…or someone who rolls three sixes.
Yeah, I get a little sick of seeing everyone’s 180 IQ’s, too, but this isn’t about a real-life ranking, this is about what you’d be like as a Dungeons & Dragons character. So even if you take the OP’s question literally, you don’t have to be one in a million to have 18 INT, you just have to be one in 216.
Muscles: 2
Zip: 2
Smarts: 5
Chutzpah: 1
That’s not true.
While Newton and Galileo and Voltaire may (or may not) have scored very high on modern day IQ tests, their innovation and impact on the areas of study were not based off of their IQ, but their dedication.
Someone with a high IQ and a lot of apathy will make far less impact than someone with a moderate IQ and a hard work ethic.
ETA:
The odds of anyone having a 180 IQ are so astronomically small that it’s not worth considering that you’ll ever run into any of them, even with the internet.
Strength: 9 - Used to be an 8, but I’m working on it!
Dexterity: 9 - I’m clumsy.
Constitution: 12 - I hardly ever get sick, but I’m not otherwise endurant.
Intelligence: 11 - I scored really high on an IQ test when I was very young, but I think I’ve evened out now.
Wisdom: 11 - I like to think I’m insightful but the truth is probably closer to average.
Charisma: 11 - I’ve been told that I’m cute and I’m a pretty confident person.
I feel like a sad panda comparing myself to these other folk. :3
Exactly.
Strength: 5 – I’m a weakling.
Dexterity: 3 – Critical Fail! Seriously, I have no balance. I’m about the clumsiest able-bodied person you’ll meet. My husband calls me “Grace.”
Constitution: 8 – I have decent endurance, but get sick frequently
Intelligence: 15 – I’m smarter than the average bear, but I’m not Norman Einstein. 
Wisdom: 14 – Obviously it’s gotten better as I’ve gotten older.
Charisma: 12 – Better than average–I can get along with almost everyone.
Yes, but if I’d cited three names of people who are very intelligent but that nobody had ever heard of, the point wouldn’t have been very clear.
I’m not trying to pick on anyone, but this score inflation is common to every thread we have on the subject and it’s kind of silly, really; the claims are frankly outlandish. (You can understand any topic THOROUGLY in a few days’ study? Sorry, don’t believe it.)
Having said that, score inflation is a phenomenon not unique to IQ threads on the SDMB. Ask 1000 random people to rate their driving skills on a scale of 1 to 10 and I bet the great majority will rate themselves 7 or higher. Ask 1000 random people to rank their ability to do their jobs and, again, most will give themselves high ratings. People will rank themselves low where it’s socially acceptable to do so; for whatever reason, for instance, people seem to be fine with saying that they suck at math. But in most areas everyone’s opinion of themselves is probably inflated.
I suppose there’s nothing wrong with that, to a point.
Strength: 11 - I lift weights and have very good strength for my size, but there’s a certain upper limit for, well my size.
Dexterity: 9 - I’m not all thumbs or anything, and I’m pretty athletic, but you’d never confuse me with a paragon of grace, and what dexterity I do have is more from working on it than from natural ability.
Constitution: 12 - Above average in terms of sickness and toughness, but definitely nothing super special.
Intelligence: 16 - Yup, somewhere in the 98th or 99th percentile of the general population sounds about right…
Wisdom: 9 - …having the life experiences to really take advantage of that, however, not necessarily so much.
Charisma: 10 - Some plusses and minuses for specific areas relating to charsima, but overall balances out to average. Can definitely temporarily buff to a 12 or 13 with one or two drinks to lower social inhibitions, and doesn’t even come at too much of an INT cost!
Incidentally, I’m also Neutral Good (toward the Neutral end of the Good/Evil spectrum, though, definitely not maxxed out on Good).
As OP-er feel free to interpret the scores whatever way you wish (if I attempt to be more draconian on that score people will get upset). I will say that I did score in the 98th percentile on my SATs.
The “average” thing, as I’ve said before, is befuddled by whether you are discussing the mean, or the median. It’s entirely possible for most people to exceed the mean score honestly if there are a few really bad apples near the bottom. I’ll also note the number of sub-10 scores posted here already. I went with my high wisdom just because of how I’ve managed to turn just about everything around from where I was 30 years ago, but I’m no Gandhi or Gautama.
