Does being able to target different parts of your opponent's

Depends on the game.

It works in more gritty, realistic stuff, or really gratuitous action like Evangelion, but for more over the top or dramatic systems it's often needless granularity that can be handwaved and blended into other stuff.

>>49124183

This.

>>49124152
Is amusing, just look at DF.

It adds depth only if ALL of the following are true:
>There is no one hit location that is always the best to shoot (e.g. the head for an instant kill)
>It can't be used to bypass another wound system (e.g. "I don't have to knock off all its 300hp. I shoot it in the head for an instant kill)
>Does shooting the center of mass and "missing" by a little bit allow you to hit other parts?

I've never seen a combat system that adequately solved any of those, much less all of them.

>>49124282
I always knew real life had no depth.

>>49124324
It really doesn't.

>>49124282
40k rpg hit locations?

>>49124282
>There is no one hit location that is always the best to shoot (e.g. the head for an instant kill)
In GURPS, the Skull is the most damaging part to hit but also very difficult to hit. The vitals are a second best and somewhat easy to hit, but it's also usually very well armored. Many other locations have especially good tactical reasons for targeting. Certain damage types perform better against certain location.
>It can't be used to bypass another wound system (e.g. "I don't have to knock off all its 300hp. I shoot it in the head for an instant kill)
Not true in GURPS
>Does shooting the center of mass and "missing" by a little bit allow you to hit other parts?
Slightly off, but in GURPS, if one aims for a slightly specific part of a target (vitals instead of torso, knee instead of leg, eye instead of face) and misses by (usually) one, they hit the bigger part instead.

>>49124152
All systems I like have the feature.

>>49124152
It should be easy and quick to do if you want to do it, but not assumed by default.

I usually just rule it as doing a bit less damage and giving the enemy a status effect.

>>49124438
It's almost as if GURPS is the master race or something.

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>>49125169
It is.
Then you can also ditch hit locations and decree everything goes to the torso.

I'm putting hit locations in my homebrew horror system, but that's because I'm doing a rules-light system with more space spent on wound tables than on other rules.

Since a few of the monsters can't actually die, I'd like to give players options to take out limbs and such.

[Spoiler]Since the system is HPless, I can also "punish" characters for failed combats with wounds off the table that won't kill them.

I'm hoping that I'll get a point where someone says "with all these injuries shouldn't i be dead?" and I'll be able to respond with "Yes." [/spoiler]

>>49125861
Fuck spoiler tags.

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It does give the fighter types something to do. A big problem with caster/fighter divide is that the fighter in a simple hp pool system is simply working down a number while the caster got spells to bypass the HP pool and instantly force "I win" conditions on the opponent.

In a system with target locations, a mage can paralyze you, but fighter can disarm you by cutting your hand of and so fourth.

I wouldn't say that in itself adds depth though. It just levels the playing field. Depth is trickier. Depth is what you get when two seemingly equal options aren't equal when considering changing factors. A good sample of combat depth is how large swinging swords in Dark Souls get stuck on stuff, so when you move in a narrow space, you want to switch to something with a stabbing movement. Meanwhile, if you fight many weaker foes or a foe that is hard to hit you want the swinging attack again since its better at dealing with such situations than the precise stabbing movement.

>>49124282
The 40k RPGS hit all these points well enough. The only difference from what you're suggesting is that hit location is randomized based on the number generated by reversing your to-hit roll. It's actually very simple and doesn't bog the game down at all, I feel.

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>>49124438

One of my favorite hit locations in GURPS is the face, because it means I get to force stun checks even if I only dealt one damage. When I made a boxing character I went for the face constantly since my damage and skill was too low to go for the skull.

Meanwhile my buddy had a cutting weapon, so he often started to go for the neck when he wanted big boy damage.

Do you play FASA games?

If yes, yes.
If no, no.

>>49125995

There's some flash game I played a while back that exemplified this problem to me.

