House Rules for Hit Location

[Dust Raven]

Re: House Rules for Hit Location

 

Imagine how much this system would improve a HERO Highlander game' date=' and you'll see what I mean. Simulating Immortals in HERO would mean each combatant taking shots and hoping wildly for a neck hit, or taking shots at -8 and hitting either the neck or nothing.[/quote']

Actually aiming for the neck would be folly, even with your new system. The chances for a wild miss are still to great to waste a swing at the neck anywhere near the head. From what I've seen in the movies and series, they fight until one is between 0 and -10 (crouched on the ground at 0 DCV and the attacker can take that full phase to hit the neck automatically) or stunned so the penalties are only 1/2 to hit the neck.

[etherio]

Re: House Rules for Hit Location

 

...From what I've seen in the movies and series' date=' they fight until one is between 0 and -10 (crouched on the ground at 0 DCV and the attacker can take that full phase to hit the neck automatically) or stunned so the penalties are only 1/2 to hit the neck.[/quote']

I see what you mean about the way that battles play themselves out in Highlander. True, they tend to first disable each other before going for the neck.

[Hyper-Man]

Re: House Rules for Hit Location

 

Does anyone have a copy of or know what the Bell Curve percentages for 3D6 actually are?

 

I seem to remember that rolls between 8 and 14 add up to something like 50-75%, which would imply that odds of getting either 11, 12 or 13 probably end up being about 20-30% on the curve. So referring back to my original example below: 1 in 4 swings to the head (that hit on the initial non-adjusted attack roll) will hit with NO minus to OCV! as opposed to standard rules which just give the targeted shot a -8 OCV penalty.

 

Corrections to my math and/or logic are welcome!

 

 

Say a character is sniping at someone who has visible body armor (kevlar) but not complete head coverage. They aim at the face, they are getting a double chance at a direct hit with better odds it seems:

 

 

 

 

• If I hit by 8 more than the target's normal DCV, I hit the target in the head. (same as normal rules.)
  
• If I hit the target's normal DCV but not by the 8 extra I go to your chart and get the chance that a secondary roll of 11,12 and 13 also give me a head shot! (Wow, definitely not same a normal rules!)
  

[tkdguy]

Re: House Rules for Hit Location

 

I think the bell curve for 3d6 peaks at around 10.5 (I'll check to make sure).

[etherio]

Re: House Rules for Hit Location

 

Does anyone have a copy of or know what the Bell Curve percentages for 3D6 actually are?

 

I seem to remember that rolls between 8 and 14 add up to something like 50-75%, which would imply that odds of getting either 11, 12 or 13 probably end up being about 20-30% on the curve. So referring back to my original example below: 1 in 4 swings to the head (that hit on the initial non-adjusted attack roll) will hit with NO minus to OCV! as opposed to standard rules which just give the targeted shot a -8 OCV penalty.

 

Corrections to my math and/or logic are welcome!

 

Remember, modified rolls that are off the hit location chart become misses. That's a strong control on that sort of abuse. It acts in a way that's similar to, but in my opinion more logical than, the OCV modifier for placed shots in the standard rules.

 

I personally feel that this system is slightly more lethal (which I like) than the standard rules, but not greatly so.

 

By the way, here a link to a spreadsheet that you can use to find out the percentages. http://herogames.com/FreeStuff/charactersheets/d6%20probabilities.xls

[tkdguy]

Re: House Rules for Hit Location

 

You should have posted this sooner. I tired myself out writing all the dice combinations to find the probability of rolling a certain number with three dice (assuming you can't tell the dice apart).

[Dust Raven]

Re: House Rules for Hit Location

 

To hit the head normally, assuming the attack hits, would require a 3,4 or 5 on the 3d6 roll for Hit Location. If I recall correctly, this is aproximately a 5% chance.

 

With the new system, it brings hitting the head up to... lemme see...

 

Aim at the neck, roll 3d6-6. That give a 25% chance of a complete miss (3-8), and a 60% chance of still hitting someplace on the head (9-11) with a 15% chance of actually hitting the neck you aimed for. That leave a 35% chance of hitting someplace else (12-18).

