How specific is aiming?

[Skarg]

Originally Posted by Gollum

So, if I do understand well what is said here...

...

I can freely take benefit of what happen next ...

• If the guy come closer (during 3 turns, he can cover about 15 yards), I am able to decide that I aim at his foot instead of his leg, because it is more easy to cripple and now at about the same penalty that the leg was (with the modified range compensating the increase hit location penalty).
• If the guy goes farer away, I am able to decide that I was aiming at his torso to avoid the increased range penalty by reducing the hit location penalty.
• If he hides his legs behind some cover, I can decide that I was actually aiming his arm, or his hand, or his head, since I cannot anymore see his legs.
• And so on...

That's a huge gamistic advantage, indeed.

But that is neither fair nor realistic.

In reality, if I aim at someone's foot, I'm not aiming at his head and vice versa. The head can be farer from the foot than the guy is from one of his fellow...
...

Seems ok to me, because you are tracking the one opponent the whole time, and could react to his changing situation. All his parts move together, and you're tracking them. I think there should realistically be a bonus for tracking one target, compared to firing at someone you were not tracking, or compared to not aiming and having fired at something else the previous turn.

However to be as accurate/detailed as possible, there could be a micro-aiming house rule that I expect Kromm wouldn't want to publish, that would give you an additional plus for specifying you are aiming for a body part. If I had a player with your concern, and other players who didn't want to be that detailed, I would probably create an option where aiming works as Kromm says, but you can optionally say you are aiming for a certain body part, and get an additional +1, but a -1 if you change your mind. I might even give an additional -1 to ALL aimed body part attacks, just so this doesn't make it easier to hit specific targets overall.

What I don't get, is Kromm's batleship example. If a porthole is -7 to hit, I don't think you should get a +14 for the size of the battleship it's on while trying to hit the porthole - that seems like a mistake.

[johndallman]

Originally Posted by Gollum

But don't you find that aiming at a huge battleship for three turns and only choosing where you exactly want to shoot at the end of three turns (while you can't change from human target no matter how close they are), is a bit strange too? There are dozens of yards between the stern and the bow of a huge battleship.

Depends how far you are from the battleship. It may be +14 for size, but a normal sort of range for a battleship shooting at another battleship is 20,000 yards, giving -24, or a net -10 to hit. That gives it roughly the same apparent size as a person at 100 yards.

If you wanted to make a rule about this, you could say that if the total size/speed/range modifiers were, say, +4 or better, roughly equivalent to shooting at the proverbial barn door at 2 yards range, then you have to specify a hit location when you aim, because changing hit locations involves pointing the gun in a significantly different direction.

[Sam Baughn]

Originally Posted by Skarg

What I don't get, is Kromm's batleship example. If a porthole is -7 to hit, I don't think you should get a +14 for the size of the battleship it's on while trying to hit the porthole - that seems like a mistake.

I think the problem is that it's a general modifier for all vehicles, applied to a vehicle which is very different to average. The hit location chart for a battleship should probably list it's portholes at -16 or so, but we don't have a hit location chart for a battleship, we've only got a generic one for all vehicles (Basic Set p. 554).

[Skarg]

Originally Posted by Perfect Organism

I think the problem is that it's a general modifier for all vehicles, applied to a vehicle which is very different to average. The hit location chart for a battleship should probably list it's portholes at -16 or so, but we don't have a hit location chart for a battleship, we've only got a generic one for all vehicles (Basic Set p. 554).

Is this another 4e rule I don't know? Seems to me the to-hit modifier for a particular porthole would be based on the size of the porthole and not matter what the size of the rest of the ship is, no?

(Hit location chart for a battleship for a non-specific target location... I'd use a plan of the battleship.)

[Þorkell]

Originally Posted by Gollum

[*]If he hides his legs behind some cover, I can decide that I was actually aiming his arm, or his hand, or his head, since I cannot anymore see his legs.[*]And so on...[/LIST]That's a huge gamistic advantage, indeed.

But that is neither fair nor realistic.

In reality, if I aim at someone's foot, I'm not aiming at his head and vice versa. The head can be farer from the foot than the guy is from one of his fellow...

Two comments. How would you handle it? That is the PC has been aiming been aiming at someones left leg for 3 turns, but the target steps behind a stone wall.

And, if you're aiming at someone you don't have to make huge movement to shift your point of aim from one end of his body to the other. Assuming he's not standing right there next to you.

[weby]

Originally Posted by Gollum

So, if I do understand well what is said here...

My original goal is to shoot someone's leg, to prevent him running away. I don't tell the GM I'm aiming at his leg. I just tell him I'm aiming at this guy, for three turns (to have the maximum bonus), and this is only when I pull the trigger that I precise what exact hit location I was aiming at 3 turns before...

I can freely take benefit of what happen next ...

• If the guy come closer (during 3 turns, he can cover about 15 yards), I am able to decide that I aim at his foot instead of his leg, because it is more easy to cripple and now at about the same penalty that the leg was (with the modified range compensating the increase hit location penalty).
• If the guy goes farer away, I am able to decide that I was aiming at his torso to avoid the increased range penalty by reducing the hit location penalty.
• If he hides his legs behind some cover, I can decide that I was actually aiming his arm, or his hand, or his head, since I cannot anymore see his legs.
• And so on...

