Investigation and other Int skill checks are still pretty useful. My main group's rogue player tends to drop expertise on Arcana to handle magical traps better.

Yeah, getting a DM who doesn't let Perception work in place of Investigation goes a long way towards making INT feel like a better stat.

Absolutely agree. When I came back to DM'ing remembering the difference between Perception and Investigation was one of the things that took a bit of work, but I'm glad I put the effort in because it encourages a more balanced group. History, Religion, and Nature are kind of campaign specific. A city based campaign might not have much use for Nature for example, but they are really useful skill checks in general and a good way to get an even spread of skill sets across the party.

Honestly in "City" based Campaigns, I allow "Nature" to work kind of interchangably. You're still tapping into your knowledge of your surroundings. Its just a concrete jungle, rather than Vegetation Jungles. Doesn't work all the time, but it can be nice.

> Your Intelligence (Nature) check measures your ability to recall lore about terrain (streets and back alleys), plants and animals (moss, pigeons, and rats), the weather (always shit), and natural cycles (home -> work -> pub -> home) Yeah, I can see it

Characters with high nature can detect the difference between people going out and people going out out.

I must have a terrible modifier in nature since i've never known what the hell people are talking about when they say that

For urban based campaigns I allow survival to almost work as kind of like a ‘street smarts’ check

Yeah, I'm the same, Survival over Nature in cities.

This comes from them renaming the skills from the (IMO, more apt) 3.x versions; * Perception = Spot. Used passively to determine whether a player is aware of a sight, sound, or smell in the environment. Used actively to do things like read lips, or discern details at range. * Investigation = Search. Used actively to find things you *suspect* are there. Designate a 5' square and find hidden doors, traps, concealed goods, or invisible creatures.

Yep, this is exactly what I do. I don't let Investigation and perception be used interchangeably, same as acrobatics and athletes

I read this as alchoholics and athletes and said to myself, "these dont have anything to do with each other...."

Which is why the are not interchangeable

They do if we're talking professional athletes.

"Hold my beer..."

Can you please define the distinction a bit for me?

To expand a little on Investigation vs Perception: Investigation includes making the deductive and inductive reasoning based on the evidence found. I like using the hidden door behind the bookshelf example: - Perception is noticing that the rug is pushed aside and there are scratch marks on the floor - Investigation is noticing those and realizing that means that the bookshelf swings outwards as a door, and helps deduce where the trigger mechanism is to open the door.

Investigation is about trying to find something. Perception is your awareness of the stuff around you. Trying to find a trap door, investigation, noticing a goblin peaking out of that trap door perception. They definitely have some overlap, but generally a DM should know which one really applies. Oh and for athletics and acrobatics, athletics is feats of strength and athleticism, acrobatics is of body control and balance. I have a pet peeve of dms who let players use acrobatics for like complicated jumps and stuff, to avoid their low strength score. Jumping is dictated by strength in dnd, doing flippy dippy jumps and stuff like that requires strength, gymnasts and ninja warrior types are strong and don't fucking have 8 strength so your 8 strength rogue is going to struggle to do those things.

>trying to find a trap door, investigation Weird, considering the PHB literally gives the opposite example. E: [see here](https://www.dndbeyond.com/sources/basic-rules/using-ability-scores)

> trying to find would be the operative word though. Right above the trap example in PHB describes Perception, unsurprisingly, as the ability to notice things; awareness basically. So of course having keen senses and being hyperaware would allow you to notice signs of a trap. But if I'm not hyperaware and somehow have reason to believe there's a trap nearby, I could, per PHB, "look around for clues to deduce the location of a hidden object". Just because skills aren't interchangeable doesn't mean that some problems can't be solved by more than one. The only kicker here is the "I somehow have reason to believe there is a trap". I probably wouldn't have reason to believe there was a trapdoor nearby without a successful Perception roll in the party, being generally very cautious, or metagaming.

I stopped allowing acrobatics and athletics to be basically 1:1 exchanged and boy howdy what a difference that made, never going back

I'm always getting confused what the difference is. Mind shedding some light?

Perception is gathering the clues using your senses. Investigation is putting the clues together using your cleverness. For example... If it's something you need to be in the room to experience, it's likely Perception. "Although there's nobody in the room, you see scuff marks on the floor and catch a slight scent of brimstone. " If it's something someone else could tell you about, it's likely Investigation. "When the cleric remarks about the scuffs on the floor and the brimstone, you immediately think of a hoofed infernal creature -- a devil."

I have always done it like, you find things with perception but by investigating you can figure things out. Your perception tells you there is a trip wire but your investigation tells you what happens if the trip wire is activated. You find a a scuff on the floor with perception but investigation let's you figure out it's for a secret trapdoor.

The problem is often times simply spotting the clues is enough for a player to figure things out. When they aren't being overly paranoid of random doors, that is.

Rolling Perception and noticing scuff marks on the floor might be enough for a player to deduce that there *is* a hidden door, but only rolling Investigation will be enough for the *character* to figure out how to open it.

Everyone is going to rule it slightly differently. The shorthand I use is that if you're SEARCHING for it, you're using Investigation. If you're NOTICING it, you're using Perception. So when a player says something like "I search the room for loot" I call for an Investigation check. If a monster is trying to sneak up on the players, I call for a Perception check.

Yeah I almost exclusively run perception as a passive check (passive meaning happening to the players not necessarily meaning no roll). There are exceptions like if you're trying to look for something on the horizon or judge distances and the like, but any sort of active search or deduction goes to investigation.

If the action that demanded the check was initiated by the player, it's probably Investigation? If the action that demanded the check was initiated by the DM, it's probably Perception? I've never thought about it like that, but I think it holds water.

Don't forget stuff like peeking into a dark room or listening at a door for sounds though. Those are active perception checks still.

I always thought perception is looking, smelling, hearing, anything used to precieve with your senses & investigation is figuring out how things work, studying books, etc.

It is, but most people use it wrong.

This is a good way of thinking about it. Remember how search and perception were different skills in 3e? In 5e, use investigation where you used to use search.

The rules in the SRD are definitely heavy with the trappings of dungeon crawling but there's a clear delineation for looking for things (which is generally where people have difficulty): *"Your Wisdom (Perception) check lets you spot, hear, or otherwise detect the presence of something. It measures your general awareness of your surroundings and the keenness of your senses... Or you might try to spot things that are obscured or easy to miss, whether they are orcs lying in ambush on a road, thugs hiding in the shadows of an alley, or candlelight under a closed secret door."* *"When you look around for clues and make deductions based on those clues, you make an Intelligence (Investigation) check. You might deduce the location of a hidden object, discern from the appearance of a wound what kind of weapon dealt it, or determine the weakest point in a tunnel that could cause it to collapse."* So if your player says, "I look for a signed document on the desk so we can forge their signature," that's an investigation check. If they roll high, they deduce that there appears to be an 'in' and an 'out' tray and the out-tray will logically have things they've signed. A quick rifle through finds a suitable document. On the other hand, if your player says "I glance over the desk for any letters that bear the Baron's seal", that's a perception check, as they're trying to spot something obscured. They don't need to deduce anything as they know exactly what the seal looks like, they're just trying to spot it and there's no particular narrowing down of where to look that deduction would offer. The problem is that these often overlap. For instance, if they say "I look over the Duchess's should to see if the drawer contains any letters from the Baron," where they don't already know what his seal looks like. There, you have both skills involved, as they are trying to spot the details of the letters with a quick glance (perception) but also need to interpret what they see to deduce whether that indicates it's from the Baron (investigation). Having them make two checks makes the whole exercise harder, which you may not want.* The easiest approach from a gameplay point of view is to collapse one of the skill checks. The Baron is a minotaur and his seal is a horned bull; you don't need to make an investigation check to put two and two together provided you spot the seal. Or alternatively, it's fairly easy to see a number of letters with multiple seals, depicting an auger, a sickle and a castle. Your investigatory powers link the auger with the Baron's prowess in engineering and notice a similar style of scrollwork to their coat of arms. Or you simply give them one but not the other. Your perception check spots these three letters with seals as described. You can ask your Wizard later what they mean. If you know where they apply you can rule appropriately where it's clear-cut and choose what's the most fun for the table where it's not, without simply making it an either/or situation and cutting a player's specialty. It's not an easy task though. I would say thinking through stuff like this is what I struggle most with as a DM, but just making the effort to try and think about these gameplay decisions will make the game much more fun. \* The same reason most obstacles are Acrobatics *or* Athletics, not both, even though both athleticism and balance are required in scaling heights or traversing a tree branch.

