D&D 5E Aimed Shots

Hello everyone. I just wanted to ask you all what you do if someone wants to do a called shot to try and kill an enemy quickly? From my first look of the PH, I didn't see anything and would like to add that mechanic in there. I was thinking that you would call if it was aimed or not and then do a normal at roll and if it hits it then be rolled on a chart I am making for criticals, but if you miss then the enemy can counterattack with an aimed shot at you if you fail. Let me know what you think and if there is a better way to do it if possible.
In Tasha's they introduce an AIM bonus action to the rogue cunning action that grants advantage. I would say introducing an action (not bonus action) Aim that not only grants advantage but if you don't have sneak attack allows you to add 1d3 or 1d4 to damage if the next attack hits would work okay.
 

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Generally speaking in my games:
1.) Hit Points are not health. When you lose hit points, you're not being wounded. Hit points are your toughness. When that dragon breath covers you, you shield yourself behind your shield, take advantage of a crack in the floor, aim for a gap in the fire, etc... but it diminishes your capability to find those heroic ways to avoid that major wound. When you run out of hit points - that is the blow that connects and takes you down. The rest of the time you explain the attack away as something that doesn't really connect, although it can often deal superficial cuts, bruises, or exposure damage. Dodging that fire may still leave you with burn scars.

2.) When players have an in story reason to try to attack a specific location or thing, such as attempt to disarm an enemy by attacking their weapon: I allow them to try as an action, but if they do not have a class ability to support it, they are told the odds are slim because this is not something they do well. When they need a 20 on the die and have disadvantage ... Well, it is hard enough that most people will not attempt it. For example, attempting to disarm someone by attacking their hand when you have no ability to do so has a DC/AC equal to 15 + (double their attack bonus) and you have disadvantage. Disarming a CR 3 Knight has a DC/AC of 15 + (2 X 5) = 25. You must roll a 25 attack roll with disadvantage to do it, and you deal no damage if you miss.

You might notice that this can be trivially easy with a really buffed attack. For example, when a War Cleric uses Guided Strike / War God's Blessing on a Blessed 'Archer' using a +2 Bow with the Archery fighting style who is a Hobgobling with Divine Soul Abilities, a 20 dex and +4 proficiency bonus; they will be rolling (1d20 disad - which could be offset by the attacker being invisible or hidden)) + 23 + 1d4 - and if they miss they can gain 2d4 + 5 more. That would allow them - on a 2 after disadvantage - to disarm something with a +11 attack bonus 91% of the time... and that is ok because they are using a lot of their combined abilities to get there. There is a decent chance they could disarm Archdevils with a +16 attack bonus (~25%) - and I'm ok with that as it is heroic.

3.) Some of these things make little sense at first blush. However, if you think 'movie toughness', it makes more sense. When you have a sharpshooter that can hit a cooper coin from 1200 feet, there is an unaware target, and there are no magical protections in place, why can't that sharpshooter put an arrow through an eye and just kill pretty much anything large or smaller? In my games, it is because high hit points reflect that natural toughness ... and part of that toughness that you see in a protagnost or antagonist is that sixth sense that allows them to realize danger at the last moment and avoid that killing blow. If the blow does not reduce them to 0 hp, that little sixth sense was enough to save them from a killing blow when they dodge and the arrow grazez their skull instead of going through the eye.
 

I'd strongly suggest playing the game some to get a feel for the type of experience it delivers before starting to put in homebrewed subsystems.

Part of this is also to know what's there. For instance right now there are options like the assassin subclass of rogue which can auto-crit attacking from surprise, and since that doubles all weapon dice damage including sneak attack it can be a major hit. Givign that out to others would really nerf that class.

D&D isn't a "instant kill" type of game, and putting in rules to make it so can drastically change the balance in some ways.

I'd say try out D&D, and if it doesn't work for you look at the large amount of other RPGs out there for one that may be designed from the foundation up to provide the experience you are looking for instead trying to bolt it onto a game that doesn't really support it.
 

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