Tuesday, July 02, 2013

Hit Locations and Combat Effects

Some alternate ideas to consider for damage, either for people creating their own system or for houseruling an existing game:

1. One model I've seen is a multiplier for severity in hit locations, like the body is x1, the arms or legs are x2, the head is x3. It simply uses math to make hits on certain body parts "matter" more. You could combine that with a per-location hit chart as well I'd guess.

2. Another model uses modifiers but for "hit points", so the body might get x3 to take or even soak damage, while arms might get x2 and head gets x1, so the body has the most resistive wound levels. You could probably also combine or derive this from the character's Stamina, etc.

3. Savage Worlds does something similar, adding +2 damage to limb hits and +4-6 for smaller/more sensitive targets, though this is more for called shots than random hit locations.

4. Warhammer Fantasy Role Play has hit locations (head, right arm, left arm, body, right leg, left leg) but all damage is still applied to the main Wound pool, but each location may have different levels of armor, which can change the damage inflicted, but not the effects AFTER being inflicted.

5. You might consider "effects-based" results as your primary combat results from various types of hits or locations, so instead of focusing on the body parts themselves, they can be interpreted or mapped to what effect an attack has. Say if you do a certain amount of damage or maybe the hit is 5 over what you might say is your 'average' damage roll, that would make the hit a "Good" hit, 10 over would be "Great", etc. These could have different effects, like "-2 to Movement until fully healed", "Drops Weapon", etc. It could be specific as just mentioned, or you could just have a random effect table also.

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