Calculations

The purpose of this page is to list all calculations for real world measurements being converted into H&H. This page shows that I have a desire for realism, shows why these numbers were chosen, and allows me to more easily adjust the game if a calculation turns out to be wrong (or if a less arbitrary value is found etc). This page will ignore criticals since they are not "natural" therefore the dice are considered to have a sum range of -3 to +3.

Human Strength

The Guinness Book of Records (via a google search and from an unknown edition) says that Paul Anderson could squat lift 1,200 lbf (his backlift record is dubious and is ignored). I personally can lift close to 80 lbf. Considering that the gym's machine has a minimum weight around 50 lbf it does seem like this lines up nicely with average adult human strength who hasn't trained. Therefore Mutants and Mastermind's rank 0 "mass" of 50 lbs seems exactly correct. With weight rank 0 being 50 lbf that makes rank 5 800 lbf and rank 6 1,600 lbf which puts "peak of human effort" at weight rank 6. Since this was his best record that means he couldn't have rolled higher and thus got a sum of +3. This puts his Strength at 3 which is a routine check of lifting 400 lbf (I have no idea how reasonable that is).