I like to have hit locations in a game, and random damage - but all the dice rolls get tedious, eg with GURPS 4e, it's roll to hit, foe rolls to dodge/parry, if A hits and B fails to dodge/parry, roll for hit location, then roll for damage. 3+1 rolls for what's basically one action, thwap.

Here's my thought, point out flaws!

• roll to hit with d100
• doubles (11, 22, 77, etc) are criticals; success with a double is a critical success, failure with a double is a critical failure
• if you hit, the result reversed is the hit location (roll of 27 becomes hit location 72, etc - not sure what I'd do about criticals, hit location 11 would cop more criticals than 22, etc).
• punching damage is the lowest of the two dice, kicking or some heavy object is the highest of the two dice; "0" is always read as 10 in this case. Blades could be the sum of the dice, and large blades, firearms etc double that or some other multiple.
  

You've read Unknown Armies, I take it.

I always liked the doubles counting as a critical, rather than calculating 10% of your to-hit chance.

!i!

Yes. They were a bit weird, though. They had the usual thing of firearms turning people into hamburger, I wasn't fond of that. Things were a bit too random. Did they have doubles-as-crits? I can't recall. I do remember being annoyed at the calculations of current critical level in RuneQuest.

Basically I am thinking about this because while I love the simplicity of the SixLetterSystem, using 2d6, having attributes drop instead of having hit points, I do like hit locations. But I don't like endless dice rolls just for one action.

When playing SLS, I found that occasionally players would say, "I hit him in the head!" and were disappointed when they couldn't, they could only target Agility or something.

You could have hit locations with SLS, but when you're doing 1-3d6 damage against attributes of 2-12, it doesn't mean much, whether they break their leg before passing out doesn't really matter, they're out, so it's a bit pointless.

And percentiles just feel more modern or scifi...

So is there no defense or way to alter your opponents roll?

One thing I never liked about putting a to-hit with a hit-location roll is that you usually end up not being able to hit someone somewhere.  Usually this is the head.

Assuming a higher number is better for hitting, you'll also mostly be dealing with larger amounts of damage... I'm not sure if that's bad for you.  Kicking seems like a pretty good deal compared to punching.

If I read you correctly, Bill is doing something very much like this in the version 2 of Iridium - that is, the reversal of the roll to determine hit location. Well, that's not quite right - it's against your targeting skill and if you make it you get to choose. If not, IIRC, you do have to roll.

I will say that the reversal and its use run very smoothly in play.

Quote from: KingSpoom;271564So is there no defense or way to alter your opponents roll?

You'd get a dodge/parry, except against a critical. It's one roll per player per action, not one roll per combat round.

Quote from: KingSpoomOne thing I never liked about putting a to-hit with a hit-location roll is that you usually end up not being able to hit someone somewhere.  Usually this is the head.

Again, the roll is reversed. Let's say you have a 20% chance to hit. 01, 02, 03...09... 20, etc will all hit. These will become hit locations 10, 20, 30... 90... 02, etc. That ought to cover the lot.

Quote from: KingSpoomAssuming a higher number is better for hitting, you'll also mostly be dealing with larger amounts of damage... I'm not sure if that's bad for you.

Somewhat. If you have a 90% skill rather than 30% skill, you will more often have successful hit rolls with 3-8 in the tens; neither has any bearing on the 1-10 of the units roll. So having a higher skill slightly improves the chances of scoring greater damage. The hit by someone with 90% skill is slightly likely to do more injury than the hit by someone with 30% skill. I'm happy with that.

Quote from: KingSpoomKicking seems like a pretty good deal compared to punching.

Depends how detailed you want to be. In general, being kicked hurts more than being punched. But it requires better balance to avoid falling over if the blow misses, and while it's relatively easy to step and punch, it's hard to step and kick. So you sacrifice mobility for a stronger blow.

Anyway, the damage stuff is just illustrative at this stage. I just used it as an example of how you'd get the three things (to hit, location and damage) from one roll.

Looks like it'll work to me. I do have one suggestion, though - Multiple attacks. But that can be handled by subtracting, say, 11% for each extra attack you're going to do.

That would generally negate criticals and occasionally cause them.

The old RuneQuest thing for multiple attacks was that if you had over 100% skill you could split it, a single 110% attack becomes one 70% and a second 40% attack, or whatever.

I don't see why you couldn't do it with under 100% skills, though, the only reason to restrict it would be to save us the tedium of a player trying a "shotgun" approach with their character's 66% skill and rolling for 6x 11% attacks or something daft like that - less chance at least one will hit, but a chance of more than one hitting.

A rule I'm thinking of, I stole it from a mate who ran Recon for us years back:- Except for single-shot or muzzle-loading firearms, not keep track of ammo rounds, only magazines. When you get a critical failure on your to-hit roll, you finished a magazine and must spend some actions changing mags.

So the low-skill guy will blaze away like mad just to get one decent shot, wasting heaps of ammo. The high-skill guy will make best use of their ammo, with single aimed shots. There's a risk we could get effectively a hundred-round 30-round mag, but when you factor in lowered skill due to cover, lighting, victim moving, etc, it shouldn't be a problem.

Whoop, 11% would just continue a critical - 66%, 55%...Make that 12%.

A higher cost for multiple attacks, perhaps 22%, would also tend to blunt the tendency to make them.

Critical failures cost magazines sound good to me, for the reasons you stated.

Hi Kyle! You should take a look at the demo of Gunslingers and Gamblers from FJGaming. Some mechanics look like those you want to try. Look specifically for the basic mechanic and the damage roll. It's a really neat little system.

Thanks, Scaredy Squirrel, I see that there are many things worth ripping off there. Like skills and specialities, the system seems to be that you have the skill and specialty, or you don't, it has no score, for success you have to beat some number, but  -

• If you are asked to make a roll for a Skill you don't have, roll two ten-sided dice and read the lowest dice as the tens value.
• If you are asked to make a roll for a Skill you do have, roll two ten-sided dice but state which of the two dice will be the tens dice before rolling.
• If you have the Skill and the relevant speciality being asked for roll two ten-sided dice and the highest dice is the tens value.

They also have doubles as criticals.