"Your character is not smart enough to think of that."

OP gives no context, so both interpretations are equally valid.

Alright you cucks. Give me a medieval recipe on how to make a Molotov. Don't tell me you can't. D&D's motto is literally "You can do anything!"

It's like you guys have never seen dwarven wine.

Tar would work I think.

Some kind of thicker liquid mixed in with oil or a hard alcohol. Probably a glue or something.

This.

Is "Your character is not smart enough to think of that." a valid point?
Depends on the scenario.

Is "OP is a faggot." a valid point?
Almost always.

It's most likely not possible. The DM should be aware of that instead of barring the ability to try and fail.

I'd say an in universe version, based on elemental alchemy, would make more sense than some real world reinterpretation.

How the fuck are we going to get access to Middle East rig oils factories? Come on.

Why do people only seem to argue this with the mind based stats?
>You have 8 str
>oh you can't left the bolder
>okay

>You have 8 int
>oh you can't figure out how to make a gun
>REEEEEEE, STOP RAILROADING ME, REEEEEEEEE!

Yes, and that's one of the few not included in my "most are modern"

Alchemist's Fire is already a D&D item, and does what you want for molotov cocktails. They're also a low level easy DC to create items.

What if your player wants to build a robot? (in a medieval setting)

How do you explain to him that he isn't smart enough to do that, if you are going to ignore his stats?

go ahead, I will wait

I take Intellect as capacity for learning, thinking critically, swiftly, being perceptive, and common sense/book smarts are just Knowledge: Subject skills.

Crude oil thickened with animal fat or pine tar. Obviously location-dependent.

There needs to be balance between the roleplaying and the mechanics as both constitute a major part of the game. If you go all mechanics, it's not a ROLE-PLAYING game, it's an in-depth board game; if you go all roleplaying, it's not a role-playing GAME, it's improve theater.

If I have abysmal DEX/AGI/whatever number my system uses to represent coordination, I shouldn't describe my character as being graceful, acrobatic, or anything other than a klutz; I DEFINITELY shouldn't try to argue that the goblin could in no way hit me due to my lighting-fast reflexes and cat-like quickness. The mechanics, characterization, and results should all be in concordance.

>learning, thinking critically, swiftly, being perceptive, and common sense
You've combined Int and Wis together there.

Perceptiveness, and common sense are wisdom based. It even says so in the description for the skill. "Willpower, common sense, awareness, and intuition" Wisdom covers instinctual and subconscious matters.

Intelligence is literally ability to hold information and speed of processing it. To learn and reason via logic. It's all the conscious thinking through things, integrating facts you've learned about the situation at hand and from your past learnings.

Its instinctual versus rational parts of the mind.

And they are separated for good reason as there are plenty of character archetypes that exemplify the lack of one or the other stat, like the absent minded professor or the wise but dumb yokel.

In a game where there are guns, there are most likely rules for how to make guns, so there are mechanics that are based on other mechanics.

They'll have to make transistors and computing languages first. If they can manage that in medieval times then I'll be impressed.

I mean, I sort of agree. I'm saying that you can get creative with the characterization. A character with 5 intelligence doesn't have to have the characteristic of a klutz who goes "durrrrrr food good i poop". What does a low intelligence actually, mechanically, do to your character? How can you take that and make it a fun role?
I once had a player who's PC got a 3 in intelligence, which made it so that he couldn't read and some other things. He played his character as an uneducated man who kept thinking that he was actually smart. Made the game really fun and allowed him to come up with solutions to problems that didn't feel out-of-tune of a regular dungeon crawling game.

There is an underlying theme there.

Fighters are bros, mages are assholes

Isn't that just Alchemist's Fire, plus with the existence of something like this alone would make molotovs redundant.

>PC got a 3 in intelligence
That's literally a single small step above literal animals. Chimps have 2 Int. This isn't a slow but normal person, this is the very definition of drooling retard.

>That's literally a single small step above literal animals.
In some games, yes. Not in the game we played.

>If they can manage that in medieval times then I'll be impressed.
all he has to do is roll

Roll for what? If there's a mechanic in place for making robots, then we're not talking about the same thing.

>calling Molotov by another name makes them redundant
what

You can replace the inner workings with magic.

the player doesn't have to explain shit

The players don't decide how magic works. The rules and the DM do.

This escalated quickly.

So what's the point of having stats if GM decides everything?

moshi moshi baitu desu

This is a good one. It's also likely what greek fire was.

They don't decide everything. The rules decide a lot of things.

>have rogue with INT of 7 (lowest in party)
>wizard with INT 20 can't figure out puzzle
>artificer with INT 20 can't figure out puzzle
>barbarian with INT 9 can't figure out puzzle
>blah blah INT, 17, 12, & 18 cant figure out puzzle
>i already knew how to solve puzzle, once explained, before anyone else stepped up to it
>i say in character "puzzles are just different kinds of locks"
it was a literal drawn out puzzle btw
>my rogue walks up and solves it first time
>adventuring continues as normal in dungeon
>DM talks to me later after session that i should try to act more in character
>respond with what i had said
>he said he knows, but my character wouldnt know what that is, so i should try to stop metagaming
>tell him i think he is overreacting a bit, but ill try to stop

i didnt want to cause problems since group has been going on for months now and knowing the dm he'd just try to railroad my character to being the pointman but always causing me to fail

I think your analogy of locks works.

