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The Break DCs under Athletics actually give a decent benchmark for physical strength in practical terms (at DC 30, so a +20 bonus to do this on average, you can lift a portcullis or bend iron bars with your hands, for instance...you can do those things with difficulty at more like +15), as do some Bulk numbers (at Str 24, you can just carry a horse without being encumbered, assuming you're not carrying anything else).
And environmental stuff still gives specific damage numbers, though they admittedly vary a bit more (for example, being immersed in lava is now between 16d6 and 24d6).
Really, the specific weights encumbrance chart is the only benchmark like this that's actually gone away, and the DCs under skills do a lot to answer these questions in many cases. So I really don't see that this is actually a problem of lack of content in this regard, just of it being shuffled around and all of us not being used to this edition's organization yet.
Do you have some specific benchmarking questions? Maybe I can point out where the book answers them (or, occasionally, if it doesn't).
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In general, with Proficiency -
Master proficiency represents stuff at peak real world human capability.
Legendary is stuff that is Human-plus, like a Demigod or Anime Hero or choose your favored media - impossible in reality (though generally still human, as opposed to kryptonian).
Which leaves us to parse Trained and Expert... for which the labels themselves work fairly well.
Yeah, this leaves us a little less specific than before, but in general I find it more useful to be able to drop people into these buckets.
Someone Trained in Medicine is a med student, lifeguard, etc. An Expert is a typical EMT, doctor or surgeon. A Master is the best of the best or somewhat theoretical like Dr. House.
Legendary Medicine is doing in the field heart transplants, curing vampirism, and reattached severed heads.
Applied to Strength (actually Athletics, because that more or less replaces actual Strength checks), that gives us more or less -
Trained is a school or Hobby athlete.
Expert is a professional athlete.
Master is one of the top two or three pro athletes in the world, Olympic Champions, etc.
Legendary is Captain America.
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In that case, Trained is basic professional competence, Expert is really impressive but not beyond the bounds of plausibility, Master is peak, or often just past peak, real world human capability (some stuff at Master is just possible, a lot is not). Legendary is absurd, near godlike, abilities like falling from orbit or curing blindness in an hour with mundane medical treatment.
So that puts 7th level as right about when PCs transcend normal real-world human capability, or at least can, and 15th level as when they become truly legendary.
From a more in-world perspective, 7th level is definitely a breakpoint for being competent professional adventurers, it's the level where you can start flying and teleporting and can fight dragons and the like, and around 15th level is the average level for in-setting rulers, so you're definitely doing 'fate of nations' stuff at that point.
Trained is normal, expert is excellent real human performance, master regularly breaks real-world records, and legendary is frequently stuff that would be called supernatural. They talked a bit about this in the playtest, and you can usually see it best in the skill feats- especially the scaling ones.
Treating bulk as ten pounds, 10 strength is enough to haul around anything under fifty pounds throughout the day. (Carrying capacity got a bit of a boost after the playtest; the more realistic values weren't popular.)
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Reading all the examples above, I feel that PF2's world class superhumans, albeit crazily super enough, may be actually on the lower scale of super-power-ness compared to the mid-to-high tier American comics and Japanese shōnen manga craziness (not even mentioned: "potential planet busters" such as Kakarot and Superman).
Yet, it seems to suit the Lost Omens setting very fine, so all seems good and well though.
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Reading all the examples above, I feel that PF2's world class superhumans, albeit crazily super enough, may be actually on the lower scale of super-power-ness compared to the mid-to-high tier American comics and Japanese shōnen manga craziness (not even mentioned: "potential planet busters" such as Kakarot and Superman).
This is mostly correct. You need to hit 15th level plus before you get into real anime or mid to high superhero level stuff beyond the very basics, though you can start outwrestling a rhino and similarly low-impact superhuman feats as early as 5th.
Yet, it seems to suit the Lost Omens setting very fine, so all seems good and well though.
Yeah, the setting is internally consistent with the power level granted by the rules, which is the really important part.
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I think Diplomacy is a good example. Skipping any uncommon or rarer options, and anything from an optional subsystem:
Trained: Shop around and wheel and deal well enough to save as much as a day job would earn. Insult well enough to get under people's skin. Make a good impression on two people at once. Ask around for information in an hour instead of two. Talk somebody down from a supernatural fear effect.