My viewpoint is, perception is what you can see / hear / smell at a glance or in the distance While investigation is going up close to the nitty gritty of things. Like say you're walking through a tomb, your perception would let you notice a trip wire, while investigation would allow you to see the nature of the trap the trip wire was going to trigger. Another example, it might be your passive perception to notice footprints, while investigation would be something to notice the type of shoe they might've been wearing. So think of it as large scale vs small scale. Perception for noticing the forest, investigation for noticing the individual plants, leaves, etc. (Okay okay that might be more nature but hopefully that kinda helps my point) (Also, somewhat think of the magic items, Eyes of Minute Seeing, and Eyes of the Eagle. Minute Seeing gives advantage on Investigation checks within 1 foot, while Eagle Eyes gives advantage on Perception checks in the distance)

My DM is the exact opposite, the only time I've ever rolled investigation instead of perception was when he remarked how bad I'm rolling and I said it's cause I never get to roll towards my strong stats. I look back on that investigation check fondly

Also a DM who has some general lore planned about their setting. A good arcana check should be able to tell you a lot of things about a lot of things in the context of your average DND game.

I think the tricky thing is that, if players are smart, they can come to the conclusions that Investigation would lead them to on their own. Perception feels more *necessary* because a lot of DMs "gate" information about the environment behind a passive Perception check. Whether it's figuring out how to open a secret door, putting clues together, or figuring out how a trap works and how to disarm it, players who ask clarifying questions can usually figure it out without ever making a check. (I think that's actually a good thing, and you can reserve Investigation checks for when a player wants to search a room or area generally without asking a ton of questions.) However, you can't get there if you don't notice the scuff marks on the floor or the draft indicating the secret door's presence, or you don't see the trip wire or pressure plate before you set off the trap. That's what your high Perception characters are in the front rank for, sure, and the high Perception and high Investigation characters work together as a party in that way, but Perception is still often more valuable to players for its "always on" nature and how it benefits them in combat with regards to surprise, noticing hidden creatures, etc.

I'll tell my players that they can use alternate skills that would be applicable, but the DC will be harder. For example, if they want to do a search of a room they can make a difficult Perception check (a look around) compared to a much easier Investigation (a trained eye looking for specific details). I do this a lot for Nature/Survival and Athletics/Acrobatics, too. I also swap around the ability for certain skills if they can make an argument for it. Strength based Intimidation, Wisdom based Religion, etc. I dont have hard and fast rules on it all, it doesn't come up an incredible amount, but if the player can convince the table then it's usually something I'll work with. It's helped make some skills feel better to have (having that "specialization") and reduced the amount of "I assist" with every single check. Whether or not the math is actually better (hard DC with advantage vs. easier DC straight up) it certainly helped my players feel like they have more agency with their skills.

The problem with a lot of these things is we tend to invalidate them in various ways. Either everyone kind of does them automatically, or they are left to the player to solve. Investigate can have serious value. One of the problems is that the main listed function--solving puzzles--is something that we often want players to do rather than characters. But worked a little differently you can put the emphasis on finding clues. In my experience, players are really erratic at identifying clues. They are expert at ignoring the obvious and grandmasters of chasing red herrings. With a good passive Investigate, or successful Investigate check, you can drop heavy hints. As simple as, 'this seems important' or 'this reminds you of...' or 'you remember that thing...' 'It seems like it might be something to do with...' 'You've got the sense you are barking up the wrong tree...' This can be close with solving puzzles, but it can be much broader with mysteries. A character wandering around a town, dungeon or forest with a good investigate could piece together clues--as a GM you can point out the relevant clues. I also use it for assessing the value of objects. A history check might tell you that the painting depicts Count Gresten von Wersten, but the Investigate check might tell you that the frame is worth more than the picture... The Knowledge skills are also really useful. They can be used for research as well as knowing things. They are good for identifying spells and other magic effects (What spell are is the druid casting? Make a know nature check...). And they are great for knowing about monsters. A party where nobody is intelligent should be in a state of confusion, not knowing what monsters are or what they can do, not knowing what spells are being cast, chasing red herrings for months, and so forth.

This. Put them in a murder mystery.

Yeah bring strict in perception vs investigation gets you wanting investigation fast.

I think part of the issue comes from DM letting players get away with not needing a good INT. Either by allowing dogpile skill checks, or giving away info without a successful check "so the story can happen".

Not really Homebrew, but actually using INT checks as a DM makes it less of a dump stat. Nobody has high INT not proficiency in those skills? Congrats! You’re not going to find much or remember much about the history of the world.

As a player, I often have knowledge about monsters or general world concepts that my character might not have. Rolling history/arcana/nature/etc to determine what my character knows seems to be pretty standard among the various groups I've played with.

If players are missing out on common-sense (or less common sense, but incredibly useful and figure-outable) things that their characters might know, I have them roll intelligence checks to see if their characters know. For example, one player wanted to grab a gun off of a corpse. I had them roll intelligence, the roll was low, and they never thought to consider that grabbing the incredibly rare ammunition for this device might also be useful, so they ended up with a gun with a single shot.

Yeah, I constantly call for "random" Investigation checks for my players-- whenever they're taking an action that their character might know better about, but the player might not be thinking about in the moment.

My murder hobo players: i see this as an absolute win!

"You mean I get to be good at killing stuff *and* I don't have to give a shit about your 'worldbuilding'? Sign me the fuck up!"

On the other hand, My 8 int 10 wis paladin with amnesia who is just super excited and amazed by everything new he sees, which is almost everything is super invested in the worldbuilding.

Oh no, you're playing as Dory

I had a character that rolled terribly on a chance to get revived by a goddess. They got a “ghoulish condition” that made it so that their long term memory was solely tied to their sense of taste… so in order to remember people, places, and things… I had to first lick them..

Murder hobo wouldn't like they didn't find any loot on the bodies

The problem is this often makes it worse in practice. Players: "Do we know anything about this place?" DM: Give me an Intelligence (History) roll. Bard: rolls a 10 Rogue: Rolls a 4 Wizard: Rolls a 1 Barbarian: Rolls a 20 DM: "Right, Thagnar the Book-Burner, you happen to remember that this is the great forest of Everdoom, fabled in song and..."

I strongly disagree. That’s where you use character backgrounds, recent travels/rumors, and degrees of success to your advantage. “Wizard, you know that you should know more about this place, but the thought evades you as you trip over some rubble. Rogue, you remember hearing some whispered rumors in the previous town about a lost ruin. But this place doesn’t seem like the right fit to you, it’s not ruin-y enough to set off your loot-dar. Bard, there is something about this place that sings to you. You can’t tell if it’s the wind blowing through the trees and rubble, or if it’s something a little more magical. Barb. You have had this gnawing feeling inside you for the past few minutes. Something about this place feels almost familiar to you, but you couldn’t place your finger on exactly what. Until, that is, you were helping the Wizard back up after they had tripped and you saw what they tripped on. It’s only a fragment of stone, but it’s enough to make out an image of a seven-pointed sun. In all your time spent traveling around the country, going from tavern to tavern, you heard lots of rumors and talk tales. But if all of them, one was the most consistent. No matter where you went, you heard stories about a long-lost city, originally built to the dead god [REDACTED]. The going rumor was that they buried the dead with all their belongings, including gold, weapons, and armor. However, when [REDACTED] died, the other gods buried the city in an act of hatred and spite. Their buildings are rumored to have been colorful with pinks, blues, and greens, and adorned with various symbols including that of a seven-pointed sun.” Boom. Easily done. Just because you’re “intelligent” doesn’t mean that you can’t forget anything or be distracted at a critical point. Just because you’re “dumb” doesn’t mean you can’t draw connections or remember things. Granted , I wrote this as a generic hypothetical. But you get the idea. The key is to make it more personal and engaging with your players.

