The average human's intelligence is 10 INT, with 12 INT being an outlier and 14 INT being borderline brilliant

Maybe because there are two ideas of dragon's compete for the DM's attention.
The op version. Then, of course, the old version of giant lizard monsters.
They bleed into each other unintentionally.

REMOVE DRAGONS!

Write your own setting then where dragons are just that.

An ancient green dragon has 20 intelligence (actually higher than most chromatics) which can be achieved by an 8th level wizard. And since D&D has a lot of Forgotten Realms' high fantasy, in which magic is commonplace to the degree of being uninteresting, intrinsically built into the system, wizards aren't all that uncommon, and 8th level isn't even all that powerful.

>Humans have a racial +2 to Int
What kind of retarded homebrew are you playing? I've never encountered this.

>They should be mysterious beings of great reverence, worshipped as if they were gods by some and utterly beyond comprehension for others.
We have people denouncing gods and doing their best to dethrone them, what makes dragons better? Rule in hell rather than serve in heaven, no gods, no kings, only men etc.
>They should appear to act without rhyme or reason because their logical reasoning is something we could not even understand even if they literally wrote it out for us
Exactly the reason to fight against dragons - it is in humans' nature to fight against things that they don't understand.
> any attempts to take them down would be utterly fruitless as they'd be able to predict anything a human opponent could ever attempt
You don't have to be smart to kill someone or something - even if it's a dragon or even a god. All you need is kill.

They have a floating +2 meaning 1 in 6 humans has a +2 racial bonus to Int.

What are you talking about? Humans are the one race without a +2/-2 stat distribution.

>non-magical human
>can hit 28 Intelligence
Player stats hardcap at 20 barring magical items or the barbarian capstone, though.

5e. Default human array has +2 in any one stat

Can we stop this shitty debate and take a moment to talk about Lucoa?
When her eyes are closed, yeah, she looks cute, but when she opens them? FUCKING TERRIFYING UNCANNY VALLEY TERRITORY, LIKE, HOLY SHIT.

But that's wrong
Humans either get +1 to everything, or +1 to two different abilities, with a free feat and an extra skill proficiency

Variant humans were a mistake.

Her eyes are kind of hot though.

AAAAAAAHHHHHHH

KILL IT WITH FIRE
DROP A FUCKING NUKE ON IT
I DON'T CARE WHAT YOU DO, JUST MAKE HER CLOSE HER EYES BACK

>any attempts to take them down would be utterly fruitless
that's why people who slay dragons are considered heroes

Honestly, they're not much better than races like mountain dwarves or high elves, what with their free proficiencies, on top of their other racial features. Many feats that a variant human could take provide extra proficiencies anyway.

>superhyperintellegient
>still hoards gold like a primitive and lives in a cave like a rat

>You are what you eat
>Dragons are really smart and strong and magical
>Humans that eat dragons become smart, strong, and magical

Gold Dragon: Gold Dragon is one of the simplest to prepare, because it is not poisonous and because of it's natural flavor. It has, without a doubt, the single richest flavor of any kind of dragon. The actual taste is similar to eating a beef steak covered in extremely bold and pleasing spices of indeterminate origin. Cooking it actually reduces the flavor to palatable levels. Frying, boiling, steaming, baking – all of this is perfectly acceptable. However, Gold Dragon is best served in steak form, absolutely plain. Those who must have something extra are encouraged to use little more than a small amount of Dijon mustard. Even the fat is highly flavorful; cooking with it is not unlike using a spice itself, which makes anything fried in it taste more like gold dragon. A common use is to dip small pieces of red dragon into a batter and fry it in gold dragon fat. This reduces the natural heat of Red Dragon meat while imparting some of the rich flavor of Gold Dragon to it. Some varieties call for both Red Dragon and Gold Dragon meat to be shredded and placed together before deep frying it. The actual flavor Gold Dragon imparts in terms of the “extra spices” is completely incomparable to anything else. It is something like a combination of the smell of cloves, the bite of raw garlic, the flavor of something low, rich and fatty, an airiness like whiskey, a small degree of sweetness, a hint of butterscotch, and a swift kick in the teeth. It is so flavorful that, although universally pleasing to all who eat it, it is almost painful. The flavor can be reduced by long periods of boiling (a year or more) which makes it easier to handle for some. If boiled in water even for a few minutes, the water itself tastes like gold dragon and is a key ingredient in many soups where actual gold dragon would be overwhelming.

