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Captain Alien
2009-07-26, 09:34 AM
Spell descriptions of Enlarge Person, and the Expansion power say that your character grows to the next Size Category, wich means that small and medium characters, this means increasing two times your original size, but... Why do them also state that the characters weigh eight times their original weight when they grow? Is it related to Science? A mistake? When you grow a size category, you can carry two times your capacity, so this would mean that, sometimes, you would not be able to carry your own equipment, while you were able when you were smaller.

Also, is there any spell that allows increasing two or more size categories?

Catch
2009-07-26, 09:39 AM
Yes, it's based on science. It's also the reason why giant robots are infeasible.

paddyfool
2009-07-26, 09:43 AM
It's assuming a rough mathematical approximation of height x2, width (side-to-side) x2, and thickness (front-to-back), x2 = x8. "Realistically", to be able to function effectively at 8 times the weight (never mind with gear of 8 times the weight), your character would have to change in structure rather more seriously, as Catch suggests. But then, this is magic, so what the hell.

Tengu_temp
2009-07-26, 09:44 AM
Imagine a 1x1x1 feet cube of some material that weights 1 pound. Let's cast Enlarge Person Cube on it - it's 2x2x2 feet now. How many 1x1x1 cubes fit inside a 2x2x2 one? Precisely eight. Thus, the mass increases eighthold.



Also, is there any spell that allows increasing two or more size categories?

Expansion, if psionics count. Apart from that, Wu Jen has one, although I forgot its name - Giant Size?

Jack_Simth
2009-07-26, 09:45 AM
Yeah, it's related to science. If you take a 1x1x1 cube, and double it to a 2x2x2 cube, it's now got eight times the volume it had previously. At the same density, it'll be eight times the weight, as well.

And yes, Enlarge Person will occasionally pin someone under their own equipment if your DM looks at things closely.

Ernir
2009-07-26, 09:51 AM
Also, is there any spell that allows increasing two or more size categories?

Giant Size, a Wu Jen spell, and an augmented Expansion power (http://www.d20srd.org/srd/psionic/powers/expansion.htm) come to mind.


EDIT: The ninjas!

Saph
2009-07-26, 10:10 AM
Is this more or less accurate, biologically? If you double a creature's height, what would be a ballpark figure for its carrying capacity increase?

- Saph

Riffington
2009-07-26, 10:11 AM
Is this more or less accurate, biologically? If you double a creature's height, what would be a ballpark figure for its carrying capacity increase?

- Saph

As a ballpark, strength grows with the square of height and weight grows with the cube of height. So quadrupling would be the best ballpark for the carrying capacity increase.

Mr.Moron
2009-07-26, 10:20 AM
Now, all you need to do is figure out a good use for weighing that much. A character with a heavy build and heavy armor can wind up weighing over a ton.

Imagine you're a paladin, druid or ranger with a fairly hefty special mount/animal companion. You share spells with them when you have enlarge person cast on you, since share spells ignore typing.


2600lb man riding on 28.000lb Dire Lion? Gotta be something you can do with all that heft directly under your control. It's even a light load for the critter at that size with the STR enhacement.

Or if it was an elephant.. or.. a T-Rex.

daggaz
2009-07-26, 10:24 AM
The classic answer is, of course, to drop yourself on the BBEG.

paddyfool
2009-07-26, 10:33 AM
Is this more or less accurate, biologically? If you double a creature's height, what would be a ballpark figure for its carrying capacity increase?

- Saph

The classic problem is that with your weight growth being linear growth cubed, and your strength being linear growth squared, you end up being crippled by your own weight. Hence, partly, the classic story of how industrially farmed chickens today get broken legs so often (bred, fed and often drugged for rapid weight gain and greater final size, but the legs can't keep up).

A secondary problem involves heat. Your surface area, through which you primarily lose heat, again only increases by the square of your linear growth, which very much alters the temperature balance of your body. With the scales concerned, it's not as major, but with expand person, you'd want to shed your clothing and get pretty sweaty under previously comfortable conditions; and with shrink person, you'd want to put a warm coat on.

But once again, this is magic, not science. All this stuff can be handwaved easily.

tyckspoon
2009-07-26, 10:43 AM
And yes, Enlarge Person will occasionally pin someone under their own equipment if your DM looks at things closely.

Except Large gear only weighs twice as much as Medium gear, per the weapon and armor rules. The weights of equipment scale exactly to the increased carrying capacity of larger creatures, with the exception of Huge, where the gear weighs 5x but the carrying capacity is only 4x.. but Huge and bigger creatures are probably getting into the tremendous strength section of the carrying rules, which provides another 4x increase in capacity for every 10 points over 20.

Captain Alien
2009-07-26, 11:14 AM
Oh boy. Science.

The rules are not consequent with themselves. Large races do not weigh eight times humans do. A Large greatsword does not weigh eight times a Medium sword.

Should I make characters weigh two times their original weight while using those spells so they avoid jumping off a cliff to damage their enemies? Or breaking their own legs?

Thank you everyone. It is interesting to see how people disagree so much with one single rule, because it helps to solve the problem the rule creates.

