Hit Location and armor conundrum

[Manic Typist]

I strive for consistency. The way I see it, the more thorough and consistent I am in my running and rulings, the easier it will be for me and the players and the more fun will be had all around. It also is more fair. They will be able to know the answer to many of the questions without asking me, and then if there's every an exception they'll take note of it as important because it's an exception.

 

I use Hit Locations in my Dark Champions (Secret Wars) game. Vitals can represent the lower stomach/pelvis area, but I also often treat it as the throat, arteries, etc based upon what I feel makes sense.

 

So far, so good.

 

However, my PCs recently acquired body armor that covers Hit Location 13, which I am in principle fine with. After all, I'm the one that said it covered that Location. But I'm faced with a conundrum now. I feel obligated to treat Vitals as a specific region now, as moving it around in the narration conflicts with the sectional nature of defenses.

 

Thoughts?

[The Suave]

Re: Hit Location and armor conundrum

 

Just move the hit to another vital-yet-covered hit location. Or use whatever damage got through for the purposes of your narrative. Shot in the vitals, after defenses take 5B 12S, say that the bullet nicked the guys Femoral Artery and he's starting to bleed heavily. Or say that he got shot in the neck and must've grazed something important because the blood is everywhere.

 

You can still narrate and move the shot around, just use the fact that the armor covers the location for the purposes of determining damage.

[Ragnarok]

Re: Hit Location and armor conundrum

 

Well, the way I see it, vitals could still represent any number of things in the covered location. Our body armor covers basically from neck to waist, which encompasses various vital organs such as the heart, lungs, liver, etc. So, if you were to narrow your definition of vitals down to the variety of things contained in that area, it's a non-issue.

 

Other things that might be construed as vitals, such as major arteries and the throat and whatnot, can still do plenty of damage, and still be cinematically very serious. They'd just be the regular hit locations. And getting hit in those areas can be nearly as impairing as a vitals hit. The throat is part of the head region, which does major damage in the first place. Shooting through the arteries of the leg will slow movement and possibly cause a bleeding effect.

 

So in other words, if you wanted to keep the seriousness of getting hit in non-"Vital" yet important areas, you could tack on an impairing effect, which makes sense. Otherwise, since most of the stereotypically vital areas are already contained by the armor now, the scope of difficulties you have to contend with is pretty small.

 

Hope that helps.

[Manic Typist]

Re: Hit Location and armor conundrum

 

Just move the hit to another vital-yet-covered hit location. Or use whatever damage got through for the purposes of your narrative. Shot in the vitals, after defenses take 5B 12S, say that the bullet nicked the guys Femoral Artery and he's starting to bleed heavily. Or say that he got shot in the neck and must've grazed something important because the blood is everywhere.

 

You can still narrate and move the shot around, just use the fact that the armor covers the location for the purposes of determining damage.

 

I suppose so. A shot that hits Vitals could, after Defenses, be a "less serious" neck wound than it might otherwise have been. Or it could punch through the armor and do more damage to a less "vital" region than it otherwise would.

[Xavier Onassiss]

Re: Hit Location and armor conundrum

 

The problem is, the description of location 13 "Vitals" is a bit vague to begin with -- it seems like a GM's call as to exactly which 'vital' areas are covered by armor, and some armor suits won't cover them all. If they're all covered, then no problem; location 13 is armored, end of story.

 

Otherwise, I'd rule on exactly which locations the armor covers when the PC's get it. And if a random hit location roll comes up 13, it hits the armor. However, if there's a 'vital' area that's still not covered by armor, then a called shot to that non-armored location (with all the appropriate penalties) should by-pass armor, and should get the modifiers for a 'vitals' hit. But if called shots are common in the campaign, and if they hit on anything like a regular basis, this might not be balanced.

[Tasha]

Re: Hit Location and armor conundrum

 

I strive for consistency. The way I see it, the more thorough and consistent I am in my running and rulings, the easier it will be for me and the players and the more fun will be had all around. It also is more fair. They will be able to know the answer to many of the questions without asking me, and then if there's every an exception they'll take note of it as important because it's an exception.

 

I use Hit Locations in my Dark Champions (Secret Wars) game. Vitals can represent the lower stomach/pelvis area, but I also often treat it as the throat, arteries, etc based upon what I feel makes sense.

 

So far, so good.

 

However, my PCs recently acquired body armor that covers Hit Location 13, which I am in principle fine with. After all, I'm the one that said it covered that Location. But I'm faced with a conundrum now. I feel obligated to treat Vitals as a specific region now, as moving it around in the narration conflicts with the sectional nature of defenses.

 

Thoughts?

 

I have always treated the Vitals location was a chest hit that also hit a major organ like the Heart or Lungs. A "Stomach" shot is actually a shot to the soft tissue below the rib cage (ie Abdomen). That's why most "chest armors cover locations 10-13.

 

The throat shot you were talking about is handled by location 3 a head shot. I know that the head locations are counter-intuitive, but judging from where specific pieces of armor cover the head in FH, one can extrapolate that 5= Top of head, 4= Face, 3= Neck/spine.

 

Hope this helps

Tasha

[RDU Neil]

Re: Hit Location and armor conundrum

 

At some point, years ago, I mapped out the Hit Location as follows.

 

3 - Face

4 - Skull

5- Throat

6 - Hands

7 - Forearm

8 - Upper Arm

9 - Shoulder

10,11 - Chest

12 - Stomach

13 - Groin, Kidneys, Etc.

14,15 - Thigh

16 - Knee

17 - Shin

18 - Foot

 

I think that was how I did it. Worked well, and the only odd bit was the Knee (16 I think) which I thought should have be increased Stun multiple... usually just ruled incapacitation was greater when that applied.

 

Also... the Hit Location chart was great for ranged combat, but I always felt that even the Upper/Middle/Lower elements for HtH combat didn't work so well... though I did use them.

 

Might work for you.