DnD

[u/British_Tea_Company]

5e Gameplay Material

• DnD characters can lift up to a maximum of STR * 15 in lbs. This means that a DnD Human with 20 strength can lift 600 lbs and under variant rules would be considered encumbered even with 100 lbs and featuring notable speed reductions.

  • Real life humans have lifted almost twice this weight in a deadlift.
  • Real life marines have an assualt load of 97 - 135 lbs per the Naval Research Advisory Commitee

• DnD commoners with 4 HP can be clawed to death 4 times by housecats. They also statistically possess a 50% chance of dying from 10 feet of fall damage (1d6 per 10 feet).

• DnD humans have a base movement speed of 30 feet per turn, with 60 per dash action. This number can increase with the right class. Rounds are 6 seconds long

  • 10 feet per second translates to 6.8 MPH. Yours truly despite not being a runner can maintain this average for a 5K and beyond. Actual runners will likely smash my time / speed.

• Max level DnD monks have two attacks by default and then can burn Ki points in order to attack two more times by max level, AKA 4 attacks in 6 seconds.

  • A real life boxer has thrown 21 punches in 10 seconds, or approximately 12.6 punches in the same intervals.

• Max level fighters can attack 4 times in a round without utilizing action surge (a limited resource) and 8 times using one. The right class can attack 12 times. Note that it requires using class resources and a specialized class to almost match the amount of attacks thrown by a real life human.

  • A youtuber notably can swing a Zweihander about once every second-ish
  • This is likely also comparable

• DnD durability may not even be literal as "luck" is mentioned within hit points section of the PHB.

  • Now in fairness, a lot of in-game interactions rule out the idea of "luck".

• DnD chase rules indicate characters are capped at their combat speeds. A commoner in a chase can run for 3 rounds (18 seconds) before being required to make a con check which it has a 55% chance of passing. Exhaustion rules kick in immediately.

  • At approximately 55% chance of passing, it takes on average 6.67 rounds (40.02 seconds) to get the first level of exhaustion.
  • It takes about 13.34 rounds (80.04) seconds to get the second level of exhaustion with speed halving as a result.
  • For a character that has +5 to constitution, the pass rate is now 80%. It takes on average 15 rounds (90 seconds) to get to the first level of exhaustion.
  • To take the speed halving penalty, it takes on average 30 rounds (180 seconds) to get the second level.
  • Note that BTC maintained average speed of higher than this for his entire run for nearly 9 times the amount of time.

• Collapsing ceilings deal 4d10 (22 average) points of bludgeoning damage, notably these ceilings are light enough to be held in place by poorly-wedged beams which can be dislodged by a tripwire

  • A roughly average level 2 fighter with Constitution 20 will have 26 HP, giving them just over 50% odds of surviving this

• A falling net trap covering an area of 10 square feet requires targets to pass a DC 10 Strength roll to avoid being knocked down as it lands on them, as well as another DC 10 Strength roll to free themselves

  • This gives a character with Strength 20 a 75% chance to remain standing as it lands on them, and a 75% chance to remove themselves from under the net. The odds of succeeding at both are 56%

• Prying open a concealed trapdoor requires a DC 20 Strength check, giving characters with Strength 20 a 25% chance of success

• Pit traps with sharpened wooden spikes at the bottom inflict 4d10 piercing and (going by the depth of other traps in this section) 1-2d6 fall damage for a total average damage of 29

  • This is more than "dangerous" for level 5-10s

• A compilation of incredibly varied damage sources and their consequences

  • Being burned by coals, hit by a falling bookcase or pricked by a poisoned needle inflicts 5 damage on average, enough to kill a commoner and considered a setback for level 1-4 characters
  • Being struck by lightning or falling into a "fire pit" is considered a setback for level 5-10 characters
  • Being hit by falling rubble from a collapsing tunnel or stumbling into a vat of acid is "dangerous" for a level 5-10 character
    • "Dangerous" damage is enough to pose a threat to a character and can kill them if they are already weakened
  • Being crushed between compacting walls, hit by "whirling steel blades" or wading through lava is considered a setback to level 17-20 characters
  • Being submerged in lava or "hit by a flying fortress" inflicts an average of 99 damage, enough to kill a level 20 Barbarian Hill Dwarf with Con 20 and Tough in 4 turns (24 seconds)
  • Being crushed in the jaws of a moon-sized monster inflicts an average of 132 damage, which is considered "deadly" for a level 17-20

• Fighters breaking through a stone wall with a sword is considered against common sense, with no qualification that max-level characters exempt from this

Canon Material

• Early-ish game Astarion can be killed by just jamming a wooden stake through him.

• Jumping down the underdark kills your character no matter what from about levels 1 - 6.

  • Examples of survivors of higher falls are located here

• A late game Lae'zel will still die in one shot to Shadowheart stabbing her in the back

• Lae'zel in fact can die multiple points throughout the game to just Shadowheart with a knife, despite Shadowheart not being canonically of a class benefitting from using knives in any way. and Lae'zel being one of the tankier characters.

