Relative SM & Hit Location Strike Difficulty

[JCurwen3]

By RAW, it seems that the difficulty to strike in melee combat any location on an opponent is the normal hit location penalty, plus the relative SM difference.

That can produce quite unrealistic results, where a strike to the Skull (-7) of a SM +18 mile high giant should be at +4 for a SM 0 human. At that SM difference, the human shouldn't even be able to have a chance to strike the Skull or any part of the head in melee combat (he'd have to throw or shoot at it, or else climb the beast some distance to strike it); the same goes for probably in this case any higher than the feet or (maybe) calves, although for these he should be getting his +4 bonus.

Any suggestions / known rulings / to fix this problem?

[simply Nathan]

Some people invoke Combat at Different Levels in addition to the hit location rules and such. I'm not fond of using those though.

I'd say to check the weapon's Reach to see if the target is possible to hit. With an SM 0 wielder you can't hit the top of an SM+1 creature with a mere Reach 1 weapon, you need Reach 2. SM+2 humanoids are 5 yards tall instead of 3, so you need a weapon with a Reach 4 or better. Being a yard taller or a yard shorter does likewise.

If the location is within striking distance of your melee weapon, use hit location and SM modifiers as usual; if it's not within reach, you can't target it.

[Balor Patch]

If you shoot for the moon you miss, regardless of the SM plus to hit you would get if it was in reach.

[Tomsdad]

I know it's not much of an answer but I advise using common sense. To take the Obviously OTT example in the OP it's so extreme as to make any interaction is pretty much irrelevant.

While not a perfect fit I do sometimes include the combat at different levels rules, but it has to be done selectively*. If for no other reason they cut off at 6', and considering in theory they apply to two 20m tall giant's fighting as well as two 2m tall humans fighting, it's pretty clear they are designed only for 6' humans fighting each other and tend to break in other situations.

*especially IMO the penalty/bonuses to defence, which is theory gives a 12' ogre fighting a 6' man a whopping +3/-3 advantage, but a 13' giant theoretically gets none (unless he's fighting 7' tall man). Basically they are clearly designed with human scale body sizes, limb lengths etc in mind.

[JCurwen3]

Originally Posted by Tomsdad

I know it's not much of an answer but I advise using common sense. To take the Obviously OTT example in the OP it's so extreme as to make any interaction is pretty much irrelevant.

While not a perfect fit I do sometimes include the combat at different levels rules, but it has to be done selectively*. If for no other reason they cut off at 6', and considering in theory they apply to two 20m tall giant's fighting as well as two 2m tall humans fighting, it's pretty clear they are designed only for 6' humans fighting each other and tend to break in other situations.

*especially IMO the penalty/bonuses to defence, which is theory gives a 12' ogre fighting a 6' man a whopping +3/-3 advantage, but a 13' giant theoretically gets none (unless he's fighting 7' tall man). Basically they are clearly designed with human scale body sizes, limb lengths etc in mind.

Yes, see, that's why I'm reluctant even to consider the Combat at Different Levels rules for this situation - they weren't written to deal with SM differences to begin with, and they don't scale.

And yes, the above example was intentionally over-the-top. But a less insane example might be your SM0 6' human trying to strike the head of your SM+2 13' giant, or, for that matter, a SM+6 20 yd giant, neither of which is over-the-top in a fantasy setting. It will be a challenge for the human to hit the head of the 13' giant even with a long sword, maybe requiring getting on tiptoes. For the 20 yd giant, the human couldn't even dream of striking the groin let alone the head, and instead may face similar problems striking the knees instead (forgive me if even that would be physically impossible - I got no sleep last night).

[Varyon]

What you'll want to do is start with some rules for humans, then just scale appropriately. I think the ankle is usually around 2" or so from the ground, the knee half a yard, the waist a yard, the neck 5', the face a couple inches above that, and the brain case a few inches above that. The shoulder is around the same height as the neck, and arms are a bit less than a yard (we'll call it 0.7 yards). This lets an unarmed human punch in a vertical range from 1 to 2.5 yards or so - having a weapon extends this by yards equal to the weapon's Reach (Reach C weapons only add a few inches, which typically won't be enough to bother with).

If we were to scale the human up to SM+1, ankle would be 3", knee 0.7 yards, waist 1.5 yards, neck 7' (~2 yards), face/skull around 2.5 yards or so. He'd have a vertical punching range from around 1 to 3 yards.

