Not sure if this is the right forum for this question, and it is for 3.5 edition, but in the Draconomicon it says that a colossal red dragon weighs 1,280,000 pounds. This seems like it is too low, so I was wondering if anyone else knew a better answer.
That math does make sense, but whenever I compare it to a real object, it always seems light in comparison. For example, the rocks at stonehenge weigh almost 4 times as much as a colossal dragon.
Edit: And it might be more than 8 times, because if something is bigger, it needs more muscles to lift itself up and not collapse relative to their size.
That math does make sense, but whenever I compare it to a real object, it always seems light in comparison. For example, the rocks at stonehenge weigh almost 4 times as much as a colossal dragon.
Edit: And it might be more than 8 times, because if something is bigger, it needs more muscles to lift itself up and not collapse relative to their size.
The rocks at Stonehenge weigh 25 tons, or 50000 pounds….it would be closer to say the dragon weighs as much as Stonehenge, not an individual stone lol
a closer comparison is the 700 ton Christ the Redeemer statue in Brazil. It’s only 60 tons heavier than the dragon and it’s 98 feet tall
That math does make sense, but whenever I compare it to a real object, it always seems light in comparison. For example, the rocks at stonehenge weigh almost 4 times as much as a colossal dragon.
Edit: And it might be more than 8 times, because if something is bigger, it needs more muscles to lift itself up and not collapse relative to their size.
Its all about density. Most living things have a density close to water. A 25×25×25 cube of water weighs 974,805.2208 pounds. Which is 31% denser than water and is denser than every non-bone organ of living things. Which means dragons would have to have a disproportionately big skeleton to have that weight.
Why would a dragon weigh as much as a big block of stone? You might argue that a Dragon's bones were stone, as they are close to that, maybe also their teeth, but the rest of them? Like all living things, they are mostly made of water.
By expanding on the charts in the DMG, a Colossal Dragon would be 85 feet long, a minimum of 25 feet wide, and it's back would be about 35 feet tall. That would be 74,375 cubic feet, and a gallon of water weighs 7.48 pounds. You've got yourself 556,325 pounds of Red Dragon there. It's up to you to figure out how much the wings, bones, teeth, and what-not weigh to add into that. As near a I can figure, Memnosyne's Colossal Red Dragon would weigh 1,436 tons, and the Draconomicon says 640 tons. I get 278 tons for mine.
With an average of 785 tons, I'd say the Draconomicon is a little under, and I'm way out of the ballpark. :-)
The 3.5e size chart lists gargantuan creatures as 16 tons to 125 tons, which would translate to an 8× range of 128 tons to 1000 tons. That would suggest an average of 562.5 tons for a Colossal creature. Not that it really matters.
I was using the OPs Red dragon weight, then used the Medium Linebacker as a frame of reference for "normal". Being 50% heavier when normalized implies that the Colossal Red Dragon is heavier than average for its size category.
I think people are having a hard time understanding cubic volumes. Let's start at a medium creature, a beefy Human male that weighs 250 pounds for the 5ft x5(a square)x5 volume he threatens. While he obviously doesn't take up that whole space, it will work as a base to establish how many 250 lb units other creatures volumes will hold.
Large is 10ft x10x10, 8 250 lb units. 2000 lbs.
Huge is 15ft x15x15, 27 250 lb units. 6750 lbs.
Gargantuan is 20ft x20x20, 64 250 lb units. 16,000 lbs
Now bear with me for this next part. Humans and Dragons obviously have different body shapes but, let's imagine a dragon standing on it's tail(like the picture almost seems to show) and compare it's overall length to a human's height.
A human's height is probably close to 6 ft but, it is reduced to 5 ft for the sake of cubic space dimensions so, the 120 ft dragon is confined to 100 ft(5/6*120=100). For a Colossal Dragon we could say that it threatens a 100x100x100 space! To be fair however, according to the stats the dragon's widest part is only 1/8 of its length, while ours is closer to 1/4. This would still leave us with a calculation of 100Lx50Wx50H(width and height both being thickness) for the purpose of a weight calculation.
In 5ft cubes we are looking at 20x10x10=2000(500,000 lbs) for a skinny Dragon. Let's say 20x15x15 for more brutish Dragon, we get 4500 units for 1,125,000 lbs. If we used the heavier side of the scale it would be 20x20x20=8000 units for 2,000,000 lbs even.
Granite has 3X the density of the human body. Flying creatures such as birds are typically 1/5 less dense than humans due to the hollow bones needed to allow them to fly. I would assume it would have to be the same here, unless D&D has different physics on their worlds.
Not sure if this is the right forum for this question, and it is for 3.5 edition, but in the Draconomicon it says that a colossal red dragon weighs 1,280,000 pounds. This seems like it is too low, so I was wondering if anyone else knew a better answer.
