Realism of Halfing Weight to Height Ratio + Strength

Question

Looking at a race based on Hobbits or Halflings, and I am wondering about the average weight and if that is affected by denser muscle mass (than human children of the same height), and the realism of their strength.

Using D&D as my guide, but it seems...high for something that's supposed to weigh only 30 pounds and be 3 feet tall.

At Max strength a light load for a halfling is supposed to be: 57 lb. or less, which is almost x2 their body weight. Light load means they are not encumbered by the weight. Medium is 58-114.75 lb. Heavy is 115-172 lb. Heavy means that you're encumbered significantly but you can manage it.Keep in mind, this is the max ability, so these would be the equivalent of, say, a body builder.

Average strength is 24.5 light load. 25-49.5 Medium & 50-75 Heavy. The light load is such a high number for this, when they only weigh 30 pounds, that I am balking at this being realistic.

Is this strength scale and capacity realistic for a 30 pound, 3ft tall humanoid that isn't child? What would be more realistic if it is not?

Answer 1

In DnD, carrying capacity is multiplied by a factor related to the size of the creature. The numbers are:

Small ×¾, Tiny ×½, Diminutive ×¼, Fine ×1/8

The standard numbers on the carrying capacity table are meant for medium (normal human) sized bipedal creatures, for a small creature such as a halfling you have to multiply every number by a factor of .75.

Well, this means that your so called 57 lb max is really only 42.5 lbs, which is just over their own body weight. Seeing as most people can do bodyweight exercises, this seems just fine.

You also didn't mention what the strength number you're using is, so I'll assume that you used 14 strength as the base value. However, in DnD, you can roll stats for commoners, which is 3d6 worth of rolls.

It turns out that with 3d6 rolls, about half the people will have scores between 3 and 10. Since we're talking an average person (not a leveled up PC), we should use an average number to determine the max values, not 14 (which is really high).

If we use 9 as the Strength value, then the max value for a normal humanoid is 30 (light), 60 (medium), and 90 (heavy), meaning that for a halfling, the max is 22.5 (light), 45 (medium), and 67.5 (heavy).

Do these numbers make sense? I think they do - the light load for a 3 foot tall human that isn't a child and is probably way more beefed up than a child is around the weight of one dumb bell, which sounds right to me.

Note: I'm assuming that 9 strength would be an average body builder's strength IRL based on deadlift capacity. I don't work out and I can deadlift double my bodyweight properly as a max lift, so for a halfling the numbers seem fine.

Note: DnD 3.5 numbers applied in this answer. Other versioning values may vary.

Answer 2

D&D seems to neglect the relationship between linear dimensions, surface area and volume, and this has consequences that occasionally make the relationship of strength and size in its RAW unrealistic.

For a solid of a given shape, increasing scaling its linear dimensions equally so that its height x1 becomes x2, then the increase in mass is proportional to (x2-x1)^3, and the increase in its surface area is proportional to (x2-x1)^2. this works both ways. This also means that the bigger an animal becomes, the thicker its bones need to be, proportionally to ((x2-x1)^(3/2)).

If we consider a human to be (on average) 180cm (6') tall and 75kg (165lb) in weight, then a Halfling 90cm (3') tall ought to weigh 75*(0.5^3) = 9.3kg (20lb).

If we also consider that an average adult male human can lift around twice his body weight, or 150kg (330 lb), then a Halfling of similar proportions should be able to lift 150*(0.5^(3/2)) = 53kg (116lb), or over five times his own body weight.

Since halflings are derived from Tolkien's hobbits, which are not described as being especially slender or childlike, but have an appearance similar to that of a human, then this is not an unreasonable conclusion.

Carrying this even further, a 5cm tall fairy with similar proportions to an adult male human's should weigh 1.6g (0.003lb), and should be able to lift 694g (1.5lb), which is 433 times their own body weight. This sort of strength is sufficient to make them able to wrestle mice and possibly even rats (up to about 500g) that outweigh them by an enormous factor into submission, since most small animals are also proportionally more slender. Consider a 5cm long grasshopper - its legs (other than its hind legs) look twiglike in comparison to a human scaled down to a similar size. A human-proportioned creature of that size would be a literal superman.

So, to answer the question, 30lb is way over the weight that a human of that size ought to be, by a factor of 50% (maybe these are very fat halflings when compared to humans), but 75lb wouldn't be unrealistic as a heavy load for extended carrying when the maximum weight that such a being ought to be able to lift for brief periods is 116lb.

Answer 3

This is D&D, not reality. So, no, it is not remotely realistic.

Strength is due mostly to muscle mass and leverage. A 30-pound halfling simply doesn't have that much muscle, particularly after you account for bones, skin (the largest organ of the human body) and entrails. Furthermore, without significant increases in joint size you wont get the leverage needed.