D&D Olympics

[Randomthom]

I was bored and decided to work out if 5e D&D characters could beat our real olympians. It is an interesting study of how well the D&D rules mesh with real life and also, an incredible insight into just how impressive some of these human achievements truly are. I'm listing the men's records here since D&D is gender-agnostic.

So, here are some current world records, go forth and beat them (without magic which is basically just a performance-enhancing substance!) The winner is obviously the fastest/strongest but the tie-breaker is the one who beats it with the fewest class levels.

We'll be using the optional chase rule: During the chase, a participant can freely use the Dash action a number of times equal to 3 + its Constitution modifier. Each additional Dash action it takes during the chase requires the creature to succeed on a DC 10 Constitution check at the end of its turn or gain one level of exhaustion.
Obviously, this creates an element of random into an otherwise straightforward mathemtical process, I'm open to ideas on how to square this circle.

5e also has no rules for throwing distances so that's a lot of field events out.

If this takes off, I plan to add morre events (perhaps swimming) later.

Track records
100m: 9.58s (328 ft. or 205 ft./round)
200m: 19.19s (656 ft. or 205 ft./round)
400m: 43.03s (1312 ft. or 182 ft./round)
Marathon: 2h1m39s (42.195km or 138435 ft. in 7299s or 113.8 ft./round)

Field records
Long Jump: 8.95m (29 ft. 4.25 in)
High Jump: 2.45m (8 ft. 0.5 in)

Weightlifting
Clean & Jerk: 264 kg (584.22 lbs) - I'll take this one, easy. lvl 1 any class Goliath/Firbolg with 20 Str = 600 lbs carry capacity.

[Amechra]

If you have the 3rd level Tiger Totem feature (from the Totem Barbarian), you can beat the high jump record if you have 18 Strength, and the long jump record if you have 20 Strength.

If ki use is allowed, a 2nd level Monk with 15 Strength has a high jump of 10ft and a running long jump of 30ft. Thanks, Step of the Wind.

---

Cutting out a lot of napkin math, it looks like your best bet for matching the 100m and 200m dashes is with a 6th level Tabaxi Monk with Mobile who's burning ki like it's going out of style. If ki use isn't allowed, you're going to have to use a 9th level Tabaxi Scout Rogue with Mobile instead. Marathons don't look like they're doable, sadly.

There's actually a hilarious loophole for races — technically, a VHuman Rogue 2 with the Mobile feat and the Urchin background can complete the 100m dash in 8.2 seconds and the 200m dash in 16.4 seconds... as long as the race course is entirely within the boundaries of a city. If we were willing to wait for 4th level to pick up Mobile and used a Tabaxi instead of VHuman, that Rogue could finish the 100m dash in 4.1 seconds.

EDIT: Actually, you know what? Using the Urchin loophole, I present to you...

Giant Steve
Race: Goliath
Class: Monk 2
Background: Urchin
Str 15 (13+2)/Dex 15/Con 15 (14+1)/Int 8/Wis 12/Cha 10

Let's go over his records, shall we?

High Jump: 10ft (with Step of the Wind)
Long Jump: 30ft (with Step of the Wind)
100m Dash: 8.4 seconds (as long as we're in a city)
Clean & Jerk: 900lbs

[Wraith]

Running a marathon could be more complicated. There are no mandatory rules that prevent a character from Dashing every turn so it would be a case of just working out a character with the highest movement value and adding up how many turns it takes to run 42km. Probably a Centaur 18 Monk/2 Rogue with Mobile; 40ft +10ft + 30ft base movement speed; Move - Dash - Dash for 240ft per round, although that being said we beat the real world record at with just Rogue 2 (40ft x3 per round).

The problem occurs when you use the option rules for prolonged sprints, as described in the DMG for Chases. You can use Dash 3+CON times per sustained chase and any after that forces you to take DC10 CON saves or start gaining exhaustion, so our Centaur is going to need a very good CON modifier and preferably the Resilient feat, also in CON. Even then, we have to pass well over 570 CON saves over the course of 43km or else we collapse.

A high level Warforged would be better in the long run - the Monk/Rogue build above gives only 70ft per move instead of 80ft per move, but that's still 210ft per round and we ignore Exhaustion. A *really good* Centaur could win with a lot of lucky rolls, but statistically they're incapable of Dashing 570 times without killing themselves!

