Dwarfism

Dwarfism reduces your cat's size, providing an evasion bonus from the smaller hitbox while imposing STR -2 and CON -1 penalties. The smaller size makes the cat harder to hit, effectively granting additional dodge or evasion chance. However, the Strength and Constitution losses reduce both damage output and survivability, creating a trade-off between evasion and raw combat stats.

Dwarfism is heritable and belongs to the birth defect category, most commonly appearing on kittens at birth. Inbreeding increases the likelihood of birth defects including Dwarfism. It can also be acquired through events or applied with a Disorder Syringe from the Organ Grinder. The related but more extreme version, Primordial Dwarfism, imposes similar penalties with potentially greater size reduction.

Strategically, Dwarfism works better on ranged or caster cats that do not rely on Strength for damage. The evasion bonus helps avoid hits, which partially compensates for the lost Constitution. Stacking with other dodge sources like Nudist (+50% dodge) or Anxiety (+10% dodge) can make the small cat extremely hard to hit. Melee fighters suffer more from the STR -2 since it directly reduces their primary damage stat. Replace Dwarfism on Strength-dependent builds; keep it on evasion-focused ranged builds.