Fatigue is not very realistic!?

[JonBrave]

As we all know, Dom 3 is, overall, extremely realistic (e.g. weapon length). This is how real magical armies fight.

However, it seems to me that fatigue-causing, at least, is not If I have a great big weapon and plonk it on a little guy, how does it make sense that he gets the same amount of fatigue with the same effects as a giant brandishing it? Why doesn't he get more tired, or have a lower tolerance than 100?

This has bothered me for a while now. Am I missing something? If we wanted to handle fatigue as realistically as so many other factors are, how should it be done?

[Kobal2]

It's an abstraction.
A giant swinging a 60 pound sword and a hobbit wielding a toothpick don't expend the same amount of effort and exert the same amount of force. But from each of their reference points, they do exert the same amount of fatigue.

Don't consider fatigue as a universal score, but a relative one. One point of giant fatigue is WAAAAAY more tiring than one point of human fatigue. But they're giants with WAAAAY more energy and muscle power, so it's a wash.

[JonBrave]

Errrr, OK. Sooooo, if I understand you correctly, when I put a given sword or shield or armor on someone, I need to think that the item is not "absolute" but rather scaled to the size of the recipient.

Hmm, yet it does the same damage to the enemy. I hear what you're saying, but I doesn't make sense to me.

[Kobal2]

Originally Posted by JonBrave

Errrr, OK. Sooooo, if I understand you correctly, when I put a given sword or shield or armor on someone, I need to think that the item is not "absolute" but rather scaled to the size of the recipient.

Well, that's how it works in Dungeons & Dragons anyway Magic items scale to fit the wielder. The alternative would be to craft a "Fire Brand, size X" where X = 1 to 6 ; and screw that. Dom3 is micro heavy, UI unfriendly enough.

Hmm, yet it does the same damage to the enemy. I hear what you're saying, but I doesn't make sense to me.

But it doesn't though. Give anybody an Enchanted Sword, and it'll do 9+STR damage. So all other things being equal, the giant will still do way more damage with it than the Markata.

[brxbrx]

Originally Posted by JonBrave

Hmm, yet it does the same damage to the enemy. I hear what you're saying, but I doesn't make sense to me.

No, because giants are stronger

[Squirrelloid]

Realistically, Giants wouldn't be able to stand, much less swing a weapon. They should start at 100 fatigue and *slowly suffocate* as their diaphragm is insufficient to lift their ribcage while they lay about like quadrapalegics because their bones are incapable of supporting their mass and their muscles incapable of moving their limbs.

The moment you talk about the realism of fatigue, weapon length, and weapon damage, you have to deal with the some other basic facts of reality. Such as:

-Mass scales with volume (L^3)
-Bone strength scales with cross-sectional area (L^2)
-Muscle strength scales with cross-sectional area (L^2)
-Oxygen penetration/blood distribution scales with L^4/3 (Its, um, complicated and has to do with the mathematics of network distribution systems, but that's the right number).

etc...

So if a giant is a mere 2x as big as a human, he weights 8x as much but only has 4x as much muscle and bone strength. That's a serious issue. (Plus problems with blood pumping, and so on).

If we're going to abjure body scaling, why should we care about realistic fatigue or damage scaling? How would you even calculate these things without having a realistic model for body scaling?

(I mean, fatigue realistically depends on lung capacity, blood throughput (which itself depends on artery/vein size and heart strength), number of capillaries/average distance of capillaries to muscle tissue, Fe/hemoglobin concentration in the blood, muscle energy expended per motion, and so on. All of these things are intimately tied to body scaling.)

[TigerBlood]

How is a giant standing, let alone swinging a weapon realistic? Their structure would not be able to support their mass.

A certain amount of abstraction is required in order to make a game about fantasy creatures even remotely plausible. I think illwinter has done some great work in this regard. Fatigue mechanics, are for the most part consistent, without being dissociative, even when upon deeper examination a certain amount of fluff is required to justify the effect.

[Knai]

Originally Posted by TigerBlood

How is a giant standing, let alone swinging a weapon realistic? Their structure would not be able to support their mass.

A certain amount of abstraction is required in order to make a game about fantasy creatures even remotely plausible. I think illwinter has done some great work in this regard. Fatigue mechanics, are for the most part consistent, without being dissociative, even when upon deeper examination a certain amount of fluff is required to justify the effect.

There is a matter of what genre conventions are acceptable and what aren't. The square cube law can just be entirely ignored in fantasy, scaling weapons is perhaps more questionable. Moreover, heavy armor being bad in some cases is a serious problem and is dissociative. I have no issue with the scaling weapons personally (it's an abstraction I'm entirely willing to make, particularly given the nightmarish micro there would otherwise be. Besides, if you can enchant a weapon to glow with cold fire, you can enchant it to fit the wielder.), but it makes sense for others to have that issue.

[thejeff]

But the reach of a weapon is the same, regardless of whether it's scaled for a titan or a goblin.
That implies they don't scale.

[Soyweiser]

Giants have a larger mass (each increase of x in lenght gives a x^2 increase in weight iirc), so they expend more energy swinging the small weapons. Everything is simply very tiring for them.