Also, let's not forget that exceptional stats are considered "heroic" by ad&d standards. Unlike video game characters, pnp considers that not all mages have intelligent 17 or 18 (which is considered genius level), and not all half-orcs have str 19. In fact , I remember seeing a WoD player questioning the 5 points limit in skills for regular players, he said " I bet that Pelé ("the king of soccer") would have more than points in that skill", and the DM answered "it one thing to fill five dots on a paper, to be a real life number one athlete is completely different" .
Well said, @DJKajuru . It takes a lot of work to become an average musician, average engineer, etc. It takes talent, work, discipline, vision, and some luck to become great at anything that requires skill.
In all seriousness, lifting 180 pounds (roughly 80kg) over your head and holding it there for five seconds is not trivial. Because we see weight lifters at the Olympics or prospective NFL offensive linemen, we think it's no big deal. I would guess that we use less muscle during the day than folks in Faerun, but we also have better nutrition, training, etc.
In all seriousness, lifting 180 pounds (roughly 80kg) over your head and holding it there for five seconds is not trivial. Because we see weight lifters at the Olympics or prospective NFL offensive linemen, we think it's no big deal. I would guess that we use less muscle during the day than folks in Faerun, but we also have better nutrition, training, etc.
True, but if all you do is train, train, go on adventures, then train some more you will reach that point fairly quickly. I could lift 65 kg over my head after just a few months of training, and I wasn't even that serious about it. In the comparison to Pelé he had the combination of maxed out stats combined with a kensai kit and 5 pips in dribbling/shooting etc whereas most chars can attain one or two of those but seldom all three.
Then again, I think the spectrum for determining STR is too narrow since I personally think that someone who can lift their own body weight 100 times is stronger than someone who can only do it once, but who can lift 100 KG over their heads and hold it there for some time. Ofc in a static game environment we have to create these kind of boarders, but I prefer the more broader interpretation. Just like that CHA isn't only beauty, STR for me isn't only lifting heavy things.
Edit: The above isn't arguing targeted against you @Tbone1, I just used your quote as inspiration for my reply, which was just a general response to the whole thread.
If 18 is the maximum human strength 180 lbs seems quite low.
@FinneousPJ Check your standing overhead military press at the gym. No jerking the weight up or using momentum to lift. 18 is pretty darn strong. In 1st edition AD&D Unearthed Arcane introduced to the Cavalier class the ability to raise strength through training. I always thought that was a good idea and an option for other classes(house rule)
If weightlifting was incorporating into D&D then most certainly all classes could raise Str., just as we all can with weightlifting.
But with certain non warrior classes, like with certain real life professions, they just may not be spending their time at the gym so much due to having other things/interests taking up their time(in general-not everyone obviously). I think that the 18 is set for non warrior classes because of that vary reason.
Keep in mind that weightlifting and bodybuilding, at least as we know it, only really started in Victorian times. Yes, there had been training and so on, but nothing like what we have now. Heck, until the 70s, most athletes went to training camp to work their way into shape after an offseason working other jobs. Now it's a 24/7/365 career, given the money. Seriously, look at the physique of someone like Lebron James or Michael Phelps compared to a great player in the 60s or 70s who wasn't named Wilt Chamberlain. What we've done with diet, nutrition, and training in the last 50 years is phenomenal. I seem to recall that top high school athletes today could probably train for three months beat our hunter-gatherer ancestors at any physical event you could name: weight lifting, javelin, 100 meter dash, high jump, etc. Not that every high school athlete could do this for every event, of course, and I think that was written before they proved how most of us carry Neanderthal genes.
Translating this to Faerun, I think the average citizen might be stronger due to lifestyle and the weaker ones being more likely to die young. But at the top end of athleticism, ... Just consider how people in the US are viewed most times vs during the Olympics.
Tbone1 is correct though. Just looking at a picture of NFL players today and 30-40 years ago, you see a striking difference in size and physique. It's why I kinda laugh when people talk about how players are too soft today and don't hit like they used to. There is a reason for this, they had to change the rules because if they did not I'm fairly positive JJ Watt and/or Cam Chancellor would have killed a few people by now. Even now the injuries are insanely common and very damaging.
If 18 is the maximum human strength 180 lbs seems quite low.
Human max is 18/00, but that is only possible with warriors, blacksmiths, and shirtless dictators riding bears.
Exceptional strength was quite possibly the worst rule in 2E (except perhaps the class/kit restrictions written by some militant human supremacist hate group). 18/xx shouldn't have existed, maximum human strength should have just been 18 and 19 should have been a linear upgrade from 18.