 

Wow. A difference of 5% and 60%. But this only assumes you would hit at all.

[etherio]

Re: House Rules for Hit Location

 

To hit the head normally, assuming the attack hits, would require a 3,4 or 5 on the 3d6 roll for Hit Location. If I recall correctly, this is aproximately a 5% chance.

 

With the new system, it brings hitting the head up to... lemme see...

 

Aim at the neck, roll 3d6-6. That give a 25% chance of a complete miss (3-8), and a 60% chance of still hitting someplace on the head (9-11) with a 15% chance of actually hitting the neck you aimed for. That leave a 35% chance of hitting someplace else (12-18).

 

Wow. A difference of 5% and 60%. But this only assumes you would hit at all.

Here's how it actually breaks down:

 

If you aim at the Neck (location 4), and hit, then the bell curve centers on the 3 "head" locations (3-5)...

 

That means (with the -7 Mod for aiming at the Neck) that a natural roll of 10-12 will hit one of those "head" locations...

 

The chances of rolling 10-12 (and thereby hitting one of those 3 head locations) are roughly 37%...

 

That leaves an approximate 31.5% chance to miss (hit locations "above" the head), and 31.5% chance to hit locations other than the head...

 

The chances of hitting the Neck exactly (rolling an unmodified 11) are 12.5%.

[etherio]

Re: House Rules for Hit Location

 

Incidentally, the expanded hit location chart is designed to reflect the locations that have been implied by armor coverage in various HERO supplements.

[zornwil]

Re: House Rules for Hit Location

 

I'm right now running a supers campaign, and I I don't use hit locations at all in this campaign. I agree, hit location rolls have no place in a typical four-color supers game. However, when our group plays HERO scale stuff (fantasy, usually) we do use them. We play-tested it in a game where I had the pleasure of experiencing the system from a player's perspective (a rare and wondrous occasion). I feel it really made both HTH and ranged combat more fun.

 

It fixes what I've always felt is a weakness in most games. When you launch an attack as a PC, you imagine it as an uppercut for the jaw or a sword lunge for the midsection...not as a wild swing for any old part of the body. In the official rules, PCs just don't have a reasonable chance for aiming at locations, unless they're super-aces with their OCV. This alternate system puts them more into combat.

 

Imagine how much this system would improve a HERO Highlander game, and you'll see what I mean. Simulating Immortals in HERO would mean each combatant taking shots and hoping wildly for a neck hit, or taking shots at -8 and hitting either the neck or nothing.

 

Thanks for the response. I don't do Fantasy but Lemming and I have been talking about a Sci-Fi game for some time and so will take a look at the hit locations thing in that context - though I think we'll co-GM (though at the rate either of us have approached this, it'll probably be a 2006 campaign!) so I think any house rules will be boiled down to a smaller few than either of us probably run individually.

[Dust Raven]

Re: House Rules for Hit Location

 

Here's how it actually breaks down:

 

If you aim at the Neck (location 4), and hit, then the bell curve centers on the 3 "head" locations (3-5)...

 

That means (with the -7 Mod for aiming at the Neck) that a natural roll of 10-12 will hit one of those "head" locations...

 

The chances of rolling 10-12 (and thereby hitting one of those 3 head locations) are roughly 37%...

 

That leaves an approximate 31.5% chance to miss (hit locations "above" the head), and 31.5% chance to hit locations other than the head...

 

The chances of hitting the Neck exactly (rolling an unmodified 11) are 12.5%.

Actually, I think my math is right (roughly) but I got my location messed up. I did all my caculations from location 5, which is the Crown. Aiming for there gives you the best chance to score a hit someplace on the head (about twice the chance of aiming at the neck, and quite a bit more than aiming at the face).

[BNakagawa]

Re: House Rules for Hit Location

 

Ugh. Being behind in the CV race is difficult enough. Your house rule makes it a death sentence.

