Scaling your PC: Please stop! The horror!

[GodBeastX]

Okay, people, your characters scaled super skinny or super huge look stupid. I can't be nice about this because it looks like I'm walking into a Fun House with the room of wierd mirrors (Stole that line from another DM). Please stop making characters GROSSLY out of proportions. I don't want to see elves the size of halflings, or Humans the size of umberhulks, alright?

[Ithildur]

I totally agree...


but I had to stop and nearly choked with laughter at visualizing some possible results of people doing this.

but yeah... what GBX said.

[Rhazeal]

Humans the size of umberhulks? Would make for pretty interesting wrestling matches...

[Darkfangs]

I admit that I am guilty of doing this myself with my barbarian warrior, using the half-orc model and RPing him as human. In my defense however, he is a quarter-orc, though he is unaware of this fact and would deny it even if he knew.

[Grigori]

Wow, I was going to make Ravenor a bit taller, but the size of Umberhulks? I didn't even know that was possible... O_o

[GodBeastX]

Just to give you an example. I have an NPC who is 5% larger scaled. Just 5% and he looks very big compared to other people his race. People are going like 30% taller and 30% skinnier. It just looks retarded.

[Grigori]

Hm... I was hoping on going for the lurch look, but not as extreme... maybe 10% taller and 5% thinner or something... I am not sure what the % is based on the slider position but it was like 1/4 of the way larger on the height scale...

[Kaldaris]

Girth / Height suck. All they do is stretch / squash the model and it looks horrible. Scaling isn't bad- because it's proportional.

[Garfaldo]

I don't know... I see a lot of variety of people in my city, I don't know what you guys get in your neck of the woods. Some of these scaling problems you mention are actually pretty true to real life proportions.

[GodBeastX]

No they're not. See, what people have in real life is mass changes. Weight around the arms different, skeletally different for mass. Girth does NOT change this stuff. For example, people with limbs being longer doesn't mean their head gets enlongated too. Get in game and see some of these people and you'll come back and post too.

Also, Halflings aren't a foot tall. They're halflings, not brownies.

[Ethereal Edge]

You mean halflings aren't fudge? Orly?

[Garfaldo]

Well.. yeah you have a point about the head thing. I'm a pretty slim guy, 5"11 and about 160 LBs. There is this dude at work here who is about a good foot taller than me, and easily skinnier (girth wise). It is odd to look at, but the fact is he does exist and is possible. I'm not sure if the problem is that you guys are saying you can't have a short pudgy man or a tall skinny guy, or that the NWN2 stretching just makes it look stupid.

[Abyss]

Yeah, I noticed this as well. It's a fairly flawed system to begin with*, but that's no excuse for grossly misshapen characters... Not to say you shouldn't do it, but treat it like fats and sugars... Use only in moderation.

*I think a phenotype system would be a little better. NWN1 got close, but they only provided two phenotypes, so that didn't work out too well. Having two or three phenotypes per race would be interesting, and not too much work (I don't think...). Either that, or Obsidian makes a true scaling system... Like, a stripped-down system of what The Sims or Oblivion uses. But that would be a HUGE amount of work (Again, I think...) and they're not likely to do that.

[Ithildur]

This wouldn't be a problem if people used a bit of good sense (the word moderations is key) and did some research on FR/DnD races. Of course, it also wouldn't be a problem if Obsidian didn't allow extreme squashing/stretching to the extent they decided to do.

Who is smoking what over there I wonder sometimes when it comes to the aesthetics of this game...

[GodBeastX]

...or that the NWN2 stretching just makes it look stupid.

Bingo.

And some people are just WAAAAAAAY too small.