With all the talk and some confusion over cyberlimbs, armor ratings, etc... would it make more sense to just incorporate a simple hit location chart into the rules to cover where a hit/shot actually lands?

Does anyone out there already use one? Would you use one? Why or why not?

The real problem is that an abstract damage system (like hit points, or damage boxes or circles or whatever sort of geometry is used to pretend that you're not using hit points) doesn't really jive well with specific hit locations rules. Not that it's impossible. But I've never seen hit location rules I've liked. I'm sure that someone around here has done sometihing like what you're looking for, though.

As a former Cyberpunk 2020 GM I have to admit that I both liked and loathed hit-location systems.

I liked it, because it reminded players that no matter how good their armor was, standing in the open and shooting it out with enemies was a great way to catch one in the head (rarely armored). This encouraged creative use of cover, and made for some really interesting moving fire-fights as the participants sprinted from cover to cover trying to get a superior position.

I loathed it, because I once had a secretary armed with a cheap light pistol drop an otherwise tough as nails player with a lucky shot. This led to me having to bend rules more often than I liked.

The other neat factor about this was that there was a lot more varity in armor, which inspired some really unique looks for players to adopt.

Well, definitely not hit locations, but the called shot system seems like a way to model hit locations. Sure, it's generic, but a lot of SR4 ruleset seems geared towards allowing the GM to decide what happens with the dice roll. Example, your character attempts a called shot where there is no armor. Voila, you hit in the gap in their armor. Your character attempts to shoot someone where they're vulnerable. Ouch, headshot. Crippling damage I would say could be modeled as a result of a glitch on a damage resistance test. It seems fairly simple to me.

And as for the problems that arise with cyberware, I think it's a whole hell of a lot easier to tweak cyberlimbs than to impliment a whole new hit location system. Just as a start, I'd make it so that all cyberlimbs start at racial averages. Serbitar has this in his house rules pdf. Makes perfect sense to me. After all, you don't replace a troll's missing arm with a human sized one. He'd have to relearn every basic motor function with that limb. You replace it with a limb similar enough that the brain doesn't have to learn new reflexes. (Of course, a broke troll might get a human sized cyberarm, which could be hilarious, if his chummers are a-holes)

Anywho, my two bits, take em as you will. Hit locations have always seemed too clunky for me, and too prone to abuse by powergamers(yes, they'll still try to tweak every little advantage they can get, it's in their nature, but making the rules simple allows non-munchkins to stay a little bit more competitive even though they don't know the rulebook like the back of their hand.)

I played in a game with hit locations. We would roll a 1d6.

1: head
2: L arm
3: R arm
4: L leg
5: R leg
6: Torso


Hit points wasn't an issue, we used the normal damage tracks, but the damage from a beaner to the head was one code higher. Back in 2nd ed a 6M2 would be upgraded to a 6S2 for instance.

It also made a difference for your protection; Armour jackets were useless in protecting your head and legs, which made dusters really popular. But we still used the same damage track. It got complex with bursts and autofire though, in fact it never really worked that well.

I digress, for single shots and double taps, it worked... mostly.

We found that it was statistically out of whack though. One sixth of all shots shouldn't go to your head. we looked at stats from WWII and Korea showing battle wounds sustained in combat, and then looked at stats from GSW (gunshot wounds) reported to urban hostpitals. We found head hits a lot less common than 1 in 6. Plus, it was irrational to hit your left leg if you were leaning to the right around cover... So we changed the rolling to a 2d6 as follows:

2: Head
3-4: Arm
5-9: Torso
10-12: Leg

This gave us a nice bell curve, and those dreaded head shots were reduced in regularity.

If the character had only half his body exposed, then the shot hits the arm or leg that isn't under cover. If the character is in a trench (or firing over a wall) then we would roll only 1d6+1.

If the character was poking around cover, then the left /

I just tossed one of these in my cart when I ordered my d6s and have been quite pleased ever since.

