Topic: Size/weight pros/cons

[arakish]

A hobbit with an 18/00 due to Guantlets of Ogre Power can carry the same 400+ pounds as anyone else with an 18/00 St.

And that was something I NEVER allowed.  The Hobbit would still be severely encumbered carrying 400 pounds.  Of course, one could rule that magic trumps physics, but I never did.  Even in a weightless environment, that Hobbit would be just as encumbered as a human with trying to move 400 pounds of mass.

rmfr

[yammahoper]

A hobbit with an 18/00 due to Guantlets of Ogre Power can carry the same 400+ pounds as anyone else with an 18/00 St.

And that was something I NEVER allowed.  The Hobbit would still be severely encumbered carrying 400 pounds.  Of course, one could rule that magic trumps physics, but I never did.  Even in a weightless environment, that Hobbit would be just as encumbered as a human with trying to move 400 pounds of mass.

rmfr

The ADnD way is simple and super-heroic, a winning combination it seems considering the success of DnD in general.

My players never play fat PC's.  A 280 lb Highman who is 7'2" and has a +12 St mod isn't overweight.  He is thin.  Shaquille O'Neal was 7'1" and 325 lbs.  Height and muscle mass matters.

 

[Thom @ ICE]

Just throwing something out there....
Take the average (ideal) weight for the race/height.  Then for every 10% over that, reduce their Ag  and Co bonuses by 1. For every 10% under that, reduce their St and Co bonuses by 1.


A character who's ideal weight should be 200#, but they weigh 320# then their Ag and Co bonuses are each reduced by 6.  If they weigh 120# then their ST and Co bonuses decrease by 3.

[jdale]

I would go the opposite way and determine the weight based on the stats. Not the stats based on the weight.

[Thom @ ICE]

With that approach, you don't make any adjustment - you just use weight as an explanation why the stats are what they are. 


If they lose weight, do you suddenly improve those stats, or is that just another way of explaining the improvement of the temp stat towards the potential?   

[jdale]

Why are they losing or gaining weight? Is it just because the PC wants to change their stats? That's pretty hard in real life, should a PC be able to make big changes in their stat bonuses easily? What do they have to do to achieve this?

Of course it might be to explain stat gains. Stats defining weight, sure.

Or it could be a curse of becoming morbidly overweight or perilously underweight. In that case, I can certainly see stat adjustments as part of the curse.

The bottom line, in my opinion, is that the system is designed for height and weight to be cosmetic traits. You aren't paying DP for them, etc. If they are easy to change, but affect core traits and capabilities that are normally hard to change, it has a potentially big effect that needs to be considered carefully. I would attach a cost to making those changes.

[Thom @ ICE]

jdale - personally, I am with you. I prefer the more general and abstract handling of such things - but more than half a dozen people have posted that heavyweight individuals would have reduced carrying capacity due to the fact that they are already carrying extra - so my point was that if you start impacting the game for character weight, you should apply it across the board more by impacting not just their carrying capacity - but also their Co bonus or Ag bonus in general. (And for those twiggy guys it would impact their St bonus)

[markc]

  In the past for RMSS I have thought about applying mods based on if they chose light, medium or heavy frame but I never got around to it as I was always to busy with world and PC creation. (Yes for most games I create a new world, which can take a lot of time but if games go on long enough it is well worth it)
MDC

[Skaran]

Watch the spell casters put on weight when they want to use the familiar spell.

Incidently giving weight ranges for the creatures in the C&T books would have been helpful.

[Marrethiel]

Or you could do something like the original Runequest did and have a size stat. The bonus for that stat is a negative to appropriate skills like acrobatics.
They also went further if memory serves me right and had every skill with two positive and one negative stat.

[Hurin]

I'd base encumbrance limit on ideal weight, rather than actual weight, if the character is overweight.   Then count the extra weight as encumbrance.    So calculate a healthy weight for the character's height.   The weight used for encumbrance purposes would be the lower of the healthy weight or the actual weight.   Any weight over the healthy weight is automatically added to one's load, as if they are carrying extra weight (which they are).

I love this idea!

[markc]

I also love the idea that Matt Hanson uses.
MDC

[Cory Magel]

For me it hinges on how you see Strength working.  Does weight impact capacity on it's own, regardless of strength?  That's the real question I think needs answering.  A lightweight, but very strong character should be able to carry more than an overweight and weak character.

It does seem to make sense that a raw Strength or Endurance would provide a certain capacity and that weight above and beyond the norm should take some of that capacity up.  However, when you have rules that state anything 'worn' does not could (armor/clothes) that kinda contradicts the idea.

Someone carrying around a bunch of extra weight needs to be strong enough to do so... otherwise they'd turn into Jabba the Hut.  Obviously there is a relationship between being fat (obese) vs heavy (just a large person) and how physically strong you are in comparison to your size.  The 'fat' person is likely out of shape, the heavy person that cannot be assumed.  So, do you penalize the heavy person that is in good shape for being bigger than normal?  I think that's a poor way to go.