Expert: Gather information without giving away why you're asking. Sometimes makes a good impression right off the bat. Make a good impression on four people at once.
Master: Argue religion or philosophy so well that you stupefy your opponent, even in a fight. Never make somebody lose their opinion of you by asking for things. Take time gathering information and never be mislead. Make a good impression on ten people at once.
Legendary: Call off pitched fights to talk it out. Make a good impression on twenty-five people at once.
Trained and expert are all pretty reasonable. Getting into Master, forget arguing religion on the internet, this is doing it in a fight. Some people might be able to make any number of requests of certain people without ever losing that friendship, but doing it with anybody? And you're making good impressions on ten people as if it were a one-on-one conversation. (While people can make good impressions on that many people- it's what a lot of celebrities and politicians have to do- it's usually the glad-handing approach.)
Legendary lets you attempt to call time-out during losing fights, and you're making impressions with twenty-five people as if you were having a one-on-one conversation.
EDIT: Oh, I guess the topic is "physical power". Well, I'm not going to look up athletics and world records.
Really? That is how you viewed an idea of your character's physical power? I don't even consider it much. I mainly don't want stuff that doesn't make much sense at all like balloon minions.
Some of the stuff in RPG games makes little sense. A living person, no matter how tough, falls into acid or lava and they're life should be mostly over even if they somehow live.
Not sure how you can use any of that as a touchstone for physical power given every PC suffers only transitory damage from events and creatures that would cause permanent, long-term damage or death in any real physical sense.
Really? That is how you viewed an idea of your character's physical power? I don't even consider it much. I mainly don't want stuff that doesn't make much sense at all like balloon minions.
Some of the stuff in RPG games makes little sense. A living person, no matter how tough, falls into acid or lava and they're life should be mostly over even if they somehow live.
Not sure how you can use any of that as a touchstone for physical power given every PC suffers only transitory damage from events and creatures that would cause permanent, long-term damage or death in any real physical sense.
Well, right. That is one of the differences between CoC, for example, and many fantasy RPGs. In the former, being eaten by zombies or run through probably takes the fight out of you. In the latter, it might not do.
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Not sure how you can use any of that as a touchstone for physical power given every PC suffers only transitory damage from events and creatures that would cause permanent, long-term damage or death in any real physical sense.
I'll be honest, if you want that sort of thing, pathfinder is not the system for you.
Maybe call of cthulu, maybe traveller, but those are probably not punishing enough.
Really? That is how you viewed an idea of your character's physical power? I don't even consider it much. I mainly don't want stuff that doesn't make much sense at all like balloon minions.
Some of the stuff in RPG games makes little sense. A living person, no matter how tough, falls into acid or lava and they're life should be mostly over even if they somehow live.
Not sure how you can use any of that as a touchstone for physical power given every PC suffers only transitory damage from events and creatures that would cause permanent, long-term damage or death in any real physical sense.
not making sense is not the same as operating under a different set of rules.
I tend to accept this is a fantasy action RPG. I don't try to worry about a "touchstone for the mathematics of the world." This a world of magic. I care if the rules let me develop challenging encounters that have a degree of verisimilitude. PF does that well enough.
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How do I, as a biology student, thi-haha okay let's go to the bestiary. We have fantasy creatures in real life; let's see how levels hold up in a system that has some impressive beasties. Other people have handled skills; we're talking combat statblocks as a level benchmark, generally speaking.
1-Hyena, Wolf
Okay, so a first-level character is about equivalent to a sharp doggo. So this is pretty special, but not incredibly so; talented soldiers go here, but not famous ones.
2-War Horse, Black Bear
You're probably the scariest person you'd likely have met in real life. In the best of circumstances, you could break even with a leopard, which is hella impressive but not strictly superhuman what with humans being pretty high-tier animals. Also, a nice Strength benchmark; +5 Str is about one horsepower, if it's a big horse.
3-Gorilla, Grizzly Bear
Certifiably a monster. You can kill people more easily than basically anyone who's actually lived, and you're vaguely on par with animals that can break trees. You still shouldn't go up against a gorilla, but you feasibly could, and that's amazing.
4-Great White Shark, Tiger
Hahaha have you ever held a tiger skull? The things are horrifying engines of destruction; it's basically empty space behind those jaws because it needs space for all the muscle. Its face is hench and that's all you need to know about level four.