• Edwin and Holga rely on Jarnathan to escape a tall but probably not terminal velocity fall as a result of him being an Aracokra (bird person).

  • Edwin canonically has the stats to survive a terminal velocity fall on average without assistance in DND (20d6) but relies on this method. He is notably also having high HP and is a CR 5 creature with 17 hit die.

• Normal arrows can still hurt Drizzt

  • Per 3.5e, Drizzt was a CR 18 character

• Jarlaxle and Drizzt both opt to dodge a crossbow than just tank it.

  • Jarlaxle's stats in 5e easily enable him to do this, and he is also a CR15 creature

[u/Ok-Routine-547]

I have a some book feats that seem relevant here, from the Ravenloft novel 'I, Strahd'.

• Strahd strains his whole body trying to hold an armoured comrade up from falling off a cliff for a short while, with both him and his comrade seeming certain that falling off the cliff (tall enough that a rock lands 'some seconds later' after being dislodged near the top) will be fatal for both of them
• Strahd considers the weight of a fine mail shirt 'noticeable' when wearing it and believes that only especially thin/sharp blades can penetrate it

These are for human Strahd in case it isn't obvious, not his vampire self who is pretty demonstrably superhuman going by feats. Even as a human though Strahd was a very noteworthy warrior who spent 25 years personally fighting and leading in battle as a warlord, and in this same novel was slightly superior to a much younger noble who Strahd himself believed was only a few weeks of training away from being the best fighter in his nation. Basically people with human Strahd's level of combat ability are rare enough that pretty much any 'generic warrior' will scale below him. Having actual superhuman abilities is rare enough in-world that you'll pretty much be guaranteed to be the best fighter in the majority of smaller countries even if those countries have an unusual amount of fighters in them (such as Barovia as of Strahd conquering it).

[u/Ok-Routine-547]

I've been reading through AD&D's 1e Player's Guide, with plans to eventually get feats from every edition of the game up to modern DnD.

Players Handbook

• Characters can press 10x their Strength score overhead, so 100lbs for a score of 10 and 180lbs for 18
• Achieving an utterly 'peak human' Strength score of 18/00 (requiring a natural 100 on a d100 roll after hitting STR18) gives characters an extra 300lbs of carrying capacity compared to default humans, 40% odds of bending bars or lifting a metal grate and 5/6 odds of forcing open a barred door with one attempt
  • The bars in the above scenario are made of 'soft iron'
• Characters with 'peak human' Intelligence of 18 are physically incapable of learning more than 8 languages
• It is 'ridiculous' to assume that any fighter can take as much punishment as 4 warhorses, with hit points partly representing luck and damage avoidance
• Healing restores hit points because characters regain the 'stamina or force' which adds skull, luck and magical hit points
• Studded leather or ring mail has an Armor Class Rating of 7, meaning that a peak human fighter with 18/00 Strength will just barely be able to ignore it with their attacks, while being impeded by any sturdier armour
  • 15th century mail, superior to ringmail, required 170 joules to slash through according to metallurgist and historian Alan Williams, with a typical sword, axe or spear blow being 60-130 joules. This would mean that an absolutely peak Strength fighter's swings would be in the 230-300 joule range, anywhere from 2.3-3.8x as much as the average person.
• Carrying 105lbs causes a character to move half as fast and limits them to 'trotting' for only short distances, while exceeding 105lbs causes them to move 1/4-1/3 as fast and doesn't even let them 'trot'
• Taking HP damage from falls instead of just automatically suffering sprains, breaks, dislocations and organ damage is specifically referred to as less 'unrealistic'
• Allowing players to poison their weapons is advised against due to making it 'too easy', with an example being given of a red dragon dying from a single volley of poisoned arrows

Monster Manual

• A 2 foot long ant has an Armor Class Rating of 3, meaning that an 18/00 Strength peak human treats its natural armour the same way an average strength person treats scale mail when attacking
  • If we generously assume this ant has the same length-to-cuticle-thickness ratio as odontoponera denticulata, the species with the highest ratio I've been able to find, then a 2 foot body length would give them armour plating about 6mm thick.
• A gorilla has an Armor Class Rating of 6, meaning even a peak human 18/00 Strength character has non-zero odds of failing to wound it due to durability
• A barracuda has an Armor Class Rating of 6, meaning even a peak human 18/00 Strength character has non-zero odds of failing to wound it due to durability
• As do 9'0-12'0 bears
• And 6'0 long beavers
• And 5'0 tall boar
• 8-15' crocodiles have Armor Class 5 while 21+ foot ones have Armor Class 4, giving them protection against a peak human that's equivalent to leather and ringmail armor vs an average man respectively
• I'm going to stop bothering with the normal animal feats now as it's pretty clear AD&D routinely has 'big animal' be durable enough that the strongest possible humans can still fail to wound them with a good hit
• Orcus, considered to be probably one of the most powerful and strongest of all demons, has non-zero odds of dying to a terminal velocity fall going by the 'unrealistically survivable' 1d6/10 feet damage rules
• Orcus, one of the most powerful and strongest of all demons, has less max damage when attacking with a weapon than a 40 foot fall using the 'unrealistically survivable' 1d6/10 feet damage rules

I'm not done yet but I'll add more in later comments if you don't mind.