Scale him instead up to SM+6, and you're looking at the ankle around 20" (~7'/2 yards), knee at 5 yards, waist at 10 yards, neck at 50" (16-17 yards), face/skull around 18 yards. He'd have a vertical punching range from around 10 to 24 yards.

For kicking, a character can probably hit anything from the ground to waist-height without serious issue (an option would be no penalty to ~knee height, -1 to kick thighs/groin, -2 above this). Kicking above 1.5x waist height will probably cause additional penalties. An absolute kicking height limit would be 2x waist height, but to achieve that you probably need a lot of points invested in kicking and/or some level of Flexibility.

For non-humans, and humans in different postures, a crouch is probably going to result in most (not the ankle) of these being reduced to about 75%, crawling 50%, prone/supine maybe around 25%. These don't change the size of the character's punching range, however - a crouching 20 yard giant has a range from around 7 to 21 yards. Changing your posture does change effective waist height and thus the kicking range (although it's probably easier to keep the same range and just lower the minimum to below 0). Hunched over creatures - including those with Semi-Upright - would probably use the Crouched values, Quadrupeds the Crawling values, and No Legs (Slithers) or similar using the prone/supine values.

[JCurwen3]

Originally Posted by Varyon

What you'll want to do is start with some rules for humans, then just scale appropriately. I think the ankle is usually around 2" or so from the ground, the knee half a yard, the waist a yard, the neck 5', the face a couple inches above that, and the brain case a few inches above that. The shoulder is around the same height as the neck, and arms are a bit less than a yard (we'll call it 0.7 yards). This lets an unarmed human punch in a vertical range from 1 to 2.5 yards or so - having a weapon extends this by yards equal to the weapon's Reach (Reach C weapons only add a few inches, which typically won't be enough to bother with).

If we were to scale the human up to SM+1, ankle would be 3", knee 0.7 yards, waist 1.5 yards, neck 7' (~2 yards), face/skull around 2.5 yards or so. He'd have a vertical punching range from around 1 to 3 yards.

Scale him instead up to SM+6, and you're looking at the ankle around 20" (~7'/2 yards), knee at 5 yards, waist at 10 yards, neck at 50" (16-17 yards), face/skull around 18 yards. He'd have a vertical punching range from around 10 to 24 yards.

For kicking, a character can probably hit anything from the ground to waist-height without serious issue (an option would be no penalty to ~knee height, -1 to kick thighs/groin, -2 above this). Kicking above 1.5x waist height will probably cause additional penalties. An absolute kicking height limit would be 2x waist height, but to achieve that you probably need a lot of points invested in kicking and/or some level of Flexibility.

For non-humans, and humans in different postures, a crouch is probably going to result in most (not the ankle) of these being reduced to about 75%, crawling 50%, prone/supine maybe around 25%. These don't change the size of the character's punching range, however - a crouching 20 yard giant has a range from around 7 to 21 yards. Changing your posture does change effective waist height and thus the kicking range (although it's probably easier to keep the same range and just lower the minimum to below 0). Hunched over creatures - including those with Semi-Upright - would probably use the Crouched values, Quadrupeds the Crawling values, and No Legs (Slithers) or similar using the prone/supine values.

Thanks! Those are really good ideas, more than a good beginning for a set of rules to handle this.

[Bruno]

"You can't hit the moon in melee combat."

I'm not entirely sure why you need rules to stop a normal guy from hitting a mile+ high giant in the face with a sword (sans launching it out of some sort of sword-chucking cannon).

Of course, that's never where you need rules. Where you start needing at least guidelines is grey areas - can a normal guy punch a 9' tall giant in the face? When do you need to start using the combat options to extend your reach (and take combat penalties?)
Can I punch you in the foot, even though you're not trying to kick me and I'm not crouching?

However, these are really the same kind of question as "Can I reach that shelf without standing on a chair?" - it depends. A LOT. Different postures, body layouts and body plans really change things up. SM 18 covers a VERY LARGE size range. A "short" SM 18 giant I could shoot in the face with a rifle, possibly ... but probably not a "tall" one (taking into account the distinct "uphill" nature of the shot).

Even SM 0 covers about a foot (or two) of height difference and that's significant - if I'm a 4 foot tall halfling, there's a big difference between trying to punch a dwarf (5') in the face and a human (6').

What I'm getting at here is that SM is not what you want for "is that in range?" - we don't use SM to determine range for ranged weapons, and we shouldn't be trying to use it for melee weapons. You want flat out real world units. How long's your weapon? How far can your bow shoot? How tall is it?