People wouldn't be insisting that all warlocks needed to be horny morons if Intelligence actually had a function in the game. Give Intelligence an actual function, and maybe people would be less fixated on the idea of forcing all warlocks to be fratboy sex offenders with the intellect of a sack of dead weasels.
And frankly? The whole "you don't need to be smart to make a deal!" thing is idiotic. If a fey, fiend, or genie wants your soul, it takes a whole helluva lot of keen wit to come out the other side with awesome magic powers. Those entities do not and never have cared about your degree of Game, outside of using rampant horniness as an easy way to get you to sign away your soul for nothing. Someone who gets the better end of a warlock pact needs to be INTELLIGENT to do so, not just friggin' horny.
People wouldn't be insisting that all warlocks needed to be horny morons if Intelligence actually had a function in the game. Give Intelligence an actual function, and maybe people would be less fixated on the idea of forcing all warlocks to be fratboy sex offenders with the intellect of a sack of dead weasels.
I think the main reason Intelligence doesn't is because it's probably the easiest one to break. The saying "knowledge is power" isn't an exaggeration.
Except no DM in the history of D&D has ever denied their players knowledge for want of an ability check. DMs trip over themselves to exposit lore - you could get all the knowledge you could ever want with an Intelligence score of literally zero in most games. It's patently absurd, I don't even know why "knowledge" skills exist in this game. And of course people are going to dump and disregard Intelligence if everybody gets the "benefits" of Intelligence for free-ninety-nine all game every game. It's beyond idiotic and it drives me nuts.
According to the PHB, the primary components of the Charisma ability score are confidence, eloquence, and leadership. Not seduction, or persuasion, even.
I've always viewed the Charisma basis for Warlocks being about force of personality and confidence bordering on arrogance, not about being spellcasting lotharios.
(Obviously, with skills like persuasion and performance being tied to Charisma, it's not out of line to rope in horniness with Warlocks. But as first and primarily defined by the book, the ability score isn't about....scoring.)
So I'm good with CHA being the warlock's primary ability. It takes some arrogance to bargain with great powers and get something in return.
And frankly? The whole "you don't need to be smart to make a deal!" thing is idiotic. If a fey, fiend, or genie wants your soul, it takes a whole helluva lot of keen wit to come out the other side with awesome magic powers. Those entities do not and never have cared about your degree of Game, outside of using rampant horniness as an easy way to get you to sign away your soul for nothing. Someone who gets the better end of a warlock pact needs to be INTELLIGENT to do so, not just friggin' horny.
They need to be able to both have a brain but also be able to cobble together a convincing argument, which is where Persuasion (or Deception, depending on how you do it) comes in, which are both Charisma-based skills as it stands. in all fairness, Charisma isn't just about being horny. It's also about navigating social interactions in general, whether it be with another mortal or with an immortal being who can kill you just by looking at you.
Except no DM in the history of D&D has ever denied their players knowledge for want of an ability check. DMs trip over themselves to exposit lore - you could get all the knowledge you could ever want with an Intelligence score of literally zero in most games. It's patently absurd, I don't even know why "knowledge" skills exist in this game. And of course people are going to dump and disregard Intelligence if everybody gets the "benefits" of Intelligence for free-ninety-nine all game every game. It's beyond idiotic and it drives me nuts.
Except DMs do gate-keep information to some degree. They won't hold back everything, but they also won't tell the players literally all the info. There's a reason divination or divination-like spells like detect magic, scrying, and speak with dead see use in pretty much every campaign they're in.
All of which is meant to excuse that your knowledge-hungry Delver Into Secrets is dumber than the Memebarian and displays absolutely no interest in, talent for, or faculty with forbidden knowledge and ancient secrets?
WHY?
These are the same people who complain about the wizard being Intelligence-focused because "you shouldn't have to be smart to wave your fingers around, say a few words, and conjure up fire! You should be able to be a Wisdom wizard because I want to be able to ignore Intelligence and put my points in a stronger stat wizards should be about experiencing magic, not knowing things!" Why does anyone listen to that kind of tripe?
