Do Any Rules Give An Advantage For Being A Smaller Target?

[Cacique Caribe]

What if your character is, say, an enhanced raccoon, or some other being half the height of a halfling (would that make him a “quarterling”?) …

In a firefight, do your preferred rules give the diminutive guy any advantages for being such a much smaller target?  If so, how?  What sort of advantage?

Inquiring minds want to know.

Thanks

Dan
Loads of WIPs: https://www.flickr.com/photos/9593487@N07/albums/with/72157710630529376

[deephorse]

Yes.  It is more difficult to hit.

Play is what makes life bearable - Michael Rosen

[Cacique Caribe]

Yes, as the title says, a smaller target.  So how is that reflected in the rules you’ve played?

Dan
Loads of WIPs: https://www.flickr.com/photos/9593487@N07/albums/with/72157710630529376

[Patrice]

I suppose the question is about skirmish, not mass battles.

Such a small and (probably) very swift creature should be more difficult to hit (I would suggest “–1 to hit” but it depends on the dice system and shooting tables used in your rules) with most ranged weapons. However this would not apply to weapons intended for small animals hunting (blunderbuss, shotgun, hunting gun shooting metal pellets) and their larger equivalents (swivel gun or cannon shooting canister, langrage)…

This creature could also gain more protection from obstacles, bushes, low walls, earth banks, etc., and be able to move behind or inside such obstacles without being seen or shot at. And that could also give “it” an advantage for surprise moves or attacks.

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[Rhoderic]

Just instinctively, it sounds to me like a fairly run-of-the-mill rules mechanic among rulesets that deal with the fantastical genres. That said, I’m struggling to think of any specific ruleset where I’ve come across it. I’m sure I must have seen it at least a few times over the years.

Are we talking only about infantry skirmish rulesets, or do ones focused on vehicle combat (e.g. mech combat) also count?

[Nathaniel Weber]

Like Rhoderic, I feel like I have encountered a size modifier in many smaller-scale skirmish games, and of course in mech and tank-oriented games, but am having some trouble thinking of specific examples.

Many games have a modifier for firing at a tank or vehicle with a low silhouette. D&D’s combat rules have size modifiers. On my shelf I have the rules “Albedo Combat Patrol,” based on the Erma Feldna comic books, and because they deal with anthropomorphic critters of varying sizes, there is a penalty to hit small critters with ranged fire.

Other games factor this into the armor or defense value of a unit (a lot of platoon-level games gives platoons of Hetzers higher “armor”, for example, because of their low profile).

[deephorse]

Cacique Caribe wrote:

So how is that reflected in the rules you’ve played?

A small target is more difficult to hit.

Play is what makes life bearable - Michael Rosen

[Paul]

Not exactly what you asked as it applies to a unit rather than an individual, but Bolt Action gives a -1 hit roll for an attacker firing on a small unit (small in terms of numbers rather than actual size).

Those are brave men knocking at our door. Let's go kill them!

[Paul]

Thinking about it some more, an effective way of dealing with the size issue was the idea of “scales” from the old West End Games D6 Star Wars game; everything in the game was assigned a scale, indicating its rough size: off the top of my head, they were divided into character, speeder, walker, starfighter, capital, and death star. So you might have a bounty hunter firing his 4d strength blaster at an X-wing with an armour value (or whatever it was called) also of 4d. However, because the bounty hunter (and his weapon) are in a smaller size category than the X-wing, he would gain a bonus to hit (based on how many steps removed the two scales are from one another), while the X-wing would get a similar bonus to resist damage.

In the opposite situation, with the W-wing shooting at the bounty hunter, the X-wing would take a penalty to hit (again, based on how many steps removed from each other the two scales are) and, if hit, the bounty hunter would take a penalty to resist damage.

I haven’t played the game in years, but I am sure that the above is roughly how it was handled. I’m sure D&D 3rd ed. handled different sized creatures hitting each other in a similar way (but I don’t think that there were damage modifiers, but again I could be wrong because I haven’t played in years).

Those are brave men knocking at our door. Let's go kill them!

[Cacique Caribe]

deephorse wrote:

Cacique Caribe wrote:

So how is that reflected in the rules you’ve played?

A small target is more difficult to hit.

Lol.  Are you per chance related to Captain Obvious?  🙂

How do your favorite rules make it so?  What mechanics?

Dan
Loads of WIPs: https://www.flickr.com/photos/9593487@N07/albums/with/72157710630529376

[Andrew Beasley]

Advanced Songs of Blades and Heros has a option for Tiny rather than small that actually makes them easier to damage in combat but harder to hit in ranged combat for none magical arrows etc.  They are also able to disengage from combat without a free strike from their opponent and gain cover from any terrain feature.

 

[Cacique Caribe]

Andrew Beasley wrote:

Advanced Songs of Blades and Heros has a option for Tiny rather than small that actually makes them easier to damage in combat but harder to hit in ranged combat for none magical arrows etc.

Interesting that it incorporates both logical outcomes.

Dan
Loads of WIPs: https://www.flickr.com/photos/9593487@N07/albums/with/72157710630529376

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