Gods and Demigods - not really that smart

[martinl]

Spawned off another thread because off topic for it:

Originally Posted by mr beer

for example a demigod might have something like ST 30 HT 20 DX 20 IQ 20 and Altered Time Rate, Damage Reduction 3, Enhanced Time Sense, DR 20 (Forcefield), Regeneration: Fast and primary combat skills around 30. They would have other things as well, like spells, mobility (Flight and/or Warp), Terror, very high or very low Appearance etc.

I see this sort of thing all the time in all sorts of games and there is one thing that is seriously wrong in representing mythology: that darned IQ 20 [1]. The gods I remember from myth and legend might have had one or two smarties among them, but most were not notably bright. I know I have a quasi-instinctive reaction as a GM to make gods bestest at everything, but really if I want to model Ares or Thor IQ 20 is not a good choice.


(You folks who are about to jump in and have an argument about what GURPS IQ represents go start your own thread now please.)


What breaks, exactly, if Hercules has IQ 11 (Will 17) or Odin has IQ 13 (Per & Will 30)?

More points spent on skills? Irrelevant for an NPC and on theme for a God.

Lower defaults? OK, so Gods aren't automatically awesome at things they don't practice? Seems ok to me.

PCs might trick them? A veritable net positive.

What does the hivemind think?

[1] DX 20 is not automatically a good model either, but not as egregious.