Did anyone evr play games workshop's future skirmish game necromunda? You basically controlled a gang of maybe a half dozen men, gangsters of various descriptions, and kicked the crap outta other gangs. It ws kinda cool.
In the rules there was a system of hit locations and the effect it had on his stats. So he got shot in the arm, its harder for him to shoot a gun. At the end of the battle he would roll on the arm injury chart or some such, and find out if he took a serious or lasting wound.
Does anyone know of any resource where i can find these kinda rules for DnD/d20? It would add a level of realism to combat (maybe low it down, but i don't think that really matters), and could offer some cool possibilities. What if you fight an NPC and cute off his finger? He could hold a grudge and suddenly, there you have a recussing villian.
Anyway, anybody any ideas?
I don't know of specifics, but it shouldn't be hard to make up such rules. If a hit is scored, roll against a chart to determine which body is hit. The only game I've played using a similar system is classic Battletech, which used 2d6 for all rolls, including hit locations. There's a bell curve on such rolls (a 5 or 6 is several times more likely than a 2 or 12), and torso hits were located in these slots (bigger target).
A d12 could work with the following locations: 1-lower right leg/foot, 2-right thigh, 3-lower left leg/foot, 4-left thigh, 5-left torso/shoulder, 6-lower torso (stomach), 7-upper center torso (chest) 8-right torso (shoulder), 8-upper left arm, 9-lower left arm, 10-upper right arm, 11-lower right arm, 12-head.
Different locations should have defferent effects. A leg or thigh hit should reduce a character's speed, for example. An arm hit results in a penalty to attack and damage rolls in which that arm is involved (as well as skill checks and other things, like a strebgth check to lift something, but not a bull rush which can just as easily be a shoulder slam). Hits to the head, chest, and left shoulder (heart area) should require a fortitude save; failing the save makes that hit an automatic critical hit with all associated damage and effects (burst weapons, for example).
Secondary effects are only part of the complexity you'll need to go into to make such a system believable. Called shots, for example; "I aim at his head," or "I want to shoot him in his weapon arm." In Battletech this assesses a -2 penalty, IIRC, but that's against a big, relatively slow moving mech so -4 would make more sense against a faster, ducking, weaving, and otherwise mobile living target. What about sneak attacks? Those depend on hitting "vital areas" to deal extra damage, which amounts to a called shot (though those with sneak attack abilities are paticularly good at that, so I'd drop that to a -2, and remember that such targets are normally flatfooted or flanked). If somebody wants to usetheir sneak attack without the surprise, maybe a -6 total penalty (-4 called shot and -2 for the extra difficulty)?
D&D's "general" damage system is there for simplicity. You can make it more precise at the expense of that simplicity. But if you want to make it more "real" then you'll have to get pretty darn complicated. Make sure you think it out and test it well before actualy using such as system in game.
I was thinking i may have to come up with something myself, but out of laziness, i thought there might be a book out there. I was also thinking of changing the way the "to hit" rolls work as well. Changing them to opposed rolls. So you use you to hit score, roll a d20. The opponent uses his dexterity bonus OR his ac bonus (ie 2 if it was leather [i think]), rolls a d20. If the attacker is higher, he hits, if the defender rolls higher he dodges/deflects the blow. Then you could have all sorts of criticals and stuff for both hitting and dodging/deflecting. I'll post more if people are interested. Or maybe even write a sublission.
You could always try Bastion Press' book on crittical hits 'Torn Asunder'.
What if you fight an NPC and cute off his finger? He could hold a grudge and suddenly, there you have a recussing villian.
Anyway, anybody any ideas?
Man I would be cussing and recussing if you cut off my finger. :)
Quite you. Please excuse my crap language skills. I meant recurring. As in he comes back again and again :P
skills and powers combat book frome 2nd eddition had a critical hit body location table, it had 3 one for bludgining, piercing, and slashing weapons along with hit location and effects.
I dunno if i would be confident enough to try conert 2nd ed to 3rd ed as i only started playing with 3rd ed. Thanks anyway. I might look it up, might just give me afew ideas.
I read a review of the "Torn Asunder" book. Its sounds quite cool. Almost exactly the kinda thin i'm looking for. Thanks guys ;)
At least for hitting and damaging, the conversion is really quite simple. AC in 2nd edition starts at 10 then goes down, as opposed to starting at 10 and going up as it does in 3rd and 3.5 editions. THAC0 starts at 20 and goes down, rather than 0 and up. As long as you're aware of that then the math involved is quite simple. Its when you want to convert other things that it gets complicated.
Well, thats much easier than i thought, i'm gonna have to look into it. Tho i won't be willing to spend a small fortune on the book ;D