Dervag
2009-07-26, 11:35 AM
Oh boy. Science.

The rules are not consequent with themselves. Large races do not weigh eight times humans do. A Large greatsword does not weigh eight times a Medium sword.As I understand it, the largest "Large" creatures aren't twice human size; they're more like 50% larger or so. Therefore, it's no wonder that they don't weigh eight times as much. An ogre is about 50% larger than a largish six-foot adult human male, so he should weigh about 3.375 times more, maybe a little more if he's proportionately stockier and more heavily muscled.

I speculate that maybe giants' superhuman resistance to damage comes not from their size, but from the fact that their muscles and bones are made of something rather stronger, pound for pound, than human tissue. For a twenty-foot giant to be able to move and act like a scaled-up human, he's going to need flesh and bone that are at least twice as strong, and probably four times as strong.

Yora
2009-07-26, 11:49 AM
Do elephants have different muscle tissue than humans or cats?

paddyfool
2009-07-26, 11:51 AM
As I understand it, the largest "Large" creatures aren't twice human size; they're more like 50% larger or so. Therefore, it's no wonder that they don't weigh eight times as much. An ogre is about 50% larger than a largish six-foot adult human male, so he should weigh about 3.375 times more, maybe a little more if he's proportionately stockier and more heavily muscled.


There's really a spectrum within the "large" size category.

Adult ogre: 9 to 10 feet tall
Adult hill giant: 10 1/2 feet tall
Adult stone giant: 12 feet tall
Adult male fire giant: 12 feet tall
Adult male frost giant: 15 feet tall

Incidentally, I just noticed that an adult male fire giant apparently weighs in at 7000 pounds. If he was medium sized (divide by 8), the equivalent wound be 875 pounds. These chaps are big.

Given that an average adult male human is a little under 6', to say that these large, human shaped monsters are about double human height isn't all that inaccurate.


I speculate that maybe giants' superhuman resistance to damage comes not from their size, but from the fact that their muscles and bones are made of something rather stronger, pound for pound, than human tissue. For a twenty-foot giant to be able to move and act like a scaled-up human, he's going to need flesh and bone that are at least twice as strong, and probably four times as strong.

Nice fluff-wise, too. You could spin it as some kind of divine heritage, magical heritage, etc.; like the titans of greek myth, or the ice giants of norse myth, giants in this setting would be more than human in more ways than one.

paddyfool
2009-07-26, 11:56 AM
Do elephants have different muscle tissue than humans or cats?

I'm not sure, but they certainly have a very different skeleton (http://elephant.elehost.com/About_Elephants/Anatomy/The_Skeleton/the_skeleton.html) - much thicker bones compared to their length, fused vertebrae in the "upper" spine to support the head, etc.

Droodle
2009-07-26, 12:05 PM
And yes, Enlarge Person will occasionally pin someone under their own equipment if your DM looks at things closely....although I'd recommend against looking at things quite so closely. Just as a hafling can carry far less weight than a human with the same strength score can, presumably because he's so small, It's reasonable to argue that that Enlarging a human a size or two would increase his carrying capacity beyond what his strength score would necessarily dictate. RAW may or may not address this, but fit it doesn't, I'd argue that this is only because Giants aren't a core PC race.

Jack_Simth
2009-07-26, 12:08 PM
Except Large gear only weighs twice as much as Medium gear, per the weapon and armor rules. The weights of equipment scale exactly to the increased carrying capacity of larger creatures, with the exception of Huge, where the gear weighs 5x but the carrying capacity is only 4x.. but Huge and bigger creatures are probably getting into the tremendous strength section of the carrying rules, which provides another 4x increase in capacity for every 10 points over 20.
Only sort of.

Purchasing Large/Small equipment that was designed as Large equipment generally weighs in at either double/half (weapons and armor), by 4's (most worn mundane equipment and most foodstuffs), or doesn't scale with the intended character's size (the rest of the mundane equipment).

However, the equipment enlarged/shrunk by an Enlarge/Reduce Person spell (or comperable effect) is not the same as getting Large/Small equipment off the rack. The Enlarge Person spell lists what it does to the person - *2 size, *8 weight - and it also specifies that "All equipment worn or carried by a creature is similarly enlarged by the spell." As written, despite the fact that a n off-the-shelf Large suit of Fullplate weighs in at 100 lbs, a suit of fullplate that became Large through the Enlarge Person spell weighs in at 400 lbs.

...although I'd recommend against looking at things quite so closely. Just as a hafling can carry far less weight than a human with the same strength score can, presumably because he's so small, It's reasonable to argue that that Enlarging a human a size or two would increase his carrying capacity beyond what his strength score would necessarily dictate. RAW may or may not address this, but fit it doesn't, I'd argue that this is only because Giants aren't a core PC race.
Actually, it does - quite clearly, in the Carrying Capacity section on Bigger and Smaller creatures (http://www.d20srd.org/srd/carryingCapacity.htm#biggerandSmallerCreatures):

The figures on Table: Carrying Capacity are for Medium bipedal creatures. A larger bipedal creature can carry more weight depending on its size category, as follows: Large ×2, Huge ×4, Gargantuan ×8, Colossal ×16. A smaller creature can carry less weight depending on its size category, as follows: Small ×¾, Tiny ×½, Diminutive ×¼, Fine ×1/8.