5-Hippopotamus, Polar Bear
Hippos are Biblically badass. Literally, if you believe certain theories about the Behemoth. They are bulletproof and they can beat up any road vehicle that doesn't have a military registration and probably several that do. Fifth level has long been considered the "low fantasy" benchmark and PF2 sticks to that. From here on out, you are superheroes; Captain America loses this fistfight if he doesn't bring the shield.
Personally, I'm not sure that hippos shouldn't be a mite higher given the placement of various prehistoric examples (smilodon fatalis should probably be on par with the tiger but it gets bonus points for being the best-named animal in history). That said, the Brontosaurus has well and truly earned its place at number ten; the real-life things were essentially unkillable once fully-grown. Regardless, this is how I like to define the first few levels, what sorts of animals you're vaguely equivalent to.
As such... Yeah, even Legendary skills may be on the lower end of some fiction, but a PF2 martial is, combat-wise, rather ridiculous from sixth level onwards. Past that, you are better than most any real-life apex predator in its natural environment, alongside all the advantages that come with being a humanoid. There is a lot of nifty fantasy to be had there, though I'm not sure how to scale forth except with abstracted mechanical comparisons that don't really apply.
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In fairness, PCs are only as badass as those animals with their equipment (unless they're a Monk). Armor and weapons make a huge difference in both the game and real life.
Long before the invention of the gun, humans still managed to be the dominant predator on Earth with the use of other tools and weapons. Now, very rarely did anyone voluntarily fight animals like bears and tigers one on one, but hunting tigers on horseback with a spear/lance was not especially unusual in India, and there's a reason there's a weapon named a 'bear spear' (it's for killing bears).
Now, once you hit the point where you're a match for a hippo, you're probably transcending real world capabilities a bit, but even then it's not like people didn't hunt and kill them (they did it in large groups with ranged weapons, but they did it). People certainly hunted and killed polar bears with medieval level technology or less (and this level comparison makes me think Hippos should be higher level...a hippo would wreck a polar bear).
Which is not to say that 'what animal am I a match for' isn't a good barometer for power, I'm just noting that 'I can kill a grizzly bear with my plate armor and greatsword' is not superhuman...people have done that with a knife (this is unlikely, impressive, and not recommended but it's happened). It's really badass and impressive, but not inherently in a superhuman way.
Monks are superhuman a lot earlier, but only in the sense of being equal to those using weapons and armor while naked, not in a power level sense.
And, as a side note, Captain America, especially the movie version, is very believably a high level Pathfinder character and can do the stuff you'd expect a decently high level Pathfinder character to do. The comics version is less physically superhuman, but even more skilled and routinely fights people who are superhuman and does just fine.
In old BECMI d&d, I realized how powerful my Fighter was when I considered that he could duel a t-rex and come out victorious.
That was around the time when Jurassic Park was on screen :)
Now, once you hit the point where you're a match for a hippo, you're probably transcending real world capabilities a bit, but even then it's not like people didn't hunt and kill them (they did it in large groups with ranged weapons, but they did it). People certainly hunted and killed polar bears with medieval level technology or less (and this level comparison makes me think Hippos should be higher level...a hippo would wreck a polar bear).
Or the Polar Bear would be lower and the Hippo is about right.
It's not the best way to accurately judge PC power scaling by referencing animal levels. They are very inconsistent and rather bizarre. Like the 40ft. high Megaprimatus is completely outclassed by a T-Rex. The Dire Shark is big enough to swallow elephants whole, but is the same level as a Mastodon. The Roc in its art is literally carrying a Mammoth in its talons, its prey, yet the Mammoth is actually 1 level higher than the Roc itself.
This is something I mildly took issue with in PF1. You have the Cetus which is a 1,000'+ long sea dragon in bestiary 5, and literally the next bestiary you have the Titanoboa, which is the same CR for some reason. I can make a ton more of examples of this if I wanted to, lol.
Now, once you hit the point where you're a match for a hippo, you're probably transcending real world capabilities a bit, but even then it's not like people didn't hunt and kill them (they did it in large groups with ranged weapons, but they did it). People certainly hunted and killed polar bears with medieval level technology or less (and this level comparison makes me think Hippos should be higher level...a hippo would wreck a polar bear).Or the Polar Bear would be lower and the Hippo is about right.