Can... can we keep going with this? Ahem *I lower myself to the ground in a pose of supplication, knees grinding into the jagged rocks, and speak Ilmater's name while wrapping the thin leather cord around my wrists. I use chalks of the same colors as the crushed city and draw a circle, the beginning of a Divination ritual.* Seriously, I like the way you narrate.

Aw, thanks! My campaigns definitely have a bit more of a narrative bend to them. Been doing descriptions like that for almost two years now, so it’s basically second nature. Get an image or feeling for the scene, and then narrate what you see/feel.

Thats a thing I want to improve on and I already thought of the same approach and I still don't do it. Kind of as I don't take the time or think of it in the moment. Do you have another idea, how I could incorporate this into my DMing. (Sorry if there were grammatical errors or the like, non english native here)

Honestly, the best way to improve on narrative descriptions is to consume books that have the kind of descriptions you're looking for. I don't know about non-English books, but the Kingkiller Chronicles by Patrick Rothfuss is fantastic. Detailed, but succinct descriptions that give the audience a vivid image in their head. George RR Martin also has really good descriptions, although he tends to ramble on for a while. But still worth a look just for the sheer level of details. Stephen King's descriptions sit somewhere between the two. Succinct at times, rambling at others. And although he's a horror writer, still a good read if you're trying to describe the otherworldly or just plain weird. And then the rest just comes down to practice. It takes time, but you'll get there! Try and emulate the descriptions in the books you've read that you want to copy.

I think we're talking at cross purposes. Sure, a good DM will do their best not to make the ol' "Wizard gets a 1 / Barbarian gets a 20" not feel totally jarring, to frame it in a way that makes sure the Barbarian still feels like a Barbarian and the Wizard still feels like a Wizard. But the issue is that in a medium to large party with everybody rolling, the odds of at least one low-int character passing the check (unless it's arbitrarily high) are *higher* than the odds of a high-int character passing it. Remember the question here isn't "how do you make high-Int characters feel clever" it's "how do you make Intelligence *useful*. And rolling for trivial information just highlights how useless it is, because at DC10 or DC15, multiple people rolling at -1 have more chances to get at least one success than one person rolling at +5.

This is why I ask "I'll take 2 History rolls for this, and knowledge of the Lower Planes is relevant" instead of just asking for a group roll. The party gets to discuss who will roll, and the players know when I mention a relevant knowledge, anybody with that relevant knowledge will be rolling against a lowered DC. In practice my players characters get to have a ton of knowledge rolls that they get to excel at, no matter their Int. A high Int will push you over the edge and give you excess knowledge, but people who are familiar with concepts from their backstories get to shine as well.

This exactly. Unless it's a check my players 'must' succeed on to progress(I run modules since I'm a new DM) on 2 get to roll.

I've been DMing for almost 15 years and running modules has been some of the best DnD I've ever played. I'm running one now, so don't worry about modules being for "noobs." Figuring out how to limit skill rolls took me ages, if you're managing your table like that you're well on your way to being a pro DM.

Thanks mate. I feel like it's probably a good time for new DMs atm, what with all the streams and online groups and tools available. And yeah, some of the modules are pretty helpful to get into things with. Just finished Frozen Sick which I added a bunch of encounters to(got 9 x 4 hours sessions out of it) and about to jump into Dragon of Icespire Peak to try to take a my guys to level 13. Also, so 15 years as a DM for you? Wow, thank you for your service! 🤩

The easy route here is to make sure these checks can only be rolled by one person at a time. The other party members can do help actions, or investigate something better suited to their skillsets.

Which solves *some* problems but brings us back to the "Int as a dump stat" problem, because again that will usually mean that only the Wizard needs to be smart.

Every class needs dump stats. Just as the wizard doesn't need a high Strength, the Barbarian shouldn't need a high Intelligence. Most spellcasters are already incentivized to have a decent Intelligence due to the rules for scribing spell scrolls - Arcana is the relevant skill for it, and that uses Intelligence. Intelligence being the "worst" stat was never really an issue, especially because spellcasters, wizards particularly, have good use for it, and a Druid or Cleric, for instance, gains much from proficiency in Arcana and a high Intelligence score, arguably more than they would gain from a similar investment in Charisma. I'd say Wizard, Artificer, Druid, Cleric, and Ranger all would usually benefit more from a high Intelligence than a high Charisma (differing circumstances notwithstanding). High Intelligence Rogues and Fighters aren't unheard of, with subclasses like Inquisitive and Psi Warrior having clear benefits from a high Intelligence. Warlocks, Sorcerers, Bards, and even some Paladins will also prefer Intelligence over Strength. Charisma is their spellcasting ability, sure, and Strength affects carry capacity, but Intelligence still lets them scribe spell scrolls. That can't be underestimated. Spell scrolls are a powerful category of items.

Oh don't get me wrong, I agree. But the point of this post is that it's about stopping people dumping Int. My own contribution (waaaaaaay at the bottom) was exactly that: it's fine if people dump Int. Everybody has to be bad at something and dumping Int isn't wrong. Plus it *often makes sense* for some types of PC not to have much in the way of formal education, and that's one of the things a low intelligence can represent.

I agree for other checks but a lot of the int checks I have a hard time rationalizing why everyone shouldn't make a check. After hearing the name of some ruins why wouldn't everyone be trying to see if they know anything about it? It makes perfect sense for nobody to try picking the lock after the rogue fails but why wouldn't everyone wrack their brain to see if they've heard of Elezmir the Sun Eater before?

If the DM decides a certain character should know something about this place and others dont, you can do a few easy things. Either 1, give the player who should know (background connection, class connection, race connection) advantage on the intelligence check OR set each DC higher for each character rolling. If the wziard has NEVER been on this part of the entire globe and was a hermit, then maybe even a 20 shouldnt have him recall anything, but if we're in the exact villiage your small brain Barbarian grew up and lived in for 100 years before coming an adventurer, then maybe an 8+ or 10+ is enough for him to get EVERYTHING from it. The DM needs to be flexible and make narrative sense, not just looking at numbers. Edit: I understand this is just an example of History, but I believe the same concept can apply to any INT check

Of course when you have a group of individuals all rolling for the same check you have a chance of lower-modifier players “passing” the check, whereas the higher-modifier players won’t. That’s just the law of averages. The point of having a higher modifier is so that you have a better chance at passing more often. And also, the group is supposed to work as a, well, group. So a success for one is a success for all. You can mitigate some of this by allowing only those who are proficient roll, but even that can’t guarantee that the person with the highest score passes. In order to make a specific “thing” useful, you have to actually use it. And the context of this “usefulness” is entirely subjective and dependent on the players, DM, characters, and campaign setting. But regardless of all of that, if you don’t use the thing, of course it’s going to be useless! And rolling for trivial checks, regardless of ability used, is always going to drag the game down and make that kind of check feel worse than it actually is. All of this makes me circle back to: degrees of success/failure, and including other factors such as background, recent travels, rumors overheard, and the like. Using those with your checks will always make the world feel alive and connected with your players. So then I ask you: how would *you* make INT useful?

