High Str Low Con?

[Tonguez]

We (friends & I) were talking about stat combinations and the mix of high str low con presented something of a conumdrum. So how do you guys concieve a character who is really strong yet frail - can you think of 'real world' examples of this mix.

The only thing that comes to mind for me is someone who is asthmatic or has a heart condition or similar - they have the strength but become breathless with strenuous activity, and if excited risk keeling over!

Any other ideas

and on a tangent how was Asthma managed prior to the invention of the asthma inhaler?

 

[Kai Lord]

Think of guys with "glass jaws" or big guys that are just prone to injuries. Brian Bosworth comes to mind. We had a guy on our football team back in high school who was huge but was so easily bruised we called him "Peaches."

 

[Dark Jezter]

High Strength + Low Con = A heavyweight boxer with a glass jaw.

 

[MerricB]

I was playing such a character recently. I had him being ill on many an occasion, always with a cough or something of the sort.

Strong, but without great endurance.

Cheers!

 

[Herremann the Wise]

Hi Everyone,

I like to think of con as a representation of fitness and physique - or technically a muscle to fat ratio. The higher the con, the higher the muscle to fat ratio.

As such someone with low con will tend to be overweight, unfit, in general poor health etc. A character who is strong but who has low con is normally very large to the point of obese. Strong but they could barely run 100 yards to save themselves. You would not like to be hit by one but at the same time you could tire them out easily.

However, if you mix this with exceptional dex, you end up with a slightly different configuration that is even more difficult to work out. I suppose this de-emphasises obesity issues and focuse more on lack of health and the classic "glass jaw" people are talking about. Their nimbleness with their fingers is astonishing as well as their ability to be in the right place at the right time with an economy of movement and effort.

An interesting topic.

Best Regards
Herremann the Wise

 

[Count Arioch the 28t]

Well, the person could be obese, fat people tend to be somewhat strong, they have to be to move themselves around.

I knew this bodybuilder who was immensely strong, but he had no endurance whatsoever. He could bench over 300 pounds, but a short run left him out of breath.

I consider both of those to be good examples of high str, lon con.

 

[Ogre Mage]

What comes to mind are some baseball players who have ultra-powerful swings and send balls out of the park like shotgun blasts. They have to do this because they are so out of shape they get winded trying to jog (slowly) around the bases.

Why would a character be incredibly strong but unfit and unhealthy? Obesity might be one reason, as others have suggested. The person might be blessed with great natural strength but is a complete lazy sloth. Bascially the character can dish it out be he can't take it. I've actually seen some pretty strong guys fall apart like babies if they get hurt.

 

[Sledge]

I would go a different direction. Strength is simply a matter of muscles. Someone that is devoted only to weight training would have no advantage in a marathon. Also Make the person skinny, not overweight. I've heard in documentaries that bodybuilders have to be careful not to get injured because the lack of fat means there is no protection on the muscles. Easy bruising and injury. Essentially you have a character that can sprint hard, but just has no staying power. Every hit hurts extra because it directly impacts and damages the muscles.

 

[Snoweel]

So how do you guys concieve a character who is really strong yet frail - can you think of 'real world' examples of this mix.

Being from NZ, Tonguez, I'm surprised you can't think of any GLARING examples from rugby.

The problem may be to do with the fact that D&D's CON score represents so many very different things - endurance, resistance to disease, fitness and so on.

But for mine, classic examples of high STR, low CON rugby players are many of your Polynesian centres, wingers and flankers. Massively strong and fast (another function of the STR score, despite the insistence of many that it is related to DEX) but far less effective late in the game due to a body not designed for 80 minutes of constant exertion.

If you remember the furore from a couple of years ago when the NZ selectors picked "the whitest All Black team in recent memory" for the Bledisloe Cup match against Australia, former All Black captain Frank Bunce (himself a Pacific Islander) said words to the effect of "In most positions you need a player who will just put his head down and work hard for the full 80 minutes and more often than not that player is white."

Another example of high STR, low CON players are those who are constantly injured.

 

[Ghostknight]

A couple of real world examples

One has been mentioned before - bodybuilders. Their diets are aimed at high muscular building/shaping but don't cater for the needs of the entire body. As a result many bodybuilders suffer from a lot of illnesses (even worse when combined with steroids).

Another example is Sumo wrestlers. These guys are STRONG, but tend to have life expectancies of only around fourty years due to the health problems associated with obesity.

Other reasons can be medical conditions, you have mentioned asthma and a heart condition, but an immune system deficiency, thyroid deficiency, hoormone imbalance, genetic problems with chromosomes etc are all also possibilities. many of these would not be detectable within a fantasy setting and thus not correctable just by a simple use of magic (otherwise you could just pay a high level wizard to polymorph you into a perfectly healthy specimen of your race and everyone would be walking around with an 18 CON).