Targeted Attack: Chinks in Armor, and regular hit locations

[Erik_Nielsen]

This came up the other night in conversation, and I couldn't quite get my head around it, so I'm asking the HiveMind:

If you buy up to maximum your Targeted Attack (Knife/Eye Chinks) (Knife-5) [6] and then you attack someone who isn't wearing a helmet, are you still at Knife-9 to hit the eye, or do you apply your technique level to the regular hit location, making it a Knife-5 to hit the eye?

I can see how it could go one way or the other:

1) Training to target a chink in armor is a very specialized skill; you're practicing working around obstacles to get your hit in, and that will throw you off when you're working on an unprotected target.

2) An eye-slot in a helmet and an eye socket are not significantly different in size or position, so practice on one should apply to the other.

On the third tentacle, if you took Targeted Attack (Knife/Eye), I think most people would balk at giving you that penalty mitigator to hit the Eye Chink.

Thoughts?

[sir_pudding]

Originally Posted by Erik_Nielsen

Targeted Attack (Knife/Eye Chinks) (Knife-5) [6]

Eyes are gaps, not chinks normally. I suppose this would be useful if you were fighting somebody with a transparent helmet (a riot cop?), but it doesn't seem likely that anybody trains to do this. Am I missing something?

[Erik_Nielsen]

Originally Posted by sir_pudding

Eyes are gaps, not chinks normally. I suppose this would be useful if you were fighting somebody with a transparent helmet (a riot cop?), but it doesn't seem likely that anybody trains to do this. Am I missing something?

Yes, you're missing this conversation from the uFAQ:

http://forums.sjgames.com/showpost.p...9&postcount=59

Originally Posted by vicky_molokh

Q: When targeting the eyes on an opponent wearing headgear that does not explicitly cover the eyes, does the headgear offer any DR?

A: Yes, targeting the eye-slots on headgear that does not protect the eyes is the same as targeting a chink in armor with the special penalties for face, eyes, vitals, arm, etc.: the target gets half the DR of the headgear, for a -10 on the to-hit roll.

Q: What about headgear with explicit eye DR?

A: In that case, the eyes are not considered chinks.

In other words, if you're fighting an opponent wearing a Greathelm and you attack at -9 to hit the eye, your opponent has DR7 for the eye; if you attack the Eye Chink at -10, your opponent only gets DR4. And if you're the sort of person who's using a knife to attack a fully armored and helmeted knight, you're really going to want to take every advantage you can get.

[sir_pudding]

Originally Posted by Erik_Nielsen

Yes, you're missing this conversation from the uFAQ:

The "u" in "uFAQ" means "unofficial"; Low-Tech certainly supersedes it.

In other words, if you're fighting an opponent wearing a Greathelm and you attack at -9 to hit the eye, your opponent has DR7 for the eye;

Not according to Low-Tech. Eyes are gaps not chinks.

[Erik_Nielsen]

Originally Posted by sir_pudding

The "u" in "uFAQ" means "unofficial"; Low-Tech certainly supersedes it.

Not according to Low-Tech. Eyes are gaps not chinks.

Had not seen that in Low-Tech. Thank you for pointing that out.

Setting aside eyes for the nonce, let's talk about Targeted Attack (Knife/Vitals Chink). If you buy up to maximum your Targeted Attack (Knife/Vitals Chinks) (Knife-5) [6] and then you attack someone who isn't wearing armor, are you still at Knife-3 to hit the vitals, or do you apply your technique level to the regular hit location, making it flat Knife to hit the vitals?

[Erik_Nielsen]

Originally Posted by sir_pudding

The "u" in "uFAQ" means "unofficial"; Low-Tech certainly supersedes it.

Not according to Low-Tech. Eyes are gaps not chinks.

Right... and wrong. LT112, under Greathelm:

"Targeting eyes through the eyeslits is at -10 (see Chinks in Armor, p. 101)."

LT101, under Chinks in Armor:

"The penalty to hit chinks in armor is -8 on the torso, -10 everywhere else. On a successful hit, halve armor DR."

Now, further down, in the section on "Harsh Realism - Armor Gaps", we get the circle completing itself:

"Eyes: Any armor that fully covers the face also covers the eyes. Anyone wishing to target the eyes can do so through the eye-slits at -10. If successful, there’s no DR and the eyes suffer full damage! See Face Protection (p. 112) for more on armoring the face."

So: if you want to play with Harsh Realism, then yes, eyeslots in Greathelms are gaps-- and they can still be targeted, which means that Stabbity MacStabstab of the Clan MacStab, master of the knife, has all the more incentive to buy up the TA (Knife/Eye Chinks) technique.

But seriously, thank you for giving me an opportunity to dive into LowTech; some delightfully good stuff in there!

[Ulzgoroth]

Originally Posted by Erik_Nielsen

Had not seen that in Low-Tech. Thank you for pointing that out.

Setting aside eyes for the nonce, let's talk about Targeted Attack (Knife/Vitals Chink). If you buy up to maximum your Targeted Attack (Knife/Vitals Chinks) (Knife-5) [6] and then you attack someone who isn't wearing armor, are you still at Knife-3 to hit the vitals, or do you apply your technique level to the regular hit location, making it flat Knife to hit the vitals?

As written, it's clearly the former (or you could roll knife-5, if you prefer, and hit the chinks in the armor that isn't there. Not much of a win though.)

The latter is right out, in fact. You can't improve TA (Knife stab/Vitals) past Knife-1, so you certainly shouldn't be able to do better than that. I'd stick with the RAW, however you could make a case for going up to Knife-1 but never to unmodified Knife.