Putting very high ability scores into perspective

[The Insanity]

Can you give me examples of things that a real life person could do with just a 50 or an 80 in an ability score (obviously I'm talking about D&D/PF)? No training involved (so no skill points), just raw talent (so only ability checks).

[Metahuman1]

Depends on the system.

[Milo v3]

Depends on the system.

Ummm....

(obviously I'm talking about D&D/PF)

Either way, Str 50 can lift 11612 kg above their head, which according to wolfram alpha is about 2 elephants, and Str 80 can lift 743166 kg above their head, which is one quarter of the mass of a Saturn V rocket.

[Ettina]

If Int were actually intelligence, I don't think we could conceive of an Int of 50. But I think Int is more 'accumulated learning', since rules for child characters and baby dragons and such give them lower Int even though their intelligence is the same. (A typical toddler has an IQ score of 100, just like a typical adult. They've just had less time to learn things.) So, since many high Int creatures are very long-lived, you could imagine them basically as a reasonably smart person who's been learning new things for several hundred years.

[Milo v3]

If Int were actually intelligence, I don't think we could conceive of an Int of 50. But I think Int is more 'accumulated learning', since rules for child characters and baby dragons and such give them lower Int even though their intelligence is the same. (A typical toddler has an IQ score of 100, just like a typical adult. They've just had less time to learn things.) So, since many high Int creatures are very long-lived, you could imagine them basically as a reasonably smart person who's been learning new things for several hundred years.

In Pathfinder the Young template actually doesn't decrease any mental abilities, so theoretically an adult with 50 intelligence might have had 50 intelligence as a toddler.

[Seto]

If Int were actually intelligence, I don't think we could conceive of an Int of 50. But I think Int is more 'accumulated learning', since rules for child characters and baby dragons and such give them lower Int even though their intelligence is the same. (A typical toddler has an IQ score of 100, just like a typical adult. They've just had less time to learn things.) So, since many high Int creatures are very long-lived, you could imagine them basically as a reasonably smart person who's been learning new things for several hundred years.

Actually, Int as I see it is the ability of abstraction. Knowledge and memory are a big part of it (as, extremely simplified, knowledge means the ability to separate an information from its context and retain it), but there's also formal logic, elaboration of thought etc... So yes, I'd say Int 50 (or even Int 25) is beyond imagination.

[Mastikator]

A commoner with 80 constitution would have 40 hp. Which means he'd be more likely than not to survive a fall at terminal velocity.

A level 2 commoner with 80 constitution would have ~75, meaning he wouldn't he be hurt that badly from falling at terminal velocity.

[tomandtish]

The 50 or 80 Charisma would scare me most. At a CHA of 80, this would be a person with +40 in Bluff, Intimidate, Gather Information, Disguise, and Diplomacy, all of which can be used untrained. This is the salesperson who could sell me my own oldest car (a 1995 Saturn) for 500K and convince me I got a great value. This is the person who walks into a prison yard handcuffed and backs everyone down with just a look. This is the person who with five minutes of conversation has gotten my DOB, SS#, credit card #s, and other information that I don't even realize.

This is the male spy who could convince the male ruler of a nation he was that ruler's wife while being intimate in bed with him.

[mikeejimbo]

Either way, Str 50 can lift 11612 kg above their head, which according to wolfram alpha is about 2 elephants, and Str 80 can lift 743166 kg above their head, which is one quarter of the mass of a Saturn V rocket.

Yeah, but they still couldn't lift the documentation required for the Saturn V.

Also, a 50 Wis can see why kids love Cinnamon Toast Crunch.

[Anonymouswizard]

Assuming the human maximum is 18, at about 60 INT you should in theory be able to micromanage a full civilisation, or plan a course of action for the next few years/decades with a 0.99 probability of staying on track. At this level a wizard probably has the exact spell he needs for the encounter, or at least one that will end the encounter in three seconds.

60 CHA would be the aforementioned social god, who could convince you that they had won that duel, despite your lack of scratches and his missing his arms, legs, right ear, and life.

