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Author Topic: What Dexterity Would This Woman Have?  (Read 1605 times)

Ghostmaker

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Re: What Dexterity Would This Woman Have?
« Reply #15 on: April 22, 2021, 10:46:44 AM »
I would say she makes a great monk, but then monks have been hot garbage in D&D for a while (I think 5E ironed out some of the worst flaws, but... boy howdy were they a hot mess in 3E/PF).

oggsmash

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Re: What Dexterity Would This Woman Have?
« Reply #16 on: April 22, 2021, 11:43:03 AM »
IDK, a lot of these "need more info" arguments seem to be demanding an extreme standard of measurement, just to gauge a general innate stat, when a lot of this stuff is just skill, or highly reliant on it, which is a separate issue from natural ability.

- Need to see her hitting stuff (that's a skill)
- Need to see her jumping through hoops (skill)
- Need to see her perform under stress (skill and experience)

And a lot of these moves that she's doing take immense motor control and agility just to bend your body that way without falling. I can't do half the stuff she's doing, and I've tried. Granted, I'm an out of shape fat bastard who has barely trained in years, and a lot of this is skill, but a lot of these moves also take spatial awareness and coordination to do without hitting yourself or dropping your stick. When I was starting out with staff spinning I used to hit myself all the time. I still hit myself occasionally (albeit rarely), and I've been doing it for like two years. But this chick can throw a staff, spinning horizontally in the air and catch it above her head.

Could she maybe do it better? I guess, but that's more a measure of skill than natural ability.

 I disagree.  Everything she does a person with enough time and focus who starts at an average baseline of athletic ability could do, even with regard to flexibility, she is not an outlier among females who have dedicated serious time to pursuing flexibility.   The "talent" is hard to measure in the things she displays.  I know numerous women and several men who can do a split past parallel between two chairs for instance.  One of them was super flexible at the start, but most of them were not exceptional regarding flexibility and worked on it for a couple years.  An example I will give is I have a buddy, who wondered if he could do a backflip (as a 27 year old adult who had never tried it) and he just did it, no warm up, no attempt with a spot, nothing past a Lady there told him to tuck his legs tight.  he just did it.  That IMO is a good measure of natural ability.  Similar is punching power.  You can enhance it with training, but people are born with the "touch of death", they dont develop it.   

  Edited to add:  However I have no baseline for how long she has been training either.  If you told me she took an interest in this stuff 6 months ago and is at this level now, 18 dexterity is within a possible stat (still want to see a few more tests), if you tell me she has been training 5+ years, well that allows a whole lot less of a measure for me than a skill vs talent assessment.  Thus, as I said, I need more information.
« Last Edit: April 22, 2021, 11:46:02 AM by oggsmash »

VisionStorm

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Re: What Dexterity Would This Woman Have?
« Reply #17 on: April 22, 2021, 01:12:30 PM »
IDK, a lot of these "need more info" arguments seem to be demanding an extreme standard of measurement, just to gauge a general innate stat, when a lot of this stuff is just skill, or highly reliant on it, which is a separate issue from natural ability.

- Need to see her hitting stuff (that's a skill)
- Need to see her jumping through hoops (skill)
- Need to see her perform under stress (skill and experience)

And a lot of these moves that she's doing take immense motor control and agility just to bend your body that way without falling. I can't do half the stuff she's doing, and I've tried. Granted, I'm an out of shape fat bastard who has barely trained in years, and a lot of this is skill, but a lot of these moves also take spatial awareness and coordination to do without hitting yourself or dropping your stick. When I was starting out with staff spinning I used to hit myself all the time. I still hit myself occasionally (albeit rarely), and I've been doing it for like two years. But this chick can throw a staff, spinning horizontally in the air and catch it above her head.

Could she maybe do it better? I guess, but that's more a measure of skill than natural ability.

 I disagree.  Everything she does a person with enough time and focus who starts at an average baseline of athletic ability could do, even with regard to flexibility, she is not an outlier among females who have dedicated serious time to pursuing flexibility.   The "talent" is hard to measure in the things she displays.  I know numerous women and several men who can do a split past parallel between two chairs for instance.  One of them was super flexible at the start, but most of them were not exceptional regarding flexibility and worked on it for a couple years.  An example I will give is I have a buddy, who wondered if he could do a backflip (as a 27 year old adult who had never tried it) and he just did it, no warm up, no attempt with a spot, nothing past a Lady there told him to tuck his legs tight.  he just did it.  That IMO is a good measure of natural ability.  Similar is punching power.  You can enhance it with training, but people are born with the "touch of death", they dont develop it.   

