is groin too easy to hit with swing attacks? are legs/neck too hard to hit with them?

[DanHoward]

Originally Posted by Kromm

Looks like it would be really cool in a CRPG where a powerful modern computer handles all the randomization, decision trees, lookups, and math. Probably the sort of thing that would send 2021-era tabletop gamers running the other way, screaming.

Agreed. I love this kind of detail but it doesn't work in practice. The only practical way for a tabletop RPG would be to write an app that can handle all of the calculations, lookups, and cross-references.

In the early 90s I wrote one for Rolemaster that kept track of all of the damage (hit points, stunned, bleeding, crippled, penalties, etc.) that included all of the critical hit tables. You'd simply click on the appropriate critical hit table and it would roll randomly (or you could enter a physical dice roll), display the results, and transfer the data to the character's damage record. Then you'd simply click on "Next Round" and it would perform all of the end-of-round calculations and update the record for all of the characters in the battle. Took me less than a day to write the program, a couple of hours to tweak it after playtesting, and two weeks to manually enter all of the critical hit tables into the database. The next step was to incorporate the weapons tables and to manually enter all of them into the database but I wasn't masochistic enough. We used the program for about a year and then we switched to GURPS and never played RM again. Back then it relied on a clunky laptop taking up space on a side-table. An iPad linked to a smart TV or digital whiteboard would have been perfect.

[Rupert]

Originally Posted by Anthony

Leading Edge Games was better known for Phoenix Command, and managed to send even 1980s era tabletop gamers running the other way screaming. But yes, totally possible to run in a tabletop game, though it would either be a nasty data entry problem or a bunch of scanning. Of course, if I were going to do something like that in a modern computer game, I'd use a 3d model of a human body and some random scatter and you hit whatever the computer claims is in the way.

That's how the first edition of Twilight:2000 did hits on vehicles, for what it's worth. It did not do any such thing for hits to people.

[Rupert]

Originally Posted by Anthony

The plastic templates was a different system, I'm blanking on its name (never got a copy).

Millennium's Edge, by Chameleon Eclectic

[Varyon]

Originally Posted by Anthony

plus the damage tables were this complex thing where you looked up the basic force of your attack against the hit location table to determine depth (which accounted for things like bone) and then looked up the depth to determine wounding (which accounted for things like arteries).

I've considered something like this for GURPS, but more abstract - essentially you make something of a "potential severity" roll (the results of which don't match up to any specific place, but are more "how serious can the wound be," functioning something like a variable blow-through cap), but Injury isn't linear with damage, based on the idea that the deeper a wound is, the more serious it is per millimeter of penetration (although once you go deep enough, further penetration doesn't do as much wounding). I could never figure out what would be a good scheme for this, however*. Note cutting would need to follow a different scheme - it gets harder to cut the deeper you go, so you'd probably be ok with linear wounding.

*Looking at it again, it might not be horrible to do a multiplier of x0.2 per 5% HP, round down (less than 5% HP is ignored), to a maximum of x2 for 50% and up. On a 10 HP target, that means 1 point of penetration becomes 0.4, 2 become 1.6, 3 become 3.6, 4 become 6.4, 5 become 10, 6 become 12, and so forth, up to 10 becoming 20. Apply any relevant wounding modifiers after this. Yes, this doubles the possible wounding of many attacks, but that requires a good "potential severity" roll. Back when I first looked at it, I was thinking of a different multiplier applied to each point of penetration, not considering the idea of essentially lumping it all together as above (although I'm not thrilled with the wounding becoming linear beyond 50%, any sort of symmetrical scheme would be too complicated to use in play - the above is probably already borderline if not outright ungameable).

[Keampe]

I don't think that damage was what the OP was asking about - it's targeting.

Why is the groin easier to hit than the head? It's a smaller target unless you're fighting Long John Silver ;) (It's right in the name, folks).

But, seriously, the aiming penalties works quite well for most thrust attacks and most ranged attacks. I'd argue the the groin and hands should be more difficult targets, but mostly it works as is. Swung attacks could just use some modifiers for aimed attacks.

How about:

- Any C range weapon (maybe also range 1) uses the from above 2 feet or less modifiers. Punching someone in the foot is.... rare. A kick, however, uses the from below two feet or less modifiers unless using Karate. We can assume karate kicks can hit anywhere.

- any swung weapon has a -5 to hit the skull and -7 to hit the face (like attacking from behind). You can hit the face but it's easier to hit the skull with a swung weapon.

- Any swung weapon gets a +1 to hit the arms/hands and -1 to hit the torso, including the abdomen and groin. Arms get in the way of torso shots. Actually arms are often put in the way of torso shots. Maybe the mod could be +/- 2?

That'd be it, really. not too complicated.

- Shane

[weby]

Originally Posted by DanHoward

In the early 90s I wrote one for Rolemaster that kept track of all of the damage (hit points, stunned, bleeding, crippled, penalties, etc.) that included all of the critical hit tables. (rest of long explanation removed)

I did a less ambitious version of that, as in no round tracking and no DB, just text of the result.

But I did include the weapon tables. The weapon tables were not exactly correct number of HP as the numbers entered for each column were hit limit, HP damage at that limit, A critical limit, B critical limit, C critical Limit, D critical limit, E critical Limit and HP damage at 150. It then gave the approximate HP damage and the critical effect text when you selected the weapon type, armor type and typed in attack result and critical roll.

All in a really horribly coded Visual Basic program..

But then to your main point: I think actually that an app based resolution system could be viable now/soon for a roleplaying game. That is especially if you still allow players to do the rolling... as people love to roll dice..

[Anthony]

Originally Posted by weby

But then to your main point: I think actually that an app based resolution system could be viable now/soon for a roleplaying game. That is especially if you still allow players to do the rolling... as people love to roll dice..

You could certainly write an app (or just a webpage) that would do that, but tabletop gamers are often resistant to adding tech to the tabletop (and if not, might just use something like roll20).