I'd say it's fine to have some good ideas every now and then, but there's a limit where you are trying to negate a drawback to your character through roleplaying.

It's the same reason I get iffy when some guy has zero social skills but tries to roleplay himself as being more sociable and charismatic than his scores would suggest.

Consider language to be a technical skill.
Consider that int also determines how your character reasons, including higher concepts.
If low int is something like 8, those two elements can be here, or only one can be here, or none at all. So conversation could be a functionnal or even pleasant, as long as you don't go philosophical, put him outside his knowledge zone, or dump too much info on him in a short peroid of time.
If it's 2 int, howevr, I don't see any of those elements working, so yeah, retard speech (and logic).
More than grammatical errors, insist on limited vocabulary and short sentences.

>>45961733
So roleplay something no representative of their stats?

The low skill scores take care of themselves by mechanically representing low Int. If you're not going to roleplay stupid or dimwitted to show the more abstract side of the Int stat, why bother?

>>45961733
Crunch vs. fluff dichotomy at its finest.
The correct answer is do what you wish as long as your group has fun.

>>45961841
>If you're not going to roleplay stupid or dimwitted to show the more abstract side of the Int stat, why bother?

Because nerd vanity. The top three things nerds cannot stand are: their characters being ugly (totally hideous is fine, like old witches and monsters, but being in that zone of "sub-par" is an untenable state); their character being stupid (which is basically just being ugly but for nerds); and their character being made a fool of.

Even if, mechanically, their character is sub-par at all those three things, they'll strive to roleplay their way around having to present their characters as those things.

>>45961733
the latter. sometimes the mechanics screw you over if you don't arrange your stats in a certain way, in that case, i don't think there's any obligation to roleplay a stupid character just because you're playing a class that doesn't benefit from INT.

Int is book smarts. Actual intelligence is based on all three mental stats(int,wis and cha). So playing a smart character with low int is fine as long as the other stats are at least average.

>>45961733

I am fine with someone roleplaying a character as stupid if they have below average intelligence scores.

What pisses me off is when someone has a character with average scores and plays them like a retard because the score isn't as high as the rest of the party.

I DM'd a game where our fighter had an INT score of 10 and the guy playing him kept playing him like he was literally retarded. 'I can't read, boss. I don't know nothing about no goblin tracks.' Shit like that. However, he rolled incredibly well with attacks and damages, so I got with the player and lowered his INT stat by 2 and raised his STR by 2 putting his STR at 22.

When asked how that was even possible from a rules perspective, we wrote it off as retard strength.

>>45961931
>When asked how that was even possible from a rules perspective, we wrote it off as retard strength.
I nearly stabbed my eye with a straw from how hard I laughed

>>45961841
So all clerics need to be actually wise?

>>45961886
Ore than vanity, I think it's because rpgs are about overcoming opposition, and those stats are hard to grasp.
If you have low strength, you'll rely on tools or smarts. If you have low constitution, you'll rely on armor/dodge/potions/medical care. If you're ugly you'll rely on charisma, social standing, disguise or intimidation. If you have low int however... It's a stat that determines so many things IRL, and is hard to isolate.
Also, "never go full retard" syndrome. It's fun to play a brute, a savage with simple ancestral wisdow, or a slow-but-with-an-heart-of-gold character ; but an actual retard ? Someone that misinterprets everything, is useless most of the time, slows down the party, and has to be watched/oriented constantly ? Those are defective people, and would make for very bad adventurers in any case. The gm is at fault for allowing it, and the rest of the group shouldn't have to suffer this burden.

>>45962009
Yes.

Clerics live with the understanding that they're protected by their faith. This leads to a calmness and clearer head than thos e low Wis fools you're palling around with. Clerics should have the wisdom to shut up and observe when needed and haul off and smack a bitch when needed.

Low Wis clerics are those who lack faith and are thusly rewarded with less perks from their god.

>>45961733
>playing a game that features Intelligence as a stat
Disgusting. Fluff shouldn't influence crunch (and vice versa) in a generic stat/skill system.

>>45962095
If you're low INT then you're either otherwise useful, hardy, mean, or dead.

Real life can be like that too in some places.

>>45961733

Personally, I believe that low INT should mostly roleplay a serious learning issue.
A character with low INT, but high WIS, is likely uneducated and have problems to adjust to learn basic stuff while at the same time still able to be cunning and have that little bit of common sense so far what little he knows.

My parents saved up a lot of money to send me to a very, very high class private school in Northern California when I was young. Something that I noticed was that a person's grasp of language and how they speak is not at all dictated by intelligence, but rather by how they were raised.

There were some kids in my class who were literally retarded, but still talked like William F. Buckley because their parents were the sort of people who sailed with William F. Buckley on the weekends. You can have a very large vocabulary and still be a total moron. And especially so, you can have a very firm grasp on the narrow field of grammar and rhetoric, but still be incapable of actually formulating coherent ideas.

The meme that low intelligence equates immediately to caveman speech is distinctly lower class, it arose out of contact with country bumpkins who never even had the opportunity to learn big words and proper grammar, so plebs in the city, looking for someone to make fun of to relieve some of the tension of being the scum of the earth themselves, derided them for their low intelligence. Little did they know that since time immemorial, the factual relationship has been different: Malnourished, often sickly and crippled by the crushing burden of too many humans crammed into too small a place, it is urbanites who are stupid and weak, and country folks who are actually capable of independent thought, but lack instruction in civilized ways.

It's been this way since ancient Rome.

>>45961733
>Should characters with low INT always be roleplayed as being stupid,
TOTALLY
I actually consider a cheating thing to not do that

I know it's sort of counterintuitive, but yes, I'm fine with someone roleplaying a character smarter than their stats, reason being that dumb characters are easily manipulated and controlled. I've seen way too many people play these idiot characters and wind up contributing nothing of value.

>>45962095
This. They're a burden and their humorous charm lasts exactly until their stupidity fucks everyone over.