Hi

Just finished creating Hit Location cards (here: www.gmtools.excelocms.com/houserules/hit_locations.pdf )

They consist only of title text and picture of hit location (no descriptions and alike).

The main idea is to make them work with redesigned armors (2-nd edition like, with various body parts covered by different armors) I'm trying to make (defense is a tricky BIIIP). Thats some indefinite future, but since I got the cards already, I share, maybe you will find a use of it.

And since I know some of you guys are storing wounds from each hit separately (ie. for healing purposes), I added numbers on those cards, that you can mark with paperclip.

General use is: after you get hit instead of drawing X wound cards like in the original rules, you just draw 1 Hit Location card, and mark the number of wounds on it with a paperclip. Each wound may be then cared separately. Crits are used the usual way.

If you want to create more, and different Hit Locations, you may do so using my Strange Eons plugin, that can be found here:

www.gmtools.excelocms.com/houserules.html

Enjoy!

This is actually a pretty nice mechanic! It's too much for my taste but I like the way you made it simple with only drawing a hit location when being hit to know where you've been hit.

An alternative I would prefer is to pile up wound cards under the body location card instead of using paperclips.

Though, I've got few questions (since I won't use this system, consider these questions as way to improve/test the limit of your system).

1. Since there's only one head card, once you got hit on the head, you cannot recieve further damage to the head until healed, right?

2. How wound threshold works with this system? You still keep the same wound threshold and once you accumulated more wounds than your threshold, you pass out? So what's the difference between getting hit on the leg or on the head (except the potentially different armor rating)? What about critical hits? Some of them imply being hit in some specific location.

3. How do you manage players asking to hit a specific location? Watch out so you don't end up attacking specific location easier than attacking the "overall". Giving extra black dice seems logical since it makes the attack harder to hit but could mean bypassing high DR. But if so, what keeps player from always attacking the weak spot with every attack?

Huum, I think that's all that comes to my mind at the moment!

Good work!

Silverwave said:

1. The cards in pdf are just an example. I put them in amounts that I thought will be right for the hit location size (and reflect how hard it is to hit that part, or how often you will hit that part). You just need to print few pages, to get enough cards for entire team to draw multiple times, or use the plugin to make your own, and print them in amounts you see fit (including additional hit locations like hands, elbows, nose, eyes, groin...).

2. Wound threshold stays, and is unaffected. The difference is, when you have armors working as in 2-nd ed (ie. mail shirt covering only body, and arms location) it is important where you hit, because you may hit a spot without armor. If you do not, you may use them as an inspiration to what the hit could do, and narrate it accordingly. Whatever you choose, its up to you.

3. I probably will make a talent that would allow to draw 2 cards, and then choose which location to hit, or add a challenge die for each additional card drawn (you stil need to choose 1 hit location in the end), or something like that. Or I might add a field on the card that would contain additional difficulty for the specific hit location... hmmm...

Thanks.

Something I've been wanting to do in a system for awhile, and these cards would certainly help with that, is to track how much damage is done to various parts of the body and apply descriptive (and eventually mechanical) negatives based on that. For example, if, while tracking your damage, you find that 50% of a player's damage was all done to one limb it seems only logical that said limb should be impaired in some way; broken, disfigured, fingers or toes lopped off, ears or nose removed, massive scarring to the torso - that sort of thing. This way you give more character to the injuries players suffer over the course of their careers and damage suffered in combat becomes more visceral and less abstracted.

Jack of Tears said:

Hahha, thats exactly what I'm talking about mate! And thats exactly why I like the new dice mechanic so much

You can adjust on the fly both narratively and mechanically.

And what You described is a nice example of how the hit locations may be used.

