What D&D races would win at what olympic events?

OgreBattle · Post by **OgreBattle** » Mon Apr 22, 2013 7:06 am

Two categories:

-Core Races
-Expanded, races you'd think are reasonably not +CR

Track & Field, various team sports, ping pong, and all that.

Maxus · Post by **Maxus** » Mon Apr 22, 2013 7:31 am

Orcs win the shotput. And the longjump. And javelin throw.

Elves probably win ping-pong.

Dwarves -theoretically- win long-distance races. Marathons and junk.

As long as it's over long enough distance for their endurance to carry them

Koumei · Post by **Koumei** » Mon Apr 22, 2013 10:01 am

Can we also include the awesome older Olympic events like town planning and poodle clipping?

Guyr Adamantine · Post by **Guyr Adamantine** » Mon Apr 22, 2013 11:07 am

Thri-Kreen have been banned from longjump. Racists!

icyshadowlord · Post by **icyshadowlord** » Mon Apr 22, 2013 12:29 pm

Does chess count as a sport?

RobbyPants · Post by **RobbyPants** » Mon Apr 22, 2013 2:22 pm

As already mentioned, orcs win anything involving throwing for distance. If the event instead involves throwing something at a target, halflings win.

Username17 · Post by **Username17** » Mon Apr 22, 2013 3:38 pm

All swimming competitions are trivially won by Merfolk, since they are simply racially 25% faster in the water than Sea Elves (their only competition). As soon as you go non-core, Neraphim win at all jumping related anything.

-Username17

virgil · Post by **virgil** » Mon Apr 22, 2013 3:48 pm

I'm reasonably certain that Thri-kreen jumping would fill the Neraphim with pride, because their bonus is leaps and bounds better.

Koumei · Post by **Koumei** » Mon Apr 22, 2013 3:54 pm

If you use "core only" to actually mean PHB, then half-orcs are allowed to compete but orcs are not, at which point people have to face the racism issue, and you get into "well half human is okay!" "So I'm half human, half dragon, can I compete?" "Hang on, what if they're 5/8 orc and 3/8 human?"

If we go non-core, then the Uldra actually do well in any event that involves prolonged physical contact with another person - they take Clever Wrestling to at least partially offset being smaller than the orcs they wrestle with, and deal cold damage every few seconds. How many D&D rounds does boringOlympic wrestling last for?

Some fuckers have flight right at the start, which could be seen as a problem for some events. And endurance-based activities like marathon running would go to the Necropolitans (or any other "I don't have a Con score"). Boxing with warforged would be somewhat unfair, too (ignoring the bit where, for all their immunities, "getting punched in their solid steel head" is not actually something they can resist better than a human can).

Josh_Kablack · Post by **Josh_Kablack** » Mon Apr 22, 2013 6:29 pm

Oddly, in Core == PHB setting, halfings also win shooting things at a target, since their size bonus lets them beat out the elves. So they get archery, skeet shooting, trap shooting. But their speed penalty kills their hopes in the Biatholon.

With the Dex bonus and size bonus to AC, they also probably win in Fencing.

With the small size and Dex bonus, they probably win the equestrian events - although if you move just a little beyond the PHB, the goblins beat them out there.

That gives them 3/5 wins for the modern Pentathlon, taking the event.

Of course Half-Orcs (or full Orcs if allowed) get the classic Pentathlon where it's mostly strength based.

The military penathlon would be up for grabs, but that one's not actually part of the olympics.

Doom · Post by **Doom** » Mon Apr 22, 2013 6:54 pm

Without getting rules lawyerly, I would bet dwarves would have some weightlifting advantages for that kind of build.

darkmaster · Post by **darkmaster** » Mon Apr 22, 2013 7:11 pm

Are class levels allowed?

ishy · Post by **ishy** » Tue Apr 23, 2013 2:01 pm

I'm not so sure, the bonuses we're talking about are really tiny. Would a +1 on shooting really allow you to always win archery contests?

Guyr Adamantine · Post by **Guyr Adamantine** » Tue Apr 23, 2013 2:18 pm

ishy wrote:I'm not so sure, the bonuses we're talking about are really tiny. Would a +1 on shooting really allow you to always win archery contests?

The score is given by how close you shoot to the center of the target. In this context, a higher bonus will mean more points in the long run.

Username17 · Post by **Username17** » Tue Apr 23, 2013 3:06 pm

ishy wrote:I'm not so sure, the bonuses we're talking about are really tiny. Would a +1 on shooting really allow you to always win archery contests?

You get scored on your best trials. Also, the differences between Olympians are way less than the difference between races.

A Human with an 18 Strength is supposed to be in the 99.5th percentile for prime age Humans. But an Orc with 18 Strength is only in the 83.8th percentile for prime age Orcs. An Orc is literally an entire standard deviation stronger than a Human. A Halfling is a standard deviation more accurate. A Merfolk swims five times faster than you do, so it's not even a comparison.

But basically, when you compare the one in a million Humans who have what it takes to represent the Kingdom of Draxall in the Great Games to the one in a million Orcs who have what it takes to represent Lower Thrugm in the Great Games, it's not even close. The peak Orcish performance is way beyond the differences between any cohort of Humans you cared to name. Orcs vs. Humans in the weight lifting events would be way more ridiculous than having Human olympians "compete" against women or highschool students.

Yes, you can find Humans who are stronger than many Orcs. Just as there are lots of women who are stronger than lots of men. But at the Olympian level, you're talking about theoretical peak performance. And that means anyone who has a racial +1 that you don't have is going to win while you are going to lose.

-Username17

darkmaster · Post by **darkmaster** » Tue Apr 23, 2013 4:51 pm

Well, I'd like to posit that racial +1s matter less than who's best able to stop the Goblins or Kolbolds, whose idea of fair play explicitly includes trickery and underhandedness, from sabotaging their team. Which probably means Orcs win very little.

Whipstitch · Post by **Whipstitch** » Tue Apr 23, 2013 5:08 pm

Nah, I highly doubt that they would even qualify or wish to compete in the same events even before you factor in the potential for weight classes in a few sports.

darkmaster · Post by **darkmaster** » Tue Apr 23, 2013 5:11 pm

Maybe not Goblins, but Kolbolds are also dragon supremacists, so they'd want to at least try, and being natural born sorcerers they could probably swing something, maybe permanencied enlarge person.

virgil · Post by **virgil** » Tue Apr 23, 2013 5:18 pm

If we keep it as SRD, PC-approved race only, thri-kreen win at jumping and half-giants win at weightlifting. If allowed, the sahuagin are beating the merfolk.

One important thing with all of this discussion is how the games would be separated. In the real Olympics, we have a different division for the men and women; I can't imagine something like that not happening in the D&D world.