Larian Studios Forums Baldur's Gate III Baldur's Gate III - General Laezel body mass index

Laezel weighed 45 kg. This is the lowest weight of any companion in the game. At the same time, Laezel is quite high. I don't know what about Gityanki, but if we were to judge her by human standards, she would have anorexia and underweight.

I worry about Laezel as the main tank and fighter in my party, she wears heavy armor and fights with a two-handed sword. It is difficult to imagine even if it consists entirely of muscle without fat.

She needs to eat a lot to be strong!

All Githyanki seems to be slim beyond healthy standards. :-/

It still seems quite funny to me that theese skin-covered skeletons have racial +2 to strength, just as huge and bulky Half-Orc.

https://forgottenrealms.fandom.com/wiki/Githyanki

Female
Average height 5′4″‒6′10″ (160‒210 cm)
Average weight 89‒245 lb (40‒111 kg)

Not much different from a human!

When Laezel reaches Kith'rak status, will she be better fed and able to gain weight? Haven't earned it yet?

At least up to 50 kilograms. And then, taking into account the fact that she is Gityanki. I had an ex-girlfriend with eating disorders who weighed 48 kilograms, and I can't imagine her lifting and swinging a two-handed sword in heavy armor, even if she went to the gym every day.

If Laezel was some kind of bard, thief, healer or wizard, then ok, but for a warrior she is somehow too thin. Although this is undoubtedly better than being overweight.

FWIW, the gith are supposed to look emaciated, so Lae's build is not unusual for her race. That doesn't stop it from looking ridiculous, though. The women I could take or leave, but the men with their noodle arms are downright comical. It's hard to take Voss' threats seriously when he's so funny-looking.

It's better to imagine that Mindflayer experimentation or living on the Astral Plane made their muscles biologically more efficient and don't think too hard beyond that.

Muscles from the astral plane probably have a different composition and metabolism than material plane muscles.
She eats the same food, but the proteins are pobably metabolised into something with more strength.

Look up the strength differences in the great apes compared to humans. You will see we are the ones that are dreadfully weak. If the gith have anything akin the the muscle fibers of our earth bound cousins…. Humans build bulk to make up for our genetic weaknesses.

Yeah, once you look into inter-species comparisons, you can't really simply use mass to extrapolate "strength".

Even when comparing humans to monkeys (which much closer genetically when comparing humans to giths), the latter are documented to be much "stronger" than humans because their muscle mass consists of much more fast-twitch muscles. Whereas Humans "specced" heavily into endurance with much more slow twitch muscles.

Historically, the leading theories are that humans have relied on extreme endurance and superior heat dispersion to run down and outlast animals as a part of our hunting strategy. So we're not exactly built for explosive strength. And obviously none of these historical factors even matter in FR setting since the existence of magic probably completely overhauls human evolution. How important is a hunter gatherer society when gods exist and let you cast create food and water?

This topic reminds me of just about every video game and fantasy movie/show ever in existence. The art makes no sense with reality. A female with higher armor and defense wears next to no armor or clothing at all, but she can take down a dragon and only get her face dirty.

In many games, the higher the defense that the armor provides the more scantily dressed the girl is. A guy in similar armor looks like a walking tank, but the female looks like she's about to go to the beach.

Yeah, in reality, all the body types need rework. Gale should look way weaker than anyone. Wyll's not very strong either. My 8 Strength sorcerer should look like a scrawny toothpick compared to Lae'zel's Strength 17.

This would require a rework of a vast number of characters. At some point, you have to draw the line. This, to me, is not something that should be important in the game. 9 out of 10 D&D characters do not match their stats in any given session I've ever played. The players almost always choose visuals or miniatures that inspire them, not necessarily match their stats.

45 kg is Korean female pop star level, that's...low lol. I didn't realize the game had her that light, that is pretty silly, she should be minimum 60 kg

True that. I knew a guy around here. He got pretty famous in the arm wrestling world. Look up Cleve Dean. His family are some of the strongest I have known. The stories around here about them are great. Their strength came from Cleve’s Mom side of the family. She was a beast in her own right. I could never imagine her in skimpy armor 😂 she would crush me just thinking that way. The living Dean’s are good people, they try not to break your hand when you shake theirs….

The internet says it was Cleve’s farming that gave him his strength; however, I know a lot of farmers and this guy won the genetic lottery.

She's NOT HUMAN.

Well once human, but changed during their enslavement per
https://dungeonsdragons.fandom.com/wiki/Githyanki

Humm I wonder if there are any Half gith? More likely half githzerai…

wait, who said she was human?

She is part of a fictional species.

This fictional species does not need to abide by real-world biology or physics unless a writer deems this is a necessity.
This fictional species is not a real-world ethnic or racial homo sapiens group; they are not a "racist invention".
This fictional species does not need to be altered via real-world protest because of real-world concerns over "unrealistic body image"; anyone that develops an eating disorder because of a fictional species has other (more significant) issues to begin with.

