If you want to streamline it even more and make it fit better to the idea of hit points, collapse the hit location and the crits.

Think about it.  Why did you want to hit the guy in the head in the first place?  To do more damage, knock him out, whatever.  And called shots are harder.

So instead of d12 with locations, do d12 with different crit results.  Then flavor them accordingly, right there on the chart:

1. Glancing blow (maybe half damage) - upper leg
...
11 x2 damage - lower torso
12 x2 damage - head

Or something like that.  Order them correctly, and you can even work a plus/minus into the table to reflect the chance to hit at all compared to a particular location. 

That's not so good if you want critical hits lopping off hands, for example, but for a simple system that works with hit points instead of against them, you could do worse.

Quote from: Steven Mitchell on April 06, 2023, 06:04:35 PM
If you want to streamline it even more and make it fit better to the idea of hit points, collapse the hit location and the crits.

Think about it.  Why did you want to hit the guy in the head in the first place?  To do more damage, knock him out, whatever.  And called shots are harder.

So instead of d12 with locations, do d12 with different crit results.  Then flavor them accordingly, right there on the chart:

1. Glancing blow (maybe half damage) - upper leg
...
11 x2 damage - lower torso
12 x2 damage - head

Or something like that.  Order them correctly, and you can even work a plus/minus into the table to reflect the chance to hit at all compared to a particular location. 

That's not so good if you want critical hits lopping off hands, for example, but for a simple system that works with hit points instead of against them, you could do worse.

Great idea.  Thanks.

Quote from: Steven Mitchell on April 06, 2023, 06:04:35 PM
If you want to streamline it even more and make it fit better to the idea of hit points, collapse the hit location and the crits.

Think about it.  Why did you want to hit the guy in the head in the first place?  To do more damage, knock him out, whatever.  And called shots are harder.

So instead of d12 with locations, do d12 with different crit results.  Then flavor them accordingly, right there on the chart:

1. Glancing blow (maybe half damage) - upper leg
...
11 x2 damage - lower torso
12 x2 damage - head

Or something like that.  Order them correctly, and you can even work a plus/minus into the table to reflect the chance to hit at all compared to a particular location. 

That's not so good if you want critical hits lopping off hands, for example, but for a simple system that works with hit points instead of against them, you could do worse.

Good idea!

I think I've seen something like that in a game, but the name eludes me right now. Maybe something by Greg Porter. He got into more "realism"* in his games.

*People die quicker and don't take 30 hits before dropping.

Old Dragon article "Good Hits and Bad Misses" implements hit location as critical hits.
Here is someone's take on the original article:
https://www.angelfire.com/dragon3/vinifera/critical_hit_table_2e.pdf

Quote from: Jason Coplen on April 06, 2023, 08:23:24 PM
Good idea!

I think I've seen something like that in a game, but the name eludes me right now. Maybe something by Greg Porter. He got into more "realism"* in his games.

*People die quicker and don't take 30 hits before dropping.

Where I saw it was in Dragon Quest.  Now, DQ has a lot less hits you can take, though you get most of them right when you start.  An average tough character can take around 25 to 30 points of damage, though some of this is "fatigue" that the GM reduces when you have been very active, and weapons do 1d10 + mod damage. 

Anyway, the thing with DQ is that there are multiple layers of crits, increasingly more unlikely.  The last layer is a roll on a d100 chart that has specific results:  "You have been stabbed in the spleen for another 5 points of damage to Endurance, are bleeding 1 End per round, and if you live, will need bed rest for 2 months to recover."  That kind of thing.  The chart has different ranges by weapon types, and the results are ordered to make that work.  So piercing and slashing weapons overlap slightly, and slashing and bludgeoning weapons also overlap slightly. If the result you get doesn't match a critical with the weapon you are using, no extra critical happens (other than the hit bypassing your armor already, which is bad enough). 

The net result of all this is that the potential for a critical is there constantly, but you'll only get one of those results off the chart very rarely.  There's about a 0.5% chance (half a percent) for a starting character with a bow, for example.  However, anyone, any time, no matter how tough, has got that small chance of the exact result on the table that will put an arrow through your eye into your brain--for instant death.

There's little about DQ that is elegant, and that chart certainly isn't.  But the way it compresses detailed results, makes them ever threatening but happening little, and makes weapons distinct? That's work of art.  I haven't got around to doing the chart for my own system. It's waiting on another round of testing.  But it's coming.

Quote from: DocJones on April 06, 2023, 09:11:08 PM
Old Dragon article "Good Hits and Bad Misses" implements hit location as critical hits.
Here is someone's take on the original article:
https://www.angelfire.com/dragon3/vinifera/critical_hit_table_2e.pdf

This is nice but I think people are trying to get away from large, overcomplicated hit charts.  They (or at least I) want fast and dirty so game play can continue.