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<blockquote data-quote="Banshee16" data-source="post: 5207371" data-attributes="member: 7883"><p>I'm by no means forgetting the power of our brains. I was talking about sheer physical strength.</p><p></p><p>Yes, we have fantastic brains. We're the dominant predator for that reason. But physically, we're very weak. The muscle and bone configuration that allows for upright walking is *not* set up for the generation of nearly as much power as quadrupeds have. We're slower than many other animals on foot. We have endurance. But try running away from a bear, and see how far it'll get you.</p><p></p><p>In dog attacks, injuries, in the absence of our advanced medicine, would be largely life-ending.....things like getting someone's face ripped off their skull. Heck, even coming face to face with a bull, or a male deer, or even something like a coyote can easily be life ending for most humans.</p><p></p><p>I'm not saying that humans are inferior......I'm just talking about how, in relation to the game, giving all medium sized animals 1 HD (for instance) is not realistic, given the *physical* power discrepancy. Yeah, the human is smart enough to invent and dress up in plate mail, and create a sword or spear, or invent firearms and kill from a distance. But strip away the tech, and go unarmed, and physically, we're vastly inferior. That's what I was getting at.</p><p></p><p>A 1 HD human with AC 10, a BAB of +0, and damage of 1-3 subdual would have a relatively even chance of coming out on top in a fight against a 1 HD medium animal (ie. a leopard)....and that's just not very realistic, IMO.</p><p></p><p>Even size is of limited matter. So we're bigger. We don't have fangs, claws, the muscle power of many animals, natural armor, or speed. Our brains can help us invent replacements to all of these...but, pound for pound, we're weak. The smallest dog that's been recorded to have killed someone was a Pomeranian, I believe. *A Pomeranian* mauled someone to death. At their biggest, that's about an 8 lb dog. Far smaller than anything but an infant or child.</p><p></p><p>There's a reason why in countries *not* in North America, where they have problems with man-eaters, people, are, well....scared of those animals. Because physically, we're at a significant disadvantage. Walk through the jungle in India, near a village where they're having trouble with a declared man-eating tiger, and see how long that person will last. I'm not going to bet on the human. Now, have the humans go in with a bunch of guns, and the story changes. But the point I was responding to only had to do with the suggestion that animals be 1 HD for small and medium, regardless of animal type. That's where I had the issue.</p><p></p><p>We know from the fossil record that for thousands of years, Homo Sapiens and their ancestors, were part of the food chain, in that we were predated on by other top predators such as lions, leopards, wolves etc. As humans got smarter, in terms of developing better weapons and technology, and organizing themselves into villages where numbers themselves became a defense (ie. the herd advantage), the situation changed.</p><p></p><p>But even into the 1700's and later, there were plenty of events showing their physical superiority.....the beast(s) of Gevaudan killed how many people? 99? Now, only 6 of those were men. Was that because men were stronger, and better able to fight them off? Or because men tended to carry weapons, whereas women and children didn't?</p><p></p><p>Depending on accounts, the man-eaters of Tsavo killed anywhere between 35 to 140 people, depending on which reports are read. Then, after pissing off the humans enough, hunters with superior brains, and the use of firearms and tactics managed to hunt them down and kill them. But this was *2* lions. How many humans did they kill, and how many humans did it take to hunt them down and kill them?</p><p></p><p>Naturalists who study man-eaters suggest that some animals start eating people because we're relatively easy prey. Animals are smart enough to avoid the humans with guns, and eat the ones not carrying guns. Usually gun-carrying humans kill them in the end....but the number of humans a man-eater can kill before being caught can be staggering. Look up man-eaters on Wikipedia. Not counting the idea that numbers may be exaggerated, the Panar Leopard supposedly killed *400* people before being caught. That's *one* cat that was too unhealthy to hunt its regular prey.</p><p></p><p>Wasn't it in Toronto last year that some idiot stuck his arm in the cage where wolves were kept at the zoo, and had it ripped off for his troubles?</p><p></p><p>It's easy in North America to overlook the fact that wolves, which have very rarely attacked people here, have a very different history in Europe, where they killed humans on a much more regular basis. </p><p></p><p>In the grand scheme of things, humans with our bigger brains have killed far more animals than have probably *been* killed by animals.....so I'd agree that the human brain is a far more effective weapon than claws and teeth...in the long term. But put the unarmed man in a cage with an enraged lion, and it's going to be a very short fight. If you want to jump in the cage and try a hypothesis that an unarmed man would win that fight, fill your boots <img src="data:image/gif;base64,R0lGODlhAQABAIAAAAAAAP///yH5BAEAAAAALAAAAAABAAEAAAIBRAA7" class="smilie smilie--sprite smilie--sprite1" alt=":)" title="Smile :)" loading="lazy" data-shortname=":)" /> I find lots of people *say* "well, this is what I'd do"......but would they? Really? We don't really know until we're faced with the situation. Most human-predator attacks end up with a dead human, and park officials hunting down the killer animal and shooting it. I guess I'm a chicken, but I have no desire to place myself anywhere near a pissed off animal. <img src="data:image/gif;base64,R0lGODlhAQABAIAAAAAAAP///yH5BAEAAAAALAAAAAABAAEAAAIBRAA7" class="smilie smilie--sprite smilie--sprite1" alt=":)" title="Smile :)" loading="lazy" data-shortname=":)" /> I live in the burbs, and was walking home from the theatre one evening, and came across a coyote. There's lots of development going on in our area, the theatre and related stores are right on the edge of town, and beyond that it's forest and deer/wolf/coyote habitat, and I guess he came in to check out the sights. Anyways, it was night, I was on foot, there were no convenient 6' long spears around, and I had no other weapons as I'd been at the the theatre. I wasn't going to take chances, because though I outweigh a coyote, I can't outrun it, and I don't really want to lose any fingers or a hand fending it off. So, I backed away very, very slowly, he moved off, and we both lived happily ever after.