It's not the best way to accurately judge PC power scaling by referencing animal levels. They are very inconsistent and rather bizarre. Like the 40ft. high Megaprimatus is completely outclassed by a T-Rex. The Dire Shark is big enough to swallow elephants whole, but is the same level as a Mastodon. The Roc in its art is literally carrying a Mammoth in its talons, its prey, yet the Mammoth is actually 1 level higher than the Roc itself.
This is something I mildly took issue with in PF1. You have the Cetus which is a 1,000'+ long sea dragon in bestiary 5, and literally the next bestiary you have the Titanoboa, which is the same CR for some reason. I can make a ton more of examples of this if I wanted to, lol.
Eh. Size scaling to power only gets you so far when you consider all these monsters get chopped down by teeny tiny humans eventually. If a human can hurt a giant monster, I don't see why a monster only half the size can't if it is bad enough.
I think for me in BECMI D&D it was when I had a Deck of Many Things, drew the Death card, and proceeded to mollywop the Lesser Death.
Eh. Size scaling to power only gets you so far when you consider all these monsters get chopped down by teeny tiny humans eventually. If a human can hurt a giant monster, I don't see why a monster only half the size can't if it is bad enough.
Now, once you hit the point where you're a match for a hippo, you're probably transcending real world capabilities a bit, but even then it's not like people didn't hunt and kill them (they did it in large groups with ranged weapons, but they did it). People certainly hunted and killed polar bears with medieval level technology or less (and this level comparison makes me think Hippos should be higher level...a hippo would wreck a polar bear).Or the Polar Bear would be lower and the Hippo is about right.
It's not the best way to accurately judge PC power scaling by referencing animal levels. They are very inconsistent and rather bizarre. Like the 40ft. high Megaprimatus is completely outclassed by a T-Rex. The Dire Shark is big enough to swallow elephants whole, but is the same level as a Mastodon. The Roc in its art is literally carrying a Mammoth in its talons, its prey, yet the Mammoth is actually 1 level higher than the Roc itself.
This is something I mildly took issue with in PF1. You have the Cetus which is a 1,000'+ long sea dragon in bestiary 5, and literally the next bestiary you have the Titanoboa, which is the same CR for some reason. I can make a ton more of examples of this if I wanted to, lol.
But I'm not talking about what can harm what, I'm talking about the level differences between them.
Just because a man can harm a Hippo doesn't mean he's higher level.
Eh. Size scaling to power only gets you so far when you consider all these monsters get chopped down by teeny tiny humans eventually. If a human can hurt a giant monster, I don't see why a monster only half the size can't if it is bad enough.
Now, once you hit the point where you're a match for a hippo, you're probably transcending real world capabilities a bit, but even then it's not like people didn't hunt and kill them (they did it in large groups with ranged weapons, but they did it). People certainly hunted and killed polar bears with medieval level technology or less (and this level comparison makes me think Hippos should be higher level...a hippo would wreck a polar bear).Or the Polar Bear would be lower and the Hippo is about right.
It's not the best way to accurately judge PC power scaling by referencing animal levels. They are very inconsistent and rather bizarre. Like the 40ft. high Megaprimatus is completely outclassed by a T-Rex. The Dire Shark is big enough to swallow elephants whole, but is the same level as a Mastodon. The Roc in its art is literally carrying a Mammoth in its talons, its prey, yet the Mammoth is actually 1 level higher than the Roc itself.
This is something I mildly took issue with in PF1. You have the Cetus which is a 1,000'+ long sea dragon in bestiary 5, and literally the next bestiary you have the Titanoboa, which is the same CR for some reason. I can make a ton more of examples of this if I wanted to, lol.
But I'm not talking about what can harm what, I'm talking about the level differences between them.
Just because a man can harm a Hippo doesn't mean he's higher level.
It doesn't mean he isn't a higher level either, though. Relative size is fairly meaningless. There is a tendency for monsters to get bigger and bigger at higher levels, but plenty of creatures buck the trend.
I'll grant you the roc and mastodon example is weird, though they can still snatch a mastodon up and drop it from a great height, which is a pretty good equalizer. Still weird. But I just don't want think size matters as much in a magical world as you seem to.
