It's odd to me, that there is a mechanic for aiming, but no damage bonuses to head shots and the like. A monowire garrote, for example, should be allowed to sever a limb if it passes an armor test and deals at least 1 wound if the player intends that. Why isn't there a mechanic for things like that? There are insanely accurate sniper rifles and the like which can hit a target perfectly at any distance, but you can't 1-shot someone if you line up a headshot?
Also, if a target is down - prone, stunned, or otherwise unable to act - there isn't a way to instantly end their life by putting a gun to their head and pulling the trigger. The game treats a headshot as a torso shot, liable to armor penalties, even when there isn't a helmet!
As an aside, why is the armor piercing on melee weapons so low? Can smart clothing really slow a knife like that?
Finally, melee weapons seem to be really low-powered all around. For my group, they were literally useless.
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Head shots, fatal strikes, coup de grâce
Sun, 2011-06-19 23:04
#1
tasuret
Head shots, fatal strikes, coup de grâce
Mon, 2011-06-20 01:23
#2
Arenamontanus
Re: Head shots, fatal strikes, coup de grâce
Rulebooks cannot cover everything. I usually just wing it when it makes sense.
Coup de grace generally happens when the enemy is completely defenceless, not much point in rolling any dice if the aggressor knows what they is doing. (I would, out of sheer cruelty, roll for PCs who are not hardened killers - as plenty of gory execution history and war anecdotes show, effectively killing even an immobilized person sometimes go wrong).
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Mon, 2011-06-20 02:17
#3
Janusfaced
Re: Head shots, fatal strikes, coup de grâce
Let's think in reallife example. If you attack and score 60+ MoS, the DV is incleased by +10(p. 192). So if you headshot with a kinetic sniper rifle and a hollow-point ammo(3d10+10 DV and let's ignore armor), your max damage will be 50. A Flats morph has 45 Death Rating, so it is possible to take down with one shot, even in EP rules.
And about other biomorphs, I assume their brains are better at life supporting, enough to resist instant death by the max damage one bullet can deal. That said, such morph might die due to breeding(if you cont it as an one-shot killing).
I think they can -- after all, smart clothing are much higher tech than a simple knife.
I agree but don't mind about it. After all, melee weapons are less used in reallife warfare and security already. I think EP melee weapons are non-combat tools, sidearems or specialized weapons.
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Mon, 2011-06-20 04:25
#4
Gee4orce
Re: Head shots, fatal strikes, coup de grâce
I created some hit location rules a while back : http://dl.dropbox.com/u/2190127/EP/Advanced%20Combat.pdf
These are just my thought about how it could work, and haven't been playtested or validated or, even, completed.
I opted for the idea that the effect of a wound (not the damage points) varies depending on the location hit. So a wound to the head is more serious than a wound to the body. Specifically, a single wound to the head has a chance of knocking you out cold, two wounds to the head has a chance of killing you outright. I think this fits nicely with the main rules - it doesn't change anything about the existing damage rules.
Of course, the other shoe that's yet to drop is rules for armour for particular locations, especially helmets. Its definitely my belief that there's a good reason combatants wear torso armour and helmets - and I want these rules to reflect that.
Mon, 2011-06-20 06:37
#5
The Demon Code
Re: Head shots, fatal strikes, coup de grâce
While there is no explicit mechanic, that would be covered under the called shots, specific targeting option (ep, p. 197). Though the GM may (rightly) bar automatic one hit kills to preserve game balance. Note also that head shots in real life aren't necessarily one hit kills either. Gabrielle Giffords springs to mind as an example.
If you want to shoot someone in the head to bypass armor, you could use a bypass armor called shot. If they are helpless and survive: Just do it again. :)
Alternately, you can spend a point of moxie to turn any successful hit into a critical, bypassing armor.
Assuming you meant Smart Vac Clothing (ordinary smart clothing has no armor rating), then yes. It is made to resist cuts and punctures to help avoid a painful death in vacuum.
This is to make it consistent (YMMV) with real life where melee weapons aren't nearly as good as guns. Note however that some morphs (like the arachnoid), are fairly deadly with melee weapons and a high skill.
Thu, 2011-07-21 22:30
#6
UnitOmega
Re: Head shots, fatal strikes, coup de grâce
Ehh, as already said, there are rules for called shots. This includes for targeting specific areas, but it does say GM discretion on what the Called Shot actually does. I might preclude 1HK called shots, even if they do require excellent success and impose a -10 penalty. The actual act of aiming has little to do with making a called shot, other than aiming would cancel the penalty, that's just, like, actually looking down the sights of your gun, rather than hip-firing it.
As for the coup de grace, if you're going to execute someone helpless, that's not necessarily a mechanics thing, it could be a narrative thing. I can't recall my PCs ever explicitly saying they execute someone before, but if they want to put a gun to someone who can't possibly Fray out of the way and pull the trigger, I'm comfortable letting them just kill them.
Also, I'm going have to disagree about melee weapons. Either your party is not using the right ones, or isn't using them in the right way. I can, in particular, recall a close-quarters combat that involved some very good use of melee weapons. One PC used a Monofilament sword and I think pretty much wiped out a synthmorph, doing so much damage in a single attack I reasoned she must have either shaved off an armor or a goodly chunk of its torso. In the same fight, another Battlesuit-equipped player employed charging and simply punching to disable the other synthmorph (knocking it out) and then attack the main enemy "villain" for the finishing blow, dealing well past his remaining durability and I think past his DR, pretty much punching his head off.
Mind you, the melee guy will never deal as much damage all at once as someone wielding a Plasma Rifle or Torch will. But, everyone should have one melee skill, just in case. After all, firing while you're in a Melee is a -30 penalty.
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Sun, 2011-07-24 18:28
#7
Xagroth
Re: Head shots, fatal strikes, coup de grâce
Personally I only found the game lacked a "the character sneaks behind an unsuspecting target and kills it outright without a sound". I improvised the following mechanic:
First, a few infiltration Vs perception (with a -20 to the perception unless oracles are installed) rolls, in the same way a hacker tries to infiltrate inside a system, so this can be solved in a single roll.
Second, the player rolls a Blades attack, and then a Medicine test. If he rolls a success in both tests, he just popped the target's cortical stack, with an instant kill. This can be changed to kinetic weapons with a silencer, blunt weapons like a garrote and bare hands, the later two with an inmovilization test instead of the medicine one to start suffocating the target, but has the little problem of the ever-present Mesh...