 

There is a balance between high cv, low damage and low cv, high damage in the HERO system. This house rule makes the latter character style obsolete.

 

$0.02

[Dust Raven]

Re: House Rules for Hit Location

 

Ugh. Being behind in the CV race is difficult enough. Your house rule makes it a death sentence.

 

There is a balance between high cv, low damage and low cv, high damage in the HERO system. This house rule makes the latter character style obsolete.

 

$0.02

Not really. With this sytem, it actually makes the Low CV types more likely to score those Placed Shots, as they don't receive a penalty for making them.

[BNakagawa]

Re: House Rules for Hit Location

 

Not really. With this sytem' date=' it actually makes the Low CV types more likely to score those Placed Shots, as they don't receive a penalty for making them.[/quote']

 

You presume that the low CV types will be conscious and unstunned when their phase comes up. I'm betting they won't.

[Trebuchet]

Re: House Rules for Hit Location

 

You presume that the low CV types will be conscious and unstunned when their phase comes up. I'm betting they won't.

I think you've made an excellent point here, and one that hadn't occurred to me as I examined this idea. With only trivial penalties to called shots, a high CV character successfully can do that all the time.

 

Suddenly my MAs mere 10d6 Sacrifice Strike to the head is equivalent to a bricks 20d6 Haymaker. With a setup like that, my SPD 9/DEX 43 character could flatten whole villain teams in 3 or 4 seconds. Where do I sign up?

 

Has anyone tried playtesting this proposed system at varying levels of relative DEX and SPD to see how it plays out?

[BNakagawa]

Re: House Rules for Hit Location

 

Assuming your character has NO levels whatsoever, you'll drill Ogre in the head at least 75% of the time and stun him most of the time you hit.

 

Were such a system to be implemented, it would require the rewrite of pretty much all of the NPCs and villains ever created to make them survivable.

 

Even at the heroic level, it would completely upset the balance of power in most games. My 8 STR duellist would completely tool the 33 STR ogre. Under the standard rules, there were enemies against which she was useless (high def tanks) and enemies against which he was useless (high dcv swashbucklers). With generous hit location rules like those, the duellist would just own everything under the sun. Head shot, head shot, head shot, head shot, Post 12 recovery, head shot, head shot, head shot, lather, rise, repeat.

[Trebuchet]

Re: House Rules for Hit Location

 

Assuming your character has NO levels whatsoever, you'll drill Ogre in the head at least 75% of the time and stun him most of the time you hit.

 

Were such a system to be implemented, it would require the rewrite of pretty much all of the NPCs and villains ever created to make them survivable.

Zl'f does in fact have an Overall level; so Ogre is toast. Bring on Durak!

 

Zl'f is at least theoretically capable of defeating a typical brick, assuming his defenses are not over around 32 PD and/or Hardened; but she should have to WORK for it. This proposed system would make it all too easy. The only logical counter is higher and higher DEX and SPD; which in turn would inevitably lead to a DEX "Cold War" within any campaign that uses it. Is the world really ready for DEX 35/SPD 7 bricks and DEX 58/SPD 12 speedsters and MAs?

 

Another nice idea shot down by ugly facts.

[Gary]

Re: House Rules for Hit Location

 

Ugh. Being behind in the CV race is difficult enough. Your house rule makes it a death sentence.

 

There is a balance between high cv, low damage and low cv, high damage in the HERO system. This house rule makes the latter character style obsolete.

 

$0.02

 

 

One fix to this that maintains balance while still making hit locations useful is to treat this like the haymaker rules. Just give a fixed bonus or penalty to each location. For example:

 

Head +4 DC

Vitals/Stomach +2 DC

Chest/Shoulders +0 DC

Arms/Legs -2 DC

Hands/Feet -4 DC

 

These modifiers can't more than double or halve the initial attack. So the 10 Str normal would do 4d6 at most, and 1d6 minimum, while the 60 Str brick will do 16d6 max and 8d6 minimum.

 

This idea won't work with killing attacks unless you don't link hit location to the stun multiple.

