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Dumpshock Forums _ Shadowrun _ Casual brainstorming about hit locations

Posted by: Wounded Ronin May 17 2006, 03:14 AM

Since I'm away from the gaming table for a couple of years I'm using this time to brainstorm and think about how to come back later and run SR3 better.

One idea that I'm toying with is hit locations. In my experience as a GM a lot of times players would want to "shoot him in the leg", or "headshot him", and then there was always a little bit of disgruntlement about how Called Shots technically could EITHER bypass armor OR raise the damage level by one. (So that there isn't really a genuine headshot per se.)

Perhaps introducing hit locations would be kind of flavorful and a bit more intuitive. In most cases this would mean that certain body parts such as the head would be unprotected by socially acceptable armor but on the other hand you wouldn't ever have Fallout-esque bizareness of a shot to the torso magically bypassing armor. The biggest problem of course would be trying to keep the mechanic simple and easy so as to not make combat take too long or get a lot more complicated.

Now, from a perspective of completeness and realism, I think the game Riddle of Steel has the *best* hit location system. The combat engine seems pretty realistic as do the wound effects and there's a great deal of detail. There's even different tables for male and female groin hits. With the male groin hits horizontal stabs or blows are more devastating than with the female groin but the female groin suffers more with vertical stabs or blows. Seriously. That's a lot of detail.

Obviously that would be too much for Shadowrun and it would be a poor patch on the SR combat engine. But how about this? Every time someone is hit they are randomly hit either in the legs, arms, head, or torso. Torso hits are the most probable. The condition monitor fills up as normal (complete with damage scaling) to represent blood loss and shock; perhaps an S wound inflicted to the leg represents a worse bleeder than an S wound to the torso does in the abstract. If someone is shot in the arm for a D wound it means something like their arm is ripped off and the shock makes them fall dazed and incapacitated to the ground. Maybe shots to the head would get a damage level upgrade.

The only difference that this would make over normal shadowrun is that you'd have a certain chance of hitting an unarmored part of the body, such as the head. Called Shots would no longer explicitly either bypass armor or raise the damage level but would isntead enable you to hit the specific body part you wanted. So you could aim for the legs on a guy wearing a vest to bypass his armor, or you could make a called shot to the head and get both an armor bypass and a damage upgrade if the target wasn't wearing a helmet.

Perhaps also if someone took a D wound to a limb and failed the organ loss roll he could just "automatically" lose that limb rather than, say, an eye, just for consistiency.

What do you think? Too much detail, not enough payoff? Or do you think it would be a relatively easy way to make things more dramatic and make injuries more imagineable?

Posted by: mfb May 17 2006, 03:49 AM

i can only scream and cover my horrified face with my hands in abject fear at the mention of hit locations.

the solution i like a lot more is to just add more special effects to called shots. for instance, rather than "i shoot him in the leg", you say "i'm making a called shot to reduce his movement rate." damage is limited to base, and net successes are used to reduce Qui by 1 per success for the purposes of determining movement.

Posted by: Arethusa May 17 2006, 08:02 AM

I can only scream and cover my horrified face with my hands in abject fear at the mention of hit locations— and I like them.

But dear god have these threads been done to death.

In short, it's viable. It can work. It takes a lot of work ahead of time to put together a system that is capable of detail and realism while still being playable, but that is definitely not impossible. Riddle of Steel is good, but most of its design is fairly useless for dealing with ranged combat (also notably useless if you want to play online in basically any medium). In any case, it can be done, but I don't recommend it until you've first cleaned up Shadowrun's rules to fix other glaring fuckups that already make it unreasonably slow.

Run some searches revision and realism and you should find some more detailed discussions. Run some searches for hit locations if you feel particularly emo today.

Posted by: L.D May 17 2006, 08:52 AM

I tried introducing hit location many years ago and while it was fun (specially when one character *always* got hit in the head when doing random shots). The biggest problem is armor. The armor rating in SR is a general armor rating and... it takes some work.

Posted by: nezumi May 17 2006, 01:33 PM

Remember, you can do this, but you will have to practically reinvent the entire combat system (or at least the armor system).

