Post/Author/DateTime	Post
azoth72 06-26-07, 12:33 AM	I like to award players for creativity, but it has become a problem now. We had a new player who joined our group who just happened to know every part of human anatomy. And, he's a rogue. Every time he goes in for a sneak attack, he says something related to "I want to stab at the hamstrings and bring my dagger up and exit out a few inches below the armpit, and re-enter into the bicep and lacerate his arteries. Okay, he's dead now." With his rogue, he could have done a maximum of 10 damage against the human (low-level rogue), but the human had 24 HP. As I said before, I like to award players who have creativity, but now more players are starting to do it. They can kill nearly anything now. What would you guys do in this situation?
Generic Poster 06-26-07, 12:36 AM	However you describe it, the sneak attack damage isn't going to change. If you want to reward creative descriptions of what he is doing, give him roleplaying experience at the end of the session.
Rerecros 06-26-07, 12:37 AM	You can only attack specific body parts if your foe is helpless. Don't let your player do this, it's not like his opponent is going to be standing still to allow himself to be mutilated.
Mr_Crepsley 06-26-07, 12:41 AM	Was there not a thread almost identical to this a few days ago?
Salla 06-26-07, 12:48 AM	He can attempt such, certainly. Doesn't mean he succeeded. If his Sneak Attack successfully kills the target, then yes, feel free to let him poke that hole exactly where he wants. Keep in mind, HP are an abstract measurement of physical durability as well as defensive ability. A 100 hp 'hit', in game terms, might not actually make contact with the target. It may simply require a herculean effort to avoid or deflect.
Anathema 06-26-07, 12:54 AM	<DM rolls a damage die, it comes up 4> "He stabbed you in the eye. You died." ... <waits for the complaints> "Now do you see why that doesn't work?"
A_Wizard_for_Breakfast 06-26-07, 03:07 AM	Exactly. Things like this are only fun when the other guy isn't doing them to you. Bring up the idea of the monsters being able to do it. That should shut this down. If it doesn't, then have the monsters do it. When holes start popping up in the party, they'll come around.
Leilond 06-26-07, 03:37 AM	1) Rules do not permit it. DOT. Remember your player that you're playing D&D and D&D do not admit "called shot", you cannot aim specific part of an enemy body. DOT 2) Make the same thing to him. Every monster that attack him will try to hit his eyes. After two hit he will be blind.
Kevin Andrew Murphy 06-26-07, 03:53 AM	Trying to perform an apendectomy on a moving opponent is easier said than done. If you want to give your player some perks for the creativity, implement this as a house rule: 5 ranks in Heal gives you a +2 synergy bonus to all attacks due to you knowing where to "hit where it hurts." Watch all the fighters and rogues fall over themselves to take ranks in Heal. Fringe benefit: You now have combat medics for when the cleric isn't available. Implement this other rule: Anyone using the above synergy bonus must declare what it is that they're trying to hit. If they do a critical, the damage is to that portion of the opponent. If the opponent takes more than half their total hit points in a called-shot critical, they get to make a Fortitude save, DC 15. If they fail, whatever was targetted is permanently crippled, ie. an eye put out, a throat slashed, a leg hamstrung, whatever, with appropriate penalties for the resulting flaw. If they make the save, then the targetted organ is only put out of commission for d4 rounds. Do it this way, your player's rogue can have fun trying to poke out eyes and slit throats, but trying is a different thing than succeeding.