Quadrupeds can carry heavier loads than characters can. Instead of the multipliers given above, multiply the value corresponding to the creature’s Strength score from Table: Carrying Capacity by the appropriate modifier, as follows: Fine ×¼, Diminutive ×½, Tiny ×¾, Small ×1, Medium ×1½, Large ×3, Huge ×6, Gargantuan ×12, Colossal ×24.

So that Strength-12 Medium Dwarven Cleric in Fullplate with a Heavy Steel Shield, hit with Enlarge Person becomes a Strength 14 Large Dwarven Cleric in Fullplate; max load is 350 lbs, the "stagger around" carrying capacity is 700 pounds. And the Fullplate weighs in at 400 lbs, while the shield weighs in at 120 pounds - which puts that Dwarven Cleric at a considerable disadvantage (into the "stagger around" weight only). To get that Fullplate + Heavy Shield down to just under max load, the cleric's pre-Enlarge Person strength would need to be 15 ... and that's not including the weight of a backpack, holy symbol, cloak of resistance, and so on.

Tetsubo 57
2009-07-26, 12:09 PM
I'm not sure, but they certainly have a very different skeleton (http://elephant.elehost.com/About_Elephants/Anatomy/The_Skeleton/the_skeleton.html) - much thicker bones compared to their length, fused vertebrae in the "upper" spine to support the head, etc.

There is a reason that they have legs like pillars. They need them. That's why without magic giant creatures can't exist. Double an elephants size and it's legs would have to become correspondingly thicker, or snap like twigs. The dinosaurs hit the upper limit for land animals. That's the reason the biggest animals in history are whales.

Droodle
2009-07-26, 12:10 PM
As written, despite the fact that an off-the-shelf Large suit of Fullplate weighs in at 100 lbs, a suit of fullplate that became Large through the Enlarge Person spell weighs in at 400 lbs.This seems like a pretty good rule to ignore, if you ask me.

Fhaolan
2009-07-26, 12:15 PM
Do elephants have different muscle tissue than humans or cats?

Their skeletons are structured quite differently, which allows them to carry a much heavier mass. Also, comparing an elephant to a... cow, for instance, the skeleton itself is more massive relative to total body weight. 17% or more vs 10% or less.

Also, an elephant doesn't weigh as much as it would if it was just a cow scaled up. The skull, for instance, has sections that are sponge-like rather than solid, making it lighter. Structural differences.

Another example, take dogs. The big dogs like mastifs aren't just toy terriers scaled up, there are structual differences between them to be able to carry the larger mass. And even then, the big dogs really aren't as modified as the *should* be to carry that mass, which is why the biggies tend to have shorter lives and suffer from joint and organ failure more than the teenies do. That's because they are that big size due to breeding programs that increased size faster than the necessary structural changes. The same thing occurs in draft horses and farm animals and *humans*.

Tetsubo 57
2009-07-26, 12:16 PM
This seems like a pretty good rule to ignore, if you ask me.

I see your point but it does make sense. If you just make a suit of armour larger but don't increase its thickness it becomes much weaker. So it should weigh more. I'm not sure how much more though. We don't have any large humanoids with which to test this theory with. Any structural engineers in the house?

Jack_Simth
2009-07-26, 12:17 PM
This seems like a pretty good rule to ignore, if you ask me.
Maybe. But that's how things are written.

Milskidasith
2009-07-26, 12:23 PM
There are a bunch of other stupid rules, and the encumbrance rules in general are crap. Plus, your carrying capacity should quadruple, not double, when you double in size.

TSED
2009-07-26, 12:32 PM
This difference in mass is why insects can do feats of strength that are AMAZING when compared to larger animals. Ant carrying capacity, for example, makes everyone who's ever lived jealous.

Rion
2009-07-26, 01:06 PM
I see your point but it does make sense. If you just make a suit of armour larger but don't increase its thickness it becomes much weaker. So it should weigh more. I'm not sure how much more though. We don't have any large humanoids with which to test this theory with. Any structural engineers in the house?
I'm not someone with a lot of knowledge about how this works, but if armour becomes thicker I would assume it also becomes stronger, which means that if Large is identical to Medium armour except from size then it would be stronger. If it thinner it might be relatively weaker than Medium armour (like a muscular small human is relatively stronger than a muscular large human), but since we aren't comparing them relatively Large armour could still be as strong as Medium armour while being thinner than scaled up Medium armour.

Epinephrine
2009-07-26, 01:23 PM
The classic problem is that with your weight growth being linear growth cubed, and your strength being linear growth squared, you end up being crippled by your own weight.
<snip>
A secondary problem involves heat.


Not to mention oxygen transfer. You need proportially larger lungs; the surface area of the lungs increased at a lesser rate than the increase in volume. Enlarge person would result in having to keep your activity level down lest you pass out due to your decreased oxygen availability from the now-undersized lungs.

ashmanonar
2009-07-26, 01:32 PM
Do elephants have different muscle tissue than humans or cats?