[etherio]

Re: House Rules for Hit Location

 

Assuming your character has NO levels whatsoever' date=' you'll drill Ogre in the head at least 75% of the time and stun him most of the time you hit.[/quote']

Not true...refer to the spreadsheet I posted a link to earlier. The curve for 3d6 is not nearly as steep as you think.

 

Were such a system to be implemented, it would require the rewrite of pretty much all of the NPCs and villains ever created to make them survivable.

 

Even at the heroic level, it would completely upset the balance of power in most games. My 8 STR duellist would completely tool the 33 STR ogre. Under the standard rules, there were enemies against which she was useless (high def tanks) and enemies against which he was useless (high dcv swashbucklers). With generous hit location rules like those, the duellist would just own everything under the sun. Head shot, head shot, head shot, head shot, Post 12 recovery, head shot, head shot, head shot, lather, rise, repeat.

That hasn't been the case for our group, and we've used the system quite a bit. Try it, and if you don't like it, don't use it. If you don't want to try it, then oh well...that's your prerogative. There are some valid criticisms of the system, especially that combat becomes a little bit more lethal. However, the difference is not as much as your exaggerations imply. No system is perfect, and this one was designed by altering an existing one, so as to preserve as much of HERO's rules as much as possible, while giving us a chance to make HERO-scale combat a little more dynamic.

[etherio]

Re: House Rules for Hit Location

 

I think you've made an excellent point here' date=' and one that hadn't occurred to me as I examined this idea. With only trivial penalties to called shots, a high CV character successfully can do that all the time.[/quote']

Not sure why you think this is...an automatic head shot in this system is just as hard as it is in the standard rules. You have to have an unreal OCV or a low roll to pull it off. In either case, the same could be done in the standard rules. The substantive difference in this version is the way it moves the bell curve so that it centers on the targeted location. That benefit, and the penalty of off-the-chart modified rolls becoming misses, are both independent of CV. If this system actually benefits anyone as far as getting a chance to make a targeted hit, it's the lower-OCV characters.

 

Suddenly my MAs mere 10d6 Sacrifice Strike to the head is equivalent to a bricks 20d6 Haymaker. With a setup like that, my SPD 9/DEX 43 character could flatten whole villain teams in 3 or 4 seconds. Where do I sign up?

Actually, I think that no hit location system is appropriate for supers-level gaming. I wouldn't encourage any form of hit location system for those kinds of campaigns.

 

Remember, guys...If you're worried about a PC abusing this system...the bad guys get to use it, too, at your discretion.

[BNakagawa]

Re: House Rules for Hit Location

 

Not true...refer to the spreadsheet I posted a link to earlier. The curve for 3d6 is not nearly as steep as you think.

 

 

 

It's quite true. I checked the math. Given: A DEX of 43 = base OCV of 14. Sacrifice Strike adds +1 OCV for a total of 15. Ogre has a Dex of 20 for a 7 DCV. -7 for the neck hit location yields a outright hit chance of 12 or less which is 62.5 percent.

 

Now, if you don't hit outright, you roll 3d6 and see where it did land. On a 10, 11 or 12, you hit the head, anyway. That's about a 36% chance. (79/216) So the chances of missing the base attack, but still hitting the head = ((1-.625)*.36) or about 13.5%. Add that to your 62.5% chance of hitting the base attack and there's your 76% I was talking about.

 

head shot, head shot, head shot, hari hari, lama lama, head shot head shot, head shot.

[Trebuchet]

Re: House Rules for Hit Location

 

Not sure why you think this is...an automatic head shot in this system is just as hard as it is in the standard rules. You have to have an unreal OCV or a low roll to pull it off. In either case, the same could be done in the standard rules. The substantive difference in this version is the way it moves the bell curve so that it centers on the targeted location. That benefit, and the penalty of off-the-chart modified rolls becoming misses, are both independent of CV. If this system actually benefits anyone as far as getting a chance to make a targeted hit, it's the lower-OCV characters.

 

Actually, I think that no hit location system is appropriate for supers-level gaming. I wouldn't encourage any form of hit location system for those kinds of campaigns.

