Intersting facts about the "Strength" Attribute.

[Ambrosia]

Ohai!

Remember those Strength tables you find in the corebooks under the 'Physical Feats' sections, that show what level in the Strength attribute let you lift what kind of weight?
Out of simple curiosity I decided to plot those on a graph. Mostly because, at least in my mind, it's always been hard to get a good grip on the relation between the different levels of Strength.

And this is the (rather interesting) result. Rightclick -> view image for a better scale.


:

Sorry guys. Metric Kilograms only. For reference, one kg roughly equals 2.2 lbs

What's noticable is, is the fact that it's not any kind of curve that is purely computational; Nothing purely linear, nor logarithmic or exponential. It's rather arbitrary, with some interesting facts:

* The Strength increases between the individual levels of human strength vary roughly between 56% and whopping 225% increases in strength - with the biggest one being right at the start, between Strength 1 and 2.
* The increase between Strength 4 and 5 exactly equals the whole of Strength 3. Something to keep in mind.
* After Strength 5, the increase between levels becomes lower again in a relative sense - every Strength increase up to and including Strength 8 roughly equals the total of Strength 2 - with some slight variation. After that, things pick up again...
* ...and go crazy. The steps between 8 and 9, and 9 and 10 are about the scale of Strength 3 (A little higher, really).
* Then though, we suddenly proceed in a linear fashion, with every single Strength increase of level after 10 equaling the total Strength of 8(!). Or to put it different: Every single Strength increase after 11 roughly equals +150% of the strongest a human can get.


It all doesn't feel that way when you usually handle the Strength attribute, eh?
Well, that's because the main thing the Strength attribute gets used for in WoD, or at least the thing most memorizable by players, is combat - where things scale very linear fashion all of a sudden, with each level of Strength giving us an additional die in melee/brawl.

It's worth keeping above curve in mind when it comes to actual strength and making a character - of note being especially the sudden dip in relative increases between 5 and 8, and the insanity that follows 11.

Hope you found this post interesting!

[Tytalus]

It's something that can be easily houseruled using consistent multiple. Some might find that smacks of D&D-isms though.

[Black Fox]

The differences between ranks 1-5 of any trait is never equal. 1 is below average, 2 is average, and collectively 3-5 are above average. If you map that onto your standard bell curve, they'll take up very different portions of that graph. There shouldn't be an equal progression.

Probably any trait 2 represents one standard deviation of the bell curve on both sides of the center. Then trait 1 represents everything to the left of that, and the figure given is simply an average of that range. Traits 3 through 5 represent everything right of that, meaning as you progress from 3 to 4 and 4 to 5, each step should represent a significant increase.

That is normal human range. Anything more than that is because of supernatural powers. We're outside the bell curve at that point. So I am not surprised the game keeps progression slow after that - it may want to have vampire and werewolves be stronger than normal humans, but it wants to avoid superhero comic book levels of strength and keep it grounded into what we see in classic horror movies and literature.

Once you get to trait 11 and more, at that point it should be beyond any characters of the player types. Those tend to be reserved for truly outlandish creatures which have super powered strength compared to humans. So I am not surprised it escalates so much.

So the progression between 1 to 15 shouldn't be equal, but reflect the needs of the game at each level. It seems for the most part your chart reflects that, so good on the designers.

[Koronus]

One thing that always confuses me on this charts is, why it is only going up to 15? In V20 it is said at Potence that the rating is added to Strength and both the Disciple and the Attribute is via Golconda or with having Generation 3- getting each to 10. Even with Generation 5 it should be able to get beyond 15.

[Prometheas]

One thing that always confuses me on this charts is, why it is only going up to 15? In V20 it is said at Potence that the rating is added to Strength and both the Disciple and the Attribute is via Golconda or with having Generation 3- getting each to 10. Even with Generation 5 it should be able to get beyond 15.

Gen 5(with sufficient age) is the minimum you need to be able to qualify as a methusela, something that's not really going to come up in most sessions.

[Muad'Dib]

Gen 5(with sufficient age) is the minimum you need to be able to qualify as a methusela, something that's not really going to come up in most sessions.

Where this distinction is made? I've been thinking that Generation 6 with sufficient age could also count.

[Prometheas]

Where this distinction is made? I've been thinking that Generation 6 with sufficient age could also count.

There really isn't much of one, but the majority of stated methuela NPCs are gen 4-5, so it's been the assumption for most of community I've talked to that most vampire's are gen 4-5 by the time they survive to become methusela(by diablerie if nothing else).

You could technically have a higher gen vamp be considered methusela, but they'd have to be incredibly old or exceptionally powerful to be able to compete with the lower gen counterparts that'd outnumber them.

[Mister_Dunpeal]

physical attributes in RPGs tend to be oddly abstracted when it comes to real life, and the Storyteller system is no different. I mean muscles are technically about a wide variety of things that fall outside those neat categorizations (strength and speed can be tied in ways they aren't always in RPGs. I mean given that fast moving objects tend to have alot of force behind them, you don't need bulging muscles to punch harder.) Real Life 'strength' can manifest in multiple ways due to the quantity as well as type of muscles fibers as well as the person's ability to harness them (all variables I believe, although its been ages since I looked into the concept including 'recruitment' of muscle fibers) but there are LOTs of ways to play that out.

The closest I can think of is that all the physical attributes represent different aspect of muscle. Someone might not be able to carry much (low strength) or run fast (Dexterity) or punch hard (could be reflected by either. Strength being mass, dexterity being velocity.) But they might have really good endurance so their physical efforts can be sustained (they can 'out-last' someone..for lack of a better term their muscles retain and utilize energy better than others, even if the amounts used are modest.)

I had noted this trend in the attributes and it seems as much game balancing as anything (like how it scales and why you see somewhat diminishing returns with more dots.)