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I know carrying capacity isn't necessarily the only way people can be strong but adventurers generally run, climb, fight and use all sorts of different muscles so I feel its reasonably safe to assume their other types of strength are roughly comparable.
Now what I finally noticed is that the maximum they can lift doubles every 5 points (after str 5 below that is a 10 point drop per point). That is . . .
5 = 50
10 = 100
15 = 200
20 = 400
and so on. Assuming as I said that the other types of strength are comparable that would mean someone with a strength of 15 is twice as strong as the average person, someone with 20 is 4 times as strong and someone with 25 is 8 times as strong. Furthermore once you pass str 24 every single point adds the equivalent of an entire average person's strength or more. That is a man with strength 25 has the strength of 8 normal men, a person with 26 has the strength of 9 and a person of strength 27 has the strength of 10. It just goes up from there from 28 to 29 you add the strength of two normal people by the time you get to a stat of 45 you're looking at something 128 times greater than an average human's abilties.
Now if we extend this into the abstract world of other stats we can assume that a person with an equivalent stat there is comparable equal to what someone would be in terms of strength. That is a person with 15 intelligence is twice as smart as the average person, someone with an int of 25 is 4 times smarter than that or 8 times smarter than an average person. Same with dexterity, wisdom, charisma, constitution.
Fun theory isn't it?
Now the next time your out and about with lots of people around you just look at them all and think about your characters and what they're stats could actually mean in real terms. Rutgar with an 18 strength isn't just strong he's almost 4 times stronger than pretty much anyone you look at. That is grown, adult men are literally as strong as a child compared to him. Merinon the mage with her 21 int is more than 4 times smarter than them. Ulstwise the thief with her 16 dex is still more than twice as agile and graceful as them when just walking around. Minmax the cheater who has nothing below 17 and two stats above 20 is just insanely powerful even without taking class levels into account.
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Actually, that's not a theory--the 3E designers deliberately used "+5 on an ability score = twice as good" as a concept when working on the game.
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Actually, that's not a theory--the 3E designers deliberately used "+5 on an ability score = twice as good" as a concept when working on the game.
It was a theory till you went and spoiled it with facts I didn't know, Grin. Seriously though you have to admit its a scary thought that a 25 which is achiveable for a lot of character is that much better than an average person.
Average people are rather weak though. I mean really really weak.
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I already knew this fact, but I do find it interesting that "the strength of ten men" is Str 27. That's kind of cool to know.
I now want to see some all-out benchmark figures, like what an Int of 27 means in IQ, and how Dex 27 is 6 times as agile as a cat, and Con 27 has the stamina of X marathon runners (I have no idea what figure X would be). I love that kind of stuff.
Might also be interesting to deconstruct a few game rules on the basis of a +5 modifier being 4x as good as +0, for things like skills, and magic items.
I might have to play around a little when I get some free time. Unless someone beats me to it.
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I already knew this fact, but I do find it interesting that "the strength of ten men" is Str 27. That's kind of cool to know.
I now want to see some all-out benchmark figures, like what an Int of 27 means in IQ, and how Dex 27 is 6 times as agile as a cat, and Con 27 has the stamina of X marathon runners (I have no idea what figure X would be). I love that kind of stuff.
Well, IQ has it that the average is 100, and every 15 points difference from that is one standard deviation above or below that average. Translating that into "The intelligence of 10 men" makes it rather difficult, as standards of deviation can vary depending on the population being tested.
So first we'd have to establish how many standards of deviation a person who is "Twice as smart" is.
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I already knew this fact, but I do find it interesting that "the strength of ten men" is Str 27. That's kind of cool to know.
I now want to see some all-out benchmark figures, like what an Int of 27 means in IQ, and how Dex 27 is 6 times as agile as a cat, and Con 27 has the stamina of X marathon runners (I have no idea what figure X would be). I love that kind of stuff.
You'd probably enjoy a look at the D20 Call of Cthulu stats then. They're obviously Cthulu heavy (and only have humans) but its not bad. These are modfied a bit form the book (I added child to every category and elderly person is in two stat blocks to match the stat losses, but nothing has been moved up or down)
Strength
Value Descriptor
- Incorporeal Spirit
1 Shan
2-3 Rat-Thing
4-5 Child
6-7 Elderly Person
8-9 Weak Person
10-11 Average Person
12-13 Fit Person
14-15 Strong Person(about twice the strength of an average one).
