Someone else thinks that INT (intelligence) got really nerfed over time?

[Shandor]

Greetings.

Im playing AD&D or D&D and other RPGs since i was a Kid. (and still had Girlfriends :)
In most of the RPGs, INT is an very imporant Ability. Not only for Mages to Cast Spells. For Riddles, Talking to others, Handle Merchants aso.
I think you get what i want to say.

But here in BG3 INT is the most unimportant Ability you can have. If you are not Gale.
Most classes need at least a bit STR, Dex is also important for Ranged Combat and Shadow Work, +Acrobatics aso, KON is something every class wants but it always comes to short.
WIS is important for all the Holy and Nature stuff, but also for Monks and Paladins.
CHA is (hell knows why) the most important Ability for Casting non Religious Spells.Because Bards and Wizards & Warloks need it and most other Clases got some CHA related skills, like Paladin aso.

Well its nopt like the world Ends now because of that Topic. Im just wondering how, when and why it happend that you enter a Fantasy World and everyone you meet is...well is not very smart because only 1% of all "Intelligent beeings" still need intelligence anymore. The Mages.

Im not drunk and i think that Topic is kinda funny.
But lets be serious for a moment. Did yoi Notice it? Sure we dont need to care because its just a Fantasy world in a Game. But i think its a bit strange that they could not find more meaningful ways to use the intelligence Ability in the Game.

If they remove Gale, no one would miss it. If you want to play a Mage take a Wizard and be Charming! ^^

[Metallicus]

There is an old joke where a genie offers a guy, great wealth, intelligence or power. The man chooses the intelligence and once he receives it he says 'I should have chosen the money'.

[Shandor]

Originally posted by Metallicus:

There is an old joke where a genie offers a guy, great wealth, intelligence or power. The man chooses the intelligence and once he receives it he says 'I should have chosen the money'.

Im sure that Genie is an endboss in BG3 lol

[Nauct]

My first playthough I didn't use a Wizard, no INT class. They're best used as CC bots, INT just for accuracy using their CC.

I had a Warlock/Sorcerer, great consistent damage and big CC, also Pact of the Blade so if someone was in melee they could handle themselves. A fighter, big consistent damage and target specific CC, a Cleric, support abilities to raise accuracy/AC/etc. and a Theif/Ranger that takes out key targets and stays safe.

If the game was a lot harder a wizard might have been useful, but even then, why not just another sorcerer, or better yet a 1 level dip in Wizard and you can learn any spell anyways

[Nauct]

Originally posted by Metallicus:

There is an old joke where a genie offers a guy, great wealth, intelligence or power. The man chooses the intelligence and once he receives it he says 'I should have chosen the money'.

I laughed at this haha

[Shandor]

Originally posted by Nauct:

My first playthough I didn't use a Wizard, no INT class. They're best used as CC bots, INT just for accuracy using their CC.

I had a Warlock/Sorcerer, great consistent damage and big CC, also Pact of the Blade so if someone was in melee they could handle themselves. A fighter, big consistent damage and target specific CC, a Cleric, support abilities to raise accuracy/AC/etc. and a Theif/Ranger that takes out key targets and stays safe.

If the game was a lot harder a wizard might have been useful, but even then, why not just another sorcerer, or better yet a 1 level dip in Wizard and you can learn any spell anyways

You know i just got the Amulette from those Ogres in the Village in the first Part of the Game. That one that gives you always 18IINT. In EA when i first found it i thought "wow what an OP item" You could make a Mage with all points in KON and just take the Amulett.

Now when i got it .. i had just no use for it.. no character who has any use for it.

[Nauct]

Originally posted by Shandor:

Originally posted by Nauct:

My first playthough I didn't use a Wizard, no INT class. They're best used as CC bots, INT just for accuracy using their CC.

I had a Warlock/Sorcerer, great consistent damage and big CC, also Pact of the Blade so if someone was in melee they could handle themselves. A fighter, big consistent damage and target specific CC, a Cleric, support abilities to raise accuracy/AC/etc. and a Theif/Ranger that takes out key targets and stays safe.