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Looking at the roc/mammoth picture, I think that has to be a half-grown mammoth at most. Mammoths were 13 feet tall, while rocs are listed with a wingspan of 80 feet and 30 feet in length. So, comparing that Roc (which is something like 4 times as long from beak to tail as the mammoth is tall) either that Roc is something like 50 feet long with at least a 120 foot wingspan (and thus enormous even for a roc, and probably higher level), or that's a very small (which is to say juvenile) mammoth.
Classically, by real world mythology, rocs are more inclined to prey on elephants, which they have a much better chance against (being level 9 to the elephant's level 7).
I'm not really seeing the issue with the scale of the artwork, really. Measurements are usually done from nose or beak to the base of its tail, not the tip. Not to mention that it's an entire size category larger. So it can have some variation, more or less, but it's still the same Roc that I mentioned.
I'm mentioning size a lot since people are trying to draw comparisons between real world people and in here in-game, in terms of physical abilities. It's weird to me that when topics like this are brought up that it goes over everyone's head, like a 40ft. high ape is lower level than a 8-10 ft. Mastodon, for example. I just think using animals as a baseline is faulty at best.
I'm not really seeing the issue with the scale of the artwork, really. Measurements are usually done from nose or beak to the base of its tail, not the tip. Not to mention that it's an entire size category larger. So it can have some variation, more or less, but it's still the same Roc that I mentioned.
I'm mentioning size a lot since people are trying to draw comparisons between real world people and in here in-game, in terms of physical abilities. It's weird to me that when topics like this are brought up that it goes over everyone's head, like a 40ft. high ape is lower level than a 8-10 ft. Mastodon, for example. I just think using animals as a baseline is faulty at best.
That's fair to an extent, but the 40 footfall gorilla is also essentially a mythical creature so it feels like a poor example. (Correct me if I'm wrong there! I'd love to find out giant gorillas once roamed the earth.) You may as well compare a dragon to an elephant.
I think you'd need to compare a real world animal to a real world animal in the Bestiary to support your argument, and from what I've seen those line up about where I would expect in relation to each other. That they don't line up well with mythical creatures of comparable size just means that those mythological creatures don't follow the rules of real life biology, which isn't news.
I'm not really seeing the issue with the scale of the artwork, really. Measurements are usually done from nose or beak to the base of its tail, not the tip. Not to mention that it's an entire size category larger. So it can have some variation, more or less, but it's still the same Roc that I mentioned.
I'm mentioning size a lot since people are trying to draw comparisons between real world people and in here in-game, in terms of physical abilities. It's weird to me that when topics like this are brought up that it goes over everyone's head, like a 40ft. high ape is lower level than a 8-10 ft. Mastodon, for example. I just think using animals as a baseline is faulty at best.
That's fair to an extent, but the 40 footfall gorilla is also essentially a mythical creature so it feels like a poor example. (Correct me if I'm wrong there! I'd love to find out giant gorillas once roamed the earth.) You may as well compare a dragon to an elephant.
I think you'd need to compare a real world animal to a real world animal in the Bestiary to support your argument, and from what I've seen those line up about where I would expect in relation to each other. That they don't line up well with mythical creatures of comparable size just means that those mythological creatures don't follow the rules of real life biology, which isn't news.
Okay, how about Polar Bears being higher level than a Great White Shark, and being on par with a Hippo.
Not going to lie, that kinda feels like a cop out, to me. The Megaprimatus and Mastodon exist in same game. Mythical or not, it's still being outclassed by a animal that's a fraction of its size.
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Okay, how about Polar Bears being higher level than a Great White Shark, and being on par with a Hippo.
That does feel over tuned for a polar bear, yeah. I'll note the polar bear is also put above the grizzly, and despite their larger size I'm not actually sure they tend to come out winners against grizzly, but that might be mostly because grizzly's are less likely to back down.
I am also not completely sure how to evaluate the CR of a creature so specialized for the water, to be honest. And I wouldn't be shocked if a fight between the a polar bear and a great white led to the mutual bleeding out of both.
Not going to lie, that kinda feels like a cop out, to me. The Megaprimatus and Mastodon exist in same game. Mythical or not, it's still being outclassed by a animal that's a fraction of its size.
