I recently made a character for an upcoming dnd campaign with my friends and my (eventual) sorcerer/rogue multiclass has a low wisdom score. I was thinking of maybe playing them as headstrong or cocky, but I was wondering if anyone has any better ideas for roleplaying/playing a charcter with low wisdom
A low WIS character I'm playing is simply bad at making decisions about anything which they have not thought or learned about before. This is especially true when dealing with ambiguous NPCs. "Is the Duchess inviting us to tea, or is she ordering our capture?" "Someone I don't know just stole a hat from somebody I don't like, what do I do??" "This food that appeared out of nowhere sure looks good. I'd better dig in while I can!"
I love to play low WIS like you would play a game for the first time. Since you have so little experience, you try everything and best of all, have little or no appreciation for culture. This is easily portrayed by not bowing to royalty, plainly talking ill of weathly influencers, as scatterbraind said: oblivious.
Since you have so little experience, you try everything and best of all, have little or no appreciation for culture. This is easily portrayed by not bowing to royalty, plainly talking ill of weathly influencers, as scatterbraind said: oblivious.
I would put this down to low charisma rather than low wisdom, since it relates to poor social skills.
For me, Wisdom is just being unperceptive. You don't really pay much attention to the world around you, can't read the air, miss the little details, bad at listening to people, etc
Since you have so little experience, you try everything and best of all, have little or no appreciation for culture. This is easily portrayed by not bowing to royalty, plainly talking ill of weathly influencers, as scatterbraind said: oblivious.
I would put this down to low charisma rather than low wisdom, since it relates to poor social skills.
Charisma dictates how well you speak or the extent to which you can influence people, but reading the room is Insight. Someone with terrible Insight but good Charisma skills would be making a lot of blunders, but would still manage to be likable despite them.
For me, they also have very weak will, always giving in to temptations, easy to convince in discussions, etc.
And these aspects are really fun to play as well. :)
Conviction and strength of character in DnD are usually measured by CHA, hence why Paladins and Warlocks use it as their casting attribute.
I'm not talking about personality and presence, I'm talkin about willpower, which is and has always been linked to Wisdom and not charisma. While I agree that this aspect of wisdom is not as strong in 5e as in previous editions, first it certainly has not been taken over by charisma which is about presence, confidence and eloquence, and the fact that Wisdom is still linked strongly to willpower is evidenced in the saving throws vs. most of the mental spells, and that is consistent with the past.
I actually had a friend like that, he was a good DM and a good speaker, and actually worked as a salesperson / bid manager for a defence company, very successful, no problem of charisma. However, when playing games like Diplomacy, if you spoke to him last, you had a huge advantage because it was fairly easy to bend him to your will. And his low willpower was also expressed in a very low resistance to temptation and, bless his soul, drinking sent him to an early grave, lacking the will to resist.
Yeah this is wisdom not charisma. Your force of personality will be more of a determinate how easy it is to ply you into a situation as that is totally a social encounter.
Wisdom would being able to read their intent. Charisma would be your ability to resist it. CHA is the save for things like transformation/Soul Jar which is a sense of self and will.
This edition is pretty bad about delineating the mental stats though so its mostly up the DM and players to decide.
Yeah this is wisdom not charisma. Your force of personality will be more of a determinate how easy it is to ply you into a situation as that is totally a social encounter.
Wisdom would being able to read their intent. Charisma would be your ability to resist it. CHA is the save for things like transformation/Soul Jar which is a sense of self and will.
This edition is pretty bad about delineating the mental stats though so its mostly up the DM and players to decide.
I agree about the last part, although I wonder about the intent. The thing is that it's always been difficult to impose restrictions on or ask a player to show the "internal" effect of mental stats. It's also really restrictive in terms of low stats.
This is why I think 5e focuses on the "external" part of the attributes, i.e. how it helps you perceive affect the world around you rather than dictate the way you should behave.
That way, even if you have a 8 Int you don't have to play "me smash you" all the time. And if you have a 8 Wis, you don't have to play as suggested here. It can be fun for a while, but it also can wear out quite fast.
The problem is the game does not provide enough examples for players to follow. They have examples for High and Low of each mental stat but in the middle its kind of a wash.
Like a 5 INT Hill Giant is obviously very very dumb. But for 8 INT vs 10 INT I would not know what to do....likely nothing. They might have trouble with following complex plans but if broken down could do it.
WIS is one where they would be mislead a lot....Like she would be able to be lied to easily and not see the intent behind actions well. But conviction could still be high.
CHA is really the worst of them as negative tends to play out as either awkward or worse full on anti-social. I much prefer awkward but its hard to roleplay for some.
A character with low Wisdom could be more easily distracted, less focused to reflect the fact that its less attuned to the world, less perceptive or intuitive in general. Perhaps even have attention deficit disorder. He'd be more clueless, not easily figuring people out, often misreading people's body language, prone to misinterpretations, misunderstanding other’s feelings or intentions. It could be someone clumsy, prone to misadventure by frequently not noticing things in its environment, knocking things over, falling, bumping into things or people etc
I'd say a mixture of indecisive, and reckless. Maybe in one situation, you're paralyzed with your options, and in another situation, you just dive in without a second thought.
