D&D General Strength

[Scott Christian]

Strength in D&D strength is often discussed here. I thought it might be nice to gauge the definitions we may have for strength. We know in 5e they define it as "natural athleticism" and "bodily power," as well as "athletic training and the extent to which you can exert raw physical force." Both of those things seem to skirt the actual definition we use in the modern world, which is either: The amount a person can lift, push or pull or the amount a person can lift, push or pull comparative to their own weight.

For example, a gymnast is incredibly strong in the fact that she can push her own body weight through the air much higher than an average person. A male gymnast can do handstand pushups for days. But neither of them could lift as much as what Andre the Giant could with one arm. Yet, Andre couldn't do either one of the things the gymnasts could do.

So what is your take? When you are a player of a character with high strength, how do you usually describe them? When you are a DM, how do you usually describe creatures with a high strength? How about NPCs?

 

[Yaarel]

I want Athletics to become an ability score.

Strength / Constitution
Dexterity / Athletics

Intelligence / Perception
Charisma / Wisdom

 

[Hriston]

The capability to affect objects and outcomes in the physical world using bodily force.

 

[Minigiant]

It depends on how you do modifiers.

If you do Strength as 12 is +1, 14 is +2, 16 is +3 etc, aka a linear curve, then the amount a person can lift, pull or push when compared to their own body weight.

If you do Strength as 12 is +0, 14 is +2, 16 is +4, aka quadratic curve, then the raw amount a person can lift, pull, or push.

Why? Giants, that's why.

Should a human wearing a belt of fire giant strength lifts a boulder the same size as a fire giant's boulder? If yes, then Strength needed to increase on a curve. If no, then the giant has a Size multiplier the human lacks.

 

[le Redoutable]

Str for Intensity
Con for Duration
:=)

 

[DND_Reborn]

OTHER:

Strength is your ability to effectively use your muscle mass.

So, sort of one, but with a lot more to it.

 

[Charlaquin]

None of the above. Strength represents nothing more and nothing less than the likelihood of success when (to quote the PHB) “attempt(ing) to lift, push, pull, or break something, to force your body through a space, or to otherwise apply brute force to a situation,” when doing so has a possibility of success, a possibility of failure, and meaningful stakes.

 

[Hriston]

None of the above. Strength represents nothing more and nothing less than the likelihood of success when (to quote the PHB) “attempt(ing) to lift, push, pull, or break something, to force your body through a space, or to otherwise apply brute force to a situation,” when doing so has a possibility of success, a possibility of failure, and meaningful stakes.

I’m not sure that such a definition covers non- ability check uses of Strength such as carrying capacity and jump distance in the edition you’ve quoted or the bonus or penalty to experience for having high or low Strength that fighters had in earlier editions.

 

[Dausuul]

A mixture. It is certainly not raw amount you can lift, because that amount changes based on your size category. But the change is not proportional to body weight, either.

In D&D, each size category doubles your carrying capacity for a given Strength score: A Large creature has 2x carrying capacity, a Huge creature has 4x, and a Gargantuan has 8x. However, body weight increases quite differently. A Large creature is twice as big in each dimension as a Medium; a Huge creature is three times as big; a Gargantuan creature is four times or more. Body weight is proportional to the cube of your height or length, so a typical Large creature is 8 times as heavy as a typical Medium, a typical Huge is 27 times heavier, et cetera.

There's a whole other discussion to be had about the relationship of an animal's actual carrying capacity to its size; Google "square-cube law" if you're interested. But the point is, base carrying capacity grows nowhere near as fast as body weight. You see this reflected in statblocks, where the bigger a creature is, the higher its Strength score gets.

What's really going on here, of course, is the designers picking roughly the Strength score they want to see on a creature (for purposes of combat balance and aesthetics--we like giants to have higher Strength, but we don't want to deal with scores of 100+), and then retrofitting the encumbrance rules to give reasonable-seeming answers based on those scores.

 

[Brotton Goodfellow]

There’s different types of strength. Look at the difference between power lifters, body builders, and gymnasts. All incredibly strong, but in different ways. So for me it’s a matter of how my character uses their strength. I might describe it as the hulking Barbarian who can lift massive stones, or it’s the ex-gladiator who is lithesome but capable of doing 1,000 push-ups. Maybe they’re the special forces type who have incredible strength conditioning/endurance that allows them push themselves beyond normal limits.
I think we could do this for all the abilities really; see how they relate to more than the baseline assumptions.