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The first Hit Location Chart I've ever seen outside an RPG Book


Harshax

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This guy compared the injuries suffered by recipients in several battles to strike patterns of modern practitioners of European Modern Arts. Very interesting. Do we need a new Hit Location chart in RQ? (j/k)

http://www.tameshigiri.ca/2014/06/12/fact-checking-fight-books-comparing-historic-injury-patterns-to-strikes-in-modern-european-sword-arts/

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And don't forget Realism Rule # 1 "If you can do it in real life you should be able to do it in BRP". - Simon Phipp

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This guy compared the injuries suffered by recipients in several battles to strike patterns of modern practitioners of European Modern Arts. Very interesting. Do we need a new Hit Location chart in RQ? (j/k)

http://www.tameshigiri.ca/2014/06/12/fact-checking-fight-books-comparing-historic-injury-patterns-to-strikes-in-modern-european-sword-arts/

YES! We do! ...

Well not really. By focusing on the Warrior caste, the results are probably somewhat skewed. Warriors, being much more highly skilled (100%+?) were much more capable of targeting their blows than their less experienced cannon fod.... compatriots in the Fyrd shield wall.

What would be really interesting, but probably impossible to know, is how many of those head shot victims were wearing helmets at the time they received them. My guess is that like modern professional soldiers, the old timers probably often took off their helmets, or simply didn't wear them, because of heat, fatigue, vision, etc.

SDLeary

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I wouldn't go changing anything as the results of the article are not conclusive. Remember that in RQ the hit location table represents the locations you would hit based on the opportunities that arise through the natural flow of combat. The table can be bypassed by called shots/special effects. How many of the wounds in the study were caused by targeting blows? We'll never know.

"Tell me what you found, not what you lost" Mesopotamian proverb

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I prefer the RQ3 hit locations since they have a separate location chart for missiles which seems more realistic. I'm not sure if RQ6 has that, but it would be easy to add. Even more so i like GUPRS hit locations since they're non-linear... which again seems more realistic without adding slowing the game IMHO.

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Harshax,

Thanks for sharing both the article and, by extension, the website. Seriously fascinating reading.

Cheers!

Present home-port: home-brew BRP/OQ SRD variant; past ports-of-call: SB '81, RQIII '84, BGB '08, RQIV(Mythras) '12,  MW '15, and OQ '17

BGB BRP: 0 edition: 20/420; .pdf edition: 06/11/08; 1st edition: 06/13/08

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The UK tv series called Medieval Dead which featured the Visby grave and the skeletons with some analysis is interesting in that it explains the predominance of lower legs injuries by noting that the bodies were local militia who were backed up against the town walls by professional mercenary troops. These troops attacked their unarmoured lower limbs to force the defenders to the ground before finishing them off. The amount of armour in the grave is because it was mostly very old and not worth salvaging for the mercenaries and with the battle fought in Summer there was a need to bury the corpses quickly.

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Nigel

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The UK tv series called Medieval Dead...

This sounded interesting so I tracked it down. I have only seen the first two episodes so far but its really pretty cool and informative. I only found four episodes and assume that's all they made?

Rod

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Actually Rod there's five episodes in the series. It was done by York University in conjunction with a production company for the Yesterday channel on UK TV

http://yesterday.uktv.co.uk/shows/medieval-dead/

Has the shows on demand for another 12 days or so, not sure if it's limited by area so you might have to anonymise your location if not in the UK.

Nigel

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  • 3 months later...

This is an incredibly interesting discussion with some really cool stuff to check out. RQ6 did say that in real combat opponents generally choose to strike for the head to quickly incapacitate a target (RQ6 Core book, Pg 145, "The Head? Again?"). 

However, do note that with some of these charts they are comparing to DEAD bodies. So it makes sense that a large proportion of the dead would have received head blows. A body blow or limb blow may have been recovered from. Head blows? Not so much. Still, really cool to see some research back up RQ6's system. Pretty cool about the Visby grave and how the mercenaries changed their tactics too. Great thread.

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I'd say the result's are biased since they focus on lethal trauma. Thus injuries where the victim recovered aren't factored into the results. With that in mind, it's hardly surprising that 70% of the results are chest and head hits. Since the vast majority of strikes in combat aren't lethal, they aren't counted in the paper. 

 

If you want to increase realism, and mesh up a bit better with these results I don't think you have to change the hit location chart. Just have characters pick a target location, roll twice, and then take the result that is closest to their target. I bet the results, especially for fatalities, would be fairly close to those in the paper. 

Chaos stalks my world, but she's a big girl and can take of herself.

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You will probably have seen the recent analysis of Richard III's injuries after Bosworth. They can easily determine post-mortem injuries from the location on the body and many of them are, or could be seen as, injuries of spite while the body was draped over a horse for transport to its final resting place. The head wounds that seemed to be fatal were noted as being inflicted in the absence of a helmet. The TV program I saw implied that they believed he'd lost the helmet and then taken blows from a pole weapon that inflicted the fatal blow(s).