According to the PHB, the primary components of the Charisma ability score are confidence, eloquence, and leadership. Not seduction, or persuasion, even.
I've always viewed the Charisma basis for Warlocks being about force of personality and confidence bordering on arrogance, not about being spellcasting lotharios.
(Obviously, with skills like persuasion and performance being tied to Charisma, it's not out of line to rope in horniness with Warlocks. But as first and primarily defined by the book, the ability score isn't about....scoring.)
So I'm good with CHA being the warlock's primary ability. It takes some arrogance to bargain with great powers and get something in return.
Well, if you make tool shaped exactly like a schlong, don't be surprised when people use it... accordingly. Striking the deal is something that happens exactly once during a warlock's carreer. But it is the search of knowledge that drives the warlock to make a bargain in the first place, and it is knowledge that the pact rewards a warlock with. Finally, even JC stated that if a warlock abandons (or is abandoned by) the patron, he doesn't lose the powers that he already has. Knowledge is warlock's power. Warlock is not a magic gold-digger, and patron is not a magic sugardaddy.
All of which is meant to excuse that your knowledge-hungry Delver Into Secrets is dumber than the Memebarian and displays absolutely no interest in, talent for, or faculty with forbidden knowledge and ancient secrets?
WHY?
These are the same people who complain about the wizard being Intelligence-focused because "you shouldn't have to be smart to wave your fingers around, say a few words, and conjure up fire! You should be able to be a Wisdom wizard because I want to be able to ignore Intelligence and put my points in a stronger stat wizards should be about experiencing magic, not knowing things!" Why does anyone listen to that kind of tripe?
I honestly have no contact/familiarity with this argument (that warlocks are "dumb" just because Intelligence isn't their primary ability score). So I, at least, am not making any of them, for or against!
(Also, I, at least, RP my warlocks as VERY interested in forbidden lore, histories, and secrets. Anything that might lead to additional power without having to spend hours memorizing more spells or poring over big spellbooks. All about the perceived shortcuts to power gained through ancient arcana.)
Also when I said knowledge is power, I wasn't just referring to lore dumps.
I was also referring to metagame knowledge. That is, a character is so intelligent that they can read off the stat block for a creature they're looking at in in-universe terms. They know exactly how many hit points a creature has left to use things like power word kill with actual reliability. They basically have the Keen Mind feat but without the actual feat. They can see patterns with such clarity that they can predict things almost to the point where they have mundane divination powers.
All of which is meant to excuse that your knowledge-hungry Delver Into Secrets is dumber than the Memebarian and displays absolutely no interest in, talent for, or faculty with forbidden knowledge and ancient secrets?
WHY?
These are the same people who complain about the wizard being Intelligence-focused because "you shouldn't have to be smart to wave your fingers around, say a few words, and conjure up fire! You should be able to be a Wisdom wizard because I want to be able to ignore Intelligence and put my points in a stronger stat wizards should be about experiencing magic, not knowing things!" Why does anyone listen to that kind of tripe?
I honestly have no contact/familiarity with this argument (that warlocks are "dumb" just because Intelligence isn't their primary ability score). So I, at least, am not making any of them, for or against!
(Also, I, at least, RP my warlocks as VERY interested in forbidden lore, histories, and secrets. Anything that might lead to additional power without having to spend hours memorizing more spells or poring over big spellbooks. All about the perceived shortcuts to power gained through ancient arcana.)
They are not required to be dumb and I generally put as many discretionary points as I can there, but the reality is you need Chr to be a warlock then you need con and dex to survive which does not leave much left for int and as is you get the joy of dumping wisdom as well so you end up with no good saves that come up often and your thinking stats are going to be bad to slightly above average whether its int or wis. Man the save system in 5e is just bad.
Also when I said knowledge is power, I wasn't just referring to lore dumps.
