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Old 01-10-2023, 04:48 AM   #1
Gollum
 
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Join Date: Apr 2005
Location: France
Default Combat between very little creatures

Hi guys!

I’ve got a question about very little creatures. Are there any official rule somewhere to handle them.

To explain what I mean, two very little humans (about half an inch tall) will have a Strength score of 1. Which means that their basic damage is 1d-6/1d-5.

Suppose that there are brawling against each other. They inflict 1d-7 points of damage while punching (1d-5 if they use all-out attack strong). Despite of having only 1 Hit Point, the brawl will last indefinitely … Until one of them eventually scores a critical success – which result in something else than normal damage only!

So, is there any rule to make fights between little and very little creatures something else than very long and boring series of dice rolls.

Of course, I could write a house rule by myself. The reverse of very huge damage (where the number of dice is divided by 10). Strength scores below 2 are multiplied by 10 and, then, damage are divided by 10, which gives:

ST: Thrust | Swing
0.5: (1d-4)/10 | (1d-3)/10
0.6: (1d-4)/10 | (1d-3)/10
0.7: (1d-3)/10 | (1d-2)/10
0.8: (1d-3)/10 | (1d-2)/10
0.9: (1d-2)/10 | (1d-1)/10
1.0: (1d-2)/10 | (1d)/10
1.1: (1d-1)/10 | (1d+1)/10
1.2: (1d-1)/10 | (1d+2)/10
1.3: (1d)/10 | (2d-1)/10
1.4: (1d)/10 | (2d)/10
1.5: (1d+1)/10 | (2d+)1/10
1.6: (1d+1)/10 | (2d+)2/10
1.7: (1d+2)/10 | (3d-1)/10
1.8: (1d+2)/10 | (3d)/10
1.9: (2d-1)/10 | (3d+1)/10
2.0: (2d-1)/10 | (3d+2)/10

But if the problem has been solved somewhere else, there is no point in reinventing the wheel.

Thanks in advance for your answers.

Last edited by Gollum; 01-10-2023 at 05:53 AM.
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Old 01-10-2023, 06:13 AM   #2
Varyon
 
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Default Re: Combat between very little creatures

The easiest way to handle very small creatures is to simply recalibrate. If an average character in the scenario is ST 1, you can just treat that as ST 10 for purposes of damage and HP - which it looks like is exactly what you've done. You'll want to do similar for Reach and the like - if the "new" SM+0 is half an inch tall, then each hex should be around a quarter of an inch.

I believe "When We Were Very Small" (Pyramid #3/34) also has some advice on handling really small characters, but I'm away from my main computer and don't have access to my Pyramid issues here.
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Old 01-10-2023, 12:22 PM   #3
Gollum
 
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Default Re: Combat between very little creatures

Thank you very much for that wise answer.

I immediately bought Pyramid #3/34. The article When We Were Very Small doesn't answer to my question but still brings a lot of stuff to handle very small creatures. It's great!
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Old 01-10-2023, 12:59 PM   #4
mr beer
 
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Default Re: Combat between very little creatures

Gulliver Mini available for free on Games Diner is a 2 page supplement to help build very large or small creatures. May not be directly applicable to this question because I don't think it fixes your original problem but if it's something you're going to be doing, it might be useful.

I do second Varyon's 'recalibrate to ST 10' suggestion. Like if I was running Mouse Guard, then mice would be ST 10 not .1 and badgers ST 100 (or whatever), not ST 7.
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Old 01-10-2023, 11:56 PM   #5
Plane
 
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Default Re: Combat between very little creatures

Could always make thrust equal to 1d*ST/10 and track the decimals.
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Old 01-11-2023, 07:05 AM   #6
Varyon
 
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Default Re: Combat between very little creatures

Quote:
Originally Posted by Plane View Post
Could always make thrust equal to 1d*ST/10 and track the decimals.
While I've long been a fan of restructuring the damage table (but haven't yet determined exactly how I want to do this), I think going through and doing so just so you can have a pair of Lilliputians fight is a bit excessive.
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Old 01-11-2023, 05:21 PM   #7
Pursuivant
 
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Default Re: Combat between very little creatures

While it was designed for GURPS 3E, the full set of GULLIVER rules looks into the biomechanics of large and small scale creatures, and has some very good ideas for handling large and small scale fights.
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Old 01-12-2023, 01:01 AM   #8
Plane
 
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Default Re: Combat between very little creatures

Quote:
Originally Posted by Varyon View Post
While I've long been a fan of restructuring the damage table (but haven't yet determined exactly how I want to do this), I think going through and doing so just so you can have a pair of Lilliputians fight is a bit excessive.
Yeah it's not solely for that, more like having something linear and not dealing with the 0-damage phenom which crops up a lot. I'd rather accomplish that with DR than having 0 dmg.
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Old 01-12-2023, 05:51 PM   #9
Rendu
 
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Default Re: Combat between very little creatures

GURPS Spaceships uses d-scale for things like damage and DR i.e. everything is measured in tens of "normal " scale damage. If everybody is on a small scale, then just reversing it is simple enough. If you should run into a cat, or a human, then they would be effectively d-scale. (Honestly, a bit annoyed they went with a lower-case "d". Capital "D-" for "×10" and small "d-" for "÷10" would make more sense. ). Of course, this is all assuming you aren't fussing about things like square-cube and such. If you are, then GULLIVER, mentioned above, would be your friend.
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Old 01-12-2023, 07:11 PM   #10
David Johansen
 
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Default Re: Combat between very little creatures

GURPS doesn't scale down well. The easiest way to handle it is add ten to Strength and Hit Points and just call it a scale shift.
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