Sometimes you want to use your weapon or your martial arts skill to do something more than just lethally incapacitate a target. For example, maybe you want to knock the White Witch’s wand out of her hands. Or shoot a fleeing nobleman in the leg to slow them down.
- Define the effect you want to achieve with your called shot.
- The DM determines a penalty which will be applied to your attack roll (usually -2 or -4).
- If your attack roll is successful, you deal damage normally and the target must make an appropriate saving throw (DC 5 + the margin of success on your attack roll) or suffer the desired effect.
GUIDELINES
Here’s some guidance for DMs making rulings with these rules.
STUFF YOU SHOULD VETO: This system is not designed to bypass the normal rules for combat.
I want to shoot them in the head! The effect you’re looking to achieve here is killing the target. We have a specialized set of rules designed just for that: It’s called “making a normal attack.”
I want to gouge out their eyes and permanently blind them! Like killing the target, permanent maiming in D&D doesn’t happen until you run out of hit points (and usually not even then). You can kick sand in their face or give them a cut that causes blood to run down into their eyes and temporarily blind them, but this system isn’t about inflicting permanent damage or disfigurement.
I want to paralyze them so that they can’t take any actions! This is probably too strong. You might make an exception if the PC is taking advantage of some specific environmental factor (e.g., making them fall backwards into a vat filled with sticky ethereal goo); this shouldn’t be something that characters can just automatically do without special equipment or a special ability.
Similarly, anything that would normally be handled by the Grapple mechanics should be handled through the Grapple mechanics.
EFFECT MECHANICS: There are a number of conditions which are appropriate for a called shot effect — Blinded, Deafened, Frightened, Prone, Restrained. Other effects could include the target being disarmed, distracted, or having their speed reduced. Lots of stuff can be mechanically modeled by giving the target disadvantage or another character advantage against the target.
THE PENALTY: In determining the size of the penalty, think about whether the desired effect is mild (-2) or significant (-4). Anything that requires the target to spend an action to remove the effect should probably be considered significant.
Circumstances can also affect the penalty. For example, trying to blind a beholder is probably a lot more difficult than blinding a cyclops. Alternatively, give the target advantage on their saving throw if appropriate.
DURATION: How long should the effect last for? As mentioned above, avoid permanent effects. If in doubt, go with 1d4 rounds or until the target takes an action to resolve the problem.
DESIGN NOTES
Why let the attacker deal damage normally AND create the effect? The goal of this system is to make combat more interesting by encouraging players to think outside of the “I hit it with my sword / I hit it with my sword again” box. By allowing them to both do damage and do something interesting, you eliminate the action cost penalty where players avoid doing interesting things because their best option is always to deal as much damage as possible and end the combat as quickly as possible.
Why a penalty? Because otherwise PCs would need to make called shots on every single attack. Which, if the goal is to make combat more interesting, might seem like a great idea. In practice, however, thinking up the called shot when circumstances don’t call for one or where you’re not inspired by a cool idea becomes a mechanical chore. And chores are boring.
Why not use disadvantage on the attack instead of a penalty? Whenever a character had disadvantage from another source, they would be mechanically incentivized to make a called shot every single time… which leads us back to the same problem above, only it’s more ridiculous. (“We’re fighting in the dark? Guess I should be making exclusively called shots to the knee.”) The problems associated with hard-coded advantage/disadvantage are discussed more in Untested 5th Edition: Situational Advantage.
What about the existing mechanics for Shoving (PHB, p. 195) or Disarm (DMG, p. 271)? You can still use those mechanics in concert with called shots. Taking the Disarm action, for example, should make it more likely that you successfully disarm your target, but the cost is that you’re focusing your whole action on that.
I also generally recommend that DMs look at the “Contests in Combat” sidebar on p. 195 of the PHB and spend more time empowering and encouraging players to come up with cool uses for contests; which is more or less the same philosophy as this called shot system but with the PC spending their full action to accomplish the desired effect. I suspect that using these called shot rules will, ironically, ALSO result in the players forgoing their attack more often to focus on a contest. (Once you get players thinking outside of the box, they tend to continue thinking outside of the box.)
What about the Battle Master? The Battle Master’s Disarming Attack ability is mechanically similar to a called shot, but completely superior (pun intended): They suffer no penalty to their attack roll AND can add their superiority die to the attack’s damage roll. The DC of the target’s saving throw is calculated differently, but should generally be higher than a generic called shot with a disarm effect.
(I actually dropped the DC for called shots from DC 8 + margin of success to DC 5 + margin of success to help make sure the Battle Master’s mechanical edge was well protected here. Playing around with that value to make sure that called shots feel worthwhile, but without becoming more likely to succeed than the Battle Master’s maneuvers is probably the key thing to watch out for from a playtest standpoint. In a pinch, get the called shot DC right and then just give the Battle Master the option of using that DC if it would be better than their flat DC.)
” trying to blind a beholder is probably a lot more difficult than blinding a cyclops”
But cutting off (or otherwise disabling) one of its eyestalks sounds like a *great* use of the called shot rules. How about -2 to disable a random eyestalk, -4 to target a specific one (you must have already witnessed the effects of an eyestalk to know which one it is).
Neat system. I like both the penalty shot and the save effect, since they each have discreet purposes. Systems I’ve tried with one or the other tend to be grossly unbalanced, or else have to nerf the effects into pointlessness.
I use a simpler house rule (in OSE though, not 5e) : the attacker describes what they want to accomplish instead of dealing damage (constrained by common sense), and then rolls a regular attack. If it hits, the defender decides if they are subject to the effect or take the damage instead. As a GM, I try to play the opposition “realistically”, which usually means the creature want to avoid death first, then losing HP. Of course, if the effect is way too powerful, the defender simply decides to take the damage (unless it would kill them, in which case it takes place and all is great), so it’s hard to abuse. It might be a bit gamey or dissociated, but I think it makes sense given the bastract nature of hp : they are usually “spent” to avoid a fatal blow, so why not to avoid any other maneuver?
I think one of the mechanical strengths of 5e is the advantage/disadvantage system. One of the things I love about 5e is that I don’t have to track racks of modifiers, and instead there’s a simple difficulty resolution system. So my untested house rule would be:
You can gain disadvantage to take a called shot to achieve some effect other than damage. You may not take a called shot if you have disadvantage from another source.
That’s simpler, mechanically consistent with the rest of the game, but doesn’t suffer from the situation which you rightly note about no penalty for multiple sources of disadvantage.