Shooting a Rope Houserule

[Captain Joy]

Originally Posted by DFRPG Exploits, p. 97

Add +2 to SM for anything box-, sphere-, or blob-shaped… For objects much smaller in two of three dimensions (e.g., a rope 100 yards long but just 2” thick), use the smallest dimension instead of the largest when shooting it with a missile or stabbing it with a thrusting attack.

By this rule, I would be at -9 to shoot a 2" think rope, and -7 to shoot a 2" diameter sphere. As missing the rope by a little bit in two directions would actually still hit the rope, the rope should be easier to hit than the sphere, not -2 more difficult.

Proposed houserule: For objects much smaller in two of three dimensions (e.g., a rope 100 yards long but just 2” thick), use the smallest dimension instead of the largest when shooting it with a missile or stabbing it with a thrusting attack, then add +3.

[Anthony]

+3 might be too low. A human is about 1' wide (SM -5), and it's desirable to get the same results regardless of how you classify a human.

[malloyd]

You could try taking the square root of the cross sectional area. For a human that's about half a square yard, so it's square root is about 0.7 yards, so perhaps you need a +1 or +2, which I guess you also need to preserve the modifier for a sphere if you go that route.

[Dragondog]

Originally Posted by Anthony

+3 might be too low. A human is about 1' wide (SM -5), and it's desirable to get the same results regardless of how you classify a human.

I wouldn't call a human "much smaller in two of three dimensions." So that wouldn't apply anyway.

[Anthony]

Originally Posted by Dragondog

I wouldn't call a human "much smaller in two of three dimensions."

I would. Both length and width are much smaller (around 5 SM different) than height.

[Dragondog]

Originally Posted by Anthony

I would. Both length and width are much smaller (around 5 SM different) than height.

The rope mentioned is 1800 times longer than its width, that's 19 SM different.