Ripping Out Someone's Heart

[vicky_molokh]

Originally Posted by cosmicfish

I would say penetration would require a lot of extra damage - probably twice what it would normally take at least.

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

[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.)

[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.