Why does it seem like its so hard to make them work, something that you'd think would be a pretty significant quality of immersion, in fact more often than not ends up acting against immersion by ruining the play experience, or slowing it down considerably.
Why is it so hard to get it right? Why is just "lump hit points" not just easier (that's obvious) but essentially BETTER in terms of gameplay? Is there any happy medium? Are there systems that have done things right?
RPGPundit
In melee combat, my view is that over 50% of hits in a hit location system should be to the arms - but that'd make for a rather farcical spectacle. Not for heroic games, certainly.
The only reason Hit Points work is that we so used we don't stop and think about them any more. They have become invisible as, like the dice and the character sheet.
Hit locations make us think about hit points. Suddenly we are reminded that there is a character who bothered in the least by the 15 arrows sticking out of him.
Basically hit locations make an abstract system not so abstract and that high-lights its flaws.
If you want a injury system that takes in hit locations and still is somewhat 'crunchy' then check out HarnMaster.
I never had any problem with the hit location systems in either RuneQuest or WFRP:idunno:
Which game system?
Who is assuming that its fucked?
In my GURPS game sessions discovering the hit location never interfered with immersion. Had a player that after discovering where her rifle shot had hit an opponent just said "Damn, I must have slipped when I fired" then said "Okay, I adjust for that and steady myself for my next shot quickly."
I gave her a fair modifier and we went on with the combat.
That stuff happens in real life.
- Ed C.
Not a perfect recollection - but that was the gist of it.
Quote from: T. Foster;337199I never had any problem with the hit location systems in either RuneQuest or WFRP:idunno:
I didn't have any problem either in the games with hit locations that I've played. :confused: :idunno:
Pundit, could you give an example of a system in which hit locations don't work properly, or are unfun, or whatever?
Hit locations are difficult to reconcile with a random determination system because the relative exposure of different locations is so variable. Is the target standing, crouching, lying prone? Square on or side on? In the open or behind cover? Peeking around a corner or peeking over a bush? Does the target have a shield? Any fixed location table is going to produce more strange than reasonable results.
Hit locations are difficult to reconcile with hit points systems, because, as Soylent Green wrote, it involves mixing two levels of abstraction. As soon as we start distributing hit points around the body we start to think about what hit points are. This never ends well. Systems that use injuries rather than hit points as the basic method of assessing damage tend to have an easier time with hit locations.
The system i'm working on does not have hit points and does not have random hit locations. All hit locations are assigned costs (which vary with circumstance). The degree of success determines how many points an attacker has to purchase a hit location. In melee combat the attacker simply spends his advantage on hitting wherever he wants, assuming he has enough points. In ranged combat, the shooter can either take a general shot and take whatever is the best hit with the available points, or take a called shot and risk missing if he doesn't get a high enough degree of success to afford that location.
Does it work? It's not finished, but it shows promise.
I always liked Top Secret S.I, where yes it is HP in a given location, but your hit roll determined where and how much with melee weapons. (Sadly they made firearms a bit more random.) High skill could also shift the hit roll location to near parts--the higher the skill the better the shift.
I've seen systems which try and go beyond HP with that, but therein lies madness. The old Tri Tac house system with its Penetration value/bone break value, additional splinter damage from shattered bones. You get something that takes more time to resolve and thus puts the immersion into dangerous time sensitive detraction areas.I.e "roll this roll that keep rolling" territory, when a simpler system is "you are wounded for X...and limp move on.." would help maintain immersion better because the rules take less. It is a delicate balance of time to resolve "mechanics" vs. suspension of disbelief. When something takes seconds to happen and ten or more minutes to mechanically resolve you've probably done more harm than good for the "feels more real" aspect of play.
Quote from: RPGPundit;337194Why does it seem like its so hard to make them work, something that you'd think would be a pretty significant quality of immersion, in fact more often than not ends up acting against immersion by ruining the play experience, or slowing it down considerably.
Why is it so hard to get it right? Why is just "lump hit points" not just easier (that's obvious) but essentially BETTER in terms of gameplay? Is there any happy medium? Are there systems that have done things right?
The question answers itself, see bolded part.
