D&D 5E What Does a Strength 20 Look Like (In Real Life)?

[CleverNickName]

 

[Gradine]

It means they deal an extra 5 damage to you when they hit you with a melee weapon.

 

[Dannyalcatraz]

And to think all this time I've believed I've been having fun playing D&D. Now that I know that the attribute system is not realistic, I realize that fun must have been an illusion.

Mod Note:

Honestly, what did this contribute to the thread besides snark? Be better going forward, please.

 

[Baldurs_Underdark]

I very much appreciate the simplicity of the rules of 5E D&D, which work fine for all creatures that have STR scores typically between 5-20.

If you want to extrapolate these rules to the almost inhuman achievements of the OP, or to huge/gargantuan monsters with STR scores well above 20, we need to acknowledge that some kind of exponential function would probably fit better (e.g. lifting capacity is 0.3*STR^3).

But boy I'm happy we don't need to bring out the calculators in the game, so this is definitely NOT advice for WotC to change the system. Please keep it simple with easy linear relations! Half of our group of friends already struggle to add up 4d6!

 

[FitzTheRuke]

A Grizzly Bear has a strength of 19. Those athletes are not that strong. No Human naturally can be.

I dunno... Hafthor is probably stronger than a grizzly bear. They don't even lift!

But it would be hard to test, what with all the claws.

 

[aco175]

Could I assume that big monsters have some sort of powerful build feature, maybe call it huge build or massive build that lets a dragon turtle do things with its mass, like move a house off its foundation. The Strength score may be just part of its power and useful for fighting damage.

 

[Oofta]

The funny thing is that when people think of guys that are really strong, they think of body builders who look completely ripped. Thing is, those guys are going for show, not for actual function. People that are actually really, really strong? They look huge (obviously) but look more like:

Or, of course like

 

[Flamestrike]

I dunno... Hafthor is probably stronger than a grizzly bear. They don't even lift!

But it would be hard to test, what with all the claws.

An adult grizzly can lift around 500kg, or half a metric ton.

Im sure if he spent time in the iron shop scuplting his guns, it would be considerably more.

And that's without opposable thumbs for grip (so he's also going to need a good spotter).

 

[FarBeyondC]

How about we consider a more obvious real-world analog: the amount of weight a person can lift. According to the Player's Handbook:
Your Strength score determines the amount of weight you can bear. You can push, drag, or lift a weight in pounds up to twice your carrying capacity, or 30 times your Strength score.

Given that player characters can- by default, anyway- drag, lift, or push 30x their Strength score in weight for a stupidly long time (hours and hours and hours) before getting a chance (and only just a chance) of being exhausted, I've always found the idea of people taking the PHB numbers as absolute maximum numbers more than a little silly.

The world record for deadlift is 501kg, or 1104.5 lbs., set by Hafthor Bjornsson (1104.5/30=36.8) So here's what a Strength of 37 looks like in real life:

Nah. That's a natural 20 on a weightlifting check on a guy with 20 Strength and Expertise in weightlifting.

 

[Flamestrike]

For an animal a bit closer to a Human, and one of our nearest cousins, a Silverback gorilla is around 5-9 times stronger than a Human, and can lift 4,000 lb (1,810 kg) on a bench press, while a well-trained man can only lift up to 885 lb (401.5 kg).

Apes have a Strength of 16 (size Medium) and Giant Apes 23 (size Huge) so you'd likely have a Silverback Gorilla somewhere in the middle of those two game stats, with 'Apes' likely representing something like an Adult Chimpanzee (also a crazy strong animal).