Constitution of little animals

[Gollum]

And what did you conclude, and why?

EDIT: Obviously don't need a full expose, just some stuff to maybe go and read. Personally I am of the opinion they do due to Hindu and Buddhist beliefs about being reborn as animals and vice versa. Plus we know they have the intelligence of around 5 year olds. So by that argument we are holding that intelligence is the basis on the existence of soul, so therefore babies wouldn't have one either. So I think every living being has one.

Since the main argument of Descartes was that animals don't have any language, my main counterargument was that they have one. But, in these years (about 20 years ago), there were few indisputable proofs. I used the example of Washoe and Koko, two female monkey which spoke AMESLAN (American sign language for deaf people). Both of them had no problem to speak that language and to generalize words like "open" too everything which can be opened, including taps. Furthermore, Washoe (a chimpanzee) created new concepts, like "striped horse" for zebra or "face-hat" for mask while Koko (a gorilla) used words to lie from time to time. But these was not great proof, of course. Everyone can remain doubtful by saying that these are monkeys, which are the most close to us animals... I am very far from having established that all animals have a conscious.

I wouldn't say that animals have the intelligence of a 5 year child. In my humble opinion, they have a different intelligence. Some recent psychology researches show that there are different kinds of intelligence.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Theory_of_multiple_intelligences

Cats, for instance, may have a low logical-mathematical intelligence, of course, but their bodily-kinesthetic one is indubitably far much higher than our. And they surely smile about our failure in that topic... I remember climbing once in a tree and telling to my cat: "Hey! Look how I climb well." My cat looked at me. As soon as I went down, my cat ran until the top of the tree. She didn't climb. She ran vertically, thanks to its claws. It make me laugh and my cat seemed very happy, as if she was saying: "Hey! Just look what climbing really means."

Edited January 31, 2014 by Gollum

[Gollum]

It was indeed the BBC documentary I was referring to earlier in the thread.

Thank you. I'll watch it as soon as possible and tell its conclusions.

[rogerd]

Since the main argument of Descartes was that animals don't have any language, my main counterargument was that they have one. But, in these years (about 20 years ago), there were few indisputable proofs. I used the example of Washoe and Koko, two female monkey which spoke AMESLAN (American sign language for deaf people). Both of them had no problem to speak that language and to generalize words like "open" too everything which can be opened, including taps. Furthermore, Washoe (a chimpanzee) created new concepts, like "striped horse" for zebra or "face-hat" for mask while Koko (a gorilla) used words to lie from time to time. But these was not great proof, of course. Everyone can remain doubtful by saying that these are monkeys, which are the most close to us animals... I am very far from having established that all animals have a conscious.

I wouldn't say that animals have the intelligence of a 5 year child. In my humble opinion, they have a different intelligence. Some recent psychology researches show that there are different kinds of intelligence.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Theory_of_multiple_intelligences

Cats, for instance, may have a low logical-mathematical intelligence, of course, but their bodily-kinesthetic one is indubitably far much higher than our. And they surely smile about our failure in that topic... I remember climbing once in a tree and telling to my cat: "Hey! Look how I climb well." My cat looked at me. As soon as I went down, my cat ran until the top of the tree. She didn't climb. She ran vertically, thanks to its claws. It make me laugh and my cat seemed very happy, as if she was saying: "Hey! Just look what climbing really means."

Cool, thanks for that. I will try to look into this in more detail.

My reason for my beliefs have funnily enough come from science, as paradoxical as that may seem.

If the universe is a hologram, some scientists even refer to us as living in a holodeck, and I remember seeing at least one other documentary on Youtube from established scientists referring to consciousness possibly being the Prime Mover - what we perceive or don't, effects reality. the similarities between this and various religions became rather striking for me - so I guess it either comes to: we are either all part of the program, or all life that has a conscious identity is both, part, and a part of the greater reality.

[rust]

Since the main argument of Descartes was that animals don't have any language, my main counterargument was that they have one.

