Ye Olde Inn

DISABLE LIMB: You Roll 1AD, on a Skull you succeed in a Blunt, melee attack & the enemy's limb breaks causing them to lose 1AD & or slow their Movement. All four limbs can be injured this way, each taking away 1AD from the enemy.

Enemy Rolls 1DD per his BP total & needs one BlackShield to defend.

Goblin/Skeleton/Orc/Zombie 1DD
Fimir/Mummy 2DD
Etc.

Cons: In a door way fight, two Diagonal Heros can slowly be knocking an enemy's Attack Dice down, but I'm not sure I got a problem with this since the Hero is giving up a chance to just kill the monster outright.

Pros: Allows more options in combat.
Hero's with 1or 2AD(Wizard/Short Sword) have a way to assist during a fight if they feel their Rolls are crappy or tired of not doing damage or just wanna see something horrible happen.
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Here are other ways I thought this system might work.
MISSILE attack, LEG SHOT- Roll as above. Enemy's MOVE is halved.
(Missile attacks can only damage each limb once).

Cons: Two successful Missile Leg Shots would knock an Orc down to only 2square Movement allowing Hero's to keep enemies at a distance while filling them with arrows. I don't know what to think of this.
You could make distance an issue giving the monster back his normal defence.

Pros: Great for the Wizard or a weakend Hero with a lot of arrows/daggers. Or when trying to escape.

CUT OFF LEG: Roll as above. Edged weapons only. -1AD from enemy & his MOVE is halved. No legs they Move 1square.

CUT OFF ARM: Roll as above. Edged weapons only. Enemy is -1AD.

Thematically you should take away a Defence Die instead of Attack but think that is to OP.
I hope you're laughing by now because i am. Help me tweek the system to better results. I'm sure there's a section on our site for "Called Shots". Anyway tell me what you think.

You mean, he loses limbs and still fights?

That's epic

"Ill bite your legs off!" Lol

A one legged one armed Fimir, swinging an axe, moving 3squares a turn trying to catch up & kill the Hero's. Yelling obscenities the whole time till you put an arrow in him. A horrible ending, but justified for the evil they brought on our poor & downtrodden.

A Goblin with no legs & only one sword wielding arm viciously fends off two Hero's attempts to kill him while he crawls to safty.. Lol
Most could hop or crawl away at that point though. Up to the EW I suppose.

Hero's with nick names like Derick the one armed Goblin maker or Torso Tony.
You could conceivably leave maimed monsters all over the dungeon if you were cruel or vengeful enough.

I toyed with the idea of having specific targeting for combat. Each section of the body
would get its own Defense and body points...head, upper and lower torso, each arm and
each leg.

Just got too bogged down and confusing to deal with. I've seen full rpg systems that use
that sort of thing. If you and your gaming group want to make things a little more real,
and allow characters to make epic kill shots with bows and arrows, it could be fun to
use a system like that. Typically, it just gets annoying after a while.

The Wizard is diagonally hitting a Fimir with his 1Att Staff but the Fimir keeps defending against it, so the Wizard asks if he can "strike a Limb" instead which lowers the Fimirs defence from 3Def to 2Def(it's Body Points), & realistically it would be easier to hit a person's extremities anyway.

Now the Wizard has a slightly better chance of hitting the Fimir. If the Wizard hits, then the Fimir loses an Att Die, that simple. (you could say it only cripples the Limb if you want).

I as Zargon will decide where the Hero hits, the player only gets to ask me if they "Can strike a Limb."

I just wonder if we can make an attack that is easier to make that disables a single monster Att, Def or Move Die? I wonder if it would hurt the game.

I don't know, seems really complicated for my taste. I love HQ for it's simplicity. And this to me just isn't simple

If your main goal is to give lower combat-powered
Heroes a purpose and help the players have more
Fun, I would focus more on devising ways for them
To interact with their actual purpose. Create puzzles
That require specific spells. Create special enemies
That certain heroes are skilled at defeating in some
Way (notice defeat vs kill).

