Some more recent and clever fantasies have tried to create scientifically accurate what if scenarios that would explain how magic or fantastical elements would work. For example, the fantasy book Flight of the Dragons and it's animated adaptation sees a scientist and writer go through a series of events that not only get him stuck inside a fantasy setting, but also forces his brain and soul to share a body with a living dragon. And while he searches for a way back to his human body, he has to learn what being a dragon is like and how dragons work. And the story writes an interesting scientifically explainable way how dragons do what they do.
In order to fly and breathe fire, a dragon needs to eat two things. Genstones and limestone. The former is for grinding up the latter in the dragons craw. The latter is filled with calcium. And when calcium meets stomach acid, it creates hydrogen. And dragons have a unique body feature in their mouths called a thor thimble which conducts electricity. The electricity in turn, ignites the hydrogen when it's breathed out, causing it to become fire.
As for how they fly, the story reveals that dragons have very strong and supple chest and rib muscles and bones that can be expanded and decompressed like a balloon. So when they expand, the hydrogen makes the dragon lighter then air, and up they go like a balloon or blimp. The wings are for steering, like a propeller on old airplanes and hot air balloons. And in order to land, a dragon has to blow the hydrogen out, or belch.
i do all the time ! d&d is famous for throwing physics out of the window... thats the same reason why many a marvel character in super hero lore do not have physics applied to them. flash would literally burn the entire planet just running around. the explication done by DC...the speed force protects the planet from flashes physics and only applies to him. players in d&d as an exemple... are epitome of human physicality. they jump as far as an olympic champion. but what i like about 5E is that d&d brought back more reality to it. physics becoming more realistic then anything else. as an exemple... a 20 in strength gives the strength of a professional weight lifter. dashing and the haste spell, still isn'T enough to beat the world record of usain bolt. in fact... calculated... a tabaxy hasted rogue, with mobile feat and the long runner spell... gets only to two times the speed of usain bolts ! heres the calculation... 30 (base) + 10 (mobility feat) = 40 feet 40 (base) + 10 (longstride spell) = 50 feet 50 (base) + double (tabaxy ability) = 100 feet 100 (1 round) + double (hasted) = 200 feet 200 (1 round) + dash action = 400 feet per 6 seconds. thats... 400 divided by 6 = 66.6666666666666666666666666666666666 infinite feet per seconds... that is transformed in miles per seconds... 66.67 feet --> 45 miles per hours. Usain Bolts world record for the olympics in the hundred meter dash ! in average was 22,990734 MPH as an exemple... even usain bolts could never outrun a cheetah, but he easily outruns a racing horse ! so our tabaxy, even with tons of spells on him is barely able to run as fast as a cheetah since cheetahs can run 45 mph easily. even with spells, we cannot even outrun a cheetah maximum speed of 80 to 120 mph. and by our own scientist... we still don't know if thats truly the maximum speed of a cheetah.
so as you can see, even d&d 5e applies some physics for reality. as another exemple... falling... they dont tell you the distance fallen because its not important... you just fall because gravity brings you down, a lot. starting to count gravity would be detrimental... but since everyone asked, they counted and in xanathars guide and said... in 6 seconds, a player fall 500 feet. thats exactly the speed at which a skydiver falls ... 10,000 feet to ground... a skydiver is expected 30 seconds of falling before reach ground. so 500 feet per 6 seconds is 5 times. so yeah 500 feet multiplyed by 5 would be 2500 feet in 30 seconds... thats giving the player a chance, because a skydiver would fall twice the ammount in the same time. activating parachute at the 5000 mark. so yeah pretty realistic if you ask me and even giving players a chance. so is it really worth calculating fall speed to see how fast the player reach the ground. nope, because 500 feet is always gonna happen fast. so let's just say he reach the ground unless he has more then 500 feet of fall.
in d&d i'd say the only thing not really true t life in a way, is hit points... but even then, its often the DM not explaining things correctly... players do get hurt, they do get massacred and gets bruises... but somehow DM seems to think that even at 1 hit point, you ar elike, nothing ever hapenned. thats not how hit points works. i taught my players to act wounded through their hit points and believe me, when a fight ends... if they are at 1 hit points... they voluntarily have trouble moving, or doing stuff... they act as if adrenaline dropped and now they are feeling the hurt. thats how hit points works !
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DM of two gaming groups. Likes to create stuff. Check out my homebrew --> Monsters --> Magical Items --> Races --> Subclasses If you like --> Upvote, If you wanna comment --> Comment
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i do all the time ! d&d is famous for throwing physics out of the window... thats the same reason why many a marvel character in super hero lore do not have physics applied to them. flash would literally burn the entire planet just running around. the explication done by DC...the speed force protects the planet from flashes physics and only applies to him. players in d&d as an exemple... are epitome of human physicality. they jump as far as an olympic champion. but what i like about 5E is that d&d brought back more reality to it. physics becoming more realistic then anything else. as an exemple... a 20 in strength gives the strength of a professional weight lifter. dashing and the haste spell, still isn'T enough to beat the world record of usain bolt. in fact... calculated... a tabaxy hasted rogue, with mobile feat and the long runner spell... gets only to two times the speed of usain bolts ! heres the calculation... 30 (base) + 10 (mobility feat) = 40 feet 40 (base) + 10 (longstride spell) = 50 feet 50 (base) + double (tabaxy ability) = 100 feet 100 (1 round) + double (hasted) = 200 feet 200 (1 round) + dash action = 400 feet per 6 seconds. thats... 400 divided by 6 = 66.6666666666666666666666666666666666 infinite feet per seconds... that is transformed in miles per seconds... 66.67 feet --> 45 miles per hours. Usain Bolts world record for the olympics in the hundred meter dash ! in average was 22,990734 MPH as an exemple... even usain bolts could never outrun a cheetah, but he easily outruns a racing horse ! so our tabaxy, even with tons of spells on him is barely able to run as fast as a cheetah since cheetahs can run 45 mph easily. even with spells, we cannot even outrun a cheetah maximum speed of 80 to 120 mph. and by our own scientist... we still don't know if thats truly the maximum speed of a cheetah.