>the dragon doesn't even invest into housing market
>the dragon doesn't even play on stock market
>the dragon doesn't even buy up all the emitted shorts and then intentionally crash the market with his hoarded gold to make a profit

Also I don't know what type of dragon OP's dragon is, but she's green, so...

Emerald Dragon: This variety of dragon, like chicken, has little flavor of it's own and that flavor is largely determined by the spices used in it's preparation. As the best spices that can be used in it's preparation are the same ones used in the preparation of chicken, it's taste is usually described as being “like chicken”. It is, however, about as different as the variance of chicken and turkey, or wild pheasant. Somewhat greasy with hints of something like cedar, Emerald Dragon must be cooked to remove the natural poison in the meat. Grilled, it is often sliced into strips and served on green salad. Fried, it is breaded and served like chicken. Any chicken recipe serves perfectly well for Emerald Dragon.

Green Dragon: Green Dragon is not a popular dish. They are naturally poisonous and can only be rendered edible through several years of suspension in a lime-brine. The end result is a meat almost similar to a gel in consistency, and usually only cooked one way. The “Green Dragon Orbs” are created by using a glob of the treated Green Dragon meat, breaded and deep fried. While this is often described as very tasty, with a salty citrus flavor, most do not go out of their way to prepare it. The blood is not potable.

I fucking love that someone connected that picture to what it's like to be a DM
I can relate
>No, you dipshit, you cannot polevault accross that mile-wide canyon

Assuming 3d6 down the line with no modifiers, 14 is 84th percentile.

If we use 5e mods distributed at random (2 +1s), we see a 1- (5/6 * 4/6) = 4/9 chance of any random human having a +1 int. If we run again using that, we see that 14 is 80th percentile.

anydice.com/program/b477

That's not "borderline brilliant" in my opinion, just smart. They are still smarter than 4 in 5 humans, though.

The person you're replying to is about half right. A variant human can get a +2 to an ability score if they choose a feat that has a +1 as one of its a benefits, such as Keen Mind or Linguist.

What? 14 Intelligence is more comparable to one or two standard deviations, it's nowhere near brilliant.

>stock market dragon

In Pathfinder (the best version of D&D), most races get +2/+2/-2, and humans get a floating +2.

In 4e (the best version of WoW), most races get +2/+2, and humans get a floating +2.

Gold isn't subject to inflation. This is why so many governments value their gold reserves, and why the rich have gold on their swiss bank accounts. The investment strategies are incomprehensible to us because dragons have all the time in the world. They have ponzi schemes that are literally centuries in the making.

Very close to one standard deviation away (13.96).

Not even sure how you'd model feat mods. Seems wrong to say they're randomly distributed.

>which can be achieved by a 1st level wizard with good rolls and a racial bonus

> Gold isn't subject to inflation.
>implying
Consider the following: I slay a dragon and then drop his hoard on the market. The value of gold drops sharply, because the supply of gold available on the market increases sharply.
You can say that gold isn't subject to inflation in a long time period, but no one fucking cares about long period shit - if you want to destabilize a country, you create a perfect shitstorm of things that undermines whoever is in power, and that includes suddenly dropping a bunch of gold into the market.

The better explanation is that the dragon doesn't value gold and the like for its material value. I mean, why would they? Not like they ever spend it. More likely they have some sort of biological urge to collect it or something, a la 13th Age's red dragons.

>gold isn't subject to inflation
>spanish empire nearly destroyed from the inflation caused by mining gold and silver in South America

How is a mere autistic human GM supposed to realistically portray a Dragon?
They can't. RPGs are impossible.

>a party of adventurers are slaying dragons and stealing their hoards in order to crash every economy and rise to prominence in the subsequent turmoil

That's why when my players ask me why I never put dragons in my campaigns I just smile...

I mean, think logically. Some mysterious stranger offers the players enough money to live like noblemen for a year if they kill a certain lich. What kind of person has that much gold? What kind of person knows that much about ancient wizards from hundreds of years ago?

Just let the dragon metagame.

Shoot straight. Conserve your arrows. And never ever cut a deal with a dragon.

Quetzalcoatl's not so much a dragon as she is a fucking Central American Sun God.
So... Yeah.

A slutty drunkard Central American Sun God.

What about cuddling with one?

A slutty drunkard pedophile Central American Sun God.

