life in Adventure really explains this well. CHA is how confident you are in yourself, giving you the ability to intimidate, flirt, and bluff. INT is memory, reasoning, and recall, with other stats receiving an INT bonus if the score's high enough. DEX is your ability to move quickly, including contorting yourself, reflexes, and things like jumping. WIS is how you observe and deal with the world around you, and it's linked to your sanity in-game. Similarly, CON is a measure of endurance and having a strong stomach, so to speak, influencing your health in-game. STR is, well, strength, and it's actually tied to your inventory and how much you can carry. Overall, it's helped me a lot in figuring out how different stats affect each other.

This video is an absolute banger! Perhaps your best yet

Prolonged and intense eye contact is terrifying. Even if I’m the one who needs to do it. I would very quickly look away.

3:55 - As a DM I always liked when players said things like "While we are at camp I am going to study/practice/maintain high proficiency with a certain skill", then subsequently go on to actually use the practiced skill/studied knowledge etc...

first video i've seen of you and this was the perfect combination of informative and entertaining, A+! on the charisma skills i make them roleplay and then bonus or penalize it based on how well they did. that line about loaning the money vs spending it on a healer would have gotten a +2 out of me, that was amazing.

Love the insight here!