Race Height/Size Comparison Charts (photos) for Baldur's Gate (AD&D 2nd Edition)

BCaesar

I'm helping to work on a mod and I wanted to know what the relative sizes of the races were so that we could know for our writing. So using the 2nd Edition player's handbook's dice rolls for height and weight I created the following.

First here's the heights and weights for a PC, assuming their height and weight is average for their race (using the Player's Handbook for all the races except Drow and Half-Orc which I got from the Monstrous Manual and the Book of Humanoids).


Player Character is a Man
Halfling: 41" (3' 5") tall and 64.5 pounds.
Gnome: 41.5" (3' 5.5") tall and 84.5 pounds.
Elf: 60.5" (5' 0.5") tall and 106.5 pounds.
Half-Elf: 67" (5' 7") tall and 129.5 pounds.
Dwarf: 47.5 (3' 11.5") tall and 152 pounds.
Half-Orc: 66.5" (5' 6.5") tall and 168 pounds.
Human: 71" (5' 11") tall and 173 pounds.

Player Character is a Woman
Halfling: 39" (3' 3") tall and 60.5 pounds.
Gnome: 39.5" (3' 3.5") tall and 80.5 pounds.
Elf: 55.5" (4' 7.5") tall and 86.5 pounds.
Drow: 60" (5') tall and 107.5 pounds.
Half-Elf: 65" (5' 5") tall and 104.5 pounds.
Dwarf: 46.5" (3' 10.5") tall and 127 pounds.
Half-Orc: 64.5" (5' 4.5") tall and 128 pounds.
Human: 70" (5'10") tall and 133 pounds.


So using those, and pictures from Athlete by Howard Schatz I tried to find pictures of various athletes with a similar body-mass index to each character and then made some of the pictures bigger and smaller as necessary. In some cases I could not find any picture that really matched so I just picked the best one.

Pictures have been modified if I couldn't find anyone the right size (for example the athletes representing halflings, dwarves, and gnomes are all taller and some are thinner as well).






The athletes involved are:
Women:
Gnome: Dawn Ellerbe- hammer throwing
Drow: Tobey Gifford- sport aerobics
Half-Orc: Stacy Dragila- pole vault
Human: Stacey Sykora- volleyball
Half-Elf: Svetlana Khorkina- gymnastics
Elf: Tara Nott- weightlifting
Dwarf: Cheryl Haworth-weightlifting
Halfling: Connie Price-Smith- shotput

Men:
Gnome: Adam Nelson- shotput
Dwarf: Shane Hamman- weightlifting
Half-Orc: Brandon Slay- wrestling
Human: Dan O'Brien- decathlon
Half-Elf: Bob Kennedy- long distance running
Elf: Johnny Gray- running
Halfling: Vince Munoz- handball

Photos used without Howard Schwatz's permission, but I linked to both his website and his book on amazon so hopefully that makes up for it. Here they are again: The Book. The website.

SharGuidesMyHand

The female elvish characters look more buff than their male counterparts.

JumboWheat01

With the exception of Forest Gnomes, in the Realms, Gnomes are taller than Halflings of all stripes, though not by much.

BCaesar

SharGuidesMyHand said:

The female elvish characters look more buff than their male counterparts.

The way the dice rolls work the female elves and half-elves have the same body mass numbers as their male counterparts (the drow females are buffer, both more than the elves/half-elves and more than drow males). However I've noticed when you have male athletes and female athletes of the same height/weight the males look skinnier. Something about how we're put together.

BCaesar

JumboWheat01 said:

With the exception of Forest Gnomes, in the Realms, Gnomes are taller than Halflings of all stripes, though not by much.

That's true in 3.5 (looking in the player handbook), but in the AD&D 2nd Edition Player's Handbook (which is where all these numbers are from) the rolls are as follows:

Male Halfling
Height: 32 + 2d8.
Min: 34, Max: 48, Mean: 41

Female Halfling
Height: 30 + 2d8.
Min: 32, Max: 46, Mean: 39

Male Gnome
Height: 38 + 1d6.
Min: 39, Max: 44, Mean: 41.5

Female Gnome
Height: 36 + 1d6.
Min: 37, Max: 42, Mean: 39.5

So gnomes do have a slightly higher average than halflings, but halflings have a higher max (and lower minimum) height. For Baldur's Gate where I'm assuming everyone has STR and CON above average I used an average of the average and maximum heights for each race, which is why the halflings ended up taller.

