I can press 155# over my head all day. Does that mean I have shadowrun strength of 14?

Do the rules for lifting and carying bother anyone else. Has anyone come up with a fix for this?

Personally i think humans should work somwhere in a range of 15kg @ str 1 to 140kg @ str 6. is there an easy way to model this for the game then map that to women and other races?

I think many have been concerned about various things that are unrealistic in the rules. Though, with 6 dice to represent all possible human strength, there is only so much you can do..

If you are really concerned, house rule it to something you are comfortable with. I don't think anyone can come up with a rule that everyone can agree with that's realistic and easy to use, though.

actually Im wondering if it's even posible to come up with a rule that's realistid AND easy to use. I'll have to play with it some more.

Another thing that bothers me is that trolls shouldn't have to use the same rule as humans even with their larger curve.

Some one must have come up with a fix for this already tho.

well lets see.
the average male
body weight is about 170lbs
bench press 135lbs --little under body weight--
deadlift 200lbs (with a little training in body mechanics) --little over body weight--
shoulder press 120lbs --little under body weight less than bench press--
squat 200lbs (300 on back) --little over body weight, double body weight on back--

now i house rule that a character's body weight = (body+strength)*28.3
works pretty well i think. i'll let edges or flaws modify that when it makes sence

The lifting rules are some of the few things that I have houseruled. Looking at them, I got the feeling that they were designed so that if you got a really good roll, you could lift the maximum weight that is realistic for someone with your Strength and Body. This is very flawed because it expects the wieght you can lift to vary wildly from attempt to attempt and for you to only lift your maximum weight if you are lucky. In fact, your 1RM is very easy to repeat (albeit not in rapid succession or it would be your 6RM, wouldn't it? ).

So basically, I took the swinginess out of it and created my own formula. These are in my house rules collection. I left in some swinginess in my formula (i.e. dice rolling) rather than a fixed formula, because I wanted to keep some similarity to the original rules and because I wanted to keep some dice rolling involved for desparate situations.

Note, you can't just make a linear formula that works for the whole Strength and Body scale, because the attribute scores themselves are not linear. There is more room at the top than there is at the bottom because very few people reach their potential. Someone with Strength 2 (a low average) or 3 (a high average) is not lifting a third to a half the weight that someone with Strength 6 (around the limits of natural human strength) is. They aren't normally lifting close to that. Most people are below "average" if you intepret average to be the Mean (add all values and divide by the number of them). So the most accurate way you could do this would be to create some look-up tables. For game purposes, I just use my own house rules in the link.

Hope this helps,

K.

*hugs Knasser* Those Houserules are handy, will be using them in my next game (Especially the Hacker/Logic one. I hate how you can have a competent Hacker with a Logic of 1.)

Most people can't even hold their arms over their head for more than 15 minutes or so. Repetitions are much easier.

A lot of SR's metrics aren't intuitive...I'd guess because they're mostly designed around the idea of short, intensive bursts of energy...and still running headlong into turn-based issues.

For example, the movement rates are absurdly high - SR's standard human non-accelerated "run" speed is 8.33 m/s...the accepted world record is about 12 m/s, IIRC...and that's the 100 yard dash - over any appreciably longer (or shorter, since sprinters don't hit their maximum speed until about halfway through the dash) distance you can expect that to plummet. Conversely - once you start moving you can't stop for 3 whole seconds (without IP enhancers, anyway.)

So, could you hold that 155 lbs over your head, and sprint around at world-competition speeds while getting shot at?


I do, however, agree that the deviation is too extreme.

Can I say for a moment, that lifting significant amounts of weight is actually a trained skill? Body posture, mechanics, transference and so on? Just because you've got massive thighs, a strong back and good arms that doesn't mean you're a power lifter. Soldiers TRAIN to move and fight with 100 pounds / 45 kilos of kit all over their body and in their ruck. The average healthy person has trouble even lifting an 80 pound ruck. It's not all brute strength, a lot of it it is training.

K. first let me be clear that the "all Day" part of my claim was an exageration What I meant was some days i do that at work. Not that I stand and hold that weight above my head.

I've been doing some research and apparently quite a few people have pressed 500# (call it 225 kg) So I'm calling that Human Strength 7. I figure when they wrote the book on Atributes they weren't thinking about kids So I'm calling a press of 15kg human strength 1. I max around 80kg and i feel like I might be a 3.5 or a 4 so I've got my curve. I'll do a little excell work and get back to this later.

Also gonna look at Knassers stuff. (Thanks man I knew some one had always done it.

where does 28.3 come from?

