Your thoughts on hit locations.

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Blain
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Your thoughts on hit locations.

Post by Blain »

I've been fiddling on and off with a homebrewed combat/roleplaying system for a while now, and one thing I really want to do, and have fiddled with the mechanics a lot over, is hit locations.

Now, I know there are some rpg's out there that do this. I have vague memories of playing in one or two. But I've always been of the opinion that before you look to other rpgs for inspiration, do the work yourself first. Then, if someone comes along and says "Oh, that's very similar to <Insert RPG here>", I don't feel like I've been plagiarising too much.

My question for you guys, who've obviously been homebrewing a bit, or you wouldn't be on this forum, what in your mind are the strengths and weaknesses of hit locations?


A brief intro. to the current mechanic I'm working on -

Concept
Melee combat is a flurry of blows. You tend to look for an opening, and so you're not necessarily guaranteed the chance to hit any one particular location with regularity, unless you truly are skilled (or your opponent is not).

Mechanic
Working on a d10 for the moment if you attack succesfully, and your opponent fails in their defense (Slightly different mechanic, working on attack skills & defending skills, some of which are only available with certain weapons - i.e, some weapons you can parry with, others you can't, same for block - kind of hard to block with a rapier, a lot easier with a great big axe) you strike a location, randomly determined by a d10. Say -


  • Head 1,2 [-4]
  • Left Arm 3,4 [-1]
  • Torso 5,6 [-3]
  • Right Arm 7,8 [-1]
  • Left Leg 9 [-1]
  • Right Leg 10 [-1]


The numbers in the square brackets indicate the modifier to your dice rolls if you have the skill or ability to target the location you want specifically. i.e, you wait for an opening, or try to force one. Some areas are obviously a lot harder to hit then others, since people tend to be defensive of their head and torso regions.

Now, how would damage work in such a situation? I can't post the pretty little stick figure I have drawn up, but every location has a certain numbers of hit points (boxes) and your overall health (boxes at the bottom of your character) is 20, which is equal to the sum of all the boxes. So - Head possibly has 3, left arm 3, torso 5, right arm 3, left leg 3, right leg 3.

After you have taken full damage on a location, you start rolling on a critical table, for effects. These might include extra health loss off your main health, scarring, damage, loss of limb or being stunned for a time. It's an interesing list. How exactly would this work? Well:

You take an incredibly heavy blow to the head. You don't manage to defend against it, and even after armour reduction, you still take enough to take 4 points of damage. This fills all three boxes with one point spare. Your total health takes 4, and since you've taken full damage to the head already, you roll once on the critical table for head damage for the extra point. If you get hit on the head again, for another 4 points, you are suddenly taking 4 critical rolls.

Each location has armour available, which acts as total damage reduction. If you are wearing a full plate helm, with DR of 3, and you get hit with a damage of 3, you take nothing. (I am tossing up the idea of fixed damage on weapons. Rather than extra damage being given by strength, weapons may have a required strength to use).


There's a lot more in my head and on paper, but that's how I envisage damage in combat working. I can see the weakness in that you might go down to an unlucky blow. But that's kind of the whole point. As much as I like playing fantasy, the level of hitpoints at higher levels is crazy. In this system, your max hit points is always twenty. Your armour might improve, as might your skills & stats, but you don't suddenly end up invincible either.


Final point with the hit location thing, I'm striving to make it generic. By this I mean, I could apply this system to a fantasy campaign or a mecha campaign with equal ease. The weapon damage & armour values might change, but not too much else has to.

Final final point - The hit locations should work fine for ranged combat too - If you're unaware of your opponent, possible the modifiers to hit a location drop or are non-existent, but if you know someone is shooting at you, you'll be wary.


I hope this hasn't been too confusing - what makes sense in my head doesn't necessarily come through to others quite as well. But I'd welcome a critique of the hit location system I'm working on, and of your thoughts on hit locations in general.



Blain
Catharz
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Re: Your thoughts on hit locations.

Post by Catharz »

IMO systems like the one you describe slow things down too much.


How about this: Instead of a flurry, roll one attack. If you roll significantly better on your attack roll than is needed to hit your target, certain status effect options open up. Choose which one before rolling damage.