16-17 Weightlifter
18-19 Olympic Athlete/Deep one
20-21 Ape
30-31 Dark Young of Shub-Niggurath
42-43 Dhole
44-44 Shoggoth
Dexterity
Value Descriptor
- Plant
1 Snail
2-3 Shoggoth
4-5 Klutz, Child
6-7 Clumsy/Elderly Person, Yithian
8-9 Accident-Prone Person
10-11 Average Person
12-13 Graceful Person
14-15 Bat, Leng Spider
16-17 Circus Acrobat, Nightgaunt
18-19 Rat Thing
20-21 Formless Spawn
22-23 Shan (Insect from Shaggai)
Constitution
Value Descriptor
- Mummy (Any undead really)
1 Bedridden or dying person
2-3 Invalid
4-5 Frail Person, Child
6-7 Puny/Elderly Person
8-9 Spectral Hunter
10-11 Average Person
12-13 Healthy Person
14-15 Horse
16-17 Elder Thing
18-19 Bear
20-21 Chthonian
28-29 Dhole
30-31 Shoggoth
Intelligence
Value Descriptor
- Animated Corpse
1 Snake, Spider, Shark
2 Cat, dog, most mammals
3 Minimum intelligence for a humanoid
4-5 Child, Shantak
6-7 Shoggoth
8-9 Dimensional Shambler
10-11 Average Person
12-13 Sharp witted Person, elderly person
14-15 Clever/elderly Person(about twice the intelligence of an average one).
16-17 Mi-GO
18-19 Genius
20-21 Star-Spawn
36-37 Yithian
Wisdom
Value Descriptor
4-5 Child
6-7 Follhardy person (lowest this table goes in the book, says a lot about the people with a lower wis grin)
8-9 Shoggoth
10-11 Average Person
12-13 Elderly Person, Elder Thing
14-15 Elderly person, serpent person.
16-17 Lloigor
[b]18-19 Shan, guru
20-21 Hound of Tindalos
28-29 Yithian
Charisma
Value Descriptor
1 Animated Corpse
2-3 Crocodile
4-5 Child, camel
6-7 Dog, Cat
8-9 Shy or Unsassuming Person
10-11 Average Person
12-13 Attractive/elderly Person
14-15 elderly person, Take charge type
16-17 Lloigor
[b]18-19 Natural Born Leader, Nightgaunt[b]
20-21 Haunting Horror
Back in the ancient days of v1 or v2, I remember reading that INT was supposed to be equivalent to IQ/10. So your average INT=10 was exactly your average IQ=100. An INT=14 or 15 was the genius cutoff. That's what, 140 IQ?
Einstein would be a 19-20.
Mutants and Masterminds extends this into the superheroic realms. In 3rd edition, they just use the state bonuses instead of the stats, so a 10 in Pathfinder is a +0 in M&M 3rd edition.
Superman strength is a +19, so that's a STR in Pathfinder of 48?
http://www.infrno.net/characters/4595-superman
Mutants and Masterminds extends this into the superheroic realms. In 3rd edition, they just use the state bonuses instead of the stats, so a 10 in Pathfinder is a +0 in M&M 3rd edition.
Superman strength is a +19, so that's a STR in Pathfinder of 48?
http://www.infrno.net/characters/4595-superman
Which would make him stronger than all Pathfinder creatures except a titan and Godzilla Mogaru (as far as a quick search can see). Thought a lot of monsters with a lower strength score are actually stronger (if you look at carrying capacity) because of the size multipliers.
For reference, D&D gave Kord (god of strength) as score of 55. Thors strength is 92, but that is doubled from his magical belt, so its actually only 46.
Oh, Superman's strength for lifting is actually higher as well. That's his 'normal' strength, good for punching things.
And yeah, that's sort of Superman's thing. Being stronger than us.
For the record, Hulk can get up to a 50 when he's angry. You won't like him when he's angry.
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Now the next time your out and about with lots of people around you just look at them all and think about your characters and what they're stats could actually mean in real terms. Rutgar with an 18 strength isn't just strong he's almost 4 times stronger than pretty much anyone you look at. That is grown, adult men are literally as strong as a child compared to him. Merinon the mage with her 21 int is more than 4 times...
