A human that is the stuff of myths can be more than a human with Str +5 with mythic strength. It can be a human with magic might. Such a character, even without playing with size and activated powers, can be designed with Str +6 or more. Before saying a system fails, learn what it can do. There is already three or more tiers of character. Also, frankly, a human with Str 5 is already an extreme character.
A +5 strength isn't mythic with or without the capital letter, it's simply at the upper bounds of what is humanly possible to the extent of being a defining part of your character sheet. Any grog could spend two of their three Virtue slots to get a +5 Strength (along with the Characteristic points to get it to +3 in the first place, of course). Virtues are a standard part of character generation that everyone has, not a mythic resource that inherently sets every single Ars character apart from any human who has ever lived.
In Ars, humans without some supernatural thing going on should generally be doing stuff that humans can do, as humans are not inherently supernatural beings in this game. You can play almost any other RPG to find human warriors pushing beyond real-world possibility just by being PCs and getting high character levels, but Ars makes humans much closer to how real humans work, with realistic limits for their capabilities and years of effort going into achieving incremental growth in their best skills. There are lots of people with supernatural backgrounds giving them inhuman qualities, but those come from Supernatural or Heroic Virtues or the like, from something other than human making them more than human. But regular ol' General Virtues? That's just stuff that happens to people sometimes.
That's not to say +5 Strength isn't exceptional - there are a very small number of world-class weightlifters in real life, too, so building someone that phenomenally strong should absolutely take up Virtue slots. But there's no magic there, so it's within the realm of human possibility.
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I play every RPG I've ever been a GM in exactly like this. Including a couple of editions of Ars Magica.
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That's interesting! That first statement is just a choice, not an axiom. It is the result on how you decide that random characters are and how their features are distributed. The fact that you can easily think of a Grog having +5 Str doesn't mean that this character is common: you can imagine the uncommon as easily as the common. How many of these are out there? One per covenant? One per village? One per country? Just the one you designed in all Mythic Europe? It just depends on how you decide that characteristics, virtues and flaws behave statistically. How do characteristics and virtues and flaws work? Are they evenly distributed, so a random character will have random sets of characteristics, virtues and flaws (and then such a grog with a Str of +5 will be highly unlikely), or are they statistically defined, so some characteristics, virtues and flaws are more common than others? (and then such a grog will be as unlikely as you set it to be; still, however, probably quite unfrequent). Or will any given character with a purpose and intention? (and then such a character will be as likely as the creator, be it God or the SG, wants it to be: if you design the average blacksmith to have Str +5, then a lot of characters like that will exist).
Virtues are indeed standard part of character generation. The specific combinations of them, however, is what you use to model a character that, even using standard blocks, results being mythical.
My more important point is that in most other respects, Ars attempts to create humans who function normally for real life until and unless supernatural elements are involved. I'm not sure how many +5 Strength humans there are exactly, aside from "very few," but it's reasonable that the strongest possible mundane Ars characters would be as strong as the strongest humans in real life.
I think the issue here is a shared understanding of what the word "mythic" stands for.
It seems to me that Corteia and Callen see it as "impossible for a modern human".
While Ouroboros sees it as simply as "something that can give birth to legends".
In the former case +5 is not mythic. In the latter it is.
I think there is no disagreement, however, that +5 is the very pinnacle of human achievement, so there are extremely few people with that level of characteristic, possibly none in a smallish area, probably none in any one person's direct experience - do you personally know any olympic level weightlifter or international chess grandmaster?
Etimologically, Ourobors is correct: mythic literally means storied.
From an Ars-Magica-history point of view, Corteia and Callen are correct: in past editions "Mythic characteristic" was indeed something acting at the "supernatural level".
Ultimately, does it matter? A rose is a rose, by whatever name you call it.
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On strength and size.
It seems that the "normal" rate at which Str grows with Siz, as noted, is that +1 Siz yields +2 Str.
You can then either take Fixer's modern view that the strength of a living being must grow with the area of its muscle section - so it grows with the square of its linear dimensions, while the mass grows as the cube of its linear dimensions. This is the reason why in real-life animals only grow so large, they tend to grow stockier with size, and the largest are aquatic creatures: if you just "scale up" a creature, its lifting power grows more slowly than its weight. In this case, as Fixer noted, since +9 Siz is x1000 weight, then +18 Str is only x100 weight-lifting power, so each +1 in Str means a 10^(1/9) (that's very slightly less than 1.3) increse in lifting power.
A +5 Str individual can then lift about 3.6 times as much as a 0 Str individual, which feels a tad underwhelming.
Or you can take a somewhat more "mythic" view, that allows "human-proportioned" giants. In this case, I'd say that adding X to size produces as much weight increase as adding 2X to Str allows you to lift; so +18 Str means a 1000-fold, rather than 100-fold, increase in weight lifted, and each +1 in Str means a 10^(1/6) (that's slightly less than 1.5) increse in lifting power.
