Dextracardial

[BobGreenwade]

I've been trying to consider how to build this trait in Hero System terms. What the word means is that a person's heart is on the right side instead of the left -- a medical condition that actually exists. It only affects a character when someone deliberately tries to shoot him in the heart, so....

 

Dextracardial: +5 DCV (25 Active Points); Only Affects Called Shots to The Heart (-4). Total cost: 5 points.

 

I made it +5 because I figure a called shot to the heart to be -10 OCV, so making it half would allow for the 50/50 chance that, missing by half the penalty, the attacker would shoot the correct side by mistake. That's the one part of this I'm not sure about, so... opinions?

[Kenn]

Re: Dextracardial

 

There are rules for a called shot to the heart?

[BobGreenwade]

Re: Dextracardial

 

I believe there are, in at least one of the two editions of Dark Champions.

[Cancer]

Re: Dextracardial

 

I know the condition left-right reverses the heart and major blood vessels around it, but how much does it actually move the heart? To put it a different way, if you superpose "x-rays" of normal and dextracardial chests, what fraction of one heart's area still covers the mirror-image heart?

 

If I knew that answer then it'd be easier to estimate the magnitude of both benefit and cost.

 

(This effect, sort of, played a role in Zelazny's Doorways in the Sand, though that left-right reversed condition was artificially imposed rather than inborn.)

[Hyper-Man]

Re: Dextracardial

 

Personally, I'd go with a 3 point Perk for the heart (as well as liver and other single organs) being on the opposite half of the body.

 

Isn't one of the character's lungs going to get punctured anyway?

 

As far as the random miss part, one of our board members designed an alternate Hit Location method a few years ago that could be adapted to this situation quite easily.

[ghost-angel]

Re: Dextracardial

 

A called shot to the Heart merely a Called Shot to the Vitals, at worst i would impose an additional -1 for a Specific Vital Shot.

 

I went looking for x-rays or pictures of Dextracardia; not a lot to be found, but most of the time the descriptions simply flipped the organ or pushed it off-center. Apparently, in a number of these cases ALL the organs are flipped!

[Sean Waters]

Re: Dextracardial

 

Technically a DCV bonus for your heart is not what you are after: if a VERY accurate person shoots you (overcoming the DCV bonus) in the 'heart' they will still miss because you don't have a heart where they are (very accurately) aiming.

 

In fact the heart is not on the left it is just a bit more left than right: if you shoot the middle you will hit however the heart is placed.

 

Having said that a DCV bonus is not what you are after I'm struggling to find a reasonably priced alternative. As ghost-angel says it is probably not worth much of a DCV bonus anyway (for the reasons given above).

 

Say +1 DCV only v called shots to the heart, not if the shooter knows the target is dectracardial (-2) (1 point)

[ghost-angel]

Re: Dextracardial

 

Normally, if I give a specific DCV Bonus, and you miss only by the difference of the DCV Bonus and the Targets Normal DCV, you hit the target but not where intended... But that's a general house rule to mitigate the idea of Area Specific DCV Bonuses vs Missing Completely If You Miss Narrowly not making sense.

[prestidigitator]

Re: Dextracardial

 

Err...you can play a super-alien or a robot or a donkey, and we're worried about minorly different human anatomy? I would say it is worth a 0-point note on the character sheet. After all, if anyone knew your heart was on the other side, there'd be no DCV bonus, would there? I suppose at most a Persistent application of the Disguise skill or Shapeshifting, purchased as a Talent perhaps ("Disguised as someone with a normal human anatomy" ).

[ghost-angel]

Re: Dextracardial

 

Err...you can play a super-alien or a robot or a donkey' date=' and we're worried about minorly different human anatomy? I would say it is worth a 0-point note on the character sheet. After all, if anyone [i']knew[/i] your heart was on the other side, there'd be no DCV bonus, would there? I suppose at most a Persistent application of the Disguise skill or Shapeshifting, purchased as a Talent perhaps ("Disguised as someone with a normal human anatomy" ).

 

Which is pretty much why I consider it nothing more than a called shot to the Vitals, with situational modifiers if needed.

[Chris Goodwin]

Re: Dextracardial

 

Thanks to Google....

 

(Source)

[JmOz]

Re: Dextracardial

 

If as a GM I felt this would come up more than the rarest of occasions I would probably charge it out as a perk, and then allow a small (5 point) disad as well. The disad would be either a Phys LIm (-1 or 2 to medicine rolls) or DF (Various lims to it), so the player would probably actualy find themselves netting +3-4 points between the disad and the perk.

 

I will note I like coresponding perk/Disads, for instance I think it is a more elegant way of modeling some character NPC's as both a contact and a DNPC

[Ockham's Spoon]

Re: Dextracardial

 

I think I would go with the consensus that this is a character description rather than a power, but if a player wanted to buy it I think I would do it as

 

3d6 Luck, only to prevent a placed shot to the heart (-4). Cost 3pts.

 

Not a fool-proof miss, but if you get shot through the chest on either the right or left side, the chance that something vital gets hit is pretty good.

[Kenn]

Re: Dextracardial

 

If you're shot through the heart, it's too late.