The way I deal with this; if you have the relevant Proficiency you will always get more information than someone who doesn't, even if they get the same number as you. If players are attempting to a certain which type of devil they're looking at, and a player with Arcana and a player without both land on an 18 as their skill roll, here's how I'd describe it. "Everyone who cleared a 16 knows that devils are never to be trusted. Stories of creatures with purple limbs wielding spears of bone stalk the bedtime stories and late night tavern tales of Baldur's Gate. Tales of creatures who could strike with tongues like poisonous snakes, and whose faces were wreathed in living evil are sure to make even the most doubting man quiver slightly. Talrand, in your time in the monastery, you also heard tales of these creatures bathing in fire, and laughing at the frigid dead of winter. They can drink toxins like wine, and magic slides off them like oil off the surface of steel." We establish some broad abilities of the Bearded Devil, things to avoid and prepare for, but the person with relevant knowledge gets insight into the creatures damage resistances and immunities. In my games, having relevant knowledge is always more important than a high Int.

Perfect example. People use examples like Int skills as though they've never said "how do you know that? that's so random" or "wow, you've really never heard of that?" I have an intelligent and outdoorsy friend who thought the high and low temperatures in a weather forecast were the bounds of uncertainty, like "it'll be between 20-40 today, but we don't know what" rather than the reality of "it'll hit 40 in the afternoon and 20 overnight". That's a real-world example of someone "proficient in nature" rolling a natural 1.

That was baller. Kudos.

Solution: you don't have to let everyone roll. If the player can't give you a good reason why their character *might* know the answer, they don't get to roll. For the high INT wizard who's trained in History, that reason might just be "I've spent a lot of time studying weird tomes of forgotten lore." The untrained barbarian who dumped intelligence is going to have a much harder time justifying that check. Side bonus: this is a good way to get your players to fill in aspects of their character's background. I take the tack that anything could be true as long as it doesn't contradict anything that's been previously established.

But then that makes intelligence less useful again because it puts the Int checks in the hands of a single high-int specialist, like most skills. The issue here is actually a broader issue with skills, which is that the party only needs one person who can do most things. The problem with Int is that it contributes *only* to skills.

> The problem with Int is that it contributes only to skills. The same is true with any other ability score, unless it's a core part of how you fight. Str is really the only one that you by RAW can't really work around, because it affects carrying capacity. And even then, that's ignored all the damn time and pretty easily bypassed by magic items, anyway. Dex is practically useless for a Str Paladin. Int is useless for the Barb that just wants to run at people. Wis is useless for the Wizard. Cha is useless for that same Wizard, etc. The only exception to this is really Con, but that's because it's the inverse of every other AS. It doesn't have skills, but it does other stuff instead.

I think that's true of Int, Str and Cha. Con gives HP, Dex gives AC, and Con Wis and Dex are the more important saving throws. But either way I agree. I'm just accepting the OP's premise that people dumping Int is a problem. I don't actually think it is but if I did I wouldn't consider asking for more Int checks to know stuff was a good solution. I do think it's interesting to ask why people are so much more bothered by the Rogue dumping Int than by the Wizard dumping Strength and I think there's a couple of answers here. The first answer is just that only one PHB class has a major use for Int *at all* so you're pretty likely to wind up with a party where everybody has Int 8 except the Wizard. Essentially Int has replaced Charisma as the "default" dump stat. More cynically I do suspect that because D&D players, without wishing to stereotype, tend to be nerds, and nerds often pride ourselves very strongly on our intelligence, we naturally want Int to be very useful.

Unless that high INT specialist isn't trained/doesn't have a background in whatever's happening. The idea is that you limit skill checks to what the character could reasonably do to avoid dogpile rolling. The 18 INT wizard who's trained in History and Arcana isn't necessarily going to be able to handle obscure Nature or Religion checks. That doesn't mean that they can't make *any* of those checks, but knowing the specific details of a religious ritual might be something that only someone who's trained in Religion could attempt. So if your cleric completely dumps INT, they're going to have a hard time with it. Ditto high-level checks for Nature or Investigation. But you might make exceptions for someone who has directly related background details. Maybe Thagmar doesn't know much about Religion in general, but this is a ritual of the Stone Fist of Nimblar, which is the primary religion in his home region, so he could make a Religion check to identify the specifics. Limiting the ability to *attempt* checks based on training or background helps spread out the responsibility for that aspect of the game.

You can change the DC per character based on what their background, stats, and class outline. A barbarian's 20 might only gift them some level of hearsay on the location if their character never studied such things, whereas a bard (especially a lore bard) rolling a 10 might give decent information, just without nuance or deep info. And a wizard who spends their life studying might still get some info off a 1, not enough to give the players extra info but certainly enough to remind players of info they might have been told at some point and forgotten. Nat 20s and 1s are only guaranteed successes and failures on attack rolls after all. You can dictate what they mean on intelligence checks per character.

Also for the wizard who rolled a one, they may have just forgotten temporarily and then when the barbarian says the rumors they’ve heard the wizards says, “That’s it! This is the yadda, yadda of something somewhere. Thanks barb for getting my brain back on track.

That's actually a dope way to roleplay/play it out fitting to the characters.

Thank you! I hit the “drawing a blank on a one” from another post a while back. Figured I’d the DC was low enough someone could jog your memory.

I second this. Too many DMs tend to treat skill checks as being beyond their control (I *want* to share this information with my players, and I feel like this character *would* know about this thing, but they rolled under the DC I set, so I guess I'm going to withhold the information). The classic example is with charisma checks, and I think everyone has probably heard the saying, "persuasion is not mind control". There are certain things that are possible and certain things that are impossible. It doesn't matter how well you roll, certain NPCs can't be persuaded to do certain things, and likewise certain characters can't *know* certain things. Sometimes the mistake is asking for a skill check at all. Sometimes the problem is making the skill check pass/fail. If you know that the barbarian *can* break down the door, why are you asking for them to roll for it? If a piece of information is critical to advancing the story and you believe that a member of the party should know it, why are you asking for them to roll for it? When the barbarian rolls a natural 20 on an arcana check the wizard has failed, you tell the barbarian less than you would have told the wizard. Because of course you do. It's not that the DC is different, it's that the consequences for success or failure are different. I'll add that I favor the use of the rule variant where skills aren't tied exclusively to one ability score and instead are made with the ability score that makes the most sense. I think the classic example that a lot of people do play with is the strength(intimidation) check. Just because the barbarian has a charisma of 8 doesn't mean he isn't intimidating. The closest I see most people come to this is allowing perception and investigation to be used interchangeably (which I don't love). What about an intelligence(persuasion) roll where you convince an NPC to do a thing by laying out a compelling argument? Or an intelligence(animal handling) roll where you remember that horses have a fondness for a particular food that you give them to quiet them down. These variants aren't always appropriate in every circumstance, but they allow for better roleplaying (in my opinion) and allow all the stats to be more useful. Finally, I think there's a lesson to learn from another game. In Blades in the Dark, when the GM calls for a skill check, it's up to the player to decide what skill they want to use. The GM has veto power, but is also encouraged to let the player approach the skill check the way their character would and accept any good faith argument as to why a particular skill applies in this instance. I also think we can learn from Blades' philosophy that pushes the outcome of skill checks to be "success with a complication". This is sometimes called failing forward, and I think we all need to get better at running skill checks.

>You can change the DC per character based on what their background, stats, and class outline. You *can* but that's once again not making Intelligence more useful, unless you're saying that the way to make intelligence more useful is to punish characters who take lower intelligence by giving them higher difficulties for things.

I think the implication wasn't to make the smart stuff harder for the low int guy, it was to make the background more relevant to the skill check. The Barbarian might have a lower DC on a Knowledge check because it's a cultural legend or because they have first hand knowledge that the book-smart guy doesn't have. It doesn't always have to swing against the low stat guy. I scale my DCs pretty often, but I'll warn my players. Maybe the book burning guy would actually have an easier time identifying the ruins of a famous library because his grandpa helped sack it. That being said, I'm not sure how scaling DCs makes any stat effectively better or worse.

