Upgrade your account to a Community Supporter account and remove most of the site ads.
Rocket your D&D 5E and Level Up: Advanced 5E games into space! Alpha Star Magazine Is Launching... Right Now!

Reply to thread

Message: <blockquote data-quote="maddman75" data-source="post: 1303767" data-attributes="member: 2673">Here's a house rule for you.  It came from many discussions of what hit points actually are.Let's take a 10th level fighter with a hundred hit points.  Now a long sword only does 1d8 damage.  Does that mean that if you ran the sword right through his heart he's just yell 'tis but a scratch!'Not at all.  A blade in the heart would kill him as surely as it would a 1st level commoner.  But here's the kicker - you *can't* put the sword right into his heart.  His hit points reflect his martial skill, reflexes, and luck that prevent this from happening.  The blade may be aimed at his heart, but he'll turn at the last second to make it just a scratch on his shoulder, or perhaps twist his body so it just glances him.Now, after you do this enough and wear him out, his ability to do this is decreased.  When he's down to 4 hit points, he can no longer turn aside your blows at all.  There's nothing stopping you from driving it right into his heart like you could with a 1st level peasant.But, if you can do this, you can pretty much do whatever you like.  Own him, as they say in the deathmatches.  So IMC, whenever you do enough damage to kill someone, you can instead tell the DM you want to do a Called Shot instead.  Rather than put your blade in his chest, you hold the tip to his throat and tell him not to move.  If he does, you can CDG as a free action so long as you don't move out of position yourself.  You can also do other fun things, like staple someone iwth an arrow, put out an eye, or carve a letter in someone.My players haven't used it much, but I think its a good rule.</blockquote>

Verification