Quote:
Originally Posted by Shostak
The logical extension of this is that bolas give +2DX regardless of what body part is being aimed at. I'd argue that this is not desirable.
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When you throw a dagger at a head sized target, you have less than half a square foot to hit.
When you throw a bola at a head, the effective size of your target is several square feet. The bola extends to 5 to 6 feet diameter. If the path to the target was off by a little or even a moderate amount but the height remained correct, then hitting anywhere within these 5 feet will cause the weights to wrap around. That is, a successful hit.
Thus it has its own reduced DX adjustments for body parts. This includes arms and legs at no DX penalty. I am saying this is not the part of ITL Bola that I find problematic.
I have three objections to the bola that I set out to fix.
- As stated in ITL a single bola throwing fighter can rapidly throw and disable a foe per turn (draw and throw one per turn due to Thrown Weapon skills). This does not match the reality of the actual bola. A bola takes time to deploy.
- No limit to the foe it can take down (other than ST20 for wings). So, as it is in the rules, 7 hex dragons and giants can easily be dropped for 2 turns. It is just not going to get around two legs of such a large beast.
- A bola also takes space to deploy. This is a real limitation. The fact that it is such a wide projectile also gives it the low DX penalties to succeed. But it needs to reflex the fact that you just cannot throw a bola through a crowd of bodies or trees.