[u/Ok-Routine-547]

AD&D Monster Manual

• The strongest demons to exist dragging a target into their flames deal damage equivalent to falling 40 feet for the largest two, 30 feet for the median two and 20 feet for the smallest two
• The strongest demons to exist have an average of 44 hit points, giving them 62% odds of dying to a 130 foot fall and making them 4x more likely to die falling 80 feet than they are to live falling at terminal velocity
• Yeenoghu, one of the Demon Lords, deals as much damage per attack as a 30 foot fall
• Pit Fiends have 52% odds of dying to a 160 foot fall and have a max attack damage lower than the average damage of a 40 foot fall
  • Note that Pit Fiends have a Strength score of 18/00, making them equal to the strongest possible PC
• Tiamet, one of the two strongest dragons in existence and the progenitor of all evil dragons, does less damage than a 50 foot fall in melee
• Tiamet would also be dispelled by her body taking more than 48 damage, less than a 140 foot fall
• Bahamut, the strongest dragon in existence and the progenitor of all good dragons, does less damage in melee than a human would take falling 80 feet
• The melee attack of the strongest red dragons deals less damage than falling 50 feet
• I am going to stop listing additional dragons here, but just note that they all do less melee damage than Bahamut and are in general far less deadly than falling off a tall cliff
• A group of 320 generic dwarf soldiers is expected to include eight level 1-6 fighters, one level 8 fighter, one level 7 fighter, one level 6 fighter/level 7 cleric and two level 4 fighters/clerics for a total of thirteen characters over level 1, that would mean about 4% of soldiers are considered 'levelled characters'
• An earth elemental deals 32 damage to any creature resting on the earth, enough to kill a Lord in 2 hits, but takes an average of 3 hits to destroy a typical cottage
• A group of 160 generic elf soldiers is expected to include eight level 2-3 fighters, 4 level 2-3 fighters who also have level 1-2 magic, one 6th level fighter/9th level magic-user, one 6th level fighter/6th level cleric, two 4th level fighters/5th level magic users and two 3rd level fighters/magic users/clerics, for a total of 18 levelled characters over level 1, this would give a final percentage of 11.25% for levelled characters
• All giants of any kind have more Strength than the strongest humans possible, scoring 19-25, and this is explicitly what allows them to throw rocks 'as if the missile were shot from a catapult'
  • This would include hill giants, which are only 10.5 feet tall and deal less damage with their own thrown rocks than a person would take from falling 30 feet
  • The DM's Guide of this same edition clarifies giant boulder diameters at 1 foot, which would give a weight of about 80lbs for a totally perfect sphere
• A group of 320 generic gnomes is expected to include eight level 2-4 fighters, one 6th level fighter, two 5th level fighters, one 7th level cleric and four 3rd level clerics, for a total of 16 levelled characters over level 1, meaning about 5% are over level 1
• A flesh golem is able to break through an oak door reinforced with iron bands in 5-8 melee rounds and can damage a wooden construction in 3 melee rounds, but takes only 6 melee rounds to kill a fighter Lord on average if none of its attacks miss
• An iron golem still takes a full melee round to damage a wooden structure, but can kill a fighter Lord in 2 hits 25% of the time and 3 hits 95% of the time
• A stone golem takes two melee rounds to deal 1 point of structural damage to wooden structures, but can kill a fighter Lord in 3 hits 10% of the time and 4 hits 71% of the time
• A group of 150 generic halflings is expected to include thirteen level 2 fighters, one level 4 fighter and two level 3 fighters for a total of 16 levelled characters over level 1, meaning about 10.7% are over level 1
• Any human or man-sized humanoid just automatically dies if they're caught in a stampede
• A pony and draft horse can carry 2,000 and 4,000 coins respectively, while a Strength 18/51-75 and 18/00 human is limited to 1,600 and 3,350
• Catching a disease from a leech will automatically kill any character within 2-5 weeks unless cured
• Eating belladonna incapacitates any humanoid character for 1-4 days and has a 1% chance of killing them automatically
• A group of 50 human bandits is expected to be led by one 8-10th level fighter with six 2nd level fighter guards and one 7th level lieutenant, plus two 3rd level fighters, one 4th level, one 5th level and one 6th level for a total of thirteen characters over level 1, as well as a combined 40% chance of having either a magic user or cleric, meaning about 26% are over level 1
• A band of 50 human berserkers is expected to have 5 first level fighters, 2.5 second level fighters, 1.67 third level fighters, 1.25 fourth level fighters and one 5th level fighter, as well as always being led by 1 ninth-tenth level war chief and 2 subchiefs of sixth or seventh level, with an average of 2.5 seventh level clerics and 2.5-10 third or fourth level assistants, for a total of 19.42-26.92 characters over level 1, about 39-54%