I've never tried to put a lot of thought into it because we've just never had a player create a character that was both fat and physically weak.  I think you would have to work from an ideal weight vs size/build and if you go too far above or below that start taking into account excess personal weight... but the question, for me, then becomes, do I really want to get that detailed and will it ever be a real factor?  So far that's a no for us.

[jdale]

For me it hinges on how you see Strength working.  Does weight impact capacity on it's own, regardless of strength?  That's the real question I think needs answering.  A lightweight, but very strong character should be able to carry more than an overweight and weak character.

I would turn those around. If someone with more physical mass makes a melee attack, is it going to be more effective than someone with less physical mass making the same attack? I would say yes. This is perhaps most intuitive for unarmed attacks but even for melee weapons you want to put the mass of your body into it. You don't just swing a sword from the wrist, you need to put your arms, shoulders, and even hips into it.

The game doesn't model this directly from weight (aside from size classes). Your OB bonus comes only from strength. Rather than trying to add some kind of post-hoc correction for it, it makes the most sense to base your weight on strength -- in that case your strength, weight, carrying capacity, and combat strength are all coupled. It's only when you separate weight and strength that you end up correcting one aspect (carrying capacity) from the other (melee) and things stop making sense.

Then, after that, it's easy to add extra weight, with the understanding that it counts as encumbrance and does not boost carrying capacity, melee ability, or anything else, because those things are not computed from your weight at all.

[tbigness]

I have them pick a frame size and model max wt from that. Yes the may be able to carry more but due to the frame model, they may also be hindered in close quarter situations and wt restrictions from mounts, ect... the players find out quick that the benefit to carry more weight will not counter act the negatives of body mass restrictions in the adventure...

[Cory Magel]

This becomes a matter of the 'Fun > Balance > Realism' factor for me.

If someone with more physical mass makes a melee attack, is it going to be more effective than someone with less physical mass making the same attack?

But what if far far more of that mass is fat rather than muscle?  The suggestion that the more you weigh the more or less you should be able to carry (and the harder you hit) is simply an incorrect assumption.  It depends on WHY you weigh as much as you do.

If Bob is 150 pounds with a strength of 100 and Joe is 450 pounds with a strength of 75 and they are both five feet tall Bob is going to hit you harder.  I would even argue that if they both had a Str of 100 Bob would still hit you harder since it would take that much less effort to swing his non-obese arm.  But that gets into Ag and Qu which, realistically, Joe should have lower stats in.  So you could create a rule that your height to weight ratio gives you more Str and less Ag or Qu (or vice verse).  We could also say after a certain point in the arc (momentum) of Joe's swing it might do more damage because his obese arm weighs more.

My point is I just don't care to get into that level of detail on something so secondary.  Instead of having a system when you need to figure out how much potential encumbrance someone can carry based on their weight, then deduct the amount they are 'overweight' or any other myriad of possibilities... just forget about weight in general, just base it solely on strength and call it a day.  Cause, in the end, how many of you can say doing it one way or the other would have a measurable difference in your game?  And even if it has a slight one, is it worth the more complex mechanic?

[markc]

  I can see it being used in a spread sheet PC gen and I would also like to see it as a Guild Companion article as it is simply something interesting.


  I would also love to see something like a Siz stat in RM that also includes body type or frame type.




 I also agree that kinetic energy (KE) = 1/2 mass * (velocity) ^2 and momentum(p) = mass * velocity, the thing is (I assume) that KE is energy damage and p is stopping damage. It would be nice if the two could be combined in the damage tables, attack tables, attack values or crit charts in some way.


MDC

[yammahoper]

Simplest way is a set weight allowance, say 50 lbs + 3x St.  Or base it on frame size.  20/35/50 + 3x St.

[Moostik]

In my youth I knew a really obese guy, about 6 feet high, who could kick the buzz of anyone in high school. He could really carry a big load as well. The way I see it, body fat is not part of your carried weight as less mass is also less muscle. Only in extreme cases where you are completely static, will the body be prevented from developing the muscle needed to carry that extra mass. In modern life this is possible as a guy could be on welfare, only daily exercise would be walking to his car, driving it to the nearest fast food outlet. In a medieval society, that guy would be dead. Or he'd have enough muscle to carry his fat walking to a marketplace, probably miles away, that hardly had any fatty food to offer at all. Being really fat and physically handicapped by your fat means your ST stat have seen no action and is parked at 19 with no stat gain in sight, IMHO.

Sumo Wrestlers should be an example of high ST fatty people. Incredibly strong, incredibly obese, actually pretty agile, some are even quick. But they eat a ton of food every day and still exercise alot. Then they usually die early, often from heart failure, but that's a different discussion.