To elaborate:
A) If combat is rapid and quick-flowing, then even a single extra roll to determine hit location will slow it down, relatively speaking. Consider early D&D but with THAC0 instead of the combat matrix: one roll to see if you hit, no time lost perusing tables, and a second roll to see damage, again, no time lost perusing tables. Two rolls and nothing else; add a third one to determine location, and you've immediately increased the length of combat by one-half.
B) If combat is already slow and detailed, well... I'm not really fond of such systems. But I imagine that people who
do like torturously slow combat resolution would be the people who don't think that combat location rules slow down the game. As for others, they're already anxious to get done with those calculations, anyway, so they'll just perceive it one more thing to slow down an already slow game.
Quote from: Silverlion;337207I always liked Top Secret S.I, where yes it is HP in a given location, but your hit roll determined where and how much with melee weapons. (Sadly they made firearms a bit more random.) High skill could also shift the hit roll location to near parts--the higher the skill the better the shift
IMO that was still not a great system, at least at low skill level -- statistically you ended up shooting people in the hand most of the time. It became a running joke around our table. The fourth time you shoot a guy in the hand with a .45 ACP, I don't think a bandage and a first aid check is gonna cut it.
I've never had a problem with hit locations in WFRP, you generally lose overall hit points until you are so battered to really defend yourself anymore then future critical hits based on body part do have various effects. I've seen many players start doing called shots to try and target specific hit locations once they start criting someone.
Reign's (and ore in general) does a pretty good job managing specific hit points by location as well. Not to mention Riddle of Steel, which isn't a favorite of mine does do a good job of managing hit locations, probably one of the better ones in terms of where you hit logically flows from how you attack.
Quote from: Premier;337208T
A) If combat is rapid and quick-flowing, then even a single extra roll to determine hit location will slow it down, relatively speaking. Consider early D&D but with THAC0 instead of the combat matrix: one roll to see if you hit, no time lost perusing tables, and a second roll to see damage, again, no time lost perusing tables. Two rolls and nothing else; add a third one to determine location, and you've immediately increased the length of combat by one-half.
But if you roll the hit location die at the same time that you roll the damage die, you don't waste any time, don't you?
In every case, what you said and what I said is a fallacy, because rolling dice doesn't waste much time (unless your system involves some arcane way of interpreting the dice), what wastes time is applying those results.
I had no problem whatsoever with the hit locations in Dark Heresy. I found them quick to resolve, fun, and produced nasty and dangerous results.
Deadlands classic used a wound level system combined with hit locations. Your initial hit was random, but the better your attack, the more you could shift your hit location toward the head or vitals. So, a hit roll followed by a location roll (which was a d20 IIRC, so it's not too complex).
Damage was rolled, but rather than deduct hit points, it was divided by the opponent's size & armor for the number of wound levels. A slightly more complex operation (division instead of subtraction), but still only one mathematical operation to determine the level of pain.
IIRC, the DL:Reloaded system completely does away with this notion in favor of complete abstractness.
Quote from: Claudius;337214But if you roll the hit location die at the same time that you roll the damage die, you don't waste any time, don't you?
Indeed, in our RQ games we quickly learned to roll to hit (d%), location (1d20), and damage (usually some combination of d4s, d6s, and d8s) all at once and ignore the 2nd and 3rd if the 1st was a miss. WFRP was even simpler because hit location is the same d% roll as to hit, inverted (so 38 to hit = location 83).
Hit location systems need to be results focused. Just like a hit point system, you need to look at how serious you want wounds to be, what will take someone down, etc. All too often, hit location systems look at the nuts and bolts and come up with an incomplete simulation of real-life injury which is very complex and unpredictable. GURPS really didn't get it right until fourth edition. OTOH, Hero System kept it simple and generally works ok.
I have a house rules cyberpunk/bladerunner game that uses hit locations and they have never been an issue. The character sheet has the hit location outline on it and each of the 20 locations has a hit point score based ont eh pCs hit points so the left chest area has 100 % of hit points the hand has 50% when an area is reduced to 0 hit points effects vary from head = dead, chest = unconsious and bleeding .. etc
when shooting you can aim for a locatiion by aiming for a round (no penalty to hit) or take a - to do it on the fly. In melee combat you always name the location you are aiming at and if its one of the 2 your opponent is blocking (3 with martial arts) then your strike is blocked.
