Talk about ability score inflation. The 2e Players Handbook lists 1,130lbs Maximum PRESS as a Str 23. So if Mr. Bjornsson can get that over his head and hold it, he'd have a 23...
I don't know if we can call it inflation or deflation. 5e uses a linear formula, while the AD&Ds went up jagged-exponentially (with the whole 18/## thing in the midst making hash of any kind of formula). For that matter, oD&D and the basic/classic line had a flat formula -- High Strength did not make you better at lifting or carrying things, just more quickly advancing as an iconically mighty character archetype.
I very much appreciate the simplicity of the rules of 5E D&D, which work fine for all creatures that have STR scores typically between 5-20.
If you want to extrapolate these rules to the almost inhuman achievements of the OP, or to huge/gargantuan monsters with STR scores well above 20, we need to acknowledge that some kind of exponential function would probably fit better (e.g. lifting capacity is 0.3*STR^3).
But boy I'm happy we don't need to bring out the calculators in the game, so this is definitely NOT advice for WotC to change the system. Please keep it simple with easy linear relations! Half of our group of friends already struggle to add up 4d6!
Definitely. This system really works best for the middle of the range, not the extreme end. I think the MM should have made mention that, over a certain point, the attributes on Monsters are kept within a range so as not to make their saves and ability checks violate the bounded accuracy design premise.
The point of the thread wasn't really to make fun of the game mechanics (too easy of a target, IMO). I wanted it to be an athletics/fitness appreciation thread.
That may have been the intent, but you kinda threw down the gauntlet with calling a high-powered monster in everyone's power-fantasy elfgame 'pathetic.' That, well and above treating as attempted realism what is recognized as game-facilitating play abstractions kinda makes it seem that regardless of you intending the latter, the thread's communicated 'point' really is the former.
Also, for @CleverNickName, I do appreciate you highlighting the achievements of RL athletes, but you had to now this thread was going to go a bit sideways right?
Against a lone individual, a CR 1 should be deadly.
But there is no magic number. I hit a similar problem recently painting a group of dinosaurs (Jurassic Park gray is really boring) because they're real animals. Even worse in some ways painting a giant hyena and a tiger for my wife's druid; they were hard to paint because I know what they should look like. The spots on hyenas are particularly "solid" and good luck making a tiger orange* without looking like they're auditioning for the cover of a cereal box.
In the same way, there are just some things that D&D can't simulate particularly well because we know the reality. Bears don't fall into neat categories, weapons and armor aren't particularly accurately modeled, ability scores don't always make a lot of sense. We look at olympic level weight lifters and say "that's a 20 strength" but those guys couldn't begin to touch even high school level long jump records. The guy who made the record long jump looks like he would break in two if he tried to lift a fraction of the weight Hafthor lifts.
Comparing D&D (or most action movies for that matter) to the real world breaks down quickly. But that's okay. Trying to model how far someone can jump if they happen to have the right build for it and train their entire life while simultaneously doing the jump in ideal conditions would be stupidly complex and unnecessary.
Also, for @CleverNickName, I do appreciate you highlighting the achievements of RL athletes, but you had to now this thread was going to go a bit sideways right?
I don't mind going sideways, it's always fun to see things from a different angle. (It'd be nice to avoid driving the thread into the trashcan, though...)
It's not about abstraction, it's about a fundamental discounting of physical prowess by the creators and the fanbase. They're so determined to degrade mundanity (and exclude most supernatural) in order to highlight discreet magic.
It's at least PARTLY about abstraction and simplification. Bearing in mind, for example, that the lifting and jumping and carrying rules are all written with the assumption that the character acting is (most of the time) a healthy adventurer wearing clothing and adventuring gear, and that most of the time the situation they're in is non-optimized.
I can jump a significantly shorter distance if I'm wearing 50lbs of armor and equipment. I can lift a significantly heavier object if that object is symmetrical, has a 1" handle with space enough for both of my hands and a knurled grip, and I'm doing it on a nice level floor.
And to think all this time I've believed I've been having fun playing D&D. Now that I know that the attribute system is not realistic, I realize that fun must have been an illusion.
Sorry if that came across as TOO snarky. (I mean, I certainly meant to be a little snarky.)
I just see stuff that tries to frame D&D mechanics as simulation and I think, “Oh lord, here we go again.” Like all the debates about falling damage. Or equating Int score to IQ. Or firearm damage. Or how long it takes to throw a dagger. Etc.
It's at least PARTLY about abstraction and simplification. Bearing in mind, for example, that the lifting and jumping and carrying rules are all written with the assumption that the character acting is (most of the time) a healthy adventurer wearing clothing and adventuring gear, and that most of the time the situation they're in is non-optimized.
I can jump a significantly shorter distance if I'm wearing 50lbs of armor and equipment. I can lift a significantly heavier object if that object is symmetrical, has a 1" handle with space enough for both of my hands and a knurled grip, and I'm doing it on a nice level floor.
As an interesting aside, when I was in high-school, we tested our gaming group against the 2e strength chart. I pulled off a 12. My GF at the time scored a 3. One skinny buddy got an 8, and our stocky friend got a 16! I mention this only to point out that 4 "average" NPC teenagers can vary WILDLY against those charts.
(And we really need not get into gender strength disparity - I have grown fond of our fantasy world just ignoring that little bit of realism for the sake of fun).
