Topic^^

I know about the "special rule"-thing in Illumination but that seems to target smal bodyparts so to speak...

Do You mean Called shot? -20 BS and you don't rill the body Part but just say whrer you were shootin into?

As Aghork said, you can perform a "called shot", to target a specific body part, which incurs a -20% penalty.

I believe he means called shots to small locations than the standard hit locations. The right hand for example, the eyes (as with Illuminated) or the groin should you wish to rekindle memories of playing Fallout. I'd personally be against letting players do this unless there's a specific reason to do so. With the final encounter of Illumination aiming for the eyes is something the acolytes have a good reason to do. Outside of this doing such would most likely be an attempt to bypass armour and wounds. "I shot him in the eye, he should die instantly" and all that. It's up to each GM of course, but there's no cast in stone rule for such things.

<shrug> I'd just increase the called shot to-hit penalty if trying to hit smaller areas. -40 would seem reasonable for a very small area, like a hand or eye.

What will you do when they hit the small bodypart ?

It depends, I suppose, on the situation. If they aim for the hand, and the target is holding something I might have the target make a test (WP possibly, or T) in order not to drop the object. The main reason to use called shots is to avoid armor or, if the enemy is at critical levels, to ensure a critical to that location. A called shot to the 'Head' would still get armor from a Mesh Cowl. A called shot to the eye/mouth would probably ignore the head armor of a cowl (since it isn't a full head armor and doesn't cover the face), for example.

Wouldn't aiming for weak spots in armour do what the Accurate trait for weapons already does? Bonus damage from a weapon capable of pin-point accuracy most likely represents hitting vital, unarmoured spots like the eyes, gaps between plates and so on.

I would agree with the effect of shooting a hand to force the target to drop something, or a bionic eye to disable an heat-vision ability, but avoiding armour with such things would just be cheating.*

*Unless the target is described as wearing "patchy" or "damaged" armour. Something like power armour that has been throught the wars and has fairly significant breaches in it. This has happened with our group once. The target was in broken power armour and we were armed with primitve style weapons. It was a close call even so.

DarkWatcher said:

Hardly cheating. You can already "called shot" to the head to strike an enemy without head armor in order to avoid the enemy's armor, this merely takes it one step further. Of course, it is up to the GM in this case. It is well within a GM's rights to say that a Mesh Cowl includes a face portion, or that a carapace helm fully covers the face/eyes or not. The rules don't differentiate armor differences between areas within a location, so it is up to the GM. For example, there's an enemy wearing full carapace, but for whatever reasons had his gloves off (perhaps he was performing a delicate tech-use skill). You want to shoot him in the hands ... if you hit his hands, realistically, he shouldn't get an armor bonus since his hands aren't armored at the time. Things like this are up to the GM. The GM could just reduce the armor bonus instead ... or not and allow the full armor to apply. Or, the GM could apply special effects, like shooting a foot temporarily reduces the target's AGI by -10%. It's all up to the GM, since this level of detail is not in the rules.

Just keep in mind that most armors, realistically, don't cover 100% of the associated location (or not at the same level of protection), and oftentimes even if it does the wearer doesn't wear it 'properly'. Quite a few medieval knights are protrayed as having full-helms, but with their face visor open. This gives them greater visibility (not to mention it is hot to wear those things closed, especially when you are exerting yourself), but it does remove the usefulness of their head armor. Even though they are 'wearing head armor', realistically their face is unprotected when the visor is up. The same thing applies to WH40k. I could easily see some guardsmen hanging around in their armor, but not having their helmet faceplates (or whatever) in place when on guard duty because they are uncomfortable, hot, and stuffy. So, if you describe the guardsmen to the players and mention in passing that you can see their faces or something along those lines, and they say "great, their faces aren't armored" ... well, if they want to take an additional penalty to hit in order to hit the face and avoid the armor, I personally see nothing wrong with that. Just like if a player wanted to shoot at the head of an enemy that had no helmet at all. They are taking a penalty on their ho-hit in order to strike a more vulnerable location, which is pretty much the idea behind a called shot.

I've been using a simple system. A called shot is -20 bs and thats for shooting a particular body part from the hit grid. If you want ot hit a particular part of a certain section of that body section then its another -20bs.

So for example, you want to shoot the left hand. Well left arm -20bs called shot and -20bs for wanting the hand (a part of the left arm slot on the hit chart) for a net -40. Been using it for a few months and it works well I find, I just keep things within reason.

As said above, no aiming for cracks in armor or looking for that insta kill temple shot I'm of the firm belief that is already built into the game with the whole rolling dice for damage deal.

I simply add to the normal penalty for called shots based on the size of the bodypart, the existing size modifiers work well, it's either -20 (for a hand) or -30 (for an eye). If someone does make a called shot to an unarmoured location I'll subtract armour and possibly add some other effect.

The system I've been going for is like as stated above, but I've been using an additional -10 ( hand, or mechadendrite, face in a light helmet or standing still ) or -20 ( finger, cigar, ear, face with a heavy helmet or movement ) depending, with a -30 ( second knuckle on the left hand ) for the really hard stuff. That way it never gets to the full -60 maximum penalty, but its still a hefty fine for a character who hasn't been prepping the shot.