Ripping Out Someone's Heart

[Kromm]

No amount of non-cinematic strength or precision is going to remove a struggling, defending enemy's heart cleanly or even crudely. But if somebody made a Pressure Secrets attack (-2) on the vitals (-3), and with the ×3 wounding multiplier managed to kill her victim, then I'd allow the killer to claim "I ripped out his heart!", if that were important to the story. I wouldn't differentiate between death by failed HT roll below -HP and death by brute force at -5×HP, or require that all the injury come from this attack, as long as this attack inflicted the killing wound. After all, in martial-arts fiction, people who do this beat the tar out of their victims before using the heart-rip as a "finishing move." I definitely wouldn't base this on an overcomplicated analysis of chest depth, bone HP, etc.; heart-ripping isn't a realistic process by any stretch, and ought to work within the "hit location, HP, and HT roll" model used for all other combat. (Also, you'll find that the rules for attacking hit locations don't bear up under analysis of this kind in general, as they're playable abstractions for living organisms, not instructions for piece-wise disassembly of modular meat machines.)

[malloyd]

Originally Posted by Anthony

And overall, I'd stat this ability up as:

Perk: Fatality
When you kill someone with a blow that does at least HPx1 total injury, you may perform some over the top killing blow (defined when you buy the perk), such as ripping his still-beating heart out of his chest. Other than being potentially useful for intimidation, this has no mechanical effect. The GM may require the blow be targeted at a specific hit location, usually vitals, neck, or skull.

That looks pretty good to me too.

If you want to stat it up as an actual ability rather than a special effect, I think the Affliction (Heart Attack) route works too, stick a limitation on it to require a successful attack to the vitals inflicting a substantial amount of damage on top of that and you get the full range of possible effects - i.e. the victim might still die even if he does resist the Affliction, you killed him but didn't manage to rip out his heart.

Allowing it as an additional way of killing somebody who hasn't failed a death check or taken 6xHP damage amounts to redefining hit points only for this one attack, and isn't a good approach.

Side point: one of those traditional fatalities is punching someone in the nose and driving fragments into the brain. As far as I know this is totally mythical, but how would you do it? Best guess is something like 'Perk: you may treat a nose shot as a skull shot'.

Yeah, it's mythical, the "nose bone" this is supposed to drive into the brain doesn't even exist, that's a bit of rubbery cartilage. And your brain isn't behind the hole in your skull for your breathing apparatus anyway.

As to how to do it, I think I'd just use the mechanics for a skull hit (use the skull hit location penalty, apply the DR 2 for the skull, and use the knockdown and wounding effects for that) and let you describe it however you want. I suppose charging a perk for that is reasonable. But really if you want to target his left foot, aiming for the reflexology point for his heart as an attack on the vitals, well, as long as the to hit penalty stays the same, and you apply the DR over the location you are claiming the effects of rather than the one you are describing, it doesn't make much difference.

[Anthony]

Originally Posted by malloyd

As to how to do it, I think I'd just use the mechanics for a skull hit (use the skull hit location penalty, apply the DR 2 for the skull, and use the knockdown and wounding effects for that) and let you describe it however you want. I suppose charging a perk for that is reasonable. But really if you want to target his left foot, aiming for the reflexology point for his heart as an attack on the vitals, well, as long as the to hit penalty stays the same, and you apply the DR over the location you are claiming the effects of rather than the one you are describing, it doesn't make much difference.

Well, my idea of the perk is that you'd be going against face (nose) armor rather than skull armor, though you'd still get the DR 2 of the skull. That doesn't matter much in the normal use of this technique (which is against an unarmored target), but it's worth something against anyone with an open helm that lacks a noseguard.

[Langy]

Originally Posted by Anthony

Well, my idea of the perk is that you'd be going against face (nose) armor rather than skull armor, though you'd still get the DR 2 of the skull. That doesn't matter much in the normal use of this technique (which is against an unarmored target), but it's worth something against anyone with an open helm that lacks a noseguard.

I'd be fine with a perk to allow you to switch the DR of a target location to a different one for both this trick and the one described by malloyd about targeting the foot to damage the heart. It seems like the kind of thing that'd be kinda cool. I see no reason to make the foot-striker also deal with the chest armor in order to damage the heart with his reflexology trick - the charge for the perk and the other prerequisites (TBAM and Pressure Secrets) are enough.

[Ulzgoroth]

Originally Posted by Langy

I'd be fine with a perk to allow you to switch the DR of a target location to a different one for both this trick and the one described by malloyd about targeting the foot to damage the heart. It seems like the kind of thing that'd be kinda cool. I see no reason to make the foot-striker also deal with the chest armor in order to damage the heart with his reflexology trick - the charge for the perk and the other prerequisites (TBAM and Pressure Secrets) are enough.

I'd suggest modeling things like that as a Technique, not a perk-granted special power.

Obviously, a cinematic technique.

[Langy]

Originally Posted by Ulzgoroth

I'd suggest modeling things like that as a Technique, not a perk-granted special power.

Obviously, a cinematic technique.

A cinematic technique of a cinematic skill is a little silly (this obviously being a technique off of Pressure Secrets). Still, I'd be fine with this; I'd make the Pressure Secrets technique penalty be the hit location penalty of the 'final target' hit location. The process would thus be something like:

Roll attack at -2 plus hit location penalty of primary location (face, foot, whatever).

Roll Pressure Secrets at hit location penalty of final target location (head, heart, etc).

If you succeed, you deal crushing damage with an x2 wound modifier (or x3 if the target location is the vitals/heart or x4 if the brain), but with the DR of the primary location.

[Mathulhu]

What about a really good Pickpocket roll?

Poor poor Briarheart,
Things look bad for you,
Hey watchya gonna do?

[cosmicfish]

Originally Posted by vicky_molokh

Interesting. So ×1 damage is enough to deliver Follow-Up poison through DR, but not to penetrate flesh.

x1 damage is enough to penetrate the armor and penetrate the skin, allowing for the delivery of drugs and poisons but not enough to do measurable damage. The question is about either breaking through the pectoral muscles and ribcage or penetrating far enough through the abdomen to reach the heart - either of which will take a lot more than x1 damage.

[roguebfl]

Affliction (Heart Attack, Followup, Natural Attack)

The gore is special effect 8)

[Anthony]

Originally Posted by cosmicfish

x1 damage is enough to penetrate the armor and penetrate the skin, allowing for the delivery of drugs and poisons but not enough to do measurable damage. The question is about either breaking through the pectoral muscles and ribcage or penetrating far enough through the abdomen to reach the heart - either of which will take a lot more than x1 damage.

Actually, the problem here is crushing damage -- crushing damage is basically non-penetrating and shouldn't be allowed to deliver a followup attack unless you grossly exceed the target's DR (figure something like a (0.1) divisor). Against a piercing or impaling attack, blowing through the ribcage is not especially hard, my best estimate is that normal flesh is around DR 0.75 per inch and bone is around DR 7 per inch (the skull is about 1/4" thick, so this checks out); a human rib should be around DR 3 if you hit it solidly but the average for the ribcage is around DR 1. Overall around 2d of piercing or impaling damage should be enough to get behind the heart -- but that's basically the one finger poke, so multiply it by five to get all the fingers in, and probably double it again to get the palm through.

So, 20d crushing. Sounds plausible.