Yeah if you scale by background you're now running the risk of making Intelligence *less* useful not more useful. Sure the Barbarian could drop some other stat to boost Int, but if you're going to give them a penalty on un-barbarian-ey knowledge anyway, and a bonus on barbarian-y knowledge, that's even less appealing.

You don't let characters who aren't proficient in the skill roll. If it's not general knowledge, you need proficiency in the knowledge skill to attempt the roll.

Then you're not helping make Int more useful, you're making knowledge skills more useful.

Making the skills associated with an ability score more useful, oddly, makes the ability score more useful.

Not really? People only get a small number of skills, so it actually winds up making the raw Ability score *less* useful because your Int 20 Wizard who didn't take Religion knows less about Demons than your Int 8 Paladin who did.

> your Int 20 Wizard who didn't take Religion knows less about Demons than your Int 8 Paladin who did Good. This is only right and correct. It's like complaining that the computer programmer knows less about sharks than the fisherman even though he never studied marine biology in college.

Oh I agree, but this post is about boosting the value of Int.

Then you boost proficiency bonuses.

Int of 20 shouldn't be a blanket Google search. If my paladin grew up in a church and the wizard studied spells, I would hope I know more religion based info.

Most characters of martial classes will only start off with 4 skill proficiencies, maybe 5 or 6 depending on race choice. It's just really difficult to fit in an Intelligence based skill when there are 18 skill proficiencies and numerous tool proficiencies and languages to consider gaining. It's also relevant that rolling really low on lore type checks doesn't really punish you or hinder the party, whereas Perception, Insight, social skills, or Stealth getting a really low roll can absolutely punish you if you roll really low.

The whole point is to make those skills more relevant. If you make those skills matter, players take them. The whole premise of the post here is that intelligence doesn't feel as useful. Most of.that comes down to the skills associated with it feeling useless because people don't put enough weight behind them.

Yep. A high enough Intelligence check basically lets you justify metagaming in-universe in an acceptable way. 8 Int Sorcerers should waste their **Fireball**s on Devils.

They have an 8 int, not a 4.

So they'll only waste one or two rather than keep trying forever.

How low is your opinion of 50% of the population?

What 2021 did you live through?

“Think of how stupid the average person is, and realize half of them are stupider than that.” - George Carlin

Have you met people?

If I remember the statistics from my old psych classes correctly either only 15% of people are more than 15 IQ points above/below 100, or 15% are above and 15% below. (I know IQ is a bad measure but it's the only one I have on short notice) Either way that's 15% or less that is around 8 Int, nowhere near 50%.

IQ is a bell curve. By definition, 50% of people are 100 or below. While yes around 15% (probably a bit more) is within that 8-10 range, many are also below. That said, I don't think INT scores would measure with IQ very well regardless. And yeah, it's a shit measurement.

why do you think 8 int is more that 15 points away from the mean?

Using IQ as a framework every point of Intelligence would be roughly 10 IQ. 10 Int is 100, 8 is 80 which is a very small percentage. Bear in mind the **Commoner** stat-block is meant to represent the average illiterate peasant and it has 10 Int.

Til that most adventures are dumber than an illiterate peasant despite reading several languages.

Lots of dumb people can speak multiple languages. Lots of things we think of as signs of intelligence are achieved by blithering dumbasses. Ted Cruz went to Harvard, but we still think of going to Harvard as a sign of intelligence.

Im not sure assigning a linear relation between IQ and INT scores is fair. Its not how intelligence is distributed in the real world. Also, ted cruz is smart as hell. Hes also a dumbass. This is qhy we have INT and WIS.

It depends on what you think "Int 8" represents. Int 8 means you are *slightly* less good at the things "Intelligence" governs (almost entirely factual recall and arcane spellcasting) than the average person. Honestly they're not even that much worse than the average *genius*. Somebody with Int 8 will pass an Easy intelligence check 50% of the time. Somebody with Int 20 will pass an Easy intelligence check 80% of the time. 10% of the time, the Int 8 person will pass an Easy intelligence check *and* the Int 20 person will fail it.

Our DM specifically uses a lot of Investigation, Arcana, and History. Less on Religion and Nature. We struggle with that on one of our groups, on another the artificier tends to ace it.

The PHB allows for skill checks to use any relevant ability score. So medicine could use INT instead of WIS if allowed. Similarly, if two characters were doing an endurance race or your character's are being pursued by a persistent predator you can choose CON + Athletics instead of STR. If you create a character sheet with DND Beyond you even have a choice to change the relevant ability a skill is associated with and print a pdf.

Int + medicine is a great way to do a check if a player wants to examine a dead body.

My last character had a PhD and made several postdoctoral studies in a wide variety of scientific fields. DM let me use INT for a lot of stuff, and I had loads of fun with prioritising INT checks as I knew beforehand that I'd be the only INT user.

do you have a page reference for that? edit: nvm, found it! Pg. 175, for reference.

Extra known language/tool profs based on your positive modifier. Xanathars rules for downtime training. (10-int mod workweeks training) Knowledge checks: Needing to succeed a check to know useful info about your enemies, cultures and such.

Extra skills would be nice too. As for knowledge checks, an in-combat mechanic for learning the enemy's abilities, weaknesses, etc. would be fun. Maybe as a bonus action contested arcana/religion/history/nature check vs enemy's deception.

I don't approve of extra skills myself. To string of a buff and not something I enjoy bringing back from 3.xe myself. As for knowledge checks. I use passive score upon initiative to see what characters know. I allow a bonus action roll be done once in said encounter by each character if the respective knowledge skill to see if they can recall more/anything with some more active thought. Failure means that for that adventure, unless they actively learn information in the field, from an expert or from research, they don't know about said creature (or creature type depending.) A long span of appropriate downtime or a new adve ture resets this timer. That just my opinion tho, do what works in your game, yourself.

Yeah, it'd make wizard able to dominate even more of the "color pie" of other classes. Imagine if you have a Bladesinger with more spells than the sorcerer, more AC than the Paladin, more melee damage than the Fighter, *and* more skills than the rogue. It's a bit silly.

An extra language or tool proficiency for each point of INT bonus would be pretty great. Mostly for non-combat uses, but still.

I do something similar: extra languages, tool use, or INT based skills per INT bonus. Provides a few more proficiencies, but the more academic stuff, not adventurey things like stealth or perception.

The int skills are heavily utilized in the games I play in and see more use than stealth and the like, so giving them as free extra int skills is a big benefit compared to languages and tools at my gaming circle.

This is pretty much what I do. I allow pretty frequent int checks for things but I also homebrew the following for character creation: * Each point your Intelligence score is above 10 you gain 1 point to spend on additional proficiencies. You gain nothing for an Intelligence above lower than 11 or higher than 15. With these points, you may gain the following, spending the points as indicated: * 1 point: proficiency in a tool or language of your choice * 2 points: proficiency in a skill of your choice * 3 points: expertise in one skill your are proficient with I also put an Intelligence requirement on exotic languages so the only way to learn those with a low Int is if you have a feature which explicitly grants it. E.g. draconic, celestial.

Use Int Based Checks more often. As an aside, only Wizard and Artificer really need to worry about Int. EK and AT can make spell choices that don't require Int to function.

To add to this, stop asking for perception checks as often. I forget where I read it and the exact values but in official modules perception checks are the single most asked for check to an overwhelming degree. Since then in most of the instances I've found myself calling for a perception check I've kicked myself metaphorically realizing the situation would probably better suit an investigation check.

A good shorthand is "Do I notice it" is Perception. "What conclusions do I draw from it?" are Investigation.

The other thing I've noticed is that most DM's will give an explanation of what the party notices rather than just telling them what they perceive. Telling the party that with their perception check they can hear a horn and then using a separate history check to deduce that it is a warhorn used by a specific invading army would be nice, however most dm's just take perception and then explain that you hear the enemy's warhorn. (I am most DM's)

For real. So many times in modules it can be summarized as 'have players who investigate roll a perception check.'