I think your DM is shit.

Not sure, probably some kind of real world reasoning for it, but I don't feel like getting into it.

The GM adjudicates the rules i.e. decides how they apply to a given situation. If the bard wants to bitchslap a NPC to shut her up, the GM decides if that's an attack roll, or strength contest, or intimidation check or whatever.

imo that was the worst kind of that dm thing he did
but he has from time to time just negated people from doing things like a character was casting thaumaturgy to make another character fail their persuasion roll (thaum charatcer was making other sound like he was farting to fail a flirt encounter)
but that i can understand since that player is one of those chaotic neutral but will fuck with everyone players

What system was it in? Because I'm having trouble thinking of something where a 3 isn't avg for a statistic, or super garbage for stat.

Yes, hence the fact that the DM and the rules work together.

Independently interpreted and houseruled old-school Basic D&D.

A puzzle is a player skill. It's made for the players to solve, not the characters. You shouldn't exclude players from a player skill challenge because of their character's stats.

Feral child would be closer. Chimps exhibit communal behavior, tool-making, and communication.

In a sense, it's actually an infinitely large step away from 2 int. You can't roll a 2 on a 3d6.

I should explain, we were planning to set parts of a jail on fire and while dungeon crawling I found some old rotgut whisky and I thought it would be a nice thing to throw into a preexisting fire

My issue was that because my character wasn't trained in something so fucking arbitrary the DM basically said I was too dumb to think of liquor being flammable.

stupid people can do smart things too

>Why do people only seem to argue this with the mind based stats?
Because mental stats are far more abstract than physical stats.
>8 strength, can't lift boulder
Your ability to lift is generally derived as a secondary attribute, and if it isn't then you still have a rough idea what the average human is capable of in terms of strength. A gorilla can lift a person with one hand, but average joe might need assistance.
>8 int, can't make gun
A bit of an absurd comparison, since making a gun is infinitely more complex than the binary can/can't lift boulder. It's more like:
>can't solve a math problem
This one is a bit tougher, because thought is a highly complex and nuanced process. Even a complete idiot can sometimes exhibit surprising intelligence, and even the smartest people sometimes exhibit overwhelming retardation.

Basically:
>strength is binary, and has very few subsets
>intelligence is highly nuanced

I think this whole thing comes down to the "mind skills" relying more on player input than the "body skills".

A 9 year old probably wouldnt play a high WIS/INT/what-have-you well because the person behind the character cant fathom that mindset. I'd argue the inverse is also true in that most people who finished higher education couldnt play a low intelligence character well because they cant understand how someone could not know something extremely obvious to them. Bonus points if youre dealing with someone who just looked the thing up beforehand.

Only other insight i have on the matter is as far as ive seen, knowledge skills are far too general in most RPGs. Even when brached into things like technology, animal science, medicine, common, etc., a lot of the fields are just far to broad for you to just up and claim your character knows something.

Soap dissolves into oil and works as a thickener.

How did they do it in 7th century Byzantium? Or Europe from the 12th?

No your Barbarian can't be a drunken fist master because of alignment and shit

fuck you I just get him drunk first!

>the worst thing my GM has done is take me aside after a session and ask me to tone down the metagaming a bit

He sounds quite reasonable.

But int 8 IS barely-sapeint beastman.

It's a perfectly legitimate anti-minmaxing strategy.
You're the filthy minmaxer trying to get around it.

What you could have done is explain how to solve the puzzle so one of the higher INT characters solved it and everybody would have stayed in character.

t. shit DM
If it tests character INT then players should just roll INT
If it tests player puzzle-solving ability then don't bitch when players solve the puzzle

If you want your character to be good at solving puzzles, you shouldn't have int as their dumb stat. "Puzzles are just locks" is a pretty damn weak justification, too.

If you want INT-based obstacles then test the characters, not the players. You don't force your barbarian player to throw out his back trying to lift a box of bricks in real life and then make him fail a strength check in-game because he didn't lift with his knees; don't pretend to be clever by printing off riddles from the internet instead of designing an actual gamist obstacle.

Rogue could've just handwaved it through the Wizard.
'Puzzles are locks' is dumb.

Weaklings play barbarians so they can feel like the strong one.
Dumbshits probably play wizards for the same reason. Don't undercut a dude's puzzle.

>aSDFB hfdhsdfb dsafhsgh asdbfsbdgsd g blgurlrp glgus *chokes on vomit*

cmon bud, you can do better. it's what the other dude said, if you wanted to measure their int, whyd you even ask the puzzle. Once there's a real puzzle, youre not talking to the characters youre talking to the players

If YOU want to solve a riddle, that's not a problem. If you want your CHARACTER to solve the problem, you need to do better than "Riddles are just locks, so I can solve this one by the virtue of being dexterous".