so as you can see, even d&d 5e applies some physics for reality. as another exemple... falling... they dont tell you the distance fallen because its not important... you just fall because gravity brings you down, a lot. starting to count gravity would be detrimental... but since everyone asked, they counted and in xanathars guide and said... in 6 seconds, a player fall 500 feet. thats exactly the speed at which a skydiver falls ... 10,000 feet to ground... a skydiver is expected 30 seconds of falling before reach ground. so 500 feet per 6 seconds is 5 times. so yeah 500 feet multiplyed by 5 would be 2500 feet in 30 seconds... thats giving the player a chance, because a skydiver would fall twice the ammount in the same time. activating parachute at the 5000 mark. so yeah pretty realistic if you ask me and even giving players a chance. so is it really worth calculating fall speed to see how fast the player reach the ground. nope, because 500 feet is always gonna happen fast. so let's just say he reach the ground unless he has more then 500 feet of fall.
in d&d i'd say the only thing not really true t life in a way, is hit points... but even then, its often the DM not explaining things correctly... players do get hurt, they do get massacred and gets bruises... but somehow DM seems to think that even at 1 hit point, you ar elike, nothing ever hapenned. thats not how hit points works. i taught my players to act wounded through their hit points and believe me, when a fight ends... if they are at 1 hit points... they voluntarily have trouble moving, or doing stuff... they act as if adrenaline dropped and now they are feeling the hurt. thats how hit points works !
as an exemple... even usain bolts could never outrun a cheetah, but he easily outruns a racing horse ! so our tabaxy, even with tons of spells on him is barely able to run as fast as a cheetah since cheetahs can run 45 mph easily. even with spells, we cannot even outrun a cheetah maximum speed of 80 to 120 mph. and by our own scientist... we still don't know if thats truly the maximum speed of a cheetah.
Cheetahs have a maximum recorded speed of 80 to 120 kilometers per hour. That's "only" 50 to 80 miles per hour, with speeds above 60 mph being only estimated or inferred as possible but not actually recorded.
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Find your own truth, choose your enemies carefully, and never deal with a dragon.
"Canon" is what's factual to D&D lore. "Cannon" is what you're going to be shot with if you keep getting the word wrong.
I often include physics in my campaigns but you have to be careful about the way you do it - gravity is an acceleration not a velocity and that changes things a lot. The acceleration is 32’/sec/sec, so - you start at rest (0) and fall accelerating for 1 second and your speed at the end is 32’/sec, but you only fell 16 feet because your average velocity is (32+0)/2 so in 6 seconds you fall 16 (0+32/2) + 48(32+64/2) + 80 (64+96/2) + 112 (96+128/2) + 128 (112+144/2)+ 160 (144+176/2)= 544 feet so 500 is a good close easy round number. But the other side is that in the last second you fall 160’ but in the first you fall only 16’ realistically d&d’s 1d6/10’ with a cap at 10 or 20 d6 isn’t a bad approximation of the normal damage a 100 to 200 foot fall will do. The problem with fall damage is illustrated by the monk’s “slow fall” ability - which is really not a slowing of the fall (body friction along a vertical or near vertical surface is minimal) but an extending of the landing using a physics principle called impulse - the greater the surface area of impact and/ or time of deceleration the lower the force of impact and the less damage the impact has. So if you drop @30’ to a standing landing in a fraction of a second all of the impact is applied quickly over the small area of your legs and feet and will probably shatter them. If, instead, you use the joints as springs bending them to absorb energy and then roll converting the coward velocity into horizontal and extending the deceleration over a roll or 3 and the impact force over the whole body you can survive unharmed (as I did when I did this years ago). folks please be careful about comparisons and units a horses top speed is about 44MPH over a mile or more but as high as 55 MPH in a quarter mile sprint - this @88KPH not MPH. For comparison USAIN Bolt’s top speed is only about 20 MPH so horses are 2-3 times faster than humans. A mile is 1.6 times as long as a kilometer so you can’t exchange the values you have to convert. Generally D&D doesn’t so much ignore physics (and science in general) as try to extract easy to follow rules that generally/roughly match the results of science in most situations. We see this in places like the speeds and ranges of bows: 150’ for normal range, 600’ for long range and 1-2 arrows per 6 seconds (except for fighters level 11+). This corresponds fairly well with reality where bow pull weights and arrow weights are all the same in the game but varied considerably in reality. The max range of a longbow was anywhere between 450’ and 1000’ (Britannia) depending on the bow and arrow weights. As for speed I watched a longbow expert put 18 arrows into a chest sized target at 100’ in a timed minute and records report that longbowman were expected to be able to get off at least 12 aimed shots a minute. So 12 shots a minute is one every 5 seconds ( matching anyone with a single attack) and 18 is 1.8 shots in 6 seconds (close enough to call it 2 shots a round for those with extra attack. The fighter’s L11 3 shots would be a shot every two seconds or 30 shots a minute which I grant is pushing the bounds of believability but then everything in tiers 3&4 is pushing the bounds of believability. magic is where we go off the rails with comparisons with science since we have nothing for comparison in most cases. Or do we? Lighting bolt has a range of 100’ and does 8D6 damage, reall lightning has a range of up to 10 miles and 300 million volts and 30,000 Amps. By comparison the wizard’s bolt is carrying (only) 57 amps of current pushed by @570,000 volts if anything a lightning bolt’s 8d6 is underpowered. Actually it is hugely underpowered as the glowing plasma of the bolt is at a temp of around 50,000 K (C) so it’s actually hotter than dragon breath and sonic boom it creates (thunder) should be doing at least a matching set of D4 (thunder) damage to anyone within 10 feet of the bolt.so they eased off the damage for gameplay. Similar comparisons to the natural phenomena that spells like that are based on show that most spells are underpowered compared to the physical realities they are based on ( or the scaled down version that magic allows us to create).
A final note, if the game didn’t keep pretty close to real world physics and science I. Most cases we couldn’t play it - everything we do is based off our innate understanding of how the world and things in it work. Science is simply the detailed explanation of this. WOtC has extracted and simplified wherever it could but it still mostly follows the real world so it’s following the science.
Yeah and a bit more - plate is better armor than chain etc, Mithril and admantite basically are titanium and tungsten, smokepowder is basically Chilean gunpowder (NaNO3 instead of KNO3) in the mixture etc.close enough that our everyday experience and judgements are almost never invalidated. So basically if it wouldn’t happen here but does there it’s probably involving magic.
I DM for my friends from university. We all have studied biology (some still are, some have graduated), so I feel like I always have to make sure plants, beast and other monster kind of make sense from biologist POV. Its also fun to think about fantasy monsters from ecology or physiology point of view. It can create more depth. But I also think its okay to break some rules and surprise my friends.
There have been two instances of note, let me see if I can find them...
Firstly, the time I worked out how much damage you would deal if you opened the Gate spell to the centre of the sun (original thread here):
This will be a fun one!
The suns core is 15,000,000°C, or thereabouts. It's not going to be pleasant.