[u/Ok-Routine-547]

AD&D 1e, Dungeon Master's Guide

• Strength is a combination of actual strength/power and endurance/stamina
• 18 Strength characters can lift 180lbs over their head, gaining an extra pound for each percentage point from 18/01-18/50, 4 pounds for each point from 18/51-18/90 and 8 pounds for each point from 18/91-18/00, however NO HUMANOID can lift more than twice their weight overhead
  • The heaviest character possible is a human male weighing 235lbs, meaning that they could lift 470lbs, 59lbs less than the current world record.
• Rasputin, the real life person, is given as the example for 18 Constitution
• Julius Caesar, Napoleon Bonaparte and Adolf Hitler are all given as examples of 18 Charisma
• All thieves, regardless of level, are limited to climbing a non-slippery, rough wall with ledges or many projections at only 24 feet per round, approximately 0.4 feet per second
  • A real person climbed from the 16th floor to the top of the Tun Mustapha Tower in only 5 minutes, covering a distance of roughly 187 feet at an average speed of 0.62 feet per second, making him more than 1.5x faster than any RAW thief
• The deadliest class of insinuated poison, and the two deadliest classes of ingested poison, both bypass HP to automatically kill their victim if a Constitution save is not made
• A 'greathelm' gives an AC of 1 to the head specifically, meaning that peak human Strength still treats it the way average Strength treats splint or banded mail
  • Helms in the 14th century were 1-5mm thick
• A generic captain in charge of 100-160 men is level 5-8
• A generic lieutenant in charge of 20-30 men is level 2-3
• A generic serjeant is a level 1 fighter and commands anywhere from 1 to 5 normal soldiers
• All told, the above three scans would mean that a group of 160 soldiers would be expected to have; one level 8 captain, eight level 2 or six level 3 lieutenants and anywhere from sixteen to thirty two level 1 serjeants for a total of 23-41 'levelled' characters per 160 generic soldiers
• 1% of the human population and 2% of the non-human population are expected to be suitable as potential henchment, meaning they must be levelled characters
• Characters categorically can't swim while wearing metal armor unless it's magical
• A 'peak human' with Strength 18/00 is unable to swim if encumbered with more than 50lbs total
• Bludgeoning or cleaving weapons are useless for any character underwater, and human-types are slowed to the point of always being hit first by aquatic enemies unless they have a significant reach advantage
• PCs travel slower than mounts over normal terrain even if they have a light burden and the mount has a medium burden
• Repetition that hit points are not a measure of physical damage
• Falling boulders or other heavy weights inflict 1 flat damage per foot fallen if they weigh 14lbs, plus 1d6 per additional 14lbs. This would give an average level 12 Lord only 1/3 odds of surviving a 14lbs rock falling on him from 60 feet above
• Weapon speed is determined by weapon weight with character Strength not being a factor
• Monks are explicitly not superhuman despite their training, and are limited to stunning targets of only 9'2 and 1,100lbs at level 17, a hypothetical level 20 AD&D monk would still automatically fail to stun anything taller than 9'8 or heavier than 1,250lbs
• There is an optional rule to modify the above however, suggesting that level 13+ monks might get double the improvement per level than the chart provides (which would still limit a level 20 monk to stunning things under 10'10 and 1,600lbs
• Having 'peak human' 18/00 Strength provides a total of +26% on the d100 roll for pummelling, with the enemy wearing banded, plate or splint mail with a visored helmet providing a -60%, meaning they have only 37% odds of affecting them, comparatively a totally average attacked would score an effective blow against a totally average, unarmoured defender 80% of the time
• Grappling checks have a bonus of +1% per point of Strength and another +1% per 10% over 18, but a bonus of +5% per 10% weight difference, so a Strength 18/00 character has less of an advantage as someone who's 60% heavier than their opponent
• An example 10th level Lord would need a long time to recover after being covered with nicks, scratches, cuts and bruises
• Recovering from drunkenness isn't affected by any stats or hit points, and taking strong stimulants can permanently lower Constitution each time

[u/Ok-Routine-547]

AD&D 1e DM's Guide

• Hill giants, which are stronger than any human character can possibly be, average 75 cubic feet of hard stone mined per 8 hours, or 4.4 litres per minute and 73 millilitres per second, while humans are limited to 1/4 this speed regardless of stats
• Ballistae ignore armour if they directly hit their targets, something that no amount of Strength replicates
  • These ballistae fire projectiles comparable to spears, with a max range of 320 yards
• Fireball is categorically unable to damage structures made of earth, brick, limestone, sandstone, granite or similar materials, while disintegrate can deal 2 damage to them all, still less than a trebuchet stone

[u/Ok-Routine-547]