They have denser bones, and thicker hide. They also cannot run as fast, inch for inch, as humans; running as fast as their 4 legs would dictate would injure them, possibly mortally.

Jack_Simth
2009-07-26, 01:35 PM
Not to mention oxygen transfer. You need proportially larger lungs; the surface area of the lungs increased at a lesser rate than the increase in volume. Enlarge person would result in having to keep your activity level down lest you pass out due to your decreased oxygen availability from the now-undersized lungs.
Heh, yeah, that too. So when you get bigger, you end up with more muscle mass, but....
1) Much of it is used in carrying your own weight (and past a point, it can't even do that anymore)
2) You can't necessarily use it all due to heat and air transfer issues.

You know, that does make the Enlarge Person spell, as written, seem somewhat reasonable, doesn't it?

Human Paragon 3
2009-07-26, 01:36 PM
I detailed some uses of the 8x weight increase in this thread (http://www.giantitp.com/forums/showthread.php?t=117397)about the sizing enchantment.

only1doug
2009-07-26, 01:48 PM
Ant carrying capacity, for example, makes everyone who's ever lived jealous.

Incorrect: Ant carrying capacity doesn't make me jealous, I've never been that bothered about carrying things around that I particularly wanted to be able to carry a truck around on my shoulder.

Sliver
2009-07-26, 02:28 PM
So Enlarge Person can be used offensivly on your opponents to piss them off?

Fhaolan
2009-07-26, 02:48 PM
So Enlarge Person can be used offensivly on your opponents to piss them off?

... You know, I hadn't thought of that before. Decades of playing this game, and that never occured to me. *sigh* I'm an idiot, really.

Jack_Simth
2009-07-26, 04:56 PM
So Enlarge Person can be used offensivly on your opponents to piss them off?
Yep. Useful for:
Trapping someone in a hallway
Pinning heavily armed and armored opponents to the ground (helps if you also use Ray of Enfeeblement)
Reducing opponents touch AC (a dex penalty and a size penalty)

Why did you think it was "Fort Negats" rather than "Fort Negats(Harmless)"?

Curmudgeon
2009-07-26, 06:33 PM
Except Large gear only weighs twice as much as Medium gear, per the weapon and armor rules. Those weight increases apply only to armor and weapons. Other gear does not have rules for reduced weight with size increases over medium. If they're carrying 1 pint of oil, increasing its dimensions by 2x2x2 will either make it weigh 8x as much for 8 pints of oil, or make it something other than oil.

The weights of equipment scale exactly to the increased carrying capacity of larger creatures Says who? Double weights apply to weapons and armor manufactured at the larger sizes. There's nothing in the description of this lowly 1st-level spell that says it rebuilds equipment to appropriate design specifications as part of the size increase.

The spell does only what it says it does. It doesn't do other things to fit your idea of how you'd like it to work.

AstralFire
2009-07-26, 07:01 PM
Those weight increases apply only to armor and weapons. Other gear does not have rules for reduced weight with size increases over medium. If they're carrying 1 pint of oil, increasing its dimensions by 2x2x2 will either make it weigh 8x as much for 8 pints of oil, or make it something other than oil.

I know you enjoy correcting people, but from context, I think it's pretty obvious that they were talking about armor and weapons, as generally other equipment that can be carried is negligible or low in weight anyway, and wouldn't be as devastating to multiply by eight.

Curmudgeon
2009-07-26, 07:16 PM
I know you enjoy correcting people, but from context, I think it's pretty obvious that they were talking about armor and weapons I enjoy getting the rules right.
All equipment worn or carried by a creature is similarly enlarged by the spell. In the "Equipment" chapter of the Player's Handbook there's a whole lot of gear other than armor and weapons. In fact the first gear that's detailed, with weight specifications, is money. I don't think it's "obvious" that "all equipment" only means armor and weapons.
as generally other equipment that can be carried is negligible or low in weight anyway, and wouldn't be as devastating to multiply by eight. Tell that to the character with a backpack full of coins on their way back from a successful dungeon crawl.

Enlarge Person does not have the "harmless" tag. It can be used offensively to encumber an enemy by increasing the weight of their gear. That's why there's a saving throw.

Just because you wish the spell had only beneficial uses, or worked differently, does not make it so.

AstralFire
2009-07-26, 07:17 PM
I was referring to the person you quoted - not the rules. I'm fairly sure tyckspoon knows how they work.

paddyfool
2009-07-26, 07:30 PM
Yep. Useful for:
Trapping someone in a hallway
Pinning heavily armed and armored opponents to the ground (helps if you also use Ray of Enfeeblement)
Reducing opponents touch AC (a dex penalty and a size penalty)

Why did you think it was "Fort Negats" rather than "Fort Negats(Harmless)"?

It also gets messy if they're sitting on a mount. If it's a horse, it might end up crushed beneath them. If a pegasus or great eagle, they may both end up falling from a great height and then it might get crushed beneath them. All in all, a fun little spell to have around, and whenever it wouldn't be useful in hostile use, the party fighter is sure to appreciate the buff.

