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Message: <blockquote data-quote="AbdulAlhazred" data-source="post: 9304399" data-attributes="member: 82106">Yes, I understand. I'm not trying to be pedantic about it. You cube the mass of things when you double their size. Actually though it is a bit more complex than that, since the square-cube law DOES come into play in terms of things like limb strength. This tells us that doubling the dimensions of a creature actually must increase it's mass MUCH MORE than squared, and closer to cubed. So I'm actually being kind of generous in my numbers. A 12' giant would actually need to weigh more like 3,000 or 4,000 pounds, and thus be more like 15x stronger than a human if it was to actually be able to move. The mass of elephants bears this out, though not being humanoid the extrapolations aren't as exact.Yes, I understand all of this. There was a famous Dragon article way way back (I suppose someone could look up exactly which issue, I'm sure I have it) that went through ALL of this, called "How Heavy is My Giant?" but it is all just basic biomechanics. This is all why I say above that a 12' giant would ACTUALLY need to weigh something like 2x or 3x what a simple application of cubing (1200 lbs or so) would give you, because all its limbs, even its trunk, and its skeletal structure would have to be MUCH thicker proportionally than a human's.Well, giant sauropods clearly had ways. I mean, gigantism of some type is clearly possible. It needn't be magical, though that would certainly make things comport more with folklore giants, which seem to be proportioned the same as humans mostly. Partly hollow bones, thicker limbs, special joint architecture, extra dense musculature, etc. These are all things that very large animals seem to do, at least on land. I think we can agree that bipedal creatures larger than, maybe at most, 12' are probably impossible in nature though. I mean, I don't think any serious research has been done on it, if someone told me 15' giants are possible, I won't argue the point. In any case, any creature in this size scale, giant, dragon, whatever, is going to need strength of a level that is simply overwhelming in terms of human scale. In Kenya I saw elephants smash down huge trees. No person, modern weaponry excepted, is going to fight an elephant. Now give it some serious intellect, and weapons, you're just dead. I don't care how incredibly skilled you are, it will not matter. Anyone who can fight stuff like that is 'magical'.I know the stubborn argument, that people can define 'magic' in some sort of game-technical way that makes fighters "non-magical" but any such sophistry also completely undermines the argument that they're bound by actual physical law! So my point stands, this is all fantastical and a rule that says "fantastical can only happen 2x per day" CANNOT be argued against on the basis of its realism or lack thereof! The argument itself is irrational at that point. I accept people's preferences, but even the Internet cannot defeat logic, only ignore it!</blockquote>

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