[Haldir]

Assuming the human maximum is 18, at about 60 INT you should in theory be able to micromanage a full civilisation, or plan a course of action for the next few years/decades with a 0.99 probability of staying on track. At this level a wizard probably has the exact spell he needs for the encounter, or at least one that will end the encounter in three seconds.

But then the DM would have to determine when Chaos Theory stepped in. :smalleek:

[GreatDane]

Also, a 50 Wis can see why kids love Cinnamon Toast Crunch.
This cracked me up.

Let's see...


Super-high strength has been covered pretty thoroughly.
A commoner with a Dex of 80 has a Sleight of Hand modifier of +35. If he takes the appropriate -20 penalty, he can, with free actions and no check against the DC of 10, constantly palm coin-sized objects - cash, jewels, whatever - from those around him. Even if someone was closely observing him, the average commoner would have only a 25% chance of seeing him at work. Such a commoner would also be able to balance on almost anything without having to make a roll.
A commoner with 80 Con could withstand a beating from your average hill giant (max damage 26, barring critical hits) while concentrating on whatever else he's doing. He'd have 36 hit points and, with a 1 on the d20, can make the DC 36 Concentration check to continue with whatever has his attention while the hill giant beats on him.

[Jeff the Green]

If Int were actually intelligence, I don't think we could conceive of an Int of 50.

Let's put it this way. The standard deviation of 3d6 is 2.96 and mean is 10.5, so Intelligence of 50 is 13.34 standard deviations from the mean while 60 is 16.73 SD away. This means that (assuming IQ=Intelligence, which is rough but not totally out of the question) Intelligence of 50 is roughly equivalent to an IQ of 300 and 50 to 351.

Roughly speaking, you'd need about 1038 people to have a 50% chance of finding one with Intelligence 50, and 1066 to get one with Intelligence 60. To put this in perspective, if every galaxy in the observable universe were like the milky way, every star had an earth-like planet, and every planet were inhabited by humans at absolute maximum carrying capacity, there would be 1033 people in the universe. In order to have one person with an Intelligence of 60, there would have to be 100 billion times more atoms in the observable universe just to make up all of the human bodies.

[Bluydee]

How high does strength have to be to have superman level strength? Specifically, I'm talking about how in the current comics he has enough strength to benchpress earth.

[Brother Oni]

How high does strength have to be to have superman level strength? Specifically, I'm talking about how in the current comics he has enough strength to benchpress earth.

If my math is correct, for a medium sized creature, assuming bench press is double maximum heavy load and the Earth weighs 5.972x1024 kg (1.31x1025 lbs), you're looking at STR 389 (you'd bench 1.32 x 1025 lbs).

[Rondodu]

A commoner with a Dex of 80 has a Sleight of Hand modifier of +35. If he takes the appropriate -20 penalty, he can, with free actions and no check against the DC of 10, constantly palm coin-sized objects - cash, jewels, whatever - from those around him. Even if someone was closely observing him, the average commoner would have only a 25% chance of seeing him at work. Such a commoner would also be able to balance on almost anything without having to make a roll.
So, Apollo Robbins (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Apollo_Robbins)?

[Troacctid]

Let's put it this way. The standard deviation of 3d6 is 2.96 and mean is 10.5, so Intelligence of 50 is 13.34 standard deviations from the mean while 60 is 16.73 SD away. This means that (assuming IQ=Intelligence, which is rough but not totally out of the question) Intelligence of 50 is roughly equivalent to an IQ of 300 and 50 to 351.

Roughly speaking, you'd need about 1038 people to have a 50% chance of finding one with Intelligence 50, and 1066 to get one with Intelligence 60. To put this in perspective, if every galaxy in the observable universe were like the milky way, every star had an earth-like planet, and every planet were inhabited by humans at absolute maximum carrying capacity, there would be 1033 people in the universe. In order to have one person with an Intelligence of 60, there would have to be 100 billion times more atoms in the observable universe just to make up all of the human bodies.

So wait, does that mean an Alakazam has 977 Int? No wonder psychic-types were so overpowered in the first-gen games!

