Attribute levels and their meanings.

[Gollum]

Originally Posted by mr beer

Wrong.

Lifting skill is not at all realistic. Therefore concluding that real world humans are limited to ST 15 because Lifting skill works like x in GURPS is back-to-front reasoning.

Alonsua is right here. Telling that, in GURPS, you absolutely need a ST score above 15 to simulate real world records while deliberately ignoring a GURPS rule is not fair.

A ST score above 15 may be required in your games, since you drop the lifting rule that you find unrealistic, but it is not in rules as written.

Having said that, if we follow How to be a GURPS GM, the maximum for the four attributes is 17-18, not 15. It is quoted by Warren “Mook” Wilson, but it is what Sean “Kromm” Punch wrote. So it is hard to have a more official answer.

It doesn’t mean that the modern world records require a ST score of 17-18. It just means that ST 17-18 is supposed to be the historical best possible.

And yes, Conan is surely over that because he is not a realistic character. He is a mythic one, if not even better, as AlexanderHowl brilliantly showed it.