One of things that's surprised me about Rogue Trader/Dark Heresy and now Deathwatch, is the fact that head shots seem to really not be worth taking unless you are talking critical damage. It almost seems like you should have something like, half your toughness bonus when taking a shot to the head, as well as if someone tries to called shot your head it's at a -30 instead of a -20

There are two areas where a called shot will do increased damage under the current rules:

1 - If the target is wearing armour without a helmet. To encourage players to do this, I suggest implementing penalties towards friendly non-combat interactions (charm, inquiry, etc) because people will be unsetteled by the newcomers who hide their face. Especially in a more formal situation.

2 - If the target is behind cover, they usually* need to expose their head (to see you) and arm/s (to hold the gun pointed at you). A call shot to the exposed locations will not hit the cover.

*There are tech and psychic options to reduce this risk. For example, an explorator with an optical mechadendrite can keep their head behind cover and still see well enough to shoot you.

You do realize that wounds do not actually represent the bullet through the brain or whatever.

They are to represent the grazes and bruises and like from avoid the injuries. Crits are those very things that are actual lethal hits, and head hits are the worst of the bunch if you read the crit results. They are going to kill you outright at 8+ instead of 9+ and bleeding results lower than the rest.

Believe me if you play the game as is, and you have the Npc's play with at least a little intelligence you can easily kill a playa.

I have used a rule that was in the very first edition of WFRP by games workshop; Any hit to the head has a % chance to knock you out equal to Damage inflicted x 5 %. It might not seem like a big improvement. But trust me. My players prioritize their helmets when it comes to armour, since if you get knocked out, you are at the mercy of the enemy.

Arioch said:

I prefer my Navigator mostly helmetless though (unless he puts on his ancient Enforcer armour).

Alex

Fortunately for me all the head shots done in my game have been against orks. Thus, the lack of extra damage was easy to explain away. Though I did say any critical damage called from an aimed headshot resulted in instant death, that was mostly to save time.

Perhaps some kind of talent that increases the chance of righteous fury is needed. Since that would stack with extant talents that increase the damage from righteous fury, and critical damage you'd probably increase the difficulty of the shot by another -10 or something.

Or just keep in mind non critical damage isn't the kind of wounds that leave you ripped open and in pain and save the boom headshot meme for something else.

I really like the idea that wounds basically represent your characters getting lucky and the bullets barely grazing them or somehow not reaching its lethal potential. Damage can easily stack up on the PCs from a single volley or even just a single shot and so it doesn't necessarily matter the location where it hits. And orks aren't the only ones with a thick skull. The human skull is very thick and protective (considering it has to be to protect its very precious cargo).There are many recorded instances in which people survive gunshots to the head.

To add to all that has been said, note that at least in DH, helmets often provide less armour than the rest of the same tier - Flak helmet has armour 2 while most other flak has 3, the Mesh Cowl has 3 while at least some other mesh has 4 and the Carapace helmet has 4 while everything else carapace'y has at least a 5.
The only exception would be the package deals, where I would suggest downgrading the helmet one point.

Arioch said:

That's also what happens if you receive even one point of crit damage to the head.

I'm thinking about a rule for this kinda situation!

I was like: headshot not critical? we could use some rules like with righteous fury on wehicles...

so basicaly I think when you get a headshot and you get damaged you could get a critical effect too, so basicaly if you get a headshot with a power of 8+ damage after armor and TB you die because of crits, no matter how much wounds you have left, your head is blown apart

this rule would make Crack Shot more usefull... because now as I know crack shot is useless most of the times, except when the enemy is already on the ground with some crits...