Assuming you go for the smallest diameter, you've got a 5 foot diameter disc which is opening onto liquid hydrogen at 15,000,000°C and 265,000,000,000 Bar.
We can assume that the magical portal is going to have no resistance to go through it, and even if it did, at these pressures it's going to be negligible.
In 1 second, you will have channeled 4,182,768,456 litres of sun into your immediate vicinity. This will form a cylindrical "laser" of immensely high pressure, high temperature hydrogen, which will be 6,032,223,125 feet long. That's 1,142,466.5 miles, or 1,838,621.6km long. If you opened this portal pointing in the right direction, you will have hit the moon after a third of a second.
But then it gets worse.
Every litre of sun you've poured out in this one, monumental lapse in judgement weighs 150kg (330lb). Imagine a 2-litre bottle which weighs as much as a large motorbike. Yeah, you've got billions of them. Assuming that the portal is pointing upwards (to try and vent into space), and that the portal is magically anchored to the planet, then you've just accelerated a mass of 627,415,268,343kg away from earth an average distance of 3,016,111,562 feet. The recoil of this (every action has an equal and opposite reaction) is 576789634843671000000N of force, which is like suddenly dropping 58,796,089,000,000,000,000kg onto the planet, which would probably crack it in half.
But then it gets worse.
Those astute scientific folk out there will have noticed that I'm treating this like it's a solid. It is in fact a liquid, composed of hydrogen at a pressure 265,000,000,000 times greater than the atmosphere at sea level. It's going to expand. In fact, this much hydrogen will form a bubble at a pressure of 1 bar of 265,000,000,000 times larger than in it's compressed state. This makes a bubble which is 3.13x10^22 cubic feet, which is 1% of the volume of the earth, released in 1 second.
But then it gets worse.
Remember when I said that the temperature was 15,000,000°C? I do!
At this pressure and temperature, and suddenly released, it's going to all undergo nuclear fusion. At once. Fusing one kilogram of hydrogen into helium releases 630 trillion joules of energy, so fusing just half of what we've got will release 2x10^26 joules of energy. Hiroshima was 1.32x10^13 joules, so you've released 13,175,720,635,206 Hiroshima Bombs somewhere within 60ft. of yourself.
Now, in D&D terms, we can take bludgeoning damage as a baseline. Falling 10ft. deals 1d6, for an average 100kg person (assuming armour) that's about 3000 Joules of energy. So if we divide this by the energy you're releasing, we get an approximation of 6,500,000,000,000,000,000,000d6 damage, for an average of 250,000,000,000,000,000,000,000 damage, or half as much on a successful save.
Dex saves, please?
However, you can survive it - with magic!
Leomund's Tiny Hut states:
"The atmosphere inside the space is comfortable and dry, regardless of the weather outside."
So, in a strange contrast to most dangerous things - if you're going to do this, do it inside!
Then there was another time where I worked out the damage involved in using your speed to boost damage, the OP asked for how much damage they would deal! (original thread here):
Not entirely sure where you're getting mass x velocity = acceleration...
Acceleration = change in velocity over time. Momentum = mass x velocity.
at 2240ft per 6 seconds, you're doing 254.5 miles per hour - 22400ft per minute, 1344000ft per hour. The speed of sound is 767mph, so by your original calculations you're going Mach 75, which quite rightly seems a bit excessive!
As for the "fall damage", the physics will become more sketchy and the limitations of an RPG simulation will start to show. The force imparted on impact (the fall damage, or more specifically, landing damage) is derived by F=MA (Force = Mass x Acceleration). To work out acceleration, you need to work out how fast you were going and how quickly you stop. Let's assume that the impact time is 0.5s, for simplicity.
To establish the comparative "fall" damage, you need to work out how far you would have to fall to get to the same speed you're running at. The calculation for this (assuming the character is a single point of mass travelling in a vacuum) isv^2 = 2as (u, initial velocity, is 0). So velocity is square root of 2 x acceleration due to gravity (32ft per second squared) x distance fallen. Our goal for V is 2240/6, which is 373ft per second.
rearrange to determine the distance fallen (s) gets you s = (v^2)/2a, which equals a 2178ft fall.
a creature takes 1d6 bludgeoning damage for every 10ft fallen - so if you ran into a solid wall at this speed, you would take 217d6 bludgeoning damage.
But wait - there's more!
Running into another creature is a different kettle of fish entirely. If you run into someone, you knock them backwards, and that reduces the force of the impact (like bending your knees when landing). To work out the forces involved here, you need to treat this as an elastic collision (one where energy is conserved).
Momentum is always conserved - and momentum, as said above, is mass x velocity. so your momentum (mass x velocity, so 256*373 = 102948lbft/s (oh how I hate imperial...)) plus the targets momentum (0, assuming they stand still) will always add up to the same total. It's important to note that as velocity has a direction, if they run towards you, their velocity is negative and as such so it their momentum. we'll assume they are standing still, unaware of this hurtling doom approaching.
Let's assume you strike a carbon copy of yourself - the same weight. The momentum stays the same after the collision, but the mass has doubled. As such, the speed halves, to keep total momentum constant.
This means that the target has been accelerated to half your speed - 186.5ft per second. They will take half as much damage as expected, and so will you - so "only" 109d6 bludgeoning damage, and they are also flying backwards - probably to hit something and take more damage.
Now let's assume you hit a giant 9 x your mass. when you collide, your combined masses are 10 x that of just yours (9+1) and so the combined speed is 1/10th of what it was - 37.3ft per second, or 223ft per turn, so still very respectable. The giant has accelerated from 0 to 37.3ft per second in half a second, so has an acceleration of 74.6ft/s/s. You, on the other hand, have decelerated from 373ft/s to 37.3ft/s in 0.5s, so have an acceleration of 671.4ft/s/s. You'll notice these add up to 746, so we know momentum has been conserved. We also know that the total damage will be the same, but you would get 9/10ths of it and the giant only 1/10th. So you will take 196d6 bludgeoning damage and the giant will take 22d6 bludgeoning damage.
Meanwhile, the roles are reversed if you hit something 1/10th your mass - like a chicken. If you kick a chicken whilst travelling at that speed, you deal 196d6 damage to the chicken and take 22d6 damage to your foot.
This was fun - I love physics!
They were both around the same time I think. I enjoy using physics to create or explain these scenarios!
Not exactly, but there was a detail mentioned in the Curse of Strahd adventure that, when mentioned, made the group stop and crunch some numbers because it was absolutely ludicrous. Ill try to keep it vague to avoid spoiler territory, but basically there was a large stone (10ft cube) that was stated to weigh "thousands of tons." They didnt write "thousands of pounds" or "several tons" but instead thousands. of. tons.