You could hit all four limbs, torso, and head. Armor pieces added HP (200 min) to these body sections (50-70hp?). Wounds made you bleed and lose torso HP.

Thing is, losing an arm just disabled the weapon in that arm. Losing the head was fatal. There was never any reason not to go for the head. Sure, 10% extra chance to miss, but it's still three times faster than depleting the hp any other way.

>>49124152
It's actually really amusing in Fate (not exactly your tacticool simulator) because the Consequences can be beautifully visceral if you go the gory route.
The system puts the details in your face again every time you make use of the Consequence, or becomes realized when the adversary can no longer perform an action because it would make 0 sense for a broken leg to assist in jumping.

>>49124240
the recent update made it so much better becuse now a serious blunt attack also affects near-by body parts
>smack someone so hard in the face their neck snaps
dam son

>>49124152
No not really.

Cause all you get is the guy who minmaxed and always targets the vitals. No depht at all.

>>49124183
pretty much perfect this

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>>49127225
>Target body: 100% accuracy, 100% damage
>Target vitals: 50% accuracy, 200% damage
>Target head: 33.33% accuracy, 300% damage
Min-max this, assholes.

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>>49124183
First post, truest post.
I would also add that it depends on the pace of gameplay. If the game already has a lot of crunch and modifiers then hit location can slow it down even more. It also depends on whether hit location is calculated with every attack or only aimed attacks.

>>49127225
Well that's where body armour comes in. The first thing most combatants are going to try and get is a helmet and torso protection. The vitals are super important so they are naturally going to be the hardest to damage.
If the setting is sword and shit focused parrying can also be an option. Most swordsmen are naturally going to protect their chest and head.
Or if you want quick and dirty :>>49127312

>>49127312
always go body to avoid standard deviation unless the extra damage will be needed.

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>>49127312
>not knowing about math
look here
purple is 1/3
green is 1/2

purple only has a ~70% chance to have hit by it's 3rd swing


green...

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>>49127405
green has a ~76% chace to have hit by its second hit

body hits every time
body is the best choice

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>>49127426
>>49127405
Here's what I think about that, you no-risk-taking lala homo man.

>>49124152
It allows nut shots

Clearly it is the best

>>49127018

Always consider the atmosphere your mechanics give your game.

>>49124183 gets it.

In my homebrew horror (that I'm supposed to be writng for right now), I'm keeping things rules-light. I'm making an exception for two things.

One is guns. I'm putting in 3 different revolver calibres. Why? Because i want players to have to count each round. Box of ammo? Great! Shame it's 9mm Makarov and you've just got a .38 revolver.

The other is injuries. I want players to wince when they read their injury descriptions. If someone gets their leg slashed up, I want to be able to mention the blood soaking through the bandages an hour later. I want players to be scared of combat. Not because they don't want to lose hit points. Not even because they're afraid of character death. I want them to fear having nails driven through their collarbones, or having their tongues ripped from their mouths.

>>49127465
enjoy losing 70% of even fights

>>49127548
>vitals
>50% of there being no difference
>25% chance of being worse
>25% chance of being better
I'm liking the odds all around.

>>49127312
Now let's make it funnier
>Torso : no bonus to hit, no bonus to damage
>Vitals: -3 to hit, impaling and piercing damage wounding modifiers increases to x3, tight beam burning to x2, attacks with wounding modifiers other than these 3 can not target vitals, attacks that miss by 1 hit the torso instead.
>Face: -5 to hit (from the front, -7 from the back), knockdown rolls at -5, uses the special head crit table, corrosion wounding modifier increases to x1.5, major wound blinds an eye, attacks that miss by 1 hit the torso instead.
>Skull: -7 to hit (from the front, -5 from the back), extra damage resistance of 2, all wounding modifiers increase to x4, uses the special head crit table, toxic damage isn't affected by these things I listed, attacks that miss by 1 hit the torso instead.
Good luck.
Feints+deceptive targeted attacks make it easy, if you can pull it off.

