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Maximum human strength
Thu, 2006-11-30 12:28 — Esteemed Visitor 2 (not verified)1. Things look good. Though re "This suggests that ST is a dervied attribute of mass", I would prefer to say that it simply suggests the two have the correlation noted, not that ST is a derived attribute of mass. Or do I miss a key point there?
Well, realistically strength is going to be limited by mass - given peak muscular development a 150 lb man will be stronger than a 125 lb man. In a sense, the default value of ST should be based on useful body mass. The 30% variation was arbitrary - since GURPS allows secondary characteristics to vary by +/- 30%, I decided to try a maximum of +30% over Strength predicted by body weight.
2. So far so good... That is, I can't say that the assumption about how much extra Lifting ST a weightlifter can reasonably add is a "correct" assumption, but it's not jumping out as objectionable either. And any assumption of the "neither good nor bad" persuasion starts falling on the side of "good" when backed by a reasonable-sounding rationale like yours. : ) So forging onward:
3. Man, it's always hard to turn the hodge-podge of weight-lift info out there into game bits, but that never stops us from trying... I too have some Snatch vs Clean & Jerk vs Double-Spasm Quadra Heave ratios that I came up with. Let me dig those up, and see whether they match yours.
As I said, they were fairly arbitrary. I knew that based on world records a. they should both be less than Bench Press and b. the two lifts should have a 5 to 6 ratio. I then guesstimated Bench Press at BL x7 or 8 simply because it sounded right.
4. Glad to see that you're considering both Lifting and Extra Effort. And I agree: the RAW allow bonuses to really pile up, so for a realistic consideration, it's best to choose some flat +X% as the probable standard bonus for record-setting lifts. Until we know better, the arbitrary +25% is as good as any other shot in the dark.
And on to the example: yes, your assumptions do work out nicely for that example.
Well, yes but I did tweak it a little to fit. The strength involved in a Clean & Jerk or Snatch is more narrowly focused than Lifting ST so you might instead increase the maximum from Lifting skill to say +50% and maximum Lifting ST to 2.9 times cube root of weight. The assumptions can be changed - I just thought it amusing if you started with the assumption that ST was a secondary characteristic of mass and plugged in these other assumptions maximum lift was pretty close to the world record
The upshot of the post, as I see it, is: we now have a nice formula setting a minimum reasonable weight for a given lifting ability in humans, based on some defensible assumptions.
But I'm missing something regarding the main point: the max ST of 18. Is that just working backward from the top weightlifting records? Or are you drawing this conclusion of 18 from human body weight? Something's not registering with me.
My fault for being a little too cute. The "18" is actually from the formula for determining the minimum body weight to support a given ST - cube the ST and divide by 18. I don't make any assumptions about maximum overall human ST - just maximum for a given weight. I think the highest record required a Lifting ST of 21 or so based on this model. Incidentally the NY Times had an article recently about the 345 lb winner of the world's strongest man contest - a firefighter by trade. Based on my model, a 345 lb man (assuming he's not fat) would have a base ST of 14 for mass only, a maximum ST of 18 and a maximum lifting ST of 22. So perhaps 18 is the maximum for base ST.
What I like about this also is that if you combine it with the rules for negative encumbrance there's a strong incentive to make agile characters like acrobats and climbers small wiry guys. Now I just need to write up positive and negative encumbrance as meta-traits and add rules for incorporating mass into grappling.
-DW