Health, hardiness -- translating RL to DnD

[Terraism]

Not to hijack, but this anecdote brings up again for me the issue of how strange it is to have Strength and Constitution as separate stats. I understand that you need them separate in order to have "the powerful warrior who strains his muscles too often" or "the incredibly healthy person who is nevertheless incredibly feeble", but those seem like situations that could be handled with flaws or tradeoffs, assuming that you used those house rules. It seems like Strength and Constitution are really tied together at a fundamental level, and that you really have to stretch to come up with situations in which they're radically different.

On the other hand, you have people like me who can keep doing something for hours - swimming, running. I can do 16 miles, running, in a little more than two hours. Fairly good. On the other hand, I can barely bench 60 lbs. I think they're two different things.

 

[derelictjay]

First off, 160 lbs., a forty year old. I'm 6' 1" tall and weight in at 205 lbs (for those who would have problems, here's the metrics 1.8 meters tall, and about 90 kg), and I'm only 26.

Anyways, yeah, If I had to judge my strength by the D&D way, I would have to use two stats, upper body and lower body. My upper body would be about 12 or 13 and my lower body would have to be 15 to 16. My arms and shoulders are relativly weak while my legs are exceptionally strong (I was dunking a basketball when I was shorter and much younger 15 years old). At my best, my bench was 150 lbs., and that was 7 years ago, now I do good to handle 100-120. My legs in their heyday (there kinda beat up now) I could leg press about 900 lbs. max, haven't tried to see how much I do now. But my normal workout, 75 lbs. bench, 400 lbs. leg press. Realism and D&D would have a hard time statting me on strength, now constitution thats up there rarely get sick, never seriously injured, and my endurance (thanks to some good cardiovasular workouts recently) is really getting up there.

 

[mmadsen]

On the other hand, you have people like me who can keep doing something for hours - swimming, running. I can do 16 miles, running, in a little more than two hours. Fairly good. On the other hand, I can barely bench 60 lbs. I think they're two different things.

Clearly max strength (or power) and aerobic endurance are two very different things -- marathon runners aren't strong, and powerlifters don't run marathons well -- but strength and toughness are closely linked. In fact, strength is clearly more closely linked with toughness than aerobic endurance is, but that's not how D&D's Strength and Constitution stats work.

 

[mmadsen]

And mmu1, a 100 lb overhead press isn't much, and in a desperate situation, most people could manage it easily.

Also, there's quite a difference between a strict military press and a push press (using leg drive) or a jerk (using leg drive and a second dip to get under the bar). A "strong" man can press 200 lbs, but he can jerk 300 lbs overhead.

When I started working out 3 years ago, I could easily do 120 lbs 30 times...

That would imply a one-rep max around 250 lbs. That is not normal for a new lifter.

 

[JDJarvis]

I feel like hercules after reading this thread, I've always felt the D&D strengfht scores were out of line. A healthy adult male should be able to lift a 100lbs over his head from the ground, certainly not all day long without risk strain from the effort but it shoudl hardly be remarkable from what i've experienced.
I'm 210 lbs and 6' tall. I can lift 100lbs over my head from the ground without much trouble. I can lift my wife up off her feet and onto my shoulder with one arm and she is no dainty flower (she's about 15 pounds lighter then me usually and will kick the heck out of me if she reads this). I've lugged about railroad ties for hours 2 to 4 at a time. I've lifted a motorcyle up off the ground and into a pickup truck, it was hard but i still did it and felt rather dim when my friend pointed out the piece of wood i could have used for a ramp. Once during my violent youth I got out of a tough spot with two fellows by hitting one fellow with the other fellow. I'd still hardly rank myself as a muscle man I'd guess myself at 11 or 12 if i had a D&D STR score and i'm hardly the strongest guy i know, some of them are ex football players and I'm considered one of the smaller guys in that cirlce.

 

[mmadsen]

I'm 210 lbs and 6' tall. I can lift 100lbs over my head from the ground without much trouble.

A typical (50%ile) young man can bench press his own bodyweight (e.g., 210 lbs). Also, a typical lifter can overhead press roughly two-thirds of what he can bench press. (Obviously a specialist in one lift or the other won't maintain that ratio.) Thus, a young 210-lb male would be expected to lift 140 lbs overhead.

A young, 210-lb athlete (90%ile) would be expected to lift 210 lbs overhead -- in a strict press, with no leg drive.

I can lift my wife up off her feet and onto my shoulder with one arm and she is no dainty flower (she's about 15 pounds lighter then me usually and will kick the heck out of me if she reads this).

It's much, much easier to pick up a standing person than to lift that person to arms' length overhead.

 

[JDJarvis]

It's much, much easier to pick up a standing person than to lift that person to arms' length overhead.

Well what about running and catching somone who ways 195 pounds with one hand and lifting them up onto your shoulder (as part of goofy horseplay)?

 

[mmu1]

1. The average man can easily get strong enough to bench press his own body weight, but if he's not a weight-lifter, that's hardly a given - I think the 50th percentile guy being able to do that is a bit generous. Or maybe not, since it means 1/2 of the population can't...

2. The only way you'll get a 195lbs person onto your shoulder with one arm is if you bend down, wrap your arm around their waist, and stand up, or some variation on that - basically, getting your shoulder under their center of gravity and using your back to lift, or possibly using momentum to swing them around.

3. Like it's been said, grabbing someone who's standing up and throwing them over a shoulder or even lifting them above your head is a lot easier than picking up the same amount of dead weight up from the ground.

 

[Driddle]

The standard deviation for our assumptions here is unknown, which throws the entire concept of an "average" real guy way out of wack.

 

[CRGreathouse]

2. At the same time, they seriously overestimate a person's "lift over head" capacity by making it equal to max carry weight - there's no way a typical man can pick up a 100 pound weight off the ground and get it above his head, even if he works out and is in good shape, because it involves muscles that are rarely used in everyday life and pretty hard to develop.

Really? I think of myself as pretty weak (I don't work out), but I can lift ~95 pounds over my head, or bench press ~130 pounds. I'd expect the average adult (not yet D&D middle age) male could lift 100# over his head without trouble.