Great White Games/Pinnacle Entertainment Group

[ioticus]

I was wondering why vehicles don't have a size modifier? They should be easier to hit than a man sized target.

[Vinzent]

True but consider this, there are only specific areas on a car that you can shoot to knock it out of commission, namely the radiator, the gas tank, and the tires. Firing a single shot weapon at a car isn't likely to phase it much unless you hit the right spots, most of which are man-sized.
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My Savage Worlds Blog
Get off the Human reservation. Read The Starrunner by C.B. Jones

[Cutter XXIII]

Yep, pretty much what Vinzent said.

Here's Clint's official answer from some time ago.
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Matthew Cutter
Deadlands Big Bug (Brand Manager)
Pinnacle Entertainment Group, Inc.

[ioticus]

I see what you're saying, but I think it would've been better to provide a size mod (what if you're firing a bazooka at a vehicle, for example?) and treat attacks on the windows, etc, as called shots. I've never seen a game that has vehicles that doesn't take size into account.

[Cryonic]

[ioticus]

[Zadmar]

It can get a bit weird though. For example if you're playing Necessary Evil, you could use the Animation power on an enemy vehicle to give it Size, therefore making it easier to hit.

Personally I'd just give all vehicles a Size value, which would apply a modifier to attacks made against the vehicle, as well as firing vehicular weapons. The drawback of this is that vehicular weapons would be much less accurate than standing on the roof with a gun.

However vehicular weapons also tend to be a lot more powerful, and if they have a burst template they could actually target an area (ignoring the size penalty) rather than the individual creature.

If I were to design vehicular weapons with Savage Armoury, I think I'd give them +6 points if they're Large, and +12 points if they're Huge - this would compensate for the -2 and -4 attack penalties.

In this case I'd also suggest defining a new derived statistic:

Evasion indicates how good you are at avoiding missile weapons. It's 4 unless you have Edges or Hindrances that modify it. This is the Target Number (TN) to hit your hero with ranged attacks.

The Dodge and Improved Dodge edges would give +1 and +2 Evasion respectively. This is functionally identical to the current approach, but it means you no longer need to worry about relative size - you can simply apply it automatically to Parry and Evasion, just as you do already to Toughness, and assign an attack bonus at the same time.

Thus a medium creature with d6 across the board would be written as:

Fighting d6, Toughness 5, Parry 5, Evasion 4.

Make that same creature Large and you'd instead write it as:

Fighting d6-2, Toughness 9, Parry 3, Evasion 2.

Make it Huge, and you'd write:

Fighting d6-4, Toughness 13, Parry 1, Evasion 0.

No more messing around with relative size, it's now automatically factored into the stats.

This simplifies combat between vehicles of differing size - if I'm driving a Large car and you're driving a Huge truck, and we're just randomly riddling each others vehicles with bullets, then my car has an Evasion of 2 while your truck has an Evasion of 0.