Bigger Animals - To use realistic STR or not

[Grail Quest]

Contrary to the guidelines for Growth, realistic size changes increase STR differently:

"As creatures get larger, weight, which is proportional to volume, goes up in proportion to the cube of the increase in dimension. Strength, on the other hand, is known to be roughly proportional to cross section of muscle for any particular limb, and goes up in proportion to the square of the increase in dimension." (full article here: http://www.bearfabrique.org/Catastrophism/sauropods/biganims.html)

After the math, this means that when you increase by 1 level of size (e.g., from 2m tall to 4m tall), STR actually increases by +10 instead of +15. Conversely when size decreases, STR decreases by -10 instead of -15.

Big creatures are comparatively weaker than they look, where small creatures are stronger than they seem. A dog, for instance, can drag a human, but a horse can't carry another horse.

This also corresponds then to the real cap on land animal size. Big whales, for instance, would collapse under their own weight on land, without having water to support their mass.

However, unless we do some hand-waving, we can't have titans, since they wouldn't be able to carry the same amount of gear that a scaled-down version (e.g., a human) could.


Inviting general thoughts on switching to using realistic STR for Mass changes: Where will this system meet with disaster?

[OddHat]

If you want Godzilla or the Amazing Colossal Man (or a Dragon or a Storm Giant), you have to either kiss the square cube law goodby, or re-design the giant to the point where he only slightly resembles the source material ("Humanoid" giants with tiny arms, grotesquely disproportionate legs and huge tails for balance, etc). I'd only bother in a hard SF campaign.

[Doug Limmer]

Or, you need to change the internal structure so they can hold themselves up, or something. After all, they can make pretty big human-proportioned statues.

[Hugh Neilson]

As Oddhat says, strict application of the cube square law would require that creatures/characters above a certain size be eliminated. The Growth and Size rules reflect the dramatic license suspension of the cube square law to say that, since such levels of size would be impossible under the uube square law, we will instead match growth in STR to growth in mass.

Thus, for every doubling in size, growth octuples both mass and strength (+5 being a doubling, +15 octuples).

Certainly, if you want a realistic game, you need to adhere to the cube square law. But a realistic game should also eliminate magic, monsters, superpowers, rubber science (FTL travel, lightsabers, matter transporters) and people who crash through plate glass windows without a cut.

Strict application of realism doesn't leave many genres intact.

[Lord Liaden]

Well, under Fifth Edition the Growth Power is supposed to be reserved for characters who can change their size, which is an inherently "fantastic" ability which doesn't reflect real-world physics. IMHO it would be reasonable to waive such concerns when using it.

The HERO System Bestiary introduced the concept of building creatures which are larger than human with packages of abilities and Disadvantages: increased Characteristics, increased Running, Stretching, Knockback Resistance, and size/mass based Physical Limitations. If you wanted to restrict animals in your campaign to what you consider "real world" limits, you could adjust any of the prebuilt animal templates if you thought it necessary. (The templates for sizes greater or less than human have since been included in Fifth Edition Revised, Star HERO and Fantasy HERO.)

[Hugh Neilson]

Well, under Fifth Edition the Growth Power is supposed to be reserved for characters who can change their size, which is an inherently "fantastic" ability which doesn't reflect real-world physics. IMHO it would be reasonable to waive such concerns when using it.

The HERO System Bestiary introduced the concept of building creatures which are larger than human with packages of abilities and Disadvantages: increased Characteristics, increased Running, Stretching, Knockback Resistance, and size/mass based Physical Limitations. If you wanted to restrict animals in your campaign to what you consider "real world" limits, you could adjust any of the prebuilt animal templates if you thought it necessary. (The templates for sizes greater or less than human have since been included in Fifth Edition Revised, Star HERO and Fantasy HERO.)

This would introduce discrepancies between the "normally large" (elephant, bear) and the "fantastically large" (Giant, permanently enlarged Super) creatiures which do not adhere to cube/square. Whether that's not good or bad is a matter of taste, and campaign-dependent.

[pinecone]

This would introduce discrepancies between the "normally large" (elephant, bear) and the "fantastically large" (Giant, permanently enlarged Super) creatiures which do not adhere to cube/square. Whether that's not good or bad is a matter of taste, and campaign-dependent.
Exactly you have a differance between "Normally-big" and "Super-sized" the second having a "rubber science" reason for being so big...this stuff used to bug me too...I still equip growth beings with a point of Def per level of growth to help "explain" why they don't die from simply walking around....part of the super power alters the material they are made of so that they are "OK"...just like super speedsters don't burn up or shatter their bones while running....:)

[Grail Quest]

I still equip growth beings with a point of Def per level of growth to help "explain" why they don't die from simply walking around

Something I was thinking of doing next, once I get the size issue figured out, was to give big creatures a scaled amount of everything-defense to shrug off relatively tiny attacks.
The way it is with most game systems, things usually go one of two ways:

(a) size tiers, like Palladium, where big enough = MegaDamage health rating
(b) no size tiers, like D&D, where toothpicks can kill Godzillas if your hit roll is good enough

I can see a certain amount of Damage Resistance coming into play instead of Armor, but the numbers still need to be crunched.