When you are firing at a target under cover or lying prone then cover 'works' because if you hit an area that is protected by cover etc then well you miss.
I devised a hit location system becuase I found guns killed people really easily. the gun damage was extraoplated from the momemtum of the round and typically a shot from a 9mm killed 60% of the time. The hit location system meant that locations when out fast. Legs rendered useless etc but people lived longer which made the game more playable rather than less.
I like systems where hit locations become involved in criticals. I don't care whether I hit a guy in the stomach for 2 points, I care whether or not I disemboweled the son of a bitch.
Quote from: T. Foster;337217Indeed, in our RQ games we quickly learned to roll to hit (d%), location (1d20), and damage (usually some combination of d4s, d6s, and d8s) all at once and ignore the 2nd and 3rd if the 1st was a miss. WFRP was even simpler because hit location is the same d% roll as to hit, inverted (so 38 to hit = location 83).
The above or the below is where I've seen it work.
Quote from: jrients;337231I like systems where hit locations become involved in criticals. I don't care whether I hit a guy in the stomach for 2 points, I care whether or not I disemboweled the son of a bitch.
Personally, I roll hit location only on criticals, using a very low granularity 1D10 head, chest, arm, leg ± modifier depending on facing. For non-critical hits I view hit points as more abstract.
Hit locations work fine in Boot Hill and Flashing Blades, and the miniscule amount of time added by reading another die is more than outweighed by interesting consequences of getting shot in the arm or stabbed in the eye.
As a GM, I can take or leave hit locations. Mostly I like them. I prefer to play with hit locations, because it adds a lot to my suspension of disbelief. I'm not as good a player as I am a gm, so like when the rules give me some details like that to make combat feel a little more real.
I really liked the games I've played that have elaborate wounding, like Millennium's End. I like fairly elaborate location charts, like TriTac and Metal Magic and Lore. I like locations built into crit charts, like Rolemaster and Arduin. I even like a simple d6 roll on a hit location die for simple games that don't have built in ht location.
The only thing I don't like is when there's a formula for hit location that becomes so transparent in play that it becomes tedious.
Quote from: jrients;337231I like systems where hit locations become involved in criticals. I don't care whether I hit a guy in the stomach for 2 points, I care whether or not I disemboweled the son of a bitch.
This.
The game I'm writing has a single pool of hp and a massive damage threshold. When people beat the massive damage threshold, they roll randomly for wounds. These can be arms, legs, vitals, stunning, knockback, whatever. Can't wait to playtest it.
Quote from: jrients;337231I like systems where hit locations become involved in criticals. I don't care whether I hit a guy in the stomach for 2 points, I care whether or not I disemboweled the son of a bitch.
Fucking right.
RPGPundit
The problems that occur in many "hit location" games are the following:
1. The fiddly nature of what each type of hit in each type of location will do; because if you're going a little "realistic" then logic kind of demands you go further. Thus, you slow down the game considerably.
2. That this allows for the game to become much more potentially imbalanced, there's far more areas where you could figure out a "cheat", and crafty players, once they figure out that a called shot to the right-eye is the best possible location to attack, will ALWAYS be attacking nothing but the right eye.
Unless you rule that hit locations always must be totally random, or give ridiculous levels of penalties so that there's effectively no chance of hitting that area (which is the same as just saying "fuck it" and not using locations in the first place), both of which are stupid from the pov of emulation.
So both these things create "shocks" to the game that actually harm the opportunity for good immersion, it would seem.
RPGPundit
Hit location system can work, but they only do so when they are included to enhance an aspect of the background for the game - in other words, to deepen immersion. For example, the hit location system in WFRP serves to reinforce the 'grim, gritty and dangerous' background for the game. I used to play the original version of Boot Hill quite a lot back in the day, and it had a hit location system that allowed good shots to pick or modify where they hit – which we found both worked well and was very appropriate for emulating the spaghetti westerns we based our games on.
Where hit location systems fail is when they are included in a game 'for their own sake', usually just because the designer wants to show off his rules-writing skills, and not because the game actually needs them. This 'game designer fuck-wittery' (as a friend of mine would put it) is almost always counter-productive, for the reasons that RPGpundit has already outlined.
