Hit Location

Hit Location

When you strike at an enemy, you can usually choose what part of his body to attack. Some body parts, or "hit locations," are harder than others to hit in a fight; some are more (or less) vulnerable to specific damage types. There are a few exceptions:

• Completely unaimed attacks – Wild Swings, stabs in the dark, grenade fragments, etc. – cannot deliberately target a hit location. Use Random Hit Location instead.
• Attacks that cover a large area – such as an avalanche or a cone of dragon fire – make hit location irrelevant. See Large-Area Injury.
• Fatigue damage always ignores hit location.

Deciding Where to Attack

Where to hit a foe depends on many things – your skill, your foe's armor, and whether you want to kill him! A humanoid target has the locations listed below (see the hit location tables on for nonhumanoids). Each location gives the penalty to attack rolls to hit that location (in parentheses), followed by any special damage effects.

Torso (0): The chest and abdomen. No penalty to hit, and no effect on damage. This is the default target for attacks: if you don't specify a hit location, you are attacking the torso.

Vitals (-3): The heart or lungs (from the front) or the kidneys (from behind). Certain attacks can target the vitals for increased damage. Increase the wounding modifier for an impaling or any piercing attack to ×3. Increase the wounding modifier for a tight-beam burning attack (see box) to ×2. Other attacks cannot target the vitals.

Skull (-7): The part of the head that houses the brain. The skull gets an extra DR 2, the wounding modifier for all attacks increases to ×4, knockdown rolls are at -10, and critical hits use the Critical Head Blow Table. Exception: None of these effects apply to toxic damage.

Eye (-9): Impaling, piercing, and tight-beam burning attacks can specifically target the eye. Injury over HP/10 blinds the eye; otherwise, treat as a skull hit without the extra DR 2! (As with skull hits, toxic damage has no special effect.)

Face (-5): The jaw, cheeks, nose, and ears. Many helmets have an open face, allowing this attack to ignore armor DR! Knockdown rolls are at -5, and critical hits use the Critical Head Blow Table. Corrosion damage (only) gets a ×1.5 wounding modifier ... and if it inflicts a major wound, it also blinds one eye (both eyes on damage greater than full HP).

See also: New Hit Locations (Martial Arts).

Tight-Beam Burning Attacks

A "tight-beam burning attack" is any ranged burning attack that isn't a jet, cone, area-effect, explosion, or follow-up attack. For instance, a laser is a tight-beam burning attack, while a torch or a flamethrower is not. Such attacks can target the eyes and vitals for bonus damage, but divide damage by 10 for the purposes of Making Things Burn and Catching Fire.

Neck (-5): The neck and throat. Increase the wounding multiplier of crushing and corrosion attacks to ×1.5, and that of cutting damage to ×2. The GM may rule that anyone killed by a cutting blow to the neck is decapitated!

Groin (-3): The lower torso. Jackets and light armor don't always cover this area. Treat as a torso hit, except that human males (and the males of similar species) suffer double the usual shock from crushing damage (to a maximum of -8), and get -5 to knockdown rolls.

Arm or Leg (-2): A good way to disable without killing! Against a living target, reduce the wounding multiplier of large piercing, huge piercing, and impaling damage to ×1. Any major wound (loss of over 1/2 HP from one blow) cripples the limb – but damage beyond the minimum required to inflict a crippling injury is lost. Note: The penalty to hit an arm with a shield is -4.

Hands or Feet (-4): As for an arm or leg, but damage over 1/3 HP in one blow inflicts a crippling major wound (excess damage is still lost). This gives you a chance to cripple the foe with little real damage. However, your foe might just switch hands (or hop) and finish you off! Note: The penalty to hit a hand holding a shield is -8.

Weapon (varies): The place to strike if you need to take the foe unharmed, if you have to disarm a friend, or if you just want to show off. See Striking at Weapons.

Grappling and Hit Location

Halve hit location penalties (round up) if you are grappling a body part - it's easier to grab a body part than to strike it. This does not apply to grabbing a weapon!