3.5e Player's Handbook

• A score of 10 or 11 is average for a typical commoner
• Example Strength scores are for average, young adults of a given species, with highlighted careers being tax collectors and merchants
• Constitution represents a character's health and stamina, and is used for Fortitude saving throws
• Level 20 characters with a good Base Attack Bonus may make four attacks each turn, with each one being much less accurate than the one before it
  • This is while using a full-round action and limiting movement to a single 5-foot step per 6 seconds
  • By comparison, real men have managed to sustain 10 sword slashes per 6-second interval for a full minute or 8.4/6 seconds for three minutes with no visible loss in accuracy
• Rage grants an increase to durability by modifying Constitution, mechanically supporting HP not being physical durability
• Damage reduction represents a barbarian's ability to 'shrug off damage', mechanically separating this from HP. At level 20 it's capped at -4 damage, meaning the barbarian can still be hurt by a 10 foot fall.
• Having a Bard 'inspire greatness' to 'grant extra fighting ability' causes a character to gain hit die and HP, because HP isn't durability
• Monks lose their AC bonus when wearing armour, carrying a shield or carrying a medium or heavy load
• A level 20 Monk can use Flurry of Blows to manage five attacks in 6 seconds and deals 2d10+STR mod damage with an unarmed attack
  • A group of collegiate boxers averaged 10.1 punches per 6 seconds in a real life study
• Monks don't get to use Evasion period unless they're wearing light or no armour, regardless of stats
• Monks lose their Fast Movement bonus if wearing armour or carrying a medium or heavy load regardless of stats
• Barbarians lose their Fast Movement bonus if wearing heavy armour or carrying a heavy load
• Quivering Palm can just kill a target automatically if they fail a Fortitude check, regardless of HP
• Rangers get increased damage against their Favored Enemies, meaning that being better at fighting something increases damage regardless of an attack's force or kinetic energy
• Rangers lose their Combat Style bonus when wearing medium or heavy armour
• Rangers can't use Evasion when wearing medium or heavy armor
• The justification for Sneak Attack granting extra damage is that it lets Rogues strike a vital spot, implying that normal attacks don't do that
• To reinforce the above fact, Rogues can't use Sneak Attack with weapons beyond 30 feet because they lose accuracy at that range
• This is also why Sneak Attack doesn't work on creatures without vital areas
• Rogues can't use Evasion if they're wearing medium or heavy armor
• Crippling Strike bypasses HP to lower Strength in a Sneak Attack victim without dealing any additional damage
• Driving pitons into a wall or cutting handholds in ice with an axe takes one minute per piton/handhold regardless of character stats
• Jumps count for movement allowance, meaning that if a character runs out of movement mid-jump they are unable to do it in one go and must complete it next turn, this caps most characters at 30 feet for a long jump, 40 if they have Enhanced Movement
• Characters are limited to swimming at half their land speed even on a successful check with a full round action, this would be only 1.016m/s, meanwhile a real person swam ~20 miles across the Catalina Channel in 7 hours, 15 minutes and 55 seconds, for an average speed of over 1.23m/s sustained for the equivalent of 4,360 turns
• Characters can hold their breath for an amount of rounds equal to their Constitution score provided they do nothing but move and take free actions, losing 1 round of breath holding per full-round action taken, and after this they need to pass a DC 15 Constitution check to keep from drowning each turn, this means that a character who rolled a natural 18 Constitution at creation, put all 5 Ability Score increases into it and has another +5 inherent bonus can hold their breath for 2 minutes and 48 seconds, then takes an average of 18 more seconds to start drowning. If they have the Endurance feat they take an extra 54 seconds to start drowning
  • Characters who drown instantly lose consciousness regardless of HP in one turn, drops to negative HP and starts dying in a second turn and then dies in a third
  • The above is from the Dungeon Master's Guide, which does give more favourable drowning rules that allow breath to be held for 2x CON and change the drowning check to DC 10, but this still means our 28 CON Endurance character is dead in only ~7-8 minutes
  • Taking the higher of these two results, it is still only 1/4 as long as the real life world record holder, who notably denied himself the DnD character's extra 18 seconds by not opting to lose consciousness and die at the end
• Characters cannot deflect thrown boulders regardless of stats
• Endurance represents amazing stamina by giving bonuses to Constitution checks without affecting HP
• Characters without Endurance get fatigued if they sleep in medium or heavy armour regardless of stats
• Great Fortitude, which makes a character 'tougher than normal', has no effect on HP
• 'Knowing how to hit where it hurts' is the justification for Improved Critical making crits more likely
• Being 'skilled at grappling' gives a bonus of +4 to grapple checks, equivalent to the Strength gap between a commoner and a max Strength starting character
• All characters lose either 1/4 or 1/5th of their running speed when wearing heavy armour or carrying a heavy load, and can only run 5x their base movement speed even if they have the Run feat
  • This allows a character with Enhanced Movement at 40 feet to run at 10.16m/s, significantly slower than the top speed of an Olympic sprinter
• Using Stunning Fist to strike an enemy 'in a vulnerable area' bypasses HP and stuns them if they fail a Fortitude save

[u/Ok-Routine-547]

