Called Shots and Hit Locations

In any RPG system with combat, the questions will surely arise:

“Where did I hit him?”

“I want to shoot it in the eye, how do I do it?”

“My character is wearing a helmet. What does that get me?”

So, you check - does your system have a system for called shots and hit locations? Should it?

Why do these things appeal?

• Making combat concrete - Hit, no hit, some points of damage. What does that number mean? Did someone get hurt? Where? Perhaps HP are meant to be some measure of fatigue or luck that is running out, but that isn’t always intuitive.

• Different arrays of armor - There are usual ways in which armor is worn, priorities to protect the body. Think of all those weird combinations of armor that gladiators wore.

• Combat options - Not every system allows fighting types a lot of different options. It doesn’t take many turns of “I hit it with my sword” before one looks for some variation.

• Engaging with the world - Perhaps a foe has an obvious vulnerability. A combatant would surely seek to exploit it. How else than… hitting them in their weak spot?

• Everybody loves surprises - A hit to a vulnerable area can change up the rhythm of combat in ways that a high damage roll can’t. Everyone will remember the time the driver was struck in the eyes and lost control of the truck.

Where do they fail?

• Redundancy - If the goal of the player in making a called shot is to inflict more damage, then that is already accounted for. An attack roll already represents the character’s best attempt to hurt their enemy. If an enemy has a weakspot, that might be reflected in their lower defense or health.

• What do you hit when you’re not aiming - What about regular attacks? Do you roll locations for those as well? Do they always strike the enemy in the torso?

• Burden - Rolling to hit and then rolling separately for damage is already fairly slow. Adding on a hit location, which might mean another roll or checking modifiers, weighs things down even further. Measuring the protection and armor of each hit location on each character might be manageable for one’s player character, but those managing multiple characters will really start to feel it.

• Assymetry - If an attack disables an enemy’s limb, that might be forgotten by the next encounter. If it happens to a player character, that sticks around. Attriting player characters may not be appropriate for every genre.

• Clashes of logic - While the attacker is trying to make a called shot on the vulnerable parts of the defender, likewise the defender is trying to redirect blows to their more protected regions. Right armed sword-swingers will find their strokes falling on the left side of their targets. What if you’re fighting on a staircase? Where does it end? No table can contain every possibility?

• Tricky numbers - I heard of one clever system where to-hit rolls were re-used for hit locations. By reversing the digits of a d100 roll, a relatively random number was ready at hand without a second roll. But that’s only relatively random. Higher rolls are more likely to hit - 90s, 80s, 70s. If the hit-location table uses both reverse digits, the 19th, 29th, 39th, and so on results will see more use than the 11th, 21st, 31st results.

Can a system be found to work?

• Design for effect - What effect would a hit in a particular location have? More damage? Staggering pain? Mud in your eye? Have rules for more powerful attacks, stunning attacks, blinding attacks. The Warrior’s Mighty Deeds of Arms in Dungeon Crawl Classics achieve this pretty well!

• Common sense - Allow it to intrude from time to time. If an attack would clearly be most likely to hit one part or another, consider what impact that would have and play with it.

• All-in-one - Can a hit location be determined along with the attack roll, with no additional overhead? Would need some clever dice. Some Warhammer related games do something like this, and I’ve heard something like this is in Cyberpunk RED.

• If the shoe crits - Just bundle it in to the critical hit system. This works for the surprises aspect and is not to burdensome. If your crit system has elements of choice beyond chance, then all the better.