I was also referring to metagame knowledge. That is, a character is so intelligent that they can read off the stat block for a creature they're looking at in in-universe terms. They know exactly how many hit points a creature has left to use things like power word kill with actual reliability. They basically have the Keen Mind feat but without the actual feat. They can see patterns with such clarity that they can predict things almost to the point where they have mundane divination powers.
That sort of crazy stuff.
Its one of the flaws with int and knowledge skills etc going back to 4e as well(3e at least you got crafting and well more skill points) nothing you say is wrong, but it requires not only a good DM to do it but more DM investment the other stats just roll in value wise with no effort on the DMs part, int they have to put effort into making it shine.
Also when I said knowledge is power, I wasn't just referring to lore dumps.
I was also referring to metagame knowledge. That is, a character is so intelligent that they can read off the stat block for a creature they're looking at in in-universe terms. They know exactly how many hit points a creature has left to use things like power word kill with actual reliability. They basically have the Keen Mind feat but without the actual feat. They can see patterns with such clarity that they can predict things almost to the point where they have mundane divination powers.
That sort of crazy stuff.
None of this is true. A DM might award you such knowledge, but they do not have to and absolutely nothing in the game tells them to. It'd certainly be cool if Intelligence and/or proficiency and a high enough bonus in certain knowledge-based skills allowed you to do such things, but they do not. And most ordinary DMs will go well out of their way to ensure you never get to see any of these benefits, because giving a character that kind of knowledge is considered "metagaming", and ergo inimical to life itself.
Also when I said knowledge is power, I wasn't just referring to lore dumps.
I was also referring to metagame knowledge. That is, a character is so intelligent that they can read off the stat block for a creature they're looking at in in-universe terms. They know exactly how many hit points a creature has left to use things like power word kill with actual reliability. They basically have the Keen Mind feat but without the actual feat. They can see patterns with such clarity that they can predict things almost to the point where they have mundane divination powers.
That sort of crazy stuff.
None of this is true. A DM might award you such knowledge, but they do not have to and absolutely nothing in the game tells them to. It'd certainly be cool if Intelligence and/or proficiency and a high enough bonus in certain knowledge-based skills allowed you to do such things, but they do not. And most ordinary DMs will go well out of their way to ensure you never get to see any of these benefits, because giving a character that kind of knowledge is considered "metagaming", and ergo inimical to life itself.
I.....never said it was true. I never actually claimed it allowed anyone to do any of this. That's my point.
I said that Intelligence probably doesn't get jack as an ability score because it seems (at least to me) to be easy to break. You thought I was talking about the DM giving lore info. And I said what you quoted here to point out I was talking about more than just that, and that Intelligence (backed by the mechanics) effectively giving a PC permission to metagame the heck out of the game is one possible approach to make it more attractive.
Honestly, this feels like a purely munchkin thing. Charisma simply sees much more obvious use outside combat than intelligenсe, and people just want to seduce barmaids. I never understood why an occultist and master of forbidden knowledge would be about charm and not about knowledge.
Seducing barmaids is a munchkin thing?
3e warlocks weren't occultists - they were born with magic, much as dragon sorcerers are. 4e were certainly occultists and seekers of forbidden knowledge. But 5e? We have a third twist - its all Demonic Tutors (or vampiric, or hag, or whatever).
I mean, I'm down with making the occult theme more prominant in Warlock, but there's so many other ways of your Patron and teacher having a relationship with you. Maybe you get more powerful because you bargained for more power with a devil contract. Or people like the feeling of being the swave devil or trickster fey instead of memorizing books. How much occult studying do you need if you have a sapient weapon tutoring you?
The 3e binder was a seeker of occult lore, and they had CHA as a main stat too. How they went about it was kinda interesting - the binder went out to find names and symbols of beings they wanted to call down to make pacts with to get magic powers. I can kind of see warlocks doing the same thing - no one said you have to stay with the same Patron, after all.
Either way, its all meaningless. There's been overwhelming support for CHA warlocks over two editions. Its clear that's what the player base in general wants, so its not like it'll change, and I'd rather work on making what we have work better
And I dunno, something about constantly wielding a thing made of magic feels like Warcraft-ish high fantasy. For a hexblade, it just feels right to take a mundane weapon and infuse it with secret power, it's a part of being a warlock to pretend to be someone more inconspicuous.