Personally, i would tend to just go with CP2020's friday night firefight. Each area has a number, roll 1d10 to determine where if the person isn't aiming, and keep wound effects simple (-1 qui/running speed for legs, double damage for head, etc.)

Posted by: Kagetenshi May 17 2006, 02:22 PM

*Screams, covers horrified face*

If there's one thing I hate more than hit locations, it's random hit locations.

~J

Posted by: Austere Emancipator May 17 2006, 02:54 PM

QUOTE (nezumi)

Remember, you can do this, but you will have to practically reinvent the entire combat system (or at least the armor system).

"Reinventing the armor system" = giving body armor both a rating and a coverage.

A lot of people do not agree with hit locations, and for them it doesn't matter how much work it requires to introduce them. However, if you do want hit locations, it's hardly a herculean task. Nothing compared to calibers, fixing armor penetration, or other things you may already have considered doing.

Posted by: Shrike30 May 17 2006, 06:45 PM

I didn't really have a problem with the way "headshots" worked out in SR3. Shooting someone in the head isn't reliably fatal... there's lots of parts of your "head" that don't even have anything vitally important in them (like the mouth) which can get hit without causing instantaneous brain death. Hell, bullets will even glance off the skull sometimes, if they hit it at a flat enough angle or don't have enough power when they strike.

If you really wanted to get around the issue in SR3, you could just let your player make a "double" called shot for headshots. The penalty gets applied twice, but it lets you up the damage level AND lets you ignore armor. Only thing that really broke that was the Smartlink II's uberfrightening called shot penalty reduction, and you could say that the normal +4 applied to the "second application" of the called shot rule to that shot.

Posted by: nezumi May 17 2006, 06:57 PM

QUOTE (Austere Emancipator)

QUOTE (nezumi)

Remember, you can do this, but you will have to practically reinvent the entire combat system (or at least the armor system).

"Reinventing the armor system" = giving body armor both a rating and a coverage.

Well... I didn't say it would be hard to reinvent the armor system... Just that it has to be done...

QUOTE

*Screams, covers horrified face*

If there's one thing I hate more than hit locations, it's random hit locations.

Hey, that was pretty neat. So what's wrong with random (or semi-random) hit locations? If you're not aiming, you shoot at the center of mass and see what you're going to hit, right? Sure the chest is the *MOST* likely place you're going to hit, but oftentimes you hit other places. Never having actually fired a weapon at a person before though, I really don't have a lot to go on, though.

Posted by: mfb May 17 2006, 07:28 PM

i'm not against hit locations per se. i think the damage system used in Deadlands is pretty neat, for instance. the thing is, the entire Deadlands damage system is built around hit locations--it's completely integrated. everything from armor to the One-Armed Bandit flaw ties into hit locations.

Posted by: Austere Emancipator May 17 2006, 08:26 PM

QUOTE (nezumi)

Well... I didn't say it would be hard to reinvent the armor system... Just that it has to be done...

I should've just said "You don't need to reinvent shit, just give armor coverage". You don't have to mess with any "system", just state that an armored jacket, for example, covers locations 5-9 or whatever.

Posted by: Shrike30 May 17 2006, 08:57 PM

QUOTE (Austere Emancipator)

You'd probably want to fiddle with the numbers that you get in various locations. Armored Vests and Armored Long Coats in non-hit-location SR have about the same rating... however, one obviously covers more of your body, and should logically be made of a lighter material. You might want to come up with some sort of "conversion guide" to tell you the ratings you're going to get from various construction methods in the areas that are covered.

Posted by: Austere Emancipator May 17 2006, 09:13 PM

With only a few separate pieces of armor (even including the less esoteric options in the Cannon Companion), it's much easier to use common sense than create some formula for conversion. And even if you wiped the whole thing clean and came up with a whole new list of armor types, that's still not reinventing the system, it's just the peripherals and options that have changed.

Posted by: Kagetenshi May 17 2006, 09:32 PM

QUOTE (nezumi)

Hey, that was pretty neat. So what's wrong with random (or semi-random) hit locations?

Disregarding the things I think are wrong with hit locations in general, the reason I despise random hit locations is because they allow things like a twenty-success attack being unable to score a kill because the random table says the shot hit the left big toe or something. Pseudorandom hit locations adjusted by number of successes I have much less of a problem with (though I still don't think hit locations are a good idea).

