Size: My size vs Mongoose's

[Utgardloki]

Well, I guess Mongoose Publishing is bigger than I am...

I did not find a table in the new Runequest rulebook that indicates how big a character is of a certain size. I found that disappointing. I made my own size and weight tables for a game system I was developing, but this departs from traditional runequest in the following ways:

* Standard human sizes run from 3-18.

* Small characters have a negative size.

* A size difference of 30 equates to one size category in D20.

I used a simple formula for translating Size to Weight:

Weight in pounds = 80*2^(Size/10).

If you prefer Metric, then you can use:

Mass in kg = 36*2^(Size/10)

Height was determined from the cube root of weight and the average height of 70 inches. So a change of 10 in Size equals a doubling of weight, and a change of 30 equals a doubling of height.

Height in inches = (Weight in pounds/160)^0.3*70.

(Height in cm could be calculated similarly.)

I think the MRQ mechanics still will work. The main difference is that the size ratings of nonhuman creatures would have to be modified accordingly.

Size and weight values from my spreadsheet:

SIZE   WEIGHT   MASS   HEIGHT
3        98 lb        44 kg    61 inches/154 cm
6        121 lb      55 kg    64 inches/162 cm
9        149 lb      67 kg    69 inches/175 cm
12      184 lb      83 kg    73 inches/185 cm
15      226 lb      102 kg  78 inches/198 cm
18      279 lb      126 kg  83 inches/210 cm

Which explains how come I want to provide a -4 adjustment for females' Size.

 

[atgxtg]

According to those who have seen the companion, the SIZ table in in it and it appears to match up with the one in RQ3.

I put up an RQ3 table on the board earlier for someone.


THe RQ3 forumula is close to yours buy uses evey +8 as a doubling rather than +10.


Mass (kg)= 25*2^(SIZ/8 ).
Weight (lbs)= 55*2^(SIZ/8 ).

THis doesn''t hold true for sizes below 8, or for SIZE past 95 or so.





So a SIZ 50 in MRQ (32 times nomral human SIZ) would be around 4186 lb, that is about a SIZ 57 in your system. or about a 15% adjustment.

If you wanted to you could table out the RQ3/MRQ sizes with your SIZes and see how close they compare so you would know how to shift the monsters.

Persoanlly I don't reccomed the idea, as you are going to have to rewrite all themonsters and adjust SIZ, STR, db and Hit Points to reflect the differernt masses for the SIZ ratings.

That's a lot of work.






RQ2 also had a SIZ chart in the book (way in the back) and used a 3D6 SIZ range, but the chart does not convert easily to a fomula (at least not one that I've been able to decipher yet).

 

[Utgardloki]

So a SIZ 50 in MRQ (32 times nomral human SIZ) would be around 4186 lb, that is about a SIZ 57 in your system. or about a 15% adjustment.

If you wanted to you could table out the RQ3/MRQ sizes with your SIZes and see how close they compare so you would know how to shift the monsters.

Persoanlly I don't reccomed the idea, as you are going to have to rewrite all themonsters and adjust SIZ, STR, db and Hit Points to reflect the differernt masses for the SIZ ratings.

That's a lot of work.

I guess if Size 57 works, then everything else should line up alright. After all, what is the true size of a Dragon or a Catoblepas anyway?

Handling the little people would be harder, since I'd have to convert Sizes less than 8 to negative numbers. But it can be done.

I foresee using a lot of D20 monsters anyway, so I'll just convert things as I need them. Most of my stuff is D&D, so it needs to be converted to Runequest.

 

[atgxtg]

So a SIZ 50 in MRQ (32 times nomral human SIZ) would be around 4186 lb, that is about a SIZ 57 in your system. or about a 15% adjustment.

If you wanted to you could table out the RQ3/MRQ sizes with your SIZes and see how close they compare so you would know how to shift the monsters.

Persoanlly I don't reccomed the idea, as you are going to have to rewrite all themonsters and adjust SIZ, STR, db and Hit Points to reflect the differernt masses for the SIZ ratings.

That's a lot of work.

I guess if Size 57 works, then everything else should line up alright. After all, what is the true size of a Dragon or a Catoblepas anyway?