Cuddle straight. Conserve your hugs. And never ever hold your hands with a dragon.

A slutty drunkard pedophile uncanny valley Central American Sun God.

WELL

IN ~MY~ SETTING

This comparison always bugs me. It's like the super-intelligent AI arguement.

Sentience is sentience. Chickens are not sentient. Humans are sentient. Just because dragons are more intelligent, does not demean the invisible line in the sand which separates an entity capable of reason, and one which is not. If a dragon explained a particular concept to a human over a sufficient period of time, keeping in mind the scope of human intelligence, the human would eventually reach comprehension.

You could explain that 1 + 1 equals 2 to a chicken every day and in every way until you were blue in the face, and nothing would come of it. A dragon devoted to the explanation of the mechanics upholding the universe to a human (or group of humans) would eventually be successful.

...

You're assuming that they have human-like minds and goals.

Oh, she's Quetzalcoatl, of course. That actually simplifies things because gods are more likely to be symbolic, which matters for flavor.

Now onto said flavor: Quetzalcoatl is a "feathered serpent". Aligned with wind magic, I expect an "airy" taste. Half snake and half bird, you'd probably get a fairly chicken-like flavor. But large animals are often fairly gamey. Quetzalcoatl was fed on humans and will probably have a bit of human influence to the flavor of the meat. The character is supposedly alcoholic, so that too would have a bit of an influence.

The key dish being made from Quetzalcoatl would have to be the heart, though. As a god of human sacrifice and devourer of human hearts Quetzalcoatl probably concentrates magic in its own heart.

Therefore, you will want to prepare it according to a typical deep fried chicken heart recipe. But since you're eating the heart of a god you'd best be wary of the potential it has to make you explode. You may have to leech off enough of that magic to make it tolerable somehow. Till then, small bites.

The classic Shadowrun blunder. Fucking lizards.

The Noddites sound better then the rest.

Bullshit argument. All evidence points to sentience being nothing more than a combination of awareness systems overlapping each other and analysing each other leading to self-awareness.

Which means that yes, stack enough on INT and you will become not just super-intelligent but also super-sentient.

Interesting, I was thinking Septists or Pellangians

youtube.com/watch?v=3C2tkQ3743E

That's what the dragons want you to think.

I mean, have any of you guys ever wondered why all dragons look the same in the Monster Manual? It's like they're being mass produced man. If dragons are so magical, you'd think they'd look more unique, but they don't.

Here's the kicker.

The dragons the heroes fight aren't real. They're just "true-dragon" spawned simulacrum given hoards so adventurers kill the simulacrum and take their gold.

It's all one massive economic engineering project and you wankers don't even see it.

Yeah and they A) Live in a cave B) Will always live in a cave and have their status gradually diminished in the eyes of the civilization over time.

Guess whose motives differs from humans as well? Dolphins. They are more intellegient than humans but who the fuck cares when they are hunted down for food and they can do jack-shit to stop us.

You either form a civilization and thrive, or be a special unique snowflake and fade out into irrelevance in the span of centuries as the world notes the dragon's existence and moves on to do better things.

The Septists are vulnerable to raiders and warlike bloodthirsty scum who'll kill them without a second thought.
Pacifist = Protected.

The Pellangians are second best though, I'll give you that.

I personally love fried chicken heart. Here's an adapted recipe, though not a particularly original one.

1 Quetzacoatl heart (In this case the one is all you need, otherwise you'd use 1lb of chicken hearts)
1 leek, chopped (or onion)
1 tablespoon garlic, chopped
pepper, to taste
salt, to taste
olive oil
1 tablespoon ginger (optional)

Marinate (optional): combine the garlic, olive oil, and salt/pepper in a bag and add Quetzacoatl's heart; marinate for 2-3 hours.
Saute the leek or onion and additional garlic and ginger (if using) in olive oil until soft.
Add the chicken hearts and saute over medium heat until done, stirring occasionally.
Alternatively, saute chicken hearts halfway and finish in the broiler.
Can also be cooked on skewers on the grill. Be sure to soak the skewers in water first.
Time does not include optional marination time.

Note that dragons are larger than elephants. Elephants have hearts weighing 35-45lbs while humans have hearts weighing half a pound. You'll obviously have to adjust the spices depending on the form the god is killed in.

>They are more intellegient than humans
I'm willing to believe some dolphins are more intelligent than some humans, but dolphins being more intelligent overall? Can I get a citation on that?