There are many effects that can be set on the PC's (I would say make them short term, like a round, or next check - just after the hit, otherwise Critical Hits may become expendable), for example:

- too much damage to the head - negative modifiers to Int checks, Fel checks, ringing sounds and orientation problems (Coordination, Block/Dodge/Parry affected), blurred vision (impeding Ballistic Skill and Observation)

- damaged arms - problems with manipulation (Skulduggery), difficulty with weapon handling (Weapon Skill)

- damaged legs - no free manoeuvre, Athletics and/or Sneak skill modifiers, person falls to the ground

or whatever GM see fit depending on a situation.

And you know where to place the scar that will remind the PC's of the grievous wounds they survived .

Small question on this though:

What is the hitpoint limit for a location? If you have 20 hitpoints, and somebody deals 20 damage to your left arm, I would imagine you are still alive, yet your arm is pretty much off...

Do you use a percentage based, with extra damage carrying over to the nearest location, or ... ?

Don't you risk making combat take even longer this way?

Nisses said:

I already answered this question, when I was answering to Silverwave (it was point 2).

I don't plan to use different wound thresholds for different hit locations.

Wound Threshold is one and only one.

Sum of wounds on all hit location greater than Wound Threshold will make you go unconscious like always.

Take more crits than your toughness (no matter of the hit location) and you are dead.

You may redesign it if You like, and make separate Wound Thresholds for each hit location, but I don't plan to.

Hit locations are for other stuff, like an inspiration for narrative descriptions, wound tracking for healing purposes, some brief effects like described in one of the posts above (that any GM can make on the fly), adding distinguishing marks maybe (a scar when the wound is healed) and armor parts I'm working on.

In short the hit locations are ment for spicing the things up a bit.

They are part 1 of the houserule I plan to make. The second part is about armors.

I plan to make armors work like in 2-nd edition, that means that you can wear for example plate helm, chain shirt and leather pants, ending up with different Soak values on different hit locations (so you may deal more or less damage depending on a location you hit).

The tricky thing with armors is that right now, they are all in one part with one Defence, one Encumbrance, and they affect spellcating, so splitting them in parts is a bit of a problem.

I don't mean to criticize, I know this is House Rules

I was just wondering, since I find combat to take long enough as it is.

I must have missed your reply on that wound threshold, sorry.

I am curious about the armour bit however

Nisses said:

Thats understandable.

I try to make it in a way to not prolong fighting process too much, but It doesn't always end up as intended.

Armors are Work in Progress, and I have no idea when I finish it, as my work for Liber Fanatica takes precedence (Emirikol has put Orcs with wips on me ).

But they may end up more complicated than I would want to...

Will see.

I will post them, when I have them done.

Ok, I think I have finished.

Rules here: www.gmtools.excelocms.com/houserules/HitLocationRules.pdf

Some sheets for writing armors, soak, defence and casting modifiers for wizards here: www.gmtools.excelocms.com/houserules/armor_hit_locations.pdf

(squares are for Soak, circles for Defence, rhombus for Casting Modifier, the space at the bottom for armor list)

Higher quality image used for this is here: www.gmtools.excelocms.com/download/armor_front.png

And in case someone would need to create some new armors, or count the values from parts his PC is wearing, online calculator designed to work with the above rules: www.gmtools.excelocms.com/armorcalculator.html

Enjoy!

Just want to say that I have read through your rules, and....

I really LIKE them!

As an long-time re-enactor with lots if experience in using various armours, mostly early 15th century full plate the last few years, I find this a very close adaption into the 'abstractness' of WFRPG. Personnally, I would re-define some of the armour groups and names, but that's just my preference.

I'll just mention that I've GM'ed since the late 80's, and find that the application of real life experience and knowledhe into RPG's is really fun, but sometimes very hard...

Again, well done!

Scharnhorst said:

Thanks mate

Glad You liked it

Can I ask You to share a bit of the armor naming knowledge?

I had some hard time finding some nice fitting english names for the armors (english is not my native), and well... they are like they are

I would gladly improve if it's possible

Ok mate, glad to help and I'll try my best.

Just bear in mind, I could go into endless details concering armour, but I won't I'll just try keep it within a gaming context.