Name: Gargoylus the Gargoylian
Class: Thief-Acrobat (1st edition supplement)
Strength: 12 (Above average, but I haven’t seen myself getting any bonuses to my rolls so far in life)
Dexterity: 17 (Take to any dextrous sport or video game naturally, mostly ambidextrous, e.g. tennis, martial arts, high scores on the Defender consoles in the arcades back in the 80’s)
Intelligence: 16 (good math and science smarts)
Wisdom: 14 (above average definitely, but sometimes still mix darks and lights in the washing machine)
Constitution: 8 (below average, get too cold if I even see a cloud, hay fever, let me just set my end of the couch down a second catches breather)
Charisma: 12 (fit and in shape, but no head turner by any stretch)
Strength: 12; pretty strong for my size
Dexterity: 14; good at climbing and jumping stuff
Constitution: 10; don’t have great endurance all the time
Intelligence: 15; I am so smrat
Wisdom: 14; fairly wise but not totally in tune with how the world works
Charisma: 11; I do well in the short term, but people tire me quickly
For what it’s worth, I also have the Power Attack feat and +5 on save vs. enchantments.
My point was they might not have been as intelligent as you make them out to be. They might have, sure, but they also might have been average schmucks who happened to connect the right dots at the right time.
I don’t know what’s so unbelievable or outlandish about it. I don’t mean a few days at 2 hours a day. I mean a few days of nothing but study.
Admittedly, not every topic is doable in such a short period of time. And I don’t gain enough knowledge to teach a class on the topic, but after a few days of consistent study (which amounts to about ten and a half hours a day, using 15 minute study, 5 minute break intervals) I can more than hold my own in a conversation on the subject.
There’s really nothing I can do or say to convince you, short of actually demonstrating the ability in person (which I’m really not up for – I hope you don’t mind).
I’m actually rather decent at math, I just can’t remember formulas very well, they get jumbled up, much to my discontent.
That’s not Intelligence. That’s Constitution. With a textbook and several days of absolutely dedicated study, almost anyone of average intelligence can hold down a conversation on an obscure subject.
There was a roguelike game–possibly Omega, although I don’t have a copy of it any more so I can’t confirm it–where you could play as yourself by answering a series of questions which set up your Str-Con-Etc. IIRC if you said you had done any post-doctoral work the game gave you a 18 Int, which strongly suggests to me that the designer of the game was a post-doc!
Now having said that I am going to make myself look a fool.
Strength – 11. Maybe a little above average but not that much. If 10.5 was an option I’d agree with that.
Dexterity – 9. I try hard but honestly lack of dexterity doomed me to failure in most athletic pursuits.
Constitution – 8. Any communicable disease puts me down for the count.
Intelligence – 16. Yes, I know. I agonized over this one, but eventually I looked again at D_Odds’s percentage tables and asked myself, “Truthfully, could 2% of humans get that degree over there on my wall?” And I hate the immodest, I truly do.
Wisdom – 11. But only through the bitterness of experience.
Charisma – 9. Did not get the “how to deal with humans” instruction manual at birth. I have my moments but don’t we all?
Vim: 11
Pulchritude: 7
Imagination: 16
Curious; what degree?
In this thread, the abilities it’s acceptable not to have appear to be Strength and Charisma. I don’t have any D&D books here to consult, but I believe that someone with a Strength of 3 would have significant trouble in daily life. Same thing with a very low Charisma.
Let’s think about mine.
STR: 11 (average, but I’m a man)
DEX: 9 (reaction times slightly slow but average)
CON: 11 (healthy average)
INT: 14 (could be 13, but I think I’m quite intelligent and intellectually curious)
WIS: 10 (judgment and willpower quite acceptable and average)
CHA: 11 (I’m relatively charming)
And I look at these stats and they seem significantly above-average. I probably did inflate some of them.
It’s entirely reasonable, in fact almost certain, that a fair number of dopers have INT 18 (that being the stat most likely to cause controversy). Assuming we’re talking about old school D&D character creation, that’s rolling 666 on 3d6 (number of the beast!). That’s one in 216. So about 10 people at my high school would have had INT 18 assuming total averageness. Is it really shocking to think that a non-trivial number of dopers would be in the top 2 or 3 in their high school class? That’s not Einstein-level genius we’re talking about…
Screw it - here comes my Illusory Superiority (we all considers ourselves to be better than average). So, instead of holding back, I will go with arrogance instead. Consider this to be like an online dating bit - you can be sure I am full of it, you just don’t know where!
Used this for reference: File:Roll of 3d6.svg - Wikipedia
STR: 13: I backpack with heavy packs once per month, play and ref rec soccer, and lift heavy things. For my age, I am above average.
DEX: 14: I can’t dance well, but I can shoot great. Archery and long-range shooting are a hobby of mine and I rank well in some competitions.
CON: 14: Healthy & Hard to knock me down, and my last treadmill test came out perfect.
INT: 17: When measured, I was around 130. The testing was far from perfect, but I will run with it. Top 10% of high school, top ranked undergrad, plus a graduate degree.
WIS: 12: Good enough for me.
CHA: 16: When I was in sales, I nailed my quota. Now in marketing, and I grab a room’s attention and keep it easily.
