So a character can life 15 kg per strength point, lift 5 kg above their heads. Without a test.
Max human would be (lets say str 7 for hardcore lifters):
Lift:105 kg (231 pnds or so)
Lift above head:35 kg (165 pnds ish)
Aint much I'd hate to say. I couldn't find any real olympic style weight lifting records, but I have seen mention of people lifting nearly 1000 pnds dead lift....Little bit of a diff there.
So, I'd say a guy that can lift that 900 to 1000 pnds would be 7 by SR4 rules. He's need to have a strength of 30 to do so, without tests. With a body+strength test his max ability (if his body was max 6) would be 20 dice, and if all succeeded, he would max lift 300 kg (660 pnds).
Dosen't seem right to me.
Full Version: Lifting Rules off a bit....
the easiest way to fix this difference between real life and game mechanics, in this case, is to say that there is a merit (weightlifter), which increases the amount that can be lifted. it may have a downside to it, such as taking stun damage to increase lift. either way, its not something that a shadowrunner would normaly take, and as such is not listed.
also, you can buy hits to lift more, and an olympic weightlifter would have str 7 body 6, and either buy 3 hits, or average 4 hits on a roll. thats 150kg easy, or 330 pounds.
now, consider you can roll Body+Strength (13 dice)+edge(8 dice), with rule of 6. 21 dice, re-rolling 6's. if you go exactly by the rules as is, a strength 1 human has the potential to lift a car over his head, using edge. There are real-world cases of a woman lifting a car off her child- and then her bones broke under the weight once the child was safe.
also, you can buy hits to lift more, and an olympic weightlifter would have str 7 body 6, and either buy 3 hits, or average 4 hits on a roll. thats 150kg easy, or 330 pounds.
now, consider you can roll Body+Strength (13 dice)+edge(8 dice), with rule of 6. 21 dice, re-rolling 6's. if you go exactly by the rules as is, a strength 1 human has the potential to lift a car over his head, using edge. There are real-world cases of a woman lifting a car off her child- and then her bones broke under the weight once the child was safe.
Apparently deadlifting 1000lbs is quite a bit more than any human has managed IRL. The record I could find quoted most often was 932.6lbs by Andy Bolton in 2003, and some mentions of 933lbs by the same guy.
Of course, Strength 7 probably covers a lot more ground than just the strongest of the insanely strong. I doubt everyone with STR 7 is supposed to look like this, or even like these guys -- the deadlifting records of the last two guys being "only" 824.5lbs and 854.3lbs, respectively, despite both being World's Strongest Men more than once.
Of course, Strength 7 probably covers a lot more ground than just the strongest of the insanely strong. I doubt everyone with STR 7 is supposed to look like this, or even like these guys -- the deadlifting records of the last two guys being "only" 824.5lbs and 854.3lbs, respectively, despite both being World's Strongest Men more than once.
Thats what I think a lot of peopel dont get. With str 7 you DO look like that. Theres pretty much no way around it. STR 7 is your average troll, and those guys look like average trolls to me.
Might I suggest that what's being vastly underestimated here is the average strength of 2.7-meter-tall hulking humanoid monstrosities and not necessarily so much the deadlifting ability of the strongest 2% of the human population? Or have my prayers been answered and trolls are now more reasonably sized?
That's not to say 330lbs as the best a mundane, ware-free human can hope to lift off the ground isn't a bit pathetic. If with the best possible attributes (and skills) in that case you could at least achieve some 500lbs, then I'd be quite OK with that -- after all, most of the heavy crap shadowrunners might have to lift off the ground aren't going to be as easy to lift as small, dense metal weights on a rigid, easily gripped bar.
That's not to say 330lbs as the best a mundane, ware-free human can hope to lift off the ground isn't a bit pathetic. If with the best possible attributes (and skills) in that case you could at least achieve some 500lbs, then I'd be quite OK with that -- after all, most of the heavy crap shadowrunners might have to lift off the ground aren't going to be as easy to lift as small, dense metal weights on a rigid, easily gripped bar.
OK, I'm slightly out of shape. In addition I am somewhat muscular and have a dense skeletal structure. I am what Shadowrun considers an average human male height (175 cm), and I mass in at 104 kilograms. That's a lot.
And I can lift and carry people of my own weight. Just the fact that I can jump indicates that's probably true and I've had occassion to test it. And I have friends who can lift me. Sure, a lot of them can't, but lifting and carrying 104 kilograms just isn't out of line for a considerable segment of the population. The Shadowrun lifting capacities are low. Not astoundingly low for most purposes, just low.
