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Message: <blockquote data-quote="mmu1" data-source="post: 3261710" data-attributes="member: 319">Right.However, if we're not simply talking about reducing or enlarging someone by magic, but trying to design "realistic" humanoids by scaling up and down from real-world humans, then additional factors become involved.This has to do with the fact that if you just increase linear dimensions, then bone strength (which depends mainly on the bone's cross-sectional area) doesn't keep up with the increase in weight. (the area only quadruples, while the weight is increase eightfold - the good old cube-square law)Which means that almost without exception, bigger and heavier creatures are more stocky than just the increase in weight would indicate, and smaller ones are more slender. So if you really want to go all out, add some extra weight when scaling up, and remove a little more weight when scaling down. I'd say +/- 10% extra for every 25% you increase or decrease the height by is a decent fudge factor... (Or you could calculate how much thicker the bones of something would need to be to be equivalently strong, but that's just bone - there's no good formula for muscle mass, and besides, bone strength doesn't quite keep up with increasing size anyway, in nature - it's one of the reasons why, for example, a cat jumping down 20 feet would most likely be ok, a human jumping down the same distance would likely be hurt but might get away with minor injury, and an elephant would completely shatter its legs)</blockquote>

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