Character Height/Weight System for AD&D®

From the article "Realistic Vital Statistics: A New system for figuring heights and weights" by Stephen Inniss in Dragon Magazine 91, 10-14 (November 1984) with some modifications by me based on a newsgroup submission by Sam Thomas (a.k.a. Sinbad Sam).

HTML ©1999 David R. Klassen

This system was designed to deal with the problem sometimes encountered with the relatively pure random height/weight system of the Player's Handbook. In that system one starts with a minimum value of height and adds a random number to that and then does so again with weight. However, the weight of the character is not at all a function of the height. This new system creates a height and then a weight which is based on that height. The other interesting feature of this system is that it takes into account the character's strength, which gives the desirable result that strong characters tend to be taller and meatier.

Character Height

After generating the character stats and choosing the race and class, one needs to find the character height. This is done by looking up the race in Table A to get the racial average height. The character's height can then vary from the average by a percentage obtained from tables B1 and B2. The player rolls a d‰ (3d10's where the first one is the hundreds, the next is the tens, and the last is the ones place for a randomly generated number from 1 to 1000) and then rolls the appropriate dice to find the base percentage change. To this is added the percentage change based on the character's strength. This final percent difference is then used to calculate the character's height; round to the nearest inch.

Heights have been adjusted considerably for elves of all sub-races from those accepted and "official" values. Although I have not increased their heights to Tolkien-esque stature (i.e. 6 feet and taller) they are all over 5 feet tall to make sure they remain in the M class size and are taller than dwarves. However, if the rolls are right, very short elves can be rolled, they are just going to be very uncommon.

Table A Average height (inches) Race Males Females Aarakocra 63 61 Alaghi 72 71 Beastman 61 56 Bugbear 82 78 Bullywug 67 65 Centaur 103 99 Dryad, Half — 65 Dwarf, Deep 52 49 Dwarf, Duegar 48 47 Dwarf, Gully 47 45 Dwarf, Hill 48 46 Dwarf, Mountain 54 52 Dwarf, Sundered 55 53 Elf, Aquatic 64 64 Elf, Drow 63 66 Elf, Grey 68 63 Elf, Half 68 66 Elf, High 66 63 Elf, Sylvan 65 62 Elf, Valley 68 67 Elf, Wild (Grugach) 63 63 Fremlin 17 17 Giant-kin, Firbolg 126 120 Giant-kin, Voadkyn 114 108 Gnoll 90 86 Gnoll, Flind 79 75 Gnome 42 40 Goblin 48 46 Halfling, Hairfoot 42 40 Halfling, Stout 39 37 Halfling, Tallfellow 45 43 Hobgoblin 76 72 Human 70 69 Kobold 39 37 Lizard Man 67 67 Minotaur 91 87 Mongrelman 67 66 Ogre 109 106 Ogre, Half 91 85 Ogre Mage 121 103 Orc 64 62 Orc, Half 66 64 Pixie 34 33 Satyr 60 — Satyr, Half 67 — Saurial, Bladeback 87 85 Saurial, Finhead 65 63 Saurial, Flyer 37 35 Saurial, Hornhead 114 112 Swanmay — 70 Wemic 88 85

Table B1 Variation from average height Die Score Percent Variation (d‰) Humans Others 001-005 -(d4+12) -(d3+9) 006-025 -(d4+8) -(d3+6) 026-150 -(d4+4) -(d3+3) 151-350 -(d4) -(d3) 351-650 none none 651-850 +(d4) +(d3) 851-975 +(d4+4) +(d3+3) 976-995 +(d4+8) +(d3+6) 996-000 +(d4+12) +(d3+9) Table B2 Height adjustment by Strength STR Score Percent Adjustment 3 -9 4 -6 5 -3 6-15 none 16 +3 17 +6 18 +9 19-22 +11 23-25 +13

Character Weight

Once the character height is known, the weight can be calculated. First, cross-reference the character height to find the average character weight in table C. Note that this given average weight is for human males. For females, use the weight given for a height one inch shorter than the character. For non-humans this average weight is modified by the weight multiplier given in table D. Then the average weight is adjusted by a percentage based in part on a random roll of a d‰ on table E1 and the character strength score using table E2 just as in the percentage variation for character height.

