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Message: <blockquote data-quote="El Mahdi" data-source="post: 5585223" data-attributes="member: 59506">I agree with everything you're saying also.  But I just can't help commenting...<img src="https://cdn.jsdelivr.net/joypixels/assets/8.0/png/unicode/64/1f609.png" class="smilie smilie--emoji" loading="lazy" width="64" height="64" alt=";)" title="Wink    ;)"  data-smilie="2"data-shortname=";)" /> Technically, Yes - a sprinter is stronger than a marathon runner, if we define strength as power.  But in reality, you're right - they are apples and oranges. A sprinter has a higher concentration (mass) of Fast Twitch muscle fibers than the marathon runner does, and those fast twitch muscles are more developed (more efficient due to exercise, better metabolic efficiency, more developed blood supply, more neural connections, etc.).  A marathon runner has a higher concentration of slow twitch muscle fibers than the sprinter and they are more developed than the slow twitch muscle fibers the sprinter has.  Put simply: the sprinter has stronger fast twitch muscles; the marathon runner has stronger slow twitch muscles.  And remember also, endurance is part and parcel of the cardiovascular system also.  A person with high endurance (meaning highly developed slow twitch muscles), has improved the effieciency (or Strength if you will) of the most important slow twitch muscles in the body: the heart and blood vessels.  Even though in the real world, a very strong athlete (high fast-twitch muscle developement) wouldn't be able to effectively compete against a dedicated marathon runner in a road race.  It doesn't mean they can't have high Endurance - just not as high as the marathon runner.  At the same time, if the high endurance marathon runner had to perform a lot of explosive moves over a significant period of time, like for instance: playing football - they'd likely run out of gas long before the actual football player would, who has a higher proportion of fast twitch muscles. So yeah, Strength has different faces. And technically, Intelligence (IQ) isn't just one thing either. It can be broken down into: logical, linguistic, spatial, musical, kinesthetic, interpersonal, intrapersonal, naturalist, and existential.  But as with Strength and Dexterity, even those are intricately interlinked with other things.  Linguistic and Musical would link more with certain skills in D&D.  Spatial would link up with skills like Spot and Listen, and of course Attack and Defense.  Kinesthetic would be Dexterity.  Interpersonal and Intrapersonal would be more Charisma.  - And that would get just way too complicated.  Humans are very complex machines that are almost impossible to quantify so simply (with just six scores). But in standard D&D even though the six Abilities aren't necessarily accurate as direct correlates of real world equivalents, limiting it to these six and combining like abilities makes for easier game play.  Which is fine with me too...most of the time.<img src="https://cdn.jsdelivr.net/joypixels/assets/8.0/png/unicode/64/1f61b.png" class="smilie smilie--emoji" loading="lazy" width="64" height="64" alt=":p" title="Stick out tongue    :p"  data-smilie="7"data-shortname=":p" /> For me, I'd envision the high strength but dextrous fencer as looking more like Le Maosheng.  But I don't see a paradox with a fencer looking like Arnie.  I just look at some of the incredibly dextrous things football players do (American Football), of which many have physiques very similar to Arnie, and then the visual doesn't seem so paradoxical to me anymore.  But, I like to envision D&D combat as more the combat prevalent in the Early and High Middle Ages, rather than the Late Middle Ages and Renaissance.  So lighter bladed, high dexterity fencing isn't really a factor for my visualisation.  But D&D kind of mashes together all kinds of things that never existed together, so allowances need to be made for ease of gameplay and compatibility.  In basic D&D, I'm cool with that.<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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