</p><p></p><p>My main contentions are that I don't think it makes sense to have all small and medium animals being 1 HD, and that physically, pound for pound, many animals are more powerful than humans. Just stronger. Stats-wise, I've always felt that 3E did animals right for once...in previous editions, they were pushovers, and really, just window dressing after level 2. In 3E, animals were a lot more dangerous than they were in earlier editions. A party could still easily beat them when outfitted, armed, and working together......but animals were no longer punching bags for anybody over lvl 1. Doesn't mean they're better. That capability to have 18 INT instead of 2 leads to leather armor, chainmail, half-plate, spears, greatswords, and parties of 4 PCs with complementary skill sets working together to defeat the physically superior, but mentally inferior animal.</p><p></p><p>Same thing like how I wouldn't necessarily say Mike Tyson is *better* than Bill Gates....but he'd definitely beat the tar out of him in a fight. But I'm pretty sure Bill Gates has a heck of a lot more money.....garnered via his brain. <img src="data:image/gif;base64,R0lGODlhAQABAIAAAAAAAP///yH5BAEAAAAALAAAAAABAAEAAAIBRAA7" class="smilie smilie--sprite smilie--sprite1" alt=":)" title="Smile :)" loading="lazy" data-shortname=":)" /> So who wins in the long term?</p><p></p><p>As to the non-sissified point...that's somewhat debatable. There's a reason animals like that are used by police and military. They are very good at taking down criminals (as well as detecting explosives, drugs, etc.). Maybe that just means that most adult humans in western society nowadays are sissified. I don't know. Lots of the guys I know are average or higher on the level of physical activity. Strong enough, but most don't have military or martial arts training, and, being in the city, very few of them have firearms licenses. A friend of mine had a friend of his killed by a bear a few years back. Just outside the city. She probably didn't have much of a chance. He said she came across it on a hiking/jogging trail. She couldn't outrun it, she was definitely weaker, and all it took was one bite, and it was over, from what he told me. More than likely she surprised it accidentally or something.</p><p></p><p>All this having been said, I didn't realize I'd committed thread necromancy until after I posted...I think I found this thread through Google. I was looking for something else, started reading, got interested, and didn't even check the dates before I posted.</p><p></p><p>Banshee</p></blockquote><p></p>
[QUOTE="Banshee16, post: 5207371, member: 7883"] I'm by no means forgetting the power of our brains. I was talking about sheer physical strength. Yes, we have fantastic brains. We're the dominant predator for that reason. But physically, we're very weak. The muscle and bone configuration that allows for upright walking is *not* set up for the generation of nearly as much power as quadrupeds have. We're slower than many other animals on foot. We have endurance. But try running away from a bear, and see how far it'll get you. In dog attacks, injuries, in the absence of our advanced medicine, would be largely life-ending.....things like getting someone's face ripped off their skull. Heck, even coming face to face with a bull, or a male deer, or even something like a coyote can easily be life ending for most humans. I'm not saying that humans are inferior......I'm just talking about how, in relation to the game, giving all medium sized animals 1 HD (for instance) is not realistic, given the *physical* power discrepancy. Yeah, the human is smart enough to invent and dress up in plate mail, and create a sword or spear, or invent firearms and kill from a distance. But strip away the tech, and go unarmed, and physically, we're vastly inferior. That's what I was getting at. A 1 HD human with AC 10, a BAB of +0, and damage of 1-3 subdual would have a relatively even chance of coming out on top in a fight against a 1 HD medium animal (ie. a leopard)....and that's just not very realistic, IMO. Even size is of limited matter. So we're bigger. We don't have fangs, claws, the muscle power of many animals, natural armor, or speed. Our brains can help us invent replacements to all of these...but, pound for pound, we're weak. The smallest dog that's been recorded to have killed someone was a Pomeranian, I believe. *A Pomeranian* mauled someone to death. At their biggest, that's about an 8 lb dog. Far smaller than anything but an infant or child. There's a reason why in countries *not* in North America, where they have problems with man-eaters, people, are, well....scared of those animals. Because physically, we're at a significant disadvantage. Walk through the jungle in India, near a village where they're having trouble with a declared man-eating tiger, and see how long that person will last. I'm not going to bet on the human. Now, have the humans go in with a bunch of guns, and the story changes. But the point I was responding to only had to do with the suggestion that animals be 1 HD for small and medium, regardless of animal type. That's where I had the issue. We know from the fossil record that for thousands of years, Homo Sapiens and their ancestors, were part of the food chain, in that we were predated on by other top predators such as lions, leopards, wolves etc. As humans got smarter, in terms of developing better weapons and technology, and organizing themselves into villages where numbers themselves became a defense (ie. the herd advantage), the situation changed. But even into the 1700's and later, there were plenty of events showing their physical superiority.....the beast(s) of Gevaudan killed how many people? 