Normally no because it is just more to keep track of. However, if a player wants to make a called shot at a specific body part, I'll let them. If they want to make a leg shot to disable but not necessarily kill a target, I'll let them try and limit the damage to a level that doesn't kill the target. A headshot would be very hard unless the target was unaware it was being targeted. If it hit, it would get a damage bonus. Most of the time, though, the regular rules worked just fine.

i find the SLA industries hit location system kinda interesting.

you have a main damage track, but also one for each limb and the head, calculated of the main one. damage done to a limb is also added to the main track, and you loose a limb when the matching track is filled.

loose the head and your down, end of discussion. but you can loose 3 out of the 4 others and still live, barely...

as for a secretary taking down a tough guy in cp2020, i thought that was the theme of the game, life is cheap...

as for hit locations vs no hit locations, im split. but to me the SR system emulates much of the effect of hit locations in a abstract way with their good shot = more damage mechanic. called shot on top of that and your golden, or as close as i think SR needs to be...

if its just the cyberlimb armor rules one is after when wanting to implement hit locations, instead just have said armor give a .2 or there about boost in overall armor pr point added. thats the boost you will get after dividing anyways. why they didnt just print the book with a cyberlimb armor entry of 1/.2 with the first part of the slash being the limb armor and the other being the overall armor bonus given...

problem solved in my book. now for those pesky attribute mods...

Back in SR2 I had made a hit location chart (more like a 2-dimensional matrix (used with two rolls of 2d6 (2d6 x 2d6)); which was easily usable only for humanoids, though).

I left the main damage monitor intact, but the hit location modified the damage that was applied to it (there was a maximum damage you could suffer from a hit in the location (i.e. a hit in the arm cannot kill you normally (high velocity weapons increased this maximum by one step)) as well as a local damage monitor (simpler than the regular one, though) for every hit location (quite detailed, down to hands, knee, shoulder, neck, temples, etc)).

The matrix was made up in a way, that you could also use it for called shots and determine where you hit on a narrow miss, and allowed to determine multiple hits from automatic fire 'walk' over the targer (hitting in nearby locations to the previous bullet... we also had rules for automatic weapons to hit multiple times (up to the number of bullets in the spray) instead of raising the damage).

Last but not least, there were some locations for critical hits in one corner, which simply raised the base damage and maximum damage threshold and prompted a re-roll.

Kinda fun, but also took some practice to use in decent speed.

One 'nice' thing about this... you can actually determine the need for a cyberlimb.

And you could give situational penalties (i.e. lower run speed with leg wound, etc) based on the sustained injuries.

Bye
Thanee

I almost forgot to mention about that chart I posted yesterday that we used that even while a target was in cover. If the hit location was hidden by the cover, CP2020 rules simply treated the cover as an additional layer of armor for damage purposes.

Once you and your players are settled into it the system runs surprisingly fast, and makes for some fun moments. I had a player use an automatic shotgun to literally disintegrate a desk an enemy was hiding behind on one occaision.

...I must agree with Crakkerjakk, The called shot rules simulate this pretty well.

As to Cyberlimbs and racial modifiers, After looking at the cyberlimb RAW, I plan to adopt Serbitar's houserule of racial average as well. Makes perfect sense (and as CJ alluded to) a chance for some comedy.

Not needed, and I wouldn't use one if someone came up with it.

it was still in SR3 although.. I think it might've been in the latter part of M&M (the section dealing with surgery and recovery times). Without my books here I can't really say for sure. just that I remember it existing in 3rd ed rules.

The lasting damage and hit locations rules from Man & Machine were extremely complicated and almost never used. The version in Augmentation is supposed to be quicker to use and more general in application as befits the SR4 ruleset.

-Frank

I like to use hit locations for damage... The part of the body is selected at random, but I only take into account the ones that can be seen at the time of shooting...

When I first started SR3, my GM had a house rule for damage location

1- head/critical hit
2 - torso
3 - stomach
4 - legs
5 - arms
6 - (miss?)

I'm doing this from distant memory and am only sure of the first 3. I think he may have then rolled another die to tell if it was right or left and what part of the arm or leg.

I don't think these should ever be incorporated into the core rules and damage system. But I do think it is a useful tool for a GM to better describe the scene. It also gives the players that didn't make a called shot the possibility of getting lucky. Of course, when working the other way, the players just spend karma pool (edge now I guess) to lower the damage level. Either way, now instead of saying that the guards took a serious wound, you can now tell them that their character just blew his left arm off (the one holding the grenade he was about to throw.

I also think my GM allowed 2 net successes to be used to scale to the location up 1. So instead to the legs he's now unloading a full shotgun blast in that sorry SOB's stomach. It really helps decide where people are hit and create a much more realistic world for the players.

Personally, as a GM, I describe hit locations based on the damage done on the player's rolls, taking called shots into account as applicable. I'm of the school of thought that I really don't need a die to tell me how to describe my fluff text.