I've never found hit locations to be a problem.
GURPS' and Millennium's End's implementation of them was overly-complicated, but GURPS and ME were overly-complicated to begin with, so hit locations did not provide any noticeable bumps in the flow of play, which was already bouncing along like a four-wheel-drive with broken suspension on a dirt track.
Who made that transparent targeting grid you could place over various target silhouettes... and then roll your dice on... where the dice landed determined the hit location? Was that for Millenium's End?
I always thought that looked simultaneously interesting and gimmicky... like maybe it would work quick and easy, but would probably just be a pain in the ass.
Quote from: Simlasa;337330Who made that transparent targeting grid you could place over various target silhouettes... and then roll your dice on... where the dice landed determined the hit location? Was that for Millenium's End?
I always thought that looked simultaneously interesting and gimmicky... like maybe it would work quick and easy, but would probably just be a pain in the ass.
Three variants of that mode I am aware of.
Millienium's End
Warhammer 40K
Aces & Eights
Quote from: Simlasa;337330Who made that transparent targeting grid you could place over various target silhouettes... and then roll your dice on... where the dice landed determined the hit location? Was that for Millenium's End?
Yes, in ME. There was a transparent overlay with dots and numbers, and you'd put the overlay over a figure with hit locations on it, the "0" dot the exact point of aim.
You'd roll under your percentile skill with modifiers. If you got under or exactly on that number, you'd hit on the "0" point. If you missed by (say) "10", you'd hit on the "10" point. The point were clustered around the "0" point of aim. This was to represent the fact that in firing, though you may miss the point you aimed at, you might hit something close by.
You then understood why soldiers and police officers aim for "centre of mass" of the target - in a face-on person standing upright, about the solar plexus, where the sternum ends and belly begins. That's because even if you don't hit that point, you're likely to hit
something. Whereas if you aim at (for example) the head, if you miss by more than a few inches, you miss them entirely.
This also made it interesting when someone was using a human shield. :D
They had a melee version for "swing" weapons, where the dots were clustered in a line rather than scattered about a point.
With both the firing and the swing, the GM placed the overlay, so that aiming at the solar plexus and missing by "10" did not
always mean hitting them in the left shoulder, or whatever.
QuoteI always thought that looked simultaneously interesting and gimmicky... like maybe it would work quick and easy, but would probably just be a pain in the ass.
That part was quick and easy - or as quick and easy as would be looking up a hit location on a chart.
The complicated part was having different effects for striking the different body parts, which each had different resistances or vulnerabilities to injury of various kinds. There were modifiers and a chart for it, of course ;)
I've never had a problem with them in any of the games I've enjoyed that used them (Runequest, Warhammer FRP, Dark Heresy, Flashing Blades, Boot Hill, etc.).
I've also never seen a good* Amber Diceless Roleplaying GM handle combat in a way that didn't involve describing where weapons hit, how much of a wound was inflicted, how pain it was, etc. and take that into account later in the battle. In fact, whenever I've run Amber combats, players are always aiming for specific hit locations and achieving very specific results.
* Note that I said good... in my experience, the shitty Amber GMs are generally the vaguest when it comes to this sort of stuff.
Quote from: RPGPundit;337194Why is it so hard to get it right? Why is just "lump hit points" not just easier (that's obvious) but essentially BETTER in terms of gameplay? Is there any happy medium? Are there systems that have done things right?
You need to be more specific. There are different type of system. Some use a unitary hit points and add a difficulty and various effects (beyond damage) when a hit location is hit. Others divide hit points. Of two the former seems to be more common as a design choice.
as always,what jeff said.
however, the first time a PC's tripping over their entrails and having to roll up a new character after their second fight, they usually get discarded.
Quote from: RPGPundit;337277The problems that occur in many "hit location" games are the following:
1. The fiddly nature of what each type of hit in each type of location will do; because if you're going a little "realistic" then logic kind of demands you go further. Thus, you slow down the game considerably.
2. That this allows for the game to become much more potentially imbalanced, there's far more areas where you could figure out a "cheat", and crafty players, once they figure out that a called shot to the right-eye is the best possible location to attack, will ALWAYS be attacking nothing but the right eye.
