The "getscale" command shows that races all have their own unique scale. An Imperial character, for instance, has a base scale of 1.00. A Nord character, however, has a base scale of 1.03.

Most PC players are probably aware that the "player.setscale" command allows you to change the height of your character through the console. What they may not be aware of is that the problem with player.setscale command is that it doesn't just increase the size of your character, it also increase the character's movement speed, its jump distance, and even its damage output. It scales all of that to match the new size of your character. You may have a difficult time noticing this if you make minor adjustments from the default value (say boosting yourself from 1.00 to 1.03 to get your Imperial character to Nord size), but it's still happening regardless. Your character will be able to move faster than s/he should be and hitting hard than s/he legitimately can. The differences are very obvious and easily observed when you do more extreme changes (like a value of 10, where at level eight my character was be able to kill giants in three or four swings after being scaled for testing purposes). I imagine the opposite is true if you shrink yourself.

Since Nord characters already start at a base scale of 1.03 and Imperials start at a value of 1.00, this makes me wonder if there are small inherent movement speed and damage output difference built into the game depending on one's race selection. Is an Imperial character slightly slower at running than a Nord character simply because the Nord character is scaled larger? It would certainly explain why I (on my Imperial) have to sprint occasionally to keep up with a Nord NPC when following them to a quest location. Do Nord characters, in fact, do slightly more damage in melee than Imperial characters because of their larger scale?

I'd love to know, because keep in mind there *are* differences to movement speed, damage output, and jump distances if you adjust the scale figures manually through the console. And since the various races are all at different pre-set scales, that begs the obvious question which is the subject of this thread. If true, the differences would be minor, but they would be there.

Hmm, should go test a 0.1 scale.
anyway, never knew about this..
It might sound like there are some minor damage differences between the races and such from what you write, that does actually make sense.

not that it is a good thing, but I assume the differences is rather small and as you said even so they would still be there.

Nice find man! That is cool that character size affects damage output.

I guess one way to test this would be to auto-run two different characters in a straight line along a long stretch of straight road and time them with a stopwatch. Say, a High Elf and a Wood Elf, but it would have to be a significant distance.

Ok, well, I don't know if players will consider these results good or bad news, but here they are. It appears that your race choice DOES in fact have an impact on how quickly your character can run, in addition to how high they can jump. This seems to be directly tied to the scale value of the character (which can be retrieved by activating the console in third-person, clicking on your character model, and typing "getscale"). And since I've already determined that the "setscale" command has an impact on running speed, jumping height, AND melee damage, we can infer that race selection also directly impacts the amount of damage your character does (at least in melee).

I ran some tests and had an Imperial character (scale value 1.00) run down a straight road (using the auto-run key) for 45 seconds. I then compared the same test (from the same starting save point) using a few other races. The results were as follows:

Wood Elf (scale = 0.98) : 47.3 seconds to run the track.
Imperial (scale = 1.00) : 46.35 seconds to run the track.
Nord (scale = 1.03) : 45 seconds to run the track.
High Elf (scale = 1.08) : 42.9 seconds to run the track.

Clearly the scale value assigned to their race is influencing their running speed. I also used a marker to test jumping height and the High Elf was clearly able to leap higher than the Wood Elf (or any of the other tested races).

If we assume the same scale influence applies to damage output (and we should), a 50 point melee attack from an Imperial would look like this:

Wood Elf (scale = 0.98) : 49 melee damage.
Imperial (scale = 1.00) : 50 melee damage.
Nord (scale = 1.03) : 51.5 melee damage.
High Elf (scale = 1.08) : 54 melee damage.

After all the commotion regarding the removal of stats, this silent modifier would have been nice to know about from the start.

The effects on running and jumping make sense because its all tied to the animation system (if bigger characters use the same walking animation, they have to move faster or else they look like they are moonwalking.) I'll need to see evidence to believe it affects damage.

Unless there's a combat log hidden somewhere I don't know about, the damage difference between a Wood Elf's attacks and a High Elf's attacks are probably going to be too subtle to eyeball via opponent health bars. I suppose someone could try to go to town on Lydia while using the setracemenu function and find out, though.

You can take your character and do a "player.setscale 10" and then superspeed across the landscape until you run into a giant and smack it down in a handful of strikes to see the obvious impact large differences in scaling has on damage, however.

I like this. Adds some subtle flavor and diversity to the races. Those tiny little differences shouldn't be enough to influence anyone's decision other than extreme min/max players. I'm not going to stop playing my Dunmer because he runs slightly slower than my Nord or can't jump as high.

I'd use it as yet another subtle way to explain why Nords are generally the most powerful imperial soldiers and make up the bulk of the Empire's finest legions. And lends some minor credence to the Aldmeri Dominion's superiority complex and eugenics programs.

For your tests I was going to say you should have used a Breton female. They're the shortest, at 0.95. I forget if the males are that short or not.

Also I thought wood elves were set to a scale of 1.0?

It's funny because now technically the High Elves ARE the superior race! And all this time I thought they were snooty D-bags. Oh well, I guess now I have to go join the empire and kill some Talos worshiping heretics.

The only way I see that it could effect damage is because they get hit sooner. Set Scale would effect movement as it would change the stride and along with that the jump distance. We have known this since Oblivion, perhaps Morrowind. In fact, with Morrowind, there was a spot where giant Golden Saints or other creatures would spawn. Other than their size, there was no difference in the combat with damage dealt or received by the enemy.

So, I doubt there is any change in this game with the set scale command on damage. Which makes sense as set scale does not change Strength or Skills which do effect damage calculations.

wow.... no wonder my male orc feels powerful. he runs and hits like .15% harder like a master.

I wonder if it effects anything else like stealth.

Except it DOES effect damage. I tried it myself; thief approaches me, i hit it and it takes me three one handed power attacks to kill. Reload, setscale to 10, and it takes only one single handed power attack to kill.

So regardless of whether it makes sense or not, it happens.

EDIT: On a different note, anyone tried doing this with dragons? :tongue:

HIGH ELVES FTW

Is there a limit to setscale?

Setscale *does* change the amount of damage your character deals in melee. This is very easy to observe yourself. Go into the console and type "player.setscale 10". It helps to go to a third-person view, draw your weapon, and then put it away (for some reason the effects of setscale, like movement speed and jumping height, don't kick in until you do). Then charge across the landscape and find some giants (there are some very close to the city, north-east of Whiterun - you can reach it in around five seconds with the speed your travel when your scale is set to 10.) My level 8 character was killing them in four hits with my scale set to 10. I killed several of them in a handful of seconds. I went back and tried it with a normal scale and was barely putting a dent in their health bars.

Thanks for the results. Always fun reading about finds like this hehe.
Not that it has any real impact on me and my play style.

You need to test Bretons aswell, they're smaller than Imperials.

How tall are orcs guys?

Wow, no wonder the Thalmor have been kicking so much Empire ass. They're overpowered. :tongue:

A neat thread. Thanks for checking into this folks.

It's been this way since Oblivion, why is anyone suprised?

A bigger man is going to hit you harder, stands to reason.

Very interesting stuff.

Neat. Does it effect gameplay? Not in a real noticeable way, but it's still there nonetheless. Wonder if it effects range/magic also?

I tested it yesterday on the race menu by placing the cursor on the exact same place and measuring the races against it, Nords and Imperials by default are the exact same height, default Nords are simply higher on the weight slider by default.