Theres a player in our campaign who’s background includes him learning a blacksmithing trade as a traveling merchant. However he has a low intelligence and wisdom score (like below 8 in both, not sure the actual number). How effectively would he be able to do these things given his stats. I want to say he can’t or at least he’s bad at it because he really only focused on optimizing his character for combat and took advantage of our homebrew point buy system and now I feel like he’s not really feeling the effect of that.
Thanks for any help. I apologize for any formatting errors.
The crafting rules don't involve Intelligence or Wisdom scores in any way as written, so the character should be just as effective as any other character.
If you don't like the way a player has built their character to the point that you view it as a problem, or unfair in some way, the answer is not to try and punish or hinder them even more than their choices already will, but to say "Hey, I'm not cool with that, so let's change it to something I am cool with". Or, to phrase that differently, the problem is not that your player decided to take advantage of the home-brew point buy system - it's that your home-brew point buy system is capable of being used to make characters you don't find acceptable.
It doesn't take much mental work to forge crude weapons and armor. It's also possible that he is at least passable at making things, but that he is too dumb to sell them very well (low Wisdom score) and isn't very good at innovation or development (low Intelligence score). Like, he can crank out a rough shield or a decently sharp sword or dagger because those are pretty straightforward pieces of metal. Intricate designs or pretty decorations on them are probably out of the question. I would say that he might be able to fix stuff, but he would be at a disadvantage to make his own stuff and sell it during any downtime.
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"The mongoose blew out its candle and was asleep in bed before the room went dark." —Llanowar fable
I just personally didn’t like how it doesn’t take your mental abilities into account at all for crafting. You make a good point, however, one of the characters in my party made a purposefully dumb half orc who only speaks orcish no matter how much people have tried to teach him common. This has proved really fun for the party and has been a great role playing feature, but the other guy really only did it to be better in combat and doesn’t really play to it at all which has taken away the experience from the group because, for example, he was strategizing during one of the combat parts of our last session and it just didn’t feel like someone with a 6 intelligence and wisdom would do( I could be wrong let me know if I am). So it’s not so much the fact that he is min/maxing his character, it’s more how he’s playing his character that is min/maxed.
Thank you, I like how you take into account the skill it takes to craft simple items versus more complex, “fancy” ones I’ll have to use this next time we get together.
... it’s more how he’s playing his character that is min/maxed.
Which, as I already said, is not a thing that is going to be solved by inflicting new mechanics upon the character, only by talking with the player about their particular play style - the way they use the rules everyone else also use - not being a match to your expectations of how the game is going to be played.
Theres a player in our campaign who’s background includes him learning a blacksmithing trade as a traveling merchant. However he has a low intelligence and wisdom score (like below 8 in both, not sure the actual number). How effectively would he be able to do these things given his stats. I want to say he can’t or at least he’s bad at it because he really only focused on optimizing his character for combat and took advantage of our homebrew point buy system and now I feel like he’s not really feeling the effect of that.
Thanks for any help. I apologize for any formatting errors.
The crafting rules don't involve Intelligence or Wisdom scores in any way as written, so the character should be just as effective as any other character.
If you don't like the way a player has built their character to the point that you view it as a problem, or unfair in some way, the answer is not to try and punish or hinder them even more than their choices already will, but to say "Hey, I'm not cool with that, so let's change it to something I am cool with". Or, to phrase that differently, the problem is not that your player decided to take advantage of the home-brew point buy system - it's that your home-brew point buy system is capable of being used to make characters you don't find acceptable.
It doesn't take much mental work to forge crude weapons and armor. It's also possible that he is at least passable at making things, but that he is too dumb to sell them very well (low Wisdom score) and isn't very good at innovation or development (low Intelligence score). Like, he can crank out a rough shield or a decently sharp sword or dagger because those are pretty straightforward pieces of metal. Intricate designs or pretty decorations on them are probably out of the question. I would say that he might be able to fix stuff, but he would be at a disadvantage to make his own stuff and sell it during any downtime.
I just personally didn’t like how it doesn’t take your mental abilities into account at all for crafting. You make a good point, however, one of the characters in my party made a purposefully dumb half orc who only speaks orcish no matter how much people have tried to teach him common. This has proved really fun for the party and has been a great role playing feature, but the other guy really only did it to be better in combat and doesn’t really play to it at all which has taken away the experience from the group because, for example, he was strategizing during one of the combat parts of our last session and it just didn’t feel like someone with a 6 intelligence and wisdom would do( I could be wrong let me know if I am). So it’s not so much the fact that he is min/maxing his character, it’s more how he’s playing his character that is min/maxed.
Thank you, I like how you take into account the skill it takes to craft simple items versus more complex, “fancy” ones I’ll have to use this next time we get together.
Thank you, this makes a lot of sense illhave to bring it up with him next session. I appreciate the help.