Size templates / growing and jumping / swimming

[Tom2405]

Hi

as I'm currently redoing a few species templates I did I'm wondering about growth power and also about size templates.

 

Am I missing there something or does growing to gargantuan size (or having the template to begin with) increase running speed BUT you still can only jump 2m or swim like a normal sized human can?

[Grailknight]

By RAW this is the case.

 

Jumping should probably not be increased as the weight balances the STR.

 

I've house ruled the swimming to increase with the running.

[Tom2405]

that would also mean that for shrinking and small templates there must also be an extra decrease bought for jumping and swimming 

[Ndreare]

I would not make those changes.

For example jumping distance increases relative to strength per pound as one gets smaller and inversely decreases as one gets larger. Physics has a lot to say about it jumping height for small creatures, dogs, tics, cats are about the same as large creatures horses humans. Only the exceptional break these general rules it is a function of inverse square relative to mass projected.

Exceptionally huge animals just plain do not jump and are proud when they do, hippopotamus, elephants, rhinos.

Swimming likewise has to overcome the increased friction if the larger surface area, compounded by the fact that neural speeds become more encumbered as the impulses have to travel father you will find the larger a creature the slower it reactions to environmental stimulation.

Overall compared to real world the templates work nicely and smaller creatures are more efficient. That is why generally the majority of the larger creatures on earth are primarily herbivorous as converting energy from plants is more efficient and abundant.

[Christopher]

I would not make those changes.

For example jumping distance increases relative to strength per pound as one gets smaller and inversely decreases as one gets larger. Physics has a lot to say about it jumping height for small creatures, dogs, tics, cats are about the same as large creatures horses humans. Only the exceptional break these general rules it is a function of inverse square relative to mass projected.

The rules say something about this too: You need a STR bigger then 0 to carry "your own bodies weight" effectively (see STR base rules for details).

For every doubling of your weight, the "0 STR point" goes up by 5 STR.

Those bonus STR from DI&Growth are really just so you still can move like you could before. If you choose either with "Does not add STR" you might end up making yourself unable to move.

30 STR + 30 from growth/DI still leaves you at the 0 STR point when you get draiend by 30 STR (you just have a slightly better STR roll).

 

About swimming and jumping:

There is the whole thing that the extra mass counters the strenght.

The running increase is based on having longer legs, not stronger legs. The same way the reach increase is based on longer arms. Also they don't need to jump if they can just walk over an obstacle.

I would also think longer legs mean you don't need to jump as high as in normal size. If you have a 4m wall but can walk over obstacles that are 2m high, you would only need to "jump" 2m high - not 4m.

 

 

Another part might be oversight/to get proper scaling of the ability cost. At the end of the day 5E&6E DI/Growth/Shrinking are entirely based upon basic powers like Reach, Skill Bonuses, STR all rolled into a compound power.

If you want to modify how growth works, I went over the basic math of those powers back here:

http://www.herogames.com/forums/topic/88696-building-your-own-base-powers/

As a GM you can mod it and still get proper pricing for it this way.

 

They might just have wanted it to cost multiples of 5. And swimming/jumping would have gotten in the way of that goal.