Intelligence

**Intelligence** refers to one of the secondary stats of a character in VS Debating. Officially, it is defined as the ability to acquire and apply knowledge and skills. Although not as important as physical stats, intelligence and its derivates (such as skill) can have a vital role in some match-ups, but only in situations where the combatants' stats are notably close, or equal. The reason behind this is that no matter how smart one is, wits alone will not be able to bypass a massive attack potency or durability advantage.

## Types of Intelligence

Keep in mind that we are merely referring to the types of intelligence relevant to VS Debating, not the 9 types of intelligence defined by Howard Gardner.

### "Book Smarts"

The colloquially named book smarts refer to one's culture, knowledge, and general theoretical and conceptual knowledge. Generally speaking, this type of intelligence is hardly ever useful in VS matches, as it includes no useful combat knowledge. Most scientists, professors, and engineers excel in this type of intelligence.

### Combat Intelligence

This category refers to one's ability to solve combat situations, be it through strategical thinking, through the use of kinesthetic intelligence, or through combat experience. This type of intelligence is the only one that can have a significant impact on match-ups. Military tacticians, professional martial artists, and experienced assassins tend to excel in this type of intelligence.

## Classification of Intelligence

Ranking a character's intelligence can be an incredibly difficult task in some cases, as the division stated earlier can have great differences. An extremely gifted scientist could be greatly unskilled in combat scenarios, and a powerful martial artist could have little to no academic knowledge. The usage of Intellectual Quotient numbers could potentially be used to rank intelligent, but it mainly focuses on "book smarts", so it might not be a good way to reflect a character's important side of the intelligence spectrum from a VS standpoint.

It is possible to generalize between the two types of intelligence in order to create a scale of sorts, but it is merely a guideline, and due to the difficulty of quantifying the intelligence of a fictional character, it is allowed to rank the character with terms that do not exist in this ranking (within reason, of course).

* **Mindless:** Refers to characters who lack the ability to reason or think.
* **Primal/Animalistic:** Refers to characters whose behavior only allows for basic thinking and problem-solving skills, akin to animals. Characters with this type of intelligence mainly rely on instinct, rather than logic.
* **Below Average/Low:** Using the lower end of human intelligence, characters with this type of intelligence are able to speak and act logically, but their actions and logic might be flawed often.
* **Average:** Based on the standard human being's intelligence. Characters in this category are capable of a good level of thinking and logic, but not to an impressive level.
* **Above Average/High:** This category refers to characters whose knowledge and logic abilities are notable, with very few flaws in the categories that they excel in.
* **Genius:** This category refers to characters whose knowledge, logic, and learning abilities are nearly superhuman. However, they might be restricted to sole categories of thinking instead of being balanced.
* **Super Genius:** This category refers to characters whose level of intelligence far surpasses human limits, being capable of crafting all manner of complex theories and ideas, even under pressure. Unlike the previous categories, Super Geniuses are often experts in many fields.
* **Nigh-Omniscient:** An extreme level of intelligence that is only attributable to those with near flawless knowledge of everything in their universe, or even those beyond theirs.
* **Omniscient:** The highest state of intelligence. Characters in this category are aware of every single piece of knowledge in existence, even referring to things that haven't occurred yet at that point.