I don't think this is really meaningful, actually. There's a meaningful zero to the scale of carrying capacity, and a meaningful sense in which "twice as strong" means "carrying twice as much."
But "twice as fast" doesn't mean much. For example, almost anyone can do a 100 meter dash in less than 15 seconds. On the other hand, no human being has ever done the 100m in less than 9 seconds (interestingly, I don't think any white person has ever done it in less than 10.)
Naively, "twice as fast" should mean 15/2 or 7.5 seconds, yes? That means no one in the world has a Dexterity of 15,.... or it means "twice as fast" doesn't mean what one would think it means.
Similarly, I'm not sure how "twice as charismatic" or "twice as wise" would even be measured.
Back in the ancient days of v1 or v2, I remember reading that INT was supposed to be equivalent to IQ/10. So your average INT=10 was exactly your average IQ=100. An INT=14 or 15 was the genius cutoff. That's what, 140 IQ?
Einstein would be a 19-20.
Of course, in those days it was next to impossible to boost ability scores beyond their initial values, so 3-18 had to cover the bulk of humanity (which would limit even Einstein to 18 at best, since he was under 40 when he did his most memorable work). In a more open ended system, I would go with IQ = 50 + (Int/5). In fact, even in earlier editions of the game I would use that formula for intelligence scores of less than 10, since people with IQs in the 30-50 range cannot function on their own as viable adventurers.
Back in the ancient days of v1 or v2, I remember reading that INT was supposed to be equivalent to IQ/10. So your average INT=10 was exactly your average IQ=100. An INT=14 or 15 was the genius cutoff. That's what, 140 IQ?
Einstein would be a 19-20.
Of course, in those days it was next to impossible to boost ability scores beyond their initial values, so 3-18 had to cover the bulk of humanity (which would limit even Einstein to 18 at best, since he was under 40 when he did his most memorable work). In a more open ended system, I would go with IQ = 50 + (Int/5). In fact, even in earlier editions of the game I would use that formula for intelligence scores of less than 10, since people with IQs in the 30-50 range cannot function on their own as viable adventurers.
IQ actually works fairly well with an INT of 10 equalling an IQ of 100 and every point of INT difference equates to a change of 5 IQ points. SO a normal human has an INT range of 3-20, equating to an IQ range of 65 to 150
The bell-curve and standard deviation of IQ scores is actually fairly close to the bell-curve and standard deviation of 3d6.
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Now the next time your out and about with lots of people around you just look at them all and think about your characters and what they're stats could actually mean in real terms. Rutgar with an 18 strength isn't just strong he's almost 4 times stronger than pretty much anyone you look at. That is grown, adult men are literally as strong as a child compared to him. Merinon the mage with her 21 int is more than 4 times...
I don't think this is really meaningful, actually. There's a meaningful zero to the scale of carrying capacity, and a meaningful sense in which "twice as strong" means "carrying twice as much."
But "twice as fast" doesn't mean much. For example, almost anyone can do a 100 meter dash in less than 15 seconds. On the other hand, no human being has ever done the 100m in less than 9 seconds (interestingly, I don't think any white person has ever done it in less than 10.)
Naively, "twice as fast" should mean 15/2 or 7.5 seconds, yes? That means no one in the world has a Dexterity of 15,.... or it means "twice as fast" doesn't mean what one would think it means.
Similarly, I'm not sure how "twice as charismatic" or "twice as wise" would even be measured.
Mesauring is a problem but I'm sure you can think of archetypes. The cult leader who gathers followers, the respected local who everyone listens too because they always give good advice. It doesn't need to be X = 2Y in order to realize you'd rather go to Mother Hubbard who's been around a good long while, learnt a few harsh lessons and gives generally good advice to young women then Tom the Terrible who's last brilliant idea involved trying to start a bonfire in his living room because a regular fire would take too long to cook his breakfast.
Twice as fast isn't measured off ability stats its off the speed stat.
But "twice as fast" doesn't mean much. For example, almost anyone can do a 100 meter dash in less than 15 seconds. On the other hand, no human being has ever done the 100m in less than 9 seconds (interestingly, I don't think any white person has ever done it in less than 10.)
