Post/Author/DateTime	Post
Xeviat-DM 01-20-05, 11:48 AM	While reading through a gender ability score thread, and after watching a program on the physical capabilities of humans, I started to wonder if it might be possible to have a character's height and weight determined by their physical ability scores rather than a random number. I know that this is entirely a superficial, overly complex matter, but my gaming group has a love of specifics like this. So I'm going to post some ideas here: Strength: Characters that have higher strength have more muscle mass. Muscle weighs quite a bit. There is some varience here since certain people have tighter muscles than others, but generally high strength is related to high weight. Dexterity: Characters with higher Dexterity have a better ability to move and are more coordinated. I am leaning towards believing that having a dexterity higher than your strenght would reduce your weight, while having a dexterity lower than your strength would increase it. Constitution: Characters with higher Constitutions are more healthier. The higher your constitution, I would assume the closer you are to your racial/gender average. Additionally, I think the overweight trait should add an encumbrance weight amount, so as to push them into their medium load in addition to increasing the character's weight. Any ideas on how to get this to work?
MikeTheAmazingMuskrat 01-21-05, 02:13 PM	Are you looking to use a size chart to get bonuses similar to those in the Player's Handbook? Or are you interested in writing up a completely new system? For instance, how would the different races utilize this system? Would there be a different chart or whatnot for each, or would you want to have the same set of statistics affect all races, regardless? Dwarves are shorter than humans on average, but weigh about the same. Halflings are universally smaller. Do they use the same chart? That'd be interesting. I'll think a bit about implementation when I get back from work. -mike the amazing muskrat
MikeTheAmazingMuskrat 01-21-05, 02:15 PM	Ah. I misinterpreted your post. You are looking to have height and weight based on stats. I was thinking about trying to have stats modified based on height and weight. I'll think about both. -mike the amazing muskrat
evangelion1010 01-21-05, 03:51 PM	Well, since in the game it doesn't make a difference about if you weigh 300 pounds and have 15 strength, or 100 pounds and have 15 strenght, i'm not sure what you mean by making it work. Now, making it realistic... I'll fully agree with you. I'd say that a high con/str person would be like a bodybuilder - very solid. The problem with con is that it represents a few different things, like resistance to disease, and to damage - two different things. If they were the same thing, boxers would be immune to most diseases. I'd say a higher con tends to make the character more robust and healthy looking though, similar to what you suggested. A low con/high str character would be fat, but strong. Strength should increase weight by 5-10 pounds/point i'd say, for a human. I'd allow every two points of dex to reduce the weight gain, to a minimum of 4. This means the character has a lot of very toned muscle, very sinewy. Basically a gymist vs heavyweight boxer - both are very strong, but look very different. Constitution should serve the same function as dexterity, for the most part, with the execption that a low constitution can mean that you are very skinny, or obese. (DM's discression... possibly based on age) I still can't see the combination of high str/low con - yes, they can get sick a lot, and not have good endurance, but what...do they have a low tolerance for pain? I'd use common sense, since it doesn't have any appreciable impact on gameplay, with the execption of when someone needs to lift something.
Darion Fenix 01-21-05, 05:34 PM	Speaking as someone who's done competitive lifting, height doesn't matter at all, not a bit. At 6'1" 240 pounds I can bench 315 and deadlift 520. I've got a good friend who might be 5'6" if he wears some double thick odor-eaters and he can bench nearly 300. Another guy I went to high school with was also 5'6" and he beat me by twenty pounds at the bench press! It might be because his arms were 4 inches shorter than mine...so the weight didn't have as far to travel... Anyway, the stronger you are most definitely makes you weigh more. That's why lifters and boxers are put in to Weight Classes. Across the board the higher the weight class, the stronger the competitors are. I'd determine height and weight normally. Then subtract 40 pounds from the weight of your character then add your Strength Score times 4 to your weight. That way characters with 10 Strength weigh the same, but particularly weak or strong characters are much lighter or heavier. Just some rough math off the top of my head. I suppose you could do the same for Constitution with -20 pounds and then +Con*2. (That works for humans at least...)