Dervag
2009-07-26, 08:41 PM
There's really a spectrum within the "large" size category.

Adult ogre: 9 to 10 feet tall
Adult hill giant: 10 1/2 feet tall
Adult stone giant: 12 feet tall
Adult male fire giant: 12 feet tall
Adult male frost giant: 15 feet tall

Incidentally, I just noticed that an adult male fire giant apparently weighs in at 7000 pounds. If he was medium sized (divide by 8), the equivalent wound be 875 pounds. These chaps are big.Yes, so they're superhumanly dense, by about a factor of three to four (depending on how stocky they are). Not surprising, given the fireproof skin and the whatnot... but I bet they sink like stones in water.
_______


Nice fluff-wise, too. You could spin it as some kind of divine heritage, magical heritage, etc.; like the titans of greek myth, or the ice giants of norse myth, giants in this setting would be more than human in more ways than one.Yeah. Even if you shrank one down to human size it would still be quite a bit stronger than any but the buffest humans.

Which raises the interesting image of full-grown men being thrown around by a giant toddler...

ericgrau
2009-07-27, 12:43 AM
Is this more or less accurate, biologically? If you double a creature's height, what would be a ballpark figure for its carrying capacity increase?

- Saph

Regardless of shape if you scale it up by double it will weigh 8 times more. As for carrying capacity, this does not increase as much. Hence the reason why it's harder for larger creatures to increase. Taller humans tend to be lanky, though not always.

Biologically scaling is a fairly interesting topic that I can't fully get into. That's why you hear about tiny creatures running so fast, jumping so high and carrying so much for their size. These things don't scale the same as weight so they're easier for the little guys. And harder for the big guys.

Devils_Advocate
2009-07-27, 05:02 PM
As a ballpark, strength grows with the square of height and weight grows with the cube of height. So quadrupling would be the best ballpark for the carrying capacity increase.
Not really, because carrying capacity is how much you can carry in addition to your own body weight, which itself gets multiplied by 8.


The rules are not consequent with themselves.
What do you mean?


Large races do not weigh eight times humans do.
The range of weights for Large creatures is roughly eight times the range of weights for Medium creatues. (http://www.d20srd.org/srd/combat/movementPositionAndDistance.htm#bigandLittleCreatu resInCombat) :smallconfused: There's some rounding, sure, and they're both broad ranges. But multiplying all of something's dimensions by 2 without changing its density multiplies its weight by 8 (which isn't science so much as basic math), and increases its size category by 1.


A Large greatsword does not weigh eight times a Medium sword.
Presumably it's only twice as long, but no thicker in other dimensions. Admittedly, that doesn't explain the rules for armor, which should weigh 4 times as much per size category even without an increase in thickness.


Should I make characters weigh two times their original weight while using those spells so they avoid jumping off a cliff to damage their enemies?
How would you do that? By decreasing their density, or by only increasing their height but not their other dimensions (so that the spell stretches you out)?


Or breaking their own legs?
You get to carry your own body's weight (and the weight of your clothes) "for free" in D&D. It magically takes no special effort, no matter how much you weigh. Thus a warforged with built-in adamantine armor doesn't have it counted against his carrying capacity, because it's part of his body.


It is interesting to see how people disagree so much with one single rule, because it helps to solve the problem the rule creates.
What rule do you see people disagreeing with a lot? What problem are you talking about?


This seems like a pretty good rule to ignore, if you ask me.
How do you suggest ignoring it? By reducing the density of enlarged items?

Captain Alien
2009-07-27, 05:48 PM
But multiplying all of something's dimensions by 2 without changing its density multiplies its weight by 8 (which isn't science so much as basic math), and increases its size category by 1.

If you roll a typical human, you can easily obtain this: 5' 8'' 160 lb
If you roll a typical halfling, you can easily obtain this: 3' 34 lb
If you use Enlarge Person, the halfling will be 6 feet tall. Almost as tall as the human. But then, his weight turns into 34*8=272 lb. The same would happen if you enlarge the human and compare him with the halfogre.

[QUOTE]
Admittedly, that doesn't explain the rules for armor, which should weigh 4 times as much per size category even without an increase in thickness.

That.



How would you do that? By decreasing their density, or by only increasing their height but not their other dimensions (so that the spell stretches you out)?

Not necessarily. People do not care about science, and most of them will just imagine that something that grows two times its original size weighs two times its original weight (Even if it is ridiculous for someone who actually likes Science). It simplyfies everything, don't you agree?



You get to carry your own body's weight (and the weight of your clothes) "for free" in D&D. It magically takes no special effort, no matter how much you weigh. Thus a warforged with built-in adamantine armor doesn't have it counted against his carrying capacity, because it's part of his body.

Of course, I was alluding to the obvious problem with that. If your strenght increases slowlier than your weight does, as this post points out:

Regardless of shape if you scale it up by double it will weigh 8 times more. As for carrying capacity, this does not increase as much. Hence the reason why it's harder for larger creatures to increase. Taller humans tend to be lanky, though not always.