Fundamentally, there is no way to fit the range of human lifting ability onto a linear scale in a satisfactory manner. Shadowrun made a bold attempt, but it's not possible to make that work. Strength just isn't linear in the real world, and there's no reason to attempt to model it that way. I've dragged a flipped car off a road, I've lifted 200 kg people into ambulances with two assistants. The fact is that a substantial portion of the population can routinely perform feats of strength that are many times more impressive than what another substantial portion of the population can perform.
And a linear scale is never going to do that satisfactorily. There are people half as strong as me. There are people half as strong as those people. There are people twice as strong as me. There are people twice as strong as those people. Most likely, lifting capacity should double with every strength point. And I'm not even kidding.
-Frank
And I can lift and carry people of my own weight. Just the fact that I can jump indicates that's probably true and I've had occassion to test it. And I have friends who can lift me. Sure, a lot of them can't, but lifting and carrying 104 kilograms just isn't out of line for a considerable segment of the population. The Shadowrun lifting capacities are low. Not astoundingly low for most purposes, just low.
Fundamentally, there is no way to fit the range of human lifting ability onto a linear scale in a satisfactory manner. Shadowrun made a bold attempt, but it's not possible to make that work. Strength just isn't linear in the real world, and there's no reason to attempt to model it that way. I've dragged a flipped car off a road, I've lifted 200 kg people into ambulances with two assistants. The fact is that a substantial portion of the population can routinely perform feats of strength that are many times more impressive than what another substantial portion of the population can perform.
And a linear scale is never going to do that satisfactorily. There are people half as strong as me. There are people half as strong as those people. There are people twice as strong as me. There are people twice as strong as those people. Most likely, lifting capacity should double with every strength point. And I'm not even kidding.
-Frank
i gotta agree with these guys here, the lifting specs are just off, i just finished a tour in the marines and rutinely had to carry or at least drag 200 lb guys around for mass casualty drills, either in firemans carries or dragging them on stretchers so everyoen had a stretcher and we could move more people. now i'm no "big boy" 5ft 7 180-190lbs but i didnt have a lick of trouble with doing this. and i have a bad knee
| QUOTE (FrankTrollman @ Nov 2 2005, 12:18 AM) |
| And a linear scale is never going to do that satisfactorily. There are people half as strong as me. There are people half as strong as those people. There are people twice as strong as me. There are people twice as strong as those people. Most likely, lifting capacity should double with every strength point. And I'm not even kidding. |
You'll catch some extremes better, but you aren't going to improve the model hugely using some simple function based only on something that has the large descreete steps of Str, or even Str & Body, without doing something like sending agmented Troll feats of strength to absurd levels. Especially with as few result states as the RAW has. You'd need to start messing with things like the movement rate, and finer detail with exhastion and have that influence by things such as exactly what actions you are taking, when & what you last ate, and on and on.
However a predefined table of Str vs. weights that was derived using a more complicated formula and/or eyeballing could provide some modest improvements with only the overhead of having a full table.
on the idea of a table, what do you think would be the effect of developing a baseline for each race, and then modified on some sort of bell curve to show diminishing returns/improvements?
Multiple tables/columns based on race would help get around the wierdness of the drastically smaller framed Dwarf of equal Str to a Troll lifting the same amount.
Though the thought of 5 separate entries, or even 3 separate entries per Str point doesn't really appeal to me. Besides Dorfs take a hit already for their size in their speed and equipment requiremnts.
EDIT: Besides this can be somewhat explained away by Dwarfs actually being stronger per weight than other metahumans for a given Str, even though they'd have a tougher time with awkward, bulky loads....which aren't really modeled outside the fluff comment in the machine gun firearms section about only strong Trolls weilding them like a standard firearm.
Though the thought of 5 separate entries, or even 3 separate entries per Str point doesn't really appeal to me. Besides Dorfs take a hit already for their size in their speed and equipment requiremnts.
EDIT: Besides this can be somewhat explained away by Dwarfs actually being stronger per weight than other metahumans for a given Str, even though they'd have a tougher time with awkward, bulky loads....which aren't really modeled outside the fluff comment in the machine gun firearms section about only strong Trolls weilding them like a standard firearm.
If you're saying that as characters' Strengths rise higher and higher their lifting abilities would increase relatively less and less, then I think that's a really bad idea. Going from the apparent average of STR 3 to the unmodified human max of STR 7, lifting ability should certainly at least double, perhaps almost triple.
well, ok, lets say we eleiminate the bell curve, and just do a flat chart, something like
| CODE |
race average str Base lift +/- rate Human 3 75 15 kg troll 5 300 50 |
Note, that none of those numbers actually mean much, as im not looking at a book right now, just something to give a format to it
I'm thinking closer to Frank's suggestion of doubling per point. Not quite that much, but close. And more multiplier increase (EDIT: per point) going from Str 1 to Str 3 than Str 3 to Str 7. So going from Str 1 lifting say 10kg overhead (20 lbs. is a lot for some people, to much for some but such is the problem with only 7 points) to Str 7 routinely lifting something like 15x more (150kg) overhead without having to make a check. Doubling per step would make it 32x.