  Edited to add:  However I have no baseline for how long she has been training either.  If you told me she took an interest in this stuff 6 months ago and is at this level now, 18 dexterity is within a possible stat (still want to see a few more tests), if you tell me she has been training 5+ years, well that allows a whole lot less of a measure for me than a skill vs talent assessment.  Thus, as I said, I need more information.

I disagree with your disagreement. I trained karate for years when I was a kid, then later trained capoeira little over a decade ago as an adult and I have rarely ever met someone as flexible as this girl is. I may have met a few people who could do similar things, but they were always athletically inclined and well above average in physical aptitude beyond simple training. One of the most flexible people I ever met was a kid who took karate with me, who was the only guy in the class who could do a full split with ease, and he could do it from the get go, cuz he was naturally flexible. Everyone else took years of practice and never got that good. Women tend to be more flexible, but doing a split isn't the same thing as lifting your leg straight up over you head without forcing your legs apart, then holding it there while you bounce around on the ball of your feet without falling.

I have never met someone who had shit flexibility and motor control when they started out and turned into a freaking shaolin master by the time they were through. They may have become more competent, and even capable of doing stuff untrained people would find impossible, but none of them could bounce on one leg while holding the other one straight up then spin into a cartwheel from that position, then bring the leg straight up again repeatedly. In my experience people who don't already possess significant amount of motor control and flexibility don't normally get to the level of performance this girl displays, even with years of training. Is the theoretically possible with lots of yoga and years of rigorous training and physical conditioning? Mayyybe. But I've yet to see it. And making that claim in the internet cuz you've known outliers personally, or cuz you've seen tons of people do it thanks to the proliferation of videos online doesn't mean just any rando can achieve this level of performance just with plain old training.
« Last Edit: April 22, 2021, 01:15:22 PM by VisionStorm »

Snowman0147

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Re: What Dexterity Would This Woman Have?
« Reply #18 on: April 22, 2021, 04:50:46 PM »
I am giving her a 16 to 18 range.

ScytheSong

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Re: What Dexterity Would This Woman Have?
« Reply #19 on: April 22, 2021, 05:33:42 PM »
I'd put her at a 16 or 17 for raw Dex, but would want to see the nunchaku segment in something other than silhouette to be sure. I'm kinda pissed at her trainers though, 'cause those high kicks are begging for a leg sweep. My guess is that she's actually had extensive ballet training before she started on the martial arts (notice the toe-pointing when her leg is up).

Brasidas

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Re: What Dexterity Would This Woman Have?
« Reply #20 on: April 22, 2021, 05:37:28 PM »
I'd say she's pretty easily in the top half of the top percent of people for dexterity (1 in 216).  DEX 18.

--edited to add

Now that I think about it, in D&D 5th, she'd only need to roll a 17 naturally, which is roughly top 2%.  I think I'd be willing to go with a DEX 19 on this.
« Last Edit: April 22, 2021, 05:44:27 PM by Brasidas »

jhkim

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Re: What Dexterity Would This Woman Have?
« Reply #21 on: April 22, 2021, 07:21:04 PM »
Everything she does a person with enough time and focus who starts at an average baseline of athletic ability could do, even with regard to flexibility, she is not an outlier among females who have dedicated serious time to pursuing flexibility.   The "talent" is hard to measure in the things she displays.  I know numerous women and several men who can do a split past parallel between two chairs for instance.  One of them was super flexible at the start, but most of them were not exceptional regarding flexibility and worked on it for a couple years.  An example I will give is I have a buddy, who wondered if he could do a backflip (as a 27 year old adult who had never tried it) and he just did it, no warm up, no attempt with a spot, nothing past a Lady there told him to tuck his legs tight.  he just did it.  That IMO is a good measure of natural ability.  Similar is punching power.  You can enhance it with training, but people are born with the "touch of death", they dont develop it.   

Edited to add:  However I have no baseline for how long she has been training either.  If you told me she took an interest in this stuff 6 months ago and is at this level now, 18 dexterity is within a possible stat (still want to see a few more tests), if you tell me she has been training 5+ years, well that allows a whole lot less of a measure for me than a skill vs talent assessment.  Thus, as I said, I need more information.