They certainly do, although most animal languages lack the granularity of a human language,

they can express only what is important for the specific type of animal and often use body

language instead of sounds. A famous example of the language of a supposedly "low" animal

is the "dance" of bees informing other bees about the location of food sources they have dis-

covered. This ability of an insect to communicate comparatively complex informations makes

me believe that all "higher" animals also have the means to communicate whatever their so-

cial relations require. From personal experience I remember that one of our cats considered

me an unusually stupid kitten and always warned me with a specific growling sound whenever

a dog came near us. As for animals' souls, I think that a creature which is aware of itself and

of its surroundings and which can feel joy and pain definitely has the equivalent of a soul.

[seneschal]

Every time I hear statements such as "this animal has the intelligence of a 5-year-old child" or "the Hulk has the intelligence of a 3 year old" I have to conclude that the scientist or comic book writer speaking hasn't spent much time with young children recently. Human-level intelligence is, well, human intelligence. If you've worked with young children as a babysitter, teacher, or in some other capacity you know what cunning, creative, utterly amoral beings they are -- able to escape, elude, gang up on and deceive adults who are supposedly smarter and more experienced than they are. Re-read Hansel and Gretel sometime, especially the ending. If any animal really had the intelligence of even a 2-year-old human child, no one nearby would be safe. I know educators and psychologists have produced libraries of all kinds of developmental theories, but as a parent with hard experience I can warn you never to turn your back on a toddler!

Edited January 31, 2014 by seneschal

[Atgxtg]

What you say here is amusing. Not because your arguments are amusing - to the contrary, they are serious and very good. But because I had a similar conversation about GURPS and animal Health on Steve Jackson Games forums.

Not surprising. When you raise such a topic you're bound to get an opposing viewpoint- especially when the opposing view is pretty mcuh the predominant one, and has the most evidence to back it up.

Of course animals, especially savage ones, sound to have a lower health than humans. They die much earlier in their lifespan... But...

1) In my humble opinion, this is essentially due to our medicine. If we hadn't this medicine, things would certainly be very different. Just look at people who don't have access to our medicine, either far from our western world or far from our modern time in the past. Does that mean that our medicine makes our constitution higher? I'm not sure at all. To the contrary. If our medicine suddenly disappeared, I'm quite sure that a lot of people would die within a year, if not just a month. So, in my humble opinion, we are not really healthier than animals, we just have a medicine than keep us alive for a longer time. In roleplaying game terms, it means that we have bonuses to our rolls. But, of course, that is just my opinion and lot of people disagreed with me on Steve Jackson Games forum... Which is fine! I've no mean to prove what I say.

While modern medicine has prolonged human lifespan (I'd say modern diet and hygiene have done more to prolong it, but medicine certainly helped) the fact remains that even in less advanced eras, human lifespan was still several times that of most small animals.

2) If the comparison with humans is problematic lets compare little animal with bigger ones: elephants, hippopotamus, gorillas, rhinoceroses... These last don't live in better conditions and suffer about the same problems than littler ones. Shorter lifespan than expected, illnesses, and so on... In BRP rules as written, they still have a much higher Constitution score. So, this is really a problem.

Definitely a better comparison, especially if you can compare with related species. But even then larger naimals tend to have a longer lifespan than smaller ones. It the downside of having a higher metabolic rate.

As for the higher CON, that IMO is the result of having to adjust to give bigger critters higher resistance to toxcins and more hit points in the game. I'd love to adjust the hit point formula to make SIZ more dominant, and use HP to resist toxins. Considering that toxin lethality is rated by mass (of mice), factoring SIZ would really make a lot more sense.

I'd also wouldn't mind going back to an RQ2 type of rating for CON, with most creatures getting a 3D6 roll, and some especially healthy ones getting a 2D6+6 roll. I could even go with some adjustments for living conditions and diet.

But where I think we really disagree is on stamina and endurance. Small animals end up using a lot more energy to travel at the same speeds as larger ones, and can't oxygenate their blood as quickly. If you look into the physics of it, smaller size gives creatures some advantages and some disadvantages.

