Hit Location Tables in Arcania of Legend: Blood Magic

[alex_greene]

The Summoning section in Arcania of Legend: Blood Magic offers alternative Hit Location tables for non-humanoid species, including hexapod, cephalopod, avian and serpent.

Apart from anything else, how do you allocate Hit Points per location? Is it a percentage of the CON+SIZ sum?

e.g. in working out the Hit Point values for two species, one bipedal and tailed and one bipedal and winged, do you work out Hit Points per location thus ...

[b]Biped - Tailed[/b]
1d20	Hit Location	% of SIZ + CON
1–2	Right Leg	10
3–4	Left Leg	10
5–6	Tail	10
7–9	Abdomen	15
10–12	Chest	15
13–15	Right Arm	15
16–18	Left Arm	15
19–20	Head	10

[b]Biped - Winged[/b]
1d20	Hit Location	% of SIZ + CON
1-2	Right Leg	10
3-4	Left Leg	10
5–7	Abdomen	15
8–10	Thorax	15
11–12	Right Wing	10
13–14	Left Wing	10
15-16	Right Arm	10
17-18	Left Arm	10
19–20	Head	10

Like that?

Some of you may now be beginning to realise where this is going ...

 

[Redcrow]

While I don't have an answer for your question, I would like to chime in and say how much I really dislike Hit Points by location. I like Hit Locations, just not Hit Points by location. IMO it adds a needless level of complexity/bookkeeping and other games (e.g. GURPS) have shown its fairly easy to have a single pool of Hit Points and still use Hit Locations. Sorry for the non-answer rant.

 

[sdavies2720]

One of the RQ versions (3 I think) introduced the %-of-total calculation for hit location points. I've always thought it was a good way to go, but I'm pretty comfortable with math. It's not something that you typically have to calculate at the table, so I see it as benign math.

So, my vote would be to go with your percent calculation (I'm waiting on a hard copy of Blood Magic, so I can't check your specific numbers). Know that some percentage :lol: of readers will object to math of any kind. I guess for them you could provide a pre-calculated table, or go to a simpler system.

Steve

 

[Ultor]

While I don't have an answer for your question, I would like to chime in and say how much I really dislike Hit Points by location. I like Hit Locations, just not Hit Points by location. IMO it adds a needless level of complexity/bookkeeping and other games (e.g. GURPS) have shown its fairly easy to have a single pool of Hit Points and still use Hit Locations. Sorry for the non-answer rant.

I think you're right, and I've loved HP by location since the 80s. But I think the Legend approach of having wound levels is an interesting one, and you shouldn't be able to tip a minor wound over to a major one with the addition of 1 point of damage. So I've been toying with the idea of a completely different damage system, with weapons and spells dealing out wounds rather than points of damage. Still nowhere near ready for late night cable channels, never mind prime time...

 

[taxboy]

While I don't have an answer for your question, I would like to chime in and say how much I really dislike Hit Points by location. I like Hit Locations, just not Hit Points by location. IMO it adds a needless level of complexity/bookkeeping and other games (e.g. GURPS) have shown its fairly easy to have a single pool of Hit Points and still use Hit Locations. Sorry for the non-answer rant.

I think you're right, and I've loved HP by location since the 80s. But I think the Legend approach of having wound levels is an interesting one, and you shouldn't be able to tip a minor wound over to a major one with the addition of 1 point of damage. So I've been toying with the idea of a completely different damage system, with weapons and spells dealing out wounds rather than points of damage. Still nowhere near ready for late night cable channels, never mind prime time...

That is a cool concept, happy to play test it when you have it in beta?

 

[soltakss]

Human Hit Locations do not use percentages, They start off with a certain number of hit points and increase as the SIZ+CON increases.

I would expect non-human hit locations to work in the same way.

So, you would have a score for low hit points, at least until each location has 2 or more points, then increase by 1 as the SIZ+CON passes each threshold.

 

[Old timer]

Just one thing to remember is that legs have higher hit points than arms in most if not all legend creatures, so if using the percentage value, i would give legs 15, not 10.