Something I'm finding while creating characters for SR4: The descriptions for attributes really do not say much.

Say, for humans:

What kind of people have Agility 5? Body 5? Strength 5? Intuition 4? Logic 2? (And so on and so forth)

What do the attribute ratings MEAN in real life?

agility 5- can work as background for cirque du soleil, bend over backwards and touch their hands flat to the ground, catch a fly in mid flight
strenhgth 5 - can run jump swim climb etc really well.
body 5 - one word, lineman (as in football)
Intuition 4 - it hard to sneak anything past this person, but not impossible
logic 2 George Bush

Someone should come up with a table like the skills have for this... Although I'm sure that you can draw conclusions from real life and argue over them for a time

mentioning RL comparisons sometimes gets one flamed, be carefull.

but about your question;

STRENGTH
in real life having a strength of 6 --the maxumum posible for a natural human that's not on drugs--means that you can lift a wopping 66lbs, over your head without even trying.

If you're healthy, and of average size for a human, (you have a body of 3) and you try real hard you could lift 99lbs. over your head.

It is metaphysicaly imposible for a real life shadowrunner to lift more than 132lbs. over his head.

Normal humans who have never trained, (have a strength of 3 and running skill of 0), can run a little more than 20 miles an hour.

A really strong olympic level sprinter, (has strength of 6 and running skill 6), can run 31 miles an hour.

BODY
As mentioned above if you're of normal size, have normal bone dencity, and healty cardiovascular and hormonal systems you have a body of 3.

A normal person who's been shot by a small pistol can recover completely without outside intervention in 2 days. (provided the damage wasn't increased by the shooter somehow managing to hit the shootee in a bone or vital organ or major artery.)

Higher body stats indicate both better resistance to physical trauma, pathogens and disease. You heal faster as well though even a troll with 15 points of body requires one day to heal one box of damage.

It would be interesting if some of the Balistics experts could post some of their knowledge of wounds in this thread to see how *realistic* the body attribute isn't.

REACTION
to day some of the fastest reaction times recorded were those of race car drivers. the test was to stand in front of a pannel of buttons and punch the butten when they lit up. The fastest of those tested averaged 0.24 seconds to complete the task. (the study was in an old magazine I'll try to find it so I can post a reference.)

there is a reaction test you can take here I averaged 202 miliseconds with a standard deviation of 44.92 on my second try. My guess is that I probably have average reaction times. We'll get a better idea if more people take the test and post their results. I bet there are some gamers who can cut that time in half.

LOGIC
if the right person reads this thread he/she will probably be able to make a good arguement that Logic maps directly to todays IQ tests.

Personaly I don't think you can test inteligence. 14 years ago I scored 1450 on my SAT test that was the same year I flunked out of school. Interestingly, the first time I took the Reaction test linked above, it took me 1.8 seconds to figure out that I was supposed to be using the KEYBOARD I think my logic attribute is broken.

The other attrubutes, agility, intuition and will are too esoteric to be quantified.

Clear as mud?

No, humans have generally stopped improving genetically. In fact, we're probably going backwards. We treat diseases and let people with inferior genes breed. We prop up the weak/slow/clumsy/frail/stupid/oblivious/etc with charity and social programs (thus letting them breed). Natural selection seems to have been thwarted.

[edit] Not that that's wrong per se. [/edit]

Dispelling Misconception of natural selection:

You actually CAN'T thrawt natural selection. Natural selection is the process whereby environmental factors effect what traits are passed on to the next generation. Our environment just happens to be vastly different than, say, prehistoric africa. Survival of the fittest doesn't mean that the most fit survive. Actually, frequently obviously superior traits wind up getting bread out because they require too many resources (example: larger species are harder to feed during lean times despite being in most ways superior physically to smaller ones), and traits that actually inhibit survival can propigate if they aid or at least don't hinder reproduction (example: Peacocks). Truely, survival of the fittest means that which survives, is declared fit. Congratulations.