99? Now, only 6 of those were men. Was that because men were stronger, and better able to fight them off? Or because men tended to carry weapons, whereas women and children didn't? Depending on accounts, the man-eaters of Tsavo killed anywhere between 35 to 140 people, depending on which reports are read. Then, after pissing off the humans enough, hunters with superior brains, and the use of firearms and tactics managed to hunt them down and kill them. But this was *2* lions. How many humans did they kill, and how many humans did it take to hunt them down and kill them? Naturalists who study man-eaters suggest that some animals start eating people because we're relatively easy prey. Animals are smart enough to avoid the humans with guns, and eat the ones not carrying guns. Usually gun-carrying humans kill them in the end....but the number of humans a man-eater can kill before being caught can be staggering. Look up man-eaters on Wikipedia. Not counting the idea that numbers may be exaggerated, the Panar Leopard supposedly killed *400* people before being caught. That's *one* cat that was too unhealthy to hunt its regular prey. Wasn't it in Toronto last year that some idiot stuck his arm in the cage where wolves were kept at the zoo, and had it ripped off for his troubles? It's easy in North America to overlook the fact that wolves, which have very rarely attacked people here, have a very different history in Europe, where they killed humans on a much more regular basis. In the grand scheme of things, humans with our bigger brains have killed far more animals than have probably *been* killed by animals.....so I'd agree that the human brain is a far more effective weapon than claws and teeth...in the long term. But put the unarmed man in a cage with an enraged lion, and it's going to be a very short fight. If you want to jump in the cage and try a hypothesis that an unarmed man would win that fight, fill your boots :) I find lots of people *say* "well, this is what I'd do"......but would they? Really? We don't really know until we're faced with the situation. Most human-predator attacks end up with a dead human, and park officials hunting down the killer animal and shooting it. I guess I'm a chicken, but I have no desire to place myself anywhere near a pissed off animal. :) I live in the burbs, and was walking home from the theatre one evening, and came across a coyote. There's lots of development going on in our area, the theatre and related stores are right on the edge of town, and beyond that it's forest and deer/wolf/coyote habitat, and I guess he came in to check out the sights. Anyways, it was night, I was on foot, there were no convenient 6' long spears around, and I had no other weapons as I'd been at the the theatre. I wasn't going to take chances, because though I outweigh a coyote, I can't outrun it, and I don't really want to lose any fingers or a hand fending it off. So, I backed away very, very slowly, he moved off, and we both lived happily ever after. My main contentions are that I don't think it makes sense to have all small and medium animals being 1 HD, and that physically, pound for pound, many animals are more powerful than humans. Just stronger. Stats-wise, I've always felt that 3E did animals right for once...in previous editions, they were pushovers, and really, just window dressing after level 2. In 3E, animals were a lot more dangerous than they were in earlier editions. A party could still easily beat them when outfitted, armed, and working together......but animals were no longer punching bags for anybody over lvl 1. Doesn't mean they're better. That capability to have 18 INT instead of 2 leads to leather armor, chainmail, half-plate, spears, greatswords, and parties of 4 PCs with complementary skill sets working together to defeat the physically superior, but mentally inferior animal. Same thing like how I wouldn't necessarily say Mike Tyson is *better* than Bill Gates....but he'd definitely beat the tar out of him in a fight. But I'm pretty sure Bill Gates has a heck of a lot more money.....garnered via his brain. :) So who wins in the long term? As to the non-sissified point...that's somewhat debatable. There's a reason animals like that are used by police and military. They are very good at taking down criminals (as well as detecting explosives, drugs, etc.). Maybe that just means that most adult humans in western society nowadays are sissified. I don't know. Lots of the guys I know are average or higher on the level of physical activity. Strong enough, but most don't have military or martial arts training, and, being in the city, very few of them have firearms licenses. A friend of mine had a friend of his killed by a bear a few years back. Just outside the city. She probably didn't have much of a chance. He said she came across it on a hiking/jogging trail. She couldn't outrun it, she was definitely weaker, and all it took was one bite, and it was over, from what he told me. More than likely she surprised it accidentally or something. All this having been said, I didn't realize I'd committed thread necromancy until after I posted...I think I found this thread through Google. I was looking for something else, started reading, got interested, and didn't even check the dates before I posted. Banshee [/QUOTE]
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