Aiming for Spine in Neck?

[PseudoFenton]

MA introduces the Spine hit location, but states that it's a sub-zone of the torso - however it also says there's a chance to hit the spine with a crushing attack when targeting the neck from behind.

As its entirely logical to say that there is a spine in your neck that can be aimed for, and there are rules supporting what happens when you hit it when striking at the neck - what is the penalty to hit to purposefully target it? Also, as the (torso) spine can be targeted with imp and cutting etc, would it be fair to say you can do similar when attacking the (neck) spine if you're aiming specifically for it?

[Blood Legend]

On page 137, nothing would indicate that hitting anything at the top of the spine is any more difficult than hitting the bottom. To do this deliberately, I guess I'd only assign an additional -1 since it has benefits above hitting the spine elsewhere.

[Kromm]

By a strict reading, if the spine in the torso (0) gives -8, then spine in the neck (-5) should give -13. I find this rather excessive, though. I would simply observe that the usual ratio of cervical vertebrae to the remainder of the spine is about 1:4, and note that 1/4 has the effect of adding between -3 and -4 to hit on p. B550. I'd go with -3 and call this -11 to hit. Then just follow through with the usual ramifications:

Cervical Vertebrae (-11): Crushing, cutting, impaling, piercing, and tight-beam burning attacks from behind can target the spine in the neck. The vertebrae provide an additional DR 3. Use the wounding modifiers for the neck, but any hit for enough injury to inflict a shock penalty requires a knockdown roll, at -5 if a major wound. Injury in excess of HP cripples the spine. This causes automatic knockdown and stunning, plus all the effects of Quadriplegic (p. B150). Roll after the fight to avoid gaining this disadvantage on a lasting or permanent basis! A miss by 1 hits the neck.

Note that owing to the neck's special sensitivity to cutting attacks, crippling is more likely without reducing the threshold from full HP! I'd caution against shrinking the penalty to hit by too much more . . . yes, -11 is intense, but consider that it's essentially an "I win" button.

[PseudoFenton]

Originally Posted by Kromm

Cervical Vertebrae

This is perfect, exactly what I needed. Thanks.

Also, yes, it is a little bit of an 'I Win' button, so I don't mind the steep penalties it requires. A skilled executer with a Targeted Attack for the hit location and three turns to Evaluate has easily good enough odds for hitting it, so it's not unachievable its its penalty - although less dedicated fighters wont be aiming for it all that often in combat when there are much easier things to strike for.

[NineDaysDead]

Originally Posted by Kromm

By a strict reading, if the spine in the torso (0) gives -8, then spine in the neck (-5) should give -13. I find this rather excessive, though. I would simply observe that the usual ratio of cervical vertebrae to the remainder of the spine is about 1:4, and note that 1/4 has the effect of adding between -3 and -4 to hit on p. B550. I'd go with -3 and call this -11 to hit. Then just follow through with the usual ramifications:

Cervical Vertebrae (-11): Crushing, cutting, impaling, piercing, and tight-beam burning attacks from behind can target the spine in the neck. The vertebrae provide an additional DR 3. Use the wounding modifiers for the neck, but any hit for enough injury to inflict a shock penalty requires a knockdown roll, at -5 if a major wound. Injury in excess of HP cripples the spine. This causes automatic knockdown and stunning, plus all the effects of Quadriplegic (p. B150). Roll after the fight to avoid gaining this disadvantage on a lasting or permanent basis! A miss by 1 hits the neck.

Note that owing to the neck's special sensitivity to cutting attacks, crippling is more likely without reducing the threshold from full HP! I'd caution against shrinking the penalty to hit by too much more . . . yes, -11 is intense, but consider that it's essentially an "I win" button.

I get that it should be hard, really hard, but -11 is worse than trying to target the eye (-9) it's worse than stabbing the eye through the eye slit of a helmet (-10), what makes it quite so hard a target?

[Kromm]

Well, an eyeslit and the line of the cervical vertebrae are approximately the same shape and size. I suppose you could use -10 for both. But I don't think it's unfair to assess an extra -1 for the latter target being concealed from view – especially when the usual extra penalty for attacking a specific area concealed from sight by blowing through its concealment is -2.

[gilbertocarlos]

Also, if you're attacking the spine you could probably also do an All-Out Telegraphed attack.

[PseudoFenton]

Originally Posted by NineDaysDead

I get that it should be hard, really hard, but -11 is worse than trying to target the eye (-9) it's worse than stabbing the eye through the eye slit of a helmet (-10), what makes it quite so hard a target?

Well the ability to strike at something that's deep (even if its not massively deep) means you'll have to judge the angle of attack a lot more as so to make sure the rest of the neck doesn't receive the blow first.

The eyes are a surface level target and can be attacked from a multitude of angles and still be easily hit - and the blow through to hit the brain (higher wounding modifier) would also work from pretty much any angle of attack. Even attacking though eye slits has a few degrees of lateral movement of acceptable attack angle.