Assuming that, at a minimum, this stone weighed 2000 tons, then (if I did my math right) it would have a density of around 64 g/cubic cm which is almost 3 x as dense as the densest known metal, osmium at 22 g/cubic cm. To be clear, this isnt supposed to be a stone of any special material in the adventure, just a normal stone block.
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Kaboom, there are places when the writers screw up like that - mostly by not doing reality checks on their hyperbole. Just as we players often don’t make reality checks on what our players can do and see how think our Str 20 fighter has Hulk’s strength and can some how lift that (76.45 ton) rock. Thoruk, loved your impact damage calc but a couple of points on the core of the sun * it’s not liquid hydrogen, it’s a hydrogen plasma - charged so your also going to do a considerable amount of electrical/lightning damage as well as impact and heat damage. * the plasma is also cooling as it expands and this is rapidly going to shut down the fusion reaction which s only about 5% to start with so your fusion calculations are way off - call it no more than 2.5% of the mass will undergo fusion as it leaves the portal before the fusion reaction shuts down. * ignoring the fusion energy for the moment, the plasma can be considered a gas (not a liquid) and it will be expanding as such outward from the portal at supersonic ( almost certainly hypersonic) speeds until it reaches close to its 1 atmosphere pressure volume (1% earth’s volume to quote your value) so you can forget Dex saves against this thunder damage * it’s also cooling adiabaticly as it expands so dropping from 15 million K to roughly 300k so anything that got thunder damage is taking at least an equivalent amount of heat damage - no save ( your not dodging out of the way of a 1000 km radius blast) * back to the fusion results, however much fusion occurs, it results in a roughly spherical blast that will destroy the portal within a second or (probably) less. According to the atomic archive @50% of the energy is released as the blast wave, 35% as heat and light and the remains 15% as “hard radiation” for game purposes I suggest 50% bludgeoning/thunder, 25% heat (dragon breath+) and 25% radiant (treated as sunlight). still it was a great read.
One thing to remember about D&D's ludicrous carrying capacity is that the weight given for most listed equipment and weaponry is also too high. It's not as bad as it was in 2nd or 3rd Edition, when writers would include 25 lb melee weapons on a semi-frequent basis, but a lot of the gear is still ridiculous.
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Find your own truth, choose your enemies carefully, and never deal with a dragon.
"Canon" is what's factual to D&D lore. "Cannon" is what you're going to be shot with if you keep getting the word wrong.
Yeah, I’ve always considered the encumbrance weight to be an extraction value - not just the weight but a measure of the weight, unwieldyness and bulkyness combined. A grappling hook generally doesn’t weigh 4 pounds but because of its shape and pointy hooks packing it calls for special care that has been extracted out to be about 2 extra pounds worth for it. Same for things like orbs and climbing kits, even the longbow and it’s “heavy” listing ties into this - it’s not heavy, but it can be unwieldy to carry even packed just because of its length.
whoever said dragons and giants wouldn't hold their weight...
you are basing yourself ona limit imposed by human nature... as far as i know... our universe itself is far greater then anything you have ever encountered... yet it stands, in a way... what i find funny is that people believe things that weren't ever prooven to be true... aka maths ! yes we do get near or think we're near what we see... but that dosn't make it any true. so a creature who has that kind of body in our real world... could have the muscles to actually stand.
exemple... i weight 400 pounds... my legs can therefore holds that much cause they are used to such things... put on a back pack or front pack if you will, that adds the difference between you and i, you will most likely have trouble keeping it on for days. where i dont... cause my body is used to such a thing. as for flying creatures... there is a reason why dragons are gargantuan without actually be gargantuan. its their wing span ! one thing pople forget is that the wings of a flying creature always are about 3x their size or more. there is a reason to that, same with planes. helicopters do the same. that's why i always say to my flying players who think they can just fly in a 10x10 corridor that they just can't. they don't have that luxury as their wings will knock others down, their wings will not pick them up without space needed to fly.
the same logic applies to bigger creatures... their muscles and strength will follow their size. now masses is something i always felt we're not doing right in math... both im no physicist... but saying anything beyond a certain mass would just push earth out of orbit is ludicrous to me. we're already out of orbit, the sun is pushing us out little by little. there are far greater forces at work then masses in our universe. but somehow we're content in saying masses is equal to pretty much everything...
now, if we follow our own "made up" maths... yes i agree a lot of things cannot exists and things have to be changed in order to be justified... but i disagree that anything like a giant in our world would fall easily...
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DM of two gaming groups. Likes to create stuff. Check out my homebrew --> Monsters --> Magical Items --> Races --> Subclasses If you like --> Upvote, If you wanna comment --> Comment
Play by Post Games --> One Shot Adventure - House of Artwood (DM) (Completed)
whoever said dragons and giants wouldn't hold their weight...
you are basing yourself ona limit imposed by human nature... as far as i know... our universe itself is far greater then anything you have ever encountered... yet it stands, in a way... what i find funny is that people believe things that weren't ever prooven to be true... aka maths ! yes we do get near or think we're near what we see... but that dosn't make it any true. so a creature who has that kind of body in our real world... could have the muscles to actually stand.
exemple... i weight 400 pounds... my legs can therefore holds that much cause they are used to such things... put on a back pack or front pack if you will, that adds the difference between you and i, you will most likely have trouble keeping it on for days. where i dont... cause my body is used to such a thing. as for flying creatures... there is a reason why dragons are gargantuan without actually be gargantuan. its their wing span ! one thing pople forget is that the wings of a flying creature always are about 3x their size or more. there is a reason to that, same with planes. helicopters do the same. that's why i always say to my flying players who think they can just fly in a 10x10 corridor that they just can't. they don't have that luxury as their wings will knock others down, their wings will not pick them up without space needed to fly.
the same logic applies to bigger creatures... their muscles and strength will follow their size. now masses is something i always felt we're not doing right in math... both im no physicist... but saying anything beyond a certain mass would just push earth out of orbit is ludicrous to me. we're already out of orbit, the sun is pushing us out little by little. there are far greater forces at work then masses in our universe. but somehow we're content in saying masses is equal to pretty much everything...
now, if we follow our own "made up" maths... yes i agree a lot of things cannot exists and things have to be changed in order to be justified... but i disagree that anything like a giant in our world would fall easily...
You're forgetting the square-cube law. Scaling an object up causes its volume (and consequently its mass) to increase at a much faster rate than its surface area or height.