  • If you roll 5 better, you can reduce its land speed by 5 feet for [damage] rounds, or give it a -2 penalty to attack rolls for [damage] rounds.
  • If you roll 10 better than needed, you can blind or nauseate your target for [damage] rounds.
  • If you roll 15 better, you can make any of the previous effects permanent until 'healed' (whatever that means).


Because you're talking about effects rather than specific locations, it works with any creature you can imagine. This leads to a bit of a 'suspension of disbelief' problem if your perspective on combat it too fixed: You make the attack, and then decide (after the fact) where you were aiming. I don't see this as a real problem, because it can be explained this way: You're constantly on the attack, and the roll just tells you which openings you're set up to take advantage of.

If you like, you can make Fortified creatures appropriately immune, but Fortification effects are way overused in D&D (I don't know about your homebrew :)). The balance is off, but I think the idea has merit.

I know I kinda sidestepped your whole post. Sorry about that, but take a look in one of the old D&D books on critical hit locations & dueling if you want to see where a literal-minded approach can take you.
Blain
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Re: Your thoughts on hit locations.

Post by Blain »

The flurry I was talking about intended to be one roll, but, more descriptive, most combat isn't hit by hit based, but I can see where I wasn't clear on that :)

I appreciate the feedback, it's always get to get more viewpoints.

I was envisioning a round of combat (still working on order of actions, though I'm tempted to go just off of a speed stat) as being a roll to attack, and the appropriate defense roll. For instance. I attack, maybe a special or standard, either is fine, and you choose your type of defense. You can attempt to dodge, or parry, or block. Depending on your own stats and equipment. Both players roll a dice, and add or subtract appropriate modifiers. If you beat their defensive roll, you successfully hit.

Catharz
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Re: Your thoughts on hit locations.

Post by Catharz »

The things I don't like about the way you have locations set up are 1) it's totally random, 2) it requires 1-2 extra rolls for every player every combat round, and 3) it requires a huge amount of (probably irrelevant) bookeeping.

A character sheet looks like this:

Code: Select all

[br]Location	| HP |AC|[br]Head		| 3/3| 5|[br]Right arm	| 3/3| 2|[br]Left arm	| 3/3| 4|[br]Torso		| 5/5| 3|[br]Right leg	| 3/3| 3|[br]Left leg	| 3/3| 3|[br]

And the player has to keep track of all 6 every round.

When you attack, you don't even get to choose where you aim. It's totally random, and maybe one day you hit someone in the face twice and the next you hit someone else in the left arm and then the torso. And you had no choice in the matter.
If you did have a choice, you'd always aim for the same spot (to quickly wear down that location's HP), which isn't too interesting either.

Maybe your players find that entertaining. I'd find it annoying.
Blain
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Re: Your thoughts on hit locations.

Post by Blain »

Fair criticism, I'm going for tickable boxes instead of numbers for recording damage, as that's relatively easy, but yeah, the system wouldn't appeal to everyone the way that it is.

To explain how I tend to think in regards to combat, I like it not to drag out, as for me, RP is a lot more important. (It's probably why I run core World of Darkness and tend to not use half the mechanics, I find it works wonderfully as a narrative RP system.) On the other hand, and this might seem contradictory, I do want my players to enjoy combat, so long as it's a part of the game, and not the whole game.


RandomCasualty
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Re: Your thoughts on hit locations.

Post by RandomCasualty »

What's bad about hit locations is when you start taking things into consideration with monsters. I mean, it's OK for PCs to get all detailed about their wounds, but you don't want to have to worry that orc #3 has a sprained ankle, orc #7 has a broken thumb and orc #10 is blinded by blood in his eyes. It's too much to keep track of and probably not worth it.

I like Catharz idea about figuring out where you hit after you make the roll. Combat generally isn't about focusing on one body part in a dedicated assault. It's about finding openings. A good fighter isn't going to force attack something, he's going to take the part that's least defended.

I'd say that every time someone rolls a natural 20 and confirms a critical, you could roll on a critical hit table and see what happened. I'd put the effects in terms of mechanics and then let the DM describe what happened, to make ti easier to adapt to monsters with unusual anatomies.

