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Message: <blockquote data-quote="Celebrim" data-source="post: 5564345" data-attributes="member: 4937">I think we must be because I'm increasingly uncertain of what you are trying to say.  You are almost quoting back to me things that I've said earlier in the thread, and I'm beginning to think that maybe you are arguing my part more effectively than I am.  I agree with almost your entire post.  At one data point, yes, though that hardly draws the picture.  And to be fair I've been referring to the differences in strength between the two sexes as being closer to -4 strength, which is what prompted the whole halfling objection.  That is to say, it's the gap between male and female human strength is in reality larger than the gap the game models between halflings and humans.  Now, the gap between halflings and humans is unusually small even by the internal standards of the game, and externally such a large gap would imply halflings are pound for pound one of the strongest animals in the (real) world in their size class while comparably humans (weighing four times as much) are among the weaker animals in their size class (if not the weakest).  Being only ~5-10% less strong while weighing 1/4 as much suggests average halflings would have a vertical leap sufficient to easily slam dunk a basketball, and could probably go from stationary to the roof of your house with complete ease.  (And yes, women are on average and at the upper extremes considerably more than 5-10% less strong than men.)So, not so convinced about similar physical characteristics.  Size matters; a lot.  If you are interested, GULLIVER makes for very interesting reading on the subject of physics in gaming.  Also take a look at the supplement 'Beastiary: The Predators' (Bastion Press?), which is an excellent attempt at bringing some realism to D&D's numbers. Both in my opinion make terrible benchmarks because neither are real.  Typically when I want to bench mark a system, I look at well documented very familiar animals like humans, dogs, cats, oxen, chimps and horses and work what the attributes must mean from that.  Then when I want to add a new monster or creature, I compare it to knowable benchmarks and extrapolate.  If you use elves as a benchmark for what Constitution means, what does that tell you about Constitution given that you still have nothing to compare it to because well you've chosen an unknown as your control?</blockquote>

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