Post/Author/DateTime	Post
Yabanjin 08-21-05, 12:10 AM	Forgive the impertinence - but would someone please explain how that Big MoFo Red Dragon in the PHB can possibly have only a 45 and a greater stone golem (that's not nearly as colossal) have a str of 37... Yes the dragon can lift and carry more and yet.... It just doesn't seem like enough of a difference when the damage modifers are compared.... Basically, I don't think that the colossal str is colossal enough. What say you? [let the bashing begin!]
jazzman831 08-21-05, 12:20 AM	Well, for starters, strength is only related to size, not dictated by it. Um... I don't really know how they arrive at strength mods (I'm sure I could help if I had my books, but they are currently in the car with all of my worldly posessions!), but it sounds like all you want to know is the strength increase related to size. An increase of 8 due to size is pretty descent, and it sounds like a standard number, D&D likes anything in powers of 2(2, 4, 8, 16, etc).
Freefall 08-21-05, 03:08 AM	I think that dragons actually aren't particularly strong for their size, especially the older ones. My understanding is that if you were to shrink them down to medium they would lose strength at the same rate as something advanced upwards in size would gain it, i.e. -8 to strength for each category down to medium. I think that's a legitimate way of looking at it, anyway. Anywho, if you use this regression on a Colossal great wyrm red dragon, you find that at medium size they have a strength of 13, which is actually less than the wyrmling's strength of 17, and amounts to a racial +2 to strength instead of the wyrmling's +6. So basically, dragons aren't that strong for their size, and if they followed the normal stat mod enhancement for increasing in size categories, then the great wyrms would actually be stronger than they are.
The Vorpal Tribble 08-21-05, 08:30 AM	:teach: Aye, its that old scientifical fact about size increase and strength. An ant brought up to human size for example wouldn't be able to lift much of anything despite it moving comparative boulders as a tiny thing. Elephant for example, strongest land animal... can't support even a quarter of its weight on its back. Humans though can easily piggy back folks their full weight or more. So the bigger something gets the weaker it gets in comparison.
Slagger the Chuul 08-21-05, 09:32 AM	Simple math; double the height, width, and depth, and you've increased the weight eightfold. For a three-dimensional object, you can only have a surface that connects to it in two dimensions (unless you completely permeate the object), which means that any support will only work half as well. Nevermind that D&D plays fast and loose with this one; if you tried to make Colossal dragons that could even walk (let alone fly), you'd need to build them out of something much stronger than simple flesh and bone.
The Vorpal Tribble 08-21-05, 10:18 AM	Well, dragons are all elemental beings, so they probably draw strength and magic from the land, yadda yadda yadda. Or could be like the dragons from Pern, their bones use metals from their diet instead of calcium.
Slagger the Chuul 08-21-05, 11:18 AM	That would be the function of the draconis fundamentum (if I recall my Draconomicon correctly); an organ that supplies the dragon with elemental energy.
RavenoftheCrags 08-21-05, 01:32 PM	*bash*
was_fired 08-21-05, 03:23 PM	Don't forget that carrying capacity is also related to size. Not to mention the fact that for every 5 points you increase Str you double carrying capacity (this rule applies to all scores past 10). So the dragon could carry around 4x as much due to strength, and 6x as much due to size. The net result is that the dragon is almost 24 times stronger than the golem, even if its damage doesn't per attack only increases by 10 or so (I don't feel like looking up the exact numbers for huge to colossal natural weapon advancements so give or take 4).