Furthermore, traits that were previously advantagous can become disadvantageous, and vice versa. For example, a thick fur coat during an Ice age is excellent, but 10,000 years later its the bald freaks who are doing better.

For the first reason, natural selection never stops acting on us, because anything other than deliberate genetic selection for certain traits is natural selection. Only a population where all breeding is done through cloneing would escape natural selection. All that modern convienience has done is change what traits are selected for. The ability to get along well with other humans is now more important than your ability to survive getting hit by a Mammoth.

For the second reason, The very idea of definitively "fit" traits is a fallacy. What traits are eseful or not depend entirely on the environment. The environment changes, and the fitness of traits change as well.


Ponder this: Humanity is the only species capable of thinking about the nature of the universe. This has given us many a breakthrough that makes our lives easier, but it also allows us to examine and adopt abstract principles that we are willing to die for. Only Humans commit suicide or go to war over ideology. Is sentience REALLY a survival trait?

Support your statements with quotes form the book, 200 word essay, due next monday.

Onetrikpony - I dunno if this helps, but I got 211.9 with a standard deviation of 19.61... after three beers. I'd say you're about average.

@jervinator

Dude! you're biasing the experiment! Sober up and do it again.!!! !

That's a pretty close time, I took a flexoril when I got home from work. So we've proven so far that 3 beers is roughly equal to 10mg of cyclobenzapriin.

Interesting that you were more consistent than I was. I should start drinking befor I draw.

Still no one is bothered that the pinacle of human strength can only press 130 pounds?

No one is opening the can of worms about logic 3 being equal to an IQ of 100?

Should I start the fire? OK

Intuition is the innate cabability to process information in the forebrain. Girls should have an average intuition of 4. So there!

I disagree Ben. Even though I'm far from a Body and Strength of 6 in RL, I wouldn't be able to look like The Governator or even a body-builder. My frame simply wouldn't support it. I'm Irish/Scottish, so I'd be maybe a little thicker than I am now and very wiry and toned but not bulky or super muscular. RL comparisons to Shadowrun stats just end up like the ridiculous skill level chart and make you groan every time you see it.

I got a 257.0 with a deviation of 38.53 after staying awake about 16 hours with only 4 hours sleep. Not sure how that works out. I'll try it on one of my days off and see how I do.

I'd agree with the women get 4 intuition base but they also have a logic of 2 and automatically get the vindictive flaw

To add to the data set, I got a 179.8 with a standard deviation of 43.99 on that test.

My reaction is bigger than your reaction! *double finger snap*

To be fair, I did take it multiple times, and that was the best score out of the lot.

I never ever intended to imply girls (females) were inferior. If you read that regrettable thread you'll see that some of the complaints bemoaned a charisma bonus to offset a strength penalty. If some nut were to try to implement a similar strength penalty and offset it with a bonus to intuition (or vise versa for males) I believe the protests would be similar. (Strength being often considered a dump stat.)

P.S. Best I don't drive either. 238.3 sigma 48.7 (got one lucky twitch).

On teh lifting issue, you can hoist 15 KG per point of strength with no effort at all, and, if you exert, you get Body + Str to test, with each hit adding 15 KG to your lift.

So, Average Guy with 3 + 3 can lift 45 KG without trying hard, or 75 KG with some grunting. (That's about 100 lbs and 165 lbs, respectively).

Big Meaty Guy with a Body of 4 and a Str of 5 can do 75 KG without a problem and 120 KG with effort. (165 lbs and 265, there.)

A bigtime powerlifter with Body 6 and Strength 6 can lift 90 KG all day like it was nothing, up to 150 KG with effort, and, if he wants to use edge to win a contest, could go as high as 270 KG on his best day. (200 lbs, 330 lbs, and 600 lbs, respectively)

It's a tad weaker than people actually can, but not by much and close enough to count. Yes, there are power lifters (Such as Mark Henry) who can hoist a thousand pounds (A solid 500 KG!), but, they hold this sort of thing for three seconds at best and, well, very controlled situations.

Don't really see the complaint, here.