Finally for insects, do you know that ants are the lonely animal which can live with us on south pole. Yes, they discovered some, that human scientists surely brought with them... During winter, these ants which now live outside of human buildings are caught in ice. They are frozen. Literally. And once the summer comes again and temperature becomes a bit higher, ice melts and these ants begin to live and move again. I've seen that in a documentary. It was really amazing to see them come again to life and move as soon they never stop to work... So, yes, ants also resist to incredible colds.

Note than I'm not saying that cats, ants, birds, and other animal should have a higher health than humans. I'm just meaning that there is no reason that they have a lower one than bigger animals when size doesn't matter. For the blast of Raid, size matters of course, because it is poison. Ditto for the bath bubble. The doze of poison is just incredibly huge compared to their size.

Actually the bubble bath ting is because of the way ants breath (through holes in their bodies). The bubbles clog up the holes and the ants suffocate.

But as I mentioned above, small size has certain advantages and certain drawbacks. For instance, you are probably aware that many insects (including ants) can lift or drag objects that weight several times their own body weight. Now many people think means that ants would be much stronger than humans if both were the same size, but in reality ants are so strong because they are so small. If humans were somehow shrunk down to ant size, humans would be much stronger than ants. If an ant was somehow enlarged to human size, it probably wouldn't even be strong enough to support it's own weight.

Hey, just for the fun, there is one thing that no roleplaying game take into account. The size matters a lot for falls. But inversely from what all roleplaying games usually say. An ant can make a hundred yards fall without harming itself. Its size is so little that it nearly floats on air and can't fall rapidly. The height of the fall has no effect on ants. If an elephant falls just from one yard, to the contrary, its legs will inevitably break. That is why elephant is the lonely terrestrial animal which can't jump. So, fall damage should be inversely proportional to the size, that is, to the amount of starting hit points...

Actually a few RPGs factor in size for falling damage (BRP included), but few scale it down right for insects.

Your math is correct though. There are two basic factors in play here. First off the force of the impact is directly proportional to the mass. So a 4 ton elephant is literally going to hit the ground with a million times the force of a 4g ant traveling at the same speed. The second factor is wind resistance. As you noted the ant nearly floats. That's because it has a much lower terminal velocity (top speed in a fall). This is a great example of what I was talking about small size having certain advantage and drawbacks.

FYI, I have done an expanded SIZ table where I use the x2 mass = +8 SIZ (or half mass = -8 SIZ) and scaled it all the way down to ant SIZ (about SIZ -100 on my revised scale). If we assume the +1D6 per 20 SIZ in the BRP rules works both ways, then a SIZ -100 ant should take 5D6 less damage from a fall, which while not perfect does help a bit. Falling damage in BRP is a bit off (it is tied to distance instead of velocity).

[Gollum]

Not surprising. When you raise such a topic you're bound to get an opposing viewpoint- especially when the opposing view is pretty much the predominant one, and has the most evidence to back it up.

Of course.

While modern medicine has prolonged human lifespan (I'd say modern diet and hygiene have done more to prolong it, but medicine certainly helped) the fact remains that even in less advanced eras, human lifespan was still several times that of most small animals.

It would have to be proved. See below.

Definitely a better comparison, especially if you can compare with related species. But even then larger animals tend to have a longer lifespan than smaller ones. It the downside of having a higher metabolic rate.

Even if it can be regarded as a very quick and dirty generic rule, it is not true, actually. Lifespan of animals is much more complex than that. Some birds live as longer as we do. Cats live much longer than dogs. Turtles lived much more longer than we do, etc.

http://www.school-for-champions.com/animalhealth/animal_ages.htm

So, if lifespan was really a good criterium to determine the CON level of animals, cats would have a higher CON score than dogs... BRP rules say the exact contrary.

But where I think we really disagree is on stamina and endurance. Small animals end up using a lot more energy to travel at the same speeds as larger ones, and can't oxygenate their blood as quickly. If you look into the physics of it, smaller size gives creatures some advantages and some disadvantages.

