More Hit Locations

[SDLeary]

Has anyone out there in BRP-landia ever tried out more Hit Locations? Say, 11; breaking the leg into thigh and shin, and the arm into forearm and upper arm?.

How did you distribute HP?

SDLeary

[g33k]

18 minutes ago, SDLeary said:

Has anyone out there in BRP-landia ever tried out more Hit Locations? Say, 11; breaking the leg into thigh and shin, and the arm into forearm and upper arm?.

How did you distribute HP?

SDLeary

I have seen other systems that do so; *one* of my GM's used to call out hit-location-11 as "oooo, right in the delicates!" but IIRC didn't impose any extra mechanical penalties.
I have never felt there would be sufficient gain for BRP to do so.

[Raleel]

P276-277 Mythras?

[SDLeary]

3 hours ago, g33k said:

I have seen other systems that do so; *one* of my GM's used to call out hit-location-11 as "oooo, right in the delicates!" but IIRC didn't impose any extra mechanical penalties.
I have never felt there would be sufficient gain for BRP to do so.

E-gads... no intention to go that far! "delicates" or left big toe sound like something that Phoenix Command might do.

SDLeary

[SDLeary]

3 minutes ago, Raleel said:

P276-277 Mythras?

Looking more at the human form, mainly the limbs: L Shin, R Shin, L Thigh... and so on. This along with a more "center of mass" distribution to the location chart.

SDLeary

Edited October 25, 2023 by SDLeary

[Raleel]

So you want 

1 left foot

2 left shin

3 left thigh

 

and so on? Probably not even hard to do, but what effects are going to distinguish different locations?

[g33k]

14 minutes ago, Raleel said:

So you want 

1 left foot

2 left shin

3 left thigh

 

and so on? Probably not even hard to do, but what effects are going to distinguish different locations?

Don't be silly!
 

@SDLeary is clearly prep'ing a draft of The Hokey Pokey: BRP-UGE Edition.

[g33k]

59 minutes ago, SDLeary said:

E-gads... no intention to go that far! "delicates" or left big toe sound like something that Phoenix Command might do.

SDLeary

Would it suffice to just add an "even/odd" distinction to the existing location table?

[SDLeary]

14 minutes ago, g33k said:

Would it suffice to just add an "even/odd" distinction to the existing location table?

It might.

I was just thinking of something to make it more visually apparent to players on their character sheet, and was wondering if anyone had tried this before. 

SDLeary

[SDLeary]

35 minutes ago, Raleel said:

So you want 

1 left foot

2 left shin

3 left thigh

 

and so on? Probably not even hard to do, but what effects are going to distinguish different locations?

No, it wouldn't be hard. Was just wondering if someone had tried it, and what issues they may have run into. Perhaps issues with armor, or something else that I haven't thought of. 

Also, how they figured hit points. I started at the beginning, and simply divided up the locational HP, but quickly figured out that characters would end up very short very quickly! 

SDLeary

[NickMiddleton]

Hume and Charette’s Aftermath divided the human body into 30 locations for the purposes of determining armour values - but I can’t recall the details of how damage works exactly. I have hazy recollections that there was a global value called system shock that was affected by where the damage was dealt, but beyond that I’d have to dig out and re-read my copy. Will take a look later if I have time.

EDIT: speed reading my PDF, hit locations in Aftermath! Doesn’t have location hit points - but “special effects “ / critical damage associated with a specific location renders it in unusable ( so head / neck character is unconscious / comatose etc)… There’s also a global hit point total (damage resistance total?)…

…more and closer reading required.

I remain fond of Hume & Charette’s BCS system, but man this has reminded me how awfully fiddly it got in Aftermath!

 

Edited October 25, 2023 by NickMiddleton

[Mugen]

French game Légendes divided the body in 20 hit locations, plus 10 sub-locations for joints. For instance, location 18 was the lower right leg, and location 18A (A as Articulation, French for "joint") was the right knee, location 12 was the right hand and 12A was the right wrist. Location roll was made using a d100.

It didn't use localized hit points, only a "major wounds" system, whose severity changed depending on damage and location.

Its second edition, whose Celtic version had been translated in English under the name Celtic Legends, removed the joints from the system and simplified the wounds system. Location roll was made using a d20.

[Susimetsa]

I'm not designing pure BRP, but I do this in my system. The basic idea is that the different hit locations do not have their own HP - they merely receive wound levels based on the seriousness of damage (and receive penalties accordingly - a total of -100% to an individual limb (combining forearm and upper arm, for example, makes that arm completely useless). The HP damage is deducted from the general HP.

Not play-tested yet, however. I fear that the need to track wound locations and their seriousness may prove too cumbersome.

Edited November 2, 2023 by Susimetsa

[Atgxtg]

On 10/25/2023 at 12:19 AM, SDLeary said:

It might.

I was just thinking of something to make it more visually apparent to players on their character sheet, and was wondering if anyone had tried this before. 

SDLeary

Well Nick already mentioned Aftermath so I'll add that amny of Aftermath's hit locations were for LEft Side/Right side and were together on the hit location table. What side you got hit on was partially determined by how you were weeilding your weapons. For instance someone fight with a rapier would be in a presented stance and when hit 70% of the hits would his his weapon side (the side presented to the opponent). Conversely, someone fighting with sword and shield would be in a refused stance and only 30% of hit would hit their weapon side, with 70% hitting their shield side (and, hopefully be covered by the shield). Someone weilding two weapons would be in a frontal stance and hits would be 50/50 for either side.

Characters with high skill got an aim ability allowing them to  bump the hit location around the body a bit based on skill. So someone with aim4 who rolled a hit in the right shoulder (location 21) could shift the location all  the way down the arm to the right hand, or over to the neck, face, skull, the left shoulder, or anywhere else on the chest or upper abdomen.heart, abdomen. The *ahem* vitals were location 12 and just out of reach in this particular case.

 

I could scan/post the tables and body location image if you want. It is fairly easy to follow and could be adapted to BRP pretty easily, especially fi you port over the left side./right side roll. It's really only 17 different  hit locations, with left/right side doubling 13 of them. 

 

As far as effects of hitting the new hit locations, I'd say for the most part you don't need to treat the new locations all that differerntly. Hand, lower arm, upper arm, and shoulder are all still an arm hit.

• What you might want to do is just add in a few "reaction rolls" for when specific spots get hit, such as a DEX roll to see if someone drops something for a hand hit, or a roll to keep standing if hit in a knee, or maybe a stun roll for hits to the head or "vitals".
• You might also want to adjust some of the rolls and threshold values for things like hits to the heart might be more leathal or lead to bleeding out a bit faster than to the lower chest.
• Armor would probably need to be a bit more precise though. Gantlets, Vambraces and rebraces would now cover three different hit locations.

 

 

 BTRC's Timelord's RPG used a 31 hit location table similar in many ways to Aftermath's. In Timelord's hitting a particular part of a location could adjust the wound's lethality, the ability to remain conscious, the rate of bloodloss/eventual death (which might be stopped with medical attention), or if a bone was broken (which slowed the healing time).