>Dolphins. They are more intellegient than humans
Can I get a source on that?

>they are more intellegient than humans but who the fuck cares

By what metric?

>They are more intellegient than humans
[citation needed]

Citationmind

>Sentience is nothing more than awareness systems overlapping each other and analysing each other leading to self-awareness.

I just googled real quick for a precise definition, and sentience is just the ability to feel or perceive things. Because of this, I suppose my argument was a tad off, and very off if we're going by your definition.

I suppose the word I was looking for was more along the line of "comprehension". A chicken cannot hope to comprehend 1 + 1 = 2, no matter how many chickens are working on the problem, or over what time frame.

Arcane knowledge possessed by a dragon could be passed to humans. The group studying that knowledge may initially lack comprehension, but illumination is possible. Not so with the chickens.

I don't understand what you mean by INT stacking. That seems self-evident. I don't understand what you mean by "super-sentience".

>Logic changes with intelligence
Nigga, that's a huge fault.

Just cause you're smarter, doesn't mean your motivations and logic is a hidden machination. You simply be like Ozymandias and plan shit out so far ahead that everyone can't help but play catch up.

I'm pretty sure the word you're both looming for is sapience, not sentience.

It was, thank you.

Doesn't logic change with intelligence though? If you believe that the sun isn't going to rise if you don't sacrifice virgins, your logic is going to be based around the logistics of sacrificing virgins. If you possess the knowledge that the sun is going to keep coming regardless, the population of this thread is safe again.

A chicken cannot reason that 1 + 1 = 2. A human can. If a super-intelligent being posits some mathematical equation, humanity has the equipment to reason it out

Logic changes up to a point because you become able to rationalize things. That's what the difference between Sapient and Sentience is.

Once you become Sapient, you can in theory follow any trail of sound logic to it's conclusion, though mileage may vary based on your intelligence for duration.

What would change most dramatically is your ability to synthesize conclusions from input. You'd be much better at predicting outcomes (in theory).

Oh, yeah, but that's not a racial bonus; that's a benefit granted by a feat.

You can't fool me, dolphins.
My parents are from Korea, I know where the fish are anywhere anytime.

>rolling for stats

If the heart is so suffused with magic, I'd imagine it would be quite dangerous to eat, without some serious dispelling.

"What's the worst that could happen? ;^)"

Well, I suppose the way to go would be to shred it into a paste, then mix that paste in with other meats to create a sort of spam like mixture. That way you could heavily dilute the original magic into many much smaller fragments and consume it over a long period of time. Besides, you'd also want to spread it out into a feast and especially if it ends up human sized you'll want to stretch it out.

I suppose you'd want to experiment by having some volunteers eat slices of the heart until you find an amount that isn't lethal and doesn't turn you into a monster.

But if it IS that magical you could also leech it off slowly. Boil it in water in a pot lined with leeching magic, drain the water and use that as a base for a stew that imparts tons of magic.

Now every TRUE evil chef knows that when you've got the heart of a god, you just eat that sucker whole. Exploding is an occupational hazard of evil. If you're badass enough it doesn't matter if you're eating a magic energy field bigger than your head. But more practical ones will prepare.

Different body parts have different magical properties. Consume the brain for intelligence, heart for strength, eyes for sight, etc.

Eating a god is essentially the same problem as eating a Polar Bear's liver. It is naturally lethal. But with the right techniques to leech out the excess vitamin A/magic anyone could eat one and live.

>Now every TRUE evil chef knows that when you've got the heart of a god, you just eat that sucker whole.
>implying

>heart for strength
Not constitution?

Well historically they were linked and not separate like D&D. Eating the heart of an animal you kill is supposed to give you some of their strength. So eating a mighty stag's heart would give you its speed, or killing a bear would give you its strength, or nomming wolfheart might give you courage and endurance.

Eating a dragon, especially a divine one, would most likely boost all your physical stats because they're superior in every respect. You'd probably expect to take on typical dragon traits too though; greed, for instance. Or if you're eating Quetzalcoatl you'll probably get a taste for humans. Of course if you're hunting down good and sentient dragons and gods and eating them then it probably won't be anything new.

On a related note of the humanoid races Hobbits are by far the best tasting. Humans are gamey, Dwarves are tough (but good stew meat), Elves are stringy and lean and Gnomes taste funny. Hobbits are lazy, fat, and primarily veggie-fed. They go great with potatoes. Mmm. Hobbit-god heart on a bed of potatoes.

