D&D 5E What Does a Strength 20 Look Like (In Real Life)?

[Willie the Duck]

How far you jump in the long jump is how strong you are?

I had no idea I had around a 22-23 STR in High School.

No, your strength is how far you can jump without making an athletics check.

 

[abirdcall]

No that's highly unreasonable. That's supernatural, It's beyond supernatural. It's literally stronger than a Grizzly, and is stronger than an Elephant.

We've already said the strength scores of creatures and animals don't make sense compared to characters.

"Any sufficiently advanced technology is indistinguishable from magic."

Hafthor gets his strength through technology. His strength is literally not natural.

 

[Vaalingrade]

Wait, you're saying that D&D stats don't accurately depict real life? Craziness.

But you'd think it would be inaccurate the other way, right?

Not that the mightiest warriors of Faerun would be soundly styled on by Earth humans in almost every way possible.

Sort of puts all the 'but my goliath should be stronger than any halfling' arguments in their place. You golaith isn't even stronger than most buff dudes.

 

[Mercurius]

But you'd think it would be inaccurate the other way, right?

Not that the mightiest warriors of Faerun would be soundly styled on by Earth humans in almost every way possible.

Sort of puts all the 'but my goliath should be stronger than any halfling' arguments in their place. You golaith isn't even stronger than most buff dudes.

Or...the descriptions of which STR ranking means are dubious, due to poor research on the part of WotC. Meaning, it doesn't matter as much what they say - as long as the scale within the game is consistent.

 

[Vaalingrade]

Or...the descriptions of which STR ranking means are dubious, due to poor research on the part of WotC. Meaning, it doesn't matter as much what they say - as long as the scale within the game is consistent.

Consistent doesn't mean 'not aggravating' like how the max anyone ever can lift is 'sadness'.

 

[Mercurius]

Consistent doesn't mean 'not aggravating' like how the max anyone ever can lift is 'sadness'.

Ha, well not sort of aggravation goes back decades...at least for me. Like, why is hand-eye coordination, agility, and foot speed all folded into the same thing? What do you do with a major league baseball player, like Vlad Guerrero Jr? Massively strong, incredible hand-eye, but slow as a turtle and probably couldn't dodge a nerf ball.

But...you live with it, and the game is fun, regardless. Not how I would design a game today, but it works just fine for what it is intended to do.

 

[GreyLord]

No, your strength is how far you can jump without making an athletics check.

And why would one have to make an athletics check for a running (or standing) long jump?

The rule itself is interesting in that it would have given my High School self different strength depending on whether it was standing, running, or high jump.

Each of which I could do 100% of the time, so it was not something that I "failed" at that age on a skill roll, or was incredibly lucky.

Running Long Jump generally was 22 feet, though sometimes I could get a tad longer. (22 STR)

Standing Long Jump normally was a little over 9 feet, barely. (18 STR) [Could occasionally jump further, but that was unpredictable on how far and when. 9 Feet was what I could always jump whenever tested, every time at that age].

High Jump was a wild card, so that probably always required a roll, being between 4-6 feet. (STR 12 to 14?).

If we go by the movement rules at least.

If we say it was a skill check, but one always suceeded on, then we'd use the idea of a +5 for advantage (afterall, no pressure, I knew what I was doing, and we could warm up before a meet), and the check itself would be probably at least a Hard from what I saw, maybe even very hard (not many could actually jump that far, but that was decades ago, maybe these skills are easier to do for kids these days).

By that metric, if it was hard that would a 20 passive check, +5 for advantage on it, so needing a 15 passive check for a 20 STR?

Or if it was 25, than it would need a 30 STR to suceed on that type of passive check.

So, going back the OP with the World record holder...

With those checks, with a 30 check roll for the world record set, there is no set thing for is STR on the record holder. We could assume he could regularly jump 27 feet with no problem everytime...so with a passive check, if we follow the ability score rules and give them a +5 for advantage...they'd have at least a 32 STR???

That is if we say it requires a check rather than use the movement rules, and acknowledge that there are distances that the running long jumper hits EVERY TIME...they aren't going to fail, even if you roll a 2, and they don't fail 5% of the time either.

Not sure that would work...so the STR = jumping distance probably works better as I'm still not clear why it would require a check when the rules stipulate that the running long jump distance = STR.

 

[CleverNickName]

So, going back the OP with the World record holder...

With those checks, with a 30 check roll for the world record set, there is no set thing for is STR on the record holder. We could assume he could regularly jump 27 feet with no problem everytime...so with a passive check, if we follow the ability score rules and give them a +5 for advantage...they'd have at least a 32 STR???

That is if we say it requires a check rather than use the movement rules, and acknowledge that there are distances that the running long jumper hits EVERY TIME...they aren't going to fail, even if you roll a 2, and they don't fail 5% of the time either.

Not sure that would work...so the STR = jumping distance probably works better as I'm still not clear why it would require a check when the rules stipulate that the running long jump distance = STR.

Long jumps are also covered under Acrobatics (Dexterity). And under those rules, Mike actually failed his Acrobatics check since he falls prone after the landing. (I know, I know...it's absurd that a human could fail a skill check and still break a World Record, but them's the rules.)

Anyway. I prefer STR = jumping distance, over trying to back-calculate it from a skill check result.

 

[JEB]

A Dragon Turtle only has a Strength of what, 25?

All it tells me is that Dragon Turtles and other large monsters maybe ought not be measured with the same scale as PC (or some massively multiple levels of Powerful Build should be mentioned to square the circle on their carrying capacity).

Could I assume that big monsters have some sort of powerful build feature, maybe call it huge build or massive build that lets a dragon turtle do things with its mass, like move a house off its foundation.

Officially, a Large creature can carry and lift twice what a Medium creature of the same Strength can. Huge is double that (4x), and Gargantuan double that (8x).

So officially, a dragon turtle can carry 25 x 15 x 8 = 3000 lbs. and lift 25 x 30 x 8 = 6000 lbs. About six times Hafthor's record here.

(Also, the dragon turtle's Strength 25 is basically a Medium creature's Str 200...)

 

[Flamestrike]

We've already said the strength scores of creatures and animals don't make sense compared to characters.

Yeah, nah. Dude is a commoner with a Strength of 18 or so.