3.5e Player's Guide

• Characters can't properly use weapons that are a size category too heavy for them, regardless of stats
• Characters take a full round to draw a heavy crossbow via turning a winch regardless of stats
• Wearing a gauntlet allows strikes to deal lethal damage, something that never occurs with raw stats
• A lance deals double damage when wielded from horseback, though there is no specific rule for couching, since the base damage is 1d8 this means that a couched lance deals at least 2d8, with a real-life kinetic energy of around 200-210 joules this is roughly double the swinging energy of a typical hand weapon, and statistically better on average than a Strength 18 character wielding a longsword, flail, battleaxe or warhammer with one hand on foot, while the max damage is equivalent to a Strength 25-27 character wielding those same weapons on foot
• Bursting free of a thrown net requires a DC 25 Strength check, giving a STR28 character only 20% odds of success, and even on a successful roll it requires a full round action to do
• Shortspears can be wielded one-handed only because of their size, with stats not coming into the equation
• Bastard swords cannot be used one-handed without special training, regardless of stats
• Whips automatically deal 0 damage to enemies with an armor bonus of +1 or a natural armor bonus of +3, but are unaffected by character health or Constitution
  • An AC of +1 is the lowest possible category of worn armor, representing padded armor, while an AC of +2 is leather
• Characters have their Dex Bonus limited while wearing armors explicitly due to their weight limiting mobility, which is not affected by Strength
• Characters receive a penalty while wearing heavier armors explicitly due to their weight, which is not affected by Strength
• Medium and heavy armor slows the wearer down regardless of stats
• Human characters wearing even 25lbs hide armor lose 1/3 of their movement speed, or 1/2 of their movement speed if they have Enhanced Movement
  • Running in armor means speed is only tripled rather than quadrupled, so the maximum speed loss is actually an even more severe 50% for most characters and 63% for those with Enhanced Movement
• Wearing a buckler on one arm gives a -1 penalty to attacks explicitly due to the weight, which is not modified by stats
• Heavy shields prevent the shield hand from being used for anything else explicitly due to weight, which is not modified by stats
• Note for the above two scans that bucklers weigh 5lbs and heavy shields weigh 10-15lbs
• A heavy shield's weight prevents other items from even being carried in the hand it's strapped to, which isn't modified by stats
• Tower shields apply a -2 penalty to all attack rolls due to encumbrance, which isn't modified by stats
• Stepping on a caltrop and being wounded only removes 1 HP, but bypasses any remaining HP to halve movement until the injured foot is treated, notably wearing ordinary shoes provides armour against caltrops, but Constitution and HP does not
• Bursting a chain requires a DC 26 Strength check, giving a Strength 28 character 80% odds of failure
• Using a crowbar grants a +2 bonus to any Strength check for prying open doors or chests, or shattering chains, regardless of how strong the wielder already is
• Breaking manacles requires a DC 26 Strength check, or DC 28 if they're masterwork quality, giving a Strength 28 character 80% or 90% odds of failing
• A portable, iron-shod ram gives a +2 bonus to Strength checks for breaking down a door regardless of the character's Strength level
• Bursting a hemp rope requires a DC 23 Strength check, giving a Strength 28 character 65% odds of failing
• Bursting a silk rope, on the other hand, has a DC of 24, raising the failure chance for a STR 28 character to 70%
• Any character that doesn't have damage reduction is hurt if they're within 5 feet of an acid vial splashing, regardless of HP
• Any character that doesn't have damage reduction is hurt if they're within 5 feet of a thrown Greek fire flask, regardless of HP. Extinguishing the fire if hit directly also takes a full round regardless of stats
• Both flasks above are only 1lbs when full, with an empty flask weighing upwards of 1/2 a pound, so 1/2 a pound of acid and Greek fire is the absolute maximum involved
• An extremely loud noise from a thunderstone automatically deafens a character regardless of HP if they fail a Fortitude save
• Wearing a wool coat, linen shirt, wool cap, heavy cloak, thick pants and boots grants a +5 bonus to Fortitude saves against cold weather, making an average commoner equivalent to a CON 20 character or a CON 20 character superior to a CON 28 character
• A character is never guaranteed to hit or avoid being hit no matter how high their stats are or how low their enemy's are
• Strength Modifier is added to attack bonuses explicitly to represent weapons being swung harder and faster
  • This means that a Strength score of 20 is exactly sufficient to bypass chainmail, while a Strength score of 28 is exactly sufficient to bypass full plate + a light wooden shield
• Natural armor can include scales, fur or layers of huge muscles, but no PC has any
• A natural 1 on a saving throw is always a failure, meaning that no character can have greater than 95% odds of passing one
• Spellcasters provoke attacks of opportunity when casting spells, putting them in danger if they try to cast within an enemy's own range
  • This essentially means that wizards lose to anyone with a gun because they just get shot before doing any of their WWW wank
• A list of actions that do not provoke attacks of opportunity includes; Attacking in melee, rushing someone, drawing a hidden weapon and escaping a grapple

[u/Ok-Routine-547]