This is one of the reasons why I favor redefining abilities as "general competence in that area" rather than "innate talent".

In various games, raw dexterity is often used for things like dodge bonus and miscellaneous athletic feats. Likewise, raw strength is used for how much someone can lift.

In games, it isn't really relevant how many months or years it will take you to realistically learn a new skill. The important question is: how good are you *now* at miscellaneous physical tasks.

VisionStorm

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Re: What Dexterity Would This Woman Have?
« Reply #22 on: April 22, 2021, 08:06:08 PM »
Everything she does a person with enough time and focus who starts at an average baseline of athletic ability could do, even with regard to flexibility, she is not an outlier among females who have dedicated serious time to pursuing flexibility.   The "talent" is hard to measure in the things she displays.  I know numerous women and several men who can do a split past parallel between two chairs for instance.  One of them was super flexible at the start, but most of them were not exceptional regarding flexibility and worked on it for a couple years.  An example I will give is I have a buddy, who wondered if he could do a backflip (as a 27 year old adult who had never tried it) and he just did it, no warm up, no attempt with a spot, nothing past a Lady there told him to tuck his legs tight.  he just did it.  That IMO is a good measure of natural ability.  Similar is punching power.  You can enhance it with training, but people are born with the "touch of death", they dont develop it.   

Edited to add:  However I have no baseline for how long she has been training either.  If you told me she took an interest in this stuff 6 months ago and is at this level now, 18 dexterity is within a possible stat (still want to see a few more tests), if you tell me she has been training 5+ years, well that allows a whole lot less of a measure for me than a skill vs talent assessment.  Thus, as I said, I need more information.

This is one of the reasons why I favor redefining abilities as "general competence in that area" rather than "innate talent".

In various games, raw dexterity is often used for things like dodge bonus and miscellaneous athletic feats. Likewise, raw strength is used for how much someone can lift.

In games, it isn't really relevant how many months or years it will take you to realistically learn a new skill. The important question is: how good are you *now* at miscellaneous physical tasks.

Yeah, there's a lot of overlap between skills and "ability scores", and a great deal about this line of discussion is really all about "where do we draw the line?" Were does 100% RAW innate talent ends and training start? And to what extend could someone with seemingly low "raw" talent realistically develop high levels of ability with training and conditioning alone?

Over time I've come to think of attributes, stats, "ability scores" or "whatever they're called in any given game" more as "core abilities", or the central base from which more specialized "skills" spring from.

However, arguably some degree if "innate" ability does seem to be exist in real life. Question is: to what extend? And how does that fit in the game? To what degree are ability scores innate or a measure of general training and conditioning? Do we even need to draw the line, or just treat it all as potentially trainable?

GeekyBugle

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Re: What Dexterity Would This Woman Have?
« Reply #23 on: April 22, 2021, 08:26:04 PM »
Everything she does a person with enough time and focus who starts at an average baseline of athletic ability could do, even with regard to flexibility, she is not an outlier among females who have dedicated serious time to pursuing flexibility.   The "talent" is hard to measure in the things she displays.  I know numerous women and several men who can do a split past parallel between two chairs for instance.  One of them was super flexible at the start, but most of them were not exceptional regarding flexibility and worked on it for a couple years.  An example I will give is I have a buddy, who wondered if he could do a backflip (as a 27 year old adult who had never tried it) and he just did it, no warm up, no attempt with a spot, nothing past a Lady there told him to tuck his legs tight.  he just did it.  That IMO is a good measure of natural ability.  Similar is punching power.  You can enhance it with training, but people are born with the "touch of death", they dont develop it.   

Edited to add:  However I have no baseline for how long she has been training either.  If you told me she took an interest in this stuff 6 months ago and is at this level now, 18 dexterity is within a possible stat (still want to see a few more tests), if you tell me she has been training 5+ years, well that allows a whole lot less of a measure for me than a skill vs talent assessment.  Thus, as I said, I need more information.

This is one of the reasons why I favor redefining abilities as "general competence in that area" rather than "innate talent".

In various games, raw dexterity is often used for things like dodge bonus and miscellaneous athletic feats. Likewise, raw strength is used for how much someone can lift.

In games, it isn't really relevant how many months or years it will take you to realistically learn a new skill. The important question is: how good are you *now* at miscellaneous physical tasks.