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I always like had aces and eights handle it.

The book comes with several silhouettes of various shooting profiles and a plastic transparency.

You place the transparency over where you want to shoot. The higher you roll the closer you get to a Bullseye. So it pays to try to get centre of mas but you can try to lone ranger it if you want.

It's quick simple and visual. You always know exactly where that bullet end up.

>>49127754
I like it.

That is one advantage of small, focused games: you can tailor the entire experience around one genre or theme.

Imagine making a template for each creature in the monster manual (that's not immune to crits). Then depending on how you slice it, different transparencies for each weapon, or class, or whatever.

I'm assuming the game you mentioned just does "shoot dude with gun" for combat. Because it doesn't have that breadth of creature variety, it just has more depth in that one mechanic.


Maybe I'm reading too much into it.

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>>49127754
>>49127836
It's straight up old school Western.

So to expand let's say the player is in a straight up showdown. He wants to aim centre mass and places the template over the figure as shown

He rolls d20 and adds his skill, he gets a 17, that means he scored a hit in the inner ring. He then draw from a set of playing cards to work out what section of that ring he hit.

He could still by all means still not hit, depending on the card draw. But for example sake let's say he gets lucky and draws a eight of clubs. In this case he would've scored a headshot.

It's thematic and visceral, great for playing westerns. But I can't see why you couldn't convert it for other genres.

You'll just have to make up your own targeting silhouettes.

>>49124183
First post best post. It's great in Dark Heresy for instance, you need to shoot to not kill sometimes and wounding someone enough to make them surrender is a viable tactic if your GM isn't a dick and the target isn't insane. It's harder to do than just aiming for centre mass, but it's still within reason to specifically aim at someone's arm to disarm them or at their leg to hobble them. For normal attacks as well, you're most like to hit the body (which is where most armour covers anyway) with small chances of the limbs and even smaller of the head.

>>49127836
You're not reading into it too much at all. Abstract mechanics cover more cases by nature. Specific mechanics cover fewer cases, but often do a better job. There's a reason why D&D (with its enormous variety of enemies) sticks with the legacy AC/HP instead of a more middle ground wounds/soak/etc. system.

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>>49127879
Aargh I mean 8 of spades! A 17 and a eight of clubs in the picture shown would be a Robocop style between the legs shot.

Nevertheless you get the idea. It lends its self well for ridiculous Dead shot style stuff

>>49127879
Thanks anon. I'll keep an eye on this one.

>>49127917
The system I'm currently writing gives players one action point per hour of sleep. That's because it takes place over a short timeframe, and I've got a hidden mechanic where more brushes with death = higher chance of being woken by nightmares.

This system won't work anywhere but in short timescale closed circle horror, but that's cool because that's what I'll be running.

>>49127972
Glad to help. Do post more about your idea I'm interested.

Coincidentally aces and eights has a very detailed action economy systerm as well. Stuff like drawing and aiming in one comes with various penalties depending on the weapon and your skill level.

That's off at that level of detail would just get in the way of most games, but for something like horror game or a western where combat won't last more than a couple of rounds it's the bomb.

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Forgot pic.

>>49124152
I think it adds depth, but a system should either be only called shots or no called shots. Where it gets clunky is when a system wants to do called shots and have HP. The added effect of the called shot usually doesn't outweigh the penalty you incure by taking it, especially when you do enough damage to kill something reliably.

Now I also feel that called shots are better for games that have have less combat, because the combat they do have can afford to be more in depth and the repercussions for being injured would generally have more repercussions. But if you regular fight things, especially things of little consequence (hordes of goblins, enemy soldiers, villianious henchmen, etc) then called shots can easily become cumbersome and tedious.

