10-19-2022, 08:50 PM | #1 |
Join Date: Jan 2008
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Targeting the Eyes: rules questions
Exploits says "Eye (-9): Impaling and all piercing attacks can target the eye. Injury over HP/10 blinds the eye. Otherwise, treat as a skull hit without the extra DR 2!"
1.) Unlike GURPS, DFRPG doesn't seem to have a rule in Adventurers or in Monsters that says DR doesn't apply to eyes. Is this an oversight? (The existence of Nictitating Membrane implies that it probably is, but maybe the intention is for e.g. large dragons to have DR 18 on their eyes and DR 9 elsewhere.) 2.) The Sunbolt spell says, "Sunbolt does burning damage, may ignite flammable targets, and counts as sunlight against creatures susceptible to such. Anyone struck in the face must roll vs. HT, even if no damage penetrates armor; those hit in the eyes must roll at a penalty equal to any injury caused. Failure means being blinded, which counts as a crippling injury; see Duration of Crippling (Exploits, p. 61)." Sunbolt is burning damage, not impaling or piercing, so how can it target the eyes? Is this just a special exception that lets Sunbolt act like piercing damage in this case? Does it get the x4 wounding modifier and enhanced knockdown? Does that make the HT save against blinding redundant, or is it more like 'your right eye is now gone and your left eye might be blinded'? |
10-20-2022, 08:38 AM | #2 | |
Doctor of GURPS Ballistics
Join Date: Sep 2004
Location: Lakeville, MN
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Re: Targeting the Eyes: rules questions
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Check the footnotes, specifically [2] and [3]
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10-20-2022, 09:05 AM | #3 | |
Join Date: Jan 2008
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Re: Targeting the Eyes: rules questions
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Footnote 2: "Only impaling and piercing attacks can target the eye--and only from the front and sides. Injury over HP/10 blinds the eye. Otherwise, treat as skull (see note [3]) without the extra DR!" Not "without DR", just without the extra +2 to DR. Footnote 3: "Skull gets an extra DR 2. Wounding modifier for all but fatigue or toxic damage increases to x4. Knockdown rolls for major wounds are at -10. Critical hits use the Critical Head Blow table (p. 100)." Nor is this covered on Monsters page 15, which just says that DR is total DR from all sources and is not from armor unless noted. In GURPS the DR advantage says it doesn't cover eyes (unless enhanced with force field). DFRPG doesn't say this anywhere. DFRPG does say that Tough Skin doesn't protect the eyes (or against poison, shock, etc.), but many or most monsters with DR do not have it via Tough Skin or armor. Stabbing a DR 10 Mindwarper in the eye for 9 points of damage, or a DR 17 reanimated Golem Armor Swordsman after the flesh golem is dead and it's just an "armor golem", will do either zero injury (if DR is not ignored) or likely kill the monster in one hit (if DR is ignored). DFRPG implies the former, while GURPS Basic and Kromm's posts about ways to defeat Golem Armor Swordsmen imply the latter. This makes the lack of armor-bypassing rules on Exploits pg 54 and 99 look like an oversight. How do others do it? Also how do you rule on Sunbolt to the eyes even though it's not piercing or impaling damage? Last edited by sjmdw45; 10-20-2022 at 09:18 AM. |
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10-20-2022, 09:35 AM | #4 |
Doctor of GURPS Ballistics
Join Date: Sep 2004
Location: Lakeville, MN
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Re: Targeting the Eyes: rules questions
A fair point. The "eye DR" Trait in Monsters is Nictitating Membrane...which just says "DR for the eye is..." and doesn't tell what happens after you punch through that and blind the eye.
Interesting.
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10-20-2022, 10:03 AM | #5 | |
Doctor of GURPS Ballistics
Join Date: Sep 2004
Location: Lakeville, MN
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Re: Targeting the Eyes: rules questions
I went right to Sean on this one:
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So to shoot a creature with DR 6, Nictitating Membrane 3 the way scouts like to, you have to first punch through DR 3 for the membrane, and then injury of HP/10 or more blinds the eye. You must then punch through the monster base DR 6 before you get to the creamy monster center for the x4.
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10-20-2022, 10:47 AM | #6 | |||
Join Date: Jan 2008
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Re: Targeting the Eyes: rules questions
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Therefore it's not intended that "but the base monster DR DOES". Hopefully DFRPG's next printing will add this to the Hit Location table. "Eye (-9): Impaling and all piercing attacks can target the eye. Injury over HP/10 blinds the eye. Otherwise, ignore all DR except force field DR and Nictitating Membrane DR, and treat as a skull hit without the extra DR 2!" Quote:
Last edited by sjmdw45; 10-20-2022 at 11:06 AM. |
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10-20-2022, 12:48 PM | #7 | |
Doctor of GURPS Ballistics
Join Date: Sep 2004
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Re: Targeting the Eyes: rules questions
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For the record, I've played it as "free shots to the brain" (which is mentioned in skull; it's not a hit location per se, but the fact that it's listed as the source of the x4 multiplier is salient) as well, for nigh-on 30 years. The repeated emphasis on EXTRA for the skull DR and the very specific "subtract DR from basic damage," with no exceptions makes me wonder if this was a deliberate change, or an oversight caused by over-familiarity. I can say that the lack of DR through the eyes makes monster design more laborious, as you need to always think "how do I deal with the scout and constant eye shots?" This isn't a bad thing; thinking is good. But I could also see it as "look, it says DR 6. Blind it all you want, but it's got an interior skeleton the toughness of a breastplate. It's a MONSTER." I'll wait to see what Kromm says, definitely. I can say that all the monsters in my Bestiary were designed with the DR 0 --> brain pathway in mind. It came up in playtest with a few mighty creatures in the current Nightmare Fuel campaign, so it's a relevant clarification. My life would be somewhat easier if it were still DR 0-->brain x4, as it means I don't have 185 monsters worth of errata to consider.
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10-20-2022, 12:57 PM | #8 |
Join Date: May 2007
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Re: Targeting the Eyes: rules questions
If you don't want eye-shots to bypass DR, it's an easy enough design switch to say "due to evolutionary pressures in a scout-rich environment (not to say blatant game balance choices), anything worth calling a monster has Nictitating Membrane equal to its innate DR".
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10-20-2022, 01:18 PM | #9 | |
Doctor of GURPS Ballistics
Join Date: Sep 2004
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Re: Targeting the Eyes: rules questions
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"Do your homework and know your monsters" is a legit ask, though. (Meaning it's fine to say "if you miss the eye DR because you don't look at the monster trait list, it's not on the author/writer/publisher. RTFM, etc.)
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10-20-2022, 01:27 PM | #10 | |
Doctor of GURPS Ballistics
Join Date: Sep 2004
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Re: Targeting the Eyes: rules questions
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My blog:Gaming Ballistic, LLC My Store: Gaming Ballistic on Shopify My Patreon: Gaming Ballistic on Patreon Last edited by DouglasCole; 10-20-2022 at 01:33 PM. |
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