Naively, "twice as fast" should mean 15/2 or 7.5 seconds, yes? That means no one in the world has a Dexterity of 15,.... or it means "twice as fast" doesn't mean what one would think it means.
Twice as fast is very clearly defined - and yes, it would mean the 100m dash would take half as long. But there are very few game systems where running speed is directly derived from Dexterity. In Pathfinder we would be thinking in terms of 'twice as accurate' / 'twice as graceful'.
Then how about the monk, at 9th level is twice as fast (30' extra). Then 3x at 18th. Just think about that. Now think if they had the run feat. That is about 50 mph.
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Similarly, I'm not sure how "twice as charismatic" or "twice as wise" would even be measured.Mesauring is a problem but I'm sure you can think of archetypes. The cult leader who gathers followers, the respected local who everyone listens too because they always give good advice. It doesn't need to be X = 2Y in order to realize you'd rather go to Mother Hubbard who's been around a good long while, learnt a few harsh lessons and gives generally good advice to young women then Tom the Terrible.
That is to say, people with higher Wisdom are wiser? That's completely unhelpful, to the point where you're actually agreeing with me.
In technical terminology, the OP proposed that attributes are measured on what is called a "interval" measurement -- that is, there is a meaningful interpretation of interval between various quantities. Measurement theorists distinguish four different types of measurement (ratio, interval, ordinal, and nominal) because there's a lot of mathematical stuff that only makes sense as the measurements become closer and closer to the ratio type.
You've just suggested -- and I agree with you -- that attributes are ordinal scales, or (equivalently) that there's no meaning other than "more is better" that can be applied to attributes. But that explicitly means that "+5 = twice as good" doesn't apply. Which, IMHO, is as it should be, because "twice as wise" isn't even meaningful.
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Twice as fast is very clearly defined - and yes, it would mean the 100m dash would take half as long. But there are very few game systems where running speed is directly derived from Dexterity. In Pathfinder we would be thinking in terms of 'twice as accurate' / 'twice as graceful'.
Shrug. Then use reaction time data. (Johansson and Kumar, 1971) measured reaction times for several zillion people (actually 371) in a driving simulation. Median reaction time was about 0.66 sec; almost no one was "twice as quick" to brake (one person was recorded with a time in the 0.3 sec range). Again, it appears that no one has a Dexterity of 15+, if that means "twice as quick as the average person." (Oddly enough, there were a number of people with reaction times in the 1.4+ second range -- does that correspond to a Dex of -1 or worse?)
If you can find a way to quantify "graceful," I suspect you'll see something similar.
Basically, this is a Procrustean exercise in trying to fit the wrong sort of data into the wrong sort of system.
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Errrrmmm I am the OP and I feel my post still stands someone with 15 Wis Is likely to be the local villager someone goes to for advice, someone with sex 18 can be described as extremely graceful or co-ordinated. I was never talking about a mechanical effect in the other stats just general guidelines for people to think about what those values actually mean. It may be a procustrian exercise to you (whatever that is) but being able to put an actual value even if it is an arbitrary someone with an ability of 25 is 8 times better at the generic ability check style actions (stronger, wiser, more charismatic) helps me get a better handle on them than a vague you have a int of 25.
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Errrrmmm I am the OP and I feel my post still stands someone with 15 Wis Is likely to be the local villager someone goes to for advice, someone with sex 18 can be described as extremely graceful or co-ordinated. I was never talking about a mechanical effect in the other stats just general guidelines for people to think about what those values actually mean. It may be a procustrian exercise to you (whatever that is) but being able to put an actual value even if it is an arbitrary someone with an ability of 25 is 8 times better at the generic ability check style actions (stronger, wiser, more charismatic) helps me get a better handle on them than a vague you have a int of 25.
I am the OP and I feel my post still stands someone with 15 Wis Is likely to be the local villager someone goes to for advice, someone with sex 18 can be described as extremely graceful or co-ordinated.
someone with sex 18 can be described as extremely graceful or co-ordinated.
sex 18
Calistria?
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someone with sex 18
Sex was my dumpstat.
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Charisma
Value Descriptor
1 Animated Corpse
2-3 Crocodile
4-5 Child, camel
6-7 Dog, Cat
8-9 Shy or Unsassuming Person
10-11 Average Person
12-13 Attractive/elderly Person
14-15 elderly person, Take charge type
16-17 Lloigor
[b]18-19 Natural Born Leader, Nightgaunt[b]
20-21 Haunting Horror
I think they forgot something here...
