called shots and effects?

[Korivan]

I'm looking for if 3rd edition has any rules for called shots. I recall seeing a feat that did this, but not sure where or when. A friend would like to target arms, legs, head, that sort of thing. I don't mind making something up that targets arms for like negatives to attack/damage, legs for lower movement. Not sure about targeting thier head, I don't want them to have a one-hit one-kill effect without any effort or at least a save put into it.

[TheCountAlucard]

I think there's a variant rule in the DMG or somesuch, but I haven't checked it in a while. For targeting limbs, I'd just add the size modifier of the body part in question (For instance, Arm or Leg on a Medium creature might be Medium or Tiny, and Head be Diminutive) to the creature's normal Armor Class. For a headshot, I wouldn't say insta-kill - but maybe have it deal an extra die or two of damage.

The thing to keep in mind is the Gentleman's Agreement - by houseruling in the ability to do a called shot, that gives enemy NPCs the same option, and in the long run, it's going to be worse for the player. It means that every horde of goblins suddenly becomes that much more dangerous. If each can only hit you on a nat 20 anyway, why not do a called shot to the head/other sensitive area, in case one of them gets said nat 20? More powerful enemies with a sufficiently-high attack bonus are almost certain to hit on a called shot, and so on and so forth.

[Thinker]

Called shots are not a part of 3.5e. The problem is that AC is fairly static and it becomes ridiculously easy to target something for (generally) substantial gain.

For a reference of something that you may like to adapt to d20: Warhammer Fantasy Roleplaying. In their system you roll a d% to attack and to determine what body part you hit you reverse the digits on your roll. For example, if you roll a 51, the reverse of that is a 15 and on the chart it says a 01-15 is a headshot. These only come into play for damage reduction (armor) and critical hits. If you could figure a way similar to that it might work. It wouldn't be called shots, but it's close.