mearrin69 06-26-07, 03:59 AM	I don't think it's been mentioned but the *player* knows a lot about human anatomy, not necessarily his character. How many ranks does he have in Heal? How many in Profession(doctor)? Otherwise it's sort of metagaming. If the PC has some in-game reason for knowing about anatomy then I might give him some sort of synergy bonus or something...but I think Sneak Attack already takes into account that rogues know how to 'hit 'em where it hurts'. M
Leilond 06-26-07, 04:20 AM	We lose the point guy We're playing D&D. You don't need any justification to not let him hit a specific part of a body, the rules prevent it There are already some sort of called shots - Power attack. You can consider it as a "called shot". Penalty to hit and bonus to damage - Improved critical. Better chance to hit where it really hurt - Disarm. Called shot to a weapon - Sunder. Called shot to an object - Sneak attack. It auto-hit where it really hurt - Damage rolls. An hight result means you hit where it really hurt You don't need any "house rule", you already have all you need to emulate the mening of "good shot", and the HP D&D mechanincs do not support the called shots. Do not waste your time discussing with him about this, tell him that you're playing D&D and you use the D&D rules, if he wants called shots he can play GURPS
dknight100 06-26-07, 06:12 AM	Definitely - mixing 'realistic' combat with an otherwise entirely abstract system is silly. Tell him he can aim wherever he wants. if he pulls of lots of damage on his sneak attack, just describe his kickass hit to said location, if there isnt lots of damage then describe the hit winging the said location, but the player twists as the hit comes in, reducing the damage. ::EDIT:: For all the people sayign that a called shot would be metagaming. I am not a biologist. I know that lopping someones head off will kill them really effectively. I know gouging someones eye out will be intensely painful, potential fatal, and definitely blinding to said eye. A character, not even a PC would be able to make the same assumptions, especially a trained fighter. Its not a lack of knowledge that prevents the character from making called shots, its that the system is specifically abstract. The two things abstract and realistic dont mix. Its like running linux and wishing it was more proprietry and kept its source code secret.
molten_dragon 06-26-07, 06:31 AM	I want to stab at the hamstrings and bring my dagger up and and exit out a few inches below the armpit, and re-enter into the bicep and lacerate his arteries. Okay, he's dead now. Next time he tries this just reply with something like the following. "You stab into his hamstrings and begin to draw your dagger up along his back. By the time you reach his lower back, he has reacted to the pain and begun to turn to face you. As he turns, your dagger begins to cut sideways. As the cut becomes more horizontal, it gets shallower, exiting just below his ribs. He looks injured, favoring the leg you stabbed, but still able to fight." He should be rewarded for good description, but a good description doesn't change the rules. That should hopefully end most of the arguments.
Sander_Kaa 06-26-07, 07:42 AM	Well, this one pops up once in a while.. Tell him there two parts in the game: the fluff and the mechanics. His very creative way of telling belongs clearly to the fluff. However, the way his creative plans work out are determined by the mechanics, a dice roll plus some extra's of his character sheet.
Kragg Bonemeal 06-26-07, 09:15 AM	As others said, knowing where to hit and being able to pull it off are two totally different things. So what if he knows where/how to get at the femoral artery. I don't think anyone is going to stand there and let you stick that knife in to cut it.... not unless.. 1) You are so proficient that you can move with lightning speed and have practiced so much you can hit the spot without even thinking about it. and 2) The opponent is so inept at combat that they don't know how to spin away or shield their body during a strike. So, when your rogue is Level 9, let him gank a level 2 commoner. Both conditions are satisfied then and he CAN perform a devistating move on the weakling. Congratulations. You just beat up the retarded kid down the street. Don't you feel proud.