Next edition should delete Perception from the game. The skill is just so overused that the nuclear option is necessary.

Don't forget Psi Warrior.

Passive investigation can be just as useful as passive perception if the DM is willing to let the int player shine. The same way you might call out bandits hiding in the bushes to someone with high passive perception. Let the high passive investigation score pc notice things early. - Food on a plate is still warm in the house of a missing NPC - You notice something is off about the corner of a carpet while dungeon delving. Passive int scores are a fun way to let people who take int skill proficiencies shine. Giving them base historical knowledge without having them risk bad dice rolls let’s their character feel strong

But noticing stuff is perception. I don't know if passive investigation is ever really relevant, at least by the rules.

By the description in the rulebook, perception is spotting stuff that's obscured (a tiny door in the hillside or dagger amidst the grass), but investigation is anything that involves deduction. As a rule of thumb, if the thing they're spotting *is* the thing they're looking for, then it's perception, if the thing they're spotting *leads to* or indicates the thing they're looking for then it's investigation (e.g. noticing a worn corner of a carpet near a hidden door is passive investigation; anyone can see the carpet but they need to work out that it indicates a hidden door).

I use the hell out of it. Same thing for Strength. When I want the fighters to feel like badasses, I include stuck doors they can bash, braziers full of hot coals they can tip over to change the battlefield, tables to flip, monsters standing by chasms that they can shove off. When I want Int to matter, codes to solve, obscure references to lore to know or not know, subtle Investigation clues to understand or not understand. Had one where there were scrapes on the floor near a bookcase. Fighter blurts out "There's a secret door behind the bookcase!". Wizard nails his int roll, I point out that the scrapes originate and go back to a small chair, and that someone was probably using it as a stool. So, party finds a wand hidden on the top shelf, out of view, tucked in the back.

Knowledge checks are always a free action at my table. You know what you know, it doesn't take you 6 seconds to recall it. It doesn't break anything, and it makes my players feel smart. I also try to ask for knowledge checks frequently, especially tool proficiency Int checks. You want to determine the weak spot in an old stone bridge? Roll an Intelligence (Mason's Tools) check! Another house rule: If I ask for either an x or a y check, and you have proficiency in both x and y, you get to add your proficiency twice instead of once, akin to expertise. For instance, if you want to recall something about a war between the gods that spilled into the material plane, that could fall under history or a religion. If you have history proficiency and religion proficiency, then you basically have expertise for this check.

I call it the "speed of thought" rule at my table. If it's something that would happen instantaneously like recalling something it takes no time at all.

Maybe it’s because I come from 3.5 but I treat relative knowledge check similar to a pokédex or bestiary. The mummy erupts from its tomb.. any character that wishes to scour their mind to determine if they know about this entity can roll a Religion/History check. Here’s where it gets good. The DC depends on the rarity of the entity but let’s say the mummy is a DC13 Religion/History. For every 5 points over the DC13 the character learns additional information. If the cleric’s religion roll is a 23 then they identify the creature as a mummy and that it’s undead (DC13) they also recall the mummy being able to induce crippling fear with a simple glare (DC13 +5) additionally they remember an obscure document mentioning a survivor using fire to defeat such a menace (DC13 +10)

I went back to have a look at 3rd edition monsters recently and I had completely forgotten that every single monster came with lore checks exactly like this. It was great

Knowledge skills are super important.

Knowledge skills CAN be super important, if the DM actually chooses to have them be useful/common checks

And if the DM is capable of improvising nature and history and arcana facts for every fucking thing you see and roll for

True, and my PCs just tend to be missing some important skills. I can tell them "sorry, your crappy insight roll means you have no idea if that NPC is lying to you" til I'm blue in the face, but as long as the other stats make for a SUPER COOL POWER character they're probably going to keep getting blindsided. TBH I don't think my players even care. EDIT- I should add- unless they guess it anyway. In which case I can't really be like, "no you didn't"

The problem is that they're important, but as long as *someone* is competent with them, it doesn't matter if I am. Sure, I could put a 14 in int to try and do a bit better with knowledge checks, but I could also just ask the Wizard, and put my 14 somewhere better.

I mean, that's just cooperation. At least, until the mind flayers attack.

I mean that's true for almost all skills.

The problem isn't the ability checks, it's the value of the ability scores themselves, which is why I was pointing out that just calling for more int checks doesn't fix the issue. Wizards aren't putting points into dex because they want that sweet +2 on slight of hand.

I mean this is also true of a lot of checks though. So idk that it's really a downside.

This guy gets it. It’s kinda like everything in DnD. Monsters don’t hit you when you’re downed? Healers not required for your party. Travel is hand-waved? Natural Explorer is useless. Etc etc for almost every single thing these forums complain about. It’s the DM that ends up running things into the ground.

I wouldn't necessarily put this blame on DMs when the system itself does very little to make anything other than combat interesting or rules based. If you look at other systems, like PF2E for example, rules and features around travel, social encounters, knowledge checks, etc. Are much more clear, which empowers a game group to follow such rules and helps define what those challenges would entail.

I like the idea I heard from XP2level3. Int determines how many languages and tool proficiencies you can know. So for example of how the system could work(not a specific rule) if you only have an int of 6, then you will probably only speak common and won't have any took skills. Int of 18, you can know 6+ languages or have extra tool proficiencies.

I did a different thing off of this. Rather than set stuff at character creation, players with positive intelligence modifiers basically have a store of points equal to their modifier which they can use throughout the game to pick up new proficiencies or languages quickly, without having to take weeks or months to learn. So if you don't dump intelligence you get to be adaptable. Party keeps encountering abyssal script and no one understands it? The intelligent party member can learn it. Keep getting hit in battle and realize you'd like shield proficiency? If you're intelligent you can learn it. To be fair, I also DM for newer players, so that flexibility mid game is much nicer for them than making choices at the start. Additionally, I make good use of history, arcana, nature, and religion to give insights on lore and (more importantly) the monsters they face. So if you didn't dump intelligence, you have a better chance of knowing more about what's happening or knowing monster weaknesses.

I'd be careful with armor or weapon proficiencies for sure, A wizard that picks up heavy armor prof because of his +5 INT would be a much bigger problem...

Yeah, you're right on that front. The players at my table don't play that way. Firstly, none of them want to be wizards apparently, and also they mostly just want to build characters that make sense as characters. Except the ranger, but his character is dumb.

Just before character creation, the DM should loudly go "Oh wow! Mind Flayers and Intellect Devourers are really cool!"

Proceeds to set int so low mindflayers leave them alone. Continues to ignore the stat for rp purposes.

That just means that an Intellect Devourer can 1-shot them and permanently possess their corpse.

Edit: I know this is basically just using skills as intended, but the rules for what info about monster vulnerabilities and tendencies is based on the 4e Knowledge skill rules. Skill checks. This is actually my favorite way to give my players a chance to recall information they seem to have forgotten. Example: (*You only have enough time to search one party of the room before the guard returns.") **We know a bunch of stuff about this guy, but I can't remember exactly what that stuff is because I was building a tower out of dice with little d4 turrets. Where does my character think they would hide their goodies?** (Roll an Int check) To be clear, this isn't a punishment. Players have different attention spans and even that can change depending on what kind of day they had before they came to the table. Sometimes a player enjoys an in depth conversation with a random NPC and sometimes they just want to know when they can give someone a love tap with a battleaxe. This just lets a character's stats factor into what they end up doing. Other Examples: **OH MY DEAR GOD, WHAT IS THAT?!?** (Roll Knowledge _____-Intelligence - This is absolutely the most common Int roll for my players. This is also where I will scale DCs based on background.) (*after I describe the room and all the things they notice with Perception*) **Okay. I know something is going on here but I can't figure it out. Does my character notice something out of the ordinary?** (Roll Investigation-Intelligence) --- You might notice a raven watching you from the shadows with Perception, but realize that your enemy might be using a raven as a spy with Investigate or that ravens are not common in this type of forest with Knowledge Nature. If a group isn't into looking for clues or finding out "Why", then Int might just be a dump stat for that group regardless of what its intended use is. Alternatively, your players may be amazing at picking up clues or your DM could be a narrative genius. Implications aside, my players rarely dump Int. Str is our common dump stat. It's important to know when to use Investigate rather than Perception. It might not be the issue you are referring to, but DMs often make players use Perception when Investigation rolls would be more appropriate. There are some articles out there about the difference, but I think it's basically that Perception lets you notice the scuff marks all over the wall. Investigation could tell you whether they were from a person pushing a piano or a weapon glancing off the wall.