IceFractal 01-22-05, 02:32 AM	First: Horray, not another gender stat adjustment thread! :w00t: :dancin: :bow: At first I thought this would be about basing stats on height/weight but I see its actually the reverse, which is a lot more workable. On strength, being physically bigger gives you more muscle leverage, so maybe someone who's shorter with the same strength should be somewhat bulkier/more noticably muscular, some kind of inverse relationship, although possibly it would be cancelled out by height increasing weight. From experience, the shorter your arms are the heavier a bow you can pull (less distance for the string to travel), but I really don't know how to represent this in the game. Constitution is somewhat complex, but probably low Con should indicate being pretty fat or scrawny, either way really, probably fat if low Dex, scrawny if high Dex. You could have their be actual mechanical differences for the extremes, somewhat of a less extreme version of the BoVD ones. Fat: Some encumberance, bonus to stability, penalty to escape artist, bonus to saves vs starvation (stored body fat). Scrawny: Penalty to stability, bonus to escape artist, possibly something else.
Xeviat-DM 01-24-05, 08:02 PM	Well, UA already has a fat and skinny trait, but I wouldn't make those cost traits. I do think that the fat trait should have a speed reduction though, which is somewhat combined with the fast and slow traits. Taller high strength characters would be less bulky than shorter high strength characters. I'm not sure what the weight difference would be. But I'm not talking about anything enormous. More than likely, height won't matter, but weight will. And yes, it doesn't really impact on game mechanics (exept possibly weight triggered traps or falling damage), which is why it isn't really a life or death important game mechanic to me. It's just something that I think could be useful for players to get a better idea of what their character looks like. When a player wants to play a beautiful or handsome character, I tell them to put a high stat in Con. Compare the middle ages to modern ideals of beauty: health and athleticism are considered attractive now adays (toned limbs, flat stomach), and in a nondiscriminatory-gender based world (like the PC D&D), the same traits would probably be considered attractive amongst adventerers (I would assume that some characters may like lower con if they have dominance issues, but that's another discussion entirely). Thanks for the help. If you get any ideas, let me know.
Xeviat-DM 02-08-05, 04:56 PM	I'm going to :bump: this, just because I really think it could work out to be a good idea if it is handled properly.
DwarvinJedi 02-10-05, 06:53 PM	I have to point out the other end of the spectrum, low strength could either be really fat, or really skinny, of course that is where Con comes in, but overall I like the idea.
Xeviat-DM 03-15-05, 07:23 PM	Any new input?
roetroc 03-15-05, 08:38 PM	On the shorter arms and heavier poundage bows, I think that overall damage from the bow ould be relatively unaffected as a person with shorter arms and heavier bow would have the arrow accelerate through a shorter distance, whilst the same strength character with longer arms would pull a lighter bow but the arrow would be accelerated for a longer distance and I would assume up to approximately the same speed.
Crashy75 03-17-05, 10:24 PM	I guess i'll just throw this in.... Add your strength mod to ht/wt rolled (on random table), subtract your dex mod.... and for con, here's the complicated part. You add or subtract your con bonus depending upon your dex/str bonuses.... If, because of a high str/low dex combo you have a bonus to the roll, then you subtract your con bonus (always stopping when u get to zero).... and the reverse is also true. So a character with a Str 16, a dex of 12 and a con of 13 would have a total of +1 to his roll (+3 for strength, -1 for dex and -1 for con) Str 16 Dex 8 con 13= +3 (+3 str, +1 dex [bigger and clumsier], and -1 for con.) Str 10, Dex 18 Con 14 -2 (+0 str, -4 Dex, +2 con (con is a bonus because it tries to maintain balance) Str 16, Dex 12 Con 6= +4 (+3 str, -1 dex, -2 con (fatter and less healthy) Ummm i'm horrable at expalining things but i hope you get the jist.... waddya think?
Xeviat-DM 03-18-05, 02:16 PM	Crashy, very interesting. Very, very interesting. I'm thinking Con shouldn't do anything to height, though; it should apply to weight maybe. In my system, I could have Str apply as a bonus to height and Dex as a penalty to height (both would affect weight since height adds to the weight roll), and have Con apply as a bonus to weight and Agi apply as a penalty to weight. Remember, no adventurer is overweight, so the weights granted by Con will remain normal. An overweight character should take one of the two traits that imply this (and those traits should have a listed increase to weight, some sort of percentage increase possibly). Great idea Crashy. What does everyone else think of his idea?