[Phelix-Mu]

Let's put it this way. The standard deviation of 3d6 is 2.96 and mean is 10.5, so Intelligence of 50 is 13.34 standard deviations from the mean while 60 is 16.73 SD away. This means that (assuming IQ=Intelligence, which is rough but not totally out of the question) Intelligence of 50 is roughly equivalent to an IQ of 300 and 50 to 351.

Roughly speaking, you'd need about 1038 people to have a 50% chance of finding one with Intelligence 50, and 1066 to get one with Intelligence 60. To put this in perspective, if every galaxy in the observable universe were like the milky way, every star had an earth-like planet, and every planet were inhabited by humans at absolute maximum carrying capacity, there would be 1033 people in the universe. In order to have one person with an Intelligence of 60, there would have to be 100 billion times more atoms in the observable universe just to make up all of the human bodies.

Epic Awesome Character Premise: The universe wasn't big enough for me to exist.

[Melcar]

Epic Awesome Character Premise: The universe wasn't big enough for me to exist.

I actually usually look at int as being IQ, since that 10-11 equals 100-110 IQ which is avarage human IQ in the real world. So... Int 50 would translate into 500 IQ. We cant amagine the thought paterns of such a being. But I guess no known mathematical unsolvable equation would be more that simple addition to this being. When looking at the most intelligent humans, we have steve hawkins or possible Einstein. Think of thise people as having int 18-20.

[Jeff the Green]

I actually usually look at int as being IQ, since that 10-11 equals 100-110 IQ which is avarage human IQ in the real world. So... Int 50 would translate into 500 IQ.

No, it wouldn't. As I posted earlier, Int 50 is equivalent to an IQ of 350.

3d6 and IQ both are normal curves (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Normal_distribution). 3d6 has a mean of 10.5 and a standard deviation of 2.96, while IQ has a mean of 100 and a standard deviation of 15. To convert Intelligence to IQ, you subtract 10.5, divide by 2.96, multiply by 15, and add 100. To go from Intelligence to IQ you do the opposite.

Assuming Hawking has an IQ of 160 as claimed various places in a Google search, he'd have an Intelligence score of (160-100)*2.96/15+10.5=22 (rounded down from 22.34). Marilyn vos Savant, the Guinness world record holder for IQ (at 228), would have an Intelligence score of (228-100)*2.96/15+10.5=35 (rounded down from 35.76).

Int 18 works out to an IQ of 140 or so. That's smart, but you probably know someone that smart or smarter (around 0.5% has an IQ that high). Assuming my IQ is the same as when I was a kid (it probably isn't (http://www.livescience.com/36143-iq-change-time.html)) and my parents are remembering correctly (not entirely sure), I have an IQ of 145, which works out to Int 19.

[Melcar]

No, it wouldn't. As I posted earlier, Int 50 is equivalent to an IQ of 350.

3d6 and IQ both are normal curves (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Normal_distribution). 3d6 has a mean of 10.5 and a standard deviation of 2.96, while IQ has a mean of 100 and a standard deviation of 15. To convert Intelligence to IQ, you subtract 10.5, divide by 2.96, multiply by 15, and add 100. To go from Intelligence to IQ you do the opposite.

Assuming Hawking has an IQ of 160 as claimed various places in a Google search, he'd have an Intelligence score of (160-100)*2.96/15+10.5=22 (rounded down from 22.34). Marilyn vos Savant, the Guinness world record holder for IQ (at 228), would have an Intelligence score of (228-100)*2.96/15+10.5=35 (rounded down from 35.76).

Int 18 works out to an IQ of 140 or so. That's smart, but you probably know someone that smart or smarter (around 0.5% has an IQ that high). Assuming my IQ is the same as when I was a kid (it probably isn't (http://www.livescience.com/36143-iq-change-time.html)) and my parents are remembering correctly (not entirely sure), I have an IQ of 145, which works out to Int 19.

Why does statitics about this apply to a fantasy game? To me it makes perfectly good sence that 10-11 int is iqueal to 100-110 int, thus maximum human ability woudl be at 18 int = 180 IQ. And by the way, where is it stated that this is actually true? (by raw?) Could it not be, that the designers thought as I've suggested?