Anyone done anything like this yet? It was super-easy to do in D&D ( it's part of the house rule set I cooked up, downloadable here: http://www.freewebs.com/d20elements/ ).

[AmadanNaBriona]

I don't have a hard and fast system for it, but yes, I give giant sized critter added defences. Extra PD/ED at the start, with some Damage Resistance to reflect the basic muscle density & thick dermal layer. I usually wind up giving them Damage Reduction as well, % depending on size.
Suffice to say, in my FH game giant sized critters were well good and truly feared... I ran a campaign that averaged 6 players, with 250 point characters, and at various points in the quest they were sorely challenged by a single Frost giant and a lone dragon... in fact the only reason they ended up defeating the dragon was a certain amount of GM intervention (I decided shortly after the start of the fight that it really shouldn't be casting spells too... in something like 2 phases it had taken out half the party)

[Lord Liaden]

For purposes of shrugging off lesser attacks by characters in genres where that's appropriate (giant monsters, supers and the like), I extrapolate from the Real Weapon Limitation. That Lim is supposed to include restricting weapons from damaging targets that they should not be able to in the real world, random roll or not. In the case of living targets, my rule is that if the weapon isn't capable of doing BODY damage to the target after subtracting Defenses with its highest possible roll, then no STUN damage gets through to the target either (nor Knockback, where that's used). The weapon doesn't have to actually do that much BODY on a given roll, just be capable of it.

Since virtually every non-super weapon in published 5E Hero Games books is built with Real Weapon, this rule allows those weapon writeups to be used for games featuring high-powered characters without significant alteration. Bricks in a Champions game can wade through a hail of normal gunfire without harm, while a giant monster with Resistant Defenses of 48 or more can bounce even the main cannon of the infamous Abrams Tank.

This also provides a rationale for all those comic-book agent types to be running around with blasters rather than assault rifles. Blasters are more effective against the kind of targets they go up against.

[OddHat]

I use Damage Reduction for large creatures, and a high CON and high defenses, sometimes hardened. I'll also enforce the rules about damage reduction working against some forms of NND and Drain, and add special defenses if appropriate. My version of Godzilla doesn't notice tanks and barely notices most Supers. On the other hand, he's not there to be fought directly; the point of an adventure built around him is to find a way to minimize damage and lure or drive him away from populated areas; like any of my other characters, he's built to be as powerful as he needs to be for the story to work.

[prestidigitator]

It is an interesting area to play with, but I seriously wouldn't pay any attention whatsoever to the article cited. The fellow who wrote it is not a scientist, but a metaphysicist attempting to use logic on flawed bases in order to validate his wishes about the working of the universe.

An example: in one of his pages he claims that Einstein's theories of Relativity are flawed because they were developed using logic rather than direct experimentation and observation (never mind that such theory very accurately predicted phenomena that was previously inexplicable--such as orbital precession, gravitational time dialation, the energy and products produced from nuclear reactions, etc.). Then in the very article cited he attempts to make use of the very same logical processes to show that dinosaurs could not have existed were gravity the same as it is today. He could have gone on to the obvious argument that gravity is obviously not the same today as it is today because we cannot figure out how bumblebees are able to fly. That would have been fun.

Nevertheless, the square-cube problem is a very interesting one. It has as much to do with skeletal structure as musculature. If you were to scale a mouse or even a human up to the size of an elephant, it's bones would quickly snap under the weight of its own body. Larger animals by necessity have different proportions than smaller ones. It is amazing how nature and evolution has solved such issues in the phenominal creatures in our world's past and present. The physical laws we can deduce relatively easily; the workings of living things within those physical laws is a much more convoluted challenge.

In terms of gaming and fantasy, we often suspend reality in order to allow our imaginations an expanded playground. We can easily wave physical principles aside in the name of dramatic creativity, and fully acknowledge that we are doing so. If our logical brain starts to get in the way, we can simply explain away discrepencies using convenient excuses such as, "magic," altered physical laws, etc. We could justify giants by claiming they are built of strudier stuff than humans, are supported by the magic of the setting, or just forget it and have fun anyway. When we think of giants and miniatures, we are playing with scalability. We want humans bigger or smaller than life that still act like humans; we don't want a giant that couldn't do a chin-up to save his life.

[Chris Goodwin]

Ultimately, this is a roleplaying game, not a biology textbook.

[Alric]

If our logical brain starts to get in the way, we can simply explain away discrepencies using convenient excuses such as, "magic," altered physical laws, etc.

I prefer the Q-Tip method. As in: "Shut up brain, or I'll stab you with a Q-Tip."

[Roy_The_Ruthles]

in order for growth to work at all, you need to find a way to add mass, which is highly fantastical. I know someone who explained it as "converting energy to matter" which i rolled my eyes at and let him continue