To use the number you provided, a hypothetical version of you that was twice as tall and proportionately identical would not weigh 800 lbs. He would weigh something more like 1600 lbs and at that size if he attempted to stand, his muscles would tear and his bones would break under the weight, because the stress on them increased above their ability to withstand. As an organism gets larger, the more stress is exerted on its body from gravity, which requires its physiology to change in order to deal with that stress. Human physiology isn't adapted to deal with the stress of being more than about seven feet tall without serious side effects, which is why it's impossible for a creature that's just a scaled-up human like a giant or titan to be able to function without magic.
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Find your own truth, choose your enemies carefully, and never deal with a dragon.
"Canon" is what's factual to D&D lore. "Cannon" is what you're going to be shot with if you keep getting the word wrong.
In order to fly and breathe fire, a dragon needs to eat two things. Genstones and limestone. The former is for grinding up the latter in the dragons craw….
Not necessarily. It wouldn’t have to eat gemstones if it had a gizzard like birds, just swallow them into the gizzard. That could crush the limestone as it was swallowed the way pebbles in a gizzard grind up food for a bird. (Also, I think you meant “gullet,” not “craw.” An animal’s craw is… ahem, shall we say much lower down in its anatomy.)
Sorry I can't control my inner pedant enough not to point out that limestone is mainly calcium carbonate, which reacts with stomach acid to produce carbon dioxide, which is heavier than air.
OK now I've got that out of my system, please forgive me I'm a high school biology teacher, I DM for a group with a former physics teacher and my retired ex-boss. When we started a spelljammer adventure I had to make it very clear that real world physics was going to be irrelevant.
The maths of science aren’t “made up” they represent years of measurement, comparison, experimentation and efforts to mathematically model the reality around us. Can they be abused - of course.
I believe it was actually da vinci who disproved the concept of giant by explaining that, assuming they have a similar bone material to other vertebrates, their bones owuld need to be thicker than their limbs. Can't find the references now, so could be wrong.
That is the key though - you could have a huge person without needing magic. A giant whose bone structure was made of a more solid material - possibly solid bone with the necessity to generate bone marrow-like organs elsewhere - would allow them to be taller. I believe this is part of the science of Avater, where they say they have natural carbon fibre in their bones, which would make them strong enough to support themselves. There are snails in the ocean which make shells that are iron, so a giant whose body makes bones out of iron would be strong enough to support his weight, though their muscles would need to be huge and similarly reinforced!
Some more recent and clever fantasies have tried to create scientifically accurate what if scenarios that would explain how magic or fantastical elements would work. For example, the fantasy book Flight of the Dragons and it's animated adaptation sees a scientist and writer go through a series of events that not only get him stuck inside a fantasy setting, but also forces his brain and soul to share a body with a living dragon. And while he searches for a way back to his human body, he has to learn what being a dragon is like and how dragons work. And the story writes an interesting scientifically explainable way how dragons do what they do.
In order to fly and breathe fire, a dragon needs to eat two things. Genstones and limestone. The former is for grinding up the latter in the dragons craw. The latter is filled with calcium. And when calcium meets stomach acid, it creates hydrogen. And dragons have a unique body feature in their mouths called a thor thimble which conducts electricity. The electricity in turn, ignites the hydrogen when it's breathed out, causing it to become fire.
As for how they fly, the story reveals that dragons have very strong and supple chest and rib muscles and bones that can be expanded and decompressed like a balloon. So when they expand, the hydrogen makes the dragon lighter then air, and up they go like a balloon or blimp. The wings are for steering, like a propeller on old airplanes and hot air balloons. And in order to land, a dragon has to blow the hydrogen out, or belch.
Here's a clip from the film adaptation where an older dragon shows the human, stuck in the body of a dragon how to fly. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=j0j0Bjy6hFc
Have you ever done something like this with the monsters and magic or your setting? Apply real world science to them?
i do all the time !
d&d is famous for throwing physics out of the window... thats the same reason why many a marvel character in super hero lore do not have physics applied to them.
flash would literally burn the entire planet just running around. the explication done by DC...the speed force protects the planet from flashes physics and only applies to him.
players in d&d as an exemple... are epitome of human physicality. they jump as far as an olympic champion. but what i like about 5E is that d&d brought back more reality to it. physics becoming more realistic then anything else. as an exemple... a 20 in strength gives the strength of a professional weight lifter. dashing and the haste spell, still isn'T enough to beat the world record of usain bolt. in fact... calculated... a tabaxy hasted rogue, with mobile feat and the long runner spell... gets only to two times the speed of usain bolts !
heres the calculation...
30 (base) + 10 (mobility feat) = 40 feet
40 (base) + 10 (longstride spell) = 50 feet
50 (base) + double (tabaxy ability) = 100 feet
100 (1 round) + double (hasted) = 200 feet
200 (1 round) + dash action = 400 feet per 6 seconds.
thats... 400 divided by 6 = 66.6666666666666666666666666666666666 infinite feet per seconds... that is transformed in miles per seconds...
66.67 feet --> 45 miles per hours.
Usain Bolts world record for the olympics in the hundred meter dash !
in average was 22,990734 MPH
as an exemple... even usain bolts could never outrun a cheetah, but he easily outruns a racing horse !
so our tabaxy, even with tons of spells on him is barely able to run as fast as a cheetah since cheetahs can run 45 mph easily. even with spells, we cannot even outrun a cheetah maximum speed of 80 to 120 mph. and by our own scientist... we still don't know if thats truly the maximum speed of a cheetah.
so as you can see, even d&d 5e applies some physics for reality.
as another exemple... falling... they dont tell you the distance fallen because its not important... you just fall because gravity brings you down, a lot. starting to count gravity would be detrimental... but since everyone asked, they counted and in xanathars guide and said... in 6 seconds, a player fall 500 feet. thats exactly the speed at which a skydiver falls ... 10,000 feet to ground... a skydiver is expected 30 seconds of falling before reach ground. so 500 feet per 6 seconds is 5 times. so yeah 500 feet multiplyed by 5 would be 2500 feet in 30 seconds... thats giving the player a chance, because a skydiver would fall twice the ammount in the same time. activating parachute at the 5000 mark. so yeah pretty realistic if you ask me and even giving players a chance. so is it really worth calculating fall speed to see how fast the player reach the ground. nope, because 500 feet is always gonna happen fast. so let's just say he reach the ground unless he has more then 500 feet of fall.
in d&d i'd say the only thing not really true t life in a way, is hit points... but even then, its often the DM not explaining things correctly... players do get hurt, they do get massacred and gets bruises... but somehow DM seems to think that even at 1 hit point, you ar elike, nothing ever hapenned. thats not how hit points works. i taught my players to act wounded through their hit points and believe me, when a fight ends... if they are at 1 hit points... they voluntarily have trouble moving, or doing stuff... they act as if adrenaline dropped and now they are feeling the hurt. thats how hit points works !