~J

Posted by: Shrike30 May 17 2006, 09:37 PM

If you generalize it out down to the "arm, leg, torso, head" scale of hit locations (something that easily be rolled on 2d6), it's pretty easy to kill someone if you do enough damage. Your leg shot hits them right at the top of the femur, breaking hip and femur and severing the femoral artery on that side? Yeah, you'd better believe they're out of the fight and bleeding to death...

Posted by: Kagetenshi May 17 2006, 09:43 PM

The fact that the person in question dies is irrelevant—if you so desire, replace the gun with a nerf gun. My objection is to the idea that someone with a whole boatload of successes (the number of which, if you'll note, indicate the overall quality of the shot) can still hit someone in the leg without trying to.

~J

Posted by: Unrest May 17 2006, 09:45 PM

This is the old "too much realism" debate. Frankly when one of my players wants to shoot someone in the leg or head its the same old combat roll. It will affect how the npc reacts, dropping his gun, falling down from a leg wound, but same damage and armour values. Should they realistically be different? Of course though I personally don't want to do any more rolling in combat than I absolutely have to.

Posted by: Shrike30 May 17 2006, 09:56 PM

A system my brother put together let you exchange degrees of success to move a hit from one location to another. In your example with the 20 successes to the leg, drop 4 successes and move the hit to the torso, if the player desires. It's not hard to figure out a system that works.

Posted by: Kagetenshi May 17 2006, 10:02 PM

But it still makes no sense. Why do you suddenly have a worse shot than you had before? The random motions of the other person are already part of the TN and the random nature of the die, where does this second force enter in?

~J

Posted by: Voran May 17 2006, 10:05 PM

GURPs had something like this right? (It's been like over a decade since i played it in college), but I seem to remember ultimately it was more useful to call a shot to the eyes, so you avoid the slight armoring of the skull. At decent skill levels, I recall it being hellaeasy.

The crit tables were fun too. A bastardized version ended up in Fallout, if I recall, where it was also most useful to aim for head/eyes/groin.

When it comes to hit locations, I find I usually stop trying to make a system once I turn it around and pretend I'm an NPC using it on PCs. I'd guesstimate about 50 percent of the time, there's no real reason to NOT aim at a Runner's head. And if for some reason the hit table is made to omit the headshot, I'd go, 50 percent of the time, there's no reason to not shoot someone in the groin. Giggles galore!

Posted by: Austere Emancipator May 17 2006, 10:12 PM

QUOTE (Voran)

When it comes to hit locations, I find I usually stop trying to make a system once I turn it around and pretend I'm an NPC using it on PCs. I'd guesstimate about 50 percent of the time, there's no real reason to NOT aim at a Runner's head.

Odd. In some 3½ years of using hit locations, and called shots to go with those, called shots to the head have been something like 1/200. Less for the NPCs.

Posted by: Shrike30 May 17 2006, 11:40 PM

QUOTE (Kagetenshi)

Uh, you didn't have a shot *at all* until you finished rolling the hit locations dice. It's not like the shot magically gets worse. That's like asking "where does this second force enter in" if the second half of your dice pool comes up all 1s. You suddenly went from having what LOOKED like a decent roll to having a glitch for no apparent reason, if you're going to have the effects of the shot be observable in the middle of dice rolling.

One of the things that we took *out* of the game that let you move your shot around was cover modifiers. Cover essentially provided extra armor (sometimes an awful lot, depending on what it was) to any locations you had under cover. Rather than taking a to-hit penalty to shoot at someone partially behind a single sheet of wallboard, you could just cut loose, not caring about the loose material. If they were mostly covered by a bulkhead, then "walking" the shot onto a location that was actually exposed was a more effective way to handle the situation.

Hit locations of one sort or another essentially add some flavor. They make it so that injuries aren't simply "-2 penalty to actions"... they're a bullet in your leg, or a bad cut across your chest. They make it so that people can put together interesting and amusing armor combinations, making the choice between "long coat or armored vest?" more than a question of whether or not dusters are in style this week. They let you do things like spray an awful lot of lead in someone's general direction, and not have the entire burst either hit or miss that piece of armor he's wearing.