Fooey. I wasn't trying to pick on you. I was just suggesting that attempting to lift and carry above a certain amount should be a check with STR+"Lifting". I think powerlifting is as much a skill as swimming or running. It takes practice to perfect the techniques. I guess I'm saying I'm not too upset with the base rules as they apply to people who don't lift items over 20kg regularly and toss them around. Who would posses this skill? Hmmm... the UPS guy? How about an auto mechanic? The slot working for B&L (Buy & Large, from WALL-E, if I never saw a more 6^th World corp, that was it) as a stock drone? Silly men practicing to carry their bride across the threshold without throwing out their back and making an ass out of themselves by making the woman do all the work of consumating the mariage? Military leg infantrymen? Construction workers?

See the idea? It's a way of quantifying how good you are at applying what strength you have EFFECTIVELY just like Running and Swimming. Specializations would include: Power Lifting, Endurance Carrying (read: military), Repetitive and finally Holding (keeping things off the ground for extended periods, like holding a big heavy piece of equipment in place for somebody else to bolt it down). Probably make it a part of the Athletics Group, even if that makes the group over-loaded, but it's a "minor" skill.

Would the extra dice be enough to start getting closer to your numbers? Competition power lifter STR 6 + Lifting 5 + Power Lifting Specialization 2 = 14 dice, or about 5 hits? In competition, you spend edge and 6's explode. So that takes you to an average of about 7 hits.

Someone said once that having a high strength was a disadvantage in SR4 because it means your GM might actually look up how the lifting rules work.

Hells no. I as a GM ain't looking up no lifting rules for high strength characters, that would be silly, I'd much rather eye ball it and roll with the punches, always leaning in favour of cinematic. If they have a problem with it they can look up the rules AFTER the current scene or before the game and determine how generous I really am.

Now that mage that comes to my table with Str 1 and that "I'm a feeble/sick person" flaw on the other hand... where's those rules again? How heavy are their research books? Are they about to get pinned to the ground by a vicious encycolpedia and starve cause the next run ain't for 3 weeks and their Gremlins of 4 fries their home-net when they try placing a com-call for aid? Ya... good times.

Then again any mage who can't levitate, disintagrate or otherwise manage a few books deserves worse.

I definitely agree that there needs to be a lifting skill. Lifting was a skill in SR3 but it had it's probs. IIRC you could make a week character that could outlift a strong character. IDK how it would work in SR4 but it would definitly need to be caped by the attribute.

In your scenario a professional lifter spening edge would be weaker than I am. bod 6 + Str 6 + (14 die skill roll with explodeing 6's) would max about 95 KG wich is really really weak. (maybe the future is turning every one into little sissy boyz)

@ Knasser:
I really like the idea of taking body out of the equasion and keeping the weight per sucess at 5 & 10 Kg. I'm curious why you were so generous with the base numbers tho. 30kgs per point of strenght for an overhead lift is pretty generous.
.
My xcell curves arent giving me the numbers I'm looking for. I open Xcell maybe twice a year tho. I can't figure out how to find a curve that fits all three points. a linear trend changes strength 4 to 120 kg and a growth trend end up at 9000kg at strength 15.

I think I like the idea of combining Knassers rule with Karenshara's skill.

doble post

you should be able to turn the data into a graph, then right click on one of the plot points, choose "add trendline" and then select a quadratic trendline. show the equation while you're at it (or do you mean it's not coming up with a reasonable trendline? more points may be required in that case...)

I would daresay the lifting skill hits would merely add dice to the Body + Str test. You know, in a similar manner as a situational modifier.

Perhaps lifting should be Body + (Str x 2) for a check with existing numbers / hit?

The few times where it's come up for me in previous editions I always ran it as you were able to carry / lift the str x value without a check for (Body) minutes. 3 Body + 3 Str = 45 kg for 3 minutes. Mind you, that would be standing there, bracing yourself to hold it without any problems or extra effort. If you needed to lift more than that, it was a test. Generally we simply winged it as to how hard the test needed to be.

We found that following the idea of the carrying rules from 2nd Edition AD&D worked well enough for our purposes. Hence our process above that we used in SR1 & 2.

Thanks I'll try again this weekend.

@ darthmord:
Actually I'm thinking of eliminating the body attribute from the equasion entirely.
Specifically a character can lift #>5kg (I think 30kg is too much) per point of strength pluss 5kg per success on a Str + Lifting skill test. (for an overhead lift.)

Thanks I'll try again this weekend.

@ darthmord:
Actually I'm thinking of eliminating the body attribute from the equasion entirely.
Specifically a character can lift #>5kg (I think 30kg is too much) per point of strength pluss 5kg per success on a Str + Lifting skill test. (for an overhead lift.)