But smaller creatures recover much quicker from fatigue... And I'm not sure that they don't travel as much. Actually, I'm even sure of the contrary. Birds are the animals that do the longest travels and the ones that surely require the most important stamina.

But as I mentioned above, small size has certain advantages and certain drawbacks.

Yes, but the problem with BRP rules as written is precisely that, concerning CON, the small creatures have all the disadvantages and no advantage at all. They have a lower score for all purposes while bigger ones have a much higher one for all purposes.

To take a reverse example: why would the brontosaur and the tyrannosaurus rex have a CON level so high than no human can never expect to reach that stamina level (respectively 41 and 35)?

This is, in my humble opinion, the huge problem when CON is linked with SIZ for every aspect of constitution.

Edited February 1, 2014 by Gollum

[Atgxtg]

It would have to be proved. See below.

it already has been. While a few small animals have lifespans that rival or surpass humans, the vast majority do not. Rodents, insects, etc. etc.

Even if it can be regarded as a very quick and dirty generic rule, it is not true, actually. Lifespan of animals is much more complex than that. Some birds live as longer as we do. Cats live much longer than dogs. Turtles lived much more longer than we do, etc.

Lifespan for any creature is more complex than that. Gnerally speaking all creatures lifespan is affected by their environment, diet and level of activity.

But the trend is for most creatures to have lifespans of about the same number of heartbeats. Creatuers with a higher average heart rate have shorter lifespans.

http://www.school-for-champions.com/animalhealth/animal_ages.htm

So, if lifespan was really a good criteria to determine the CON level of animals, cats would have a higher CON score than dogs... BRP rules say the exact contrary.

If lifespan were the only criteria, that would be true. But it's not. Dogs surpass cats in several categories, such as the ability to oxygenate their blood, or the ability to tolerate high levels of lactic acid in their system.

But smaller creatures recover much quicker from fatigue... And I'm not sure that they don't travel as much. Actually, I'm even sure of the contrary. Birds are the animals that do the longest travels and the ones that surely require the most important stamina.

The fater recovery is not a given. As for the longer travel ranges, you might be sure of it, but few other are. The information you posted on cats aplies mostly to feral cats, not pets.

Yes, but the problem with BRP rules as written is precisely that, concerning CON, the small creatures have all the disadvantages and no advantage at all. They have a lower score for all purposes while bigger ones have a much higher one for all purposes

That is mostly true. There are a few advantage to small SIZ in BRP, but you have a good point here. But even so is it worth reevaltuating CON, or would we be better off to factor SIZ out of CON and then use HP for those times when SIZ matters?

.

To take a reverse example: why would the brontosaur and the tyrannosaurus rex have a CON level so high than no human can never expect to reach that stamina level (respectively 41 and 35)?

It's hard to say with dinosaurs since we don't have any examples to base out comparison on. It would be much better to look at elephants, whales and similar large creatures. And, generally speaking those animals do have higher stamina than humans. Should they have scores in the 30-40 ranges, probably not.

IMO that is simply the case of trying to factor in for greater body mass (SIZ) into hit points and toxin resistance. I'd much rather remove SIZ as a factor for CON and use HP for somethings that CON is used for now. I think it would help address some of your issues, too.

And, since I used the ratio of muscle mass to mass to determine the effect of SZI on STR and CON it would be very easy for me to use that method to factor out SIZ from CON.

BTW, where did you get the T-Rex stats from? Did you use the Allosuarus from RQ3? or the older RQ2 stats from Gateway: Beastiary?

This is, in my humble opinion, the huge problem when CON is linked with SIZ for every aspect of constitution.

I think it is a problem, I'm not sure if it is a huge one. In fact I'd say it was mostly a tiny problem. But I agree that it is a bit of a problem. I expanded the SIZ range below SIZ 1 for similar reasons. By the rules, a cat, an ant and a mose all have the same SIZ, ut we know that isn't true.

Still, splitting CON opens up a can of worms. If we do that for CON, we will probably need to look at the other stats. STR in particular.