Unless you rule that hit locations always must be totally random, or give ridiculous levels of penalties so that there's effectively no chance of hitting that area (which is the same as just saying "fuck it" and not using locations in the first place), both of which are stupid from the pov of emulation.
So both these things create "shocks" to the game that actually harm the opportunity for good immersion, it would seem.
RPGPundit
The problem with hit locations, in my opinion, is that the idea of attacking a specific area on an enemy is only half of the real issue.
In real fighting, people usually attack the best target that they can identify, according to not just their tastes, but their abilities.
For example, a fencer might try to stab his opponent in the hand. It would be a calculated decision because touching the hand wins just as much as the body, but touching the body might seem more dangerous. He didn't attack the hand just to do it... he did it because it was the right move.
In an RPG, there is no relationship between what your opponent did on his last turn and what you do on yours, mechanically anyway. If a guy kicks you and wiffs, there isn't any reason to say you are going to hit him in the face while his hands are down, or kick him in his support leg, because you don't get a bonus to do it.
Worse still, is the idea game designers have that the limbs can take less damage than the body or head. For some reason, game designers imagine that they can take a better hit to the ribs than the arms, which can't to anything but break, despite the fact that the arms either can be pushed away by the attack (distal) or are made of larger, heavier material than some of the ribs (proximal the elbow).
This idea makes attacking limbs always a better idea in terms of its affects on crippling the enemy instead of going through all of his hit points, which isn't just unrealistic, in my opinion, but facilitates the problem of successful called shots being game breaking.
When you make a regular attack against hit points, you are saying that you are taking the best, generally safest, and most correct attack to break your opponents will, beat him down, and end the fight (at least in systems where characters have hit points enough to survive several deadly blows). In these systems, hit points are abstract because being shot by a gun or hit by an arrow doesn't actually mean blood was drawn... it is just a near miss.
When you make a called shot in one of those systems, you are basically asking permission to bypass the normal system of abstract damage and simply win the fight immediately.
In such a case, the only way to make it fair is to make the called shot so difficult, it only succeeds, on average, often enough to make it just as viable as basic attacks.
The reason why people don't fly into combat head first and try to kill their opponents immediately in a real fight is because not only is it hard, but if you fail it is possible that you will be countered heavily. For example, a boxer that dives at his opponent and fails could get knocked out.
Since the real reason for making a called shot is to end the fight quicker, by ignoring the normal hit point system, I think I have a solution for D&D style systems.
Called Shots aka Vicious Attack
The attacks attempts to kill his enemy right away instead of conforming to the natural flow of combat. The attacker gets to make a normal attack roll with a -X (something fair) penalty. If he hits, he deals double damage. If his opponent survives this attack, either because he endures the damage or the attack misses, he gets to make an attack of opportunity that deals triple damage on a successful hit.
In this kind of system, you would only want to make a Called Shot if you were sure you could hit, or if you suspected your opponent couldn't take an attack of opportunity.
You could even have Feat Trees that catered to it like:
Counter Fighter
If an opponents attack misses by 10 or more, you get an AoO against them.
Counter Striker
If you make a Called Shot on an AoO, your opponent doesn't get to counter attack because he survived.
On a side note, I believe that rogues in Dungeons and Dragons deal so called sneak attack damage, and have low hit points, to reflect the idea that they are always trying to end the fight quickly without as much concern for their safety.
I think that low hit points, high damage reflects a different natural attitude than that of the fighter. Such a person is always in your face, trying to kill you. A fighter, with his lower damage and higher hit points, is trying to pace himself through a combat, taking the best and safest means of attack, without letting emotions or haste guide him.
So in that way, my called shot system is already in dungeons and dragons. It is just that you have to be a very cut throat person to utilize it. Such a cut throat person has no choice but to always be utilizing it.
I liked the German RPG called Endland. It's mostly post-apocalyptic.
How does it work? Every attack is a "called shot". There is a specific difficulty to hit every body part and specific effects for getting hit there.
There are not hit points either. A light wound on the leg has a certain effect. That's it. Then, some effects will keep you from fighting.
So, hit location is not a problem. Adding hit location to hit points is.