PhantomTrain 06-26-07, 09:21 AM	I have tried it, as I suspect most people have, but there are two problems with it that make it virtually impossible. The first problem is the question of AC. AC takes into account your total defensive effort. What is a person's eye-AC? How about their face-AC. Neck-AC? Does your shield count? Surely, if someone was hitting me in the eye and I had a big piece of flat metal, I would try to protect myself with it. What about head-from-behind-AC? Does armor count? What about Hit Points? How many hit points does an eye have, as opposed to the whole body? How much damage can a person's figer sustain before it breaks or is severed? For that matter, does armor count against finger-AC? Surely plate-mail has gauntlets, but are they as protective as the full suit of armor? Partial armor bonus? Penalty to hit? Hit point dividens? What about permanently severing body parts? How many hit points to the thick bones of a person's leg have? Can magical effects be targeted at specific body parts? Is the damage permanent, or once the hand has suffered its hit points in damage, does it come off or remain unusable. Can heal spells restore broken body parts, or do you need regeneration? Ugh. Problem number two shows up as soon as you are able to accurately and fairly answer all the questions problem number one poses. Mainly, it's this: PCs might love taking a -10 to hit the AC of an opponent's eyes to blind him or the -8 to sever an opponent's hand, but what happens to your little PCs when the enemies figure out that all they need to do is take a -10 to hit the PC's eyes and blind them permanently? How about the fighter that loses a hand in the first round of combat. Is he a lefty or a righty? Which hand did he loose? PCs are nowhere near as disposable as their enemy counterparts. Hit location and permanent injury rules (and why have one without the other? It makes even less sense) might make fights a little easier for the PCs in the short-term, but inevitably gimp them in the long term. If nothing else, they're going to waste a lot of time finding clerics to regenerate lost limbs and regrow their eyes. The way I handle it is this: Players gain no combat bonus or penalty from describing their actions as targeting vitals. It's all in the description. I like my players to feel like their characters have a lot of 'cool' potential, so I say you can describe your attack any way you like, as long as you realize you're not getting an actual bonus from it. In that way, the phrase 'I attack' and 'I lunge with my rapier, but my intention is to drop below his guard suddenly and spring upward, burying the tip of the blade into the seam between his helmet and his armor' are rolled exactly the same way, but doesn't the second one just sound and feel better? And as a reward for my players going through all that trouble, I secretly keep track of who is excellent at descriptive attacks and give them just a little bit of good karma (maybe giving them a magic item that suits them well rather than giving them a random one next time they get loot). Never enough to make them far-and-away better than everyone else in the party, but, again, enough so their character feels good to play. Eventually, everyone catches a little of the fever and I now have a campaign of stellar roleplayers, from that tiny little rule. Sorry for quoting myself here, but this was in response to one of the 'hit-location rules' threads, but it applies equally here, too.
Forfeit 06-26-07, 10:11 AM	When I was the GM, I was the one that described action sequences, and I based that on the ammount of damage they did. If they were using a longsword and got a 3 damage, I would say it was a shalow cut to the ribs. If it was a 10 damage, a member being hacked off. If instant death, decaptation or something of the like.
True Cavalier 06-26-07, 10:36 AM	Hah, I am so lucky this hasn't come up in my game. Two of my players are a medicine student and a cop. The third knows kick-boxing. Thank God they haven't tried to talk about "hitting where it hurts" theories into their PCs attacks. Anyway, as said above, you can let him describe his attacks as he likes. Just don't let him overdo it. If he hits and deals some damage, he can describe a hit. If he kills the guy, only then can he describe a kill. Descriptions are fantastic in D&D, especially imaginative ones, but a description can't alter dice rolls.
azoth72 06-26-07, 11:27 AM	Thanks for all the quick replies. Sorry that this topic was already brought up, but I haven't been monitoring the threads that appear on the forums. I think I'm going to go along with Rerecros' idea; if they complain, I'll go with Anathema's idea. Thanks again for all the replies and ideas.
Ack 06-26-07, 12:43 PM	A stock standard die roll to hit does not give the PC any license to describe a particularly painful/effective strike. It just hits to wear down the foe's hit points some more. However, in several non-d20 systems (and in a set of d20-based house rules I have put together - see my sig) taking a penalty to hit gives you the chance to strike somewhere that it will hurt more. The downside? You have to overcome the penalty. So if you tell the GM "I'm making a called shot to the neck," and he slaps on (say) a -7 penalty to hit, and you miss due to that penalty, then you miss. Meanwhile, the guy beside you, who isn't trying anything fancy, does hit, because he didn't have a penalty in the first place. I'd say more about this sort of thing, but I can't think of anything else I haven't already said elsewhere.
Emissary666 06-26-07, 12:52 PM	He is metagaming. Metagaming is bad. Using real world knowledge in any roleplaying game makes it harder on the GM. You are the DM, it is your duty to ask him where he got the idea that his rogue knew how to do that and where his points in Knowledge (Biology) are. If he shows you that he did actually take Knowledge (Biology) ask for a check. If he succeeds, congradulate him. If he did not have any points in Knowledge (Biology), say that he fails horribly and ends up stabbing his eyes out.