Why do you think it's too low?
A general rule of thumb is that when a creature increases by a size category, its weight increases by a factor of eight:
Colossal --> Gargantuan (x8) --> Huge (x64) --> Large (x512) --> Medium (x4096)
Thus, this weight would be comparable to a medium creature that weighs 312.5lbs, which is approximately 50% more than the average linebacker.
That's a big fire pup.
That math does make sense, but whenever I compare it to a real object, it always seems light in comparison. For example, the rocks at stonehenge weigh almost 4 times as much as a colossal dragon.
Edit: And it might be more than 8 times, because if something is bigger, it needs more muscles to lift itself up and not collapse relative to their size.
The rocks at Stonehenge weigh 25 tons, or 50000 pounds….it would be closer to say the dragon weighs as much as Stonehenge, not an individual stone lol
a closer comparison is the 700 ton Christ the Redeemer statue in Brazil. It’s only 60 tons heavier than the dragon and it’s 98 feet tall
Its all about density. Most living things have a density close to water. A 25×25×25 cube of water weighs 974,805.2208 pounds. Which is 31% denser than water and is denser than every non-bone organ of living things. Which means dragons would have to have a disproportionately big skeleton to have that weight.
Or colossal is bigger than 25×25.
Why would a dragon weigh as much as a big block of stone? You might argue that a Dragon's bones were stone, as they are close to that, maybe also their teeth, but the rest of them? Like all living things, they are mostly made of water.
By expanding on the charts in the DMG, a Colossal Dragon would be 85 feet long, a minimum of 25 feet wide, and it's back would be about 35 feet tall. That would be 74,375 cubic feet, and a gallon of water weighs 7.48 pounds. You've got yourself 556,325 pounds of Red Dragon there. It's up to you to figure out how much the wings, bones, teeth, and what-not weigh to add into that. As near a I can figure, Memnosyne's Colossal Red Dragon would weigh 1,436 tons, and the Draconomicon says 640 tons. I get 278 tons for mine.
With an average of 785 tons, I'd say the Draconomicon is a little under, and I'm way out of the ballpark. :-)
<Insert clever signature here>
Where are you getting 1,436 tons for "my" dragon? I just used the OP weight and worked it backward.
You said to multiply the weight of a Gargantuan creature by 8. I did so. You didn't post a weight in pounds. What else would I have used?
<Insert clever signature here>
The 3.5e size chart lists gargantuan creatures as 16 tons to 125 tons, which would translate to an 8× range of 128 tons to 1000 tons. That would suggest an average of 562.5 tons for a Colossal creature. Not that it really matters.
I was using the OPs Red dragon weight, then used the Medium Linebacker as a frame of reference for "normal". Being 50% heavier when normalized implies that the Colossal Red Dragon is heavier than average for its size category.
I think people are having a hard time understanding cubic volumes. Let's start at a medium creature, a beefy Human male that weighs 250 pounds for the 5ft x5(a square)x5 volume he threatens. While he obviously doesn't take up that whole space, it will work as a base to establish how many 250 lb units other creatures volumes will hold.
Large is 10ft x10x10, 8 250 lb units. 2000 lbs.
Huge is 15ft x15x15, 27 250 lb units. 6750 lbs.
Gargantuan is 20ft x20x20, 64 250 lb units. 16,000 lbs
Now bear with me for this next part. Humans and Dragons obviously have different body shapes but, let's imagine a dragon standing on it's tail(like the picture almost seems to show) and compare it's overall length to a human's height.
A human's height is probably close to 6 ft but, it is reduced to 5 ft for the sake of cubic space dimensions so, the 120 ft dragon is confined to 100 ft(5/6*120=100). For a Colossal Dragon we could say that it threatens a 100x100x100 space! To be fair however, according to the stats the dragon's widest part is only 1/8 of its length, while ours is closer to 1/4. This would still leave us with a calculation of 100Lx50Wx50H(width and height both being thickness) for the purpose of a weight calculation.
In 5ft cubes we are looking at 20x10x10=2000(500,000 lbs) for a skinny Dragon. Let's say 20x15x15 for more brutish Dragon, we get 4500 units for 1,125,000 lbs. If we used the heavier side of the scale it would be 20x20x20=8000 units for 2,000,000 lbs even.
I meant the weight of all the rocks at stonehenge.
Also I thought the 3.5 edition rulebook said it was 30 feet.
Edit: Someone else further up thought it was 25 feet.
Body is 35 ft long, tail and neck extend to 120 total feet of length. Wingspan is 150 ft!
Granite has 3X the density of the human body. Flying creatures such as birds are typically 1/5 less dense than humans due to the hollow bones needed to allow them to fly. I would assume it would have to be the same here, unless D&D has different physics on their worlds.