@Aku: Base is what you can lift up, and 1/3 that Overhead? That's getting in the range of what i was thinking.
@Aku: Base is what you can lift up, and 1/3 that Overhead? That's getting in the range of what i was thinking.
correct blakie, and while i think a bell curve would be nice (going from 2 to 1 has less reduction than going from 3 to 2, but i also don't beleive that i should need a math degree to play the game.
| QUOTE (Aku @ Nov 2 2005, 10:55 AM) |
| correct blakie, and while i think a bell curve would be nice (going from 2 to 1 has less reduction than going from 3 to 2, but i also don't beleive that i should need a math degree to play the game. |
That's why you as a player/GM would use a table that has something like a natural log curve shape encoded into it.
EDIT: That's the shape i think you should be going for, not a bell curve, or even the intergral (cumulative under the curve), which models something different than what you are looking for.
see, those are the things that make me not want to play a game that requires a math degree (or, atleast doesnt cause headaches) granted, it's been a while since i've done anything related to trig...
| QUOTE (blakkie) |
| without doing something like sending agmented Troll feats of strength to absurd levels. |
Who cares? Augmented trolls should be really strong. Having a Reaction of nine after augmentation generally allows you to take on and defeat an entire van full of unaugmented assailants, having a strength of 15 should be more impressive than that because it is more. You should be able to pick up and throw the whole damned van. Your bare hands have the power level of a monowhip or a sniper rifle before you even get into tearing actions where you can generate the power level of an assault canon or rocket. That's massively superhuman, and that should reflect in the feats of strength your character can do.
Picking up and throwing vehicles is beyond human capacity, but so is a strength of 11. People who have strengths of 11 and more should be able to routinely perform feats of strength that we can't even imagine a human being being able to pull off with a lucky break. Old women can lift up the front end of a volkswagon for very short periods when properly motivated. Young augmented trolls should hurl those things around on a whim.
The primary reason that strength is such a dump stat is because even if you went around like Pokemon and caught it all, strength is never allowed to do anything cool. Well, fuck that. Seriously. It's about time that really strong characters got some love.
-Frank
| QUOTE (FrankTrollman @ Nov 2 2005, 01:00 PM) | ||
Who cares? Augmented trolls should be really strong. |
I definately agree to a point, they should rock the house. I should have been more explicit in what i saw as the unacceptable "absurd" line. For example being in the range of able to lift overhead a fully loaded, battle ready Abrams M1A2 falls into my "absurd" catagory.
That's some where in the 65 - 70 metric tonne range. Starting at 5kg overhead for Str 1, and doubling every step up to Str 15 gives you 2^14 * 5kg= 16384 * 5kg = 81,920kg = 82 metric tonne.Now you could do something like 1.45^14 * 5kg to give you about 900kg. That's in the range of the curb weight for a current day compact car. Er, sure that's out there. But you make a good case that so is an 8 foot tall behemoth with vat job muscles. *shrug* However i wouldn't call that simple, at least not something i would consider simple for the vast majority of players/GMs to buy into calculating in the middle of the game.
Frankly i wouldn't even expect the general gaming public to do 2^(STR-1) * 5 kg and would even avoid asking people to to square a 2-digit number for STR^2 * 5kg (which i think is actually a better curve)....unless i was some teacher that thought it was so cunningly devious
slipping in multiplication tables expecting that players would not notice and would think it made "math fun" because it is in a game.
In an entirely separate concern, I don't think that making the augmented limit into a multiple of the normal limit is a good idea. The game mechanics of those dice are linear, and so the values of the dice should increase linearly.
A lot of stupid could be resolved if both the augmented ability and skill cap were changed to "+3" instead of weird multiples. That would cap a Troll at 13 Strength, just as it would cap skills at a point that made any sense at all.
Of course, the ability of a fully augmented troll to lift 20 tonnes over their head is a little weird sounding as well. But considering that they are actually the size of a forklift that can lift 2 tonnes over their head, that's not out of the ballbark for consideration. I can imagine that a man the size of a forklift who had tweaked himself out to perfection and beyond through advanced cybertechnology and magic could lift ten times what the diesel powered forklift could. It gives a John Henry feel to the experience, but I'm pretty OK with that.
