Garrotte and Choke Hold: Follow-Up Questions

[Steve]

Thuggee is a villainous master of Lua (Hero System Martial Arts, page 52).

 

Among his repertoire of abilities, he knows the following:

 

Crab Throat Pinch (Choke Hold)    4 points

Use Art With Garotte    1 point

 

Armed with a garrotte, he attacks Target Man from behind with his Choke Hold maneuver and succeeds in hitting.

 

From your last answer, Thuggee does not get to add the Choke Hold maneuver damage to his garrotte damage.

 

Okay, but I'm just trying to understand what he has gotten for his five point expenditure.

 

Is it that he's able to hit the head with only -2 OCV using his Choke Hold maneuver instead of the -8 OCV for a called shot to the head?

 

If he hits, does he get the location multiplier for damage?

[Steve Long]

For his 4 points, he's gotten a Choke Hold maneuver. For his +1 point, he's basically gotten nothing, since you can't add damage to a garrote that way. I suppose there might be some benefit from the OCV/DCV modifiers, but the simplest answer is "Steve wasn't thinking and shouldn't have included Garrote as a Weapon Element for any style."

 

Generally speaking, a character only gets the Hit Location damage multiplier for a location if he takes the full OCV penalty for doing so. That’s why “Must Target Head” is a Limitation; it requires you to do something disadvantageous to use the power/weapon. Choke Hold automatically assumes it hits the head without requiring a character to take a -8 OCV penalty, so there’s no damage multiplier. (This really isn’t any different than a player saying, “My character punches Dr. Destroyer in the face!” but just making a normal Attack Roll and damage roll — the description is a “special effect” with no rules effect.) A garrote still suffers the -8 penalty to hit the head, and thus gets the damage multiplier (assuming the GM’s using the Hit Location rules at all).