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The assumption that every attack will 'devolve" to Skull and Vitals hits assumes that

1. All combat is about being lethal to the maximum.
2. No opponents will be wearing armor (body armor and helmets are not exactly outrageous).
3. All opponents will be extra vulnerable in these locations (robots and several flavors of undead simply are not extra-vulnerable to damage against conventionally human physiological weaknesses).
4. Every PC is a combat master.
5. Weapons to capitalize on these targeted attacks will always be available.

>>49126058
If a system leads to characters always choosing the same location in a fight, the hit location system isn't working.

>"I shoot the guard in the head"
>"hit. roll damage"
>"alright, 15 damage"
>"hmm, he is still alive, even through you put a fucking .45 bullet through his brain"

I prefer to handle location based damage as a consequence of different attacks, rather than a pick and choose.

>>49125995
Problem: Anything the fighter can do, the mage STILL can do, just simpler and better with magic.

You cut off a hand? He just shoots a fireball into their mouth.

>>49128517
>Meanwhile in GURPS Land.
>Colt 1911 does 2d pi+ damage.
>With average damage, you'd do 20 damage to the brain, enough to put an average joe under -1x HP, requiring a roll to stay alive, another to stay conscious (with a -10 due to being hit in the fucking head and another -1 due to being at -1xHP).

>>49128673
>having to do things with pi to play your game

no thx

>>49127879

Does anyone know if this is convertable to Roll20 use? I could never find good usable versions of the silhouette or the targetting grid.

>>49124282
>Play Fallout
>With mediocre skill in Small/Big Guns/Energy Weapons
>Go for body shots since hitting the head is hard
>Going for legs or disarm is worth it

>Get high skill
>Go for head for crit multiplier, unless its a Deathclaw

>>49127754
I think 40K had something similar for vehicles. Rogue Trader-era. Never used it though.

>>49124282
>I have never found BRP, literally the first game to ever have hit locations ever made with rules drawn back to the 70s.

>>49128704
It just means "large piercing". That'd be 1.5x times the damage on the torso.

>>49128480
if i punch you in the nose and you get fucked up from it every time, is that bad to repeat?
simulation vs a board game
not everything is supposed to be equal

>>49124152
It's an RPG, not a video game. If your player says he wants to aim for specific body part he definitely should be able to do so. However, in most cases it doesn't need a whole page of complex rules for it, all it takes is for GM to make the attack correspondingly harder to succeed and describe a correct effect if it succeeds.

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>>49128562

Traditionally, casters pay for that strength in another resource. Huge fatigue drain, risk of warp fuckery or spell slots. Magic is usually stronger though because of poor balance.

I play GURPS though, where equipment is massively overpowered, so a guy you is really good at using equipment will also be massively powerful. In my current campaign, the mage's best spell is literally "shotgun blast to the face"

>>49128480

I said the location was my favorite, not my best. In the same campaigns I also broke fingers and crushed legs. My buddy often went for torso shots because of accuracy penalties (and because he usually didn't need the bonus damage from necking a bitch).

>>49128480
There are rules for gaining a reputation for going after a specific hit location over and over again, making it easier for people to avoid your attacks ("Hey its Eye-Stabbing Pete, I won't be surprised when he goes for my eyes!"); optionally, this can also happen in a single encounter -- if you drop a bandit with a decapitating blow to the neck, you can bet your ass that his buddies are going to be on the lookout for that. You also attack specific hit locations by taking a penalty to your attack roll; if something else is eating up your high skill (poor fighting conditions, your opponent having high defenses, wanting to use other types of fancy moves, etc.) you may have to go for a lesser hit location.

You could also houserule in something like "Need to Evaluate before targeting a specific hit location; otherwise it's a torso hit or you have to roll for random hit location."

>>49129931
>shotgun
That's because GURPS has no rules or help on scaling magic with TL. I mean sure, you'll always have all the utility of magic, but as far as damage go, you'll be outpaced very fast. It's kinda sad how a mage would need a buttload of point to deal as much damage as fast and accurately as a guy with 12 points on a guns skill and a 1000G$ gun.