[Jeff the Green]

Why does statitics about this apply to a fantasy game? To me it makes perfectly good sence that 10-11 int is iqueal to 100-110 int, thus maximum human ability woudl be at 18 int = 180 IQ. And by the way, where is it stated that this is actually true? (by raw?) Could it not be, that the designers thought as I've suggested?

:smallsigh:

It's a game with dice. Statistics are built into it. And whoever came up with the multiply by ten rule must have been named John Snow, because he knew nothing about the subject.

"Mybe the designers thought this way" is literally worthless. As in it cannot make your argument more likely. It's an ad hoc hypothesis and cannot help your argument unless you actually have evidence that they did. It's like a defendant trying to demonstrate their innocence by saying "Well, maybe a ghost killed him." Unless he can demonstrate that ghosts actually exist and do sometimes murder people his argent has no value.

[Melcar]

:smallsigh:

It's a game with dice. Statistics are built into it. And whoever came up with the multiply by ten rule must have been named John Snow, because he knew nothing about the subject.

"Mybe the designers thought this way" is literally worthless. As in it cannot make your argument more likely. It's an ad hoc hypothesis and cannot help your argument unless you actually have evidence that they did. It's like a defendant trying to demonstrate their innocence by saying "Well, maybe a ghost killed him." Unless he can demonstrate that ghosts actually exist and do sometimes murder people his argent has no value.

Im sory I must have missunderstood the point of this thread, which I though were about sharing our thoughts and takes on the matter, not choose or define right and wrong. In that case have fun, I have nothing more to add to this nor wish to discuss it any further.

[Jeff the Green]

Im sory I must have missunderstood the point of this thread, which I though were about sharing our thoughts and takes on the matter, not choose or define right and wrong.

It is, actually. It's just that my thought and take on the matter implies that yours is a really bad way to think of it. (And in a way that displays an irritating ignorance of probability and statistics, too—a bête noire of mine.) When too ideas clash so absolutely, there are others who might be persuaded either way, and you actually care which idea the others adopt, it's incumbent on you to explain your position and why it's right.

It's called discussion. (Also debate and argumentation, but those have baggage that doesn't apply in this context.)

[Divide by Zero]

Why does statitics about this apply to a fantasy game? To me it makes perfectly good sence that 10-11 int is iqueal to 100-110 int, thus maximum human ability woudl be at 18 int = 180 IQ. And by the way, where is it stated that this is actually true? (by raw?) Could it not be, that the designers thought as I've suggested?

If 18 Int = 180 IQ, then individuals with 18 Int should be MUCH rarer than implied by the 1/216 chance of rolling 18 on 3d6.

IQ is defined by a bell curve. If you alter that distribution, then you are not using the IQ system that exists in reality, so any conclusions drawn from comparing the two are meaningless.

[amalcon]

50 Strength: Can very nearly carry two African elephants, and still walk around.

50 Dexterity: Decides one day that it would be fun to cross a 100' chasm by walking on a single rope, with no training at all. There is literally no chance of failure.

50 Constitution: Likes the taste of arsenic (+20 Fortitude saves, passes any poison in the DMG except Dragon Bile or Purple Worm Poison on a roll of 2, only because ones automatically fail).

50 Intelligence: Got started in some field of study last month (1/2 rank), and is already outperforming entire teams of trained researchers (estimate the team lead at +10, with five subordinates doing reliable Aid Another).

50 Wisdom: Has better than even odds to spot insects (Fine, +16 Hide) from 40' away (-4 penalty).

50 Charisma: Can reliably pull off the "I'm actually a Lammasu who's been polymorphed into a Halfling" bluff from the PHB example (the character's Charisma bonus is equal to the Sense Motive bonus for a completely unbelievable bluff).

[Judge_Worm]

But then the DM would have to determine when Chaos Theory stepped in. :smalleek:

At 80 Int you've already accounted for chaos theory, only you can muck up your own plans because you've already got EVERY SINGLE VARIABLE accounted for.

