PDA

View Full Version : Pathfinder PF Called Shots expanded [PEACH]



martixy
2018-09-28, 01:26 PM
Pathfinder has a Called Shots (https://www.d20pfsrd.com/gamemastering/other-rules/called-shots/) system that's pretty neat, but it's rather limited in its interaction with the rest of the game. For my game I've expanded the system a bit to add more variety and make them more appealing/interesting to use.


Called shots are a standard action.
I lean towards ignoring the Automatic Hits rule.
Additionally, the loss of a body part through injury(i.e. someone chopped your hand off) results in the loss of 1 point of Constitution. The loss of an entire limb results in the loss of 2 points of Con. If/when this body part is regenerated the ability loss is converted into ability drain. Creatures with Regeneration or immunity to critical hits do not suffer this penalty.
Immunity to critical hits does not protect from severed limbs and body parts(but it does from all other effects of a called shot).
Additional effects (these last for the same duration as the rest of the listed effects):

Arm:


Called Shot: Spells with somatic components have a 20% chance of failing outright.
Critical Called Shot: Spells with somatic components have a 50% chance of failing outright.

Hand:


Called Shot: Handling items or material/focus components for spells becomes a swift action.
Critical Called Shot: Handling items or material/focus components for spells becomes a move action.


Weapon affinities:

Specific types of weapons are particularly well suited for delivering called shots to certain locations. When making a called shot with a weapon that deals the appropriate type of damage, you can take an additional -4 penalty to the called shot, to upgrade the called shot effect by 1 category(Called shot to Critical Called shot to Debilitating Blow).
No effect can upgrade the severity of a called shot by more than 1 step.



Location
Upgrade
Type
Penalty


Head
Bludgeoning
Tricky
-5



Ear
Bludgeoning
Hard
-10



Eye
Piercing
Hard
-10



Neck
Slashing
Hard
-10


Chest
Piercing
Easy
-2



Heart
Piercing
Hard
-10


Vitals
Slashing
Tricky
-5


Arm
Slashing
Easy
-2



Hand
Bludgeoning
Tricky
-5


Leg
Slashing
Easy
-2




New Feats:



Eviscerator [General, Fighter Bonus Feat]

You are skilled at methodically disassembling your opponents.

Prerequisites:

Int 13, Combat Expertise, Improved Called Shot, Greater Called Shot, base attack bonus +9

Benefit:

When you use a full-attack action to make multiple called shots against the same opponent and the same area, total the damage from all previous hits to that area when determining the severity of the called shot.


Item properties:

New item property:

Reaving [+1]

A weapon with this property may be used to make Called Shots upon magical protections at a -2 penalty to attack.
Damage dealt is divided by 10 and used in place of your caster level for a dispel attempt against the struck creature.
Protections that provide an AC bonus are prioritized before others.

Hit: You make a dispel check against the highest level protection affecting the creature. If you fail, you continue making dispel checks against lower level protections, until you succeed on 1 or fail on all of them. If you succeed, that magical protection is suppressed for 1d4 rounds. Its duration continues ticking during this time. [Alternatively, as a way to save time roll just once and use that check till it succeeds on 1 or fails on all.]
Critical Hit: Same as a normal hit, but the effect is entirely dispelled, instead of suppressed.
Debilitating Blow: A debilitating blow in this case is a hit that deals more damage than 10 * the highest caster level protection of the creature(i.e. the caster level from the damage equals or exceeds the highest caster level of any protection affecting the creature). Resolve as critical hit, but 1d4+1 protections are dispelled.

Changed properties:

Fortification [+1/+3/+5]
This property also provides equal protection against Called Shots.



Vorpal [+5]
Called shots made with a weapon with this property have their severity automatically increased by 1 step.
Increases the DC of all called shots effects that require a saving throw by +5.



3.5 changes
Action point usage:

Improved Called Shot: You can spend an action point to increase the severity of a called shot by 1 step.
Changed feat:

Anvil of Thunder [Style, Tactical]

This feat becomes a tactical feat and is changed in the following manner:

You have mastered the style of fighting with hammer and axe at the same time, and have learned to deal thunderous blows with this unique pairing of weapons.

Prerequisites:

Power Attack, Improved Sunder, TWF, Weapon Focus(Hammers), Weapon Focus(Axes), Str 13

Benefit: The Anvil of Thunder feat enables the use of three tactical maneuvers.


Helmet Splitter:
If you hit the same creature with both your axe and your hammer in the same round, it must make a Fortitude saving throw (DC 10 + 1/2 your character level + your Str modifier) or be dazed for 1 round.

Cleaver:
Whenever you attempt to sunder an item, you can choose to deal damage to two items with the same blow.

Brutal sunder:
Whenever an item you sunder gains the broken condition, the body part that held it is treated as having been the subject to a called shot, provided the attack roll was enough to hit it. E.g. if you sunder an opponent's weapon, you can choose to apply the effects of a called shot to the arm or hand, provided your attack roll was sufficiently high to have hit that called shot.


Design notes:
Standard action, because otherwise no one uses them. The penalties should be enough. Making them full-round is how you make sure no one even tries out your subsystem.
I suggest ignoring automatic hits rule because it makes neat things like THIS (https://youtu.be/OITHE2z3D3U?t=1m38s) possible (damn, that game was good, still the best of the series).
The additional effects are there, because there were no called shots that imposed a direct penalty to spellcasting in general. It gives you a target to aim for if your goal is to impede or cripple a spellcaster.
The new feat allows builds centered on called shot to effectively achieve the more crippling effects the system allows for (which otherwise would make a vanishingly rare appearance).
Reaving allows a mundane to deal with those pesky casters in an effective way.
The change to vorpal almost makes it worth the +5 cost. Really, I'd just put it at +4.
The change to fortification is really just a bug fix to make it interact with called shots consistently.

I have used this, to good success with a couple of NPCs in my game, but none of my party have taken an interest in called-shot focused builds, so it has received limited playtesting so far.

If anyone decides to use these additions, please shoot me a message to let me know how it's going...



Changelog:
v0.1 Initial version