Obnoxious Player (with sword of sharp
ness): "I did it! I rolled a 20! I cut off Asmodeus'  head!"

Harassed DM (upset at this disruption of
his climatic encounter): "Uh, no, not his
head.?

OP: ?Oh yeah? How do you figure that??

HDM: ?Well, your sword only severs the
extremity it hits.?

OP: ?So where did I hit it??

Obnoxious Player (having just loosed an
arrow of demon slaying at an irate Type V
demon): ?A 15, did I hit? Huh? Huh? Did I??

Harrassed DM: ?Uh, well, it depends if
you hit it on the tail or not. Different
armor classes.?

OP: "So where did I hit it?"

The highly stylized combat rules of the
AD&D® game work fine, as long as no one
cares where they hit their opponents.
Unfortunately for game integration, there
are some situations where hit location
becomes important. These fall into three
main areas:

1. When an attack has a specific effect
on body parts. Examples include normal
weapons like whips and saps, magic weapons
such as swords of sharpness and
staves of withering, and the attacks of
slicer beetles, tarrasques and other monsters.
An integrated hit location system
would introduce consistency and aid the
DM.

2. When the target's AC varies. The
AD&D game system abounds with monsters
having varying armor classes on
their bodies. In most cases, no provision is
made for determination of which armor
class to use for a specific attack. The hitlocation
system in this article will also
eliminate any confusion arising from this
in play.

3. When the target?s body parts have
individual hit points. The various versions
of hydrae are an obvious example. Others
are the flail snail, grell, giant octopus, and
kraken.

The system
The 1st point to be considered in constructing
a consistent hit-location system is
how to handle the desire of combatants to
aim at a vital portion of their opponent?s
anatomy (i.e., hit the neck instead of the
tall with a sword of sharpness) or gain the
benefit of a worse armor class (i.e., hit a
bulette in its AC 6 undercrest area instead
of its AC -2 body). A simple way to do
this is to classify targets according to the
percentage of available striking surface
they represent (a function of size and
accessibility) and add a standard negative
modifier to the ?to hit? roll. For maximum
simplicity, there are only four classifications:
 

Classifications	"To hit" modifier
Easy target	-2
Medium target	-4
Hard target	-8
Forget it! target	-12

Note that anyone of medium to low level
is going to have a very difficult time hitting
the harder targets!

Easy target: a target that represents 50%
or more of striking area and is not particularly
protected, such as the upper body of
a salamander or the heads of a hydra (not
a specific head; that counts as a Medium
target, due to the difficulty of pickign it
out from the rest).

Medium target: a target from 25-50% of
striking area that is unprotected, such as a
particular head of a chimera (when attacking
from the front); or an easy target that
is hard to get at, such as the body of a lion
when the beast is facing you.

Hard target: a target from 10-25% of
striking area and not otherwise protected,
such as the main eye of a beholder; or a
Medium target that is protected, such as
the head of a typical biped (who will defend
against head attacks with the utmost
determination).

Forget it! target: anything harder to hit
than a hard target, such as a beholder?s
small eyes.

The second point is how to determine
where an attack hits if the attacker does
not aim. This can be dealt with simply by
making tables for all the various monsters
that have varying armor classes, weighted
by relative percentage of body area and
desirability as a target. These tables can be
found in the Appendix. DMs intimidated
by the look of all those tables should remember
that under most circumstances
they will not be used, since only fairly
infrequently does hit location matter, and
when it does players usually want to declare
an aimed attack

Extensions
This simple and consistent system can
also be used to extend the AD&D game
This also gives the DM opportunities for
system, as well as account for present
discrepancies.

For instance, page 82 of the DMG states
(under "Zero Hit Points") that "if any creature
reaches a state of -6 or greater
negative HP, this could indicate
scarring or loss of some member, if you so
choose." This can be accomodated easily
within the hit location system. The location
is rolled for the attack that brought
HP below zero. At -6 and downwards,
scars form, which will (if visible)
reduce comeliness by 1 point per HP
below -5 reached. This is permanent
scarring, which nothing short of limited
wish will remove.

Furthermore, reaching - 7 when hit
location is an arm or leg results in the total
loss of that hand or foot; -9 indicates loss
of the whole appendage, and consequent
need for a regenerate spell. Note that if
the character then dies and is raised,
destroyed body parts are still missing.

Another example is to give a character
more flexibility in armoring himself. Have
you ever tried to create a Greek hoplite
(infantryman) for an AD&D campaign? A
bronze helmet, leather jerkin and bronze
greaves just don't fit into any given AC!
Using this hit location system, the
attacker simply rolls on the chart to find
out whether he hits AC4 (bronze plate:
head, legs), AC8 (leather vest: body) or
AC10 (arms). If our hoplite had a shield,
each of these would be decreased by 1.
and his shield arm would have AC4 protection
(bronze-faced shield).

This also gives the DM opportunities for
unique treasures; imagine a party that
comes upon an ogre whose treasure includes
heaps of rusted armor. One breastplate,
though, detects as magickal; and
when an identify spell is cast, "ACME ARMOR
OF ETHEREALNESS" can be seen written on it.
The breastplate provides +5 protection to
the wearer's torso -- and once they locate
all the rest of the suit (which can be made
the focus of a long string of adventures),
the full powers are gained.