Quote from: 1of3;337493There are not hit points either. A light wound on the leg has a certain effect. That's it. Then, some effects will keep you from fighting.
This can work well if one's opponents are generally humans. In fantasy or science-fiction games with a large number of monsters/aliens with different body sizes and shapes (not to mention skin types, bone types and structures, etc.), you end up having to design each monster/alien's entire physiology to be about to create hit charts for them as "accurate" as the ones for the humans. :(
Statistically, its very hard for it to make sense in GAME TERMS to allow both overall hit points AND "called shots". Because if you use the latter, and you make it statistically more likely that someone trying to do a bunch of called shots will hit ONCE and take out his opponent before the other guy can take him down doing regular attacks, it will simply mean that players will ALWAYS make called shots.
On the other hand, if it is statistically more likely that the guy just attacking hit points will wipe you out before your "called shot" takes him out, then players will NEVER make called shots.
RPGPundit
Quote from: RPGPundit;337560Statistically, its very hard for it to make sense in GAME TERMS to allow both overall hit points AND "called shots".
In GURPS you are capped to the amount of damage you can do an extermity Health/3 for hands and feet, Health/2 for Arms and Legs. For the head,and the various torso areas (vitals, groin, etc) damage is unlimited but you take a steep penalty for trying to hit there. It does work out as representation of high skill in a weapon. Plus not all weapons types (piercing, slashing, blunt) have the same effect in the most devasating locations.
Harnmaster in contrast you don't get to hit for a specific location but rather for a general area. High, Low, and Normal. The actual location is a result of a random roll. Damage effects in two ways. The first is a general injury level that degrades your attributes and skills by causing minuses to the roll. The second and more serious are the saving throws you have to make anytime you are hit and get a new injury. These are also modified by the general injury level. These saving throws are specific to the hit locations. The harder the hit the worse the possible result.
Harnmaster is more elegent of the two but by inches in my opinion. Both system feel "realistic" in that you make decision based on realistic considerations not because it represents the best game choice. SJ Games and their playtesters go to great length to ensure this.
Quote from: RPGPundit;337560Statistically, its very hard for it to make sense in GAME TERMS to allow both overall hit points AND "called shots".
Not really.
Flashing Blades uses overall hit points plus every wound lands somewhere. An average character has ten hit points. If wounded in the arm or the leg for six or more points of damage, the arm or leg is impaired. If wounded in the chest or flank for 6+, the character may become unconscious. If the character is wounded in the head for 6+, the character is dead.
Works fine in my experience.
Quote from: RPGPunditBecause if you use the latter, and you make it statistically more likely that someone trying to do a bunch of called shots will hit ONCE and take out his opponent before the other guy can take him down doing regular attacks, it will simply mean that players will ALWAYS make called shots. On the other hand, if it is statistically more likely that the guy just attacking hit points will wipe you out before your "called shot" takes him out, then players will NEVER make called shots.
I think there are too many variables in a given system
and too many variables that arise in the course of play to make such a sweeping judgement.
In my expericence of actual combat, martial arts, fencing, paintball, and that dodad with the movie you shoot a light gun at. All shots ARE called shots.
Basically I shoot at a target. If the target moves or I an not a very good shot I might miss. In a fight I try to hit a specific spot I don't randomly take a punt. Now most injuries in fights are defensive where you stick an arm, or a leg in the way of my hook kick or whatever.
The best way this runs is in Amber or the online Gorean combat games. Hard to do this with a more structured rule set.
[cut out previous post]
Apologies! What you are talking about is not Hit Location but Called Shots or Aiming. My previous post was thus a non-sequitur. I am sorry to have wasted your time.
-clash
As with most elements in gaming, hit locations are a matter of preference. In my games, they work just fine. Mostly through a front loading of information and an understanding that people will try to hit vital areas, vital areas are vital for a reason, and that there is a level of abstraction in any sort of RPG combat system. Pooled non-location HP systems can be just as "fucked up" with the most obvious power creep. At some point, you can say "Hey, my character can march into this certain combat against X opponents that do Y damage and never fear dying". This is not really "fucked up" but more a preference. You will over look it or house rule it or use a system that does not have or minimizes this issue or be happy with it. The same for hit locations.
