Height & weight tables
Sean Straw (to email, replace lutefisk with mail)
>Duane Vanderpol wrote:
>>
>> A few weeks back it so happened that I had to check what the height &
>> weight of one of my PC's was. This was a PC generated using the Core Rules
Yea, what a joke. The lack of ability to note hair & eye colour as
well is dissappointing, as is the inability to arbitrarily edit
equipment items (to note attributes, or just add something that isn't
in the existing database, and isn't worth adding).
I digress. The November 1984 issue of Dragon magazine has a nice
article titled "Realistic Vital Statistics - A new system for figuring
heights & weights" by Stephen Inniss.
Basically, there were baseline heights and weights for various
humanoids, ranging from a gallrit to a storm giant. You'd roll d1000
and consult a table to determine percentage variations from height
(two colums - humans and others), rolling for the actual percentage as
shown. Then you added a figure obtained from a strength score table
(an 18 strength fellow is likely to be taller than the proverbial
90-pound weakling).
Base heights were different for gender.
Compute the final height, by applying the percentile height difference
to the appropriate gender column from the racial height table, and
record that, then look up the final height in the height-to-weight
table, multiply that by a racial adjustment modifier (Dwarves being
x1.9, half-elves being 0.97, elves 0.94, and humans 1.0, etc), perform
a d1000 check similar to the height one (different table though), and
apply a strength adjust as well.
To avoid blatant copyright infringement, I won't post the article here
(besides, I don't have it scanned in, which considering I make PDFs of
the game modules we play (for easier GM reference), that's kind of
surprising). However, let me walk through an example:
A male Half-Orc fighter of strength 16. Table says the average height
is 61-66" for a Half-Orc (I jotted down specific values, in this case,
64"). I roll d1000, getting 252. The % variation is -1-3 (i.e. minus
d6/2). So I roll a d6, and get 1. Next, the strength of 16 allows
for a +3% height, so overall, he's 2% taller than average, or, 65"
(rounded - if you wanted to mess with fractions, you could).
Next, the standard weight for a height of 65" is 129.
Note that the table has an adjust for females - they're treated as if
1" taller for weight calculation.
Next, I note that a half-orc is a 1.1 modifier for body mass: the 129
becomes 129 + 13 = 142. I roll d1000 for the random weight
difference, getting 878, which is +7-12% (6+d6), on which I roll 2, so
+8%, and the strength is +8%, for a total of +16% on 142, or 165
pounds.
Half Orc fighter with 16 strength, 65" (5' 5"), 165 pounds.
One of the beauties of the particular system (besides taking strength
into account, esp for bulk), is that if you're in the camp of "tall,
lithe Elves", you can tweak the base height, and boom, tall elves -
but still proportioned.
If you don't already have a hoard of Dragon backissues, get yourself a
reprint of this issue, it's great.
When I wrote a character generator program back in the 80's, I used
this system in the program. With it, I could churn out scores of NPCs
for populating towns and encounters, and they all had viable traits.
David R. Klassen
>
> I digress. The November 1984 issue of Dragon magazine has a nice
> article titled "Realistic Vital Statistics - A new system for figuring
> heights & weights" by Stephen Inniss.
--
David R. Klassen voice: 856-256-4500 x3273
Department of Chemistry & Physics fax: 856-256-4478
Rowan University
201 Mullica Hill Road kla...@rowan.edu
Glassboro, NJ 08028 http://elvis.rowan.edu/~klassen
Sean Straw (to email, replace lutefisk with mail)
<kla...@rowan.edu> wrote:
>"Sean Straw (to email, replace lutefisk with mail)" wrote:
>>
>> I digress. The November 1984 issue of Dragon magazine has a nice
>> article titled "Realistic Vital Statistics - A new system for figuring
>> heights & weights" by Stephen Inniss.
>http://elvis.rowan.edu/~klassen/gaming/rules/vitals.html
Great - I took initiative to key in the whole article and produce a
PDF of it (~33K), and you go and post this. Thanks a bunch. <g>
A point of record, the author's name, as listed in the print article,
is Stephen Inniss (not Innis).
Well, at least I can get rid of the 15-year old photocopy I've had in
my DM notes folder, and replace it with a nicely printed copy, and one
I can reference from my computer.
- Sean (whi still needs to pick up a copy of the Dragon ref CD)
David R. Klassen
>
> On Mon, 28 Aug 2000 09:57:25 -0400, "David R. Klassen"
> <kla...@rowan.edu> wrote:
>
> >"Sean Straw (to email, replace lutefisk with mail)" wrote:
> >>
> >> I digress. The November 1984 issue of Dragon magazine has a nice
> >> article titled "Realistic Vital Statistics - A new system for figuring
> >> heights & weights" by Stephen Inniss.
> >http://elvis.rowan.edu/~klassen/gaming/rules/vitals.html
>
> Great - I took initiative to key in the whole article and produce a
> PDF of it (~33K), and you go and post this. Thanks a bunch. <g>
not to invoke the gods of copyright. Although it is a derivative work...
> A point of record, the author's name, as listed in the print article,
> is Stephen Inniss (not Innis).
Thank you - it's now fixed.
> Well, at least I can get rid of the 15-year old photocopy I've had in
> my DM notes folder, and replace it with a nicely printed copy, and one
> I can reference from my computer.
Heh. This is *exactly* why I did it. That and my photocopy was
getting messy with all the additions of the Athasian races (those
were my addition - the other races came from Sinbad Sam, though I
changed the ones I didn't agree with fully - it *is* my page afterall).