How to implement a hitbox which will take into account specific body parts hit, while also keeping it balanced

So, for my game, I want to create this sort of hitbox.

image

As you can see, hitting arms/legs deals 20% less damage than weapon’s base damage, while hitting someone’s head will deal 50% more damage than weapon’s base.

However, this is when I stumble upon my first issue which I would like to find a seamless solution.

My game only has two teams - Gnomes, and Knights. And those two have a size difference, please refer to image below.

While their size doesn’t seem to be that big of a difference, I would like to ensure that my game is balanced. I don’t want to give one team an unfair advantage by making their attacks more likely to hit someone in the head. I am using raycast hitbox, therefore while it’s accurate, it’s also very sensitive to how animations will play and whether head will be touched or not, for example.

The most obvious, and simple solution I’ve come up with is simply ensure that gnome’s animations will always hit head when they need to (such as, a combo finisher move on third hit), and such animation will be made with knight’s height in mind. Same for knights - their head attack will be lower and made specifically to reach gnomes’ height

But perhaps, there is a different solution you see here?

Thanks in advance!

Not sure how ur combat system works, but you could try adding a crouching hit for the knights so that they can hit the gnomes easier, it would also give more combat options