-Frank
A lot of stupid could be resolved if both the augmented ability and skill cap were changed to "+3" instead of weird multiples. That would cap a Troll at 13 Strength, just as it would cap skills at a point that made any sense at all.
Of course, the ability of a fully augmented troll to lift 20 tonnes over their head is a little weird sounding as well. But considering that they are actually the size of a forklift that can lift 2 tonnes over their head, that's not out of the ballbark for consideration. I can imagine that a man the size of a forklift who had tweaked himself out to perfection and beyond through advanced cybertechnology and magic could lift ten times what the diesel powered forklift could. It gives a John Henry feel to the experience, but I'm pretty OK with that.
-Frank
Why don't you just make up a chart graphing all those nifty equations for those of us that are more or less mathematiclly-challenged? 
Pretty please ...
Pretty please ...
| QUOTE (FrankTrollman) |
| In an entirely separate concern, I don't think that making the augmented limit into a multiple of the normal limit is a good idea. The game mechanics of those dice are linear, and so the values of the dice should increase linearly. A lot of stupid could be resolved if both the augmented ability and skill cap were changed to "+3" instead of weird multiples. That would cap a Troll at 13 Strength, just as it would cap skills at a point that made any sense at all. |
I could get behind that choice, although in no small part because it also would have gotten rid of the round-off from the x 1.5. Eliminating round-offs of course being something dear to my heart.
| QUOTE (Fortune) |
| Why don't you just make up a chart graphing all those nifty equations for those of us that are more or less mathematiclly-challenged? Pretty please ... |
I'll link a general curve. First X squared (X^2) is shaped like the one on the page. The difference is that the "-x-2" part of the formula slides the whole thing down and to the right, X^2 has the lowest part of the curve where the two axis' of the graph cross (0,0).
The 1.45^X one is basically like a savings account with compounding interest of 45% (coming from (1.45 - 1)*100%= 45%) per interest period. I don't see anything handy on the internet that shows the curve, common loan interest calculators often don't handle this kind of number because of usury laws (it'd be considered loan sharking
), and they often are hard to get to show the pure function anyway because accountants sometimes have their own special calculation twists thrown in. It is a geometric function that goes in the same direction as X^2, but it starts out a bit flater and eventually goes into steeper climb.
My bad! I meant a table. Something that goes like ...
Strength 1 - 15kg - 5kg
...
Strength 13 - 2 tonnes - 750kg
A table, you know? So I can understand without thinking too hard.
Strength 1 - 15kg - 5kg
...
Strength 13 - 2 tonnes - 750kg
A table, you know? So I can understand without thinking too hard.
| QUOTE (Fortune) |
| A table, you know? So I can understand without thinking too hard. |
Or so that I can understand PERIOD.
| QUOTE |
Anyone who cannot cope with mathematics is not fully human. At best he is a tolerable subhuman who has learned to wear shoes, bathe and not make messes in the house. |
-Robert A. Heinlein
For all you tolerable subhumans:
Strength x^2 x^2.2 1.45^(X-1)
1.....5.....5.....5
2.....20.....23.....7
3.....45.....56.....11
4.....80.....106.....15
5.....125.....172.....22
6.....180.....258.....32
7.....245.....362.....46
8.....320.....485.....67
9.....405.....628.....98
10.....500.....792.....142
11.....605.....977.....205
12.....720.....1184.....298
13.....845.....1411.....432
14.....980.....1661.....626
15.....1125.....1934.....908
As maximum human strength (from Olympic stuff AE posted) seems to be in the ~360kg range, I added some fiddling (X^2.2 that would get str 7 in that lifting range)
the 1.45 ^X curve is too shallow at the low end, str 7 needs to be around 300-400 kg unless there is something to add to lifting stats.
[edit]
These would be max lift amounts, for a measure of 'casual strength' try looking at str -2
So if you had str 7, your casual lift would be 172 kg.
[/edit]
| QUOTE |
Anyone who cannot cope with [ code] is not fully human. At best he is a tolerable subhuman who has learned to wear shoes, bathe and not make messes in the house. --Aku |
For all you tolerable subhumans:
| CODE |
Strength x^2 x^2.2 1.45^(X-1) 1 5 5 5 2 20 23 7 3 45 56 11 4 80 106 15 5 125 172 22 6 180 258 32 7 245 362 46 8 320 485 67 9 405 628 98 10 500 792 142 11 605 977 205 12 720 1184 298 13 845 1411 432 14 980 1661 626 15 1125 1934 908 |
(no offense ment, Crusher... just thought i'd make it look purty for ya.
Much obliged.
| QUOTE (Crusher Bob) | ||
-Robert A. Heinlein For all you tolerable subhumans: |
.... a new kind of voting booth?
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