And, mix it up... don't always have the same reaction in similar situations...
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I recently made a character for an upcoming dnd campaign with my friends and my (eventual) sorcerer/rogue multiclass has a low wisdom score. I was thinking of maybe playing them as headstrong or cocky, but I was wondering if anyone has any better ideas for roleplaying/playing a charcter with low wisdom
Oblivious. They don't notice anything. Terrible at reading people. Never learn from mistakes. It's the most fun deficiency to RP in my experience.
My homebrew subclasses (full list here)
(Artificer) Swordmage | Glasswright | (Barbarian) Path of the Savage Embrace
(Bard) College of Dance | (Fighter) Warlord | Cannoneer
(Monk) Way of the Elements | (Ranger) Blade Dancer
(Rogue) DaggerMaster | Inquisitor | (Sorcerer) Riftwalker | Spellfist
(Warlock) The Swarm
Thank you so much!
Most of my low wisdom characters seem to default to naive and gullible.
Mega Yahtzee Thread:
Highest 41: brocker2001 (#11,285).
Yahtzee of 2's: Emmber (#36,161).
Lowest 9: JoeltheWalrus (#312), Emmber (#12,505) and Dertinus (#20,953).
A low WIS character I'm playing is simply bad at making decisions about anything which they have not thought or learned about before. This is especially true when dealing with ambiguous NPCs. "Is the Duchess inviting us to tea, or is she ordering our capture?" "Someone I don't know just stole a hat from somebody I don't like, what do I do??" "This food that appeared out of nowhere sure looks good. I'd better dig in while I can!"
My low wisdom characters are usually impulsive and reckless with a poor sense of consequences for their actions and decisions.
I love to play low WIS like you would play a game for the first time. Since you have so little experience, you try everything and best of all, have little or no appreciation for culture. This is easily portrayed by not bowing to royalty, plainly talking ill of weathly influencers, as scatterbraind said: oblivious.
Keep your friends close, and enemies closer.
I would put this down to low charisma rather than low wisdom, since it relates to poor social skills.
For me, Wisdom is just being unperceptive. You don't really pay much attention to the world around you, can't read the air, miss the little details, bad at listening to people, etc
Thank you guys so much for the ideas! Im looking forward to trying them out when I play in the campaign!
Charisma dictates how well you speak or the extent to which you can influence people, but reading the room is Insight. Someone with terrible Insight but good Charisma skills would be making a lot of blunders, but would still manage to be likable despite them.
My homebrew subclasses (full list here)
(Artificer) Swordmage | Glasswright | (Barbarian) Path of the Savage Embrace
(Bard) College of Dance | (Fighter) Warlord | Cannoneer
(Monk) Way of the Elements | (Ranger) Blade Dancer
(Rogue) DaggerMaster | Inquisitor | (Sorcerer) Riftwalker | Spellfist
(Warlock) The Swarm
Conviction and strength of character in DnD are usually measured by CHA, hence why Paladins and Warlocks use it as their casting attribute.
Wisdom implies experience. Perhaps your character isn't fully fleshed out and is still relatively new in the adventuring world.
Not in DnD. We have experience tracker for that.
Yeah this is wisdom not charisma. Your force of personality will be more of a determinate how easy it is to ply you into a situation as that is totally a social encounter.
Wisdom would being able to read their intent. Charisma would be your ability to resist it. CHA is the save for things like transformation/Soul Jar which is a sense of self and will.
This edition is pretty bad about delineating the mental stats though so its mostly up the DM and players to decide.
The problem is the game does not provide enough examples for players to follow. They have examples for High and Low of each mental stat but in the middle its kind of a wash.
Like a 5 INT Hill Giant is obviously very very dumb. But for 8 INT vs 10 INT I would not know what to do....likely nothing. They might have trouble with following complex plans but if broken down could do it.
WIS is one where they would be mislead a lot....Like she would be able to be lied to easily and not see the intent behind actions well. But conviction could still be high.
CHA is really the worst of them as negative tends to play out as either awkward or worse full on anti-social. I much prefer awkward but its hard to roleplay for some.
Think "what would George Castanza do?"
I play a wizard with low wisdom. They never think of the consequences of their actions and research, think Doc in back to the future
A character with low Wisdom could be more easily distracted, less focused to reflect the fact that its less attuned to the world, less perceptive or intuitive in general. Perhaps even have attention deficit disorder. He'd be more clueless, not easily figuring people out, often misreading people's body language, prone to misinterpretations, misunderstanding other’s feelings or intentions. It could be someone clumsy, prone to misadventure by frequently not noticing things in its environment, knocking things over, falling, bumping into things or people etc
I'd say a mixture of indecisive, and reckless.
Maybe in one situation, you're paralyzed with your options, and in another situation, you just dive in without a second thought.
And, mix it up... don't always have the same reaction in similar situations...