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Message: <blockquote data-quote="WizarDru" data-source="post: 1145430" data-attributes="member: 151">And it's arguments like this, IMHO, that lead to the fact that D&D is, by necessity, an abstract combat system.  Abstract does not translate into 'simple', quite the opposite.  Whether this is to your taste or not is another question entirely.  Clearly, Tsyr doesn't prefer this approach, while clark411 does.  The question I'm wondering about is this:  what benefit does adding Called Shots add to the game?  And then: Will the benefit be enough for the added complexity and potential abuses it provides? Trying to think too hard about the specifics of D&D combat results in large numbers of potential inconsistencies that would require an ever increasing level of detail to deal with.  GURPS provides greater detail in this respect, but was built from the ground up to deal with it....and there are still realism and verisimilitude issues that you could identify. If we view hitpoints as a pure representation of damage, you come up with wonky situations.  A character beats up some kobolds, and now can literally take twice as much physical abuse as before.  A month later, he's taking ten times as much.  This is why poisons and similar effects attack ability scores instead of hp...because a 10th level fighter isn't likely to have a relatively much higher CON than his 1st level compatriot, while their hit points will be radically different.  The mention of things like acid, lava and other sources highlight this inconsistency...and nothing short of reworking the whole hp system will change it.  If you prefer a wound/vitality system, that's fine...but standard D&D hps don't work that way. Called shots sounds, to me at least, like a case of a fighter wanting to eat his cake and have it, too.  He wants to be the most powerful fighter possible, but he also wants to be more specific.  I think that some of those issues could be addressed quite handily by the alternate fighter classes presented in Dragon magazine.  Multiclassing into rogue would get some other options, as well.    The ideas listed above, such as granting +5 damage for -10 to hit?  My archers would jump at the chance.  When you're hitting AC 50s routinely, you can afford it...and that +5 damage would make an already powerful character virtually unstoppable.  Granted, this benefits lower level characters less than higher level characters, but the idea remains.</blockquote>

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