Questions on hit locations

[RexGator]

To All

Ran my first TROS combat demo yesterday for my friends.  I had whipped up some pre-generated characters for the purpose of the demo.  I had failed to provide any of the characters with helmets.  Fairly quickly everyone started swinging or thrusting for the head.  Even when we imposed the optional -1 CP for thrusts to the head, my players still felt the head shot was the best tactic. Everybody is now pretty impressed with the need for a helmet, but it still left me wondering if I am doing things correctly.  Can somoene answer the following:

1.  Is their any disadvantage to a character swinging or thrusting for the head (other than the optional -1 CP for thrusts)?

2.  Other than differing armor values, why would you chose a horizontal swing at area IV over a vertical swing at area V?

Maybe I am missing a nuiance to the combat system.  I have not found any mechanical requirment for the player to declare a "overhand swing to the left neck (area IV)" versus " I swing at area IV".  Other than chrome there seems to be no game effect.  Again, am I missing something?

All in all people really liked the system.  They al thought it was better than D&D, so hopefully if I get better at running it, we may actually run a campagin.  Thanks in advance for any guidance.

[Callan S.]

On page 239 of the revised edition, it lists an optional rule of giving a -1 CP penalty if you keep going for the same spot.

Another thing is that if they hit the head but don't kill, their kind of better off aiming elsewhere. Why? Because then the pain modifiers will stack together and the dude is likely to really cover his head more than his arm, etc.

Not sure about #2, myself. Perhaps someone else can answer.

[Jake Norwood]

2. Other than differing armor values, why would you chose a horizontal swing at area IV over a vertical swing at area V?

Hi Rex. Welcome.

In TROS, there's no reason not to, except that a swing at IV opens up the neck as a target, if you're interested in that (which, due to armor, many are). The other erason is handled in noon's post. Alternating from IV to V to the other IV can give you 3 head shots in a row without having to worry about the GM saying "hey, you get a repetitive strike penalty."

In a real fight, it's similar, but a little more severe, and there's a lot of trajectory/recovery issues that I don't want to get into at the moment. In TROS, those issues are handled though the players choices for flow of combat (what hits and parries are feasible after a given hit, that is). There is no rescource for this sort of thing--indeed an acurate one would be enourmous--but instead it's left up to the imagination of the players and their GM.

Jake

Jake