Tell the wizard player the solution. Have the character go "Hey, what does this lever do?" and accidentally solve the riddle(or at least give the other players a hint). Have your character remember the solution on account of having seen a similar riddle before. And so on. Just don't go full retard and claim that your character should be able to solve the riddle because he's good at picking locks.

Kill yourself retard.

A shit DM that uses metagame riddles is probably the same kind of shit DM that will bitch about metagaming if you tell the wizard the solution.

Neither of you was wrong. If you figured it out pass the information to the player of the character you feel should get to solve it or just want to solve it.

sounds like a bad fucking roleplayer, frankly
not the 9 y/o, but... also probably the 9 y/o

Given that the poster wasn't smart enough to do that, we have no way of knowing.

and my GM isn't dexterous to avoid being stabbed for being a douchebag after being warned about this by the entire group at least 5 times

If a characters stats have no impact on the presented puzzle, like being solved via an int roll, it stands that you shouldn't arbitrarily dictate that it suddenly does.

You go and buy alchemist fire. It costs 50 gp and should be easily available at any store with alchemist supplies.

Stop using Int as a dump stat, user. Is it really that hard for you to figure out?

Maybe you are the low INT character?

Your player needs to roll better. Tell him to get new dice.

>Not playing a 3 Int barbarian.
I bet you don't even roll for stats, you pussies.

animals have up to 4 INT
barely sapient would be 5-6

I'm sorry but you are not inventing dynamite or electricity. Now go back to playing your battlemage Mike.

Actually playing low int character lets you get away doing all kinds of retarded stuff because you can always claim 'I was just playing my character lol'. It's a valid strategy if you want to annoy other players and GM, but need alignment other than CN for your build.

Its supposed to be the opposite

IRL there was a thing called Greek Fire that predated medieval warfare. Apparently horrifyingly effective for the time, but the exact recipe/method of manufacture is still unknown.

en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Greek_fire

>The DnD setting is medieval setting meme
The existance of magic and other fantasy races and creatures with thier own advancements makes medieval times completely non-analogous on term of existing technology.

That's the thing though, low int characters aren't devoid of good ideas, just...less LIKELY to have them.

But IMO, if you present a drawn out puzzle instead of just making them roll, then you're asking the PLAYERS to solve it, and not their characters. Which is fine, but don't be a pissy baby when you don't get the in-character solution you wanted.

Go learn what roleplaying means, you whiny bitch

there are rules for carry/lift capacity based on strength

there are no rules for int requirements to craft

checkmate atheists

Do your research.

Animal fat/gelatins maybe?

I regard shit like this the same way I regard "My character rolls to solve the puzzle": eat shit nigger. You have to provide the intelligence for your character's actions from your own fucking brain. The INT and WIS on the character sheet only give skill points and spell slots: they are not a substitute for your own brain and if you try to use them as such, I'm happy to turn your character into an NPC since you clearly have no interest in actually playing him.

Do you force your players to swing swords when their characters attack monsters?

The first is an example of not having a high enough stat to succeed at an action. You can still play your character however you want - if you want them to push on the boulder for a minute before giving up, you can do that.

The second is an example of your character not having a high enough star to attempt an action. Now you're being told that you can't play your character; the DM has ultimate veto power over what you can attempt in the game. You have no real agency whatsoever.

Do you understand why being told "you don't get to play your character, I do" is much more frustrating than "you get to play your character, I get to play the world"?

>You don't force your barbarian player to throw out his back trying to lift a box of bricks in real life and then make him fail a strength check in-game because he didn't lift with his knees

No, but I make him roleplay being strong. If he says he lifts the box of bricks in a second with his littlefinger I tell him no, wtf, that's not how being strong works. Unless he's some kind of god of strenght instead of a strong dude.

In the same way, sometimes you have to tell the dumb character's player that no, this is not how being dumb works. Both when he ignores his character is dense and when he acts like a CN shit.

The fact that in the specific situations of puzzles and brick boxes playing in character harms more the dumb than the strong is irrelevant.

>this shitty strawman

>The second is an example of your character not having a high enough star to attempt an action.

Except that's false, faggot. Lifting something and figuring out something are both actions. One is physical and the other is mental, but this difference also exists for the used stats.

>I force people to use their own ability instead of their characters
>do you do that for this stat
>STRAWMAN REEEEEEEEEEEEEE

Nah. I always challenge the players, not the characters. The characters aren't the ones playing the game. What's the point if you just roll to solve everything? Roll to see if your characters solve the puzzle, roll to see if your characters successfully negotiate, roll to win the combat, roll to navigate the dungeon. Let's just replace the game with parcheesi.

But it is a strawman. You don't let them roll to overcome the obstacle, they roll to lift the rock. That means they've already decided how to overcome the obstacle, now you're rolling to see if they succeed.

Do you let them roll to beat a combat too? No choice of actions, no movement on a grid, just "roll and see if you win or lose"?

Wrong, dumbass. You can succeed or fail at lifting something while still trying. You can have your character huff and puff until they turn blue, and nothing can stop you. On the other hand, you can't even attempt a plan if you fail. Because that means you're ignoring the roll and declaring a success anyway.