Jul 10 10:50 1998

To: Dan

Copy to: Jerm
Copy to: Jert

From: Froccer

Subject: re:Hit Loc. and Dodge

In message "Hit Loc. and Dodge", Dan writes:

> >Dan let's start using a random hit location whenever you shoot at some
> >one. Your idea of 1-head 2,3-arms 5,6,7,8-torso 9,10-legs would work.
> >You could split up the torso to include chest and abdomen but Rift's
> >usually only has stats for the main body. We could come up with a
> >percentage to distribute to each part ie. abdomen 50% of main body.
> >Also do the same with all the other parts. Should we minus to dodge
> >modern weapons or add to dodge? We could say that you are -5 to dodge a
> >laser blast but he's aiming for your head so you have a +3 to dodge etc.
> >etc. Anyway tell me what you think.
> >
> >Toodles,
> >Jerm "Getting rather mad with Palladium rules"
> >
>
> As what was stated early in our conversations about this (I think Froccer was
> the one who expressed it) This system is supposed to be fast, and due to
> the waste of time trying to do a reasonable hit location it will slow down
> the battle. If it were up to me this is how I would do it with hit location
>
> 1-5 Upper body hit
> 6-10 Lower body hit
>
> Upper body Chart
> 1 Head
> 2,3 Left Arm
> 4,5 Right Arm
> 6-10 Main Body
>
> Lower body hit
> 1,2 Left Leg
> 3,4 Right Leg
> 6-10 Main Body
>
> A simple roll of two 10's would decide on the area hit by the shot.
>

This is not a bad idea. I would however suggest that you identify your 10's
as upper / lower body, and body location dice before you roll your 20. This
way, you can roll all three dice at once, not wasting time to make a separate
roll for body location if you hit. This would save a little time, but the GM
would have to be on top of the rules, so he doesn't have to look at a chart
every time somebody scores a hit.

> This system may slow down the game so an alternative I would suggest is this:
>
> Greater than 8 is a hit ( I hate 5, that means you hit 75% of the time,
> unrealistic)
> Shot hits the head natural 19
> natural 20 is double damage
>

Don't like it. This means that I hit a person's head 5% of the time. This also
means that opponents shooting at me hit my head 5% of the time! This makes the
game much more lethal. I would not want to play anything other than a juicer, or
a guy in a glitterboy suit because once in every 20 shots made against me, I
would be rolling up a new character!

I do realize that the body hit location system detailed at the start of this
section does the same thing (50% chance of hitting the upper body + 10% chance
in hitting the head = 5% chance of hitting the head on every shot). You may want
to restrict a head hit to rolling both 1's on your 10's (making it only a 1%
chance).

I think we need to talk about it some more.

> Called shot to a body part (excluding head) 12 or greater - a miss results
> in a main body shot.
> Called shot to a difficult target (i.e. head or gun) 17 or higher - a miss
> of 12 or lower means you miss the target completely
>
> This eliminates the bonuses to dodge on small targets and makes a guy think
> twice about calling a shot to the head all the time (which is what is
> happening now).
>

Actually Dan, I haven't seen anybody make a head shot yet. Have things changed
since I left to the point where everyone is now shooting at each other's head?

> As for minuses to dodge I don't think is a good idea. I think the designers
> have included this in the game, it's pretty hard to increase you dodge in
> my opinion.
>

Yep. I agree with Dan. You would be adding another complication to a game
system that is already *censored* to hell.

Froccer