Also, let's not forget that exceptional stats are considered "heroic" by ad&d standards. Unlike video game characters, pnp considers that not all mages have intelligent 17 or 18 (which is considered genius level), and not all half-orcs have str 19.
Well all 2E mages need 17 or 18 INT in high-level play unless you want to be completely crippled. Look up Josh Sawyer's GDC talk about attributes and the issue of the "Reasonably Intelligent Wizard" and "Reasonably Intelligent Fighter" character builds (i.e. 15 STR or INT). They're straight up crippled in AD&D's rules.
Keep in mind that weightlifting and bodybuilding, at least as we know it, only really started in Victorian times. Yes, there had been training and so on, but nothing like what we have now. Heck, until the 70s, most athletes went to training camp to work their way into shape after an offseason working other jobs. Now it's a 24/7/365 career, given the money. Seriously, look at the physique of someone like Lebron James or Michael Phelps compared to a great player in the 60s or 70s who wasn't named Wilt Chamberlain. What we've done with diet, nutrition, and training in the last 50 years is phenomenal. I seem to recall that top high school athletes today could probably train for three months beat our hunter-gatherer ancestors at any physical event you could name: weight lifting, javelin, 100 meter dash, high jump, etc. Not that every high school athlete could do this for every event, of course, and I think that was written before they proved how most of us carry Neanderthal genes.
Translating this to Faerun, I think the average citizen might be stronger due to lifestyle and the weaker ones being more likely to die young. But at the top end of athleticism, ... Just consider how people in the US are viewed most times vs during the Olympics.
Bodybuilding isn't all it's cracked up to be. It's about appearance, not physical prowess. A lot of incredibly strong people do not look like bodybuilders--they tend either to be lean and wiry (like Bruce Lee) or have a very stocky build with a strong core that people used to modern beauty standards might consider fat (like old Japanese illustrations of samurai, or a tall, less exaggerated version of the typical dwarf build). Also, the extreme definition of a bodybuilder in performing condition comes from near-starvation and dehydration that would greatly reduce his physical performance. Muscles are not supposed to look like that!
Paleolithic hunter-gatherers were some seriously strong and tough people. Not only did they travel long distances and do strenuous physical activities constantly, but they ate much better than your average pre-20th century civilized people (your average Bronze Age man was 5'4" or 5'5", your average Paleolithic man 5'9"-5'11", about the same as modern people). Unfortunately for them, it didn't matter if you were much more fit and powerful than a civilized man when the civilization trying to take your land had ten fighting men for every one of yours.
Well all 2E mages need 17 or 18 INT in high-level play unless you want to be completely crippled. Look up Josh Sawyer's GDC talk about attributes and the issue of the "Reasonably Intelligent Wizard" and "Reasonably Intelligent Fighter" character builds (i.e. 15 STR or INT). They're straight up crippled in AD&D's rules.
It was not unusual in tabletop games for wizards to spend truckloads of money on wish spells in order to increase their own intelligence to be able to cast higher level spells.
Bodybuilding isn't all it's cracked up to be. It's about appearance, not physical prowess.
This may be true for competitive bodybuilders who do shows. This is not true for the average NFL or some of the NBA players. You got guys around 300+lbs who are stocky as can be and can run some seriously fast 40 yard dashes, they got scary physical prowess. The idea of muscular and athletic training coupled with diet that was spawned from bodybuilding is what has produced some of the athletic monsters we see today. Not all bodybuilding and training is the same. You or I and no average paleolithic hunter/gatherer is going to be able to compete with Lebron James in the athletic department. It's just not happening.
Exceptional strength was quite possibly the worst rule in 2E (except perhaps the class/kit restrictions written by some militant human supremacist hate group). 18/xx shouldn't have existed, maximum human strength should have just been 18 and 19 should have been a linear upgrade from 18.
I don't think exceptional strength is a bad idea in itself - I think it provides an appropriate bonus to fighter types to help balance the spells and special abilities of other classes. The decision in BG to allow the strength tome to take you from 18 to 19, rather than to 18(01), does of course rather undermine that advantage to fighters - but that's not the fault of the 2E rules.
I personally think feats and per-rest special abilities like in later editions and in modern cRPGs would have been better--allow fighters to launch sweeping attacks that hit multiple enemies in an arc, charge through a group of enemies to get in a wizard's face, temporarily penalize their target's AC or destroy magical defenses with a particularly strong blow, etc. 18/xx might give fighters a damage bonus, but it doesn't solve the fact that compared to wizards, they're less involved to play and have fewer options.