Biologically scaling is a fairly interesting topic that I can't fully get into. That's why you hear about tiny creatures running so fast, jumping so high and carrying so much for their size. These things don't scale the same as weight so they're easier for the little guys. And harder for the big guys.
...Then, eventually, your legs would be broken, because they cannot carry so much weight. Some fat people tend to have health issues with their knees.



What rule do you see people disagreeing with a lot? What problem are you talking about?

Why, are you kidding?

Sstoopidtallkid
2009-07-27, 09:12 PM
Not necessarily. People do not care about science, and most of them will just imagine that something that grows two times its original size weighs two times its original weight (Even if it is ridiculous for someone who actually likes Science). It simplyfies everything, don't you agree?Nope. I expect basic math to be the same in my fantasy RP as it is IRL, just like I expect physics to bear a passing resemblance to reality and villians to have goals besides "KILL EM ALL!" Making size increases scale improperly would bug me every game I played with it. I'd avoid casting the spell to avoid having that layer of improper math strike me in the face. It reminds me of the 4.x rule that A^2+B^2/=C^2. It just does not work that way.

Oh, and I asked my younger brother who hates math just now what doubling the size of a cube does to the volume. x8.:smallbiggrin: Most people will notice if the math is wrong.

Radar
2009-07-28, 05:20 AM
Nope. I expect basic math to be the same in my fantasy RP as it is IRL, just like I expect physics to bear a passing resemblance to reality and villians to have goals besides "KILL EM ALL!" Making size increases scale improperly would bug me every game I played with it. I'd avoid casting the spell to avoid having that layer of improper math strike me in the face. It reminds me of the 4.x rule that A^2+B^2/=C^2. It just does not work that way.

Oh, and I asked my younger brother who hates math just now what doubling the size of a cube does to the volume. x8.:smallbiggrin: Most people will notice if the math is wrong.
Spell description on SRD explicitly states, that the spell increases weight eightfold. Still in D&D your own weight never ever counts toward encumbrance, so increased weight isn't a problem by RAW. Increased wieght of equipment would and the expression "similarly enlarged" can be interpreted unfavorably for the enlarged person.

Now that i think about it, it is a weird spell. It would probably be easier to interpret a spell, that would scale the target without chaning it's weight and strenght score (read: space gets streched not the target person). As it is, it's weird - where the additional mass came from? How do enlarged cells even work? How things go back to normal?
Still i don't have a problem with using this spell, since it's magic! :smallwink:

On an unrelated note: is there any RPG system, that has a coherent and somewhat scientificaly accurate magical effects?

Epinephrine
2009-07-28, 06:21 AM
On an unrelated note: is there any RPG system, that has a coherent and somewhat scientificaly accurate magical effects?

GURPS telekinesis is(was?) somewhat odd; your power indicates the amount of weight you can lift and move around at a yard per second. If you move less weight, it moves faster, to the point that strong telekinetics can launch pebbles like bullets, and deal bullet damage with them.

John Campbell
2009-07-28, 11:26 AM
Do elephants have different muscle tissue than humans or cats?

Actually, IIRC*, they do. Different than humans, anyway.

See, there are two basic types of skeletal muscle: fast-twitch and slow-twitch. Fast-twitch contracts more rapidly and with more force than slow-twitch, but tires more quickly. Juvenile animals typically have relatively high proportions of slow-twitch muscle, but as they mature the ratio changes to a heavier concentration of fast-twitch. Except for humans. We never grow up; we keep the slow-twitch-heavy ratio for our entire lives. This means that we're weaker, pound for pound, than most any other animal on the planet.

On the bright side, we can, quite literally, run them into the ground. Scaring a big herbivore to make it run, chasing it until it stops to rest, and then repeating, until it drops from exhaustion, has been a popular and effective method of hunting through the ages. Plains Indians used it to catch horses, too.

(Incidentally, the Endurance feat that D&D gives horses is a bad joke. A human in good shape can, over the long haul, maintain a pace that would kill any horse. The advantage of being mounted isn't long-term speed; it's that you can be faster for relatively short bursts, when you really need to be.)


As for cats, well... have you ever seen a cat jump six feet straight up from a standing start? (If you haven't, I have, and can assure you they can do it.) How about an elephant? (Hint: They can't.)

Square-cube law at work.

__
* I am not a comparative biologist, nor do I play one on the Internet. I just have eclectic tastes in reading material and squirrel away facts like nuts for the winter.

Indon
2009-07-28, 12:00 PM
As for cats, well... have you ever seen a cat jump six feet straight up from a standing start? (If you haven't, I have, and can assure you they can do it.) How about an elephant? (Hint: They can't.)

You mean cats don't have 10+ more HD than elephants do in reality?

Random832
2009-07-28, 12:20 PM
Except size categories aren't double the linear size - based on the description for containers, they're four times the volume (i.e. 1.6 times linear size).