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Very interesting.
Cheetahs have a maximum recorded speed of 80 to 120 kilometers per hour. That's "only" 50 to 80 miles per hour, with speeds above 60 mph being only estimated or inferred as possible but not actually recorded.
Find your own truth, choose your enemies carefully, and never deal with a dragon.
"Canon" is what's factual to D&D lore. "Cannon" is what you're going to be shot with if you keep getting the word wrong.
No. Keep your real world physics/problems out of my fantasy game that’s meant to relax/escape from reality for a few hours.
I often include physics in my campaigns but you have to be careful about the way you do it - gravity is an acceleration not a velocity and that changes things a lot. The acceleration is 32’/sec/sec, so - you start at rest (0) and fall accelerating for 1 second and your speed at the end is 32’/sec, but you only fell 16 feet because your average velocity is (32+0)/2 so in 6 seconds you fall 16 (0+32/2) + 48(32+64/2) + 80 (64+96/2) + 112 (96+128/2) + 128 (112+144/2)+ 160 (144+176/2)= 544 feet so 500 is a good close easy round number. But the other side is that in the last second you fall 160’ but in the first you fall only 16’ realistically d&d’s 1d6/10’ with a cap at 10 or 20 d6 isn’t a bad approximation of the normal damage a 100 to 200 foot fall will do. The problem with fall damage is illustrated by the monk’s “slow fall” ability - which is really not a slowing of the fall (body friction along a vertical or near vertical surface is minimal) but an extending of the landing using a physics principle called impulse - the greater the surface area of impact and/ or time of deceleration the lower the force of impact and the less damage the impact has. So if you drop @30’ to a standing landing in a fraction of a second all of the impact is applied quickly over the small area of your legs and feet and will probably shatter them. If, instead, you use the joints as springs bending them to absorb energy and then roll converting the coward velocity into horizontal and extending the deceleration over a roll or 3 and the impact force over the whole body you can survive unharmed (as I did when I did this years ago).
folks please be careful about comparisons and units a horses top speed is about 44MPH over a mile or more but as high as 55 MPH in a quarter mile sprint - this @88KPH not MPH. For comparison USAIN Bolt’s top speed is only about 20 MPH so horses are 2-3 times faster than humans. A mile is 1.6 times as long as a kilometer so you can’t exchange the values you have to convert. Generally D&D doesn’t so much ignore physics (and science in general) as try to extract easy to follow rules that generally/roughly match the results of science in most situations. We see this in places like the speeds and ranges of bows: 150’ for normal range, 600’ for long range and 1-2 arrows per 6 seconds (except for fighters level 11+). This corresponds fairly well with reality where bow pull weights and arrow weights are all the same in the game but varied considerably in reality. The max range of a longbow was anywhere between 450’ and 1000’ (Britannia) depending on the bow and arrow weights. As for speed I watched a longbow expert put 18 arrows into a chest sized target at 100’ in a timed minute and records report that longbowman were expected to be able to get off at least 12 aimed shots a minute. So 12 shots a minute is one every 5 seconds ( matching anyone with a single attack) and 18 is 1.8 shots in 6 seconds (close enough to call it 2 shots a round for those with extra attack. The fighter’s L11 3 shots would be a shot every two seconds or 30 shots a minute which I grant is pushing the bounds of believability but then everything in tiers 3&4 is pushing the bounds of believability.
magic is where we go off the rails with comparisons with science since we have nothing for comparison in most cases. Or do we? Lighting bolt has a range of 100’ and does 8D6 damage, reall lightning has a range of up to 10 miles and 300 million volts and 30,000 Amps. By comparison the wizard’s bolt is carrying (only) 57 amps of current pushed by @570,000 volts if anything a lightning bolt’s 8d6 is underpowered. Actually it is hugely underpowered as the glowing plasma of the bolt is at a temp of around 50,000 K (C) so it’s actually hotter than dragon breath and sonic boom it creates (thunder) should be doing at least a matching set of D4 (thunder) damage to anyone within 10 feet of the bolt.so they eased off the damage for gameplay. Similar comparisons to the natural phenomena that spells like that are based on show that most spells are underpowered compared to the physical realities they are based on ( or the scaled down version that magic allows us to create).
Wisea$$ DM and Player since 1979.
A final note, if the game didn’t keep pretty close to real world physics and science I. Most cases we couldn’t play it - everything we do is based off our innate understanding of how the world and things in it work. Science is simply the detailed explanation of this. WOtC has extracted and simplified wherever it could but it still mostly follows the real world so it’s following the science.
Wisea$$ DM and Player since 1979.
Yeah and a bit more - plate is better armor than chain etc, Mithril and admantite basically are titanium and tungsten, smokepowder is basically Chilean gunpowder (NaNO3 instead of KNO3) in the mixture etc.close enough that our everyday experience and judgements are almost never invalidated. So basically if it wouldn’t happen here but does there it’s probably involving magic.
Wisea$$ DM and Player since 1979.
I DM for my friends from university. We all have studied biology (some still are, some have graduated), so I feel like I always have to make sure plants, beast and other monster kind of make sense from biologist POV. Its also fun to think about fantasy monsters from ecology or physiology point of view. It can create more depth. But I also think its okay to break some rules and surprise my friends.
There have been two instances of note, let me see if I can find them...
Firstly, the time I worked out how much damage you would deal if you opened the Gate spell to the centre of the sun (original thread here):
This will be a fun one!
The suns core is 15,000,000°C, or thereabouts. It's not going to be pleasant.
Assuming you go for the smallest diameter, you've got a 5 foot diameter disc which is opening onto liquid hydrogen at 15,000,000°C and 265,000,000,000 Bar.
We can assume that the magical portal is going to have no resistance to go through it, and even if it did, at these pressures it's going to be negligible.
In 1 second, you will have channeled 4,182,768,456 litres of sun into your immediate vicinity. This will form a cylindrical "laser" of immensely high pressure, high temperature hydrogen, which will be 6,032,223,125 feet long. That's 1,142,466.5 miles, or 1,838,621.6km long. If you opened this portal pointing in the right direction, you will have hit the moon after a third of a second.