Oh, and since we are talking about CON, I think it's odd that CON doesn't factor all all into the healing rate in BRP.

[rogerd]

FYI, I have done an expanded SIZ table where I use the x2 mass = +8 SIZ (or half mass = -8 SIZ) and scaled it all the way down to ant SIZ (about SIZ -100 on my revised scale). If we assume the +1D6 per 20 SIZ in the BRP rules works both ways, then a SIZ -100 ant should take 5D6 less damage from a fall, which while not perfect does help a bit. Falling damage in BRP is a bit off (it is tied to distance instead of velocity).

To be honest I am not sure whether it is even worthwhile going into too much depth with this. Falling is tied rather intimately with distance, velocity, and mass. After a certain distance everything falls at the same speed anyway, whether ant, hammer or whale. It is the resultant increase in mass that does the damage.

But smaller creatures recover much quicker from fatigue... And I'm not sure that they don't travel as much. Actually, I'm even sure of the contrary. Birds are the animals that do the longest travels and the ones that surely require the most important stamina.

Yes they do, but I suspect that is more down to correct breathing than anything else. Example here, when I was younger I used to love running, but never had much stamina no matter what I did. Even my early foray into martial arts did not help. It wasn't until I started one that delved into some of the mysticism behind it that we came to conclusion it is mostly written in code. I found that once I employed 'breathing from the stomach' my stamina increased many fold; likely due to more oxygen into the blood, but I could actively use running machines and thought nothing of running four miles, I used to struggle with a couple of miles prior to this.

[soltakss]

BRP gives most animals 3D6 CON, which seems fair enough. Animals with small SIZ have proportionally small HPs. So, a cat with SIZ 1 but CON 18 would have 10 HPs, so 3HPs per leg, if locations were used. However, I'd just give it 10 HPs all over, as a sword is unlikely to just hit a single hit location. A SIZ 1 cat with average HPs has 6HPs, easily killable with a single blow.

I don't really see a problem with the stats as they are.

[Atgxtg]

To be honest I am not sure whether it is even worthwhile going into too much depth with this. Falling is tied rather intimately with distance, velocity, and mass.

It's not that complicated or hard. And the +1D6 per 20 SIZ isnt too bad an approximation. It could be improved upon, but the logic behin it is sound.

After a certain distance everything falls at the same speed anyway, whether ant, hammer or whale. It is the resultant increase in mass that does the damage.

That's simply not true, everything does not fall at the same speed. Terminal velocity actually varies based on shape and aerodynamic drag. That's why a fighter jet can still hit the ground faster than the pilot when the engine cocks out, even without a parachute.

Yes they do, but I suspect that is more down to correct breathing than anything else. Example here, when I was younger I used to love running, but never had much stamina no matter what I did. Even my early foray into martial arts did not help. It wasn't until I started one that delved into some of the mysticism behind it that we came to conclusion it is mostly written in code. I found that once I employed 'breathing from the stomach' my stamina increased many fold; likely due to more oxygen into the blood, but I could actively use running machines and thought nothing of running four miles, I used to struggle with a couple of miles prior to this.

I think it is more a case of their small SIZ. Being small, they don't have as much volume and therefore not as much blood to oxygenate as a larger creature. This is where the cube-square law works in their favor.

[rogerd]

That's simply not true, everything does not fall at the same speed. Terminal velocity actually varies based on shape and aerodynamic drag. That's why a fighter jet can still hit the ground faster than the pilot when the engine cocks out, even without a parachute.

What is different is the time taken to reach this velocity, which is offset by drag and buoyancy. But once it is reached, terminal velocity is the same no matter what your size, period, and has in fact been proven numerous times.

http://www.bitesizephysics.com/Lessons/gravity.html

[Gollum]

The fater recovery is not a given. As for the longer travel ranges, you might be sure of it, but few other are. The information you posted on cats aplies mostly to feral cats, not pets.

As soon as I will have some time to watch the documentary, I'll make a summary of the experimental data it gives about this topic.