BW0222 06-26-07, 01:40 PM	azoth72 "I want to stab at the hamstrings and bring my dagger up and exit out a few inches below the armpit, and re-enter into the bicep and lacerate his arteries. Okay, he's dead now." What would you guys do in this situation? Respond politely with. "Sorry, you can't declare the outcome of an action. All you can say is what you are trying to do. While, you can certainly declare that you are trying to hit him somewhere vital, I'm the DM, and one of my responsibilities is to arbitrate the outcome of actions. In this case, based off of the results of dice rolling. Of course you are trying to stab him somewhere critical and kill him, he is even trying to do the same thing to you, but whether you successful depends upon your skill, luck, a how much fight your opponent has. Likewise the monsters can't declare that their actions succeed automatically either. Now, please roll a d20?" (Player rolls a 4) DM: "Well you try to stab him in the leg, but he parries it with his sword and steps to the side." (Player rolls a 13, and an 8 for damage) DM: "Well you hit him. Not quite in the hamstring, but it does put a reasonable cut into his leg before he pulls back in pain. He still looks like he has some fight left in him." (Player rolls a 19, then a 16 to confirm, and does 19 points of damage) DM: "You hit him. It slices right up his leg and into his gut. You must have hit a kidney or something because he staggers back nearly dead."
Salla 06-26-07, 01:43 PM	azoth72 Respond politely with. "Sorry, you can't declare the outcome of an action. All you can say is what you are trying to do. While, you can certainly declare that you are trying to hit him somewhere vital, I'm the DM, and one of my responsibilities is to arbitrate the outcome of actions. In this case, based off of the results of dice rolling. Of course you are trying to stab him somewhere critical and kill him, he is even trying to do the same thing to you, but whether you successful depends upon your skill, luck, a how much fight your opponent has. Likewise the monsters can't declare that their actions succeed automatically either. Now, please roll a d20?" (Player rolls a 4) DM: "Well you try to stab him in the leg, but he parries it with his sword and steps to the side." (Player rolls a 13, and an 8 for damage) DM: "Well you hit him. Not quite in the hamstring, but it does put a reasonable cut into his leg before he pulls back in pain. He still looks like he has some fight left in him." (Player rolls a 19, then a 16 to confirm, and does 19 points of damage) DM: "You hit him. It slices right up his leg and into his gut. You must have hit a kidney or something because he staggers back nearly dead." Win.
Dan Hemmens 06-26-07, 03:24 PM	He is metagaming. Metagaming is bad. Using real world knowledge in any roleplaying game makes it harder on the GM. You are the DM, it is your duty to ask him where he got the idea that his rogue knew how to do that and where his points in Knowledge (Biology) are. If he shows you that he did actually take Knowledge (Biology) ask for a check. If he succeeds, congradulate him. If he did not have any points in Knowledge (Biology), say that he fails horribly and ends up stabbing his eyes out. He's not really metagaming, his Rogue has sneak attack, and presumably therefore knows how to stab people in vulnerable parts of their body. Heck, so does anybody capable of making a coup de grace. In fact, the guy could have just said "I stab him in the throat", which any idiot should know how to do. The problem isn't that, it's that he's trying to browbeat the GM into letting him break the rules by using his (rather dubious) out of character "expertise". That's a lot worse than metagaming.