One of the most basic fundamental conceits of this game is that a normal sized person can beat increasingly large monsters to death with a stick. If size and level had a 1 to 1correlation, you'd never see parties taking down anything past huge size.
And if people can ignore any logical limitations of their size and muscle mass for the sake of game progression, I don't see why animals can't either. A Megaprimatus is weaker than an elephant for the same reason it is weaker than a 10th level PC: this is a magical world for gaming. For whatever reason, the magic that let the Megaprimatus grow to that size also didn't increase its own strength to what you'd logically expect. But that's no different than a 4th level Enlarge spell being cast on a level 1 commoner not being enough for the commoner to go toe to toe with the megaprimatus.
Okay, how about Polar Bears being higher level than a Great White Shark, and being on par with a Hippo.That does feel over tuned for a polar bear, yeah. I'll note the polar bear is also put above the grizzly, and despite their larger size I'm not actually sure they tend to come out winners against grizzly, but that might be mostly because grizzly's are less likely to back down.
I am also not completely sure how to evaluate the CR of a creature so specialized for the water, to be honest. And I wouldn't be shocked if a fight between the a polar bear and a great white led to the mutual bleeding out of both.
Not going to lie, that kinda feels like a cop out, to me. The Megaprimatus and Mastodon exist in same game. Mythical or not, it's still being outclassed by a animal that's a fraction of its size.One of the most basic fundamental conceits of this game is that a normal sized person can beat increasingly large monsters to death with a stick. If size and level had a 1 to 1correlation, you'd never see parties taking down anything past huge size.
And if people can ignore any logical limitations of their size and muscle mass for the sake of game progression, I don't see why animals can't either. A Megaprimatus is weaker than an elephant for the same reason it is weaker than a 10th level PC: this is a magical world for gaming. For whatever reason, the magic that let the Megaprimatus grow to that size also didn't increase its own strength to what you'd logically expect. But that's no different than a 4th level Enlarge spell being cast on a level 1 commoner not being enough for the commoner to go toe to toe with the megaprimatus.
It's not implied anywhere that the Megaprimatus is grown magically, only that it's a top predator in its regions.
The thing is that, yes, it is a fantasy setting, but animals are very much modeled after what they are supposed to be in the real world and nothing more. It's very evident from their description. Even then, people can't just go out and fight them because of the setting, as even common people have a level of -1. That's why I'm not expecting a real world Mastodon to kill off a healthy ape the height of a large house.
PCs and "special" NPCs have always been an exception to this. They are meant to reach the equivalent of powerful super heroes. That's why much higher level encounters are noted for having godlike power or being an apocalyptic monstrosity.
If the animals in question are bigger, exaggerated fantasy versions of themselves, then this wouldn't even have been a conversation. I'm totally fine with that.
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*in-depth analysis*
Okay so I totally agree with most of what you're saying here! Humans are truly impressive creatures; our ability to chuck stuff, for instance, is genuinely beyond-the-pale when it comes to essentially the entirety of nature.
However, I was considering the animals' level assumptions more so than whether a human could actually beat them in a fight (which is swingy w/ luck, crits and size of party). Being on-par with a hippo solo is the thing that makes you superhuman, whether you're using a sword or not. I definitely agree that it should make you super-bear too.
Tiger-hunting... that's incredible and I had no idea that it was a thing. Admittedly, it's a lot less cool nowadays with the state of tiger populations, but still!
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Okay so I totally agree with most of what you're saying here! Humans are truly impressive creatures; our ability to chuck stuff, for instance, is genuinely beyond-the-pale when it comes to essentially the entirety of nature.
Yeah, our long term endurance is also really ridiculous. We can walk many animals to death if we can get them to run from us and chase them for long enough.
However, I was considering the animals' level assumptions more so than whether a human could actually beat them in a fight (which is swingy w/ luck, crits and size of party). Being on-par with a hippo solo is the thing that makes you superhuman, whether you're using a sword or not. I definitely agree that it should make you super-bear too.
Sure, I'm just noting that fighting a tiger or bear in melee combat and winning is possible even in the real world. Unlikely, but possible. And that it's thus only around 5th level-ish that you start really hitting 'superhuman' by that comparison (and really, it's more like 6th or 7th in many cases since I think hippos are slightly underleveled).