>>49130186
One could argue that it's only a problem with campaigns using the Magic system, which is very much set in stone.The other systems are more customizable and could keep up.

>>49130254
It's also the case with Sorcery. Not sure about RPM, but I'm guessing it'd end up costing a lot too.

>>49124152
>GURPS Fans and tRoS Fans aim at the same man
So who are the GURPS fans and who the tRoS fans?

>>49130343
By default RPM is not about dealing fucktons of damage, so I don't think it would be fair to compare them by that metric, anyways.

>>49130532

GURPS fags goes for vitals
TRoS fags goes for memes

>>49130186
>>49130254
>>49130658

As a caster, it's usually best to stick to maledictions. Don't shoot fireballs. Burn insides.

>>49130186
I subscribe to the D&D philosophy of "if your wizard is trying to outdamage the fighter, you're wasting your spellslots."

>>49130721
also possibly statting out your direct damage 'spells' as innate attacks or similar using the 'mana sensitive' limitation - sure, it'll cost more than learning a spell, but you'll have a reliable source of damage that doesn't require FP out the ass and can have neat effects like rapid fire.

>>49131004

Why kill your foe when you can turn him into a dog?

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>>49131004

Playing a glorious EXPLOSIONS wizard is dope though

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>>49124152
It doesn't detract too much from Anima. Mostly because the attack penalty is easy to slot into the equation.

>>49133506
>penalty against humanoids
Did they ever put out a chart for quadrupeds?

>>49133657
No. Feeling it's a mistranslation, as the Core book is rife with them.

>>49133750
I don't think it's a mistranslation, given that Core Exxet has that column's title as 'Penalizador contra humanoides'.

>>49133799
Okay, then they never released an actual table.
Still, that's why GMs exist, to do their best guess.
Like -20 for a wing. And reducing the penalties against HUGE things(Gaira/C'iel dragons, etc), of course.

>>49133851
>HUGE things
This is why DR exists.

>>49128111
Well with what I'm writing, I don't expect combat to last more than a couple rounds. Monsters go down easy, but they don't stay down and damage doesn't go away (ever).

Since each fight is short and deliberate, I want my players to have to consider the impact of each attack. Hence, hit locations.

>>49128157
Like anon said, being forced to make called shots on each spider in the swarm kills pacing.

>>49128341
IRL combat isn't just skull and vitals hits because most soldiers aren't skilled enough to pull them off consistently. If you want to make a "realistic" game, then you need to account for the difficulty of hitting a moving target with a weapon.

If you can consistently pull off kill shots on your opponents, maybe it's time to bring in better opponents. Maybe not ones with more HP, but ones that make better use of cover.

>>49130186

It does have rules for scaling with TL, such as Draw Power, but the default assumption is that you have better things to do with magic than focus on raw damage.

Missile Shield makes you invulnerable to ranged kinetic weapons. That's great at any TL.

Utter Dome will let you tank a nuke, and modern knowledge would let you use it in interesting ways.

Technomancer has things like the Ghost Dynamic Laser, Elemental Rifles, Holo-Ghosts, Genetic Magic, and Guided Fireballs, as well as Teleport Artillery and so on.

>>49130343

In RPM, damage up to TL-appropriate for a hand-held weapon is a Lesser Effect, and therefore pretty cheap. Adding a duration or AoE to that doesn't make it a Greater effect - so you're looking at a spell that hits everyone in the area in the face with a rifle bullet, for five rounds being something a decent caster can reasonably prepare as a Charm.

>>49125861
Sounds like Nemesis.

>>49125891
just highlight it and press CTRL+S

>>49132543
Gate magic is where it's at. Why deal damage if you can teleport their balls to Hell for half an hour?