Handling the little people would be harder, since I'd have to convert Sizes less than 8 to negative numbers. But it can be done.

I foresee using a lot of D20 monsters anyway, so I'll just convert things as I need them. Most of my stuff is D&D, so it needs to be converted to Runequest.

Who, no negative SIZ needed. THe difference between the two systems isn't flat. A SIZ 13 in RQ converts over to around SIZ 10-11 in your system.So you don't subtract 8 at the small end. THe old RQ2/3 SIZ conversion chart should handle the human sized creatures, and hereuslt can be done using the RQ3 SIZ table from the GM book to convert by mass.

It all actually matches up with a simple mathetmatical formula or a table. If you want I could tale a stab at doing up the table for you.

I just have to remember how to reverse engineer the 2^(SIZ/10) to get SIZ again.


Okay----

To convert from RQ3/MRQ SIZ to UtgardLoki SIZ

1) Use 55*2(RQ3 SIZ/8) to get a value in pounds

2) Divide that value by 80.

3) Take the base ten log of the number and didvide it by the base 10 log of 2 (log2= 0.30103).

That is the UL SIZ!

I did up a spreadhseet, and will work up a table out to SIZ 100 or so.

Note the "rough" Spots on coversion will be at the low and high end of the scale.


Low end problem
Basically, once you get below 80 pounds of weight, you need to have a negative SIZ value. So this makes small animals a pain. For example, a 5 pound cat is SIZ -40!RQ3 has a similar problem, that was why they dropped the fomula and just plugged in values at the low end.

High end problem
THe RQ3 size chart flattend out at the high end. At about SIZ 95 it turns into 1 SIZ =2 tons, and becomes +1 SIZ =+1 ton around SIZ 100-105.



Solutions
1) You could reformulate your tables with a lower mutiplier 40 instead of 80, 20 instead of 40 ect. The lower you go the lower the tables can go.

But that is a pain.


2) Do what they did with RQ3, plug in values for the low end and cap off at the high end.


This is what I'll do with the chart.

 

[atgxtg]

Ta-dahh!

I did up the conversion chart. For sizes below 3 I used SIZ 1 up to 20 lbs, SIZ 2 up to 40 lbs, and made anything over 40 pounds SIZ 3.

At the high end, RQ3 SIZ 88 +, UL SIZ = RQ3 SIZ +17.

 

[Utgardloki]

I guess you have a solution to the problem of negative sizes. I could just cap it off at three.

As for the upper end, I don't see a need to cap size off. With a logarithmic scale, it's possible to handle creatures the size of a planet.

So it looks like there is not enough difference between my tables and RQ3 to worry about. Size 20 is Size 20, Size 8 is Size 3, which makes the human ranges equivalent.

I might still use negative sizes to make small creatures handled more elegantly. The advantage of negative sizes is it is possible to place smaller creatures in the correct class, so that grasshoppers can't compete on the same scale as cats and dogs. Also, just try hitting a grasshopper.

 

[atgxtg]

I guess you have a solution to the problem of negative sizes. I could just cap it off at three.

As for the upper end, I don't see a need to cap size off. With a logarithmic scale, it's possible to handle creatures the size of a planet.

So it looks like there is not enough difference between my tables and RQ3 to worry about. Size 20 is Size 20, Size 8 is Size 3, which makes the human ranges equivalent.

I might still use negative sizes to make small creatures handled more elegantly. The advantage of negative sizes is it is possible to place smaller creatures in the correct class, so that grasshoppers can't compete on the same scale as cats and dogs. Also, just try hitting a grasshopper.

THe problem with negative SIZ would be the effect on HP and Damage Bonus. OFr example, what do you do about a STR 2 CON 10 cat with SIZ -40?. Oh, and since STR is linked to SIZ you would probably have a cat with STR-40 and SIZ -40. Sure you could scale everything to be relative, but how opfen do people play cats?

Generally you are better off just using RQ SIZ vales for things like Ducks and cats.


As for capping off the SIZ at the high end-I did it to allow you to convert RQ3 creatures to your SIZ chart. So if you want to use a MRQ giant with SIZ 120, you will know what that translated to (137) in UL SIZ.

