Dismembering a target - mechanics

[Adamaro]

I was wondering lately ... how would one mechanically represent an attempt of a creature to cut off another creatures' arm/leg/head in melee combat? Called shot? Rising AC for certain amount? Sunder on an arm? :smallbiggrin:

I mean it is usually just HPs droping if PC/NPC gets hit. What if one would want to just cut a limb off?

[Kojiro]

I personally imagine it as a variant on sundering, based on the rules for it with the hydra. Of course, a slashing weapon is necessary, although I suppose bludgeoning would work for breaking something. I bet other people here already have a better system, or a working one along the vague lines of thought I have, though.

[ericgrau]

I'd make it a sunder attempt. Since called shots tend to be broken if you make them too good, I'd make them generally underpowered so it's only worth it if you have a really good reason. So give the limb HP equal to half the character's HP and half the damage dealt to the limb is also dealt to his main HP pool. Unlike other sunder attempts all AC bonuses apply, plus an additional +1 size bonus. This is for arms and legs. I'd lump head shots and body shots into regular attack fluff and call it a day. As always sundering may only be done with a melee slashing or bludgeoning weapon.

[Diarmuid]

One thing to keep in mind is that most of the examples being talked about recently involving dismemberment have been in out of combat scenarios.

Captured Thief brought before the magistrate, then having his hand cut off. If you absolutely have to have some kind of mechanic for it, I would think it would have to be some kind of modified Coup de Grace.

[ericgrau]

I suppose if there's a time crunch you could roll checks, but if it's a story event then eventually they cut it off after enough tries (and probably on the first try). Just say his hand gets cut off and move on.

[Kumori]

I've been playing with an idea for this for a while. Best I've come up with so far has been to offer an attack penalty in exchange for an auto-crit attempt. The penalty would apply to both the initial attack roll and the roll to confirm, and if either failed the attack would do no damage. It's mostly just an incomplete thought right now though, so no playtesting has been done with this.

[Knaight]

I'd apply a small penalty, -4 or so (which is the equivalent of subdual/nonlethal damage), and rule that the check succeeded if the enemy would be dropped below -10 hit points in the shot. Instead of dying, they are missing the limb in question, and probably bleeding out slowly.

[Silus]

Why do I get the feeling the OP is planning to run Dead Space Necromorphs?

[Adamaro]

@Knaight
Yup, close to my idea.

@ericgrau
Half HP sounds A LOT. Knaights idea sounds better IMO as far as HP goes.

As for Silus - OP only intends to ruin a PCs day by hacking off his arm in combat. Makes those orcs/goblins/kobolds MUCH more scary.

[Ernir]

If it's it something that I don't expect to happen again, I'd just have it something you can simply do (as in, no failure mode) to someone who is helpless, provided you have an appropriate instrument. Followed by a Fort save with an arbitrary DC to avoid dying.

If I expect limb-hacking to be a regular occurrence in the campaign, I'd start thinking about implementing a full-blown subset of rules, like this homebrew (http://www.giantitp.com/forums/showthread.php?t=156980).