Nothing wrong with Warcraft-ish. Honestly, I feel like that's the reason we end up with martials stuck with mundane abilities. Its too anime. Its too Warcraft-ish. Its too superheroish. Those aren't dirty words.
But well, to each their own. I'm just here to make suggestions and my put my thoughts on improving the game out, not be fun police. If you enjoy the current, then more power to you.
Oh don't even get me started. When you hear "warlock", first thing you think about is dark magic, curses, summoning fiends and other horrors, profane rituals... But to get any cursing spell (like bane, bestow curse, or polymorph), you have to take an invocation, and even then you can cast it only once per day, and it still costs you a precious spell slot. A wizard is a better warlock than warlock!
People wouldn't be insisting that all warlocks needed to be horny morons if Intelligence actually had a function in the game. Give Intelligence an actual function, and maybe people would be less fixated on the idea of forcing all warlocks to be fratboy sex offenders with the intellect of a sack of dead weasels.
Putting aside your unnecessary vitrol (seriously, like, why so super angry?), Intelligence has an actual function.
In my personal experience, however, its mostly traps / puzzles. You spot something in the dungeon, you go all "Ooooh! Magic runes! What do?!" and roll Religion, Investigation, or Arcane (or maybe even Nature if its a Primal spell) to figure out what it does and how to get around it. Well, Investigate is supposed to be for mundane traps, but same idea. Investigate sees through disguises and illusions too, but that's subject to change.
I also use History as the etiquette skill that other games use. Insight is the wisdom-social roll, History is the intelligence-social roll. That's how I personally roll.
Anyways, my point is that INT is mainly a dungeon delving stat. Or B&E stat, if you're a thief trying to ransack that noble's home.
Mostly? I'm super angry because there's currently sixty-nine classes/subclasses that use Charisma as their driving stat, and there's exactly two classes and two subclasses, each of the latter basically being an "initiate" version of the wizard, that give one single soggy ferret fart about Intelligence. Three quarters of the game has an overriding mechanical need for the Schtupping Barmaids stat, absolutely nothing has a need for the Actual Functional Brain stat, and DMs across the nation go out of their way to reinforce this literally idiotic state of affairs. People saying "but why should my warlock need to know stuff?!" drives me nuts. It was said earlier - a warlock makes a bargain for fel power once. One time. At one single point in their existence does the warlock Strike A Bargain. After that? It's exploring their new abilities and adhering to the bargain made. I just get so massively annoyed with the 5e Playerbase's complete rejection of the idea that being ablel to think, reason, and make effective use of information is an actively undesirable skillset to have in this game.
Wizard is by far and large the most popular of the caster classes, no? Even more popular than any half-caster? Every cleric and most paladins I've ever seen has also snagged the Religion skill with a decent INT stat. Same with Rangers/Druids and Nature. Focusing on caster stats really isn't an indication of anyone ignoring the ability to memorize information or solve puzzles.
I've never once, in my four years of playing D&D, had a cleric at the table that was proficient in Religion. Most paladins don't even think of the skill. Rangers are almost never proficient in Nature; Survival yes, Nature no. I'm the only person in my circle who's ever played a ranger that was proficient with Nature.
I've seen real arguments from people that neither the wizard nor the artificer should be intelligence-based - "learning is all about experimenting and figuring things out, right? That's experience, and experience is Wisdom! Why can't I make an arcane caster that relies on Wisdom?!" It's beyond obnoxious, and there's no call for it. If Wizards wants to start introducing dual-stat classes the way Mercer allowed blood hunter players to choose between Wisdom and Intelligence? Then maybe. But if that's the case then I bloody well expect them to do it for warlocks too, and we'll see how many people continue to be horny morons when the option of actually being an intelligent, capable character who knows what they're doing comes into play.
