Aimed Strikes
During play, it became apparent that attack rolls lost a good deal of their charm. This was mainly because an uncontested attack roll was too likely to succeed, given that the Hit DC is significantly lower than Armor Class is in the base game. This also made having a good attack bonus or rolling with Advantage or Disadvantage less significant on attacks, especially against larger targets that have an even smaller Hit DC. In short, making an attack roll felt redundant as soon as it was uncontested.
Aimed Strikes are the response to this problem. They allow the attacker to trade their hit chance against other benefits, damage among them, increasing the risk of the attack roll. This also deepens strategic thinking, as some circumstances may still incentivize going for the easy hit. This active choice should make the reliability feel better than before, where the reliability was imposed.
Aimed Strike: When attacking a target, you can choose to target a specific part of them instead of them in general. This changes the base Hit DC of the attack to the base Hit DC of the targeted part, depending on its size as noted in the chapter on AC-less Defence. Parts can benefit from cover and usually have the same Damage Reduction as the creature or object they belong to. When an Aimed Strike hits a creature, they must make a Wound Save as described below.
The DM may decide to also tie other effects to specific parts, such as a Damage Reduction modifier, particular damage vulnerabilities, other conditions to save against and the like.
Wound Save: When you are struck by an Aimed Strike you must make a Constitution saving throw against half the attacks damage or 10, whichever is higher. If you succeed, nothing happens. Otherwise, the attack leaves the targeted body part Wounded.
If the damage is higher than twice your Constitution score or half your maximum Hit Points, whichever is lower, the targeted body part is Wounded on a successful save and Disabled on a failed save.
Weakspots: Some creatures may have regions on their body that are especially vulnerable to attacks. Targeting these regions should be more difficult, but also yield more devastating results for the target.
As a DM, you can make use of this when designing an encounter to make a fight more interesting. Maybe the Kobold tinkerer has a bomb in their pocket that just waits to be hit by Fire damage to explode in their face, or maybe the dragon loses their breath weapon with a well placed strike through their lungs.
Some weakspots may not be apparent at first glance. In this case, a Study action may give the players just the information they need.
Covering Body Parts: Similar to how a creature can receive cover, body parts can also become harder to hit when covered, as described in the chapter about AC-less Defence.
For example, when a Tiny shield is held accordingly, it can give total cover to a Diminutive body part, turn a Tiny body part into a Fine target, and a Small body part into a Diminutive target.
Body part sizes for Medium Humanoids: The table below shows the rough sizes of the body parts of a Medium Humanoid. This table is not definitive, as the size of a body part can vary from person to person and effectively also depends on the angle it is viewed at. A buff humans arms may be easier to hit than those of a lanky one, and a torso viewed from the side is effectively smaller than one viewed from the front.
| Body Part | Size | Hit DC |
|---|---|---|
| Head | Diminutive | 16 |
| Eye | Minus 1 | 22 |
| Neck | Diminutive | 16 |
| Arm | Tiny | 14 |
| Hand | Diminutive | 16 |
| Torso | Small | 12 |
| Crotch | Fine | 18 |
| Leg | Tiny | 14 |
| Foot | Diminutive | 16 |
Example Scenario
The champion knows that a blinded cyclops is a harmless cyclops. Therefor, she decides to aim her shot at his eye. This increases the Hit DC for the attack from 6 to 18, given that the eye is a Fine target. The DM decides on the fly that the eye is vulnerable to piercing damage. She rolls her attack as usual and hits, dealing 38 piercing damage, so the cyclops must make a DC19 Wound Save. He fails this save, so his eye is now wounded, giving him Disadvantage on everything that relies on his sight. This is not enough for the champion though, so she fires a second arrow towards his eye, dealing 46 piercing damage. The cyclops fails his DC23 Wound Save and his eye is now disabled, leaving him Blinded.