I agree that fighters have fewer options, but I don't think that's a bad thing. Actually I think it's rather a good idea to have a range of different types of characters, some of which are more straight-forward to play than others. I don't have any experience of 5th edition rules, but to my taste the extra options provided for fighters in 3rd edition were just an unnecessary distraction - obviously tastes differ though .
@TheGreatKhan Thats not bodybuilding though. Athletic training/fitness training are different.
Quite true, and when I started this discussion down this road, that was not what I meant to say. I was attempting to point out that, in modern society, what seems like a non-exceptional feat of strength would have been before. I used the changes in the NFL and NBA to show what modern training, knowledge, and approaches can do. Certainly our hunter-gatherer ancestors were better athletes than you and me. But better than Kevin Durant? (How does a guy that big move like that?) Better than Michael Phelps?
As regards to modern competitive BBing, I lost alot of interest after the late 80's when steroids and GH, plus too many more drugs to mention here, were used in EXTREME, and I mean EXTREME doses(way beyond the competitors in the 70's and 80's), really ruined the appearance- giving bloated bellies from GH's effects on the organs. There are many guys that are having heart problems as well.
No I'm not against drugs at all, I'm all for it. I mean it is hypocritical to want athletes to be better ,faster ,and stronger, but then at the same time berate them for wanting something to help them survive and push sports to new limits. Training and diet can only do so much (genetics has BIG influence as well with muscle belly lengths), but after that a few chemicals are needed to really get out there.
@TheGreatKhan Thats not bodybuilding though. Athletic training/fitness training are different.
If we want to argue semantics sure. It's impossible to deny though many bodybuilding methods of weight and strength training are the norm for many pro athletes and they are a large part of the reason we have some athletic monsters in pro sports. They do more things than bodybuilders for sure and it is different but that foundation is there.
@TheGreatKhan Thats not bodybuilding though. Athletic training/fitness training are different.
If we want to argue semantics sure. It's impossible to deny though many bodybuilding methods of weight and strength training are the norm for many pro athletes and they are a large part of the reason we have some athletic monsters in pro sports. They do more things than bodybuilders for sure and it is different but that foundation is there.
Its not really semantics. Watch a bodybuilder try to do anything athletic next to a pro athelete. Its purpose is an entirely different end goal.
I think exceptional strength shows one of the great weaknesses of the 1st and 2nd editions. They weren't actually designed like modern rules systems to be a cohesive whole. Gygax and his partners would see they needed a rule, make one, then try to make it fit the rest of the rules.
Exceptional strength was originally created to give warriors the opportunity to emulate Conan and perform some great feat of strength. That's why it was originally called "bend bars/lift gates percentage". The problem came when they tried to shoehorn that into the system that provides bonuses to hit and damage. I think it would have been better if they had kept it separate and only increased the bonuses for the jump from 18 to 19.
I think exceptional strength shows one of the great weaknesses of the 1st and 2nd editions. They weren't actually designed like modern rules systems to be a cohesive whole. Gygax and his partners would see they needed a rule, make one, then try to make it fit the rest of the rules.
Exceptional strength was originally created to give warriors the opportunity to emulate Conan and perform some great feat of strength. That's why it was originally called "bend bars/lift gates percentage". The problem came when they tried to shoehorn that into the system that provides bonuses to hit and damage. I think it would have been better if they had kept it separate and only increased the bonuses for the jump from 18 to 19.
In regards to the earlier editions, gaps between scores were considered very great. The difference between a 17 and an 18 (for example) is extremely drastic. I believe the percentile strength system was pretty ingenious, as it was a way to reflect a wide variety of human-proportion strength scores, while keeping it below a certain score in order to maintain overall system balance.
As for bend bars / lift gates, that was a separate score in 1st Ed, and was derived *based* on your percentile strength score (but was not the same thing). Percentile strength is fully fleshed out in 1st Ed (and didn't really change at all when it was ported to 2nd ed).
I personally think feats and per-rest special abilities like in later editions and in modern cRPGs would have been better--allow fighters to launch sweeping attacks that hit multiple enemies in an arc, charge through a group of enemies to get in a wizard's face, temporarily penalize their target's AC or destroy magical defenses with a particularly strong blow, etc.
Yeah but now you're getting into an area where they are doing supernatural things, which is not what fighters are supposed to be. It took me a while to wrap my head around the way 3E-4E warriors could basically do magic. I get it now - it's a sort of comic-book-y idea of combat. That's fine if you come at it from that angle, but it's very different from BECMI/1E/2E which are built around a more "realistic" (so to speak) idea of what can be done in the absence of actual magical spells. Basically, fight really well or use thief skills.
