Hit Locations, too high or just right?

[Beriadan]

I have been having an argument with one of my players ever since I introduced him to the game. His argument is that the OCV penalty for called shots on the Hit Location chart are too high, and I argue they are just right. I was wondering what everyone else had to say on the subject.

[Steve Long]

Re: Hit Locations, too high or just right?

 

This seems to be an attempt to start a conversation about an aspect of the rules, so I've moved it to the Discussion board where anyone can reply.

[Nolgroth]

Re: Hit Locations, too high or just right?

 

I always thought that they are too high myself. Shooting the head or a hand is more challenging, but not as much as the chart indicates. When you add Range modifiers to the equation, it can become almost impossible to hit some locations that are really not that hard to hit. Personally, I consider a -4 about the highest I would go for any general area. For -8, I would consider that something very precise. A single eye or digit (toe or finger) would be the level of precision at that penalty.

 

Now that doesn't mean that I don't play with the RAW, but it is one of those things I've considered house-ruling.

[CrosshairCollie]

Re: Hit Locations, too high or just right?

 

Like I said in the other thread, they may not be 'realistic' (for a given value of realistic, considering that OCV and DCV are abstract qualities), but they seem well-balanced, which is more important.

[Beriadan]

Re: Hit Locations, too high or just right?

 

A different friend of mine purposed a good idea. He wants half penalty for hit locations, so I set them at half. Then all the parties adversaires take advantage of this to show all my players this is a bad idea. I'm going to do this on the next game I play with them, see if it works.

[GoldenAge]

Re: Hit Locations, too high or just right?

 

Like I said in the other thread' date=' they may not be 'realistic' (for a given value of realistic, considering that OCV and DCV are abstract qualities), but they seem well-balanced, which is more important.[/quote']

Agreed! It wouldn't take a character long or many experience points to load up a specific attack geared toward head shots via combat skills (especially on a focus). The relatively low cost of OCV and Skill Levels added to existing maneuvers like Braced require that the significant rewards of called shots (Impairing, Disabling, extra damage) are balanced out by high modifiers.

Now, I know of at least a half-dozen herophiles on these boards who could actually run the numbers on this. I'm not one of them. However, I do have decades of constant experience with HERO and I've been quite happy with the existing modifiers.