It appears Wakshaani was using expected successes of 1/3 * (str + bod) for hits. Your math does max theoretical. His math does expected.

Yeah, with the exception of Powerlifting Guy, I was on the "One die in three is a hit" concept, which is why it's a bit low.

Of course, a Glitch is gonna suck.

"Hercules! Hercules lift with your legs!"

"Ack!"

"Hercules, what's wrong?!"

"My back! I've thrown it out."

"Oh no!"

"Do not worry. I will lie here for a while, it will fix itself."

The average ability score is not 3. It is 2. There was a big thread on this not long ago. To summarise, 3 is not the average just because it is in the midpoint of the possible scale. There are (for illustrative purposes) twice as many people with Strength 2 as there are with Strength 3, for example. Reasons for this are that it makes sense and is supported by the book.

To take the less controversial one first, it makes sense that there are more people at the bottom end of the scale than there are at the top because very few people reach their potential. That means there has to be room at the top of the scale for someone who has a high natural ability and also develops it to the fullest. Given that the majority of people do not, logically the most common attribute is below the midpoint of the scale. I expect Hyzmarca or another could put it in mathematical terms. But basically, there is more room at the top. This also makes sense from a game mechanics point of view.

The average of 2 is also supported by the book with the following:
Firstly, it's on the same scale as the skills, where 2 is explicitly stated as the average for a professional in that category. This is a weak argument, but I consider it supporting.
Secondly, the conversion rules from SR3 to SR4 explicitly state that previous attributes of 3 translate to 2 now. Basically there has been a deliberate realigning of the scales.

Understanding that 2 is actually human average is a very good thing in my experience because it tones down player expectations for their characters and lets them feel they have a competent character even if all their scores aren't at 4+. Unlike earlier editions, SR4 seems to be geared towards lower attribute levels and if Joe Average is Body 2, then that makes players less bothered about being Body 4. By cranking down the scores a little, it also gives the GM more room at the top for maneuvre. It lets someone with Strength 7 be really strong for example, whilst you don't need that differentiation for the physically weak.

Anyway, a couple of separate points are that IQ is not necessarily a good translation of Logic. Aside from the question of what IQ tests actually measure, and the fact that you can learn how to beat them which kind of mocks the whole idea unless you think you're also massively increasing your brain power when you do so, is the big conceptual problem that they are quotients according to your age. To illustrate, I scored 160 on an IQ test when I was in my early teens. If I took one now, I would probably score lower. Does that mean I'm less intelligent? Well, I'm less convinced that I know everything but all it really shows is that I'm no longer as far ahead of the curve than I was.

On the issue of Strength, I wouldn't touch the SR4 lifting rules with a 7' barbell. They were obviously designed so that with the right amount of edge and some good rolls, you can hit your maximum weight. That's ridiculous because it means your average lifting test scores far below this. Whereas the difference between what you can lift at your best, and what you can lift when you're not trying so hard is actually very small. There were some better rules posted here a while back. I'll look them up if anyone is interested. Argue what you like for the attributes, but never use the lifting rules to justify them. They're the worst written rules in the game.

And Bush? I've seen no evidence that he's a genius but I very much doubt that he's as stupid as he pretends to be. There's plenty of polliing evidence to show that the american public would far rather vote for a well-meaning but dumb person who "cares" than a smart seeming guy. So that's what the public are offered. His job is basically to distract public attention from what's really going on and every misleaderation does a superb job of doing that. Particularly with those people who feel smugly superior to him. Logic 2? Logic 3 at least with a relatively high Con score, too.

Wakashanni and blakkie are both wrong. Ok not wrong but have missed the point.

I said that the BBB says you can lift 5kg per point of strength OVER YOUR HEAD.

Wakashaani says

Hmm yeah page 130 for 'over the head' is off.

I would treat that for full arm extensions.

5kg per point over head is badly weak.

15kg = Max pickup. Proper 'lifting' etc.

10kg = carry weight.

5kg = Full arm extension weight maybe.