D&D 4E Should 4e convert to metric?

[arscott]

I think the starting units work fine for what they do. The meter is perfect in small scale measurements. A Human is between 1 and 2 meters tall (mostly)

But that makes meters a terrible unit of measurement, at least for human height. Likewise, the next lowest unit in common usage (centimeters) is a poor option, because measurement error is likely to exceed the base unit.

The prefixes that are commonly used are kilo, centi and mili. I haven't seen the other ones used in everyday life.

For distance, certainly. But bels are usually expressed in tenths, and ares in hundreds (though this might be stretching "everyday live" somewhat.

Besides, they go very well together with weights, since a mililiter of water is the same as 1 cubic centimeter which weighs 1 gram. Really, 1 cubic centimeter of matter weighs as many grams as the number of it in the periodic system. I'd say it's very much better than ounces and stuff.

Check you math. Under this system, a cc of air is heavier than that 1 gram mL of water.

 

[DeusExMachina]

The math is correct for non-gases...

Take solid/fluid oxygen (kinda hard I admit) and you will have something heavier than water, yes...

 

[FabioMilitoPagliara]

since it converted to "square" or the imperial passus (double step) of imperial Rome why care?

long life to the Square!

hurrah for the "cthulhic square (diagonal=1)"

 

[med stud]

But that makes meters a terrible unit of measurement, at least for human height. Likewise, the next lowest unit in common usage (centimeters) is a poor option, because measurement error is likely to exceed the base unit.

Human height varies about 2 centimeters during the day due to intervertebral discs losing fluid when people are in upright position. There is really no reason to measure someone within the centimeter anyway. The usual way to say how tall someone is is "one and eightyfive", for example. Doesn't take long time to say. It also is the decimal thing I like, I don't think 12 inches = 1 foot, 3 feet = 1 yard and ?? yards = 1 mile is a nice solution. I think it's awkward and it feels old.

 

[Tuft]

But that makes meters a terrible unit of measurement, at least for human height. Likewise, the next lowest unit in common usage (centimeters) is a poor option, because measurement error is likely to exceed the base unit.

Huh? Over here, decimeters are just as common in everyday speak over here as any of the other divisions of the meter. Like in "He missed the goalpost with just a few decimeters".

As for human height, you simply know that when someone says "he is one-and-eighty tall" or "she is one-and-sixty tall", you are talking about two persons of average swedish height (1 meter 80 cm for males and 1 m 60 cm for females). I kind of fail to see how 5'4" for average height is more "natural" than 1.60...

Some divisions of the meter are simply more common for some dimensions than others because the numbers becomes easier to handle, like meter + centimeter for human height, or swedish miles for city-to-city distances (1 swedish mile = 10 kilometers, i.e. 6 US miles - the pre-metric swedish mile was 10,688 m, so it converted nicely when it went metric in 1889). In the kitchen, deciliters are used for cooking ingredients (1 deciliter of of flour and two deciliters of milk for each egg makes nice thin pancakes!), while for some reason, centiliters are more commonly used for anything you drink, as in the 33 cl bottle and 50 cl can.

Building supplies used to be the last hold-out over here, with an "metric inch" of 1/4 dm = 25mm (as compared to the 25.4 mm US inch), but that one seems to have disappeared from common usage lately. No-one really speaks about that inch anymore, and use millimeters, centimeters and decimeters interchangably instead.

 

[med stud]

(1 deciliter of of flour and two deciliters of milk for each egg makes nice thin pancakes!)

Thanks for the recipie! I've planned to look up a recipie for pancakes for a while but couldn't be arsed to do it, seems like I made the right choice

 

[parvatiquinta]

France is far from the only nation to use the metric system. In fact, it is the international standard.

From this point of view, 4E with its emphasis on "squares" is at least simpler than having measurements in feet.

 

[lukelightning]

The metric system was invented by gnomes. One meter = average height of a gnome. In fact, metric is just short for gnometric.

Seriously, though, I like five-foot squares a lot better than two-meter squares. Two meters just seems a bit too big.

 

[Brown Jenkin]

 

[arscott]

The math is correct for non-gases...

Take solid/fluid oxygen (kinda hard I admit) and you will have something heavier than water, yes...

Another Example: one milliliter of water is one gram. Water is 2 parts hydrogen (atomic weight 1) and 1 part oxygen (atomic weight 16). So by the shortcut given above, water would weigh 6 grams.

Huh? Over here, decimeters are just as common in everyday speak over here as any of the other divisions of the meter. Like in "He missed the goalpost with just a few decimeters".

Okay, maybe that's a cultural thing. Outside of "learn how metric works" exercises in school, I don't think I've ever seen anything that uses decimeters. And judging from some other posts in this thread, that's not unique to the US.

As for human height, you simply know that when someone says "he is one-and-eighty tall" or "she is one-and-sixty tall", you are talking about two persons of average swedish height (1 meter 80 cm for males and 1 m 60 cm for females). I kind of fail to see how 5'4" for average height is more "natural" than 1.60...

It's not more natural, it's more accurate. When you say 1.60, you don't actually mean 'one and sixty hundredths'. you mean 'one and six tenths' or at best 'one and twelve twelve twentieths'. your use of centimeters implies more precision than you've actually got. Whereas, when we say 5'4", we actually mean 'five and four twelfths'. what's more, one inch is about 2.5 cm--twice as precise as the 'round to the nearest five cm' system you folks seem to have.

In the kitchen, deciliters are used for cooking ingredients (1 deciliter of of flour and two deciliters of milk for each egg makes nice thin pancakes!)

Now this I appreciate.
most metric recipes that I have seen list their dry ingredients in grams. Frankly, I don't care about imperial versus metric when it comes to cooking--as long as the directions specify ingredients by volume.