 

Another program that covered his spinal deformity was extremely interesting as they found someone who had a similar condition, made them appropriate armour and tested his ability to ride and perform combat while being monitored. The results showed that the spinal condition would have limited Richard's ability to draw breath in extreme physical situations so he would tire more easily in combat. No doubt this led to him losing his helmet and his life.

Nigel

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  • 2 years later...

There are two issues with this study.  The first is (as has been brought up by almost everyone) what effect did skill have upon the placement of those wounds?  The second question is what effect did armor play in the placement of those wounds?  Weaknesses in the deceased warrior's armor could result in those wounds (the warrior's armor & shield having stopped or deflected potential wounds to the chest or left arm) being inflicted where they were.  I saw an Army study on wound locations during Vietnam and most firearm inflicted wounds were on the torso or upper legs.  This coincided with the quick "center-of-mass" shots that most armies trained for.  In close combat, a number of bayonet wounds were inflicted on the arms (which one would expect in HTH combat) while many soldiers had their LBE and flak jackets shredded but sustained NO stab wounds to the torso because the flak vest or equipment on the soldier's LBE deflected the thrust.  I was a bit skeptical of the flak vest but it does sometimes prevent a blade from completely penetrating on an "off angle" attack due to its bulk.    

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On 9/30/2014 at 4:23 PM, Atgxtg said:

I'd say the result's are biased since they focus on lethal trauma. Thus injuries where the victim recovered aren't factored into the results. With that in mind, it's hardly surprising that 70% of the results are chest and head hits. Since the vast majority of strikes in combat aren't lethal, they aren't counted in the paper. 

If you want to increase realism, and mesh up a bit better with these results I don't think you have to change the hit location chart. Just have characters pick a target location, roll twice, and then take the result that is closest to their target. I bet the results, especially for fatalities, would be fairly close to those in the paper. 

In short, while this is a great site, the analysis is really more of an inverse of the Abraham Wald effect.

https://medium.com/@penguinpress/an-excerpt-from-how-not-to-be-wrong-by-jordan-ellenberg-664e708cfc3d

In short, Abraham Wald was asked where to put armor on bomber aircraft.  He studied the planes coming back from bombing runs and had the eureka-insight that they didn't need to armor the places with flak/bullet holes, but the areas without - intuiting that if they made it home for him to study, the bullet holes he could see were therefore ignorable.  

So what we're seeing is the reverse: the lethal injuries (either because that location is particularly vulnerable, OR because it was hard to protect).

From the analysis: "...Interestingly, these strikes were weighted appreciably toward the right-hand side..."   I'd guess that most non-duelling sword users would have had a shield primarily covering their left side, so successful strikes would likely show a right-side bias, despite most opponents likewise being right handed.

Edited by styopa
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23 hours ago, styopa said:

In short, while this is a great site, the analysis is really more of an inverse of the Abraham Wald effect.

Exactly!

It's like if someone did a report on people who had an arm severed in combat, and we adjusted the hit location tabled to reflect the fact that 100% of those in the study had been hit in an arm at least once, or increasing the chances of getting a limb severed since everyone in the study had suffered such a fate.

23 hours ago, styopa said:

In short, while this is a great site, the analysis is really more of an inverse of the Abraham Wald effect.

https://medium.com/@penguinpress/an-excerpt-from-how-not-to-be-wrong-by-jordan-ellenberg-664e708cfc3d

In short, Abraham Wald was asked where to put armor on bomber aircraft.  He studied the planes coming back from bombing runs and had the eureka-insight that they didn't need to armor the places with flak/bullet holes, but the areas without - intuiting that if they made it home for him to study, the bullet holes he could see were therefore ignorable.  

So what we're seeing is the reverse: the lethal injuries (either because that location is particularly vulnerable, OR because it was hard to protect).

Yeah, somewhat. Although the Wald approach can give you some odd conclusions, since it doesn't deal with why the other planes were lost, but just assumes it was due to a lack of armor. 

23 hours ago, styopa said:

From the analysis: "...Interestingly, these strikes were weighted appreciably toward the right-hand side..."   I'd guess that most non-duelling sword users would have had a shield primarily covering their left side, so successful strikes would likely show a right-side bias, despite most opponents likewise being right handed.

 Perhaps. But there is also the fact that in a fight you tend to aim at the opponent's weapon and weapon arm, since it's the thing that is threatening you, and is usually the body part that is closest to you and easier to reach. Plus it's where all the action takes place.  Back when I used to mess around with practice weapons, the place that tended to get hit the most was the weapon hand. A lot of partially parried attacks would glide down the blade, off the guard, and into the hand. We started wearing winter gloves to protect our fingers. 

Do a bit of messing around with a pair of nerf Swords, and you'll find out why chest hits are so rare in RQ melee. It might be a big area, but it generally only gets hit when you try for it and your opponent really messes up his defense. Usually, the blow will get partially parried and defected elsewhere.  

 

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Chaos stalks my world, but she's a big girl and can take of herself.

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