My preference is now entirely for hit locations as they help with immersion for me. Some folks, it takes them right out but for me, it is a way to visualize where that 2 hp of damage went. It is the means I use as a GM to say "Dude! You just took twice you HP to your right arm, it is out of commission."
That said, hit locations are not for everyone. Some folks do not want the added book keeping or feel it does not model combat correctly or just do not like way it is handled. That is cool.
The games I've seen where hit locations more or less worked were Aces & Eights, and WFRP.
In the latter, you cannot make called shots, and hit location only starts to matter after the person is at zero wounds.
In the former, you are basically ALWAYS taking called shots, and statistically your best shot of hitting is always going to be to the torso.
RPGPundit
Quote from: RPGPundit;337703In the former, you are basically ALWAYS taking called shots, and statistically your best shot of hitting is always going to be to the torso.
In
Flashing Blades all shots are called as well: you pick your location, then roll two dice, with the result closest to the location you picked being where your blow or shot lands. The hit table is weighted toward torso (chest and flank) hits.
Quote from: The Shaman;337772In Flashing Blades all shots are called as well: you pick your location, then roll two dice, with the result closest to the location you picked being where your blow or shot lands. The hit table is weighted toward torso (chest and flank) hits.
That's a neat solution.
Quote from: RPGPundit;337703The games I've seen where hit locations more or less worked were Aces & Eights, and WFRP.
In the latter, you cannot make called shots, and hit location only starts to matter after the person is at zero wounds.
RPGPundit
Minor point, you can make called shots in WFRP (at least in 2nd ed, I can't remember the 1st ed rule specifically). The reason for allowing called shots are two-fold. First in the pre-crit stage it's primarily as a way of bi-passing armour. In the crit stage not only could it be to bi-pass armour and therefor do a better crit, but because a crit to the head is generally more impairing then a crit to the arm.
To do a called shot in WFRP you take a -20 penalty to your attack. Which generally means most people won't be making called shots until they are very skilled or they are in a position of advantage to help offset the penalty.
Quote from: GnomeWorks;337789That's a neat solution.
It's a slick system.
Quote from: kryyst;337790Minor point, you can make called shots in WFRP (at least in 2nd ed, I can't remember the 1st ed rule specifically). The reason for allowing called shots are two-fold. First in the pre-crit stage it's primarily as a way of bi-passing armour. In the crit stage not only could it be to bi-pass armour and therefor do a better crit, but because a crit to the head is generally more impairing then a crit to the arm.
To do a called shot in WFRP you take a -20 penalty to your attack. Which generally means most people won't be making called shots until they are very skilled or they are in a position of advantage to help offset the penalty.
WFRP1 had strike to injure: adjust location hit by ±10 if you called "Strike To Injure" before rolling to hit and had the skill of the same name.
I prefer it to the WFRP2/DH -20 for called shot.
Quote from: kryyst;337790Minor point, you can make called shots in WFRP (at least in 2nd ed, I can't remember the 1st ed rule specifically). The reason for allowing called shots are two-fold. First in the pre-crit stage it's primarily as a way of bi-passing armour. In the crit stage not only could it be to bi-pass armour and therefor do a better crit, but because a crit to the head is generally more impairing then a crit to the arm.
To do a called shot in WFRP you take a -20 penalty to your attack. Which generally means most people won't be making called shots until they are very skilled or they are in a position of advantage to help offset the penalty.
I don't recall that.
Thank god none of my WFRP players ever knew that.
RPGPundit
Quote from: aramis;337844WFRP1 had strike to injure: adjust location hit by ±10 if you called "Strike To Injure" before rolling to hit and had the skill of the same name.
I prefer it to the WFRP2/DH -20 for called shot.
Different strokes. I actually prefer the 2nd ed way of -20 for a called shot and having Strike to Injure increase the crit. There is also a talent in 2nd (though I don't remember if it's in WFRP, DH or both) that allows you to effectively ignore the -20 modifier for making a called shot.
Quote from: RPGPundit;338021I don't recall that.
Thank god none of my WFRP players ever knew that.
RPGPundit
The Devil is in the details and that holds freakishly true in WFRP. Suddenly generally unskilled low level characters can be freakishly effective when they use tactics and teamwork.