A +5 Str individual can lift about 6.8 times as much as a 0 Str individual. I like that better.
In fact, there's no reason why, in Mythic Europe, "scaling" up a creature would not increase its strength even more quickly than its weight. Perhaps +3 to Str means x10 to weight lifted, just like +3 to Siz means x10 to weight. I feel that makes even a +3 Str individual a bit too strong though.
Finally, you could go with the following. Assume that +5 to strength means the ratio between what the strongest weightlifters today can lift, and what the average person can lift. This has the advantage that by definition, a +5 Str grog will be as strong as today's strongest weighttlifters. There are two limitations to that though. The first, is that the ratio is a bit vague. 10 X perhaps? Second, that Str is much more than weightlifting strength. I bet that weightlifting athletes prowess is comparatively much less when e.g. bringing down a hammer as mightily as they can. I still think the second option is the one I like best.
Well, if we're talking Mythic strength, someone with Str +5 in full chain armor and fighting with a mace and heater shield while carrying an unconscious person on his shoulders fights with less encumbrance penalty than the Str +2 warrior with the same gear who doesn't need to carry the unconscious person at the same time. Just putting things in perspective. How did you derive that lift capacity btw?
I think you miscalculated something:
The mail has a load of 6, the mace and heater shield each have a load of 2, and the carried person has a load of about 21. That's a total load of 31, for a burden of 8 and an encumbrance of 3. The weaker warrior has a total load of 10, for a burden of 4 and and encumbrance of 2.
But for Attack and Defense Totals this shifts because the burden of weapons and armor is mostly ignored. It is a little vague, but let's go with totally ignored as it errs the most in favor of the stronger one. Then the stronger warrior has a burden of 6 and encumbrance of 1, while the weaker warrior has a burden of 0 and no encumbrance.
There is nothing inherently mythic about Str +5. If you want a human to have "Mythic" or "Heroic" strength then giving them the Great Bearer Virtue. While it says you can carry twice as much, when calculated out it comes out somewhere between three and four times as much.
Lets look at two people with Str +5, one normal and the other "Heroic"/"Mythic" (however you want to call it) with the Great Bearer Virtue. The loads they can have at No Encumbrance, Max Practical encumbrance/Lift Over Head, Lift Off Ground, and Drag/Push are calculated as:
- The person with just Str +5 is 15 (105lbs), 55 (385lbs), 78 (546lbs), and 153 (1,071lbs).
- With the addition of GB is 55 (385lbs), 210 (1,470lbs), 300 (2,100lbs), and 578 (4,046lbs).
The first is a strong man especially when you consider that he weighs about 150lbs, while the second is someone like Hercules. The difference between normal and "Heroic" strength.
A House Rule my group strongly considered was adding a characters Size to their Str when calculating Encumbrance. Something like this would also help with correcting the unbalanced nature of increasing Str with Size and more easily allow things like giants who can lift something appropriate for their size.
Funnily enough, Mercury's Winged Sandal says "A second, unencumbered individual is a Load of 21 on average (see Grogs, Chapter 4)." while Grogs chapter 4 points out that Load is roughly 7 pounds, and gives only one example, "a 100-pound human is equivalent to a Load of 15". I had used that 100 pound human in my calculation. This brought my example warrior to a load of 25 which gave him an effective burden of 1.
And yes, in a fight, encumbrance only affects initiative as far as I can tell.
The Load of 21 for an unencumbered individual fits the average male European weight for the 13th century, which was in the mid 140lbs range. A Load of 15 would be more appropriate for a youth or light woman.
They're not in disagreement. But a 100-pound human is basically the very bottom end of Size 0. Size 0 is generally 100-215 lb. So, while that is true for a 100 lb human, that's atypical for a human.
Meanwhile, with a 100 lb human, that only reduces the load by 6 to a total of 25, right? 25 is a burden of 7, resulting in an encumbrance of 2, not 1, which is no better than the weaker warrior is. And for Attack and Defense Totals the weaker warrior is still better off.
Necrothread!
How to put it?
I see absolutely no reason for the possible strength of human characters in Ars Magica to be within the limits of "realistic strength": We aren't playing in Realistic Europe but in Mythic Europe, a world in which, literally, you can have the Blood of the Gods.
IMO, characters with one attribute or skill on par with that of an Amberite, or the lowest end of superheroes, may have their place here.
Why would the ability to breathe fire be ok, while arm-wrestling bears wouldn't? You can create x-men like playable characters using RoP: F or RoP: M.
Yet, mechanically, no human sized character can be as strong as a Bear (Str +7 IIRC), and the Str + 5 is within the bounds of what's possible to us who do not have Mythic Blood (another thing possible in Ars).
