[EskrimadorNC]

Originally Posted by Rupert

Torso as 1 in 4 of hits isn't wonky for most melee attacks. Besides, Torso plus Abdomen is about 3-in-8 hits.

I'm not sure how you gather that. Historically, the torso (and arguably the head) was always the most armored body part for people routinely engaging in melee combat. Why on earth would you slow yourself down and interfere with your ability to move/fight if there was only a 1 in for 4 chance that a landed blow would hit there? I get that arms are sometimes just because they are in the way (though we do target them deliberately in Eskrima), I still can't believe that 1 in 4 is reasonable.

From a game mechanics perspective (still focusing on melee combat), the 1 in 4 chance for a torso hit really reduces/removes the incentive for players to bother deliberately targeting specific hit locations. If you have a high chance of hitting some sort of HVT other than the torso, what do you have to lose?

Before I change the chart, the emergent behavior from my players was "Lets just make RHL attacks since there is only a small chance of hitting the well protected torso, and a hit on just about any other location is more likely to cause immediate debilitation". What I wanted was "Hey, this dude has a very well armored torso, but nothing else is really protected. I can make an RHL attack, but will probably still hit the torso anyway, or I can take a hit penalty and target a more vulnerable location."

In my experience in firefights with guns non-torso hits are actually undesirable, because most of the time that means a limb and their damage is capped. This is fine if you hit the attacker's main arm or hand, but otherwise they can keep shooting if they make their HT rolls. A solid Torso hit that puts them deep into negative hit points is much better.

So the mechanics do work that way, but it also needs certain conditions to present for it to work.
1. Opposition isn't wearing any torso armor, like an assault vest or plate carrier. A 9mm to the unprotected arm is way more effective than smushing it into the armored torso for no HP damage.
2. For crippled arm/hands, the foe is only using a 1-handed weapon like a pistol. For anything larger, you more significantly reduce their ability to return effective fires by crippling an arm, even if it is their non-dominant one.
3. For crippled legs, you have removed their ability to "Dodge and Drop", and their ability to move quickly to cover more than a yard away. So maybe if you cripple a leg and they fall fully behind cover, you are worse off. But then if they are prone and fully behind cover, they likely aren't shooting back at you on their turn.

Now, if you are shooting at an unarmored insurgent, yeah, you are more likely to force HT checks to stay conscious/not die on a torso hit vs a limb hit.

So I do get the lost damage vs. limbs, but all things considered, if I had a 12 HP character, I would MUCH rather take a 7 dmg 9mm round to the torso and be able to keep fighting at pretty much 100% than take it to the arm or leg and have it be crippled.

Now, if you're using guns and good torso armour but little limb armour (as is the standard today), or melee weapons and armour that generally lets through only about the amount of a major wound, it'll be different.

Yup. And it's been common in the games I run that bad guys have armor. Not all bad guys every fight, but it is pretty damned likely.

It really depends on the setting whether limb hits are more desirable for the attacker than torso hits. Even head hits can be undesirable if the head is well armoured.

Setting, opposition, weapons, skill levels, etc. You and I have had different experiences, which makes sense, right? Different tables. I just got tired of "Your wild-swing-punch hits the bad guy's...<rolls on RHL chart>...foot? Yeah, that punch hit is foot."

That would fail badly at my table. Random bad luck in the form of unaimed bullets hitting people in vital spots like the neck, vitals, or skull is a major part of what makes combat scary, even for high point-value characters, and is thus a major part of why the PCs are willing to accept the encumbrance associated with high-DR suits of armour.

That is fair enough. I didn't mention it, but I do allow a 1/6 chance of a Face hit being an actual Skull hit, but most of the protective gear that protects the face also protects the skull. Same with Vitals, though I will note that the RHL in the Basic set does NOT have Vitals on the list of hit locations.

Removing these locations from the random table favours the PCs (usually more skilled), and means that if a PC is shot in the vitals, the players know that the GM decided to try and kill their PC. That can, depending on the group, lead to ill feeling.

On one hand, it does favor the PC as foes making wild swings have zero chance of hitting the Neck, Groin, Hands, or Feet. Skull isn't on the chart, but Face is, and random hits to the face have a 1/6 chance of being redirected to the skull. However, on the flip side, it is now HARDER for the PCs to be attackers and hit those locations on the bad guys. They can't gamble on a good RHL roll. They need to deliberately target those spots in order to hit them, and suffer the full penalties.

Everyone's table/player base is different, but here are the changes I noticed in the games I run after introducing my house rule RHL tables.

1. Players no longer make very many RHL rolls unless they are playing fairly low skilled (13 or less) characters. This is exactly the sort of behavior I wanted to drive.

2. When players DO wish to strike HVTs, they do them directly and take the appropriate penalties. This is exactly the sort of behavior I wanted to drive.

3. When foes make randomly targeted attacks, there are no longer any ridiculous outcomes (see punching a foe's foot), and the attacks they do throw still threaten PCs significantly. This is exactly the sort of behavior I wanted to drive.

4. At the beginning, PCs became less concerned about making sure their Necks/Hands/Feet/Groin were properly armored. Unintended consequence. But this only lasted until they ran into some higher skilled goons who went for TA-Hand or Stamp Kick-Foot. Then they learned the folly of their ways.

Again, YMMV, but it's safe for me to say these drove almost exactly the sort of behavior I was looking for in my games.