That's a huge gamistic advantage, indeed.

But that is neither fair nor realistic.

In reality, if I aim at someone's foot, I'm not aiming at his head and vice versa. The head can be farer from the foot than the guy is from one of his fellow...

And two different foes can be far much closer from each other than the stern of a battleship is from it's bow. But here, still no matter. I just aim at the battleship, take benefit from the +14, from the increase aiming time, and only decide before pulling the trigger if I was aiming at the bow (motors) or at the stern (cannons) or right in the middle (captain's cabin)... Now, If I was aiming at one sailor, I absolutely cannot decide that I am aiming at an other one, even if this last is just one yard on his right...

Is this really how it is supposed to work?

Few notes:
In reality when aiming you tend to focus more and more on a given target or part of a target, but in the beginning you tend to try focus on the center of the mass and then shift to the location you are aiming at.

As example when hunting an elk with a scoped rifle I will first try to acquire any part of the animal and then I will shift towards the front of the torso to get "vitals". So as example shooting from side it is likely that the first couple of aiming rounds are in trying to line up the middle of torso and then the following shifting the aim to the actual location I want to hit.

So realistically, indeed if the target area you were aiming at was suddenly obscured but other parts are visible you would need to spend part of your aiming time to reacquire the visible parts, but not all as you have the weapon already pointed at about the right place. But you may be confused by the obstruction if you were not aware of it and lose whole aim. But voluntarily shifting aim point early on you would not lose anything, but as you get later and later in the aim process then you would need to spend more of the time to shift. But in all cases really the hard and time consuming part when you do slow aims is the original acquiring the target and the later shifting of aim point is normally much smaller part. So a good fairly realistic rule would be that you lose the last second of aiming in such.

Shifting from one target to another really close-by one is theoretically as easy as shifting between two parts of a target, but in reality human vision is object based, that is you actually see objects as separate things but parts of an object as one thing. When aiming you tend to focus on that one object and specially if you are a good shooter and try to cancel out your own body actions and such you really tend to not see much anything else except your target. That is what I meant with possibly being confused and losing aim in the previous part, but in case of actually trying to acquire a different target instead of the same target again your mind and shooter skill really actually works against you. Trying to find the same target again is a thing the visual processing part of your mind expects, trying to find a new target without a "reset" is unexpected.

As for your examples:
The distance/target thing: If the range changes radically during the aiming, you are likely aiming too long. But your examples except the cover would all indeed be fairly easy shifts. The cover would be too if you did not lose track.

The ship would likely work the same, all the parts of the ship are conceptually parts of the same so shifting would not cause any confusion and a thus only a minor action. Shifting from one crew member to another would much more likely cause the cognitive problem I described above.


But really I am fine with the way the system works as the "lose a second when shifting aim point" or similar rule would just complicate things and really would not be any better as the real factors in long range shooting are totally different from such factors. Things like flight time as the target might be at some other place than you expected when your shot arrives, the huge variance in factory loaded ammunition speeds, unexpected wind gusts and lots of other similar issues.

[Gollum]

Thank you very much for all these answers which make a lot of sense.

I do best understand why shifting from one hit location to the other is easier than shifting from one "target"/foe to the other now. And I do agree on the fact that a house rule could be written to make things more realistic but that it would complicate the game ...

To answer to Þorkell's question, untill yet, I was just ruling that if the hit location you was aiming at suddenly disappeared behind a cover, you just lost all the benefits of your aim and had to start again with another "target". Exactly as if the foe you was aiming at suddenly completely disappeared behind a cover in the rules as written. This is the drawback of taking time to aim: it improves your odds but a lot of things can happen while you are aiming and eventually make your aim useless.

Jorune RPG had a good rule about that. You had to make a skill roll every combat turn you spent aiming and to succeed in order to gain the benefit of aiming. If you failed one roll, it meant that you lost your target (it - or your arms - moved in an unexpected manner) and you had to start again.

[weby]

Originally Posted by Gollum

Jorune RPG had a good rule about that. You had to make a skill roll every combat turn you spent aiming and to succeed in order to gain the benefit of aiming. If you failed one roll, it meant that you lost your target (it - or your arms - moved in an unexpected manner) and you had to start again.

On Target in Pyramid 77 has rolls to aim based on your skill to get the bonuses and to gain(and maintain) bonuses if you are looking for a system to do that.

[Gollum]

Originally Posted by weby

On Target in Pyramid 77 has rolls to aim based on your skill to get the bonuses and to gain(and maintain) bonuses if you are looking for a system to do that.

Thank you very much. I found this rule really interesting because it gives the feeling that a true effort of concentration and precision is done while aiming.

[Donny Brook]

I think Gollum's critique of the rule has some validity.

Perhaps a remedy would be to say you lose one pip of Aim bonus for each step away from your original hit location. E.g. Target skull and you get -1 for switching to Face or Neck, -2 for Torso, -3 to switch to Arm, -3 to switch to Vitals/Groin, -4 to go to legs.