So your table may look like.

1- Penalty of -2 to dex, half speed movement.
2- Penalty of -2 to attack rolls and AC.
3- Penalty of -4 to con.
4- combat limb rendered unusable.
5- -4 penalty to strength
6- stunned for one round (KOed on failed save)

Every effect could also have a fort save associated with it. If the fort save is failed, the effect becomes permanent until healed. So a combat limb rendered unusable is actually severed or crushed if you fail your fort save for instance. You can let the DM fill in the flavor, but this way keeps it simple and prevents the battles from turning into a series of critical hits.
Blain
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Re: Your thoughts on hit locations.

Post by Blain »

Nice, I do like that idea, particularly the part about it becoming permanent or not.

For the hit location part, the roll for where you hit would be after you actually make a succesful hit. You then roll for location. I can see where you guys are going, I suppose since I'm the one making it, it doesn't seem complex to me, but it can to someone else.

Hopefully, combat won't drag out too much, unless one opponent is too heavily armoured and the other opponent is as weak as dishwater, which is a flaw right there I suppose. I hadn't thought too much about effects on NPCs, that is definitely something I'd have to play out better. Possibly you roll for any critical damage effects after combat is done with? That smacks a bit too much of Necromunda for me :lmao:, but I do like that table you've got, I'd adapt that possibly to being an overall table, that you roll on each time you suffer any sort of critical damage, or possibly you'd have a 50% chance of taking a critical roll. I'm trying to avoid too much dice rolling, it's ironic isn't it.



I'll give it some more thought, and post up something a bit more stream-lined and detailed later on.
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Hey_I_Can_Chan
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Re: Your thoughts on hit locations.

Post by Hey_I_Can_Chan »

Instead of basing it on accuracy, Spycraft 2.0 (a d20 permutation) bases it off of damage done. That way, even an expertly aimed pinky to the face doesn't randomly lead to decapitation.

To sum up: If the target suffers 25-49 points of damage from a single hit, he rolls a Fort save (DC = ½ damage done). Failure leads to the Table of Ouch, which inflicts long-lasting status effects. 50+ damage from a single hit means a Fort save (DC = damage done), too.

The amount of damage should probably be adjusted to fit the campaign or even be level based (5x level would provide a reasonable spread), but it's otherwise an elegant and more reasonable take than the pitifully stupid death from massive damage rule D&D employs (instead of the Bbn20 saying, "I have 300+ hp, but that 1 on the Fort save after the baby dragon's breath did me in," the 20th-level soldier says, "I may have 300+ vitality, but that 1 means that knife in the gut still left me bleeding").
RandomCasualty
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Re: Your thoughts on hit locations.

Post by RandomCasualty »

Hey_I_Can_Chan at [unixtime wrote:1167835258[/unixtime]]
To sum up: If the target suffers 25-49 points of damage from a single hit, he rolls a Fort save (DC = ½ damage done). Failure leads to the Table of Ouch, which inflicts long-lasting status effects. 50+ damage from a single hit means a Fort save (DC = damage done), too.


I don't really like save DCs based on damage dealt, because damage and saves tend to be vastly different quantities.

And I'm really not sure why you have to make 50 + damage into full damage dealt as opposed to half, given that both scale.

I really just prefer making the save DC = to 10 + 1/2 hit dice + strength mod of attacker. That generally keeps it scaled by power level.
Nytmare
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Re: Your thoughts on hit locations.

Post by Nytmare »

I'd say that every time someone rolls a natural 20 and confirms a critical, you could roll on a critical hit table and see what happened. I'd put the effects in terms of mechanics and then let the DM describe what happened, to make ti easier to adapt to monsters with unusual anatomies.


That's actaully what my group has been using for the past forever and we've been pretty happy with it. Though I've been wanting to change it around slightly to become more of what Chan was describing with the Spycraft crit table.
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Crissa
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Re: Your thoughts on hit locations.

Post by Crissa »

Hey, why not use this effect table to replace the Critical Damage with Effects instead?

-Crissa
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