PeopleMcNuggets 06-26-07, 04:09 PM	I'm a DM that loves description from the players in combat. They way I describe how their actions pan out is determined by how much they beat the NPC's AC. For instance, Let's say this rogue of yours is fighting a big, burly Ogre. Let's say the Ogre's got 60hp and an AC of 16. Your rogue gives his elaborate description of his deadly attack and rolls a 17. Well he's only beaten the ogre's AC by 1 point so basically he just barely managed to hit the ogre. So even though he gave his description, what really happend would be different. You could tell your rogue "As you go in for your attack the ogre shifts his weight while fighting your partner. However your weapon manages to glint off his amor, slide between a seam and stab him in the leg. You missed his hamstring". My general rule of thumb is if a player's roll meets or beats the AC by less that 5, then he hits but he won't hit exactly where he describes. He will be close though. If the player's roll beats the AC by 5 or more then he hits his mark. If the player's roll beats the AC by 10 or more they run the possibility of crippling an NPC's limb, or cutting it off completely, depending on how much damage they do. It's a good way of dealing with bad over creativity. No player should attack a creature in such a way, not do enough damage to out right kill it, then tell the DM it should be dead after said attack.
kiatic 06-26-07, 05:23 PM	I would point the player in the direction of complete Scoundrel with the range of Ambush feats that allow a rogue to drop sneak attack damage dice for specific effects.
Jagyr Ebonwood 06-26-07, 06:00 PM	How many times does it need to be said: Roll first, then describe. PC: "I chop off his head!" *Rolls a 2* DM: "Okay, you chop off his head and he takes no damage. Next."
DyloniusFunk 06-26-07, 06:20 PM	tell him if he really wants to be able to do something liek that he has to take the Assassin PrC and use his Death Attack (http://www.d20srd.org/srd/prestigeClasses/assassin.htm#deathAttack) class feature. Be sure he knows that if he does this he becomes evil and will become an NPC. End of story.
PeopleMcNuggets 06-26-07, 06:23 PM	tell him if he really wants to be able to do something liek that he has to take the Assassin PrC and use his Death Attack (http://www.d20srd.org/srd/prestigeClasses/assassin.htm#deathAttack) class feature. Be sure he knows that if he does this he becomes evil and will become an NPC. End of story. just because he's evil doesn't mean he becomes an NPC. ;) Especially if it's an Eberron campaign
Noon 06-26-07, 10:35 PM	*point at book text* "I thought you'd agreed to play by these rules? Was I wrong - that's what I turned up for. Did I make a mistake?"
Tyaris 06-26-07, 11:13 PM	While I admire the anatomical knowledge, being a biology major myself, ultimately the dice and the DM have the final word on what happens. A little reminder of these facts might curb his enthusiasm.
constanzza 06-26-07, 11:16 PM	wow , really good posts:) i guess that rogue is playing D&D for the first time,eh? well it happens alot. yo need to explain him that things are not done that way.that what he wants , i guess a 20 lvl epic rogue can DO:) after all that what he said is what he WANTED to do, but tell him to roll the dieces, and what he rolls is what HE DID. i guess , every NPC would go for his eyes,eh?:) what about the Armor Class, as in DMG it says, that the enemy is standing there and waving with its weapon as much as it can.what he rolls is what he gets, as higher above the current AC that much description he can get. AFTER he rolls the dice, on rolled dice number he can get that kind of description.:P
DyloniusFunk 06-26-07, 11:18 PM	just because he's evil doesn't mean he becomes an NPC. ;) Especially if it's an Eberron campaign We don't know what the OP's game is like, i guess io was assumeing it was a good only game where if you turn evil you get NPCed. Course i could be mistaken. Still i think Death Attack matches what the player is trying to do, strike a certain piece of anatomy with a precisde shot, which is what the assassin does.
NitrosDragon 06-26-07, 11:39 PM	I'm pretty sure the sneak attack damage already takes into account that the character knows how to hit an enemy to do the extra damage. Also, taking his own knowedge is probably metagaming. I agree with the others. Make him take some ranks in heal or proffession(doctor). Also, put him up against a warband of high-level kobold surgeons. And when he dies, tell him he wakes up from a dream. =] That will be a fun experience for him. :P -ND
Kraleck 06-27-07, 06:42 AM	If he wants to attack a creature's hamstrings he'll have to burn a feat for it. Specifically "Hamstring" from Complete Warrior will allow him to declare an attack to forego 1d6 of his sneak attack to reduce a bipedal target's speed by half or, by using this on two turns, affect quadrupeds similarly.
northern_bear 06-27-07, 06:57 AM	Player: I try to sneak attack him. DM: OK, roll to hit. Player: Natural 20! Yes! DM: Roll your damage. Player: 58 points of damage! [against an NPC who only had 20 hit points.] DM: OK, you anialate him. He's dead. Describe how you killed him. Player: Right, so I stick my dagger into his guts, and then slice upwards opening him us from the belly to the neck. Blood sprays everywhere and his warm intestines spill onto the ground as he falls down dead. Other Players: Cool. Describe what has happened AFTER you know what has happened. Don't try to describe what has happened before you know what has happened.
