# Do gnomes stand a chance in melee combat?



## Peregrine (Jul 27, 2017)

My gnomes are 135 centimeters tall on average and therefore obviously weigh less than humans on average.
My humans are 175 centimeters tall on average.

Gnomes and humans are different species.

I am not sure whether the gnomes will have robust/stout body or like real-life androchoplastic dwarfs, maybe both?

Gnomes are the most technologically advanced race, for example they invented flamethrowers and grenades, so I am sure they could kill easily from distance with guns, flamethrowers and such. The humans do not have the same level of technology as gnomes.

I am sure that they can kill a human with technology, but do they stand a chance in melee combat?


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## Devor (Jul 27, 2017)

IRL, short body-builders are a thing.  Supposedly they can actually get stronger faster because of their height.


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## TheKillerBs (Jul 27, 2017)

Chimpanzees are shorter than that and will rough you up something fierce. Size doesn't matter as much as skeletal structure and muscle distribution.



Devor said:


> IRL, short body-builders are a thing.  Supposedly they can actually get stronger faster because of their height.


I thought it was just bulking up that was faster.


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## Ireth (Jul 27, 2017)

Are your gnomes supernaturally strong for their size? It might be something to consider. Terry Pratchett's "pictsies", for example, are six inches high on average, and can stun horses by headbutting them. They consider twenty humans to one pictsie to be a roughly even fight.


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## Devor (Jul 27, 2017)

TheKillerBs said:


> I thought it was just bulking up that was faster.



You're probably right.

Still, I imagine in a full gnomish society even that small difference would play out, with bulking out being higher on that list of goals many want to achieve in life.


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## skip.knox (Jul 28, 2017)

Short answer: yes. They would stand a chance.


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## Queshire (Jul 28, 2017)

GNOMES! gnomesgnomesgnomesgnomesgnomesgnomes.

*ahem* Sorry.

Honestly, I'd say no. Reach and height have always been a big factor in a fight. Weight too. There's weight classes in fighting for a reason. As much as can be said for skill in a fight, I don't think it's necessary. Tech is simply better. There's a reason we use guns instead of swords in modern day fighting. If you can punt a Gnome... eh, well, fair enough. The tech makes up for it.


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## SMAndy85 (Jul 28, 2017)

Yes, reach and height are a big factor in a fight, but don't forget a Gnome might be able to use his comparatively diminutive stature to get closer and start the wrestling. If you're on the ground, height doesn't matter, and weight isn't as big an issue as you think it might be, because of leverage. If you're protecting your face from punches, or your gut from kicks, you can't throw them off as easily to get up.

I can imagine gnomes would be fierce infighters. With shorter arms, a one-inch-punch would become a half-inch-punch! they need less space to make full use of their strength.


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## CupofJoe (Jul 28, 2017)

One on one, with weapons and armour of comparable worth to each? Then I think that on average the Gnome is going down at some point. 
So why would it fight that way? 
If you are smaller [and proportionately weaker] than your opponent, you probably don't want to stand toe to toe with them trading blows. You would find another way. Technology would be one, Tactics another.
One advantage you might have is density.... 
Being smaller means that you could have more weapons in a given area... 
If I can get six Gnomes in to the same space as four humans, at least two of the humans are fighting two Gnomes each.


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## valiant12 (Jul 28, 2017)

Yes they can beat generick humans. Asuming they are a sophisticated culture , they would have good army organization and well made weapons. If they have better farming techniques they would be able to suport a bigger population and a bigger army compared to humans from  a similar size kingdom.


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## Viorp (Jul 28, 2017)

Depends if you look at mokeys. Chimpanzees and gorillas are smaller than humans, but a lot stronger.


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## Peregrine (Jul 28, 2017)

> Chimpanzees are shorter than that and will rough you up something fierce. Size doesn't matter as much as skeletal structure and muscle distribution.





> Depends if you look at mokeys. Chimpanzees and gorillas are smaller than humans, but a lot stronger



This seems like a wrong analogy.

Chimpanzees have stronger arms because they are *arboreal*, they move from a tree to another tree.

Notice that chimpanzees and most other great apes have longer arms such as orangutans, its because of moving from a tree to tree.,

When the human's evolutionary ancestors stopped being arboreal and start relying more on legs, the humans lost the arm strength their evolutionary ancestors had.

Consider the gnomes, do they spend whole life dwelling in the trees to have such strong arms?


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## Peregrine (Jul 28, 2017)

*What if the gnomes were robust and stout as dwarves?*

Would this make a difference in melee combat?

(I know that not all dwarves are depicted as stout and robust, but its very common).


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## Devor (Jul 28, 2017)

Something to consider . . . 

A gnome would train to fight bigger foes while most humans _probably _wouldn't be training to fight gnomes (although some of the more experienced would).  If we assume for the moment that there are a handful of fighting tactics that could give the shorter fighter the upper hand, the gnome will know them, and the human won't be prepared to defend against them.


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## Annoyingkid (Jul 28, 2017)

Can you write it in a way that's not hilarious? If you can then they stand as much chance as you can convince us of without it being comedic. Which is something you'll find out when you try writing it.


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## CupofJoe (Jul 28, 2017)

Devor said:


> Something to consider . . .
> 
> A gnome would train to fight bigger foes while most humans _probably _wouldn't be training to fight gnomes (although some of the more experienced would).  If we assume for the moment that there are a handful of fighting tactics that could give the shorter fighter the upper hand, the gnome will know them, and the human won't be prepared to defend against them.


Along the lines that being a Southpaw boxer was thought of as an advantage...


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## TheKillerBs (Jul 28, 2017)

Peregrine said:


> This seems like a wrong analogy.
> 
> Chimpanzees have stronger arms because they are *arboreal*, they move from a tree to another tree.
> 
> ...