Tiger-hunting... that's incredible and I had no idea that it was a thing. Admittedly, it's a lot less cool nowadays with the state of tiger populations, but still!
Well, nobody does that any more. I'm talking back before the invention of guns, here (since guns came into common usage basically all tiger hunting has used them for obvious reasons). And yeah, it's impressive.
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The problem with discussions like this is that the answer depends to an insane amount on which part of the game you choose to focus on.
A 1st level character can jump down from a 2 story building and be guaranteed to walk away with only some bruises. Bruises that will take days to heal with just bed rest but will be totally healed in minutes by somebody with minimal medical training. It is literally impossible to be conscious and unable to walk due to an injury caused by falling.
A well trained guard dog will just stand there doing nothing as its person is attacked.
Being able to fall from orbit totally unharmed is the same difficulty in world as people around the world having heard of you 1/2 the time.
EVERYTHING in world is calibrated from the point of view of gaming in the world, not from how things actually work. Sometimes this means that there may be a reasonable correlation with the real world, frequently there is a very, very, very bad correlation with the real world
Sometimes this is great as it allows us to tell the stories we want to tell, sometimes it is an issue as it can make willing suspension of disbelief hard as suddenly the world makes no sense. And, of course, individuals will disagree wildly when something is the former and when it is the latter.
But if you want to even TRY to correlate the game world with the real world you really, really need to pick a different game engine than D&D (GURPS is probably your best bet). The games that D&D is trying to support are NOT well handled by rules with a reasonable correlation with reality.
Which is absolutely fine. It's not intended as a reality simulation. And, obviously, if you're using THESE rules you like the games these rules support regardless of how insanely badly they correlate to reality in many, many places.
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Yeah, our long term endurance is also really ridiculous. We can walk many animals to death if we can get them to run from us and chase them for long enough.I agree, but I'm also not sure if part of that isn't entirely endurance, but the aninmal being too dumb to realise it only has to remain a little bit ahead, and not sprint until it passes out. Still, it certainly counts as a win for humans for one reason or the other.
Nah, biology is self-optimising when it comes to incremental stuff like that, intelligence or no intelligence. The issue is that humans are mechanically better at maintaining long-distance pursuit than basically anything else. A huge part of that is that we can exchange heat with the air super efficiently and reliably through perspiration, and part of it is our very well-adapted bipedal gait, which has the added advantage of seeing far on the move.
Our ability to lob stuff real far and also make stuff to actively optimise said lobbing certainly helps. What also helps is that we can coordinate with incredible specificity and bandwidth via the development of language, not to mention how much that aids in the transmission of knowledge and technique through time.
There's this misconception that humans hid in the trees, too soft for this dangerous world, until we somehow used our magic thumb powers to build fires and houses and bows and suddenly became rulers of all we surveyed. That's not at all the case, even when we do have to go it solo (as DMW mentioned prior). We are hard-as-nails apex pack predators from a region where "apex" is incredibly meaningful, and that's due to our endurance, our range, and our built-in versatility. Getting smart happened along the way, though it's thought that fire was a big leap because it allowed us to maximise our nutrition and spend more resources on developing bigger brains.
Or, in other words: We're not the Rogue of the animal kingdom. We're the Fighter.
Persistence hunting doesn't actually involve a ton of running, and is not comparable to a race between humans in really any fashion.
There's also not really a ton of evidence that humans outside of a select few areas actually participated in persistence hunting. In most environments humans were ambush hunters.
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Nah, biology is self-optimising when it comes to incremental stuff like that, intelligence or no intelligence. The issue is that humans are mechanically better at maintaining long-distance pursuit than basically anything else. A huge part of that is that we can exchange heat with the air super efficiently and reliably through perspiration, and part of it is our very well-adapted bipedal gait, which has the added advantage of seeing far on the move.Having failed a distance run because I went to fast early on, I have trouble believing that intelligence (i.e. an established training regimen) and experience aren't hugely important for endurance sports. It's very difficult to manage your energy usage when you don't have GPS devices.
edit: Not only that, but your running technique (the way you move your legs, your where your landing point is, how many footfalls per minute) makes a big difference in your efficiency as well. Who analyses gazelle gait and teaches them to optmise their gait?
