How to determine death and/or limb loss by called shot?

[Noon]

A lateral question, but why do you think it's possible to do so to begin with (vs individual body parts)? You can't do that in chess, why here? You'll probably say "Well, it's obvious that..." and whatever you say is the answer to the question.

Probably the way to do it is probably best answered by knowing why you think it can be done?

[The Beast]

The Compendium of Contemporary Weapons has a SDC/HP beakdown of the human body.

[Spinachcat]

Any human who loses a limb is going to die quickly if they do not receive immediate medical attention. So if they take 50% of their HP to a single limb, then declare the limb chopped off and start having them take massive blood loss each round until they get help or die.

If 50% HP sounds too high for your tastes, then make it HP equal to their P.E. score. But keep in mind that Palladium chargen is LONG so killing characters left and right with limb loss / called shot rules will diminish player interest. You can do that in OD&D and Traveller where chargen takes 5 minutes versus the 1-2 hours people spend making Palladium characters.

[KillWatch]

if you really wanted you could go by the chart in Contemporary Arms guide which divides body parts into percentages


Remembering that 0=non functioning not destroyed you might want to go -(x2 or 3) for dismemberment

[jedi078]

Here is my house rules for Death Blows. I suppose it could also be a applied to chopping off a limb. But I think I'd go with the Compendium of Contemporary Weapons per each body part if trying to remove a limb.

Death Blows: Is simply a called shot at a specific part of the body that would result in instant death, or a sure death such as the head, heart, neck etc, etc, etc. Damage done will be x3 and done directly to hit points, and even if you don’t kill the target (i.e. you make a low damage roll) they will still be seriously wounded.