But then it gets worse.
Every litre of sun you've poured out in this one, monumental lapse in judgement weighs 150kg (330lb). Imagine a 2-litre bottle which weighs as much as a large motorbike. Yeah, you've got billions of them. Assuming that the portal is pointing upwards (to try and vent into space), and that the portal is magically anchored to the planet, then you've just accelerated a mass of 627,415,268,343kg away from earth an average distance of 3,016,111,562 feet. The recoil of this (every action has an equal and opposite reaction) is 576789634843671000000N of force, which is like suddenly dropping 58,796,089,000,000,000,000kg onto the planet, which would probably crack it in half.
But then it gets worse.
Those astute scientific folk out there will have noticed that I'm treating this like it's a solid. It is in fact a liquid, composed of hydrogen at a pressure 265,000,000,000 times greater than the atmosphere at sea level. It's going to expand. In fact, this much hydrogen will form a bubble at a pressure of 1 bar of 265,000,000,000 times larger than in it's compressed state. This makes a bubble which is 3.13x10^22 cubic feet, which is 1% of the volume of the earth, released in 1 second.
But then it gets worse.
Remember when I said that the temperature was 15,000,000°C? I do!
At this pressure and temperature, and suddenly released, it's going to all undergo nuclear fusion. At once. Fusing one kilogram of hydrogen into helium releases 630 trillion joules of energy, so fusing just half of what we've got will release 2x10^26 joules of energy. Hiroshima was 1.32x10^13 joules, so you've released 13,175,720,635,206 Hiroshima Bombs somewhere within 60ft. of yourself.
Now, in D&D terms, we can take bludgeoning damage as a baseline. Falling 10ft. deals 1d6, for an average 100kg person (assuming armour) that's about 3000 Joules of energy. So if we divide this by the energy you're releasing, we get an approximation of 6,500,000,000,000,000,000,000d6 damage, for an average of 250,000,000,000,000,000,000,000 damage, or half as much on a successful save.
Dex saves, please?
However, you can survive it - with magic!
Leomund's Tiny Hut states:
"The atmosphere inside the space is comfortable and dry, regardless of the weather outside."
So, in a strange contrast to most dangerous things - if you're going to do this, do it inside!
Then there was another time where I worked out the damage involved in using your speed to boost damage, the OP asked for how much damage they would deal! (original thread here):
Not entirely sure where you're getting mass x velocity = acceleration...
Acceleration = change in velocity over time. Momentum = mass x velocity.
at 2240ft per 6 seconds, you're doing 254.5 miles per hour - 22400ft per minute, 1344000ft per hour. The speed of sound is 767mph, so by your original calculations you're going Mach 75, which quite rightly seems a bit excessive!
As for the "fall damage", the physics will become more sketchy and the limitations of an RPG simulation will start to show. The force imparted on impact (the fall damage, or more specifically, landing damage) is derived by F=MA (Force = Mass x Acceleration). To work out acceleration, you need to work out how fast you were going and how quickly you stop. Let's assume that the impact time is 0.5s, for simplicity.
To establish the comparative "fall" damage, you need to work out how far you would have to fall to get to the same speed you're running at. The calculation for this (assuming the character is a single point of mass travelling in a vacuum) isv^2 = 2as (u, initial velocity, is 0). So velocity is square root of 2 x acceleration due to gravity (32ft per second squared) x distance fallen. Our goal for V is 2240/6, which is 373ft per second.
rearrange to determine the distance fallen (s) gets you s = (v^2)/2a, which equals a 2178ft fall.
a creature takes 1d6 bludgeoning damage for every 10ft fallen - so if you ran into a solid wall at this speed, you would take 217d6 bludgeoning damage.
But wait - there's more!
Running into another creature is a different kettle of fish entirely. If you run into someone, you knock them backwards, and that reduces the force of the impact (like bending your knees when landing). To work out the forces involved here, you need to treat this as an elastic collision (one where energy is conserved).
Momentum is always conserved - and momentum, as said above, is mass x velocity. so your momentum (mass x velocity, so 256*373 = 102948lbft/s (oh how I hate imperial...)) plus the targets momentum (0, assuming they stand still) will always add up to the same total. It's important to note that as velocity has a direction, if they run towards you, their velocity is negative and as such so it their momentum. we'll assume they are standing still, unaware of this hurtling doom approaching.
Let's assume you strike a carbon copy of yourself - the same weight. The momentum stays the same after the collision, but the mass has doubled. As such, the speed halves, to keep total momentum constant.
This means that the target has been accelerated to half your speed - 186.5ft per second. They will take half as much damage as expected, and so will you - so "only" 109d6 bludgeoning damage, and they are also flying backwards - probably to hit something and take more damage.
Now let's assume you hit a giant 9 x your mass. when you collide, your combined masses are 10 x that of just yours (9+1) and so the combined speed is 1/10th of what it was - 37.3ft per second, or 223ft per turn, so still very respectable. The giant has accelerated from 0 to 37.3ft per second in half a second, so has an acceleration of 74.6ft/s/s. You, on the other hand, have decelerated from 373ft/s to 37.3ft/s in 0.5s, so have an acceleration of 671.4ft/s/s. You'll notice these add up to 746, so we know momentum has been conserved. We also know that the total damage will be the same, but you would get 9/10ths of it and the giant only 1/10th. So you will take 196d6 bludgeoning damage and the giant will take 22d6 bludgeoning damage.
Meanwhile, the roles are reversed if you hit something 1/10th your mass - like a chicken. If you kick a chicken whilst travelling at that speed, you deal 196d6 damage to the chicken and take 22d6 damage to your foot.
This was fun - I love physics!
They were both around the same time I think. I enjoy using physics to create or explain these scenarios!
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Not exactly, but there was a detail mentioned in the Curse of Strahd adventure that, when mentioned, made the group stop and crunch some numbers because it was absolutely ludicrous. Ill try to keep it vague to avoid spoiler territory, but basically there was a large stone (10ft cube) that was stated to weigh "thousands of tons." They didnt write "thousands of pounds" or "several tons" but instead thousands. of. tons.
Assuming that, at a minimum, this stone weighed 2000 tons, then (if I did my math right) it would have a density of around 64 g/cubic cm which is almost 3 x as dense as the densest known metal, osmium at 22 g/cubic cm. To be clear, this isnt supposed to be a stone of any special material in the adventure, just a normal stone block.
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Kaboom, there are places when the writers screw up like that - mostly by not doing reality checks on their hyperbole. Just as we players often don’t make reality checks on what our players can do and see how think our Str 20 fighter has Hulk’s strength and can some how lift that (76.45 ton) rock.
