Hit location dice

[Jason Durall]

Originally Posted by Triff

A d100 hit location table?

It works pretty well in practice.

I've probably got about a dozen games with d% hit location tables.

The most fearsome hit location table I've ever seen is the default system for Tri-Tac Systems (games like Stalking the Night Fantastic, Incursion, FTL 2448, etc.) which has you roll d% for hit location (around 25 or so locations are specified) and then has a 2d6 roll that's handled as two numbers (so the results are 1,1; 1,2; 1,3;...). Each location is roughly about an inch or so of flesh.

[frogspawner]

Originally Posted by Triff

A d100 hit location table?

Because BRP is a d100 system, a non-d100 table is better if you're using the hit locations option - so you can roll your HitLoc D20/D6/D12 at the same time as your d100 attack dice, and can tell it apart. That's the way to streamline it...

[frogspawner]

Originally Posted by Jason Durall

The most fearsome hit location table I've ever seen is...

Your own Major Wound Chart is pretty scary!

[badcat]

I usually use SB1 style major wounds and sometimes a couple of D12s for hit location. Mine have head x1, arms x2, torso x4, legs x4 and 'target' x1. I only use them for major wounds, when they are rolled and hit, that is.

[Jason Durall]

Originally Posted by frogspawner

Your own Major Wound Chart is pretty scary!

Well, I didn't make that one up... I just updated it.

And it's not much of a hit location chart in the classic sense.

[Trifletraxor]

Originally Posted by frogspawner

The Location D6 (or D12) is a cute gimmick. (What more 'useful complexity' do you think a D20 provides, though?)

But if you want simpler, faster, streamlined combat - why not just use BRP? The default, that is: no hit locations...

That's too streamlined!
But I am thinking of using only general hit points, while still keeping the location dice.

SGL.

[frogspawner]

Originally Posted by Trifletraxor

But I am thinking of using only general hit points, while still keeping the location dice.

Well you might care to try what I do, then - only rolling for location when it's a major wound* (or equivalent) - which feels fine to me, and works well (with a sub-table of wounds relevant to each location). The players seem to like it, because when I innocently ask "Location?" they know they've probably felled the monster.
(* and on rarer occasions it's significant, like net-entanglement, grappling, wildly inconsistent armour, splats of green slime... )

Originally Posted by Jason Durall

Well, I didn't make that one up... I just updated it.

Having now seen it, I agree the Major Wound Chart isn't much use as a hit location chart. But since you didn't invent it, I hope you won't be too offended if I come up with an alternative, that combines both functions...

[Triff]

Originally Posted by frogspawner

Well you might care to try what I do, then - only rolling for location when it's a major wound* (or equivalent) - which feels fine to me, and works well (with a sub-table of wounds relevant to each location).

That is a good idea, but I my players object if they can't have different armor points on different hit locations. Which is why I'm considering a simpler location dice, to use with general hit points & major wounds rules. I'd be interested to see your take on a major wounds/hit location table.

SGL.

[frogspawner]

Originally Posted by Triff

my players object if they can't have different armor points on different hit locations.

Ah, I can sympathize with them there. But my players usually don't, reserving their objections more for the perceived slowness of d100 combat, and how few hit points they get (D&D-ers. ). So...

The location/injury tables I currently use are here. It's vaguely based on an article for Aftermath in a very old White Dwarf, with just a touch of Rolemaster criticals for good measure. It strikes me that it may actually be more useful to you than the all-in-one version I was planning to adapt from the BRP wounds chart, though there is the slight problem of having two different levels of "major" wound (i.e. serious/critical, corresponding to the D&D healing spells).

[CruelDespot]

I had the same idea as Kloster (and am also a former Top Secret player). I plan on using a house rule where the 1s digit of the attack roll determines the hit location

1-2=head
3-6=body
7= l arm
8 = r arm
9= l leg
10= r leg

That seems to me to be the simplist method. You don't even have to roll a seperate die for hit location.

At the same time, I recognize that the purpose of the new BRP rulebook is not to change the system, but to compile all the rules from the different pre-existing BRP games into one consistent set of rules: "Chaosium's Greatest Hits" so to speak. Don't you hate it when a band records a new version of one of their songs for the greatest hits album? Same principle applies here.

That's why I am content to keep it as a house rule.