09-09-2018, 04:03 AM | #1 |
Join Date: Apr 2018
Location: Trondheim, Norway
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Empathy with low IQ
When using Empathy, the GM rolls against your IQ (with -3 if you're only Sensitive) and tells you what "feeling" you have regarding someone. If the roll fails, he will lie.
Presumably, you bought the advantage because you want to act in some way based on the knowledge gained. If you have IQ 10 (13 with Sensitive) you will have a 50% chance of "getting it right", so when you choose a course of action, your choice wouldn't be any better than that of someone without Empathy who just flips a coin. Example: The party is granted an audience with the king to receive praises for a job well done in service to the kingdom. During the quest, the players learned that someone in the court is secretly working with a foreign enemy. When the party arrives at the audience, the GM tells the player with Empathy that the queen is an impostor. Based on this information, the players may feel obliged to either spy on the queen or tell on her to the king. Spying on the queen may be dangerous and/or treasonous; simply telling on her could be dangerous as well - what if it was the king who was the impostor, and if not, accusing the queen may well put the players in jail! I'm inclined to think that the players in the example would be better off NOT gaining the information, and that the player shouldn't have bought Empathy in the first place. What do you guys think? And what if the Empath's effective IQ was below 10? At what effective IQ level would you consider the trait to be reliable? Now that I've written it up, I see that the example may not have been the best one. Any math geeks out there (no offense intended, I am one myself) may assume that there only was one Empathy roll for the entire audience, and that the result would be "the king is an impostor" or "the queen is an impostor". In any case, try to see beyond the bad example.
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09-09-2018, 04:18 AM | #2 |
Join Date: Mar 2014
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Re: Empathy with low IQ
Unless some other dissadvantage makes the situation worse, that shouldn't be the case. The character doesn't have to belive that their Empathy is reliable. The character and the player can just take it for what it is, a piece of information which has a high probability of being a lie. It might not be worth much, but it should be better than nothing.
For the example of the queen, that might mean ignoring the information, or perhap it being true is dangerous enough to motivate spying on her just in case. |
09-09-2018, 04:43 AM | #3 | |
Banned
Join Date: Aug 2004
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Re: Empathy with low IQ
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09-09-2018, 04:49 AM | #4 |
Join Date: Aug 2004
Location: U.K.
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Re: Empathy with low IQ
Frankly, the Empathy mechanics badly need fixing. As written, it would be a plausible tactic for a low-IQ character to take Sensitive and then act on the opposite of what it tells them.
Just having failed rolls mean "You're not sure, you don't get a read here", with only critical failures mean actively bad results, would be much better.
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09-09-2018, 07:49 AM | #5 |
Join Date: Feb 2016
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Re: Empathy with low IQ
Based on Per, +20% is also a valid build for a high Per/low IQ character (for example, most animals). A stereotypical savage might have IQ 6 [-80], Per 14 [40], and Will 14 [40], so such a character would likely have advantages like Empathy and Danger Sense with Based of Per, +20%. A mentally challenged character though, with low Per and low Will as well as low IQ, would be better off with Reliable +10, +50%, which would make them a classic idiot savant.
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09-09-2018, 08:48 AM | #6 | |
Join Date: Aug 2004
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Re: Empathy with low IQ
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Last edited by Not another shrubbery; 09-09-2018 at 11:17 AM. Reason: spelling |
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09-09-2018, 10:20 AM | #7 | |
Join Date: Jul 2015
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Re: Empathy with low IQ
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09-09-2018, 10:33 AM | #8 | |
Join Date: Mar 2014
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Re: Empathy with low IQ
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Someone noticing a pattern about their feeling telling them the opposite of what is actually true is not implausible. |
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09-09-2018, 10:40 AM | #9 |
Join Date: Dec 2007
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Re: Empathy with low IQ
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09-09-2018, 02:09 PM | #10 |
Join Date: Apr 2005
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Re: Empathy with low IQ
It's entirely reasonable for low IQ characters to substitute Perception for IQ when using certain aspects of Empathy.
For example, an animal which is capable of "reading" human moods - either via keen smell or just keen observation of human behavior - should probably use Psychology (Human) skill with Per when performing tasks like determining how to (or whether to) approach a particular human for food, petting, etc. Low IQ would still penalize the animal if it attempts to use Empathy in more sophisticated ways, such as determining why a particular human is behaving in a particular fashion. E.g., "Food lady is angry. I shouldn't beg her for treats right now." vs. "Food lady is angry at me because I peed on her bed." |
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empathy, reliable |
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