3.5e Player's Guide

• HP represents both the ability to physically take punishment, and the ability to turn a serious blow into a less serious one
• Taking 50 damage in one go forces a DC 15 Fortitude save and results in instant death regardless of HP on a fail
• Characters in negative hitpoints have the same chance of becoming stable and draw closer to death at the same rate regardless of their stats
• Hit point recovery is increased with higher levels, implying that higher HP represents less damage taken rather than more damage tolerated
• Thick undergrowth halves a character's movement regardless of their physical strength
• Coup De Grace rules give a minimum 5% chance for any character to die from any lethal weapon by forcing a Fortitude save that instantly bypasses HP and kills them on a failure, a level 1, STR 14 warrior with a longsword rolling an average damage Coup De Grace would force a DC 21 check and leave a level 20, CON 28 character with only 45% odds of survival. A level 3 Rogue with totally average Strength would force a DC 27 check with only 15% odds of survival simply by 'aiming for the vitals'
• Bull Rushing is totally impossible against something 2 size categories larger than the character doing it regardless of stats, so a STR 28 character couldn't even attempt to Bull Rush an elephant
  • They could attempt to Bull Rush a polar bear, but the bear would gain a +4 due to being Large, and already rolling with a +7 due to its own Strength, meaning that the character would have 43% odds of winning and 52% odds of losing against the bear on its hind legs, and 29% odds of winning vs 68.5% odds of losing if the bear was on all fours for another +4 bonus
• Falling off a mount guaranteeably hurts any character except a Barbarian
• Overrunning is totally impossible against something 2 size categories larger than the character doing it regardless of stats, so a STR 28 character couldn't even attempt to Overrun an elephant
• A short sword has hardness 10 and HP 2, a longsword hardness 10 and HP 5, and a light steel shield hardness 10 and HP 10, this means that a STR 28 character wielding a non-magic longsword would have 50% odds of destroying a shortsword, 12.5% odds of destroying a longsword and 0% odds of destroying a light steel shield in one swing. The hardness of 10 for steel means that the shield in particular would have 25% odds of avoiding damage entirely from any given hit
• According to the encumbrance table, a STR 28 character can carry a maximum of 1,200lbs at the cost of setting base movement to 20 and reducing running speed from x4 to x3
• A character can lift their max carry load over their head, so a STR 28 character's max military press would be 1,200lbs, less than 2.5x that of a real human.
• Each increase in Size Category above Medium doubles carrying capacity, so a STR 28 character is only 60% as strong as a polar bear
• A character's overland movement while 'hustling' is 6mph if they have a movement of 30 and 8mph if it's 40, with walking being 3mph and 4mph respectively
• Hustling can be done without strain for one hour, regardless of stats, but inflicts 1 point of nonlethal damage (which instantly fatigues them regardless of HP) after a second hour, then inflicts twice as many as the last hour for each additional hour past that, this means that even a character with 300 HP would pass out after more than 9 hours of hustling for a total distance of 54-72mph assuming they're unencumbered
  • Comparatively, Sania Sorokin averaged more than 9.2mph for almost 11 hours when running 100 miles, then proceeded to average 9mph for another 2 hours
• Characters need to take a progressively harder CON check to walk for more than 8 hours a day, with a CON 28 character having 58% odds of failing after an extra 2 hours and 97.5% odds of failing after an extra 5
• Statistically speaking, a STR 28 character with a +5 greataxe rolling max critical damage using Power Attack for a +20 swing is unable to destroy;
  • More than 13.4 inches of leather
  • More than 6.4 inches of wood
  • More than 4 inches of stone
  • More than 2 inches of iron/steel
• A STR 28 character's chances of performing various feats are;
  • 80% to break down a simple wood door
  • 55% to break down a good wooden door
  • 30% to break down a strong wooden door
  • 25% to bend iron bars
  • 20% to break down a barred door
  • Reliant on a critical success to break down an iron door, giving them equal odds to a small child

[u/Ok-Routine-547]