Targeting Chinks in Armor

You may use a piercing, impaling, or tight-beam burning attack to target joints or weak points in a suit of armor, vehicle, etc. Roll at -8 to hit a chink in the foe's torso armor, or at -10 for any other location (face, eyes, vitals, arm, etc.), instead of using the usual hit location penalty. If you hit, halve DR. This is cumulative with any armor divisors.

Random Hit Location

You never have to target a hit location – you can always just strike at "whatever target presents itself." To do so, attack with no modifier for hit location. If you hit, and your foe fails to defend, roll 3d on the appropriate hit location table to find out where the blow fell; see Hit Location Tables. The GM decides what table to use for non-humanoids.

Use random hit location for a Wild Swing, shooting blind, suppression fire, fragmentation damage, and any other situation where the GM feels targeting a location is unrealistic. If a random attack comes from directly above, treat "feet" as "hands" and "legs" as “arms."

Injury Tolerance and Hit Location

The Injury Tolerance advantage can alter the effects of hit location.

Diffuse or Homogenous: Ignore all knockdown or wounding modifiers for hit location. (Eyes and limbs can still be crippled.) All injuries use the wounding modifiers from Injury to Unliving, Homogenous, and Diffuse Targets.

No Brain: Hits to the skull get no extra knockdown or wounding modifier. Hits to the eye can cripple the eye; otherwise, treat them as face hits, not skull hits.

No Eyes, No Head, or No Neck: You lack the hit location(s) in question, and your foes cannot target it.

No Vitals: Hits to the vitals or groin have the same effect as torso hits.

Unliving: Hit location has its usual effect, save that piercing and impaling damage to any location other than the eye, skull, or vitals uses the wounding modifiers from Injury to Unliving, Homogenous, and Diffuse Targets.

Large-Area Injury

Some attacks affect much or most of the victim's body – for instance, dragon's breath, a bomb blast, a huge fire, or immersion in an acid pit. In particular, any damage described as being "area effect" or "cone," and any external explosion, inflicts large-area injury.

A melee attack from an attacker whose Size Modifier exceeds that of his target by seven or more is also a large-area injury – if the attacker is striking unarmed or with a weapon scaled to his body size. (If he wishes to target a hit location, his tiny victim must be pinned or otherwise immobile.)

Damage Resistance protects normally against large-area injury – but if your DR varies by location, your "effective DR" is the average of your torso DR and the DR of the least protected hit location exposed to the attack (which could still be your torso), rounding up. If your DR varies against different attacks, "least protected" refers to the location with the lowest DR against that particular type of attack.

A location protected by cover or masked by the body does not count as "exposed to the attack." Against an explosion or cone, only locations facing the blast or cone are exposed (e.g., if you're turned away, your face and eyes aren't exposed). For damage caused by immersion in a hazardous environment (e.g., fire or acid), only the immersed locations are exposed. Against a true area effect, all locations are exposed.

Don't modify large-area injury for hit location (that is, treat it as a torso hit) unless only one location is exposed. If a single limb (hand, arm, etc.) is exposed, damage in excess of that required to inflict a major wound is lost.

Hit Location for Non-Humanoids and Vehicles

It is impossible to supply hit location rules for every type of animal or machine. Instead, we provide some guidelines: see Non-Humanoid Hit Location Tables and Vehicle Hit Location Table.

Striking at Weapons

You might strike at a weapon because you want to take its user alive ... or because the weapon is the only thing you can reach, or is less well-armored than its wielder.

State whether you are striking to disarm or to break the weapon, and then roll to hit. You are at -5 to hit a reach "C" melee weapon (e.g., a knife) or a pistol; -4 to hit a melee weapon with reach 1 (broadsword, mace, etc.) or a medium-sized firearm (e.g., a carbine or sawed-off shotgun); and -3 to hit a melee weapon with reach 2+ (spear, greatsword, polearm, etc.) or a rifle. Attempts to disarm are generally at an extra -2, but see below.

Striking at Weapons in Tactical Combat: A reach "C" weapon is in its wielder's hex. A weapon with a one-yard reach is in the user's hex and in the hex directly in front of him. A 2- or 3-yard weapon is in the two or three hexes directly in front of the user. See the diagram. However, you can always strike at a reach 2+ weapon on your first turn after it was used to attack or feint against you.

