Simple Hit Locations

I have a house rule that says "once a character is below 0 hit points there's a chance for a permanent injury/consequence" but I always winged it (or just ignored my own rule) in the heat of things. Now I decided that I want a "formally written-down rule" to resolve these injuries which at the very least requires a way to determine where the injury is located. Sure, in D&D we usually avoid this level of detail, but since this mechanic is not used during combat (as a critical hits chart would) I think it's okay.

In any case, what is a useful distribution of hit locations? As per usual I started by looking at what others had done before. I played RuneQuest as well as Warhammer back in the 1980s so I looked at those as well as Legend, a recent reincarnation of RuneQuest. I also acquired Flashing Blades and Aftermath! from Fantasy Games Unlimited last year and while Flashing Blades is quite sane and included here I skipped the crazy that is Aftermath. I am sure that there are many more systems out there, but I hope four of them are enough for a first approximation.

As opposed to Aftermath, all the systems I discuss here are fairly coarse-grained. Instead of giving you "shoulder" and "upper arm" and "elbow" and "lower arm" and "hand" they just give you "arm" and that's it. I happen to think that a lower resolution is preferable both because it keeps the table concise and because it is a lot more difficult to judge how "realistic" the percentages are if many fine-grained hit locations are given.

Among the systems examined Warhammer is the only one that combines "chest" and "abdomen" into "body" and is therefore even more coarse-grained. Besides those areas, all systems cover "head" and "arms" and "legs," the only difference is the percentages they assign to each area. All systems except for Flashing Blades distribute hits evenly between the left and right sides of a defender; Flashing Blades assumes that a right-handed defender is more likely to get hit in the right arm than the left arm and vice versa. Only RuneQuest makes a distinction between hit locations for melee combat and missile fire. Finally, all systems except for Warhammer use a d20 to determine hit locations; Warhammer uses a d100 instead, but the ranges still come in 5% increments and we can therefore map it back onto a d20 roll as well. We end up with the following:

Location	Flashing Blades (Right)	Legend (Mongoose)	RuneQuest (Melee)	RuneQuest (Missile)	Warhammer (1st edition)
Head	10% (1-2)	10% (19-20)	10% (19-20)	5% (20)	15% (1-3)
Right Arm	15% (3-5)	15% (13-15)	15% (13-15)	10% (16-17)	20% (4-7)
Left Arm	10% (11-12)	15% (16-18)	15% (16-18)	10% (18-19)	20% (8-11)
Abdomen	20% (13-16)	15% (7-9)	15% (9-11)	20% (7-10)	25% (12-16)
Chest	25% (6-10)	15% (10-12)	5% (12)	25% (11-15)	25% (12-16)
Right Leg	10% (17-18)	15% (1-3)	20% (1-4)	15% (1-3)	10% (17-18)
Left Leg	10% (19-20)	15% (4-6)	20% (5-8)	15% (4-6)	10% (19-20)

Sorry, not exactly easy to read. Let's look at what Warhammer calls "body" first, so "abdomen" and "chest" in terms of the table. The systems vary widely in what they consider appropriate: Flashing Blades as well as RuneQuest (for missiles) assign 45% of hits here, Legend 30%, Warhammer 25%, and RuneQuest (for melee) only 20%. Among the systems that distinguish "abdomen" from "chest" there is little agreement on what's more likely to get hit either, except (once again) in the case of Flashing Blades and RuneQuest (for missiles). I find this rather disturbing, I would have thought that we'd see at least some consistency here.

There is a little less variation when it comes to the extremities, alas it's still quite significant. Flashing Blades and Warhammer consider leg hits rather unlikely with a 20% total, RuneQuest (for melee) thinks they are quite likely with a 40% total. On the other hand Warhammer tells us that arm hits are very common with 40% when most of the other systems assign 25%-30% instead. In general Warhammer seems "top heavy," Flashing Blades and RuneQuest (for missiles) seem "body focused," and RuneQuest (for melee) is a little "bottom heavy" as it were. Legend spreads things out most evenly.

Let's not forget what we're looking for though: I want a roll that happens after combat when a character is already "out" because they reached 0 hit points. I don't want to assume that the "last blow" is the one the actually leads to that "grievous injury" as it were, it could have been any of the preceeding hits as well. So I don't really need those little differences that Flashing Blades and RuneQuest support regarding handedness and melee versus missile. Indeed, since my consideration is cumulative over the last couple of hits, I should probably "aim" for a more evenly distributed system. Thus Legend should provide a useful starting point.

Once we settle on an even distribution, we can reconsider the die roll. Going for Warhammer's approach ("body" instead of "abdomen" and "chest") a d6 would suffice, otherwise we need a d8 to cover the seven possible locations. Of course that leaves another result we need to find a use for. Here is the first suggestion:

Location	d6
Head	16.7% (1)
Right Arm	16.7% (2)
Left Arm	16.7% (3)
Body	16.7% (4)
Right Leg	16.7% (5)
Left Leg	16.7% (6)

Alright, not too bad. Of course I can already hear many of you complain that "head" is too frequent compared to "body" here, but that's simply the price we pay if we go for an even distribution. Here's the straightforward alternative:

Location	d8
Head	12.5% (1)
Right Arm	12.5% (2)
Left Arm	12.5% (3)
Abdomen	12.5% (4)
Chest	12.5% (5)
Right Leg	12.5% (6)
Left Leg	12.5% (7)
?	12.5% (8)

What to do with the "leftover" result? Thinking ahead a bit, the location of an injury is actually not enough, we also need a measure of "severity" for the entire thing to work. So one option would be to assume that a "regular hit" just leaves a scar at the indicated location whereas rolling an 8 would indicate a more serious problem (re-roll to find the location). Another option would be to add another "location" of sorts, maybe "internal" or "systemic" injury?

Now I have to admit that I already have a rough idea about the "severity" part, I'll probably make that some version of the 2d6 reaction roll eventually. With that in mind, the d8 version above seems less attractive: A different die to roll and that "leftover" category. So I have a feeling I'll end up with the d6 table using the Warhammer-style hit locations with a Legend-style distribution. (That's why I ended up calling this post "Simple Hit Locations" after all.) Opinions?