[Unoriginal]

I was bored and decided to work out if 5e D&D characters could beat our real olympians. It is an interesting study of how well the D&D rules mesh with real life and also, an incredible insight into just how impressive some of these human achievements truly are. I'm listing the men's records here since D&D is gender-agnostic.

So, here are some current world records, go forth and beat them (without magic which is basically just a performance-enhancing substance!) The winner is obviously the fastest/strongest but the tie-breaker is the one who beats it with the fewest class levels.

We'll be using the optional chase rule: During the chase, a participant can freely use the Dash action a number of times equal to 3 + its Constitution modifier. Each additional Dash action it takes during the chase requires the creature to succeed on a DC 10 Constitution check at the end of its turn or gain one level of exhaustion.
Obviously, this creates an element of random into an otherwise straightforward mathemtical process, I'm open to ideas on how to square this circle.

5e also has no rules for throwing distances so that's a lot of field events out.

If this takes off, I plan to add morre events (perhaps swimming) later.

Track records
100m: 9.58s (328 ft. or 205 ft./round)
200m: 19.19s (656 ft. or 205 ft./round)
400m: 43.03s (1312 ft. or 182 ft./round)
Marathon: 2h1m39s (42.195km or 138435 ft. in 7299s or 113.8 ft./round)

Field records
Long Jump: 8.95m (29 ft. 4.25 in)
High Jump: 2.45m (8 ft. 0.5 in)

Weightlifting
Clean & Jerk: 264 kg (584.22 lbs) - I'll take this one, easy. lvl 1 any class Goliath/Firbolg with 20 Str = 600 lbs carry capacity.

Remember that travel speed isn't combat speed isn't chase speed, in 5e.

[Dork_Forge]

Hmm I think I have a winner so far for the 100m dash?

A Centaur Barbarian (5)/Monk (2) 7th overall.

Base speed is 40ft

Mobile at 4th takes us to 50ft

Fast Movement at 5th is 60ft

2 levels of Monk takes us to 70ft

That's a good start, now onto the race:

As an Elk Totem Barbarian, whilst Raging our speed becomes 85ft and using the Tasha's rules we can move half of our speed (rounding 2.5ft down to 0) for a bonus action 40ft. So with Raging and Dashing we can hit 210ft. (rounded down) a round with enough rages to do this 3 'turns' back to back to hopefully trounce those mortal Olympians.

High Jump seems pretty straight forward too, Just be a Satyr, if you can move things around to buy a 16 starting Strength then great if not a +2 works:

10ft run up high jump: 3+2+4(rounded down Mirthful Leap die)= 9ft conservatively at 1st level without a class. If you can move stats around you get 10 ft, if you want to add class levels then throw Step of the Wind in there too.

[Cicciograna]

This reminds me of an old article I saw online, D&D vs The Olympics. New material came out in the span between 2016 and now, so this is probably to be rewritten.

[Delph]

Short run:
Character:
basic Tabaxi speed: 30 ft
5 lvl Barbarian: +10 ft
10 lvl Monk: +20 ft
Feat Mobile: +10 ft
5 lvl Wizard Bladesinger: +10ft
Spell Longstrider: +10 ft
Basic speed: 90 ft
Spell haste: *2
Tabaxi's Feline agility: *2
That's 360 ft speed
that's 720 ft when you play with rule that say "You can dash as bonus action from step of the wind, as you can dash as bonus action instead of action, to save action to anything else" or 1440 ft when you play it as twined dash.

Jump:

Long jump is STR ability/High jump is STR bonus (numbers will be in this order)

Monk - 2 lvl any subclass
Barbarian - 6 lvl Beast (add atletic skill check to jump distance - long and high)
Bard - 10 lvl any subclass
Druid - 2 lvl - any

1st step - STR 20 +5 (20 / 5)
2nd step - expertize on atletic skill -> +17 (37 / 22)
3th step - Jump spell tripled distance -> (111 / 66)
4th step - Guidance 1d4 + Bardic inspiration 1d10 (giving number in atlethic in total 20 - 51) -> (120 - 213 / 75 - 168)
5th step - Step of the wind -jump distance is doubled -> (240 - 416) / (150 - 336) ft