D&D 5E Aimed Shots

[Grainger]

I agree with the points made upthread. Your character is already trying to "kill an enemy quickly"! Why would he/she be trying to do it slowly? That implies he/she is missing on purpose, or hitting sub-optimal targets deliberately. That doesn't make any sense. The D&D combat system abstracts combatants' best attempts to hit into a die roll.

I'd also add that in 5e, you have to remember what damage is meant to represent. Damage (to hit points) doesn't mean you have physically injured them. It really means you have forced them to block or dodge because you did a good attack, or you did hit them, but it bounced off their armour. All this time, you are causing them fatigue and stress, but they are not physically harmed. It's only when a character or creature falls below half hit points that they start to take minor cuts and bruises. At 0hp, the target has actually taken a substantial wound. This is why PCs (above 0hp) are able to heal by taking a short rest and spending Hit Dice.

There might be specific reasons you might want to target a part of the enemy's body (maybe there's a vulnerable area on a monster you know about) but in normal circumstances, that's not how D&D combat is meant to work; combatants are already going for weak points by default.

Of course, you could tweak the system to allow called shots, and have a kind of rock/paper/scissors dynamic going on, based on what the two combatants are doing, but that would make the system fundamentally different - you'd have to cross reference what the two combatants are doing that round, and so on.

 

[Nebulous]

Thinking about this some more, and I'm just throwing ideas out, aiming always takes more TIME by definition. Hold your breath, concentrate, focus, and then release. That's hard to do in 6 seconds, so maybe spending two Actions in a row would represent "aiming".

 

[EvanNave55]

Thinking about this some more, and I'm just throwing ideas out, aiming always takes more TIME by definition. Hold your breath, concentrate, focus, and then release. That's hard to do in 6 seconds, so maybe spending two Actions in a row would represent "aiming".

I agree this is could also work, I've read through comments on how people are already trying to aim their shots but to me the attacks are just trying to hit ANYTHING of the person (body arm leg whatever) and crits are when you happen to be lucky and there's an opening that's particularly vital.
Whereas with called shots it's not aiming just to hit, you are specifically taking time to aim at a certain spot and hit it.

 

[Sword of Spirit]

Since a few people have brought up a point, I thought I'd clarify it:

Damage in 5e represents whatever you (or your DM) wants it to.

 

[Authweight]

I would only allow a called shot if there was a clear goal in mind beyond "kill the enemy." The standard attack already represents the basic goal of "kill the enemy," so there isn't a lot of sense adding a new mechanic for headshots or something. I would allow a called shot to do things like knock an item out of someone's hand, damage a crucial magic item, distract someone to let an ally do something sneaky, etc. In general, I would have them roll the attack normally, or possibly against a boosted AC, and then on a hit they get the desired effect instead of damage. I wouldn't let PCs do more damage with a called shot - I assume the regular attack represents them shooting to kill as efficiently as possible.

 

[EvanNave55]

I would only allow a called shot if there was a clear goal in mind beyond "kill the enemy." The standard attack already represents the basic goal of "kill the enemy," so there isn't a lot of sense adding a new mechanic for headshots or something. I would allow a called shot to do things like knock an item out of someone's hand, damage a crucial magic item, distract someone to let an ally do something sneaky, etc. In general, I would have them roll the attack normally, or possibly against a boosted AC, and then on a hit they get the desired effect instead of damage. I wouldn't let PCs do more damage with a called shot - I assume the regular attack represents them shooting to kill as efficiently as possible.

What about shooting to blind someone/something, while it does not happen often sometimes when my party gets in a fight we people have made aimed shots at the eyes in order to blind them (for example single shot to blind cyclops) how would you rule that?
Another example is a friend of mine was fighting a beholder once then anytime he figured out a particularly deadly eye (finder of death, flesh to stone, disintegrate, etc.) he would shoot that eye (though back then called shots were ruled as penalties to hit so he used trueshot to counteract that).

 

[Paraxis]

What about shooting to blind someone/something, while it does not happen often sometimes when my party gets in a fight we people have made aimed shots at the eyes in order to blind them (for example single shot to blind cyclops) how would you rule that?
Another example is a friend of mine was fighting a beholder once then anytime he figured out a particularly deadly eye (finder of death, flesh to stone, disintegrate, etc.) he would shoot that eye (though back then called shots were ruled as penalties to hit so he used trueshot to counteract that).

For me with the cyclops, I would allow an attack made at disadvantage and only if disadvantage was not already applied to the roll, if it is the shot is too tricky to be tried. If it hit, I would impose the Blind condition with a save ends clause, basically the arrow hits above the eye and blood pours out for a bit. If the attack roll does enough damage to kill the cyclops at that point is when I narrate the arrow piercing the eye proper and not a moment before.

With the beholder, because disabling individual eyestalks doesn't completely neuter the creature and it sounds fun, I would again have attacks made against the eyestalks be at disadvantage and if it did 1/8th the original HP of the beholder it would permanently disable the beam, if not it would take it out of commision for a round and do damage.

The shot that takes the enemy out of the fight completely is only the shot that reduces it to 0 h.p.

 

[Authweight]

What about shooting to blind someone/something, while it does not happen often sometimes when my party gets in a fight we people have made aimed shots at the eyes in order to blind them (for example single shot to blind cyclops) how would you rule that?
Another example is a friend of mine was fighting a beholder once then anytime he figured out a particularly deadly eye (finder of death, flesh to stone, disintegrate, etc.) he would shoot that eye (though back then called shots were ruled as penalties to hit so he used trueshot to counteract that).

This would have to be contextual. I would generally only allow shooting for the eyes if there was a particular situational reason it was a sensible choice. I think that, depending on campaign tone and style, both the beholder and cyclops ones make sense. What I wouldn't what, however, would be for aiming for the eyes to become just another tactic players can use whenever they feel like it, especially since it is basically an auto-win against a lot of enemies.

Another way of thinking about it is that, narratively, bringing an enemy down to zero hp represents doing what it takes to remove them from the combat. Against a normal enemy, since blinded would effectively remove them from the fight, that would be something you can choose to impose as an alternative to killing the target outright when you bring it to zero hp. Blinding as a separate thing only makes sense when there is either a very particular reason you want to emphasize the vulnerability of a creature to attacks on the eyes (the cyclops example), or there are separate effects going on that you want players to be able to deal with in a direct way, instead of simply attacking enough to remove the enemy from the fight entirely (the beholder example).

 

[Li Shenron]

Disadvantage is really the worst way to handle it.

It means that every single time the PC has disadvantage from another source, she should always try a called shot.

Li "(Dis)advantage is the parsley of 5e, and too much parsley is poisonous" Shenron.

 

[TarionzCousin]

For 3.5, Mike Mearls wrote a great book that dealt with this and other combat maneuvers. I recommend it.

http://www.amazon.com/Book-Iron-Might-Sword-Sorcery/dp/1588469808

Some of the principles can easily be applied to 5E: take a penalty on your "to hit" roll to achieve a certain effect.

For example, maybe a minus ten to hit would work for a called shot to the knee. If it hits, the victim is at half movement and can't run or jump.

A review can be found here: http://www.rpg.net/reviews/archive/10/10864.phtml