 

You'll give love a bad name.

[Sean Waters]

Re: Dextracardial

 

If you're shot through the heart, it's too late.

 

You'll give love a bad name.

 

Well yes, but if you play your part, I'll play the game.

 

And it is you who gives love a bad name.

 

Moving on...

 

Perhaps some version of the automaton rules? I mean slightly moving internal organs is possibly a bit de minimis, but I can see it being taken further - radical redesign, smaller target spots, back up organs, undifferentiated tissue...right up to 'no hit locations' (10 points).

 

Maybe:

 

Reduced target (smaller/better protected vital organs):

+1 on all hit location rolls causing 4 or 5 damage: 1 point (can be taken multiple times)

 

Back up organs (-1 stun multiplier/-.5 Body multiplier on KAs/-.5 multiplier on normal attacks) 5 points

 

No vital organs 10 points

[braincraft]

Re: Dextracardial

 

Your heart isn't off to one side, it's almost completely in the center. The difference of position is maybe a few percent of the total target area. I really can't see that an attack on your heart is liable to miss because of that.

 

Unless you spend a lot of time getting shot in the chest, and can reasonably expect to recover from sucking chest wounds, I can't imagine that this would be worth even a single point.

[jtelson]

Re: Dextracardial

 

Seems like just a oddity of character for the most part - I'd probably model it as the SFX of Lack of Weakness and then some disad. We actually use quirks from GURPs (up to 5 1 point minor disadvantages or character traits) This fits that pretty well.

[Ockham's Spoon]

Re: Dextracardial

 

That was my first though too, but I would bet (and I have no actual knowledge of this of course*) that anyone skilled enough to try a placed shot to the heart would actually aim to the side slightly to go through the ribs and avoid hitting the sternum. Since your heart is only a little larger than your fist, that might be just enough to skew a direct hit on the heart itself.

 

 

 

*Just take my word for this, it is better that way.

[Markdoc]

Re: Dextracardial

 

I know the condition left-right reverses the heart and major blood vessels around it, but how much does it actually move the heart? To put it a different way, if you superpose "x-rays" of normal and dextracardial chests, what fraction of one heart's area still covers the mirror-image heart?

 

If I knew that answer then it'd be easier to estimate the magnitude of both benefit and cost.

 

(This effect, sort of, played a role in Zelazny's Doorways in the Sand, though that left-right reversed condition was artificially imposed rather than inborn.)

 

Very little. The idea that the heart sits on the left or right of the chest is an urban legend. The heart sits right smack dab in the middle of your ribcage and pokes slightly to one side or the other because:

a) people are not symetrical and

the heart itself is assymetical and can vary quite dramatically in size (as can the lungs, affecting the heart's location).

 

Basically, Dextracardiallty should be a 0 point perk, since person to person variation is so great, that it outweighs the difference from such a trait.

 

Edit: and if they shoot you through the middle of your chest, the fact they just missed your heart is likely to be only of interest to your pathologist.

 

cheers, Mark

[Killer Shrike]

Re: Dextracardial

 

At most, I'd consider it a 0 point Distinctive Feature (detectable via medical examination / unusual senses) if a player was hung up on it and really wanted it to be part of their characters definition for concept reasons.

 

I consider it to be entirely unimportant at the mechanical resolution level.

[Vondy]

Re: Dextracardial

 

I would take the position that, if someone targeted the heart and didn't know the person was dextracardial, they missed the heart irrespective of their margin of success. They hit where the heart normally is. To make a dextracardial called shot they would have to know the person's heart placement in advance, but would make the shot with the same pens as for a normally placed heart. As for modeling it, I'd go with a simple perk. For stated reasons I don't think CV mods are entirely apropos.

[BobGreenwade]

Re: Dextracardial

 

For practical purposes, I tend to go with the idea that it's "just part of the character description." I was just musing on how one might model it game-wise. Folks have made good points on why the DCV Bonus method wouldn't work, but I'm not sure an arbitrary Perk would quite be right either.

[ghost-angel]

Re: Dextracardial

 

The true effect of this condition, from what I can gather is actually a Physical Limitation: Negative to Paramedic Rolls -1 to -2 or so.

 

One of the things I kept coming across what that any equipment involving reading or working with electrical impulses has to be attached differently, and a defilibrator can't be used normally either.

 

this condition is going to work against the character more than work for them. Given that some forms of the condition actually flip the organs - move the Liver to the left side for instance, the bonus would be +1 DCV; Only Vs Called Shots To The Vitals since it moves some, but not all the vital organs to 'unexecpted' places. Flipping the heart itself doesn't move that organ off center enough to matter, and it still puts the lungs immediately around it which are another Vital Location Shot.

[lemming]

Re: Dextracardial

 

The only time this sounds like it would come up is if the character is a vampire. And even then, not that much.

[Sean Waters]

Re: Dextracardial

 

Can anyone tell me why it is that vampires don't bolt some sort of iron plate over their chest and back over the heart area? I mean, anything that wood can not penetrate should make them practical indestructible. It is not as if it would need to weigh much...

 

 

...I'm off on one, aren't I?