Non mage characters, any use for INT? (minor spoiler)

Tricky · Post by **Tricky** » Sun Aug 31, 2008 4:01 am

I came to the conclusion I made my Orc thief street-wise (15 wisdom, later to be upgraded to 18 with BGTutu tomes), but not intelligent.

At first I thought of making Charisma my trash stat, but when I delved into the data tables and charts, I couldn't really find any use for Intelligence. I had to think long and hard if there were any quests or situations where some int would come in handy, but I could only come up with getting out of a Maze spell. And it's been my experience that Charisma is the generally the only modifier in dialogue, and not even all that often. Heck, it's not as if I need the lore checks. So, am I really forgetting about something important here, or can I negate Intelligence completely without consequence?

Being an dumb Orc, my Intelligence is currently 1. It came to me that, if I don't get the Intelligence tome in BGTutu and make it 2, by the time I start getting those dreams in BG2, I can eventually downgrade my Intelligence 0 as I enter the dream-version of Candlekeep. Would that have any consequences in addition?

galraen · Post by **galraen** » Sun Aug 31, 2008 4:32 am

One intelligence?, Talk about Mind Flayer fodder, One hit = dead!

Apart from Illithids, the main reason for having decent Int is role playing. Frankly with one intelligence your Half-Orc wouldn't even be able to figure out which end of the sword to hold.

PS And of course if the rules were being implemented properly your minimum intelligence would be three. With one intelligence you should also would have no language, so no conversation whatsoever, therefore no quests.

Tricky · Post by **Tricky** » Sun Aug 31, 2008 5:47 am

Ah, I forgot about the mind flayers.

Hmm.. I'm not sure if that warrants restarting. It's kind of an interesting concept though, being really wise and dumb at the same time. Being really smart and not-wise, I can kind of picture that. The amnesiac wizard. But the other way around.. hm.. that could actually be me. I know a lot of mostly completely useless stuff.

Darth Malignus · Post by **Darth Malignus** » Sun Aug 31, 2008 9:15 am

Well, there´s no real use for that Intelligence above 1 for those characters. Never the less, it helps, even for non-mages. Yes, it gives a character some resillience towards Mind Flayer attacks. And it adds some bonus to Lore, and I´m not really sure what extra dialogue (and potential XP bonus from that dialogue) you get from having a higher Intelligence, but I figure that there´s bound to be some. There usually is in these sort of games.

Now, an example would be my favorite class, Fighter/Thief.
An Elven one rolled in and imported from BG1 could look something like this:
19
20
18
12
19
12

And you´ll not really need any more than that. You can make another character with a higher Charisma the party leader or put on the Ring of Human Influence. It´s not really that big of a deal.

However, I´m not sure what a 0 in Intelligence pans out as in Baldur´s Gate. In some games, when numbers and stats run in the negative, they "reset" at 255. Apparently 255 is the magical number in programming circles.

Spoiler from Kotor II:

Spoiler

Hanharr in Kotor II is bugged that way, as an example. He can potentially get monstrous amounts of Strength and Intelligence through a bug in the dialogue, with 255 as the max.

anarchistica · Post by **anarchistica** » Sun Aug 31, 2008 10:04 am

INT only protects against Mindflayers, it does nothing beside that. High stats and relevant classes give extra dialogue and options in NWN and the IWD games, not in the Baldur's Gates

Crenshinibon · Post by **Crenshinibon** » Sun Aug 31, 2008 10:42 am

The main reason I put points in intelligence, aside from roleplaying purposes, is to use the Golem Manual as the Clay Golem is of invaluable help in a tight spot.

Pellinore · Post by **Pellinore** » Sun Aug 31, 2008 2:59 pm

1 INT ? Wow. Thats dumber than a dog. Dogs have a 2 if I'm not mistaken (which isn't fair because dogs are fairly smart). Your half-orc can't even learn to fetch!

I would bump that up a bit.