The description for armor says it's twice as much - arguably that's twice the area (i.e. the thickness is the same), so the linear scaling factor there would be 1.4

split the difference and call it 1.5, but there's no basis for making something weigh eight times as much (or for that matter, for doubling the height) without increasing it by two size categories.

hamishspence
2009-07-28, 12:25 PM
Actually there is- check MM maximum body lengths or heights on page 314:

Tiny: 2 ft
Small: 4 ft
Medium: 8 ft
Large: 16 ft
Huge: 32 ft
Gargantuan: 64 ft

And maximum weights:

Tiny: 8 lb
Small: 60 lb
Medium: 500 lb
Large: 4000 lb (2 tons)
Huge: 16 tons
Gargantuan: 125 tons

Both follow (roughly) doubling height, weight going up by 8 times.

Epinephrine
2009-07-28, 12:43 PM
As for cats, well... have you ever seen a cat jump six feet straight up from a standing start? (If you haven't, I have, and can assure you they can do it.) How about an elephant? (Hint: They can't.)

Square-cube law at work.

Really good point. Jump checks should be much more difficult for larger creatures, and easier for smaller ones. I think I'm going to houserule something! After all, a halfling has much higher proportional strength, which means that they really should be better jumpers than they are. I think I'd double the halfling's effective base strength for jumping, and half the large creature's effective strength*.

*Mass is roughly 1/8 or 8 times, muscle strength is based on muscle cross section, cross section is going to be 1/4 or 4 times, so about double or half the effective strength. Obviously there are issues with the proportion of bone, etc, but for a rough rule it's not bad.

Eldariel
2009-07-28, 12:53 PM
Really good point. Jump checks should be much more difficult for larger creatures, and easier for smaller ones. I think I'm going to houserule something! After all, a halfling has much higher proportional strength, which means that they really should be better jumpers than they are. I think I'd double the halfling's effective base strength for jumping, and half the large creature's effective strength*.

*Mass is roughly 1/8 or 8 times, muscle strength is based on muscle cross section, cross section is going to be 1/4 or 4 times, so about double or half the effective strength. Obviously there are issues with the proportion of bone, etc, but for a rough rule it's not bad.

This would be easily done by accounting for weight and possible bulky body as ACP. It'd also make sense for larger creatures; since Giants are stronger as written, they're much better swimmers and climbers and so on than humans even though the fact that they weight some ~10 times more than we do should really pretty much null out with their Str.

derfenrirwolv
2009-07-28, 12:54 PM
It's reasonable to argue that that Enlarging a human a size or two would increase his carrying capacity beyond what his strength score would necessarily dictate. RAW may or may not address this, but fit it doesn't, I'd argue that this is only because Giants aren't a core PC race.

Rules address it

The figures on Table: Carrying Capacity are for Medium bipedal creatures. A larger bipedal creature can carry more weight depending on its size category, as follows: Large ×2, Huge ×4, Gargantuan ×8, Colossal ×16. A smaller creature can carry less weight depending on its size category, as follows: Small ×¾, Tiny ×½, Diminutive ×¼, Fine ×1/8.

Quadrupeds can carry heavier loads than characters can. Instead of the multipliers given above, multiply the value corresponding to the creature’s Strength score from Table: Carrying Capacity by the appropriate modifier, as follows: Fine ×¼, Diminutive ×½, Tiny ×¾, Small ×1, Medium ×1½, Large ×3, Huge ×6, Gargantuan ×12, Colossal ×24.

Spiryt
2009-07-28, 12:55 PM
Really good point. Jump checks should be much more difficult for larger creatures, and easier for smaller ones. I think I'm going to houserule something!


And falling damage for the bigger creatures should be much bigger...

And smaller creatures chances in fight should be way smaller... Right now mid level fighter can punch down a Rhino even if it would require a bit of luck.

And so on... I don't think that getting too realistic is good thing.

Especially that it's too easy to make errors...


After all, a halfling has much higher proportional strength, which means that they really should be better jumpers than they are. I think I'd double the halfling's effective base strength for jumping, and half the large creature's effective strength*.

Halfling jumping ability is good as it is. The fact that they may have better proportional jumping ability doens't mean that they'll have better total jumping ability.

Cat can leap 6 feet up - doesn't change the fact that leopard can leap 3 meters. Tiger probably can do it even better.

Similary for humanoid creatures, best high jumpers are very tall people.

cfalcon
2009-07-28, 01:45 PM
I don't know why anyone would assume double the weight. That's not intuition, it's just ignorance. The spell even calls out 8x just to minimize the effort you have to do to figure it out.

Well using halflings as a basis is already odd. At three feet tall and 30-35 pounds, a halfling is right about the height and weight of a four year old human.

Seriously.

Now, a four year old human is not just a miniature 6 foot tall human, for whom 272 is not an out of reach weight. A four year old human has a head that is very oversized compared to an adult. Doubling the height, girth, and weight of a four year old WOULD give you that 300-pound adult. He would have an unusually large set of organs compared to a human adult, and a MASSIVE head.

How a halfling manages to weigh that exact amount is puzzling, given that the current book portrays them as overly lithe if anything. Presumably their weight should have been set at something more like 25 to 28 pounds, instead of just read off the standard chart for how much a human toddler weights at the selected height (3 feet).

Epinephrine
2009-07-28, 01:59 PM
How a halfling manages to weigh that exact amount is puzzling, given that the current book portrays them as overly lithe if anything. Presumably their weight should have been set at something more like 25 to 28 pounds, instead of just read off the standard chart for how much a human toddler weights at the selected height (3 feet).