That is mostly true. There are a few advantage to small SIZ in BRP, but you have a good point here. But even so is it worth reevaltuating CON, or would we be better off to factor SIZ out of CON and then use HP for those times when SIZ matters?

Yes, this other solution could work.

BTW, where did you get the T-Rex stats from? Did you use the Allosuarus from RQ3? or the older RQ2 stats from Gateway: Beastiary?

In the big golden book. Page 334 for the Brontosaur and pages 339-340 for the Tyrannosaurus Rex. Actually, I was looking for the constitution of elephants and whales, but they are not in the big golden book. I have their stats in a French supplement of Cthulhu. Now, since it is not a Chosium product, taking them as an official reference of what BRP says would be dubious.

I think it is a problem, I'm not sure if it is a huge one. In fact I'd say it was mostly a tiny problem. But I agree that it is a bit of a problem. I expanded the SIZ range below SIZ 1 for similar reasons. By the rules, a cat, an ant and a mose all have the same SIZ, ut we know that isn't true.

Still, splitting CON opens up a can of worms. If we do that for CON, we will probably need to look at the other stats. STR in particular.

Oh, and since we are talking about CON, I think it's odd that CON doesn't factor all all into the healing rate in BRP.

Yes, I do agree with that.

GURPS found a good manner of taking CON (i.e. Health in GURPS terms) in healing rate: each day, the player make a Health roll and if it is successful, he recovers 1 hit point (2 if his starting HP are 20 or more, 3 if they are 30 or more etc.). The drawback is that it requires a lot of rolls...

[Gollum]

Yes they do, but I suspect that is more down to correct breathing than anything else. Example here, when I was younger I used to love running, but never had much stamina no matter what I did. Even my early foray into martial arts did not help. It wasn't until I started one that delved into some of the mysticism behind it that we came to conclusion it is mostly written in code. I found that once I employed 'breathing from the stomach' my stamina increased many fold; likely due to more oxygen into the blood, but I could actively use running machines and thought nothing of running four miles, I used to struggle with a couple of miles prior to this.

Yes. "Breathing from the hara" (more than the stomach, that is, about one inch below the navel) is the key here. Quadrupeds always do that because their posture (shoulders blocked by the front legs on the ground) enforce them to breath like that. Just take a quadruped posture and you will see that you are naturally enforced to "breath with the stomach".

[Gollum]

BRP gives most animals 3D6 CON, which seems fair enough. Animals with small SIZ have proportionally small HPs. So, a cat with SIZ 1 but CON 18 would have 10 HPs, so 3HPs per leg, if locations were used. However, I'd just give it 10 HPs all over, as a sword is unlikely to just hit a single hit location. A SIZ 1 cat with average HPs has 6HPs, easily killable with a single blow.

I don't really see a problem with the stats as they are.

My problem is still concrete. If my player has a stamina roll to do for her cat, this car is supposed to have only 35%. If poisons or things like that are in question, no problem. That's realistic. The same dose of venom has more impact on a little creatures than on a big one (which is why we give big creatures like horses a huge dose of sedative, for instance). But if working all the day without sleeping, resisting fatigue, starvation or dehydration is what triggered the roll, then there is something which appears unfair. At least to my mind.

[rogerd]

Yes. "Breathing from the hara" (more than the stomach, that is, about one inch below the navel) is the key here. Quadrupeds always do that because their posture (shoulders blocked by the front legs on the ground) enforce them to breath like that. Just take a quadruped posture and you will see that you are naturally enforced to "breath with the stomach".

That's just the thing, they make it sound all mystical, it really, really isn't. Think about how it works for a second.