Huh. Weird how experiences differ like that. From my perspective, INT skills seem to be in higher demand than CHA skills, of which the party generally only goes with one. Two if there's a rogue that really likes Deception.
Maybe make a suggestion to give players the option to choose their casting stat in the future for warlock and sorcerer when that playtest comes out? I'm down with more options like that. Though, to be fair, i seriously bet most will stick with CHA. Like I said before, two editions of requesting CHA over INT tells me the demand is high.
As for Wisdom... urgh. Don't get me stared on the crap that is Wisdom. That's a huge pet peeve of mine. No one ever agrees on what it does, and acts like it does everything. Bleh.
Also I think I should note that of all the Warlocks I've seen in play and have played, most of them did not play someone who is horny. But being able to be halfway decent at the social skills has come up, because those are still useful overall.
Anecdotes and differing experiences are a hell of a thing when assessing these issues.
People wouldn't be insisting that all warlocks needed to be horny morons if Intelligence actually had a function in the game. Give Intelligence an actual function, and maybe people would be less fixated on the idea of forcing all warlocks to be fratboy sex offenders with the intellect of a sack of dead weasels.
And frankly? The whole "you don't need to be smart to make a deal!" thing is idiotic. If a fey, fiend, or genie wants your soul, it takes a whole helluva lot of keen wit to come out the other side with awesome magic powers. Those entities do not and never have cared about your degree of Game, outside of using rampant horniness as an easy way to get you to sign away your soul for nothing. Someone who gets the better end of a warlock pact needs to be INTELLIGENT to do so, not just friggin' horny.
Please do not contact or message me.
I think the main reason Intelligence doesn't is because it's probably the easiest one to break. The saying "knowledge is power" isn't an exaggeration.
Except no DM in the history of D&D has ever denied their players knowledge for want of an ability check. DMs trip over themselves to exposit lore - you could get all the knowledge you could ever want with an Intelligence score of literally zero in most games. It's patently absurd, I don't even know why "knowledge" skills exist in this game. And of course people are going to dump and disregard Intelligence if everybody gets the "benefits" of Intelligence for free-ninety-nine all game every game. It's beyond idiotic and it drives me nuts.
Please do not contact or message me.
According to the PHB, the primary components of the Charisma ability score are confidence, eloquence, and leadership. Not seduction, or persuasion, even.
I've always viewed the Charisma basis for Warlocks being about force of personality and confidence bordering on arrogance, not about being spellcasting lotharios.
(Obviously, with skills like persuasion and performance being tied to Charisma, it's not out of line to rope in horniness with Warlocks. But as first and primarily defined by the book, the ability score isn't about....scoring.)
So I'm good with CHA being the warlock's primary ability. It takes some arrogance to bargain with great powers and get something in return.
They need to be able to both have a brain but also be able to cobble together a convincing argument, which is where Persuasion (or Deception, depending on how you do it) comes in, which are both Charisma-based skills as it stands. in all fairness, Charisma isn't just about being horny. It's also about navigating social interactions in general, whether it be with another mortal or with an immortal being who can kill you just by looking at you.
Except DMs do gate-keep information to some degree. They won't hold back everything, but they also won't tell the players literally all the info. There's a reason divination or divination-like spells like detect magic, scrying, and speak with dead see use in pretty much every campaign they're in.
All of which is meant to excuse that your knowledge-hungry Delver Into Secrets is dumber than the Memebarian and displays absolutely no interest in, talent for, or faculty with forbidden knowledge and ancient secrets?
WHY?
These are the same people who complain about the wizard being Intelligence-focused because "you shouldn't have to be smart to wave your fingers around, say a few words, and conjure up fire! You should be able to be a Wisdom wizard because
I want to be able to ignore Intelligence and put my points in a stronger statwizards should be about experiencing magic, not knowing things!" Why does anyone listen to that kind of tripe?Please do not contact or message me.
