So has anyone tried to use the 'strategic targeting' skill from Arms Companion?
Or used it enough to discover it's flaws?
I ask because we had a pirate campaign a ways back, swords and guns. Arms companion came out and we tried some of the strategic targeting for the guns. But I felt the rules weren't written clearly enough, either that or we were all a little dense in our reading comprehension :-).....
Either way, everyone who had the skill wanted head shots. Human head was -75 I believe.
Roll your ST.Targeting which is stated as a maneuver I think.... so you make your roll now you can shoot.... But we got confused as to whether or not you use your OB at -75, or if the skill ranks in st.targeting were the actual 'OB' you use....?
What about the defenders db? He's bobbing and weaving and in combat, isn't his DB still tacked on as well? The rules didn't seem to mention it clearly.....unless we all missed something which is entirely possible.... We settled on just using the sniping skill, just that when in combat there's more of a penalty to roll to use it, then if you make it it's still only half your ability....very similar to ambush etc.... except you can have a foe fully aware and engaged in combat, but if you roll past our agreed upon penalty you could crack off that shot in combat while he was looking right at you.... like how close quarter combat trained swat or seal teams can get clean headshots often.
Isn't there a simple/ fast/ way to implement these concepts? Or is it truly a gordian knot and best left untouched?
We played with Strategic Targeting for years. It's not that useful unless you have lots of skill in Strategic Targeting skill. In any event, here's a summary of how it works:
Normal attack = d100 + OB - DB; lookup the result on the weapon table and use the indicated crit chart.
Strategic attack = d100 + OB - DB - 20 + Min(StrategicTargetSkill - LocationModifier, 0); lookup the result on the weapon table, but use both the indicated crit chart and the Strategic Targeting crit chart.
So, a normal attack might be at +75 (+100 OB - 25 DB). A strategic attack vs. the head (with +45 in Strategic Targeting skill) would be 75 - 20 + (45 - 75) = +25.
Note that in general, head shots aren't as effective as neck shots. The neck is only an additional penalty of 20, but the BAM for the neck is only 1 vs. 4 for the head. In other words you need to inflict 4 times as many structural hits to the head. For years one of my players had a Rogue with a dagger, Strategic Targeting, Closing and Ambush. He would spend 2-3 rounds getting into position (closing and/or stalking), but once he was in position, it was one-shot, one-kill. He used a dagger because he hated fumbling.
His targets took to wearing metal gorgets for protection. So, the mage learned an Arcane metal spell that let him crumple a small metal object (such as a gorget) at distance. Those two were a great combo!