>>49124152
tl;dr; yes it does
excuse the unnecessary anecdote but i've been dying to tell it.
>party arrived at an undead ridden village and followed the largest blood puddles
>arrived at an underground crypt with some more undead inside
>clean it with relative ease, just got us a little tired
>on the final room there's a skeleton sitting on a wooden throne resting its arms on a sword
>what could go wrong, we burn the throne and attack it
>skeleton rebuilds itself, all lights go out magically and fires put out
>I get a penalty if nobody's watching because extrovert
>we panic, run, fall and crawl out of the crypt and the darkness effect
>rest and figure we better look around the village for every other possible option
>find an orphaned child hiding in the church
>eventually have to get over it and deal with the crypt
>retrieve what we came for and head back
>arrive at the woods, where the faun that "hired" us was
>he tells us all about how he is supposed to stay there forever guarding a cursed sword
>while that and other shit happens, the child wanders off
>surprise, the child grabbed the sword and is now some crona/queen of fairies bloodthirsty hybrid
>2/3 of the party like the child, decide to aim for the arm holding the sword
>the battle drags on because it's hard to aim for a floating kid's hand
>the kid cuts off my hand in the process
>after im done crying on the ground i throw a dagger at her hand
>actually hit hard enough for her to drop the sword
>caster tries to stick my hand back into my arm
>faun says the kid is still cursed and will go mad if kept away from the sword
>fuck it, we've gone this far already
>"grab" the sword with my severed hand, accept it's pact
>warrior kicks it away from me, hand still attached to it
>also grabs it with a lack of self control
>still don't know if the curse jumps from host to host or affects everyone

so yeah, it added risks and rewarded us with a good story.

although
>is it just needless complexity?
we played anima

>>49134042
Well yeah. That, and to slightly mitigate Mr. DELEVI DEUS THIRD IMPACT Technician's "I HIT FOR 500 DAMAGE BEFORE ROLLING MY ATTACK AT +200" nonsense. Even if that 500 goes up to 1000 because it's covering more than half the monster.

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>>49140185
I fucking adore that the capstone attack is "I initiate third impact on your face, bitch, whatchoo gunna do sucka".

>>49140386
It is pretty neat. Wish I could make a character that is working towards that, but ForeverGM not that I mind terribly, I'm told that I'm not half bad and better at it than orignalGM was, by originalGM himself.

>>49128517
I had that happen in a Spycraft D20 game. It was an absolutely critical shot that had to be made to keep the guards from having a chance to radio out a warning.

By the rolls, the mook took a 7.62x51mm clean to the headbox, but due to a shitty damage roll he somehow managed to not only survive it, but survive it conscious.

That was where Rule 0 comes into play, and the GM just said "nope, fuck that."

>>49136931
>If you can consistently pull off kill shots on your opponents, maybe it's time to bring in better opponents. Maybe not ones with more HP, but ones that make better use of cover.

It's the GM's Dilemma. One can easily start using counter-snipers, but then you have to deal with players whining about being insta-gibbed by a shooter than is a mile away.

It's supposed to be fun. Players enjoy being heros. If the GM enjoys just "a big rock falls on you..." every time the player goes all Neo on your campaign, you're not going to have players very long.

>>49127582
Math doenst work like this. Its a mistake I usually did too.
As some example rolling a coin two times and having to get, tails on ONE of the rolls, doenst mean you have 100% chance of rolling tails.
You dont add 50%+50%

PS: I am not the math guy replying to you

>>49124324
Shooting at point blank in the head or upper body is ridiculously unbalanced, 99% of the opponents are helpless against this attack unless they're faster.

>>49128480
The only practical reason a boxer may not repeatedly try to punch someone in the face is that the other guy is shielding it because he knows everyone goes for the face.

>>49124152
I personally like it. Shooting the enemy's leg or weapon arm gives it a little more of a tactical feel.

Or going for head shots. Mo'fukken Buddha Heads man

>>49124152
>Taking out the wizards arms to stop him from casting spells

>Shooting the assassin in the legs to stop her escaping.