Reasonable ST Limits for SM -1 and -2 Characters

[Flyndaran]

Originally Posted by malloyd

Purely theoretical arguments for scaling ST tend to range from Length^1 to Length^1.5, so for SM -1 (70% height) from 0.7 to 0.58 and for SM -2 (50% height) from 0.5 to 0.35.

But note these have a key false assumption - that the geometry of everything is constant - in real animals various parts change shape differently as they get bigger or smaller. And a sometimes questionable one - that the efficiency of muscle tissue (and tissue resistance to damage) stays the same per unit volume - which is closer to true, but hardly guaranteed in real animals.

That's why I said, "human proportions". I suppose as children are obviously human, I should have written, "normal adult human proportions".
But yeah, even when tissues are nearly identical, practical abilities in real full organisms can vary quite a bit.

[Flyndaran]

Originally Posted by mhd

Yeah, halflings might have chimp strength.

If I recall correctly, us humans are comparatively weak because we're optimized for endurance, not sheer force. Now, do halflings look like they're built along those lines? There might be a good reason why they're eating and sleeping more than a common human (besides being modeled after the English gentry).

Humans' muscles are about half the strength of other primates' pound per pound. That often gets exaggerated to absurd levels with chimps able to rip sheet metal like taffy or pull multi-ton objects.

[Anthony]

Originally Posted by Flyndaran

Humans' muscles are about half the strength of other primates' pound per pound.

That's probably not actually true. Other primates are stronger pound for pound, but that's not measuring the strength of individual muscles. This study for example pins the actual ratio at about 1.35:1.

It's worth distinguishing between muscle strength and limb strength, though. The actual force generated by a limb is equal to (muscle force) · (distance from joint to muscle attachment point) / (length of remainder of limb); thus, you can generate more force by moving the muscle attachment point out. You can also generate the same amount of force at a lower mass by using a shorter muscle (the max force a muscle can exert depends on cross-section). However, this is subject to two other limits: there's a limit to how much much muscles can contract (so if the muscle is too short relative to the distance to its attachment point, range of motion is reduced), and there's a limit to how fast they can contract (so either of the above options is trading force for speed). In practice, large animals have proportionately thicker limbs (optimizing for force over speed), small the reverse.

[Flyndaran]

That is interesting. Last I heard it was 2.0. But 1.35 in muscle power and 1.5 practical output really pushes into the more "obvious" expectations of animals specialized for burst vs. endurance.

Really puts a damper on realistic reasons, other than raw size, for hominds much stronger than humans in my games.

[Tomsdad]

Nice link Anthony, cheers


Its an interesting one, I'd recommend the Supporting Information l