But when you mentioned it I noticed that for the female gnomes I accidentally put the height for the male gnomes, so my female gnome actually needs to be 2 inches shorter that she was, but the picture looks fine as it is and if I make her too short for her weight she starts to look really ridiculous (assuming height x width = weight), so I'll just leave it.

Zaghoul

1st ed AD&D and 2nd edition (complete book of humanoids) always put half orcs as a little shorter than humans on average(a little less weight as well.) An average of about 5'6" for males and weight about a buck 50. I never got into anything past 2nd edition but it seems like after those two editions half orcs started to evolve into something more like a friggin half -ogre brute or something, with much more orcish like features. I am guessing that is where the 19 str comes from as well as they were limited to like 18/99 or something, even though they got +1 str and con(which could go to 19).

BCaesar

Zaghoul said:

1st ed AD&D and 2nd edition (complete book of humanoids) always put half orcs as a little shorter than humans on average(a little less weight as well.) An average of about 5'6" for males and weight about a buck 50. I never got into anything past 2nd edition but it seems like after those two editions half orcs started to evolve into something more like a friggin half -ogre brute or something, with much more orcish like features. I am guessing that is where the 19 str comes from as well as they were limited to like 18/99 or something, even though they got +1 str and con(which could go to 19).

Oh cool. I didn't have anything for them other than a brief mention in the Monstrous Manual.

You wouldn't happen to have a link anywhere would you? I'd love to fix that.

3.5 made gnomes and halflings much smaller and half-orcs much bigger than in 2nd.

JumboWheat01

That doesn't make much sense, just because someone is really strong and sturdy doesn't mean they're really tall. Just means they're really strong and sturdy.

Zaghoul

JumboWheat01 said:

That doesn't make much sense, just because someone is really strong and sturdy doesn't mean they're really tall. Just means they're really strong and sturdy.

Yep, in general height is more of a disadvantage in strength(unless the tall person has long muscles bellies as well). It all depends on the length of muscles bellies and tendon attachment. This would be explain dwarves strength as well.

Zaghoul

BCaesar said:

Zaghoul said:

1st ed AD&D and 2nd edition (complete book of humanoids) always put half orcs as a little shorter than humans on average(a little less weight as well.) An average of about 5'6" for males and weight about a buck 50. I never got into anything past 2nd edition but it seems like after those two editions half orcs started to evolve into something more like a friggin half -ogre brute or something, with much more orcish like features. I am guessing that is where the 19 str comes from as well as they were limited to like 18/99 or something, even though they got +1 str and con(which could go to 19).

Oh cool. I didn't have anything for them other than a brief mention in the Monstrous Manual.

You wouldn't happen to have a link anywhere would you? I'd love to fix that.

3.5 made gnomes and halflings much smaller and half-orcs much bigger than in 2nd.

Ill post the info for HOs here:averages

1st ed AD&D (DMG p.102)

HO male 66" + or- 1-4" Weight 150lbs minus 2-16lbsor plus 4-40lbs
HO females 62" +or- 1-3" Weight 120lbs minus 2-16lbs or plus 4-32lbs
There were percentage roles to give an average or plus or minus numbers

2nd edition (complete book of humanoids) 2nd edition had dropped the half orc from the players handbook and only added it afterward in this supplement book.
HO male/female averages 60"/58" could range past this 1-12" WeightsM/F:135lbs/95lbs with a variable of 6-60lbs.
I did not like this as much because unlike 1st edition it did not give percentages that a HO was the average OR plus or minus above/below average.

I dont know where the idea for a 19 str came from. That is a 10 foot hill giants strength.

JumboWheat01

Zaghoul said:

JumboWheat01 said:

That doesn't make much sense, just because someone is really strong and sturdy doesn't mean they're really tall. Just means they're really strong and sturdy.

Yep, in general height is more of a disadvantage in strength(unless the tall person has long muscles bellies as well). It all depends on the length of muscles bellies and tendon attachment. This would be explain dwarves strength as well.

Nah, we all knows dwarves get their strength from their beards as the benefit to the symbiotic relationship they have with the beard creatures.

Zaghoul

Hehheh. Yep, got a dwarf like beard myself. Not sure bout the strength but sure does get attn. Have got the odd spider or fly caught in the depths sometimes though, little buggers. May be the creatures after all.