If I wasn't clear enough, I want to nip everything in the bud.

The gith are supposed to have been genetically engineered by the illithids specifically to be physically efficient rather than massive. Less muscle mass = fewer calories required to maintain it = higher productivity even in a malnourished state. I won't be surprised if they just don't grow "swole" (blergh) no matter how hard they exercise, but instead have extreme fibral density which compensates for their slim stature.

I'm usually for a more realistic take on things, but there is a point when you do have to just let that go.

If we want to start making things really realistic, Lae'zel should be, with Strength 17/18 (because I usually buff her at level 4 to 18), a very buff, body-builder person with muscles like Arnold Schwartzenegger when he first played Conan the Barbarian. With AC 18, she should be practically covered head to toe in plate metal with helmet, gauntlets, no exposed skin, metal boots, etc. I don't care if it's half plate. Realistically, half plate would be fastened to some other type of armor like leather or chain, and there wouldn't be much exposed skin at all because AC 18 should represent a rather full coverage defense.

So, your characters, if properly and realistically portrayed, should look more like medieval foot soldiers or knights. And, frankly, they would be FAR superior to rogues with their leather. I don't care how fast a rogue is, if they get hit by a two-handed sword, even a grazing blow is serious. A two-handed sword would cut through leather easily. A flail landing anywhere on a person's body, whether chainmail or leather, is going to really hurt. Even if the spikes don't penetrate, the shear weight and force of the blow would be brutal to anyone not wearing plate.

What I'm getting at is that this is fantasy, and fantasy is meant to inspire and be unbelievable. That's why it's fun. Some semblance of reality grounds fantasy and allows you to connect with it. Too much reality and it becomes no fun.

I used to think I wanted a fantasy game that was very realistic. Give me swords and shields and such that chip and dent and break and you have to keep buying new ones and so forth. Give me a game with real life food requirements and cooking mechanics and so forth.

Then I played a game that literally did that. I hated it. It was boring and uninspiring, and my characters looked stupid. I didn't even complete it.

So let's not get bogged down with that much realism. I like Lae'zel's look. They have made her sufficiently athletic looking and tough looking. Especially when she's bloody or covered in filth, she looks really tough. She is alien enough that she's unattractive to many, but she's human enough for people to relate to her and see her as something besides a monster.

I'd rather not have the characters looking like their stats. Gale or Wyll looking like weak, scrawny mage or warlock because their Strength is low is not appealing in the slightest. Someone covered head to toe in plate armor because their AC is 18 or higher is also not appealing. The game needs to be artistic, not so much realistic, or it will not have enough eye-candy to draw the crowds.

Not necessarily. Muscle strength is not just due to bulk but also muscle composition. Since Lae'zel is a different species, it is possible for her to be leaner than a human and yet be stronger, because her biology need not be identical to a human's.

Nervous system has more to do with raw strength than muscles, and I would also imagine her muscle fibers are CRAZY dense. For instance, chimpanzees are bizarrely strong and they are "smaller" than we are, but very much capable of LITERALLY ripping humans APART. (Trust me on that, and don't ask me how I know that, I don't want that visit down memory lane again)

Disintegrate spell? Violates the conservation of mass. UNREALISTIC.
Titanic insects? Violates the Square-Cube Law. UNREALISTIC.
Storm giants? Violates the Square-Cube Law...again. UNREALISTIC.
Humanoids that live for several centuries? Violates the Hayflick Limit. UNREALISTIC.
Humans being interfertile with completely different species? Violates basic biology. UNREALISTIC.
Adventurers traveling for weeks on end without explicitly taking time to excrete waste? Violates basic biology...again. UNREALISTIC.
Adventurers spending tens of thousands of gold coins without devastating local small-town economies? Violates basic economics. UNREALISTIC.
Adventurers freely conversing with all manner of royalty in every population center they come across without suffering any consequences? Violates rules on decorum/protocol. UNREALISTIC.
Citizens who are terrified of dragons and fiends yet completely accepting of draconic bipeds and devil-spawn? Violates basic psychology. UNREALISTIC.
Citizens easily losing to one-on-one combat with moggies? Violates common sense. UNREALISTIC.

Oh my gosh! Talk about basic psychology, imagine actually living in a world with all the freaking monsters, gods, etc. and freaky magic. In reality, every person in d&d would be paralyzed by terror constantly. I thank God our world isn't actually filled with such things.

COVID, though very serious, don't get me wrong, breaks out, and people freak out and buy up all the toilet paper in the world, preparing for the end of the world. If you knew there were potentially man-eating creatures lurking in every wilderness, and even the dark places of your city not far from your home...