I've been reading Chevalry and Sorcery recently, a game which is quite similar to Ars Magica on some points. There are things in there I hate with a fiery passion, but there's one thing it does, IMO, better than Ars: You have 3 "power level" for campains, with corresponding max attributes. In ars, unless houseruling, even the most high fantasy, high power campain will be populated by characters who, physically and intellectually, could perfectly exist in our world.
I find this lack of breadth disappointing, especially given all you can do otherwise, that's all.
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I've personally house ruled that the human limits of +5 are before virtues such as giant and faerie blood.
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First of all, Str +5 is the limit for a mundane human (and I'd simply avoid an exact quantification of how much that is: it's as strong as any man can possibly be, enough to make most people go "wow").
You cannot create wholly mundane fire-breathing humans: if you want them to breath fire, it's going to be some supernatural power (blocked by MR etc.). If you are willing to make it a supernatural power, impossible strength is ok too (impossible in the sense that you can pick up a house without toppling over - what Godlike calls "no physical limit"). Just simulate it with ReTe based on the Invisible Porter - which gives you Str +5 for a base guideline of 3. Every extra magnitude allows you to multply the weight by a factor 10. Want to be able to swing tree trunks and toss boulders too? Just get an idea of how much damage you want to inflict, and use that as the level if it's higher -- probably tossing in another magnitude for flexibility. Give it R:Touch, probably D:Conc, Unlimited Uses and you are set!
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Agreed. If you wanted to run a supers themed game using Ars rules, that right there is (one) way to get to how Steve Rogers throws the motorcycle he was just riding, without missing a beat or even really breathing hard.
As seen above, Str + 5 is the limit for a realistic mundane human.
I see no particular reason for it to be the limit for a mythic mundane human instead of, say, +6 or +7
I'm not asking for no limits. Have you read my (numerous) examples above? These are all relatively grounded takes on superhuman attributes, especially Amber.
Also, what you describe is not strength. It is just lifting power, and it wouldn't work as you say (unless, in your game, you could use the Unseen Porter for this. YMMV)
You can't use it to throw a thing (Once you cease touching a thing, it just drops to the ground), use a heavy weapon, manage your encumbrance or do extra damage while punching.
The only way you can compare it to Strength is when asking "can I lift that thing?".
In fact, you could have such a power coupled with Str -5.
To toss some examples, just for fun.
- Let's say, I create a magic human (companion in a medium campain). A russian made of living steel, going by the name Kolossoi. I put 8 qualities for Soak + 16, and 2 for +6 damage while punching with his steel fists, which are NOT resisted by MR. No problem here, and nothing really unbalancing. But if I want him to have a normal size, yet a Strength above that of a realistic mundane human? I can't, that's far too fantastical.
- I can have a mundane human that is invulnerable to swords, can swim in lava, change into a dove or just won't die save if (insert clause). These are perfectly acceptable (and fine!) in Mythic Europe, yet having someone stronger than a normal human can be is too far-stretched.
Note that this also applies to other attributes.
In Dies Irae, we have an aspect of Heimdallur, with Per +8.
We can create a character with the Blood of Heimdallur, and at least some of his powers (even a non-magical character!). We have no way, even with a magical magus-level character in a mythic campain, to have someone with a Per above what's possible in our world.
The most we can do, with mythic (characteristic) is 1 more point in a limited fashion.
This is fine in most campaigns.
But for a game that entertains a wide range of power levels, even explicitly (especially in RoP:M, but not only), I am disappointed that there's nothing like "In a legendary campaign, raise x attributes by 1, even if it puts them above +5".
You can be as fantastical and over the top as you want, save with attributes.
Note that I'm also in favour of dropping the 7 points to spend on attributes at chargen, so that realistic human average is also 0 
EDIT: In fact, for minimal changes to the system, I'd have gone with something like:
- Average stat 0
- Max for normal human: +3
- Utter max for humans: +4 (like one of the best in the world)
- Only possible in fantasy and myth: +5
This also allows more breadth of concepts, but, well, that's not what we have.
We are in mythic Europe, a time of myriad diseases, plagues and infections. These people made it to adulthood. They deserve the +7. The ones with +6 or less are all the children who died of infections, the pox. For those saying well that explains stamina, there is being smart enough not to be in the wrong place at the wrong time, being quick enough to react to terminal accidents, etc.
There's no reason for it.
We could just as well disallow decreased characteristics, saying that those are the ones who died, whereas in our world they wouldn't have. Or saying that modern humans have -3 points in their stats.
I can perfectly understand people liking having those points to spend, but its nothing more than a game artefact from when the game when from rolled to point-buy stats, with a frequently used "carrot" for point buy: give players better stats than an average roll.