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

M

MPA2000

Explorer
Can I just add something to this incredible discussion? My understanding of what is inferred is that 18 means he can lift 180lbs as a matter of ease. That is to say he is so strong that he could walk for 8 hours and lift that 180lbs above his head repetitively. And if he has an 18 constitution, do so for the entire 8 hrs before needing a rest.

Again that's just me inferring. How does that mesh with the Olympian deadlifting 1100lbs? It's just a dead lift. can he walk down the street with 180lbs for several hours?

It's not just a max exertion. Again that's what I inferred from All D&D except AD&D which threw in 18/00.
 

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Garthanos

Garthanos

Arcadian Knight
Vaalingrade said:
You are clearly not collapsing enough cliffside temples around the PCs.
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Which means to me boring game play, cause without collapsing temples and gigantic pillars to knock over on bad guys heads and splitting ground and bridges falling out from under you (leaving huge gaps to jump) what is there?
 

Garthanos

Garthanos

Arcadian Knight
jgsugden said:
What does Strength 20 look like?

Whatever you want. You can decide that your strength is not from muscles, but from magical manifestation, right? So you could have a beanpole body frame and a 20 strength.
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I do that with Fae races as a matter of norms....
 

Mannahnin

Mannahnin

Scion of Murgen (He/Him)
Pardon the digression, as this classic Dragonmirth comic I recently stumbled across while searching through old issues of Dragon Magazine is not about a 20 score, but about scores of 18, but I thought others would enjoy.
 

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M

MPA2000

Explorer
What does 20 look like?

I know when D&D first came out (Basic), 18 was the max for a human right? The only way to increase your strength attributes, was temporarily with Gauntlets of Ogre Power or Girdle of Giant Strength (pg 240 Rules Cyclopedia). It didn't necessarily change the look of the user. They could be frail looking, but clear out an entire bar of bandits.

With 5e you get to build your attributes through leveling up. I suppose the rational is because the gods look favorably on you or have the blood of some unearthly being coursing through your veins.

Under Cygax AD&D 1e, he came up with 18 as max for a human, as either a minimum of lifting 180lbs or his body weight, which ever is greater (pg 15, AD&D1e). The limit was that humanoids couldn't lift more than twice their weight. So if you weighed 180, the max you lift is 180lbs, unless you had exceptional strength 18/01-18/00.

So a 20 strength, means the minimum you could lift is 200lbs, but no more than 400lbs if you weighed 200lbs.
Of course the discovery of using performance enhancing drugs, allows people to surpass those limits to an extent.
 
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M

MPA2000

Explorer
Bill Zebub said:
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.
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I suspect the more realistic attributes tend to be those of superhero games (not Marvel Superheroes!), if you like math.
 

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