Strength and Human Weight

[Black Lotus]

I've been worrying about Strength and human weight again -- namely, the fact that every adult human is assumed to weigh 100 kg (220 lbs), which is a lot, and that with a STR of 10, you can just barely lift said 220 lb person off the floor and carry them a few feet.

Well, theoretically, any adult human female is going to weight HALF of that, or a little more, unless they're fairly tall and/ or overweight. I weigh 220 pounds myself, oddly enough, and I'm 5'8", but I'm quite muscular. Most human females my height are going to weigh half of that....

I mean, 220 lbs is NOT a fair weight to assume for just about any female, and that DOES factor into combat and other things; picking someone up and throwing them, carrying someone a distance, etcetera.

I'm rambling, aren't I? Oh, well. I suppose I'll have to try and assign a realistic weight to each character. 220 pounds is a little heavy to be considered the human "standard".

What do you all think?

[archermoo]

100kg is just the default assumption for gaming mechanics, because it is a nice round number. Feel free to set it higher or lower as you see fit, for individuals or as a group. I'd guess that most people weigh more than 50kg and less than 100kg.

[NuSoardGraphite]

100Kg is assumed to be the average for a 6' tall male who is in reasonably good shape (STR 10). Since its just an average, any character you make can be adjusted to your whim.

The starting point for the Characteristics assume this as well. Dex, Body, Str and Con all assume a healthy male around 6' in reasonbly good shape. You should adjust the characteristics based on your characters concept (note that the Mental characteristics are based on the "Average" educated human of no specific race or gender)

This is why the Characteristics of "Joe Average" are listed around 8's. This is the average guy in his mid-30's who's let himself go a bit. He's not as strong and as quick as he was in his youth and he might be a bit slow on the take (INT 8) but he gets along just fine. However, he's got some education and/or life experience and he's probably really good at one or two hobbies (fixing cars or videogames or movie trivia or something). Thats where those CP's saved on characteristics end up going.

I assume the "average" female's physical characteristics fall into this category here:

STR:5 (many average females can't even lift 50Kg, so I'm being generous)
DEX:11 (most women can dance better than the average man)
CON:11 (Many women are also a bit healthier and they have babies..nuff said)
BOD: 7 (much smaller and lighter than men on average)

[ghost-angel]

first I don't know any 5'8 women who weigh 110lbs (not even the thin ones)... I'd say that 100kg is just a baseline, not even an average. Just a place to start.

If you need that average to be 80kg set it to that. Remember, in 5E there is no need to pay points to be less/more than the baseline. If the average weight in your campaign is 80kg for men and 72kg for women (I picked them out of the air..) then that's what it is.

Simple as that.

[archermoo]

100Kg is assumed to be the average for a 6' tall male who is in reasonably good shape (STR 10).

Or actually a 1" (i.e. 2 Metre) tall male. Which is to say a little under 6'7".

Which is to say that they went for numbers that were nice and round and easy to deal with in the metric system. Why they decided metric back then? Who knows, though I'm personally quite happy about it...

[Phil]

STR:5 (many average females can't even lift 50Kg, so I'm being generous)
DEX:11 (most women can dance better than the average man)
CON:11 (Many women are also a bit healthier and they have babies..nuff said)
BOD: 7 (much smaller and lighter than men on average)

This actually highlights a general problem with females in RPGs. Because there is a driving urge to make men and women game balanced, but the truth is that this is not necessarily true.

STR should certainly be lower. BOD I'm not sure about, because the ambiguity over what it means. But while women *may* be able to dance better, but Dancing is a skill. Dexterity represents a much broader level of physical attributes, and I'm not sure there's any reason to suspect women are better or worse than men. As for "Many women are also a bit healthier and they have babies..nuff said" - no, not enough said! Clearly running speed and physical strength also comes into the equation, but I dont know of any sports endurance records which are held by women.

That's why I think it's best, as much as possible, to try and handwave such differences altogether. Because the 'facts' of sexual differences (and racial, for that matter) are not clear and highly emotive.