Well, they're clearly much denser, from all that really efficient muscle. After all, I have some 3' tall toddlers at my house, and they certainly don't have a heavy load of 40 pounds. Heck, the 2-year-old has trouble carrying 4 litres of milk (about 9 pounds) from the front hall to the kitchen, and the 3-year-old can manage it, but it's not light encumbrance or anything. Having a base strength of 8, a halfling is clearly a very different beast than my kids, who would appear to have strengths in the 2 to 5 range.


Doubling the height, girth, and weight of a four year old WOULD give you that 300-pound adult. He would have an unusually large set of organs compared to a human adult, and a MASSIVE head.

Oh, you've met my brother! ;)

Spiryt
2009-07-28, 02:10 PM
Well, they're clearly much denser, from all that really efficient muscle. After all, I have some 3' tall toddlers at my house, and they certainly don't have a heavy load of 40 pounds. Heck, the 2-year-old has trouble carrying 4 litres of milk (about 9 pounds) from the front hall to the kitchen, and the 3-year-old can manage it, but it's not light encumbrance or anything. Having a base strength of 8, a halfling is clearly a very different beast than my kids, who would appear to have strengths in the 2 to 5 range.

Well, they're kids, so they aren't really fully developed in terms of strenght, muscle, hormones and all.

Halflings are like that in their adult state so they probably would be much stronger.

Still, there's no way in hell for 40 pound humanoid to be only " a bit" weaker than 160 pound one. He should be more than 3 times weaker, a least.

Even if we indeed assume that halflings muscles are made out of something really efficient, the difference should be bigger.

And that's only static strenght of carrying some stuff.

Dynamic strenght like punching someone, or pulling something quickly or throwing someting would be probably even worse.

Of course, that's if one wants to made it really "realistic" about which I don't really care that much. :smalltongue:

cfalcon
2009-07-28, 02:12 PM
Well, they're clearly much denser, from all that really efficient muscle.

That would be an appropriate explanation. My point was that having their weight lifted off of the table for child weights (as pretty obviously happened) was likely not the most awesome way of doing things.

Halflings obviously have to have something going on besides a huge head, certainly.


Having a base strength of 8, a halfling is clearly a very different beast than my kids, who would appear to have strengths in the 2 to 5 range.

So scaling a halfling up to 272 pounds would make sense based on the fact that they have about an extra 10 pounds of weight (=80 pounds at twice the dimensions) that is presumably some kind of decent muscle.

hamishspence
2009-07-28, 02:19 PM
In the Races & Classes book they raised the 3 ft 40 pound halfling issue as one of the more problematic aspects of Small characters- which is the reason given for 4th ed halflings being bigger.

Indon
2009-07-28, 02:21 PM
Well, they're clearly much denser, from all that really efficient muscle. After all, I have some 3' tall toddlers at my house, and they certainly don't have a heavy load of 40 pounds. Heck, the 2-year-old has trouble carrying 4 litres of milk (about 9 pounds) from the front hall to the kitchen, and the 3-year-old can manage it, but it's not light encumbrance or anything. Having a base strength of 8, a halfling is clearly a very different beast than my kids, who would appear to have strengths in the 2 to 5 range.

In fact, apparently, a medium-sized halfling would have 12 strength (http://www.d20srd.org/srd/improvingMonsters.htm#sizeIncreases), average. Also, 12 con.

cfalcon
2009-07-28, 03:04 PM
In fact, apparently, a medium-sized halfling would have 12 strength (http://www.d20srd.org/srd/improvingMonsters.htm#sizeIncreases), average. Also, 12 con.

Presumably those halflings have more human-like muscles, a weak solution indeed- but so are "advanced" halflings.

Set
2009-07-28, 03:38 PM
Meanwhile, a Chimp that's half the height of a man could be anywhere from two to seven times stronger, depending on who you ask. :)

Maybe halflings have a little bit of chimpanzee in the mix?

Curmudgeon
2009-07-28, 04:38 PM
Meanwhile, a Chimp that's half the height of a man could be anywhere from two to seven times stronger, depending on who you ask. :) Part of that is a much different joint structure. That half-size chimpanzee has joints that are bigger and stronger than a man's. Their muscles attach via tendons around a greater turning radius to give them a bigger lever moment.

Spiryt
2009-07-28, 04:43 PM
Part of that is a much different joint structure. That half-size chimpanzee has joints that are bigger and stronger than a man's. Their muscles attach via tendons around a greater turning radius to give them a bigger lever moment.

As far as I know, weaker and more "delicate" build of human muscles gives them more precision on the other hand. (which doesn't fit halflings which are supposed to be even better at precise manipulations than humans).

Or have I mixed up something?

EDIT: Yay offtop :mitd:

Berserk Monk
2009-07-28, 05:02 PM
It has to do with physics: if you double the size of something, the strength quadruples, but the weight of it is eight times as heavy. That's why ants, an extremely light creature, can lift ten times its weight, and elephants are incapable of jumping.