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Message: <blockquote data-quote="pemerton" data-source="post: 6835598" data-attributes="member: 42582">I think I'll skip the bit about Aztecs.As to the rest - what is your source?I am looking at <a href="https://www.learner.org/jnorth/tm/eagle/ExpertAnswer05.html" target="_blank">this</a>, <a href="http://www.adfg.alaska.gov/index.cfm?adfg=wildlifenews.view_article&articles_id=343" target="_blank">this</a> and <a href="https://www.quora.com/Can-an-eagle-pick-up-a-small-dog" target="_blank">this</a>. They suggest that an eagle can carry half its weight, not four times and certainly not 10 times (90 lb for a 4 kg eagle, which is a typical weight for a bald eagle). Eagles can carry off lambs, but I doubt many eagles are going to carry off a fully-grown sheep, which can weigh in the neighbourhood of 50 to 100 kg (ie much the same as a person). I can easily imagine being hurt by an eagle stooping on me - but not being carried off by one!As for your comment about a giant lizard, my response is the same as [MENTION=97077]iserith[/MENTION]'s to the idea of a frog taking an IQ test. It seems absurd. I mean, how does a giant lizard pick a lock? It has not fingers! Does it use its tongue? (And how does it hold chopsticks, which is also something a human of average DEX can do?) [MENTION=97077]iserith[/MENTION] already answered this: a check is only permitted when the GM deems the situation uncertain in some way. It is certain that a frog can't take an IQ test: it can't write, it can't reason in the relevant way, it's a frog! Hence no check is involved. Many other RPGs have a similar rule, of applying a "credibility" or "genre appropriateness" test as a screen for permissible action declarations (eg HeroQuest, Marvel Heroic RP).One way of framing the discussion in this thread would be: is the GM entitled to forbid certain action declarations by a player whose PC has 5 INT, on grounds that they are not credible? The answer may well be "yes", depending what exactly 5 INT is taken to mean in the fiction. But as I've said, I think this is a danger zone because it risks excluding a player from the play of the game in a way that having a 5 STR or DEX wouldn't.Can you explain, then, what is the reasoning deficiency, and how it works? For instance, what action declarations is the GM entitled to block, or deem automatic failures, on account of the PC having a 5 INT?The rulebook also says that a 5 STR person can carry 75 lb (or 30-ish kg) without slowing down. That's not that weak - eg my primary school-aged children, who don't weigh more than about 25 kg, can't carry their own body weights without slowing down. So STR 5 is stronger than a primary-school aged child.There are two possible conclusions: either the spectrum of scores from 3 to 18 isn't actually covering a very wide range of real-world possibility; or the scores are, to a significant extent, mechanical constructs intended to serve game-play purposes, and don't reliably map onto or measure real world capabilities in any very systematic way. I think the second conclusion is more plausible.</blockquote>

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