Hit Locations or No Hit Locations

[Old Man]

25 minutes ago, Gauntlet said:

 

I definitely have to agree. Now, yes, a head shot will do a lot more damage, but if you keep missing then it does absolutely nothing. If you hit the chest at least you are doing some real damage, not just hopeful damage.

 

Yes, although it's situational--if chest defenses are high enough then there's no point targeting that location.  Indeed, that's what I like most about the hit location mechanic: it gives high-OCV-low-damage characters a plausible means of defeating heavily armored adversaries.

 

If there's one thing I don't like about the way hit location works, it's that if you miss your intended hit location, you have no chance of hitting your target anywhere.  Which is necessary for game balance but isn't how it works IRL.  It's also not really realistic for melee combat where you are way more likely to hit your opponent in the arms or shoulders than anywhere else.  But then that starts to bleed into how blocking works, and risks opening Pandora's can of worms.

[Hugh Neilson]

1 hour ago, Christopher R Taylor said:

 

Technically accurate, but you couldn't call shots.  What I described was just a method of determining stun, instead of using d6-1 multiplier.

 

Unquestionably - just using hit locations to determine the Stun Multiple works fine.

[rravenwood]

On 6/29/2024 at 6:24 PM, Old Man said:

It scarcely slows the game down--one extra roll

 

And if to-hit and hit location are just rolled together (3 dice of one color, 3 dice of a different color), then it's not really any extra time at all.  If the attack roll misses, just ignore the hit location dice.  (And doesn't rolling 6D6 just feel like more fun than 3D6?)

[Gauntlet]

11 hours ago, rravenwood said:

 

And if to-hit and hit location are just rolled together (3 dice of one color, 3 dice of a different color), then it's not really any extra time at all.  If the attack roll misses, just ignore the hit location dice.  (And doesn't rolling 6D6 just feel like more fun than 3D6?)

 

Though depending on your players, you might want to make sure that they use different color dice to determine which 3d6 roll is which.

[rravenwood]

13 hours ago, Gauntlet said:

Though depending on your players, you might want to make sure that they use different color dice to determine which 3d6 roll is which.

That’s what I meant by “3 dice of one color, 3 dice of a different color”.  🙂  And of course which color is which roll has to be declared first (and should be the same every time - even better if everyone uses the same color for at least one of the two 3D6 rolls.)

[Gauntlet]

Ahhhh, someone else who has run games at conventions. 🙃

[Duke Bushido]

If you are still gathering data:

 

Rarely.

 

I only tend to use them to achieve a particular from and gritty feel, most typically involving tracking individual wounds, impairment, etc, simply because without including all that as well, the hit location chart can be reduced to "roll again to determine your damage multiplier," as the location is technically unimportant without location-related consequences.

 

If I am just looking to up the lethality of the game without tracking that level of detail, I play anything but HERO.  Traveller has an excellent "bullets really are dangerous" feel,to it, for example.

 

 

[Ninja-Bear]

I never got to use this idea yet. I had an idea to avoid Act Rolls.  I was going to have everyone fill out armor on hit locations. I was going to roll on the hit location just to see if the armor is there or not. However I was not going to adjust damage. I feel it should be less binary than ACT Roll.