Clothing:

Regarding simple cloth ; I think you're spot on, it doesn't do much protection wise. Back in the day they/we used wool a lot, and it does not hold up much against slashing and cutting for too long. Linen is better in that sense.

I've cut through enough of my friends jupon's and tabards with a blunted steel sword to know... (That's what we use, blunted steel swords, falchions, axes, spears, poleaxes, etc...)

Same goes for Robes ...

Light Armour:

For strong sturdy cloth , that was the very basic of armour. Also called padded jack, gambeson, aketon, etc. Basically it's several layers of fabric, usually linen or a linen/cotton mix called fustian, sowed in two to four layers with some kind of stuffing between the outermost layers. In addition to softening the blows of your enemy's weapons, it would stop the rings that's broken free from your mail from enterinjg your flesh... Also.it's fairly cut-resistant, working by the same principle as modern day Kevlar as a matter of fact.

I would put this in the Light Armour category, since it's the staple all kinds of armour really. Pretty good on it's own and essential underneath other armour.

Fur, good as is.

'Studded Armour' , please stick with the term brigandine, it's far more correct. Historically speaking... Otherwise, keep as is.

Leather Armour , keep as is.

Medium Armour:

Chain and Mail: Now, this is really the same thing and you've solved it by incorporating the locations. The only difference they meant game-wise is how much it covers of your body...I'd say go with mail if if only covers the torso, otherwise chain as it tends to slow down a bit. It's really heavy, trust me...

Scale and Ulthuan Scale: Keep as is. Granted, I've never used Ulthuan scale...

Heavy Armour: THIS, I'm used to wearing and there's a lot of misconceptions about this. Disregard everything the gaming companies have tried to tell you...

You CAN live inside it for days, you CAN sommersault in it if you're fit, you CAN sleep in it. But it has to be good quality... You stiil 'can' with poorer qualtiy, but NOT comfortably...

On the other hand, DON'T try to swim in it, nuff said, you'd sink like a brick...

As for sneaking, well the armour has to be so insanely well made to even think about it, I would forget it... Lets think steel plates clinking together with every step made... It's NOT made for ninja's in the first place...

Light Armour/Breastplate & Chain makes life a little easieer, but not too much... I'd say, stick with the values for Full Plate, but just for the locations.

As for Gromril Armour , well... haven't tried that either. But I would treat it as an extremely well made plate armour.

I also want to say one thing about helmets. This should be an adventurers first choice. Historically speaking, it was by far the common form of armour.

'Protect your noggin' is the word of the day...

Well, that's what I've got for now. Hope it helps mate!

Hahha, thanks for the insights mate
Its good to know some first hand expertise from person that actually used the armors

I think that I will make some small tweaks.

Robes I will leave as they are, just to keep them close to the original system, and give mages some boost. All in all they cost more than cloth, are harder to get, and are loose and wide, so my assumption is, that it's harder to hit them, but they do not Soak anything.

Sturdy cloth I had at the beginning in the Light Armor group, but then I replaced it with fur, and put in the Clothing. May be a good idea to put it back under the Light Armors.

Bringandine You say... I wasn't sure... wikipedia told me it was usually a vest or shirt, and I wanted some name for entire set of armor. Studded armor sounded nice, but if You say it's better to keep the name Brigandine, then I change it back

Mail or Chain (one of those two) I would gladly replace with something else. Any idea what kind of armor could fit in one of those places? I would leave either Mail and replace the Chain, or leave the Chain and replace the Mail.

Same as with Mail and Chain would be nice to do with Light Plate. I could rename current Light Plate to somethin else, and then create new Light Plate somewhere in between current Plate and current Light Plate (original Breastplate&Chain).
Just need some armor name that will fit in here...

Sunatet said:

Hey Sunatet, what ever happened to your sheets?

If I remember correctly, Sunatet stopped working/playing/contributing to anything WFRP related.

Nisses said:

Terrible news. Anyone else got a copy of these?