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Roll for Hit location or Call Shot


steph

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I generally use Hit Locations in most Heroic games. Our basic rule of thumb is games either use Knockback or Hit Locations. Although when I run convention/demo games, I usually skip Hit Locations.

 

The one advantage with having Hit locations is that armor can be built per location, so you don't have to roll armour activation, just see what type of armor is on each location :D.

That's the main reason I like Hit Locations in fantasy. In fact, the very first FH game I played (c1986?), my rogue/fencer/conman got in a swordfight with an armored knight, and my rapier couldn't penetrate his heavy armor; but his legs were more lightly-armored, so I started targeting them and was (eventually) able to hamstring him. It was something so different from every D&D game I'd played I fell in love with Hero then and there.

 

Technically, 13 is "vitals" not "genitals" and I've always understood that to be anything from a hit to the solar plexus to the heart.  Somewhere really painful and dangerous other than the head.  I mean it hurts a lot but you're not gonna take x2 body from a kick to the pills.  You might want to die, but you're not in serious danger.

I agree re vitals vs genitals. But it's worth pointing out that taking Killing Damage to the nads is going to result in a LOT of blood loss...

 

One device I used to allow is for people to adjust toward a target.  So you took a -2 straight OCV penalty, and tried to hit a target.  For every 2 points you hit by, you moved what you rolled to the target location.

...

It worked pretty well but since 13 is relatively easy to roll on 3d6 and too near the center bell curve, I had to assign a -3 penalty for targeting vitals; it was too easy to move to.

I use a similar rule, but the players have to spend a Hero Point to do so; since they have a limited supply of Hero Points, they have to be choosy about when to spend it. In practice my players use it more to pull away from hands/feet towards chest, rather than to heads/vitals. Hmm...now I'm thinking of increasing the cost to move to head or vitals, maybe is costs 3 for 1 instead of 2 for 1? I'd have to play around with it, but I like the idea.

 

Not that these aren't useful and valuable observations (they are) but I wonder how well they apply to ranged attacks?

I don't think anyone wants to propose two different hit location tables, one for ranged and one for non-ranged!

I had the same thought: hit locations in a swordfight are going to be much different than in a gun fight, or even than a fist fight. Similarly, a punch in the "heart" isn't typically going to do much more damage than another chest punch, so in that case treating 13 as genitals sorta makes sense. But no, I don't really want to come up with 3 (or more) different tables, so I think we can just call this one "close enough for gaming." ;)

 

This is why I consider giving everyone the ability to block ranged attacks by default a ridiculous error, by the way.

Well the idea is that they have to have a reasonable/plausible method of blocking. For most heroic characters, blocking spears or arrows empty-handed is not plausible. But if they're holding a bench or a heavy book or something they can try to block with, that's different and very in-genre. GM judgement and common sense applies.

 

As for PSLs, there a Word Of Steve saying that while you can buy PSLs to reduce Called Shot penalties, you can't buy PSLs to "pull" rolled Hit Locations. I don't like this in principle, and have allowed it for some characters...but again it can be easily munchkined if you're not careful.

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