[Runequest] Runequest Digest, Vol 30, Issue 32

[Wayne Shaw]

At 02:56 AM 11/23/2010, you wrote:
>-But what happens if you have 90% in sword-attack, and you aim or 
>-say the abdomen, and roll 50? That means that you didn't hit the 
>torso, but where did the sword hit? When we fight after 
>longsword-manuals, all* attacks are aimed at the head/face, but we 
>often end up hitting other places. Because the target moves, because 
>he blocks and deflects the blade, etc, etc. If I were to make a to 
>hit-table based on my experience with WMA-longsword, perhaps 30% of 
>hits are in hands, 20% are in underarms, 20% are in head, 10% are in 
>shoulders/overarms, 10% are torso/abdomen and the last 10% are legs. 
>This is even when we actually aim for the head initially.
>That's my problem with the "aim = -x%"-rules

Greg Porter's old games TimeLords and Warpworld had a system where 
you got "scatter" based on your original target if you missed 
marginally.  That doesn't entirely solve the issue (it doesn't deal 
with the reasons so many hits are on arms in the situation you 
describe for example) but it was at least an attempt at addressing the issue.