Thoruk, loved your impact damage calc but a couple of points on the core of the sun
* it’s not liquid hydrogen, it’s a hydrogen plasma - charged so your also going to do a considerable amount of electrical/lightning damage as well as impact and heat damage.
* the plasma is also cooling as it expands and this is rapidly going to shut down the fusion reaction which s only about 5% to start with so your fusion calculations are way off - call it no more than 2.5% of the mass will undergo fusion as it leaves the portal before the fusion reaction shuts down.
* ignoring the fusion energy for the moment, the plasma can be considered a gas (not a liquid) and it will be expanding as such outward from the portal at supersonic ( almost certainly hypersonic) speeds until it reaches close to its 1 atmosphere pressure volume (1% earth’s volume to quote your value) so you can forget Dex saves against this thunder damage
* it’s also cooling adiabaticly as it expands so dropping from 15 million K to roughly 300k so anything that got thunder damage is taking at least an equivalent amount of heat damage - no save ( your not dodging out of the way of a 1000 km radius blast)
* back to the fusion results, however much fusion occurs, it results in a roughly spherical blast that will destroy the portal within a second or (probably) less. According to the atomic archive @50% of the energy is released as the blast wave, 35% as heat and light and the remains 15% as “hard radiation” for game purposes I suggest 50% bludgeoning/thunder, 25% heat (dragon breath+) and 25% radiant (treated as sunlight).
still it was a great read.
Wisea$$ DM and Player since 1979.
One thing to remember about D&D's ludicrous carrying capacity is that the weight given for most listed equipment and weaponry is also too high. It's not as bad as it was in 2nd or 3rd Edition, when writers would include 25 lb melee weapons on a semi-frequent basis, but a lot of the gear is still ridiculous.
Find your own truth, choose your enemies carefully, and never deal with a dragon.
"Canon" is what's factual to D&D lore. "Cannon" is what you're going to be shot with if you keep getting the word wrong.
Yeah, I’ve always considered the encumbrance weight to be an extraction value - not just the weight but a measure of the weight, unwieldyness and bulkyness combined. A grappling hook generally doesn’t weigh 4 pounds but because of its shape and pointy hooks packing it calls for special care that has been extracted out to be about 2 extra pounds worth for it. Same for things like orbs and climbing kits, even the longbow and it’s “heavy” listing ties into this - it’s not heavy, but it can be unwieldy to carry even packed just because of its length.
Wisea$$ DM and Player since 1979.
whoever said dragons and giants wouldn't hold their weight...
you are basing yourself ona limit imposed by human nature... as far as i know... our universe itself is far greater then anything you have ever encountered... yet it stands, in a way...
what i find funny is that people believe things that weren't ever prooven to be true... aka maths ! yes we do get near or think we're near what we see... but that dosn't make it any true. so a creature who has that kind of body in our real world... could have the muscles to actually stand.
exemple...
i weight 400 pounds...
my legs can therefore holds that much cause they are used to such things...
put on a back pack or front pack if you will, that adds the difference between you and i, you will most likely have trouble keeping it on for days. where i dont... cause my body is used to such a thing. as for flying creatures... there is a reason why dragons are gargantuan without actually be gargantuan. its their wing span ! one thing pople forget is that the wings of a flying creature always are about 3x their size or more. there is a reason to that, same with planes. helicopters do the same. that's why i always say to my flying players who think they can just fly in a 10x10 corridor that they just can't. they don't have that luxury as their wings will knock others down, their wings will not pick them up without space needed to fly.
the same logic applies to bigger creatures... their muscles and strength will follow their size.
now masses is something i always felt we're not doing right in math... both im no physicist... but saying anything beyond a certain mass would just push earth out of orbit is ludicrous to me. we're already out of orbit, the sun is pushing us out little by little. there are far greater forces at work then masses in our universe. but somehow we're content in saying masses is equal to pretty much everything...
now, if we follow our own "made up" maths... yes i agree a lot of things cannot exists and things have to be changed in order to be justified...
but i disagree that anything like a giant in our world would fall easily...
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You're forgetting the square-cube law. Scaling an object up causes its volume (and consequently its mass) to increase at a much faster rate than its surface area or height.
To use the number you provided, a hypothetical version of you that was twice as tall and proportionately identical would not weigh 800 lbs. He would weigh something more like 1600 lbs and at that size if he attempted to stand, his muscles would tear and his bones would break under the weight, because the stress on them increased above their ability to withstand. As an organism gets larger, the more stress is exerted on its body from gravity, which requires its physiology to change in order to deal with that stress. Human physiology isn't adapted to deal with the stress of being more than about seven feet tall without serious side effects, which is why it's impossible for a creature that's just a scaled-up human like a giant or titan to be able to function without magic.
Find your own truth, choose your enemies carefully, and never deal with a dragon.
"Canon" is what's factual to D&D lore. "Cannon" is what you're going to be shot with if you keep getting the word wrong.
Not necessarily. It wouldn’t have to eat gemstones if it had a gizzard like birds, just swallow them into the gizzard. That could crush the limestone as it was swallowed the way pebbles in a gizzard grind up food for a bird. (Also, I think you meant “gullet,” not “craw.” An animal’s craw is… ahem, shall we say much lower down in its anatomy.)
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Sorry I can't control my inner pedant enough not to point out that limestone is mainly calcium carbonate, which reacts with stomach acid to produce carbon dioxide, which is heavier than air.
OK now I've got that out of my system, please forgive me I'm a high school biology teacher, I DM for a group with a former physics teacher and my retired ex-boss. When we started a spelljammer adventure I had to make it very clear that real world physics was going to be irrelevant.
The maths of science aren’t “made up” they represent years of measurement, comparison, experimentation and efforts to mathematically model the reality around us. Can they be abused - of course.
Wisea$$ DM and Player since 1979.
I believe it was actually da vinci who disproved the concept of giant by explaining that, assuming they have a similar bone material to other vertebrates, their bones owuld need to be thicker than their limbs. Can't find the references now, so could be wrong.
That is the key though - you could have a huge person without needing magic. A giant whose bone structure was made of a more solid material - possibly solid bone with the necessity to generate bone marrow-like organs elsewhere - would allow them to be taller. I believe this is part of the science of Avater, where they say they have natural carbon fibre in their bones, which would make them strong enough to support themselves. There are snails in the ocean which make shells that are iron, so a giant whose body makes bones out of iron would be strong enough to support his weight, though their muscles would need to be huge and similarly reinforced!
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