Dan Hemmens 06-27-07, 07:08 AM	On a side note: why do people always describe players who come up with implausible excuses for why they can insta-kill NPCs as "creative"?
NitrosDragon 06-27-07, 10:05 AM	Player: I try to sneak attack him. DM: OK, roll to hit. Player: Natural 20! Yes! DM: Roll your damage. Player: 58 points of damage! [against an NPC who only had 20 hit points.] DM: OK, you anialate him. He's dead. Describe how you killed him. Player: Right, so I stick my dagger into his guts, and then slice upwards opening him us from the belly to the neck. Blood sprays everywhere and his warm intestines spill onto the ground as he falls down dead. Other Players: Cool. Describe what has happened AFTER you know what has happened. Don't try to describe what has happened before you know what has happened. If the question wasn't already answered, this did it, and exquisitely. *Walks away from the thread*
Gleepwurp 06-27-07, 10:37 AM	One solution is to attack that player with undead creatures or constructs... "Try stabbing this zombie in the carotid artery and see where it gets you, monkeyboy!" heh eh heh! As others have pointed out, the player is attempting to gain advantage from an ability his PC may not really have and the roll-the-dice outcome determination of the D&D game are not equipped to handle. Praise him for his description but point out that the target moved at the last moment and his attack did not have the desired effect... or that his ignorant born-in-a-barn PC thought the target's most vulnerable spot was in the left buttock, so he stabbed the target in the butt and not the guy has turned around and is as mad as hell.
Dan Hemmens 06-27-07, 10:45 AM	One solution is to attack that player with undead creatures or constructs... "Try stabbing this zombie in the carotid artery and see where it gets you, monkeyboy!" heh eh heh! As others have pointed out, the player is attempting to gain advantage from an ability his PC may not really have and the roll-the-dice outcome determination of the D&D game are not equipped to handle. Praise him for his description but point out that the target moved at the last moment and his attack did not have the desired effect... or that his ignorant born-in-a-barn PC thought the target's most vulnerable spot was in the left buttock, so he stabbed the target in the butt and not the guy has turned around and is as mad as hell. That's precisely the wrong thing to do. This isn't a metagaming issue. Saying "I sever his femoral artery" and saying "I cut his head off" or "I snap his neck" are all different incarnations of the same problem, which is trying to blag an insta-kill in a game that doesn't allow for them. If you say "your character can't do that because he doesn't know what the brachial artery is!" you're implying that he *could* do that if he *did* know. D&D assumes that rogues know how to stab people in vulnerable places. It also assumes that being stabbed in a vulnerable place does you no harm whatsoever unless it reduces your HP below zero.
Derren S. 06-27-07, 10:58 AM	When the player describes what he exactly does to the enemy simply nod and write down the normal damage the rouge has done. After all when a rouge sneak attacks he is supposed to damage such vulnerable parts anyway.
Gleepwurp 06-27-07, 05:50 PM	That's precisely the wrong thing to do... You assume I was 100% serious. When I DM I've found that when players try to 'bend' the situation, i.e.: to make a sneak attack into an instant kill by telling me that they used anatomical knowledge to sever the whosis or slice the whatzis, I poke fun at them --- it's part of the banter found at my table. I had one PC who insisted that his PC would "fire 2 magic missiles; 1 at each of the monster's eyes," even though, as you know, there is no mechanic to cover that. So I would pick up a handful of dice, roll them on the table and not even look at the result, and say, "You miss his eyes; now roll your 1d4+1 for each magic missile damage."