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Message: <blockquote data-quote="El Mahdi" data-source="post: 5585006" data-attributes="member: 59506">Yeah. Mechanically, the biggest impact Strength has is in combat - though it does determine lifting capacity and is used for Strength checks.  I should have said, like Frank the DM excerpted from the books, that Strength is about the power of your muscles (in D&D), where dexterity is a combination of muscle coordination and manual dexterity (also in D&D). Real life swordsmen are actually pretty strong though.  They aren't big, which is what we usually think of when we envision "muscular".  But, talk to any fencer and they'll tell you, successfully pulling off moves with the necessary speed requires significant strength.  Hands, forearms, upper arm, shoulders, chest and back for weapon positioning; hips, abs, and legs for thrusting and movement.  Fencers have scary strong hands and forearms.  They remind me of the grip old dairy farmers have (from manual milking).  In the real world, muscle coordination, speed, and strength are intimately interconnected.  Look at sprinters today.  In the past it was always assumed that strength training would just bulk you up and was counterproductive to speed - turns it out that's not correct.  Look at Usain Bolt - he's 6'5" and about 210 lbs.  He looks more like an NFL corner back or wide reciever, than anything sprinters looked like even just 30 years ago.  One can, through isolation exercises, significantly increase strength with minimal increase in dexterity - but just about any other exercise that increases strength is going to also increase dexterity - and vice versa (and flexibility also). We tend to instinctively equate power with size.  We assume that the bigger, more muscular person is objectively stronger - but that's not true. The most striking example I found is this: Le Maosheng (China) Height: 5’ 4" Weight: 136 lbs. (probably about 10% to 15% body fat)Men’s Olympic Weightlifting World Record (Clean & Jerk) – 62 kg. weight category – 401.2 lbs. D&D Strength: 21  <img src="http://4.bp.blogspot.com/_jKrQrrAH3Xg/S3ZA2tslRHI/AAAAAAAAAYY/o9heLSOcZwA/s400/Le+Maosheng+Clean.jpg" alt="" class="fr-fic fr-dii fr-draggable " data-size="" style="" /> <img src="http://www.ironmind.com/ironmind/export/sites/default/ironmind/wu165_lg.jpg" alt="" class="fr-fic fr-dii fr-draggable " data-size="" style="" /> <img src="http://a3.att.hudong.com/71/98/01000000000000119089861848071_s.jpg" alt="" class="fr-fic fr-dii fr-draggable " data-size="" style="" />   Arnold Schwarzenegger (Austria/USA) Height: 6’ 2" Weight: 260 lbs. (235 lbs. competition, pictured – 5%-10% body fat) 6-Time Champion – Mr. Olympia Top Lifts: 605 lbs. deadlift, 300 lbs. Clean & Jerk, 265 lbs. standing press D&D Strength: 18/19  <img src="http://www.popstarsplus.com/images/ArnoldSchwarzeneggerPicture.jpg" alt="" class="fr-fic fr-dii fr-draggable " data-size="" style="" />  <img src="http://im.videosearch.rediff.com/thumbImage/videoImages/videoImages1/youtube/rdhash702/HEgVM3bzN_Y.gif" alt="" class="fr-fic fr-dii fr-draggable " data-size="" style="" />  <img src="http://2.bp.blogspot.com/_W9CL6m3_ld4/SivKCUjPbFI/AAAAAAAAAfU/8Tp838a2qoA/s320/arnold-schwarzenegger-big.jpg" alt="" class="fr-fic fr-dii fr-draggable " data-size="" style="" />  Even though Arnold's muscles are significantly bigger, and at his peak of strength outweighed Le Maosheng by 100 to 125 pounds, Le Maosheng is significantly stronger.  Maosheng could probably have outlifted Arnie in every exercise (whether bench, standing press, dead lifts, squats, and especially clean & jerk) by 30% to 40% - and that's comparing him to Arnie at his peak. Bodybuilders specifically do exercises that are designed to increase muscle size by maximizing tears in the muscles and then flushing the muscles with blood.  It does increase strength, as Arnie is obviously not a weakling, but it emphasizes size over strength.  Powerlifters like Maosheng don't care a whit about how their muscles look - they only care about how strong they are, and exercise accordingly. 5'4" - 136 lbs.: 21 Stength.  That just goes against all of our instincts as to what strength looks like.  But there he is.  And he's really not unique among powerlifters.  Look at pictures of powerlifters in the lower weight categories (like Maosheng), and they are quite similiar.  And almost all of them, regardless of weight category, would be stronger than Arnie at his peak (the rest would be at least as strong as Arnie). Size isn't necessarily Power or Strength. <img src="https://cdn.jsdelivr.net/joypixels/assets/8.0/png/unicode/64/1f642.png" class="smilie smilie--emoji" loading="lazy" width="64" height="64" alt=":)" title="Smile    :)"  data-smilie="1"data-shortname=":)" /></blockquote>

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