 

Remember, guys...If you're worried about a PC abusing this system...the bad guys get to use it, too, at your discretion.

A reasonable point. Hit locations are probably a bad idea in general for supers-level combat; although we allow it in our game under extraordinary circumstances. (The only time it's been used in our campaign was when a villain was loosely holding a DNPC hostage by the throat. The GM allowed my DEX 43 character to make a called shot to the arm to knock away the villain's arm so our teleporter could move the hostage to safety.)

 

Gary's suggestion of using additional DCs for hit locations instead of damage multipliers is also worth considering as a variant which might work out in Champions games. As is, in a superhero game with DEX commonly varying from 18 to 48 it is too effective. My character by concept is the most agile person on Earth so it's not likely she'd ever run into a villain who could use this system against her, which means using it in our campaign makes her too powerful for her concept.

 

As to your whole system in general, I think it shows considerable ingenuity and would probably be more balanced in a Fantasy Hero or Danger International/Pulp Hero-type game where DEX variation is usually within narrower parameters like 14-23.

[etherio]

Re: House Rules for Hit Location

 

Mr. Negativity...

 

There are some flaws in your reasoning here.

It's quite true. I checked the math. Given: A DEX of 43 = base OCV of 14. Sacrifice Strike adds +1 OCV for a total of 15. Ogre has a Dex of 20 for a 7 DCV. -7 for the neck hit location yields a outright hit chance of 12 or less which is 62.5 percent.

First, your calculations should have included a -8 modifier for the Neck, leading to an 11- to hit it automatically. 11 or less is a 62.5% chance to hit the head automatically, so you reached the right conclusion there. However, please recognize this for the sake of all that's holy...once and for all...

 

The same result would occur in the standard rules.

 

This is not an argument against my system. It's an argument against hit locations being used in supers games at all. The great disparity between you combatants' CVs is the problem, and it's the reason why hit location damage multiples should not be used in supers games.

 

Now, if you don't hit outright, you roll 3d6 and see where it did land. On a 10, 11 or 12, you hit the head, anyway. That's about a 36% chance. (79/216) So the chances of missing the base attack, but still hitting the head = ((1-.625)*.36) or about 13.5%. Add that to your 62.5% chance of hitting the base attack and there's your 76% I was talking about...

Correct...but again, you're talking about a CV spread of 8. That is an example of two combatants at the extremes of a supers game. In this example, my system allows a 76% chance to hit a head location...up a whopping 13.5% from the 62.5% allowed by the standard rules.

 

Like I have said: slightly more deadly, but not terribly so...and not balanced in favor of high-CV characters.

[etherio]

Re: House Rules for Hit Location

 

Let's try an example in the scale for which it is suited.

 

Grak the fighter (Base CV 5, +3 with broadsword) vs. Bob the town guardsman (Base CV 4, +1 OCV w/short sword)

 

Grak goes for a Neck shot and puts +2 on OCV, +1 on DCV...

 

7-4= 14 or less to hit (.907)...

 

14-8= 6 or less to hit the neck automatically (.0926)...

 

.907-.0926= .814 to hit, but not automatically, thus calling for a hit location roll...

 

.814 X .366= .298 chance to hit the head on the hit location chart...

 

.298+.0926= .391, or 39.1%, to hit any head location for the entire attack resolution.

 

This is an improvement, no doubt, but remember that by aiming at the Neck, Grak risks going off the hit location chart and missing after all (swinging over Bob's head). That plays out like this...

 

.907-.0926= .814 to hit, but not automatically, thus calling for a hit location roll...

 

.814 X .375 (chance to roll unmodified 9- for hit location)= .305...

 

.907-.305= .602...

 

Grak's overall chance to hit anything has been reduced from 90.7% to 60.2%.

[etherio]

Re: House Rules for Hit Location

 

By the way...

 

Even for those of you who don't like the hit location system, I recommend the expanded locations chart. It makes it easier to record piecemeal armor locations, and has no impact on the standard game rules.