Size Modifiers

[Peter Knutsen]

Originally Posted by TheManeuver

What does everyone else think? Am I reading into this too much? I surely think so!

The RAW is pretty clear on that, anyone 6'1" is SM+1.

It's just one of those cases where the RAW happens to be incredibly stupid.

[Dragondog]

Originally Posted by Peter Knutsen

The RAW is pretty clear on that, anyone 6'1" is SM+1.

It's just one of those cases where the RAW happens to be incredibly stupid.

With false precision, as mentioned by PK upthread, and I'm sure I've read it elsewhere too, that doesn't seem to be the RAW interpretation.

[Flyndaran]

Originally Posted by Dragondog

With false precision, as mentioned by PK upthread, and I'm sure I've read it elsewhere too, that doesn't seem to be the RAW interpretation.

I've read conflicting interpretations from the authors. And R.A.W. really does state SM +0 as going UP to 6'. So logically anything greater is SM+1.
I agree it's stupid, and I'm sure most of us ignore that rule.

But I don't like comic books or TV retconning to get out of bad decisions. ...
But no one's perfect. It's an easy issue to overlook in my view.

[T.K.]

I'd like to jump in to try to get some insight of you guys on something that came up at our play session:

Our GM ruled that since SM affects your chance to hit or be hit, that "Feint" didn't get the SM mod, since you're not actually hitting/attacking.

My reasoning is that when you "Feint" you're actually trying to exploit your fool defense/attention/fighting skill to create an opening and a much larger or smaller creature would have significantly more or less, respectively, room to be exploited and thus SM should also apply to "Feint".

That though, creates a double dipping case, where you would get the SM mod to "Feint" and then to "Attack", which I'm not really that happy with.

So, what you guys think?

[Kazander]

I agree with your GM.

Feint is not an attack (B365 description says so), and therefore does not benefit from bonuses or penalties to your attack roll. It is merely a contest of skills. Only things that affect your skill affect the feint, like the Balanced weapon modifier in DF.

[Infornific]

Originally Posted by sir_pudding

I don't know. It's actually something that I'm struggling with. Dungeon Fantasy 13: Loadouts says that rations don't scale with size, but rather just provide more or less meals, but I'm not sure what that is supposed to mean without the rule from Bio-Tech (which I've found very difficult to implement in actual play anyway) which is probably not appropriate for DF. I was hoping there was another (simpler/less realistic) rule that I'm missing somewhere.

I'd just go with BL from ST for a baseline - big and muscular people burn through more calories. That should give relatively realistic results - e.g., a ST5 creature will need about one quarter of the rations of a normal ST 10 person. Of course I'd also assume the standard ration is intended for someone with ST 12 rather than ST 10.

[Infornific]

If it's a borderline case (e.g., someone 6' 6") - I'd leave it up to the player. Take M +1 and take all the advantages and disadvantages that go along with it. That's simplest - just try to avoid contradictions in the same party.

Of course I also think SM+1 or more should count as a Disadvantage, probably around -10 per level. But that's just me.

[Flyndaran]

Originally Posted by Infornific

I'd just go with BL from ST for a baseline - big and muscular people burn through more calories. That should give relatively realistic results - e.g., a ST5 creature will need about one quarter of the rations of a normal ST 10 person. Of course I'd also assume the standard ration is intended for someone with ST 12 rather than ST 10.

That follows surface area which is much closer than mass, but still not quite accurate.
Would you say a cat eats as much as 1/4 that of a fully grown man? Most cats may be St 4, but some under 20 pounders are ST 5.

[Flyndaran]

Originally Posted by Anthony

There's actually a reasonable argument for using ST -- the metabolic costs of labor are largely a function of how much labor you do, which is based on ST, and even if not engaged in labor, more muscle gives a higher basic metabolic rate.

Blast from the past, but...
Aging has made my metabolism crash, but not in a bad way. I now eat maybe 2/3 or so what I did just a few years ago. But I'm more active and just as strong. I can jog in 100 degree low humidity weather when in my 20s I suffered heat exhaustion when it was only 83 and well hydrated.
So I guess my ideas in this thread were really going full on unrealistic precision.

As to named topic; I found a site listing how many Calories small cats', and another one listing big cats', needs per day. Unexpectedly, they agree per pound.
21 for indoor/sedentary to 35 outdoor, per pound of body.
SM 0 150 lbs of wild big cat needs around 5250 Calories per day, while SM-3 5.5 lbs of wild small cat needs only about 192 Calories. This means bigger cats qualify for Increased Consumption while smaller cats don't.
As felines don't migrate or run marathons, this has to be from pure metabolic and hungry muscle mass needs.

(I used those number to equate to human and scaled down human ie. weight / (3^3) for SM-3.)