Well, chimps and orangutans are arboreal but gorillas aren't and in terms of strength they leave chimps and orangutans in the dust. Being arboreal is not the only reason that an apelike being might be stronger than a human. You could consider where they live, what they eat and what might eat them, and see if there's any evolutionary pressure on them to increase their strength. 

Another thing to consider is that humans are built for endurance, not burst. Your gnomes might be built for burst rather than endurance, which would make them more powerful than humans in the short term but they'd get tired a lot more quickly.


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## skip.knox (Jul 28, 2017)

I was too flip in my last post. I'll try again.

Yes gnomes would stand a chance. How much of a chance? That is *entirely up to you*.  You're the author. Invent what you want and write a story that makes us believe it. It's really not any more complex than that.


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## Michael K. Eidson (Jul 28, 2017)

^What skip said.

Gnomes in general might not be well equipped for melee combat against humans, or against giants, or against bears, but an individual gnome might have the training to be a formidable opponent against any of the above, in general. Of course, there might be specific humans, or specific giants, or specific bears who make strong combatants against even our special gnome. Give your individual characters the kind of back stories that allow you to write the story you want to write, and go for it.


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## Violent John (Jul 29, 2017)

I can see gnomes splitting two ways on this. Most wouldn't be very good fighters, preferring to shoot their way out of trouble or  avoid it in the first place. However, the ones who don't mind fighting are, through a combination of dirty tricks, speed and sheer violent enthusiasm, really good at fighting.


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## FifthView (Jul 29, 2017)

I'd give my gnomes a penchant for using poisoned weapons, maybe, and distance weapons.

And why not? If they are smaller against humans, they're smaller against any other sort of large predator, and over centuries of development, a gnomish society would have developed techniques for dealing with large predators and large prey.

Of course, if they already have a flair for technology, they may have put their effort into creating it and not maintaining low-tech martial arts–which could become a problem.

In general, I'd reiterate what Devor said:



> A gnome would train to fight bigger foes while most humans probably wouldn't be training to fight gnomes (although some of the more experienced would). If we assume for the moment that there are a handful of fighting tactics that could give the shorter fighter the upper hand, the gnome will know them, and the human won't be prepared to defend against them.



^Much of that would depend on the kind of interaction gnomes and humans have had before. If they are coming into contact for the first time within the story, then what Devor mentioned would play a larger role. But if they've been interacting for some time, then it's conceivable that gnomes would have upped their game due to the presence of humans and humans would have upped their game v. gnomes.

135 centimeters isn't an incredibly small size, either, or not so great a disadvantage as might be thought. My guess is that any single random one-on-one encounter would probably be decided by the relative training levels of the two combatants, what odd bits of equipment and weapons they possess, etc. Assuming an accidental match-up between equally trained and equipped individuals, the human would have an advantage. But I don't think the advantage would be too great, and environmental factors could minimize the advantage further.


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## EGLoomis (Jul 29, 2017)

The gnomes could be made of stone, which would make them very formidable indeed.
Also, because they're small, they should be able to move faster than humans can.


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## TheKillerBs (Jul 29, 2017)

EGLoomis said:


> Also, because they're small, they should be able to move faster than humans can.



Why? They have shorter strides and shorter muscles if everything else is equal. Being smaller, if anything, makes you slower. Also Usain Bolt is 195 cm tall, for what it's worth.


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## Devor (Jul 29, 2017)

TheKillerBs said:


> Why? They have shorter strides and shorter muscles if everything else is equal. Being smaller, if anything, makes you slower. Also Usain Bolt is 195 cm tall, for what it's worth.



I don't think what he meant.

Throw a punch and hold it in the air. Now pull it back.  How long did it take you to "recover" from your punch and move back into position?  That time would be shorter if your arm were shorter.


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## TheKillerBs (Jul 29, 2017)

Devor said:


> I don't think what he meant.
> 
> Throw a punch and hold it in the air. Now pull it back.  How long did it take you to "recover" from your punch and move back into position?  That time would be shorter if your arm were shorter.



Even assuming that's true which I don't buy, they would still be slower. I am 176 cm tall, with 72 cm arms from shoulder to knuckle, so I can punch from 72 cm away. If I were to fight a 135 cm version of myself (let's call him Mini-Me) then he'd have a 55 cm range. If I were to fight Mini-Me, for him to be able to hurt me he'd have to step nearly 20 cm into my range before he could hit me. That makes his attacks a lot slower even if the angular velocity of his arms was greater. Also in that vein, his angular velocity would need to be 176/135 times mine to offset my longer lever to just equal my straight line punching speed.


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## Gryphos (Jul 29, 2017)

This video may be helpful. It's about dwarves but the logic can probably be applied to any small fantasy race.


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## TheKillerBs (Jul 29, 2017)

Gryphos said:


> This video may be helpful. It's about dwarves but the logic can probably be applied to any small fantasy race.


 In the same vein, Shadiversity did some videos about dwarves including a reply to that video. He also did a dedicated video for the littlest people (halflings/hobbits, gnomes and goblins).

[video=youtube_share;ibDGq3ESkxo]https://youtu.be/ibDGq3ESkxo[/video]


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## Russ (Jul 31, 2017)

The assumption, that for an intra-species comparison that smaller means weaker is fallacious (as others have already pointed out quite aptly in this thread).  

Height and weight can be an advantage in a primitive melee combat, but it is certainly not determinative.  There are a multitude of other factors that influence combat outcome, and that is in an inter-species comparison (i.e. human v human). if you consider the number of potential factors in a different species, it gets a lot more complicated.

If your dwarves are just "short humans" one then wonders...why not just call them pygmies or..why bother?


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