Hit Location: Soles of the Feet

[Alden Loveshade]

For Hit Location, the GURPS Basic Set (p. 398) has "Hands or Feet (-4)."

Does anybody know of a GURPS book that gives the minus for only the soles of the feet? (And yes, I know you're unlikely to hit the bottom of someone's foot in combat. But a person could step on something.)

[AlexanderHowl]

It is possible to hit if someone is movong away from you (I have heard of people shot in the sole while away from a gunner). I would give it a -8 (-6 from behind, reduced to -6 (-4 from behind) for a prone target. Damage to the sole is exceptionally painful, so I would double shock penalties and inflict a -1 Basic Move and a -1 to any die roll requiring standing or moving per ([HP × Number of Legs]/20, rounded up) cumulative damage suffered by the target until they heal unless they use crutches. For a HP 10 human, 5 HP of damage to the sole should reduce Basic Move by 5, and reduce their die rolls by -5, as they would be hobbling on ground meat at that point.

[Anthony]

The soles of the feet would have normal penalties for attacking the feet if you're actually attacking from a direction where they can even be hit reliably (say, attacking by stabbing spears upwards through the floor from below). Most of the time they're just invalid targets, though.

[Varyon]

Originally Posted by Anthony

The soles of the feet would have normal penalties for attacking the feet if you're actually attacking from a direction where they can even be hit reliably (say, attacking by stabbing spears upwards through the floor from below). Most of the time they're just invalid targets, though.

Attacking the soles of the feet of someone who is kicking, using acrobatics, or similar may be roughly comparable to attacking the palms of the hands, which according to LT101 is -6 for an unarmed target. I'd be tempted to go with the -8 seen for armed targets due to the feet still spending most of their time on the ground. -6 would probably still be appropriate for a character using Wait, however (such as a Stop Hit against a kicking character).

As for effect, I don't think AlexanderHowl's increased Shock penalty is appropriate (while such wounds typically hurt more than comparable wounds elsewhere, I don't think it's enough to have a mechanical difference in that fashion), but something like the Will roll necessary to continue walking with caltrops would be appropriate (albeit less penalized, as you don't actively have something stuck in your foot). Note any special effects for striking the soles of the feet will, naturally, have to apply to caltrop wounds as well.

[Rupert]

I wouldn't bother with extra penalties in combat. It's fiddly detail of doubtful realism. Once out of combat ruling that walking on such a wound causes any current level of pain to go up a step might be fair, but then you'd need to rule that using a hand with an injured palm also caused extra pain, for the same reason. I don't think it's worth it - just assign a level of pain and move on, considering that it takes little injury to 'cripple' an extremity anyway and a temporary crippling could be considered to be from excessive pain when the owner tries to use the damaged extremity.

[kirbwarrior]

I ruled it as -8 before for DR to make a 'shoe' perk. I like the idea of certain situations allowing to drop it to -6, similar to how you can get behind someone to change Skull from -7 to -5. While sole damage is quite painful, I'd argue a large amount of that comes from Low Pain Threshold and the rest from actually having to walk on it.

[Plane]

Originally Posted by Varyon

A
the palms of the hands, which according to LT101 is -6 for an unarmed target.

This is a really nice find.

What if you're unarmed but making fists for punching though?

Sounds like hitting palms should only be possible for people trying to slap/grapple

[Sam Baughn]

Originally Posted by Plane

What if you're unarmed but making fists for punching though?

Sounds like hitting palms should only be possible for people trying to slap/grapple

Making a fist only covers about half the area of the palm, so at most I'd give that an additional -2.

[Varyon]

Originally Posted by Plane

This is a really nice find.

What if you're unarmed but making fists for punching though?

Sounds like hitting palms should only be possible for people trying to slap/grapple

GURPS seems to assume a lot of unstated movement (which is why you can randomly punch a standing foe in the foot). That said, I could see cause for someone exclusively using Boxing (and maybe Brawling, but probably not Karate) as being treated as armed here, so that the palms are at -8 to hit rather than -6. The player would have to specify during their turn they are keeping their hands balled into fists, and would thus be unable to use any grappling skill (like Judo) for Parrying, or do anything else that assumes an open hand (or perhaps still could, but at a penalty). And even then, if they are struck for enough damage to cause a Shock penalty (or to call for a roll against Knockdown/Stunning, for a character with High Pain Tolerance), their palms should probably go back to -6. All told, I think it's easiest to go with LT's guidelines, but if you don't mind the added complication, go for it.

[Plane]

Originally Posted by Sam Baughn

Making a fist only covers about half the area of the palm, so at most I'd give that an additional -2.

Partial cover, makes sense. You're targeting the proximal palm the fingers don't cover, rather than the distal palm the fingers cover.

I could actually see a couple options to take here:

1) attack at -6 as usual for the palm, roll d6: 1-3 hits the proximal palm, 4-6 hits the fingers covering the distal palm: they act as cover, DP only suffers damage if there's overpenetration

2) attack at -8 to hit the proximal palm:

on a miss by 1 roll d6 and you hit it by accident anyway on a roll of 1-2. A roll of 3-4 hits the forearm, a roll of 5-6 misses entirely.
On a miss by 2, roll d6 and you hit it by accident anyway on a roll of 1. On a roll of 2 you hit the forearm. A roll of 3-6 misses entirely.

These latter options are ones I'd like to see for targeting extremities in general TBH. A miss by 1 on an extremity should probably have at least a 1 in 6 chance of hitting the distal portion of the limb it's attached too.

Same for attacks targeting forearms/shins: a 1 in 6 chance of hitting the hand/foot, a 1 in 6 chance of hitting the elbow/knee.

Elbow/knee attacks could then have a chance of hitting the forearm/aftarm or the shin/thigh.

Aftarm/Thigh attacks could hace a chance of hitting the elbow/shoulder or the knee/pelvis.

Shoulder/pelvis attacks could have a chance of hitting the aftarm/upperChest or thigh/abdomen...

UpperChest/Abdomen attacks could have a chance of hitting the Shoulder/LowerChest or LowerChest/Pelvis...

It begins to get fuzzy here because UpperChest would also be adjacent to the Neck... and also it's weird because there are two "shoulder" locations but I'm not sure if there should be one or two "upper chest" locations.

I like the idea of two (there are 2 clavicles after all) in which case an upper chest would be adjacent to 3 things: the respective shoulder, the opposite upper chest, and the neck.

"Miss by 1 has chance to hit adjacent" is already present on some locations (jaw/ear/nose I think) so I'm just thinking it'd be cool to use for ALL connected locations to some degree.

Actually a scaled tiering (1/6 on MB2 becomes 1/3 on MB1) is even more interesting. It would make targetting smaller locations more attractive, with them being less "all or nothing".