The weight as a function of height chart has been slightly modified from the version given in the original article. Since the weights are assumed to be for a human of the various heights (even for those outside the norm) the numbers have been adjusted to fit the equation given at the bottom of the table. This assumes that when you scale a human male, they scale identically in all dimensions so the weight is proportional to the cube of a linear measurement (e.g. height) ratio. This affected the chart mainly at the smallest of the heights. The weight multipliers have also been slightly adjusted by me so that final weights are, in my opinion, more "realistic".

Table C
Character weight by height^*

Height	Weight		Height	Weight		Height	Weight		Height	Weight
132	1079		103	513		74	190		45	43
131	1055		102	498		73	182		44	40
130	1030		101	483		72	175		43	37
129	1007		100	470		71	168		42	35
128	984		99	455		70	161		41	32
127	960		98	441		69	154		40	30
126	938		97	428		68	147		39	28
125	916		96	415		67	141		38	26
124	894		95	402		66	135		37	24
123	873		94	389		65	129		36	22
122	851		93	377		64	123		35	20
121	831		92	365		63	117		34	18
120	810		91	353		62	112		33	17
119	790		90	342		61	106		32	15
118	770		89	331		60	101		31	14
117	751		88	320		59	96		30	13
116	732		87	307		58	91		29	11
115	714		86	298		57	87		28	10
114	695		85	288		56	82		27	9
113	677		84	278		55	78		26	8
112	660		83	268		54	74		25	7
111	641		82	259		53	70		24	7
110	625		81	250		52	66		23	6
109	607		80	240		51	62		22	5
108	591		79	231		50	59		21	4
107	575		78	222		49	55		20	4
106	558		77	214		48	52		19	3
105	543		76	206		47	49		18	3
104	527		75	198		46	46		17	2
*Females are treated as if 1 inch shorter than actual for weight determination
Note for heights not listed on this table the base weight in pounds can be calculated by: Weight = 175 / (72/Height)^3

Table D Weight multiplier by race Race Males Aarakocra 0.8 Alaghi 2.1 Beastman 1.15 Bugbear 0.95 Bullywug 1.1 Centaur 2.1 Dryad, Half 1.0 Dwarf, Deep 1.85 Dwarf, Duegar 2.3 Dwarf, Gully 2.0 Dwarf, Hill 2.9 Dwarf, Mountain 2.3 Dwarf, Sundered 2.0 Elf, Aquatic 0.9 Elf, Drow 0.9 Elf, Grey 0.8 Elf, Half 0.92 Elf, High 0.85 Elf, Sylvan 0.9 Elf, Valley 0.85 Elf, Wild 0.95 Fremlin 2.5 Giant-kin, Firbolg 0.9 Giant-kin, Voadkyn 1.02 Gnoll 0.6 Gnoll, Flind 0.8 Gnome 2.0 Goblin 1.6 Halfling, Hairfoot 1.8 Halfling, Stout 1.9 Halfling, Tallfellow 1.5 Hobgoblin 0.9 Human 1.0 Kobold 2.1 Lizard Man 1.1 Minotaur 1.2 Mongrelman 0.95 Ogre 1.0 Ogre, Half 0.85 Ogre Mage 0.9 Orc 1.2 Orc, Half 1.25 Pixie 1.5 Satyr 1.3 Satyr, Half 1.0 Saurial, Bladeback 1.9 Saurial, Finhead 1.5 Saurial, Flyer 2.3 Saurial, Hornhead 1.09 Swanmay 0.86 Wemic 2.3

Table E1 Variation from average weight Die Score Percent Variation (d‰) Humans Others 001-005 -(d8+24) -(d6+18) 006-025 -(d8+16) -(d6+12) 026-150 -(d8+8) -(d6+6) 151-350 -(d8) -(d6) 351-650 none none 651-850 +(d8) +(d6) 851-975 +(d8+8) +(d6+6) 976-995 +(d8+16) +(d6+12) 996-000 +(d8+24) +(d6+18) Table B2 Height adjustment by Strength STR Score Percent Adjustment 3 -20 4 -16 5 -12 6 -8 7 -4 8-13 none 14 +4 15 +8 16 +12 17 +16 18 +20 19-22 +22 23-25 +24