At a high strength of 80 you are more massive than any other lifeform known (assuming medium size), and thus probably more dense than lead. If you ate coal you would literally crap diamonds.

With a Con of 80, you're functionally immortal (a level 20 barbarian would be shrugging off a hydrogen bomb).

At 80 Dex you can fly by repeatedly dodging the ground.

A Wis of 80 means you are for all intents and purposes omniscient.

80 Cha would allow you to control the above five, and they wouldn't even notice.

Edit: If I did my math correctly, a Strength of 3,292,349,639,998,864 is the exact amount required to consider planet Earth a light load. For some reason that really put things into perspective for me. That means a medium bipedal creature of such ability is physically lifting a planet when they do handstand.

[Brother Oni]

Edit: If I did my math correctly, a Strength of 3,292,349,639,998,864 is the exact amount required to consider planet Earth a light load. For some reason that really put things into perspective for me. That means a medium bipedal creature of such ability is physically lifting a planet when they do handstand.

Hmmm, I get 403 for a light load.

I guess it depends on how you interpret the SRD20 CC rules (http://www.d20srd.org/srd/carryingCapacity.htm):


For Strength scores not shown on Table: Carrying Capacity, find the Strength score between 20 and 29 that has the same number in the "ones" digit as the creature’s Strength score does and multiply the numbers in that for by 4 for every ten points the creature’s strength is above the score for that row.

I interpet that as an exponential function, so STR 30 is *4, STR 40 is *16, STR 50 is *64, etc, or 4^(STR difference/10)

Thus with a light load of 200lbs for STR 23, STR 403 would be:

200 * (4^38) = 1.51x1025 lbs.

Incidentally STR 402 is 1.307x1025, so the Earth is technically a light load on a rounding error. :smallbiggrin:

[Objection]

60 CHA would be the aforementioned social god, who could convince you that they had won that duel, despite your lack of scratches and his missing his arms, legs, right ear, and life.

So the Black Knight from Monty Python? (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zKhEw7nD9C4)

[Brother Oni]

Why does statitics about this apply to a fantasy game? To me it makes perfectly good sence that 10-11 int is iqueal to 100-110 int, thus maximum human ability woudl be at 18 int = 180 IQ. And by the way, where is it stated that this is actually true? (by raw?) Could it not be, that the designers thought as I've suggested?

The problem is 3rd ED and its variants are very statistics based.

The standard array of stats (10 and 11s across the board) applies to most of the population and depending on your interpretation of 'most', be it 68.2%, 95.4% or 99.7%, it affects the chance of having a very high (or low) IQ.

For example, using your interpretation that IQ is 10*INT, INT 8 has learning penalties whereas a sub 70 IQ indicates clinical intellectual disability. Anything below IQ 50 means they're able to live semi independently and below 35 means they pretty much require full time care.

Looking up some papers, it indicates that 3% of the population has some level of intellectual disability (ie sub 70 IQ), whereas the 3d6 probability curve says that a result of 3 to 6 is 9.23%, so there's an immediate mismatch there.

[Killer Angel]

Pump your dex, and you will be the epitome of contortionists...

or the world greates poker player. No one will ever see you cheat.

[Eldan]

With wisdom, the character can march at full speed all day, while still gathering enough food and water to survive, and bring along several people and forage for them, too.

[DrKerosene]

This cracked me up.

Let's see...


A commoner with 80 Con could withstand a beating from your average hill giant (max damage 26, barring critical hits) while concentrating on whatever else he's doing. He'd have 36 hit points and, with a 1 on the d20, can make the DC 36 Concentration check to continue with whatever has his attention while the hill giant beats on him.

If that commoner was built like Dr. Jack Daniels from the Commoner Handbook, he could heal 35 HP with a swig of weak ale.

A Wisdom of 80 seems like a person would have the inductive logic of Sherlock Holmes.