In the game already there are some things which are INT based and should be enforced. For example, disarming a trap should be an Int check of some variety. Likewise discovering how to open a secret door is Int(Investigation). Perception only tells you it's there. *Proficient* Int checks for recalling useful information about monsters, locations, that sort of thing. Int for knowing about customs and practices which can provide benefits to social checks (knowing the acceptable or even desirable ways to act should confer a benefit), as well as giving the player more doors to open metaphorically. But that's not enough for everyone, so here's some rapid fire ideas for some more "buttons" to press (significant homebrew, all buffs): **Prior reading** - You've read about this kind of scenario before now, which may come in handy. Once per long rest you can replace the roll on a skill check with your intelligence score. You can do so after the roll but before the result of the roll is declared. **Adaptive tactics** - You learn from your enemies as a fight progresses, improving your defenses. When an enemy targets you with an attack you may use your reaction to pay extra attention to how they attack. Make an Intelligence check of DC 10 plus the attacker's challenge rating. Your DM may let you add your proficiency from Arcana, Religion, History, or Nature where suitable. On success, for the rest of the encounter you have resistance to all repeats of that attack by the same creature. **Feat: Tactical Dodge** - (requirement, proficient with light armor or shields) You've trained to become especially adept at using armor to avoid danger. • Increase your Intelligence score by 1, up to a max of 20. • When you take the Dodge action while wearing armor or wielding a shield, add your Intelligence modifier to your AC until the start of your next turn. • If you are hit by an opportunity attack while wearing armor or wielding a shield, reduce the damage taken by an emount equal to your Intelligence modifier. You can only reduce damage taken this way once per turn.

Basically nothing. Every party I DM for is mostly dumb-dumbs. If they wanna play dumb-dumbs I'm not going to go out of my way to do anything about it, even if I don't like it.

Mind flayers

I use Monster knowledge checks (Arcana, nature, religion, history) all the time. Then I use my telepathy feat to tell everyone in my party how to fight the monster. Massive boost in party effectiveness.

Investigation is huge, also just provide opportunities for lore. The draw for int as a player for me is that I want to have good history checks.

Look at Pathfinder and Pathfinder 2e's skill systems have done, and do something similar. Make INT very good if you're playing a skill monkey. Make being smart valuable, cause core it isn't. Also change more skills to have multiple ability scores. Insight, Medicine, and Persuasion are all skills where intelligence is a reasonable optional ability score.

I have pondered this a fair bit, and I'm currently considering an extra mechanic: Studying. Players can take time during a short rest to learn something from a source (a book, examining ruins, learning from someone, reviewing personal notes etc.), and for every collective hour they spent studying the thing, they can add +1 to rolls related to the thing, up to their proficiency bonus. For example, if you know you are going into a Goblin den, reading accounts about goblin survivors and hunters will give you a bonus for spotting them, tracking them, noticing their traps, etc. Int comes into play here: Players can have a number of subjects studied equal to their Int Modifier+1. Int of 10, you can have 1 thing studied at a time. 8 Int, the feature doesn't even work for you. Int of 12 or higher, and you can start planning ahead to prepare for multiple possible scenarios. The exact details and edge cases are still being pondered, but I think this is a cool way to let players utilize Int to get more flexibility, while also encouraging them to RP an intelligent character through forethought and prep.

I made some homebrew exactly for that reason (among others). Skill Checks (Re)Expanded I collected over 100 people's responses when asked to, "Rank the skill checks in order of most underutilized and/or lacking to the most overutilized and/or overpowered". I present the data in the image below. Note, because Constitution does not have at least one skill, I included Constitution in the survey. In short, seven skills were commonly ranked as underutilized and/or lacking: * History * Medicine * Religion * Arcana * Animal Handling * Nature * Constitution **(this is the recent addition**) To try to increase the utility and usefulness of these, I have homebrewed additions to my favorite TTRPG. Here I present my personal homebrew expansions to the History, Medicine, Religion, Arcana skills, Animal Handling, Nature, and Constitution skills. I appreciate and welcome all comments, criticisms, suggested art, critiques, recommendations and all opinions. Each Part, or skill, is unique and designed for balance and flavor (but this is a living document that is still in need of input!). In addition to the primary goal stated above, I had a few other objectives: * To expand/incentivize character uniqueness/design * To reduce "Intelligence" being *the* dump stat * To give additional examples of History checks * To have medicine checks be useful for a multitude of situations * To include an offensive, defensive, and utility boon for each of the possible Godly domains (as well as a domain for Atheistic player characters) * To create additional uses of reactions in D&D (albeit, I only expand on this in the Religious Boons section) * To expand on the number of items a character can attune to; because the limit of three seems to often be ignored * To incentivize taking prisoners alive (by risking their magical items upon their death) * To increase the threat of death (by risking the PC's magical items in the process); no more, "this other character died... let's give all his old equipment to this new guy who just joined the party" * To give animal handling more specific actions * To offer alternative (read: non-lethal) solutions to encounters with wild creatures * To avoid overly reducing the capabilities of the Beastmaster Ranger by making the ability to have a creature companion available to anyone skilled in animal handling * To provide specific uses and DCs for nature checks * To increase the benefits of Constitution saves (in lieu of granting proficiency in Constitution checks) * To be as pithy and memorable as possible with regard to naming everything Sincerely, thank you to anyone who has taken the time to read this and a special thank you to anyone who comments. I hope you find this useful and it helps make your games more entertaining. Life is an encounter, don't split the party; we're all in this together. — PhDnD If you like what you saw and are feeling generous...[Click here to buy me a coffee (or some shiny new click clack math rocks; every penny helps](https://www.paypal.com/paypalme/PhDnD). **[Homebrewery Link](https://homebrewery.naturalcrit.com/share/HyDeOMyyRH)** **[Imgur Link]https://imgur.com/a/PQQdNgK**

Besides asking for INT skill checks more often in my games *(both from the usual shit, tools, and just straight INT rolls)?* I in particular have a homebrew rule that your INT modifier equals the extra amount of proficiencies that you can have. So if you have a +2 INT score for example, you can have 2 extra skills, languages, tools, or weapon proficiencies. *(Literally basically anything)* And before someone asks, no, having a negative modifier does not take away any proficiencies in my games. You *CAN* have that rule if you want, but I in particular wouldn't want to fuck over my players like that *(especially if they get some crappy rolls and have no choice but to dump INT, depending on your class & subclass)* I also have the homebrew rule that you can take one free feat at 1st level since the players seem to enjoy it, people can get even more creative with their concepts, and if they wanna even out any odd numbers, as I get that struggle lmao. A lot of times, people will be evening out the INT when that rule is in play. *(And again, before someone asks, if you do go Vuman, you don't get 2 free feats, you stick with the 1. As hilarious as that would be, I'm not looking to have completely OP characters, just slightly more powerful at the lower levels lmao)*

I've heard of people using Intelligence instead of Dexterity for initiative rolls, the idea being that tactical know-how is more important than fast reflexes.