But this thread is about dragons and how we can eat their delicious brains to get their superior intelligence, so no need to worry too much about that.

>The character is supposedly alcoholic
she's actually being very careful to not have alcohol again after a certain 'incident.'

They eat their hoards to not die of old age (~4000+ years)

>Sentience is sentience. Chickens are not sentient. Humans are sentient.
You mean sapience. Sentience is the capacity to sense, all living things are sentient, even tiny amoebas that just have eyespots and flagella, or trees that can only detect gravity and light.

Sapience is the capacity to be self aware, and could roughly be defined as the threshhold for higher intelligence and personhood.

I think seeing 14 INT as being "borderline brilliant" is silly.

When you compare it to one of the only other ability scores with an easily quantifiable value, STR, you can get a good idea of what a sixteen is. If you go by the pathfinder rulebook's carry weight rules, a sixteen strength is comparable to a deadlift of just over 400 lbs, which for an average male is attainable after a year or slightly more of lifting. That is hardly exceptional. Even an eighteen is just around 520 lbs, which is attainable after just two or so years.

I may be comparing apples to oranges here, but it would make sense that the other ability scores would scale similarly. An 18 INT possibly representing somebody with a PHD and high degree of academic achievement would make sense. And when you factor in ability point gain every fourth level or whatever you could assume somebody like Steven Hawking to have like a 20 INT.

I think it's worth assuming that the ability scores are to scale with an average human of like eighteen years of age. That would represent a first level human pretty well, I think.

To clarify I meant the starting average score of ten, is comparable to an average young adult with little experience.

The issue is that the standards of stat points have changed over the years. In AD&D 10 was average for that race, period. Few people had stats that were very high. Back then it was closer to say, IQ, where a 14 would mean an IQ of 140 and that's the level of most doctors. 18's were truly exceptional and amounts above that were superhuman, available only to certain species.

Starting with 3.5 it became more of the scale you're describing. 18 isn't even the peak of human ability now. It's not even at olympic level in some cases.

The difference is mostly that in a dragons case, 14 is their 10. So a doctor level intelligence to a dragon would be an 18, not a 14. The difference between editions is the difference between the absolute peak of human intelligence and a very smart, well educated human.

Though it should be considered that dragons are disadvantaged by the fact that although they may have raw intelligence they're not generally social creatures, and thus societal projects like schools wouldn't generally exist for dragons. That'd mean they may be a bit naive, which is why they're easy to trick in spite of that intelligence. They'll also have what they've figured out on their own from their natural environment through trial and error and not a formalized system of education. That means few constructs and formalized spells. A dragon sociable enough to be educated in a mortal races schools and universities would be truly exceptional, though.

See: Shadowrun. You don't mess with them. (unless you're Johnny Spinrad)

Part of the issue with using Str as a point of reference is that the things Str governs are kind of all over the place. If you compare lifting capacity at, say, 14 Str to force from a sword strike at 14 Str, it becomes pretty obvious that the lifting numbers are fairly arbitrary and meant to facilitate the game, rather than represent a realistic number.

Still, I guess for purposes of these sorts of questions, it's the best point of reference we're going to get.

>a party of adventurers are slaying dragons and stealing their hoards in order to crash every economy and rise to prominence in the subsequent turmoil
>Turmoil
>Oil
Turns out the adventurers are trying to make everybody a slave of the petrodollar.

>solitary apex predator lizards have super intelligence

if this is in your setting, your setting is garbage

The 10 as a baseline thing when PCs regularly have 18s is stupid unless you go with diminishing returns in narrative power.

>Back then it was closer to say, IQ, where a 14 would mean an IQ of 140
Utterly wrong. Is this that one shit blogger's delusion at work? Putting aside the fact that D&D Int is in no way a good similation of realistic intelligence,

2e still had 3d6 down the line. Using that, average is 10.5 and standard deviation is 2.96. This means a 14 is less than two standard deviations from the mean. Meanwhile, IQ has a mean of 100 and a standard deviation of 15, meaning that a 14 int equates to an IQ under 130. 140 is closer to 16.

One of the earliest examples of hyperinflation was a sultan going on a pilgrimage who handed out gold like it was water and completely crashed the economy of half a continent. Gold was about as valuable as dirt for a loooong time in northern Africa.