hit location systems?

[GlassJaw]

As much as I've despised hit location systems in the past, I've been interested in revisiting them after becoming completely hooked by Rome. Some of the battles in Rome make Gladiator look like Sesame Street.

Ideally, I'd like to find a system that would work with the VP/WP system, which is my damage system of choice for low-magic/gritty campaigns.

 

[Azgulor]

Bastion Press' Torn Asunder has a good system of hit locations and critical hits. I can't say how well it would work with VP/WP, but you could probably tweak it with little effort. I use the hit location tables as is but tweaked the default critical hit system for my campaign (I use MDT ala Conan) and it works like a charm.

In Torn Asunder , you've got 3 degrees of critical: Mild, Moderate, and Serious. If you were interested in applying those to VP/WP, I suppose you'd have to determine what constitutes a mild vs. serious wound with WP.

As for the hit location tables, this is the only product that applies hit location to a variety of body types: humanoid, 4-legged, 8-legged, abomination, etc. Good stuff.

Azgulor

 

[GlassJaw]

Someone else recommended Torn Asunder as well. I guess I'll check that out. The rules sound workable.

 

[Psion]

I dislike table look-ups and page flipping.

I created a system in which I could memorize the table, and use a custom dice for hit location. In my system, any hit that does more than half your remaining hp in one hit has the potential for special injury effects, but for the purposes of a VP/WP system, you might change that to any wound damage.

Here's my system:
http://www.enworld.org/showpost.php?p=656090&postcount=2

Here's the dice I bought:
http://enworld.rpgshop.com/product_info.php?products_id=36953&

 

[GlassJaw]

I dislike table look-ups and page flipping.

Totally agree.

But I'm intrigued enough to at least take a look at some systems. Most of my game/rules design starts from some kind of real-world source. I'll tailor the rules to what I think emulates the "real-world" best and then go back and rebalance.

In this case, my real-world source is lightly armored combatants swinging very sharp blades at one another. Loss of limbs seems to be a very common occurence.

I'm not saying this would translate well to a rules mechanic or even be fun during actual gameplay but for a gritty combat system, it seems like it should at least be considered.

 

[0-hr]

I made up some hit location & grievous injury rules for my d20 StarWars game (which uses WP/VP). They are on page 15 of my House Rule doc:

http://home.insightbb.com/~ki.ryn/Morningstar/Morningstar_Rules.pdf

If you end up making your own system, that might give you some ideas. Best of luck.

 

[Aussiegamer]

For your consideration

Die Roll

(3D6)	Hit Location 
3 	Head
4 	Right hand 
5 	Lower Right arm 
6 	Lower Right arm
7 	Upper Right arm 
8 	Upper Right arm
9 	Chest
10 	Chest
11 	Chest
12 	Chest
13	Upper Left arm 
14	Upper Left arm
15	Lower Left arm 
16	Lower Left arm
17	Left hand
18	Neck

