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Old 04-10-2011, 09:59 PM   #11
vitruvian
 
Join Date: Aug 2004
Default Re: Where do I find guidelines for relation between ST and weight?

Quote:
Originally Posted by Phoenix_Dragon View Post
Perhaps I'm misunderstanding what you mean by this, because I'm not getting similar numbers to what you're posting. Like the 10,000lb elephant, scaling by the 1/3 power of its weight and doubling that gets me the proper ST43, but scaling by the 0.4 power of its weight and doubling that gets me ST80, not 56. Is there something I'm missing here?
They're saying that the ST 80, for Lifting ST if not for HP and Striking ST, is probably more realistic, in that it conforms more to the observed strength of animals in the real world. 1/3 power would be accurate if proportions actually stayed exactly the same as you scaled animals up, but as it happens animals actually compensate for the square cube law by having relatively thicker limbs with a greater cross-section for both load-bearing bone and skeletal muscle as they get larger.

The double cube root of weight in lbs rule is a nice easy simplification, but not necessarily accurate to the relative proportions of humans vs. bears or horses vs. elephants or rhinos.

EDIT: Bill makes the very good point in the post below that if adjusting to use a 0.4 power as opposed to a 1/3 power progression, you'd have to either start with a different multiplier, or alternatively you could just give body weight for ST/HP 10 and take the body weight ratio for all other values before applying the power law. E.g., if 125 lbs is still ST/HP 10, a 10,000 lb elephant is 80x the mass/weight, so 1/3 power gives x4.3 or 43 ST/HP, and 0.4 power gives you x5.77 or 58 ST/HP, not 80.

Last edited by vitruvian; 04-10-2011 at 10:17 PM.
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Old 04-10-2011, 10:02 PM   #12
whswhs
 
Join Date: Jun 2005
Location: Lawrence, KS
Default Re: Where do I find guidelines for relation between ST and weight?

Quote:
Originally Posted by Phoenix_Dragon View Post
Perhaps I'm misunderstanding what you mean by this, because I'm not getting similar numbers to what you're posting. Like the 10,000lb elephant, scaling by the 1/3 power of its weight and doubling that gets me the proper ST43, but scaling by the 0.4 power of its weight and doubling that gets me ST80, not 56. Is there something I'm missing here?
I don't think you would double. See, if you raise a human body weight of 125 lbs. to the 0.4 power, instead of the 1/3, and then double the result, you'll get something bigger than 10! (Looking at your results, I'd guess 10/7 x 10 or 14.) You need a smaller multiplier. It looks as if you want a multiplier of ~1.45, not 2.

Bill
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Old 04-10-2011, 11:08 PM   #13
Anthony
 
Join Date: Feb 2005
Location: Berkeley, CA
Default Re: Where do I find guidelines for relation between ST and weight?

Yeah, it's 1.45 if you want the same strength at 125 lb, about 1.4 if you want ST 10 at 150 lb.
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