It's also not hard to suggest that even without an active defence, reflexes alone cause your neck and shoulders to twist and bend away from an impact, which may make it harder to land a clean blow that's deep enough to strike the spine.

It's also a -10 to target a chink in any piece of armour (except the torso), which again suggests a surface target that requires a high degree of angular restriction in the attack. The spine being deep would logically require an even narrower restriction, and so would logically be harder to achieve.

Of cause this does raise the question of how much harder targeting the Cervical Vertebrae Chinks would be? Perhaps only a further -2, which brings it in-line with Kromm's original x+y assessment of -13 to hit, which seems like a fairer penalty now as you're overcoming armour at the same time.

[Tomsdad]

Originally Posted by PseudoFenton

Well the ability to strike at something that's deep (even if its not massively deep) means you'll have to judge the angle of attack a lot more as so to make sure the rest of the neck doesn't receive the blow first.

The eyes are a surface level target and can be attacked from a multitude of angles and still be easily hit - and the blow through to hit the brain (higher wounding modifier) would also work from pretty much any angle of attack. Even attacking though eye slits has a few degrees of lateral movement of acceptable attack angle.

It's also not hard to suggest that even without an active defence, reflexes alone cause your neck and shoulders to twist and bend away from an impact, which may make it harder to land a clean blow that's deep enough to strike the spine.

It's also a -10 to target a chink in any piece of armour (except the torso), which again suggests a surface target that requires a high degree of angular restriction in the attack. The spine being deep would logically require an even narrower restriction, and so would logically be harder to achieve.

Of cause this does raise the question of how much harder targeting the Cervical Vertebrae Chinks would be? Perhaps only a further -2, which brings it in-line with Kromm's original x+y assessment of -13 to hit, which seems like a fairer penalty now as you're overcoming armour at the same time.

I'm not sure that that there are many more angles of attack that go through the eye and into the brain than there are for striking the neck and hitting the spinal column, rather the opposite. I like the idea of bypassing the vertebrae as armour chinks, but with the proviso that you can still damage the spinal cord by going through the bone DR* as well.

I'd have the spine from behind as the same as eyes from the front and give an extra -2 to bypass the vertebrae. The thing is attacks from behind are rarer than attacks from the front, and harder to set up so I thinks that's reasonable.

What I like about the -5 stun/knockdown is you can do those karate chops to the nape of the neck so common in 60's TV shows!

Either way to get to the point where your taking someone out with one shot i.e a crippling wound assuming a ST10 target your talking:

getting around behind the target, -9 to hit the spine DR2 and getting rolling 10 damage (10-2 = 8*1.5 = 12) with a crushing weapon or 8 (8-2 = 6*2 = 12) with imp or cutting

or getting around behind the target -11 to hit and avoiding the vertebrae and rolling 8 damage with a crushing weapon or 6 with imp or cutting.

None of which is going to happing every day of the week!

more over if you just went for the skull from behind instead you 'only' talking a -5 to hit, and with the equivalent hits at x4 injury & -10 stun/knockdown, I reckon the end results are going to be pretty similar i.e one hit and it's over.

*and I'd make that DR2 in the neck and DR3 in the torso as the vertebrae are lighter and smaller there.

[PseudoFenton]

Originally Posted by Tomsdad

I'm not sure that that there are many more angles of attack that go through the eye and into the brain than there are for striking the neck and hitting the spinal column, rather the opposite.

You can strike from about eye level and easily 45 or more degrees of incline into the head, in addition to probably 45 degrees (to a total of 90 when not specifying which eye you're aiming for) to each side of the face. Picture of where the brain and eyes are in relation to each other (showing the brain) highlight that there's a lot of brain to hit, and there isn't a lot of space between the eyes and the brain itself.

Looking at images of the head and where exactly the spinal column sits (like here), I don't think its unreasonable to say that you're neck provides a lot of 'cover' for your spine. As such you'd need to use narrower range of attack angles as so to ensure your attack penetrated to the correct location, and didn't bypass the spine or get entirely absorbed by the rest of the neck. Plus, as Kromm said, you can't actually see where the spine is exactly, making it a little harder to practically aim for.

Originally Posted by Tomsdad

I like the idea of bypassing the vertebrae as armour chinks, but with the proviso that you can still damage the spinal cord by going through the bone DR* as well.

I was actually referring to bypassing worn armour to strike at the spine, which should be quite tough.

Originally Posted by Tomsdad

I'd make that DR2 in the neck and DR3 in the torso as the vertebrae are lighter and smaller there.

The DR is also partially granted by thick layers of muscle bundles, and not just the bone. The bones themselves probably grant DR2 alone, however the muscles mass around the neck section of the spine are lesser than around the torso section - so this may be justified. Although for ease of memory and balance issues, I'll probably just keep using DR3.