Ideas:
More traps, new traps
Word puzzles...lever and button puzzles
Creatures with irrational fear or hatred of elves/dwarves
......this would give the creature a disability when facing
New spells or artifacts to target specific creatures
Side quests and storylines designed for specific characters

I have read many target zone systems in PnP games over the years, and even wrote a very detailed one myself (around 1990).
I vould vote strongly against having one in HQ, however. The very heart of HQ is simplification.

But to each his own. Just let's assume we want to include such a system, it is still an interesting, albeit theoretical, topic to discuss.
I would not speak of "losing" limbs, but of damaging limbs to an extend that makes them handicapped or entirely useless. A completely severed limb is not only extremely unprobable, even with a catana, but also would make the victim drop out from blood loss very quickly, so that any disadvantages of loosing this special limb would make no difference in praxis.

A quick shot for a system of random target zones. The more probable a body part is to be hit, the more relative points it has:

weapon arm 6
opposite arm 4
upper torso 3
head 2
lower torso 1
left leg 2
right leg 2

summa 20 points. So it would be easy to have a table to determine the hit area with a D20.

Just re-edited/shortend my posts. I tend to explain answers for every question a person might have & it makes my posts long & seem complicated.

My third post down is a simpler version to understand without the Movement subtraction. Tell me what you think & thanks for the replys!

TMU wrote:I don't know, seems really complicated for my taste.

Tell me what you think now.

torilen wrote:If your main goal is to give lower combat-powered
Heroes a purpose and help the players have more
Fun,

You could call it fun, but it's to expand Attack options along with allowing Hero's tired of hitting NOTHING turn after turn, to instead have better odds of doing SOMETHING that doesn't take a whole Body Point.

Example:
Elf with Short Sword 2Att, can't land a hit on a CWarrior 4Def. "Striking a Limb" lowers the CWarrior to 3Def(per his body points) & allows the Hero a chance to.... lower the CWarriors vicious 4Att, 4Def, 4move or it could do something else entirely if you want.

Big Bene wrote:weapon arm 6
opposite arm 4
upper torso 3
head 2
lower torso 1
left leg 2
right leg 2

summa 20 points. So it would be easy to have a table to determine the hit area with a D20.

Oh Lord, I take back using the term "Called shots" & am totally in agreement with you to avoid using them. I will not use Head Shots or be forced to create rules for what each shot does to an enemy. At most my "Limb Striking" system will be decided by Zargon and only effect an enemies Att, Def & Move. The player simply gets to say "I want to hit a Limb."

It would just be nice to tell a player "well since you're sucking at landing a blow, you could do...THIS that does less Damage if you want, give it a shot."
What THIS is, doesn't have to be my system, it could be what ever we want. Just thought we could come up with something.

Also keep in mind adding something like "wounding limbs" allows broader Combat/Feat/Skill Card options along with cooler possibilities for a Monk Hero character. Give the concept a second look.

Just some ideas you may find interesting or not:
Instead of attacking just the next opening in the opponent's defense a figure can aim for a special target.
This makes it more difficult to actually hit, but can have a desireable effect, depending on the targeted body part.
The attacker has to explain which target he wants to hit before trying.
He then attacks with his normal number of dice, but only with black shields.
How many hits are needed depends on the "difficulty" of the announced target (make up your own stats, e.g. it should be easier to hit the sword hand than the rear hand, and easier to hit the shoulder than the throat).
If the desired target is hit, it results in a special effect - a hit to the head may knock the victim out, a hit to the sword hand may make him loose his weapon, a hit to the crotch make him unable to fight, but still conscious, a hti to a foot affect his movement and fighting dexterity, a hit to the throat may be an instant kill.
If the number ob black shields rolled exceeds the necessary difficulty number by a given amount, the limb in question may be rendered unusable, and with an even greater amount of excess hits be cut right off.