There's not a real-world analog described in the Player's Handbook entry for "Dexterity," so we have to look at skills. The first that comes up, obviously, is Acrobatics. Now, according to the PHB, "you can use the Acrobatics skill to make jumps or to soften a fall. The base DC to make a jump is equal to the distance to be crossed (if horizontal) or four times the height to be reached (if vertical). These DCs double if you do not have at least 10 feet of space to get a running start."
Also, it has a bit of clarification about modifiers, which is helpful. "The only Acrobatics modifiers that apply are those concerning the surface you are jumping from."
And the rules also have this bit: "Creatures with a base land speed above 30 feet receive a +4 racial bonus on Acrobatics checks made to jump for every 10 feet of their speed above 30 feet. For a running jump, the result of your Acrobatics check indicates the distance traveled in the jump (and if the check fails, the distance at which you actually land and fall prone)."
Alrighty then.
So it's safe to say that Mike Powell has a base speed above 30 feet. But how much? In the video, he is traveling 8.95 meters in 2.02 seconds (using the timestamp of the video to time his jump.) That's 14.54 feet per second, or 145 feet per round. He's clearly Dashing, so that means his base speed is 73 feet per round...let's call it 70, because YouTube's timestamp isn't exactly a stopwatch. That's 40 above 30, so he has a +16 racial bonus, according to the PHB. (It's rare to find one of those.)
Clearly he's proficient in Athletics, as a professional athlete. Let's give him the benefit of the doubt and say that he's also proficient in Acrobatics, even though he's not on the US Acrobatics team. (And we could complicate this even further, speculating on everything from class levels to Expertise, to sabotage any analysis...but I'll show in a minute that it's already sabotaged.)
In the video, he lands and falls prone...so according to the rules, he "failed" this Acrobatics check. (That's right, he broke the world record on a fail. Anyway...) This gives us the Acrobatics DC and the Acrobatics roll result. The result is the distance crossed, in feet...so it was a DC 30 Acrobatics check, and Mike "failed" it with a result of "only" 29.
We don't know what he "rolled." We know the result was 29 because that's the distance in feet that he traveled, and we know that he was rolling with at least a +12 based on his speed. So he either rolled a nat-20 and has a -3 modifier to Dexterity, or he rolled a nat-1 and he has at least a +18 (or +20 if proficient, or +24 if proficient and 20th level, or etc.)
So in game terms, Mike Powell's Dexterity score would be somewhere between 4 and 46.
Sorry if that came across as TOO snarky. (I mean, I certainly meant to be a little snarky.)
I just see stuff that tries to frame D&D mechanics as simulation and I think, “Oh lord, here we go again.” Like all the debates about falling damage. Or equating Int score to IQ. Or firearm damage. Or how long it takes to throw a dagger. Etc.
Yes, I know this whole exercise is ridiculous...that's where the fun comes in! But it illustrates an interesting point. (At least, I think it's interesting. Some folks feel personally attacked for some reason, and that's just weird to me.) But since I started this thread, I've been thinking a lot about game mechanics and physical modifiers.
Many players really enjoy the optimization aspects of their characters...fiddling with the different options and features to squeeze out every last bonus, gain every possible synergy and advantage. And it's a great way to play the game...better than playing Solitaire anyway...just fiddling with characters on D&D Beyond for hours, coming up with cool combos and synergies. (Or maybe it's just me.) I have dozens of characters that I can't wait to unleash upon my DM's game world.
But I think that kind of hyper-focus makes me overvalue my characters' stats, especially the ability scores. Missing out on a +1 here or a +2 there, or not taking certain proficiencies, isn't going to render my character unplayable, any more than starting the game with a 20 in Dexterity is going to make my character a god. Because in almost all cases, I'm going to roll a twenty-sided die and add it to these numbers on my character sheet, and a random number between +1 and +20 is going to swamp any -5 or +8 I might have. Yes yes, probabilities and averages and linear distributions, sure, but my DM isn't letting me roll infinite d20s with every Athletics check and take the average. The days of the "Take 10" and the "Take 20" are long gone. In the moment, with my single d20 roll, my character's Strength is either going to feel like a 12 or a 50, depending on if the d20 hands me a +1 or a +20.
Mike Powell didn't roll any dice. He is a real person on a real running track, and he was relying purely on his real training, and discipline, and physical power alone to determine the results of that that long jump. That's really our first clue that game rules aren't modeling the real world. And in the game, that d20 is going to be the biggest deciding factor of a character's performance. Not the only factor, but it's far and above the largest, to the point that rolling a d20 truly decides the outcome. And that's probably the best part of the d20 System: it's a lot harder to 'game the game' and eliminate that uncertainty.
A character with a +10 to Acrobatics who rolls a 2, will get the same result as a character with a -5 to Acrobatics who rolls a 17...and the odds are identical for both. I can't game my way around that, it's built into the system. (And I think this is a feature, not a bug.)
Anyway. Thanks for coming to my TED Talk.
One more shout-out to Mike Powell, who broke the world record for long jump without rolling a single d20. That is super impressive, no matter how much D&D you overthink play.
Also the 'abstraction' defense doesn't help with the issue that the rules are designed to prevent you from doing in a fantasy world what normal, pathetic humans are capable of with the apparently ancient mystic arts of diet and exercise.
And in the game, that d20 is going to be the biggest deciding factor of a character's performance. Not the only factor, but it's far and above the largest, to the point that rolling a d20 truly decides the outcome. And that's probably the best part of the d20 System: it's a lot harder to 'game the game' and eliminate that uncertainty.