BCaesar

JumboWheat01 said:

Zaghoul said:

JumboWheat01 said:

That doesn't make much sense, just because someone is really strong and sturdy doesn't mean they're really tall. Just means they're really strong and sturdy.

Yep, in general height is more of a disadvantage in strength(unless the tall person has long muscles bellies as well). It all depends on the length of muscles bellies and tendon attachment. This would be explain dwarves strength as well.

Nah, we all knows dwarves get their strength from their beards as the benefit to the symbiotic relationship they have with the beard creatures.

Well yeah, if you think about it dwarves are unstoppable killing machines. They're basically the same weight as humans, but all that weight (which is all solid muscle) is packed into four feet of height.

I could assume that all the PC's are of average height and weight. Ok I'll do that. It'll take me a bit to redo everything though.

BCaesar

Zaghoul said:

Ill post the info for HOs here:averages

1st ed AD&D (DMG p.102)

HO male 66" + or- 1-4" Weight 150lbs minus 2-16lbsor plus 4-40lbs
HO females 62" +or- 1-3" Weight 120lbs minus 2-16lbs or plus 4-32lbs
There were percentage roles to give an average or plus or minus numbers

2nd edition (complete book of humanoids) 2nd edition had dropped the half orc from the players handbook and only added it afterward in this supplement book.
HO male/female averages 60"/58" could range past this 1-12" WeightsM/F:135lbs/95lbs with a variable of 6-60lbs.
I did not like this as much because unlike 1st edition it did not give percentages that a HO was the average OR plus or minus above/below average.

I dont know where the idea for a 19 str came from. That is a 10 foot hill giants strength.

Cool, thanks. That does make a lot more sense given that orcs are basically human size or smaller.

I'm redoing everyone with average height and weight anyways so I'll use this as my half-orcs:
Half Orc Male
Height: 60 + 1d12 (Average: 66.5")
Weight: 135 + 6d10 (Average: 168 lbs)

Female
Height: 58 + 1d12 (Average: 64.5")
Weight: 95 + 6d10 (Average: 128 lbs)

Zaghoul

Looks good. I never played it but I am thinking the folks making 3rd edition D&D and later must have been watching World of Warcraft stuff a bit. Those orcs in WoW always looked more like ogres compared to the earlier editions.

BCaesar

All done now. Now that the humans are the single tallest race, I stuck them in the middle and went down in height toward the sides.

JumboWheat01

Zaghoul said:

Looks good. I never played it but I am thinking the folks making 3rd edition D&D and later must have been watching World of Warcraft stuff a bit. Those orcs in WoW always looked more like ogres compared to the earlier editions.

Admittedly, Blizzard really brought forth the whole "noble warrior race" idea for Orcs, most before-hand were cannon-fodder idiot brutes. Though WoW's models are not the best thing to go by exclusively. I mean, look at their humans, they're incredibly buff, even when they happen to be casters!

And I dare say Azerothian Gnomes are weirder than most D&D Gnomes...

Zaghoul

JumboWheat01 said:

Zaghoul said:

Looks good. I never played it but I am thinking the folks making 3rd edition D&D and later must have been watching World of Warcraft stuff a bit. Those orcs in WoW always looked more like ogres compared to the earlier editions.

Admittedly, Blizzard really brought forth the whole "noble warrior race" idea for Orcs, most before-hand were cannon-fodder idiot brutes. Though WoW's models are not the best thing to go by exclusively. I mean, look at their humans, they're incredibly buff, even when they happen to be casters!

And I dare say Azerothian Gnomes are weirder than most D&D Gnomes...

D&D started getting away from anything evil starting in 2nd edition (then changed again in another edition with all that prestige kit business). That probably justified there 'noble' business. They took the assassin class away and I suppose they also thought anything half orc HAD to be evil (since they could multiclass as cleric/assassins). Half orcs may have leaned to neutral or evil depending on who raised them but good most certainly possible.
I always liked the 1st edition version of Half orcs(and later 2nd edition Book of Humanoids was ok to). To me, watching Lord of the Rings, THATS an orc, not huge certainly, so half orc will look a bit less orcish (the ol 1st edition mentioned even that 10% were considered human enough to even pass for more or less human)
Saruman's orcs looked a little less orchish that the standard Mordor versions. I guess mixing in that 'goblin men, or wild men blood helped with that. No huge fangs n such.