You can can certainly go with an increasing expotenial scale (it isn't a logrithic scale), but that might not be good if you do decide to do a mega huge creature. Each doubling of size is only worth a +10 to stats. THis will reesult in a couple of SIZ 140 giants geing as big SIZ as one being 10 times the SIZ of the 140 giant!

Not the the game get's played at that level. Giants & Dragons isn't the name of the game.


There is a difference between you tables and RQ. It is just with the "tweaking" down at both ends, it isn't that noticeable. THe two scales match up pretty well at the SIZ 20-23 mark, then there is a 1 point shift for every 4 SIZ points. THis works in both directions, so at the low end you SIZ are smaller, but at the high end your SIZ are greater. The largest discrepancy is a 17 point difference at SIZ 83, but that is wehre we start to flatted out the SIZ scores. If both RQ3 and UL SIZ charts were contined on in non lineral fashion, the difference between the two would contine to grow.

 

[Utgardloki]

I suppose I could cap Size at the lower end as suggested, and work out some sort of micro-sizing for small creatures when needed. A couple ways that this could work:

1. Allow fractional sizes below size 2.

2. Have "microsize" rules for creatures less than 80 pounds (40 kg).

3. Allow the action to scale if I need to resolve things on a small scale (such as if a PC is shrunk to a very small size).

Option 3 may be the smoothest. If a PC is shrunk, I can rescale everything. Option 2 avoids rescaling, so a cat would be Size 1, but would have a "microsize" value in case he gets into a fight with a dog or a rat.

 

[atgxtg]

Yeah, option 3.

I'd suggest going with decimal SIZE values and then you could keep the same sort of relationship as in the regular scale

SIZ 1.0 would be to SIZ 2.0 what SIZ10 is to SIZ 20. If you take your weight for the nornal SIZ range and divide by ten you get usalbe values. For instance SIZ 10 = 160 pounds by your forumula, so SIZ 1.0 would equal 16.0 pounds.

A SIZ 0.1 object would be 1/100th of a SIZ 10 object of 1.6 pounds.

So you could use "normal" URQ rules and just divide everything by a facotor of ten or 100 when comparing to normal scale.

So a 5 pound cat would be SIZ 0.26 and probably STR 0.26 or so too, for a +1D10 damage bonus on the 1/100th scale. Good if you are doing an "Increble Shrinking Man" sort of adventure. Basically, at that scale, it is a lion!

You could also keep the benefit of the negative/smaller SIZ when calaulation stealth and dodge modifiers at different scales. A cat was SIZ -40 by the formula so how about for each shift in scale, apply a 20% modifer?

Whjen you shift scales recalaute HP and DB per the new scale, and half the base damage die per shift. SO a shruenken lion would go from 1D6 to 1D3 to 1D2 with claws.

 

[soltakss]

The problem with using formulas (formulae if you prefer) to calculate things like SIZ is that they quickly run away at the extremes. Someone once asked me what SIZ an amoeba was. SIZ 0 is the answer.

You really need a table with SIZ or SIZ ranges for humanoid characters. That way, you just read off the table and get the height/weight. It needs body types to be reasonable, to take into account PCs with the same SIZ but being tall and thin or short and fat. I think that was in Stormbringer originally.

You'd probably need other tables for non-humanoid shapes, so one for horsey shapes (horses/cattle/herd beasts/dogs/cats etc), another for dragons, another for big blobs and so on.

SIZ is just another abstraction anyway, so I wouldn't get too hung up on it.

One of the things that I found intersesting in the Five Classic Monsters and Diomin supplements was that their interpretation of SIZ ran away at the ends, so a SIZ 16 character (I think) was very tall and a SIZ 8 character was very short. Perhaps a bit too extreme.

 

[atgxtg]

But RQ always did base the SIZ tables on a fomula. IMO basing on some sort of system works much better than just picking numbers. You get more consistient results.

RQ is really based around the SIZ10-20 average PC. MOst of the SIZ data points and rules are geared towards than. Even the forumlas with increasing mass/SIZ point was done for the PC's benefit (once SIZ became a major facotr in hit points, a linear SIZ would have given elephants SIZ 1,000 or some such).

Without some sort of scale behind it, it becomes pointless to track SIZ at all.