Yeah, there's a lot of overlap between skills and "ability scores", and a great deal about this line of discussion is really all about "where do we draw the line?" Were does 100% RAW innate talent ends and training start? And to what extend could someone with seemingly low "raw" talent realistically develop high levels of ability with training and conditioning alone?

Over time I've come to think of attributes, stats, "ability scores" or "whatever they're called in any given game" more as "core abilities", or the central base from which more specialized "skills" spring from.

However, arguably some degree if "innate" ability does seem to be exist in real life. Question is: to what extend? And how does that fit in the game? To what degree are ability scores innate or a measure of general training and conditioning? Do we even need to draw the line, or just treat it all as potentially trainable?

IMHO Attributes are mainly raw talent + some training maybe to hone it. Which is why having some skills or something to justify knowing/being able to do X a necesity IMHO.

Of course to better model reality (if that's your goal) you'd need a lifepath minigame a la Cepheus Engine (yes I know it's Traveller's I prefer to promote the OGL game).
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Mishihari

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Re: What Dexterity Would This Woman Have?
« Reply #24 on: April 22, 2021, 08:55:25 PM »
Everything she does a person with enough time and focus who starts at an average baseline of athletic ability could do, even with regard to flexibility, she is not an outlier among females who have dedicated serious time to pursuing flexibility.   The "talent" is hard to measure in the things she displays.  I know numerous women and several men who can do a split past parallel between two chairs for instance.  One of them was super flexible at the start, but most of them were not exceptional regarding flexibility and worked on it for a couple years.  An example I will give is I have a buddy, who wondered if he could do a backflip (as a 27 year old adult who had never tried it) and he just did it, no warm up, no attempt with a spot, nothing past a Lady there told him to tuck his legs tight.  he just did it.  That IMO is a good measure of natural ability.  Similar is punching power.  You can enhance it with training, but people are born with the "touch of death", they dont develop it.   

Edited to add:  However I have no baseline for how long she has been training either.  If you told me she took an interest in this stuff 6 months ago and is at this level now, 18 dexterity is within a possible stat (still want to see a few more tests), if you tell me she has been training 5+ years, well that allows a whole lot less of a measure for me than a skill vs talent assessment.  Thus, as I said, I need more information.

This is one of the reasons why I favor redefining abilities as "general competence in that area" rather than "innate talent".

In various games, raw dexterity is often used for things like dodge bonus and miscellaneous athletic feats. Likewise, raw strength is used for how much someone can lift.

In games, it isn't really relevant how many months or years it will take you to realistically learn a new skill. The important question is: how good are you *now* at miscellaneous physical tasks.

Yeah, there's a lot of overlap between skills and "ability scores", and a great deal about this line of discussion is really all about "where do we draw the line?" Were does 100% RAW innate talent ends and training start? And to what extend could someone with seemingly low "raw" talent realistically develop high levels of ability with training and conditioning alone?

Over time I've come to think of attributes, stats, "ability scores" or "whatever they're called in any given game" more as "core abilities", or the central base from which more specialized "skills" spring from.

However, arguably some degree if "innate" ability does seem to be exist in real life. Question is: to what extend? And how does that fit in the game? To what degree are ability scores innate or a measure of general training and conditioning? Do we even need to draw the line, or just treat it all as potentially trainable?

And can innate ability be improved, or is it a static thing?  I'd argue the former.  Intelligence can be defined as one's skill at learning mental skills, and I know from personal experience that the more I've learned the easier it's become to learn new things.  Similarly athleticism could be defines as the ability to learn new physical skills, and again from personal experience, as I've engaged in weight training, it's become easier to learn all other physical skills.  One could argue that this is a cross-skill benefit or synergy rather than innate ability, but I would see this as a bit of a semantic argument.  For an RPG, after doing game designs with skill synergy and designs with skills increasing attributes, I'd days the latter is superior as it's easier to implement and can be used to achieve almost identical results.

jhkim

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Re: What Dexterity Would This Woman Have?
« Reply #25 on: April 22, 2021, 08:57:16 PM »
Yeah, there's a lot of overlap between skills and "ability scores", and a great deal about this line of discussion is really all about "where do we draw the line?" Were does 100% RAW innate talent ends and training start? And to what extend could someone with seemingly low "raw" talent realistically develop high levels of ability with training and conditioning alone?