SR was built abstract, and it's more trouble than it's worth to me to come up with a serious hit locations system for it. But having played other games where hit locations actually matter, the system helps me generate more effects, and is designed so that the random aspect of determining where the slug hits is figured into the rolling.

Posted by: ChuckRozool May 17 2006, 11:51 PM

QUOTE (Shrike30)

Shooting someone in the head isn't reliably fatal... there's lots of parts of your "head" that don't even have anything vitally important in them (like the mouth) which can get hit without causing instantaneous brain death. Hell, bullets will even glance off the skull sometimes, if they hit it at a flat enough angle or don't have enough power when they strike.

This cop I used to work with told me about his partner getting shot in the head.

There was some crazy guy with a gun doing what crazy guys do with guns I guess. He and his partner responded to the call, along with other if memory serves.

Long story short, the crazy guy popped off some rounds at the cops. One of these rounds hit his partner square between the eyes. Fortunately for his partner the pistol was a .22 caliber, and the bullet was only embedded in his skin.

I think his pants might have wieghed a bit more too.

Now back to your regulary scheduled thread topic.

Posted by: Wounded Ronin May 18 2006, 11:05 PM

I've read through this thread and thought some more overnight about the things people brought up. I've refined my thoughts on using a pain-free relatively simple hit location system based on what people have been saying.

1.) Armor would have to be given coverage stats. I'm thinking the locations should be very simple: legs, arms, torso, head, and that's it.

2.) Any attack which hits with only 1 net success, or 0 for melee combat where ties go to the attacker, is considered to have hit either the arms or the legs (50% chance of either). Hits to the arms or legs fill up the condition monitor as normal and a hit to the arms or legs that fills the condition monitor to D will "drop" the person being hit. The rationale is blood loss and shock that is accompanied by traumatic damage to the limb. It's like in Soldier of Fortune II where if you fire the M590 into someone's leg at close range the leg gets severed and the person is "killed" while blood pumps out in a heartbeat pattern from the stump. Yes, it was a leg shot, but it really traumatized the person's system and he is down.

3.) Any attack with at least 2 net successes (one damage level upgrade) is considered to have hit either the torso or the head. After the hit has been calculated roll 1d6. If the result is a 6 then it was a headshot but otherwise it was a body shot. A headshot gets a "free" damage level upgrade.

4.) Called shots, therefore, still exist; you can call a shot to the head, take the +4 TN penalty, and count on getting the damage upgrade. You can also call a shot to, say, the leg, if you wanted to have a better chance of injuring someone who is wearing a vest and a helmet. A shot with a lot of successes to the unarmored leg would be more effective than the same shot to the armored torso since both leg hits and body hits fill the same condition monitor.

Is this method pain-free enough, do you think?

Posted by: jklst14 May 18 2006, 11:19 PM

I've given up on hit locations but when I played SR3, I did try these rules with some success:

http://matrix.dumpshock.com/raygun/rules/andy/hitloc1.html

Posted by: Kagetenshi May 18 2006, 11:45 PM

QUOTE (Shrike30 @ May 17 2006, 06:40 PM)

In SR3 your shot can only get worse than your prediction as you keep rolling—the dice you already rolled define your minimum quality of roll.

Regardless, though, the issue is that successes (or hits, for the heretics among us) determine the quality of the shot. What reason is there, barring issues with cover, for a high-quality shot to hit someone in the arm if it wasn't specifically aimed there? To, as you say, not have a shot at all until the hit location gets rolled requires completely redefining what successes mean in terms of a ranged attack. If that's what's happening, what do they mean now?

~J

Posted by: ChuckRozool May 19 2006, 04:56 AM

What if you just used the battletech hit location chart, that way you keep it in the family so to speak

No, but seriously the Battletech hit location would totally work. Make center, left, and right torso results one hit location, torso. Rolling a 12 gets a head shot and you apply the the called shot modifier. If your roll results in a Torso (critical hit), I think you'd have to roll snake eyes for that, then apply the armor piercing rules. Then you use Austere Emancipator's idea of X armour covers X locations.

And there ya go... simple.