What optimises gazelle gait? The fact that the gazelle without good running genes die a horrible, horrible death. Same reason that flies are nigh-perfect at manoeuvring in three dimensions and reacting to threats despite their total lack of complex neurological functioning. Mammals certainly aren't as hard-coded as insects, but very very few have anything approaching human complexity of behaviour. The fact that you're capable of messing up a run is also why you're capable of outsmarting any animal that could outrun you; you have the full toolkit open to you, so you gotta learn how to use it.
To be super reductive, Antelopes just hit the "run" app and go; so long as nothing too unexpected happens, they're set. There's only so many parameters they have to deal with. Humans, by contrast, have sort of evolved to innovate around problems in a more energy-intensive, granular way that requires a lot of training but pays serious dividends when it comes to fitting into any niche that's open. More options means more flexibility and ultimately a better chance of getting what you want... but also the possibility of choosing the wrong thing.
Comparisons between tabletop rpgs/operating systems are left as an excercise for the reader.
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(Of course that's not to say that no animals run themselves ragged. Cheetahs are an unfortunate case, but that's really more because being a hunter is hard and they've been optimised into a corner. Evolution can't plan ahead.)
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Persistence hunting doesn't actually involve a ton of running, and is not comparable to a race between humans in really any fashion.
There's also not really a ton of evidence that humans outside of a select few areas actually participated in persistence hunting. In most environments humans were ambush hunters.
That's very true! It's not so much about running as just walking it down and, as Moppy notes, tracking a bunch. It's amazing what you can do without modern technology, as much as I flipping love modern technology.
Oh! I wasn't aware of that. I know it's prevalent in some (kinda) contemporary hunter-gatherer societies. That's just another example of humans being super flexible I guess. We definitely can do the persistence hunting*, but it's not the only option.
EDIT: I already wasn't meaning to double-post, but I should say that Temperans is totally on-the-money as far as I'm aware. Humans are tremendously good at doing whatever's necessary to survive. *checks the year* Even if those big brains of ours sometimes throw up problems that don't necessarily make much sense.
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*As a general rule, I mean. I'd definitely be very deceased. It should also be noted that persistence hunting is still a small portion of the calorific intake of those groups that did/do it. It's still an important part of the lifestyle, but it's far from the only part.
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To be super reductive, Antelopes just hit the "run" app and go; so long as nothing too unexpected happens, they're set. There's only so many parameters they have to deal with. Humans, by contrast, have sort of evolved to innovate around problems in a more energy-intensive, granular way that requires a lot of training but pays serious dividends when it comes to...I think we're kind of agreed here. Animals just push the go button, and would be able to perform a lot better if they were smart enough that we could train them properly.
We know from studying the parameters for horse galloping gaits what is good and what isn't, by studying the faster horses (believe me that a LOT of money is spent on race horses). But we're unable to teach the horse how to adjust its footfalls to match. We have to instead control their breeding and hope they inherit. I can't imagine the same thing doesn't apply for endurance strategies. How often to rest? What speed to set?
A very simple example of how animals are so dumb they pwn themselves. Consider a lion attacking a wildebeast. It's like 1000:1 odds and the wildebeast has a nasty kick. Why are they running so the slowest one can get picked off? They could just gang up trample the lion to death.
Ah, not quite my meaning. Yes, they'd be better in other situations if they were smarter, because that's what smartness is for, but as far as running away in that situation goes they are already about as good as we could train them to be. It's everything they are and do and have done for as long as there have been gazelles. Optimising every single generation to fit a niche where their predators are also constantly improving.
The issue there is that we're trying to get horses to do something incredibly self-destructive and, frankly, wrong on every level. That is, it's difficult to tailor an animal's gait to do something that would get them killed in the wild; we have to do the selection ourselves (which is hard when we also keep killing them). In that sense, you are correct; animals would be better at doing other things if they were smarter, but they're generally already extremely good at the thing they evolved to do. That's why their line survived to do it, after all.
That... would be a terrible strategy. From an evolutionary perspective, you don't want to waste resources on adding a weakling to the gene pool. This strategy aids optimisation by ensuring that the weak are more likely to be eaten; a head-on assault could result in the otherwise best-fit wildebeest taking a bad hit by chance. Heartless, yes, but as far as a population strategy is concerned, what they already do is probably superior to your method.