Now, I don't see anything wrong with hit locations, but I feel more comfortable letting it be fluff and use my own judgement based on what the player is trying to accomplish and the proceeding damage actually done.

I"m with deek. A light wound hit the arms or legs, but was mostly stopped by armor or was a grazing hit. A moderate wound hit the torso, shoulders or hips, as appropriate based on positions and cover, but was mostly stopped by armor. A serious wound hit the torso or abdomen, or glanced off the helmet. A deadly wound hit the head, neck or a serious organ. I alter the damage rolls for serious wounds in the 'what is permanently fragged' section accordingly.

Further to the above two comments, if someone aims specifically for a head and then gets a low damage score then couldn't you just say "well obviously you only grazed his head" and if someone aims for an arm or leg and gets a high damage score couldn't you say, "wow, looks like you've blown the poor sucker clean off". The advantage of aiming for the head is less armour, the advantage for aiming at a leg is less mobility and the advantage of aiming at an arm is affecting their fighting abilities...

I allow called shots to cause wound effects or stage up damage (as per the rules). I never let the get around armor. However, if you call a shot for the head and only cause light damage (which means your target got at least 3 more successes on his body test alone than you did, which is pretty sizable), it probably means you missed and hit his shoulder.

I used a hit location system in SR3 based on the idea that your staging of damage determined the damage level so you rolled on a table based on the damage level. If you have a low damage value then you didn't have a vitals hit. If you have a high damage value then you didn't shoot them in the hand. It eliminated the stupid results that can occur and it didn't give you free extra damage. It was deadly though in that a shot to the brain was death.

I'm not sure how to do it in SR4.

Easy: for 1-2 damage points, roll on light damage table, for 3-5 roll on moderate table, for 6-8 roll on serious table, for 9+ roll on the deadly table.

I dunno, one of the fun bits about hit location in systems is after determining that a hit has occured, the suspensful moment of seeing whether or not that cover is doing the target any good.

I remember one CP2020 campaign where my players were being pursued by a Cyber-phsyco'ed booster who had sprung for body plating. They had been expecting a fight with some poorly armed and armored gang scum and weren't packing anything with much abillity to punch through heavy armor.

This fight just went on and on! This was the first time I've ever had players run dry on ammo mid-fight. Finally one guy landed this perfect hit to the bad guys head with his backup weapon: A Colt Single Action Army.

Hit locations often add to the 'OhshitOhshitOhshit' factor of a firefight. Players SHOULD be scared of getting hit, and I've always felt these systems help keep that threat real.

Cant agree more, getting shot anywhere sucks. In SR3, the L, M, S, D seperation helped create a more realistic view of damage, but now that we have what amounts to 10hp, I think we need something to give it more substance.

I just hate adding extra stuff to combat. I prefer to keep it as streamlined as possible. And plus, if there's hit locations, how do called shots work? Are they mutually exclusive? Or if you shoot a guy with a helmet in the head trying to ignore armor and succeed, where precisely do you hit?

just dont roll for hit location if you make it on a called shot.

Also I dont think that you should use the rule about reducing your dice pool for ignoring armor. Only use hit location and called shots. If they have armor there then it reduces as normal. If it has no armor then it wont help.

It could even make things more interesting in that you could have trauma plates so a vitals hit has a higher armor rating.

Called Shots could potentially add to or subtract from the hit location dice roll.

Well let's say you have a hit location chart based on D10:
1-2:Legs
3-7:Torso
8-9:Arms
10:Head

And your player says, "I'd like to make a called shot."

You offer them the choice between going for extra damage and aiming for a specific location.

Aiming for a specific location would allow a player to sacrifice dice (max four) from their dice pool to add or subtract from the hit location roll.

So if you have Agility 5 and Pistols 4, you have a dice pool of 9 to hit. You could sacrifice 2 dice giving you a dice pool of 7. Assuming you hit this would allow you to add or subtract 2 from the hit location roll. If you rolled a 4, a torso hit, and your opponent is wearing a leather jacket you might subtract 2 from that to hit him in the leg instead, thus avoiding his armour and potentially immobilising him.

I'm not sure if that is as clear as I would like it to be but I hope you understand.

d10's???

But this is shadowrun....I don't bring any other dice except my three pounds of d6 to the table....

Mechanically, no hit locations. Dramatically, go nuts. /.02