Defending Your Weapon

Dodge: You can dodge normally to protect your weapon.

Parry: You can only parry using the weapon that was attacked – and only if it's ready. If you have a broadsword in one hand and a knife in the other, and your foe targeted the knife, you can't parry with the sword. A parry represents turning your weapon so that the foe's blow misses or slides off harmlessly.

Blocking: You cannot block an attack on your weapon. You may combine a dodge or a parry with a retreat to get the usual bonus. The Defense Bonus of a shield provides no benefit whatsoever.

Knocking a Weapon Away

A strike to disarm is an attempt to knock or twist the weapon out of your foe's grasp without damaging it. Only a weapon that can parry can attempt to disarm, which limits disarming to unarmed attacks, melee weapons, and certain thrown weapons. You have an extra -2 to hit unless you use a fencing weapon (main-gauche, rapier, saber, or smallsword).

If you hit and your foe fails to defend, roll a Quick Contest of weapon skills with your foe; if you're attempting to knock away a missile weapon, your opponent rolls against DX. Either of you may opt to make a ST-based skill roll instead of the standard DX-based one, if that would be better. You get +2 if you use Jitte/Sai or Whip skill (having it is not enough!). Your foe gets +2 if he is using a two-handed weapon.

If you win, you disarm your foe; his weapon flies one yard in a random direction. If your foe wins or ties, he keeps his weapon, but it will be unready unless he won by 3 or more. If you roll a critical failure, you are the one disarmed!

Breaking a Weapon

You can instead target a weapon with the intent to chop through, shatter, or otherwise wreck it. You may make such an attack with any weapon – even a firearm.

If you hit and your foe fails to defend, roll your normal damage against his weapon. See Damage to Objects for effects. A weapon's weight and composition will determine its DR and HP. (For weapons bought as advantages, see Gadget Limitations.)

Subduing a Foe

At times, you want to subdue an enemy without killing him. Knockout gas, high-tech stunners, magic, and similar tricks are the best ways to take prisoners – most weapons are entirely too final! But if you need to defeat someone without harming him, and you have only ordinary weapons, you still have several options:

Disarm him. You can do this by striking at his weapon to knock it out of his hand or break it. Of course, he might not surrender, even then ...

Pull your punches. You do not have to strike at full strength. You can choose to use any ST value less than your own when you strike with bare hands or a melee weapon, thrown weapon, bow, or sling (but not with a crossbow or a firearm). For example, if your normal ST is 10, you could strike at only ST 9 in order to deliver a lighter wound ... or tap at ST 1 to touch your foe without doing any harm.

Turn your blade. You can strike with the flat side of any swing/cutting weapon (sword, axe, etc.); this turns its usual cutting damage into crushing damage. You can also poke with the blunt end of a thrust/impaling weapon (spear, halberd, etc.); this reduces damage by 1 point and makes damage crushing. Reversing a reach 2+ impaling weapon to attack with its blunt end requires a Ready maneuver.

Pin him. If you can grapple your foe, you can "pin" him (see Unarmed Combat) and then tie him up. This takes about a minute with ropes, two seconds with ready handcuffs. For another option, see Arm Lock.

Suffocate him. For details, see Choke or Strangle, Choke Hold, and Suffocation.

Strangulation and Smothering

It is possible to render someone unconscious – or even kill him – through suffocation without inflicting significant HP damage. See Suffocation for details.

If you do not wish to choke your victim (see Actions After a Grapple), you must somehow prevent him from breathing, or restrict the flow of blood (and thus oxygen) to his brain, without crushing his throat. If he is restrained, unconscious, or otherwise unresisting, you have many options: hold his nose and mouth shut by hand, cover his face with a pillow or similar object, or constrict either of his carotid arteries (on his neck).

If you are conscious and being smothered, you can choose not to resist and feign unconsciousness. In most cases, you can only fool your attacker if he has been smothering or strangling you for at least 10 seconds. You must make a Will roll to lie passively in the grip of an assailant who is suffocating you! Winning a Quick Contest of Acting vs. your attacker's IQ may fool a hasty or squeamish foe into believing you're unconscious.