[Heliomance]

50 Charisma: Can reliably pull off the "I'm actually a Lammasu who's been polymorphed into a Halfling" bluff from the PHB example (the character's Charisma bonus is equal to the Sense Motive bonus for a completely unbelievable bluff).
Given that the character has 50 charisma, being a Lammasu is not actually implausible as an explanation for this :P


At 80 Int you've already accounted for chaos theory, only you can muck up your own plans because you've already got EVERY SINGLE VARIABLE accounted for.


Goedel and Heisenberg would like a word.

[Divide by Zero]

Goedel and Heisenberg would like a word.

Bah. At 80 Int, you aren't uncertain about anything, quantum mechanics be damned.

[Judge_Worm]

Hmmm, I get 403 for a light load.

I guess it depends on how you interpret the SRD20 CC rules (http://www.d20srd.org/srd/carryingCapacity.htm):


I interpet that as an exponential function, so STR 30 is *4, STR 40 is *16, STR 50 is *64, etc, or 4^(STR difference/10)

Thus with a light load of 200lbs for STR 23, STR 403 would be:

200 * (4^38) = 1.51x1025 lbs.

Incidentally STR 402 is 1.307x1025, so the Earth is technically a light load on a rounding error. :smallbiggrin:

I interpreted it as multiplicative, so 30 is x4 of 20, 40 is x8 of 20 and so on.
Incidentally I also have a different number for Earth's weight (on Earth, wait what?:smallconfused:), I lost in now, but it was about twice yours (I got it by converting Earth's mass from universe today, to lbs by multiplying it by 2.2). I then multiplyed it by ten (for every ten levels) subtracted 29(maximum demonstrated Str score) and divided by 4(to find the score) to get my number.

Which was horribly bad math now that I'm awake enough to think about it. I'd been better off dividing by 466 and then multiplying that number by 29 (each 466lbs being equal to 29 Str). However this conflicts with the SRD (which has no solid ascertainable pattern), and so I go to M&M 2e which gives us a Str score of 390 to push/drag the Earth.

[Phelix-Mu]

Goedel and Heisenberg would like a word.


Bah. At 80 Int, you aren't uncertain about anything, quantum mechanics be damned.

Totally anticipating everything is diminishing returns. But it is quite plausible to generalize solutions to probable outcomes, and devise contingencies should corner cases arise due to the unforeseen. 100% certainty is never possible, because NI variables due to NI reality. But one can get pretty close, and fudge the rest.

But the real problem is that actual planning is not Int-dependent. It's Int- and Wis-dependent.

[Brother Oni]

I interpreted it as multiplicative, so 30 is x4 of 20, 40 is x8 of 20 and so on.
Incidentally I also have a different number for Earth's weight (on Earth, wait what?:smallconfused:), I lost in now, but it was about twice yours (I got it by converting Earth's mass from universe today, to lbs by multiplying it by 2.2). I then multiplyed it by ten (for every ten levels) subtracted 29(maximum demonstrated Str score) and divided by 4(to find the score) to get my number.

Which was horribly bad math now that I'm awake enough to think about it. I'd been better off dividing by 466 and then multiplying that number by 29 (each 466lbs being equal to 29 Str). However this conflicts with the SRD (which has no solid ascertainable pattern), and so I go to M&M 2e which gives us a Str score of 390 to push/drag the Earth.

Smarter people than me have crunched the numbers and the formula for STR above 10 is indeed exponential:

25 * 2^(.2 * Strength)

A quick litmus check indicates that it seems to model it well: STR 30 would have 1,600lbs as maximum heavy load (x4 STR 20's 400lb), which is x16 of STR 10's 100lb limit, rather than x8 which would be 800lb. It gets a bit wonky when you start hitting silly limits (~2% off), but it's a good indication for where to start crunching the official values from.

I got my Earth mass value from NASA (link (http://solarsystem.nasa.gov/planets/profile.cfm?Object=Earth&Display=Facts)).

Incidentally to push/pull the Earth, we would need STR 383 at x5 maximum load, so the various x2 (STR 389), x5 (STR 383) and light load (STR 403) modifiers don't really affect the strength requirement that much at this scale, as would be expected from an exponential function.