Over time I've come to think of attributes, stats, "ability scores" or "whatever they're called in any given game" more as "core abilities", or the central base from which more specialized "skills" spring from.

However, arguably some degree if "innate" ability does seem to be exist in real life. Question is: to what extend? And how does that fit in the game? To what degree are ability scores innate or a measure of general training and conditioning? Do we even need to draw the line, or just treat it all as potentially trainable?

Regardless of how much innate ability exists in real life, it isn't a part of RPG mechanics. In nearly every RPG that I can think of, character advancement doesn't follow from realistic training times and limits. Even the few that do have skill training times (like classic Traveller), they aren't trying for realism.

If a GM really wants to simulate their view of Nature versus Nurture, that seems like something for house rules or just GM-declared limits.

Mishihari

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Re: What Dexterity Would This Woman Have?
« Reply #26 on: April 22, 2021, 09:32:35 PM »
Yeah, there's a lot of overlap between skills and "ability scores", and a great deal about this line of discussion is really all about "where do we draw the line?" Were does 100% RAW innate talent ends and training start? And to what extend could someone with seemingly low "raw" talent realistically develop high levels of ability with training and conditioning alone?

Over time I've come to think of attributes, stats, "ability scores" or "whatever they're called in any given game" more as "core abilities", or the central base from which more specialized "skills" spring from.

However, arguably some degree if "innate" ability does seem to be exist in real life. Question is: to what extend? And how does that fit in the game? To what degree are ability scores innate or a measure of general training and conditioning? Do we even need to draw the line, or just treat it all as potentially trainable?

Regardless of how much innate ability exists in real life, it isn't a part of RPG mechanics. In nearly every RPG that I can think of, character advancement doesn't follow from realistic training times and limits. Even the few that do have skill training times (like classic Traveller), they aren't trying for realism.

If a GM really wants to simulate their view of Nature versus Nurture, that seems like something for house rules or just GM-declared limits.

That doesn't necessarily follow.  One can try to model the effect of a thing realistically without also realistically modelling how it changes.

mAcular Chaotic

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Re: What Dexterity Would This Woman Have?
« Reply #27 on: April 23, 2021, 05:14:16 AM »
I find D&D stats to correlate poorly with real life. To a certain extent the higher end is supposed to represent a mythical quality, representing heroes like Beowulf. For example, an Ogre in D&D 5e has 19 strength. That would mean someone with an 18 would have to be on a superhuman level just because of how close it is. Clearly that's not the case with how 18s are used, though. Or are they? The game through its various editions doesn't seem to agree with itself.
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Steven Mitchell

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Re: What Dexterity Would This Woman Have?
« Reply #28 on: April 23, 2021, 07:54:37 AM »
And can innate ability be improved, or is it a static thing?  I'd argue the former.  Intelligence can be defined as one's skill at learning mental skills, and I know from personal experience that the more I've learned the easier it's become to learn new things.  Similarly athleticism could be defines as the ability to learn new physical skills, and again from personal experience, as I've engaged in weight training, it's become easier to learn all other physical skills.  One could argue that this is a cross-skill benefit or synergy rather than innate ability, but I would see this as a bit of a semantic argument.  For an RPG, after doing game designs with skill synergy and designs with skills increasing attributes, I'd days the latter is superior as it's easier to implement and can be used to achieve almost identical results.

I think of ability scores as a combination of innate talent plus what the character developed as a child.  All the things a person practices early will develop their innate talent (whatever that is) the most, fastest, easiest.  That's why a character can get to 12 or 15 or 17 by the time they start going on that first adventure.  Then it gets more difficult to improve.  The way it is modeled in most games may not be all that realistic but the general slowdown corresponds roughly to the way it happens in real life. 

The model is always going to have holes because of how complex most skills are and what abilities they draw from in what proportion.  You can have, for example, the best raw Dexterity imaginable, but if your depth perception sucks, you aren't going to show as a "+3" or "+4" to hit with a bow once you get the entry-level training, and just to stay in the ballpark with another person not suffering under the detriment is going to take an insane amount of practice.

Arguably, people with "High Dex" should learn "Dex-based" skills faster, too, because of their brain already having spent a lot of early time on getting good at such things.  I guess that's the basis for the early D&D bonus to experience for a high characteristic.  I'm not sure I like that from a game play perspective.