If the game was a lot harder a wizard might have been useful, but even then, why not just another sorcerer, or better yet a 1 level dip in Wizard and you can learn any spell anyways

You know i just got the Amulette from those Ogres in the Village in the first Part of the Game. That one that gives you always 18IINT. In EA when i first found it i thought "wow what an OP item" You could make a Mage with all points in KON and just take the Amulett.

Now when i got it .. i had just no use for it.. no character who has any use for it.

Lol any other stat woulda been OP!

It's good for some checks, ESPECIALLY if you don't have an INT character

[jonnin]

you are correct.
why int is bad:
- the skills related to it are not major. The only one with tangible benefits is nature, which lets you collect exactly 1 alchemy ingredient easier. This is not a 5e problem, its a BG3 problem... arcana is used just a little bit and is useful where they put it in, but the others provide next to zero other than flavor text. To be fair, str is also almost unused and mostly flavor.
- there are no feats with +1 int and something useful. Even learning to play music with cha beats ... nothing at all.
- there are no multiclass synergies with int; at best you can be a wizard/EK fighter or something that is likely to less than stellar.
- there are not a lot of int based saving throws.

You can do exactly 1 thing with a really smart character. It can be a wizard. That is it, done.

[Shandor]

Originally posted by Shandor:

Originally posted by jonnin:

you are correct.
why int is bad:
- the skills related to it are not major. The only one with tangible benefits is nature, which lets you collect exactly 1 alchemy ingredient easier. This is not a 5e problem, its a BG3 problem... arcana is used just a little bit and is useful where they put it in, but the others provide next to zero other than flavor text. To be fair, str is also almost unused and mostly flavor.
- there are no feats with +1 int and something useful. Even learning to play music with cha beats ... nothing at all.
- there are no multiclass synergies with int; at best you can be a wizard/EK fighter or something that is likely to less than stellar.
- there are not a lot of int based saving throws.

You can do exactly 1 thing with a really smart character. It can be a wizard. That is it, done.

Right now i play a game and got 3 STR related Charakters. Karlach as Barb/Beastranger using Heavy weapons, Lae'zel Plate tank Warrior and my Monk (STR Monks are no joke. He just soloed the Goblin Castle Throne room, because i forgot the rest of my party in the camp. ^^
And zero Int Chars.

But i agree with the rest of your post. It looks like they forgot INT in BG3 sonehow

[Mike Garrison]

It's very tough separate INT from the player's intelligence. Puzzles, etc., are really for the player, not the character. So mainly INT is only used for improving wizard spell DC (and how many spells they can prepare). Everything else (investigation checks, religion checks, history checks, etc.) can be worked around.

[Psychotic_Frog]

Originally posted by Shandor:

You know i just got the Amulette from those Ogres in the Village in the first Part of the Game. That one that gives you always 18IINT. In EA when i first found it i thought "wow what an OP item" You could make a Mage with all points in KON and just take the Amulett.

Now when i got it .. i had just no use for it.. no character who has any use for it.

It's 17, which is +3, so too low for a mage to be useful.

And the game has far too few impactful Int checks, and although we're fighting Intellect Devourers and Mind Flayers, the way the game uses them the Int ST are really not that important. Can be a dump stat for the party for sure.

[jonnin]

Originally posted by Psychotic_Frog:

Originally posted by Shandor:

You know i just got the Amulette from those Ogres in the Village in the first Part of the Game. That one that gives you always 18IINT. In EA when i first found it i thought "wow what an OP item" You could make a Mage with all points in KON and just take the Amulett.

Now when i got it .. i had just no use for it.. no character who has any use for it.

It's 17, which is +3, so too low for a mage to be useful.