Well, if you make tool shaped exactly like a schlong, don't be surprised when people use it... accordingly. Striking the deal is something that happens exactly once during a warlock's carreer. But it is the search of knowledge that drives the warlock to make a bargain in the first place, and it is knowledge that the pact rewards a warlock with. Finally, even JC stated that if a warlock abandons (or is abandoned by) the patron, he doesn't lose the powers that he already has. Knowledge is warlock's power. Warlock is not a magic gold-digger, and patron is not a magic sugardaddy.
I honestly have no contact/familiarity with this argument (that warlocks are "dumb" just because Intelligence isn't their primary ability score). So I, at least, am not making any of them, for or against!
(Also, I, at least, RP my warlocks as VERY interested in forbidden lore, histories, and secrets. Anything that might lead to additional power without having to spend hours memorizing more spells or poring over big spellbooks. All about the perceived shortcuts to power gained through ancient arcana.)
Also when I said knowledge is power, I wasn't just referring to lore dumps.
I was also referring to metagame knowledge. That is, a character is so intelligent that they can read off the stat block for a creature they're looking at in in-universe terms. They know exactly how many hit points a creature has left to use things like power word kill with actual reliability. They basically have the Keen Mind feat but without the actual feat. They can see patterns with such clarity that they can predict things almost to the point where they have mundane divination powers.
That sort of crazy stuff.
They are not required to be dumb and I generally put as many discretionary points as I can there, but the reality is you need Chr to be a warlock then you need con and dex to survive which does not leave much left for int and as is you get the joy of dumping wisdom as well so you end up with no good saves that come up often and your thinking stats are going to be bad to slightly above average whether its int or wis. Man the save system in 5e is just bad.
Its one of the flaws with int and knowledge skills etc going back to 4e as well(3e at least you got crafting and well more skill points) nothing you say is wrong, but it requires not only a good DM to do it but more DM investment the other stats just roll in value wise with no effort on the DMs part, int they have to put effort into making it shine.
None of this is true. A DM might award you such knowledge, but they do not have to and absolutely nothing in the game tells them to. It'd certainly be cool if Intelligence and/or proficiency and a high enough bonus in certain knowledge-based skills allowed you to do such things, but they do not. And most ordinary DMs will go well out of their way to ensure you never get to see any of these benefits, because giving a character that kind of knowledge is considered "metagaming", and ergo inimical to life itself.
Please do not contact or message me.
I.....never said it was true. I never actually claimed it allowed anyone to do any of this. That's my point.
I said that Intelligence probably doesn't get jack as an ability score because it seems (at least to me) to be easy to break. You thought I was talking about the DM giving lore info. And I said what you quoted here to point out I was talking about more than just that, and that Intelligence (backed by the mechanics) effectively giving a PC permission to metagame the heck out of the game is one possible approach to make it more attractive.
Cue meme: "Am I out of touch? No, it is the
childrenCHA fans who are wrong!"Seducing barmaids is a munchkin thing?
3e warlocks weren't occultists - they were born with magic, much as dragon sorcerers are. 4e were certainly occultists and seekers of forbidden knowledge. But 5e? We have a third twist - its all Demonic Tutors (or vampiric, or hag, or whatever).
I mean, I'm down with making the occult theme more prominant in Warlock, but there's so many other ways of your Patron and teacher having a relationship with you. Maybe you get more powerful because you bargained for more power with a devil contract. Or people like the feeling of being the swave devil or trickster fey instead of memorizing books. How much occult studying do you need if you have a sapient weapon tutoring you?
The 3e binder was a seeker of occult lore, and they had CHA as a main stat too. How they went about it was kinda interesting - the binder went out to find names and symbols of beings they wanted to call down to make pacts with to get magic powers. I can kind of see warlocks doing the same thing - no one said you have to stay with the same Patron, after all.
Either way, its all meaningless. There's been overwhelming support for CHA warlocks over two editions. Its clear that's what the player base in general wants, so its not like it'll change, and I'd rather work on making what we have work better
Nothing wrong with Warcraft-ish. Honestly, I feel like that's the reason we end up with martials stuck with mundane abilities. Its too anime. Its too Warcraft-ish. Its too superheroish. Those aren't dirty words.