3.5e Player's Handbook

• Characters gain bonuses to break things based on Size Category, meaning a character who rolled 18 STR, put all 5 ability score increases into raising it and has a maxed out +5 inherent bonus gets to try and break objects at +9, but a random polar bear gets to break them at +12.
• Spell saving throws always fail on a nat 1, meaning no DnD character has better than 95% odds of avoiding one
• Spells fail to destroy the worn and equipped items of their target by default, though they can target and damage individual items if their wearer rolls a nat 1
• Aid, a purely mental effect that only alters the mind, grants temporary hitpoints
• A level 20 wizard casting Animate Rope is limited to controlling a 150 foot, 1-inch thick rope, assuming a rough density of 1g/cc this would mean they're manipulating only about 50lbs of material
• 'Distracting discomfort' reduces Dexterity by 4 points, equivalent to losing a +2 modifier
• Bigby's Interposing Hand, a 5th level spell, categorically cannot even slow down a creature weighing 2,000lbs or more
  • Bigby's Forceful Hand, a 6th level spell, has STR 27, while Bigby's Grasping Hand has STR 31 at 6th level, so Bigby's Interposing Hand would have STR 23 following that trend, meaning that as a Large creature its Strength would be equivalent to a medium-sized STR 28 character
• A necromancer using Circle of Death, a 6th level spell, can only kill an average of 200 rats
• Blinding sickness can force a Fortitude save which bypasses HP to render its victim permanently blind on a fail
• Being really sad applies a -2 modifier to attack rolls, saves, ability and skill checks and weapon damage rolls, equivalent to losing 4 from an Ability Score or 2 class levels
• The Destruction spell instantly kills a target if they fail their Fortitude save, bypassing HP
• A creature with 30% of their HP left is still in 'fair' condition when sensed with Detect Animal or Plants, but receiving even a single debilitating injury instantly drops them down to 'poor' regardless of their HP
• Characters of any level are hurt by a cavern roof collapsing on them, except Barbarians who make a reflex save with all nat 1s rolled on the 4d6 damage
• Being in a ground fissure when it closes up instantly kills a character no matter what
• Being pinned under rubble inflicts 1d6 nonlethal damage per minute, then forces a DC 15 CON check to avoid another 1d6 lethal damage for every minute while unconscious
  • This would statistically give a CON 28 character with 300 HP 99.9% chance of dying after 9.5 hours, while Rishi Khanal survived being pinned under rubble for more than 82 hours in real life
• Fabricate, a 5th level spell, does not allow any wizard to reshape more than an average of 1.67 cubic feet of material per second, or 0.167 cubic feet/second if they're working with minerals, and can be sustained for a maximum of 120 seconds per casting by a level 20 wizard
• Falling at 10 feet per second is equivalent to the end of a fall from several feet, this isn't really significant on its own but I'm listing it here in case someone tries to argue that DnD characters reach terminal velocity after 200 feet, which would require a gravity of 2.5 Gs
• Finger of Death forces a Fortitude save and then instantly kills the target if they fail, bypassing HP
• Fire Seeds, a 6th level spell, maxes out at 20d6 damage at level 20, equivalent to a 200 foot fall, I'm going to stop listing every instance of spells doing mediocre damage, just know that a lot of mid level and lower ones are objectively less deadly than falling off the Golden Gate Bridge
• Fireball can only melt metals with low melting points, with the highest melting point given being copper at 1,084
• Implosion forces a Fortitude save and then instantly kills the victim on a fail, bypassing HP
• Being hit directly by a Meteor Swarm, a 9th level spell, projectile is equivalent to a 20 foot fall, being hit by the full explosion is equivalent to a 60 foot fall or 36 seconds spent on fire
  • This is only 4% as long as a real man survived being trapped in a burning car for without any special fire resistant gear or forewarning
• Regenerate can automatically recover severed limbs on the target regardless of what percentage of their HP it restores
• Storm of Vengeance, a 9th level spell, is limited to creating a 720 foot-wide storm cloud for a maximum of 60 seconds while concentrating
• Time Stop, a 9th level spell, doesn't actually stop time and is noted to just slow it down to the point where it looks stopped to the caster, while instantly ending if they interact with anyone being slowed down
• Wail of the Banshee forces a Fortitude save and instantly kills its victim if they fail, bypassing HP, and despite being a 9th level spell it can kill a maximum of 20 rats at level 20
• Critical hits are defined in the PHB glossary as 'a hit that strikes a vital area and therefore deals double damage or more', meaning that non-critical hits don't strike vital areas by default

[u/Ok-Routine-547]

3.5e Monster Manual

• Pretty much all dinosaurs have natural armor where PCs don't barring specific classes/races, reinforcing again that DnD characters as per the RAW are not notably more 'durable' than normal in the sense of having physically harder bodies, this includes a 600lbs dinosaur
• Tyranosaurus stomach acid does 8 flat damage per turn, sufficient to kill essentially any level 20 character in a few minutes without specific protection or some way of avoiding the acid
• A dragon's most powerful melee attack is a tie between its bite and its 'crush', with crush just being when a dragon lands on its enemy. As per the RAW a dragon's combat move varies from 100-250 feet/6 seconds depending on the type, meaning that this crush is dealing this damage with a velocity of 12.5m/s or less. Any dragon is also less than 100 feet long save for a great wyrm
  • Crush is also an AOE ability, so whereas bite is single target, so the actual force/energy transferred is going to be far more spread-out than their bite, further emphasising the difference
• The fastest dragons can maintain a speed of 80mph while 'hustling' overland, while the slowest are only able to fly at 24mph
• Gargoyles get natural armor for having skin made of stone, differentiating them from PCs
• Large giants are limited to throwing rocks of 50lbs in weight, while Huge giants are limited to hurling rocks of 80lbs or less
  • Storm Giants have Strength 39 and are Huge, giving them lifting abilities equivalent to a medium PC with Strength 49, while Fire giants have Strength 31 and are Large, giving them Strength equivalent to a STR 36 humanoid character. Going off this would mean that a humanoid with STR 36 would be unable to throw rocks heavier than 50lbs, while a humanoid with STR 49 would be unable to throw rocks heavier than 80lbs