WOUNDS AND TREATMENT
Medical Modifier
The patient’s health modifier is used for all treat injury or surgery checks as an unnamed bonus or penalty.
Types of Damage
There are two types: lethal and non-lethal (or subdual).
Lethal damage will kill a creature but non-lethal will not.
Objects are immune to all non-lethal damage.
Both types of damage stack together but non-lethal is used to assessed first to see if the creature has reached 0hp or not.
Non-lethal can do major damage, as lethal does, and is checked against the creatures damage threshold for affects.
Healing
Lethal and non-lethal are removed at the same time, (2) non-lethal then (1) lethal etc until one has been removed completely and then the other removes normally.
Rate
For 8 hours of rest a creature recovers 1+ Health Mod (Min 1). For 24 hours rest they recover 4 x (1+ Health Mod (min1)) instead of the normal 8 hour rest recovery.
Damage to Outer Limbs
Outer limbs, though part of the whole, can be treated separately for aspects of damage.
An arm/ leg/ foot or hand can only reduce the creatures HP by 20% of its normal full hit points, but the total damage is used to assess the damage threshold as usual.
Any part of a limb below that which has received the massive critical hit also becomes non-operational.
EXCESSIVE DAMAGE
It is possible for one attack to do excessive damage to a creature, due to the power of the attack.
Creature Damage Threshold
CDT is equal to the creature’s constitution score, not the modifier, plus 3. Feats and mutations can added or subtract from this score.
If a living creature takes damage it can be affected by the total amount of damage.
DAMAGE FROM SINGLE ATTACK (1): RESULT: EFFECT
CDT : Staggered: Knocked prone (3) and staggered until next round (1) orKnocked Prone (3) and Staggered for 2-5 rounds (2)
2x CDT: Grievous Wounding: Part of body damaged, andFORT DC 10+ ½ damage or drop to -1hp
50hp from single attack: Massive Damage: FORT DC 10 + ½ damage or part of body blown off, and FORT DC 10 + ½ damage or drop to -1 hp
Note:
1. This includes if the armour absorbs some or all of the damage.
2. If the non-lethal and lethal damage breaches the CON
3. Energy type weapons do not knock prone.
Compounding Injuries
You can be forced to make two saves if it is a critical hit and results in both Grievous and Massive damage. Both have two components to the effect as well. Thus a Grievous might not be a critical hit and thus no that location hit is not damaged, but it still requires a FORT save to be made.
DAMAGE AND RECOVERY
When a level of damage is above the CBT the creature has additional affects occur to it.
Required treatment
To remove the affect the creature requires a certain level of medical care and time to remove that affect.
Level of Damage
Staggered
(3x Treat Injury DC15, Rest 8 hours removes modifiers)
Head- -2 all skills, -2m speed, bleed 1
Neck- -1 AC and to hit, bleed 1
Torso- -1 STR and DEX, bleed 1
Arm- -1 STR and DEX (for arm use only), bleed 0
Hand- -2 STR and DEX and skills (for hand use only), bleed 0
Leg- -2m speed, -1 AC, bleed 0
Foot- -2m speed, -2 AC, bleed 0
Grievous
(3/day Treat Injury DC20, minor surgery DC 15, Rest 1d6 weeks removes modifiers)
(FORT save has no affect)
Head- -6 all skills, -4m speed, bleed 3
Neck- -2 AC and to hit, bleed 3
Torso- -4m speed, -2 STR and DEX, bleed 2
Arm- -4 STR and DEX (for arm use only), bleed 1
Hand- -6 STR and DEX and all skills (for hand use only), bleed 0
Leg- -4m speed, -2 AC, bleed 1
Foot- -4m speed, -4 AC, bleed 0
Massive
(3/day Treat Injury DC25, major surgery DC 20, Rest 2d8 weeks removes modifiers)
(If a part is not blown of then this happens pass or fail secondary FORT save result)
Head- -20 all skills, -4m speed, bleed 5
Neck- -6AC and to hit, bleed 5
Torso- 1/2 speed max, -6 STR and DEX, bleed 5
Arm- STR and DEX 1/2 max (for arm use only), bleed 2
Hand- -10 skills, STR and DEX 1/3 max (for hand use only), bleed 1
Leg- speed 1/3 max, -4 AC, bleed 2
Foot- speed 1/4 max, -6 AC, bleed 1
(If a limb is blown off)
Bleed is 6.
Arm/ hand lost: DEX and STR drops to ½ for all but one handed actions.
Leg/ Foot lost: Speed drops to 2m maximum for round, no Dex bonus to AC and –4 AC.
If the head or neck or torso is blown off, then PC is dead.
All modifiers stack together.
Bleed
This is CON loss per round.
Treat Injury check DC10 plus bleed factor.
Ballistic, slashing and piercing weapons add 1 bleed.
Fire reduces 1 bleed (fire seals the wounds)
NON-LETHAL DAMAGE
Non-lethal damage uses the same, except that the creature receives a maximum bleed of 1 (lethal –4) and can not have a limb blown off. It is considered broken, but still useless.
All the above damage recovery time is ½ that for the same lethal wound.
NEAR DEATH AFTER RECOVERY (PERMANENT AFFECTS)
When a creatures hit points drop below zero then, (dying zone), they are permanently injured and suffer side affects from that state.
Health MOD + negative hit points. (The affects stack)

1- 9 			no affect
10 	Minor stiffness:	-1 one ability
11 	Major stiffness:	-1 to another ability
12 	Over all stiffness:	add another -1 to the two abilities
13 	Major scarring:	CON -1 CHA –1
14+ 	Chronic Pain:	-2 skills, additional -1 CON.

INFECTION
Every time a body point is damaged in combat (except from beam fire type weapons) there is a 25% chance +/–1% per CON modifier that the wound will become infected.
A successful treat injury check DC 15 reduces the chance to 15% +/- 1% per CON modifier, if done within 8 hours.
If a medical kit capable of treating infection is used then it is reduced to straight 1%.
If the wound does become infected then all healing stops. If the infection lasts one week then a FORT save DC15 is made or they lose 1d6 CON (temporary), then every day a new save is made or they lose 1d3 CON (temporary). If they reach 0 CON they die.
Treat Injury DC 20 to stop infection.
BRING BACK THE DEAD
If a dead character is brought to a hospital within a certain time they might be able to be brought back to life.

PL	FORT SAVE
5	20 + damage above -10hp
6	20 + ½ damage above -10hp
7	15 + damage above -10hp
8	10 + damage above -10hp
9	10 + ½ damage above -10hp

Modifiers:
Heal check DC 15 per 10 minutes
Creature stabilised: 0
Creature not stabilised: -2 per attempt failed. Fail 4 attempts and no chance for life!
Per hour: -2
Limb damaged: -6

 

[Dagger75]

As much as I've despised hit location systems in the past, I've been interested in revisiting them after becoming completely hooked by Rome. Some of the battles in Rome make Gladiator look like Sesame Street.

Ideally, I'd like to find a system that would work with the VP/WP system, which is my damage system of choice for low-magic/gritty campaigns.

Warhammer fantasy RPG. More rules lights but has hit locations and crits for such hits. Also you can use piecemeal armor, so you have chain arms, leather chest and a plate helm if you wanted.

 

[Aussiegamer]

I done that as well. 15 body points for armouring and hitting

 

[TheAuldGrump]

Hmmm, there is a system in Swashbuckling Adventures that handles hit locations as an alternate system (players choice) for critical hits. The player decides whether to go for a location or a regular crit when he scores a threat. Different locations have different difficulties when confirming the threat. Targeting a leg is relatively easy, while targeting an eye is more difficult.

The Auld Grump