And the game has far too few impactful Int checks, and although we're fighting Intellect Devourers and Mind Flayers, the way the game uses them the Int ST are really not that important. Can be a dump stat for the party for sure.

the int headband is for an arcane rogue or fighter subclass so they can roll that 8 int up to 17 and have a small chance of making an emergency grease or something work out, or the occasional scroll use to go a little better. Or early game shadowheart can use her badly chose fire cantrip racial instead of the always fail one. Etc. Its not meant to roll an 8 int mage but you could do that for support -- if your mage is casting haste and darkness and such to enable your team and only attacking with aoe bombs, its not so bad. The AI makes its saves against aoe whether your int is 30 or 8, so a 17 int supporter ... is weird but viable. Other than cantrips there are not any (?) items I know of that let you add int bonus to damage or anything, it just ups the save DC which is moot against AI.

[Roaming Zombie]

Originally posted by Metallicus:

There is an old joke where a genie offers a guy, great wealth, intelligence or power. The man chooses the intelligence and once he receives it he says 'I should have chosen the money'.

Honestly, a dumb joke and just wrong.

Being dumb and rich means you will lose the money and the power.

But if you are intelligent you have the means to become rich and powerful. So that is the only correct answer.

[Psychotic_Frog]

Originally posted by jonnin:

Originally posted by Psychotic_Frog:

It's 17, which is +3, so too low for a mage to be useful.

And the game has far too few impactful Int checks, and although we're fighting Intellect Devourers and Mind Flayers, the way the game uses them the Int ST are really not that important. Can be a dump stat for the party for sure.

the int headband is for an arcane rogue or fighter subclass so they can roll that 8 int up to 17 and have a small chance of making an emergency grease or something work out, or the occasional scroll use to go a little better. Or early game shadowheart can use her badly chose fire cantrip racial instead of the always fail one. Etc. Its not meant to roll an 8 int mage but you could do that for support -- if your mage is casting haste and darkness and such to enable your team and only attacking with aoe bombs, its not so bad. The AI makes its saves against aoe whether your int is 30 or 8, so a 17 int supporter ... is weird but viable. Other than cantrips there are not any (?) items I know of that let you add int bonus to damage or anything, it just ups the save DC which is moot against AI.

INT to spell damage is a class feature AFAIK, like evocation's level 10.

INT also determines how many spells you can prepare per day (in addition to your spellcaster level).

[TheNightIsGrimDark&FullOfTyranid]

Originally posted by jonnin:

Originally posted by Psychotic_Frog:

It's 17, which is +3, so too low for a mage to be useful.

And the game has far too few impactful Int checks, and although we're fighting Intellect Devourers and Mind Flayers, the way the game uses them the Int ST are really not that important. Can be a dump stat for the party for sure.

the int headband is for an arcane rogue or fighter subclass so they can roll that 8 int up to 17 and have a small chance of making an emergency grease or something work out, or the occasional scroll use to go a little better. Or early game shadowheart can use her badly chose fire cantrip racial instead of the always fail one. Etc. Its not meant to roll an 8 int mage but you could do that for support -- if your mage is casting haste and darkness and such to enable your team and only attacking with aoe bombs, its not so bad. The AI makes its saves against aoe whether your int is 30 or 8, so a 17 int supporter ... is weird but viable. Other than cantrips there are not any (?) items I know of that let you add int bonus to damage or anything, it just ups the save DC which is moot against AI.

Wyll's rapier quest item from mizora in ACT 2 lets you use int for attack/damage for characters which last added Fighter/Rogue/Wizard. But that is basically never useful as either you give up DEX (the best stat in the game just above CHA) or STR (easily made higher than the INT max through elixirs.

[belgix]

So the OP tell me I was all wrong wearing the headband of intellect all the game on my monk. There is 2 aspects we need to consider, one is offensive the other is defensive. Obviously all understand well the offensive aspect for some classes. The defensive aspect can benefit all classes; easier INT check. Getting 17 saved my ass countless number of times because I got -1 penalty check for my natural low INT but +4 because of the headband.

High INT could be useful to avoid Retributive Brainquake punishment (10d6 PSY damage) on the very last battle. It's either you have high psychic resistance or high INT pass the DC.