Saros · Post by **Saros** » Mon Sep 01, 2008 12:31 am

Your character will not be able to read Green Protection scrolls, which have required minimum of 9 intelligence to read.

wise grimwald · Post by **wise grimwald** » Mon Sep 01, 2008 3:37 am

I once did the same as you, went to Watcher's keep early, used an inelligence boosting potion and then got the answers wrong using Lum's machine to get my intelligence up to 25. Not really worth the effort, but fun to do once.

anarchistica · Post by **anarchistica** » Mon Sep 01, 2008 10:30 pm

Btw, here's another good reason not to use INT as a dump stat:

http://www.lordsoftyr.com/files/images/ ... tat%20.jpg

:laugh:

Tricky · Post by **Tricky** » Tue Sep 02, 2008 12:54 am

Lol. I've seen a gimped Baldur's Gate portrait of GW Bush. Someone made him into an Orc, and now it suddenly makes a lot of sense.

Sereth1728 · Post by **Sereth1728** » Thu Sep 04, 2008 1:59 pm

Tricky, trust me when I say this: Start the game over. Galraen is completely right, if you go up against Mind flayers they will hit you once, and then game over. Each time you get hit by a mind flayer they drain 5 intelligence. So in most cases you should have no less than 12 intelligence. But in your case, roll this:

Strength-19
Dex-18
Cons-18
Intelligence-12
Wisdom-11
Charisma-8

*Spoiler Ahead*

Strength, dex, and constitution are all plain and simple the most needed stats in the game. Then comes intelligence. The reason I said 12 is because im pretty sure you have to choose which stat you lose in one of your dreams. And of the stats to lose you would want to pick either intelligence or wisdom. Other than that, charisma is pointless because you get a ring that gives you 18. To sum it all up if you get those stats you should have a pretty easy run in with the game. Hope this helps.

wise grimwald · Post by **wise grimwald** » Fri Sep 05, 2008 8:45 am

On the same theme, but at the other end of the scale. I have just created a solo halfling fighter/thief with a low charisma in Tutu plus various mods. (One of the mods gives a charisma boosting ring)
I will end up with 19 Intelligence and 18 Wisdom when I start SoA. Now I know that should be more than sufficient. I was just wondering if I had optimised the points.
I couldn't have made Intelligence any higher without cheating, but I could have made the Wisdom a little higher at the expense of Intelligence.

Crenshinibon · Post by **Crenshinibon** » Fri Sep 05, 2008 9:20 am

Aside for bonus priest spells, Wisdom is only good for Limited Wish and Wish, roleplaying aside. Charisma is a valuable stat, especially in BG1.

Even if you do have a single point of intelligence, you can still finish the game. In the Underdark, you can generally avoid the Illthid and it should be noted that they have awful THAC0, unlike Umber Hulks. Your main worry is getting paralyzed in any way as then, they will almost always hit you.

wise grimwald · Post by **wise grimwald** » Fri Sep 05, 2008 10:17 am

As mentioned I will get a ring for my charisma, similar to that found in the circus in SoA. It is one of the many benefits of the NPC project, the others being that the game is more interesting. In SoA, I can get the ring together with other charisma enhancing items such as a helmet and a sword.
It looks therefore as if I have distributed my points as well as I could, at least with the mods that I have installed.

CFM · Post by **CFM** » Fri Sep 05, 2008 10:21 am

I thought I read in a pnp AD&D 2E rulebook somewhere that plants have an intelligence of 1.

Role-play away, baby!

Tricky · Post by **Tricky** » Fri Sep 05, 2008 10:52 am

lol! I hear of a lot of weird roleplay out there on the internets, but plants.. no sirree. :laugh:

Edit:
I forgot, I actually got a pretty weird fallout-esque response from Edwin about my apparent intelligence when he asked me to kill Dynaheir. It could have also been because I was an Orc though, I don't really know for sure.

SupaCat · Post by **SupaCat** » Fri Sep 05, 2008 3:37 pm

Tricky wrote: Edit:
I forgot, I actually got a pretty weird fallout-esque response from Edwin about my apparent intelligence when he asked me to kill Dynaheir. It could have also been because I was an Orc though, I don't really know for sure.

Edwin always makes such remarks, even if you have a greater int. than him, or so I believe.