Tiny fuzzy kitten 10000000000
Back in the ancient days of v1 or v2, I remember reading that INT was supposed to be equivalent to IQ/10. So your average INT=10 was exactly your average IQ=100. An INT=14 or 15 was the genius cutoff. That's what, 140 IQ?
Einstein would be a 19-20.
Of course, in those days it was next to impossible to boost ability scores beyond their initial values, so 3-18 had to cover the bulk of humanity (which would limit even Einstein to 18 at best, since he was under 40 when he did his most memorable work). In a more open ended system, I would go with IQ = 50 + (Int/5). In fact, even in earlier editions of the game I would use that formula for intelligence scores of less than 10, since people with IQs in the 30-50 range cannot function on their own as viable adventurers.
You can't mean "IQ = 50 + (Int/5)". Maybe IQ = 50 + (Int*5)?
Int 10 = IQ 100
Int 20 = IQ 150
Yes, that is what I meant -- thanks for the correction.
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Errrrmmm I am the OP and I feel my post still stands someone with 15 Wis Is likely to be the local villager someone goes to for advice, someone with sex 18 can be described as extremely graceful or co-ordinated. I was never talking about a mechanical effect in the other stats just general guidelines for people to think about what those values actually mean. It may be a procustrian exercise to you (whatever that is) but being able to put an actual value even if it is an arbitrary someone with an ability of 25 is 8 times better at the generic ability check style actions (stronger, wiser, more charismatic) helps me get a better handle on them than a vague you have a int of 25.I am the OP and I feel my post still stands someone with 15 Wis Is likely to be the local villager someone goes to for advice, someone with sex 18 can be described as extremely graceful or co-ordinated.someone with sex 18 can be described as extremely graceful or co-ordinated.sex 18Calistria?
Blasted autocorrect that was meant to be dex
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Blasted autocorrect that was meant to be dexErrrrmmm I am the OP and I feel my post still stands someone with 15 Wis Is likely to be the local villager someone goes to for advice, someone with sex 18 can be described as extremely graceful or co-ordinated. I was never talking about a mechanical effect in the other stats just general guidelines for people to think about what those values actually mean. It may be a procustrian exercise to you (whatever that is) but being able to put an actual value even if it is an arbitrary someone with an ability of 25 is 8 times better at the generic ability check style actions (stronger, wiser, more charismatic) helps me get a better handle on them than a vague you have a int of 25.I am the OP and I feel my post still stands someone with 15 Wis Is likely to be the local villager someone goes to for advice, someone with sex 18 can be described as extremely graceful or co-ordinated.someone with sex 18 can be described as extremely graceful or co-ordinated.sex 18Calistria?
I know, but I had seen that enough time had passed that you'd be locked out of editing, and it had been a long time since I had seen any of those style of jokes, so I decided to make one.
Only strength really makes sense to talk about in the Way of being twice as ( strong, smart, stuff) as some body else.
The carrying capacity rule that says that you can lift your maximum carry weight over your head was always funny to me. A freakishly strong overhead press in real life would be 315 pounds. According to the "lifting and dragging" rules, my last orc barbarian could overhead press 920 pounds at lvl 5, meaning that he could swat down professional strongmen like toddlers.
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IQ works differently than strength because it refers to your deviation from the norm (so it's a floating range, and the further from the norm the greater the difference between your score and 100) rather than a static measure based on an absolute.
Int 10 absolutely equals IQ 100, since the former is the median, mean, and mode of the bell curve-shaped distribution of possible abilities as generated by 3d6, and and IQ of 100 is by definition the mean, median, and modal score of the population on which scores are based.
Since both IQ and 3d6 are bell-curve shaped normal distributions, we can map them onto a distribution and see that an 18 represents the top half-a-percent of the population, which is equivalent to something like a 145 IQ.
If you're curious what your character's IQ would be, you can determine the percentage chance of rolling lower than you did and compare that to a normalized IQ distribution chart.
('course actually 10 is a little low, but actually 100 is a little low, too, since people have gotten a tiny bit smarter since the most popular IQ test was normed!)