Hey guys, I ran my first session last week, and a couple of questions came up that I havent really been able to solve.

1. "Aiming" to hit something specific, or an item. So, you aim and you can hit somewhere or something in particular. What exactly does this do? You hit someones arm and... disable it immediately? Foot and he cant walk?

- I cant find the rules for damaging items anywhere, just vague references to "Minor, Moderate, Major" and penalties involved. But, how do you actually do that damage? Is there a threshold and a hp limit? Does the item just go down one level if you hit it with the AIM action? Or is it a disarm?

2. Some of my players thought that Knockdown and Disarm were fairly useless, all they do is cost a maneuver. Get up, or pick up your weapon. Plenty of time for an action, or an additional maneuver. Why is there specific disarm talents if you can just disarm someone with an aim?

Thoughts?

As far as aiming for specific body parts, there's not any set rules. My personal suggestion would be to apply a setback die to the target's next skill check as well as them taking damage to account for the called shot. Going any further than that, such as applying longer-term penalties such as disabling the limb, starts encroaching on the realm of critical injuries and what they do.

As for damaging weapons and gear, you'll want to look under Weapon Maintenance. Generally damaging a weapon is the domain of the Sunder weapon quality, but I'd allow a called shot to a weapon to damage it one degree. Yes, it's not as efficient as Sunder (which can inflict one level of damage to a weapon or item per Advantage spent on the activation), but that's how I'd handle it, as blasting a blaster to destroy it is probably not as easy as Hollywood would have you believe.

2. Some of my players thought that Knockdown and Disarm were fairly useless, all they do is cost a maneuver. Get up, or pick up your weapon. Plenty of time for an action, or an additional maneuver. Why is there specific disarm talents if you can just disarm someone with an aim?

Dono already spoke to aiming, and I think that extends here re:disarming with an aim.

As for the point of knockdown and disarm... they are handy, but (like every other action ever) aren't universal "must do's." You have to stack them with conditions and scenarios to really get the awsomejuice flowing. Disarming a character in general just blows a Maneuver... but what if they are swinging from a cable above a river of lava? What if you're first with another Player going next in a close in fight? You disarm the NPC and the conditions are now set for you or a fellow Player to swoop in and pick up said weapon. Likewise Knockdown is convenient normally... but Even more so if you knockdown a target right before Zeb and Axeman McGee go in to Melee with it...

That's the whole point of encounter design. When the GM designs an encounter he can look at options and abilities and put the players in a situation where the players can really open up a can of cool if they are willing to do so.

In response to #1

I run it like so (and I believe this is the RAI if not RAW): The Aim maneuver adds one or two Boosts to your Attack roll which increases your chance of achieving more Advantages that you can spend on a Critical or a Disarm. If you roll enough Advantages then great you hit their arm (Buy a Critical and re-skin the effect to apply to their arm) or buy a Disarm Weapon. If you do not achieve enough Advantages, well you hit their arm or weapon but not solid enough to apply a special effect.

I am of the opinion that the Aim maneuver is a tool to increase your chance to get a desired result through Advantages rather than a "choose your result if you hit" kind of thing. This is why I don't add extra Setbacks or Difficulty to a called shot because it's already built into the attack, you get the advantage of Aim but you only get the result you want if you generate the required Advantages.

Hit your players with a Knockdown or a Disarm attack from time to time. While the players may not see them as being useful against NPC's, they can really throw a monkey wrench into a players plan of attack. "Okay, you get hit with the Knockdown ability and go sprawling on your stomach. What do you do?" "I get up and duck behind cover before shooting back." "Sorry, you cant. Getting up as a maneuver. You can exchange your shooting action for a maneuver to get behind cover. Or you can take 2 strain to get behind cover and attack." "Whaaaa....?"
Also, seeing as how minions don't suffer strain, but instead suffer wounds, wouldn't Knockdown and Disarm really kind of kneecap minions?

If you can disarm someone who's main defense is parry and reflect, they are pretty screwed until they get a turn to pick that weapon back up.