Western thinking means we breathe from the chest, thus the lower half of our lungs is never fully used, it is compressed by the stomach. Now for Chinese and Japanese you push your stomach out and fill your lungs from the bottom up, thus gaining full use of them. This is a thought that occurred to me until I read one of Attanssio's books about all Eastern teachings being written in code - then epiphany whacked me full on

Edited February 2, 2014 by rogerd

[Gollum]

What is different is the time taken to reach this velocity, which is offset by drag and buoyancy. But once it is reached, terminal velocity is the same no matter what your size, period, and has in fact been proven numerous times.

http://www.bitesizephysics.com/Lessons/gravity.html

I don't have the time to read this interesting article... But are you sure that frictions are taken into account. On the moon, a lead ball falls exactly at the same speed than a feather. No problem. But on earth, with atmospheric friction, the feather (or a leaf) won't ever reach the terminal speed of a lead ball. Otherwise, parachutes wouldn't work.

[rogerd]

I don't have the time to read this interesting article... But are you sure that frictions are taken into account. On the moon, a lead ball falls exactly at the same speed than a feather. No problem. But on earth, with atmospheric friction, the feather (or a leaf) won't ever reach the terminal speed of a lead ball. Otherwise, parachutes wouldn't work.

Yeah.....fairly sure, as given enough time everything should reach terminal velocity as gravity just has to push harder. Although now you've added some doubt about parachutes and how they work now. I will have to go research when my daughter is in bed

[Atgxtg]

What is different is the time taken to reach this velocity, which is offset by drag and buoyancy. But once it is reached, terminal velocity is the same no matter what your size, period, and has in fact been proven numerous times. ]/quote]

Nope. Your wrong. Go look at the math. Terminal velocity varies with shape. What you seem to be confusing it with is Galileo's experiment where he dropped wooded and lead balls from a tower and the fell at the same rate. What you are completing ignoring is drag.

Is the typical beginners introduction to gravity explanation that ignores wind resistance. It's the "in a vacuum" examples that you used to see in science class, where acceleration is constant and drag force ignored.

Try http://http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Terminal_velocity

or

http://http://hypertextbook.com/facts/JianHuang.shtml

for more detailed examples.

Basically what your link was showing is that gravity affects all objects equally, which it does. But that's in a vacuum. In an atmosphere, aerodynamic drag plays a factor and that is why we have a "terminal velocity" (the speed where the drag force equals the acceleration from gravity). In fact, if there wasn't an atmosphere then falling objects would continue to accelerate until the moment the hit something *the ground).

[Atgxtg]

My problem is still concrete. If my player has a stamina roll to do for her cat, this car is supposed to have only 35%. If poisons or things like that are in question, no problem. That's realistic. The same dose of venom has more impact on a little creatures than on a big one (which is why we give big creatures like horses a huge dose of sedative, for instance). But if working all the day without sleeping, resisting fatigue, starvation or dehydration is what triggered the roll, then there is something which appears unfair. At least to my mind.

Except it isn't. Consider Shrews, they have to eat a large percentage of their body weight to avoid starvation. It

's not that they are unhealthy, but that thier smaller bodies and higher metabolisms require more energy to keep their bodies going. Smaller animals in general have a higher muscle to body weight ratio that larger animals and so need more fuel to keep going.

It's pretty much the same reason why athletes such as cyclists tend to eat much more than normal folk -they need the fuel to maintain the higher metabolic rate.

[rogerd]

Cool, I will take a look at this tomorrow - thanks for the correction

[seneschal]

Hungry shrews. Be afraid. Be very afraid.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rQSCkvNQfhA

[rogerd]

Hungry shrews. Be afraid. Be very afraid.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rQSCkvNQfhA

Are they anything like Hungry, hungry Hippos?

[seneschal]

Are they anything like Hungry, hungry Hippos?

Hungrier. And they want all your marbles, baby.

[Gollum]

Except it isn't. Consider Shrews, they have to eat a large percentage of their body weight to avoid starvation. It

's not that they are unhealthy, but that thier smaller bodies and higher metabolisms require more energy to keep their bodies going. Smaller animals in general have a higher muscle to body weight ratio that larger animals and so need more fuel to keep going.

It's pretty much the same reason why athletes such as cyclists tend to eat much more than normal folk -they need the fuel to maintain the higher metabolic rate.

Yes. But that doesn't make cyclist less healthier... OK. I'm kidding here. I perfectly got your point.