That just about covers everything -- but
a note should be made about using this
system for critical hits. Players will no
doubt claim that since they can aim at a
specific hit location, they should be able to
target an oppenent?s eyes, jugular vein,
etc. This is not possible in the AD&D
combat system, and any redesign including
critical hits would probably shorten
the average character?s lifespan considerably.
Therefore, the note is: Don't do it.

APPENDIX

Hit-location tables
Some may perceive apparent discrepancies
in these tables at first glance; for
instance, on the ?Lions & Dinosaurs? table,
an unaimed front attack has only a 35%
chance of hitting the head, which is obviously
not an accurate portrayal of random
chance. The reason for this is that I tried
to simulate the actual places a trained
fighter would hit, even when not consciously
aiming; and since the armor class
of the head of these lions and dinosaurs is
lower than the body, he would attempt to
hit the more vulnerable areas. Of course,
feel free to change anything you don?t
agree with.

Several monsters (hydrae, beholders,
squid, tentamorts, bloodthorns, etc.) have
large numbers of small appendages. Due
to the variable number of such appendages,
no numeric references have been
placed on these tables; roll another die to
determine which particular appendage
was hit.

Table	Used for
1	Humanoids, salamanders, Type V demons, yuan ti
2	Lions (also including dragonnes and sea lions) and dinosaurs (monoclonius, pentaceratops, stegosaurus, styracosaurus, triceratops)
3	Insects (carrion crawler, stego-centipede, termite <?>
4	Beholder, spectator
5	Bloodthorn, choke creeper, hangman's tree
6	Chimera, gorgimera
7	Giant octopus, giant squid, kraken
8	Hydrae, thessalhydra
9	Tentamort, whipweed
10	Achaierai
11	Anhkheg
12	Bulette
13	Flail snail
14	Flumph
15	Forester's bane
16	Froghemoth
17	Grell
18	Remorhaz
19	Turtles, sea and snapping
20	Wolf-in-sheep's-clothing

1. Humanoids (front attack given)

1d20	Hit location
1-3	Head
4-3	R. arm
6-7	L. arm
8-14	Torso
15-17	R. leg
18-20	L. leg

2. Lions and Dinosaurs

1d20	Hit location (front)	Hit location  (side)
1-7	Head	Body
8-12	R. forequarter	Forequarter
13-17	L.forequarter	Hindquarter
18-20	Body	Head

3. Insects (note: a stegocentipede's
underside is AC6)

1d20	Hit location (front)	Hit location  (side)
1-11	Head	Body (back)
1-16	Head	Body (underside)
17-20	Body (back)	Head

4. Beholder, spectator

-	1d20 (Beholder)	1d20  (Spectator)
Body	1-15	1-14
Central eye	16-17	15-16
Eyestalks	18-19	17-20
Small eyes	20	-

5. Plants (no penalty for targeting a vine
wrapped around the attacker)

1d20	Hit location
1-11	Vines
12-15	Vines (if more than 8), otherwise trunk
16-20	Trunk

6. Chimera, gorgimera

1d20	Hit location (front)	Hit location (side)
1-4	Right head	Hindquarter
5-8	Center head	Wings
9-12	Left head	Body
13-14	R. forequarter	Near head
16-18	L. forequarter	Forequarter
19-20	Body	Center head

7. Giant octopus, giant squid,
kraken (-2 penalty for targeting
a certain tentacle; no penalty for
targeting tentacles in general)

1d20	Hit location (front)	Hit location (side)
1-10	Tentacles	Tentacles
11-16	Tentacles	Body
17-20	Head	Head

8. Hydrae, thessalhydra

1d20	Hit location (front)	Hit location (side)
1-12	Heads	Body
13-16	Heads	Heads
17-20	Body	Heads

9. Tentamort, whipweed

1d20	Hit location
1-7	Stalk A
8-14	Stalk B
15-20	Body

10. Achaierai

1d20	Hit location
1-16	Leg (divide by 4 and round up to find out which)
17-20	Body

11. Anhkheg

1d20	Hit location
1-14	Body
15-20	Underside

12. Bulette

1d20	Hit location
1-17	Body
18-19	Crest
20	Eye

13. Flail snail (body counts as a
Forget It! target)

1d20	Hit location
1-18	Tentacles (divide by 6 and round up to find which)
19-20	Body

14. Flumph

1d20	Hit location
1-13	Top
14-20	Underside

15. Forester's bane

1d20	Hit location
1-12	Leaves
13-17	Stalks
18-20	Central plant

16. Froghemoth

1d20	Hit location
1-12	Tentacles (divide by 4 and round up to find which)
13-18	Body
19-20	Tongue

17. Grell

1d20	Hit location
1-15	Tentacles (divide by 1% and round up to find which) <check>
16-20	Body

18. Remorhaz

1d20	Hit location (front)	Hit location (side)
1-12	Head	Body
13-17	Underside	Underside
18-20	Body	Head

19. Turtles, sea and snapping

1d20	Hit location
1-15	Shell
16-20	Head/flippers

20. Wolf-in-sheep's clothing

1d20	Hit location
1-7	Roots (no. rolled is no. hit)
8-17	Stump
18-20	Eyestalks

OCTOBER 1986