Hit location for Melee Weapons!

[Warpig]

I think there should definitely be a rule for hit location in terms of melee weapons...

If some mercenary or other man at arms was attacking a guy with about Hp:16 and SDC: 40, don't you think that while the merc would do an average amount of damage (let's say 11 or 12 damage), assuming he hits everytime, it would take about 4 to 6 attacks to kill this guy...cmon people, this Merc has places to go and people to see, he should be able to take this guy out (not kill necessarily) faster than that.

I think that there should be an adaptation for hit location for melee weapons. That Merc should be able to make a called shot and hack off this guy's arm, leg or simply decapitate him Braveheart style (obviously using a bladed weapon) in one or two attacks.

After all this guy's SDC and HP aren't all located in his neck or a particular part of his body.

and after all...this is high fantasy with hero's that are strong of limb to do this, not some fru-fru ponies and princesses game.

[Veknironth]

Well, we tried that until we realized how much of a pain it was to keep track of the various parts of a person's body. "How many HP does your left leg have now?".

Also, either you take the person's SDC and split it up and end up with very frail apendages, or you take the SDC and make the trunk of the body have that much, then create a percentage for the various parts. Actually, I think there was something like that for body armor. Oh, speaking of armor, will you also break down the locations for armor?

If you take the percentage, then you need to beef up healing because it now becomes very weak.

HEre's an option. Don't use SDC at all. Fights don't last as long when you take away those extra HP.

-Vek
"Anyway I can knock SDC, I'll take it."

[Reagren Wright]

What I did was set up a random damage system that goes into effect
the moment hit points are lost.. You divide the total number by 1/4. At
each interval you roll on the random damage chart. For example you have
30 hp. The moment you take hp damage to 7.5 points you roll a 12 side
dice which has random hit locations. Then you roll on table 1 to
determine what kind of critical damage was done. This table has mostly
lesser penalties that can be healed up in a few days. If you take 7.5 to
15 points of damage, you then roll the hit location and roll on
the true random damage table. This includes damage to
arms, legs, torso, and head. All kindsof things can happen to
you from Bruised Arms to a Brain Strike. So you could have
taken only 10 hp of damage but a severe blow to the heart
or brain can be done to you. The most you can take are
four rolls on the random damage table.

Now for called shots. They completely ignore SDC.
You could have 100 SDC and a called shot to the eye
will go direct to hp (double damage in fact) and you
automatically lose the eye (get the penalties for the
random damage). Now to make sure its balance I only
allow dice rolls of 12 or higher to make called shots.
If you use projectiles or missile weapons there are penalties.
Strike bonus don't help you. W.P. bonuses don't help you either.
Sniper will help and Long Bowmen suffer no penalties.
This I find balances the game out. If PC start using
called shots to often, I'll let the monsters start doing them too
(they don't like that) and certain critters will go for such
things on random rolls.

Supernatural beings and creatures of magic have to have their
hp reduce by 1/2 in order to suffer random damage.
A creatures that bio-regenerates only take 1/2 damage
from penalties.

Most of the random damage tables I got from varoius
Palladium Books. So I've pretty much used what is already
available for GMs throughout the optional rules of the book.

[MADMANMIKE]

..The Compendium of Contemporary Weapons, pg. 16.

-Mike >8]

[Mantisking]

Originally posted by Warpig.
I think there should definitely be a rule for hit location in terms of melee weapons...

The group I'm in uses the hit location tables from any book from the Tri-Tac Games line. They fit nice and snug with the Palladium rules set.

[maasenstodt]

Well, for Palladium Fantasy, this isn't an issue for me because when I run it, it's 1st Ed. and I don't have that fruity SDC to deal with. With other Palladium games, however, I typically rule that potentially fatal attacks (by bullets, swords, etc.) split their damage between HP and SDC. SDC, then, is useful primarily for absorbing punches, slight falls and the like.

[MADMANMIKE]

Well, for Palladium Fantasy, this isn't an issue for me because when I run it, it's 1st Ed. and I don't have that fruity SDC to deal with. With other Palladium games, however, I typically rule that potentially fatal attacks (by bullets, swords, etc.) split their damage between HP and SDC. SDC, then, is useful primarily for absorbing punches, slight falls and the like.

..I've used a similar rule, where anything that does penetration does at least one point to hit points, causing the cascade effect from blood loss (-1 HP per melee per wound). Liven's things up real quick.(or deaden's depending on your perspective. )

-Mike >8]

[maasenstodt]

Well, for Palladium Fantasy, this isn't an issue for me because when I run it, it's 1st Ed. and I don't have that fruity SDC to deal with. With other Palladium games, however, I typically rule that potentially fatal attacks (by bullets, swords, etc.) split their damage between HP and SDC. SDC, then, is useful primarily for absorbing punches, slight falls and the like.

..I've used a similar rule, where anything that does penetration does at least one point to hit points, causing the cascade effect from blood loss (-1 HP per melee per wound). Liven's things up real quick.(or deaden's depending on your perspective. )

-Mike >8]

It's interesting that for as gritty as I like my games, I typically can't be bothered to worry about blood loss. While I do like random injury tables for mounting HP damage, having to keep track of one more thing in combat would seem to just slow things down too much. Do you (or anyone) have any clever means of keeping track of and applying blood loss damage that minimizes the work involved?