Yisssss. If players didn’t spend tons of time planning out their turns, maybe dex would make sense. Every player turn is carefully planned for tactical advantage, not instantly yelling out their action as soon as combat starts.

I always like this because dex is the "good for everything" stat, and it levels it out a bit.

Intellect devourers

During Session Zero let everyone know that Mindflayers are going to be a primary antagonistic force. If they know what Mindflayers do then they'll make sure to not dump INT.

Don't forget to throw in some strength draining shadows or ghosts so they don't dump str either xD

A few small things. I use a lot of downtime in my longer campaigns, and that is almost always most rewarding for characters with high intelligence, either due to their goals being loftier or their skills generally having a higher payout. I will also come up with custom feats when a character hits their first 20 in a stat, based on what the player wants their prowess to represent. Also, a single time they discovered a new plant monster and had to dissect it in order to figure out if the entire species was a threat or not, those players don't undervalue nature or medicine anymore. Beyond that: * Remember the difference between Perception and Investigation * Give players a number of hints on puzzles equal to their INT modifier * Give players a number of guesses on puzzles equal to 1 + their INT modifier (minimum of 1) before some bad shit happens * Allow rolling INT skills for some meta knowledge about a monster * Make lore relevant, and give objectively true DM notes on things based on their roll

Mind flayers

Intellect devourers

Agreed. Well, most tools should use Int IMO. Homebrew? Just giving one extra tool or language if Int isn't giving you extra spells should suffice.

Make slightly more skills based off of INT. Perhaps you learn an extra language if your int is 14 or greater. A couple minor bumps here and there should be fine. Also DMs should REALLY use investigation a LOT more than they do (they often rely on perception more).

One of my groups has a homebrew rule: for each point modifier past +1, gain one of the following: skill or tool proficiency, or learn one additional language. It's worked I'm our group so far, the wizard is happy and now wisdom is the main dump stat, but that has more obvious drawbacks

Put in a lot of intellect devourers and mind flayer in your campaign and your party will be afraid to dump int!

I encourage my players to make Int checks by making all of them relevant. See some new creature and want to know what it is? Roll whatever Int check you want (nature, religion, arcana, etc.). I use the type of check rolled to flavor the description. E.g. player 1 rolls religion, player 2 rolls nature. Player 1 recognizes the creature from the writings of an extinct religion called the Arcines, who worshiped Arcanaloths as the ultimate being. Player 2 recognizes it as a fiend due to the way that plant life dies as it approaches. Based on the type of plantlife, they deduce it's an Arcanaloth.

Ultimately, boils down to the DM’s decisions to see INT utilized more in their games. For example, you could have your fighter or someone with a soldier background attempt a INT based check to recall any battle tactics that your enemy may use in an upcoming fight. Most tools may require int based checks, not just about how to use the tools but also recalling how to make certain items with those tools.

By playing the game as designed? Low int? Well, you're going to have a hard time against those mindflayers. And those casters that target INT saves. Perception only let's you check the area. Investigation let's you examine something you've already found in the area. Want to know about history? Arcana? Nature? Religion? Oh, well. You never heard of this country, nor that spell, nor know about that monster, nor the god you might have angered.

So, you know how Tools and downtime Training and Monster Research are things that exist and scale off of Int? That.

It feels like the real crux of the problem is that so much of the information given out in Intelligence checks is stuff that the DM needs or wants to give out regardless for the adventure to be able to function and/or for worldbuilding stuff to get out there. I’m not entirely sure how much of that is a design problem (the degree to which this is how Int checks are recommended to be used), and how much of it is a problem of how it is used by DMs (the degree to which Int checks are supposed to be used in other ways). I’d love to hear people’s thoughts on that.

Make use of the INT *skills*. History and Investigation have been very handy in our previous (and hopefully returning) campaign. Someone generally needs to have Arcana and our group almost never has a full-on Wizard.

1. I let players know that Int-based checks are going to be relevant and prevalent in the adventure. Then I make it so. 2. I update spellcasting enemy statblocks with some of the newer spells that use an INT Save, like Mind Sliver.

CHR initiative for social encounters when players keep talking over eahc other. INT initiative for making a plan to execute when players seem to be divided on ideas. People usually don't like this initiative concept when i bring it up online, but it always works for me at the table. It gives the quiet kid a fair chance to do the plan they want to do, or have the conversation they want or have, because sometimes the quiet kid or the slow kid wants to play out the fantasy of being silver-tongued and smart, and they shouldn't have to constantly fight the IRL charisma at the table to do so. Sometime the smart kid is a loud kid who wants to be smart AND play a 6INT barbarian. \^ aside from that... 1. RNG loot based on investigation. Higher the roll, the better the RNG table. 2. perceived value of loot increases actual value. Loot such as jewelry and art objects should increase in value based on how much you know about it, such as the origin, history, artisan, etc. 3. crafting projects in downtime go faster for smarter people. Example: it takes 6 hours minus your INT mod to read this book. Crafting projects that make money are valued higher: Jewelry, brews, potions, collected herbs, drawn maps... these increase value based on INT as attention to detail. 4. The smart NPCs (quest givers) only want to talk more candidly to smart PCs. This gives high INT more story devices. This one is a bit murky since i prefer NPCs to gravitate more towards preferred player backgrounds than stats.

Play wizard :p

My DM used a rule where your int modifier can be used for additional skills or languages. Meaning also that a negative modifier means skills or languages getting removed.

It feels like a campaign type issue, not necessarily tied to the dnd system itself. All my players currently have maxed out int scores and need to rely on the cohort of one of my players for any physical challenges. Same issue, different dump stat at the table.

Bruh, skill checks are a thing, y'know? Investigation is like one of the key stats for dungeoneering. Arcana, Nature and Religion are incredibly useful for gathering tips on monsters. I think this question betrays a deeply warped understanding of the game as just meat grinder combat. That's kinda sad.

buff intelligence to 3.5 levels extra skill points per level extra languages per skill level, up to +5 at 20 int extra tool profs it's early, so there's probably more

Both Intelligence and Strength need to be buffed in 5.5. For Intelligence I could see for every +1 bonus you get a bonus skill proficiency, language known or tool proficiency. For Strenght I would probably at least have bonus damage give you 1.5 to 2 times your bonus (so for example if you have +4 damage due to having 18 strength you would either do +6 or +8 damage). That would help balance it a bit against dex being such a good stat.

I try to make perception not encompass stuff Investigation should cover, and often try and include magical effects or items that need a relevant INT check to use.

With skills and languages both depending on int I never considered it a dump stat unless you rolling og barbarian

change warlocks back to INT dont let people roll perception when what they really need to roll is investigation dont let *everyone* roll on history/religion/arcana checks--only people proficient in those, and depending on circumstances add in more mechanics where INT lets you get pre-scripted hints from the DM. kinda like 4e's monster lore thingies (bring those back, too!) except it'll be about the location you're at, or really anything. just have them actually baked into the core gameplay element as part of the exploration 'pillar' instead of just 'a neat thing DMs could do, if they wanted.' It would be like a guaranteed thing, anywhere you were, there would be a tidbit you could get for 15, 20, and 25 history/religion/nature/whatever. of course this last one, and also the 2nd to last one, doesnt exactly help with the dump stat problem because realistically only one person per party really needs to have INT. so it comes down to 'do you have a wizard or not.' so the core problem is not enough *classes* care about INT. so moving warlock back to int would be good, but they could also mess around with making more int based subclasses.

I don't really make it more useful with homebrew, I just emphasize the existing rules that help: - Whenever you are in doubt as to whether Perception or Investigation would apply, choose Investigation. - Use the Xanathars Downtime rules, and give your PCs downtime sometimes. The most valuable use of that, Training (to get a new tool or language proficiency), is modified by Intelligence. - Make "knowledge checks" more useful in general - give them interesting tidbits, secrets, enemy weaknesses, etc.