But well, to each their own. I'm just here to make suggestions and my put my thoughts on improving the game out, not be fun police. If you enjoy the current, then more power to you.
Glad you like them!!
Clerics also make better necromancers than wizard necromancers too. Don't mess with clerics!
Putting aside your unnecessary vitrol (seriously, like, why so super angry?), Intelligence has an actual function.
In my personal experience, however, its mostly traps / puzzles. You spot something in the dungeon, you go all "Ooooh! Magic runes! What do?!" and roll Religion, Investigation, or Arcane (or maybe even Nature if its a Primal spell) to figure out what it does and how to get around it. Well, Investigate is supposed to be for mundane traps, but same idea. Investigate sees through disguises and illusions too, but that's subject to change.
I also use History as the etiquette skill that other games use. Insight is the wisdom-social roll, History is the intelligence-social roll. That's how I personally roll.
Anyways, my point is that INT is mainly a dungeon delving stat. Or B&E stat, if you're a thief trying to ransack that noble's home.
Mostly? I'm super angry because there's currently sixty-nine classes/subclasses that use Charisma as their driving stat, and there's exactly two classes and two subclasses, each of the latter basically being an "initiate" version of the wizard, that give one single soggy ferret fart about Intelligence. Three quarters of the game has an overriding mechanical need for the Schtupping Barmaids stat, absolutely nothing has a need for the Actual Functional Brain stat, and DMs across the nation go out of their way to reinforce this literally idiotic state of affairs. People saying "but why should my warlock need to know stuff?!" drives me nuts. It was said earlier - a warlock makes a bargain for fel power once. One time. At one single point in their existence does the warlock Strike A Bargain. After that? It's exploring their new abilities and adhering to the bargain made. I just get so massively annoyed with the 5e Playerbase's complete rejection of the idea that being ablel to think, reason, and make effective use of information is an actively undesirable skillset to have in this game.
UGH.
Please do not contact or message me.
Wizard is by far and large the most popular of the caster classes, no? Even more popular than any half-caster? Every cleric and most paladins I've ever seen has also snagged the Religion skill with a decent INT stat. Same with Rangers/Druids and Nature. Focusing on caster stats really isn't an indication of anyone ignoring the ability to memorize information or solve puzzles.
I've never once, in my four years of playing D&D, had a cleric at the table that was proficient in Religion. Most paladins don't even think of the skill. Rangers are almost never proficient in Nature; Survival yes, Nature no. I'm the only person in my circle who's ever played a ranger that was proficient with Nature.
I've seen real arguments from people that neither the wizard nor the artificer should be intelligence-based - "learning is all about experimenting and figuring things out, right? That's experience, and experience is Wisdom! Why can't I make an arcane caster that relies on Wisdom?!" It's beyond obnoxious, and there's no call for it. If Wizards wants to start introducing dual-stat classes the way Mercer allowed blood hunter players to choose between Wisdom and Intelligence? Then maybe. But if that's the case then I bloody well expect them to do it for warlocks too, and we'll see how many people continue to be horny morons when the option of actually being an intelligent, capable character who knows what they're doing comes into play.
Please do not contact or message me.
Huh. Weird how experiences differ like that. From my perspective, INT skills seem to be in higher demand than CHA skills, of which the party generally only goes with one. Two if there's a rogue that really likes Deception.
Maybe make a suggestion to give players the option to choose their casting stat in the future for warlock and sorcerer when that playtest comes out? I'm down with more options like that. Though, to be fair, i seriously bet most will stick with CHA. Like I said before, two editions of requesting CHA over INT tells me the demand is high.
As for Wisdom... urgh. Don't get me stared on the crap that is Wisdom. That's a huge pet peeve of mine. No one ever agrees on what it does, and acts like it does everything. Bleh.
Also I think I should note that of all the Warlocks I've seen in play and have played, most of them did not play someone who is horny. But being able to be halfway decent at the social skills has come up, because those are still useful overall.
Anecdotes and differing experiences are a hell of a thing when assessing these issues.