Well the thing is, not only are warriors gimped mechanically but they're more boring to play. The rules don't have any options for giving warriors interesting things to do, and as for "realistic", D&D magic is so insanely powerful that spells above third level or so would have to be nerfed into shadows of their former selves or outright deleted (no Time Stop, certainly) to be even remotely balanced against "realistic" fighters, and the mere fact that they can do these outrageously powerful things kind of obliterates any "realistic" feeling the game might have.
(not to mention, warriors' weapons can do magic, and perhaps a blow that reduces AC by knocking someone senseless with a normal weapon could also break down spells like Stoneskin with a +2 weapon or even Protection from Magical Weapons with a +5 weapon).
There's a reason lots of people feel that playing Fighters in 1st or 2nd ed is just the punishment for not rolling high enough to play something interesting.
There's a reason lots of people feel that playing Fighters in 1st or 2nd ed is just the punishment for not rolling high enough to play something interesting.
IMO Fighters are just as interesting as anything else, if you roleplay.
Comments
In fact , I remember seeing a WoD player questioning the 5 points limit in skills for regular players, he said " I bet that Pelé ("the king of soccer") would have more than points in that skill", and the DM answered "it one thing to fill five dots on a paper, to be a real life number one athlete is completely different" .
Then again, I think the spectrum for determining STR is too narrow since I personally think that someone who can lift their own body weight 100 times is stronger than someone who can only do it once, but who can lift 100 KG over their heads and hold it there for some time. Ofc in a static game environment we have to create these kind of boarders, but I prefer the more broader interpretation. Just like that CHA isn't only beauty, STR for me isn't only lifting heavy things.
Edit: The above isn't arguing targeted against you @Tbone1, I just used your quote as inspiration for my reply, which was just a general response to the whole thread.
Check your standing overhead military press at the gym. No jerking the weight up or using momentum to lift. 18 is pretty darn strong.
In 1st edition AD&D Unearthed Arcane introduced to the Cavalier class the ability to raise strength through training. I always thought that was a good idea and an option for other classes(house rule)
If weightlifting was incorporating into D&D then most certainly all classes could raise Str., just as we all can with weightlifting.
But with certain non warrior classes, like with certain real life professions, they just may not be spending their time at the gym so much due to having other things/interests taking up their time(in general-not everyone obviously).
I think that the 18 is set for non warrior classes because of that vary reason.
Translating this to Faerun, I think the average citizen might be stronger due to lifestyle and the weaker ones being more likely to die young. But at the top end of athleticism, ... Just consider how people in the US are viewed most times vs during the Olympics.
Paleolithic hunter-gatherers were some seriously strong and tough people. Not only did they travel long distances and do strenuous physical activities constantly, but they ate much better than your average pre-20th century civilized people (your average Bronze Age man was 5'4" or 5'5", your average Paleolithic man 5'9"-5'11", about the same as modern people). Unfortunately for them, it didn't matter if you were much more fit and powerful than a civilized man when the civilization trying to take your land had ten fighting men for every one of yours.
As regards to modern competitive BBing, I lost alot of interest after the late 80's when steroids and GH, plus too many more drugs to mention here, were used in EXTREME, and I mean EXTREME doses(way beyond the competitors in the 70's and 80's), really ruined the appearance- giving bloated bellies from GH's effects on the organs. There are many guys that are having heart problems as well.
No I'm not against drugs at all, I'm all for it. I mean it is hypocritical to want athletes to be better ,faster ,and stronger, but then at the same time berate them for wanting something to help them survive and push sports to new limits.
Training and diet can only do so much (genetics has BIG influence as well with muscle belly lengths), but after that a few chemicals are needed to really get out there.
Exceptional strength was originally created to give warriors the opportunity to emulate Conan and perform some great feat of strength. That's why it was originally called "bend bars/lift gates percentage". The problem came when they tried to shoehorn that into the system that provides bonuses to hit and damage. I think it would have been better if they had kept it separate and only increased the bonuses for the jump from 18 to 19.
As for bend bars / lift gates, that was a separate score in 1st Ed, and was derived *based* on your percentile strength score (but was not the same thing). Percentile strength is fully fleshed out in 1st Ed (and didn't really change at all when it was ported to 2nd ed).
(not to mention, warriors' weapons can do magic, and perhaps a blow that reduces AC by knocking someone senseless with a normal weapon could also break down spells like Stoneskin with a +2 weapon or even Protection from Magical Weapons with a +5 weapon).