I disagree on hit factors.

I don’t assume we’re in disagreement, not less than not but 

As far as hit areas  / HP „swimming pools” go we may differentiate:

1. One hit location (physique) / one HP pool – the most well-liked model, DnD and most OSR video games use it. If somebody rolls excessive on injury it may be interpreted as hanging head, if low – simply grazing arm for instance. Usually if a participant needs to strike a exact hit location it’s motivated by recreation circumstances – for instance as in attempting to chop off Saurons finger with The Ring on it. And that’s when GM has to provide you with some advert hoc ruling whether or not how that might occur, what needs to be rolled.

2. Many hit areas (physique components) / one HP pool – as in WFRP and FFG 40k RPGs. You have many hit areas, as a result of that creates drawback with armor; you don’t have one set of armor, it’s important to have all items of armor to be equally protected in every single place. That makes for an issue in two areas – a participant has to spend more cash on protecting gear and that gear may pose encumbrance issues. Sure the identical may occur in a single location / one pool occasion, however I discover that in lots of areas techniques armor tends to be a bit extra in-game costly and cumbersome for a PC.

3. Many hit areas (physique components) / corresponding HP swimming pools – and I feel that’s the system You want; I’d say it’s seen additionally in Cyberpunk 2020 and a few later editions of Elric or Stormbringer RPG, don’t keep in mind precisely.
There is for certain class to this method, as a result of often a success (with a weapon) to the pinnacle means nearly sure loss of life or not less than unconsciousness, and it corresponds with what we roughly anticipate to occur in actual life. I feel that CP 2020 even had a rule that not solely did head has it’s personal HP pool, but in addition all injury to the pinnacle was doubled. And I’ve no drawback with that system as a result of the reasoning behind it’s sound. I are likely to want „one pool” techniques for two causes: for the sake of simplicity and a bit greater possibilities of survival of PCs.

4. One hit location / many HP swimming pools – and I’m undecided I do know any RPG that might use this mix.

But the system I used to be alluding to in my earlier put up, that I don’t, like is a tough one:

5. One hit location (declared) / no HP pool – there aren’t many RPG techniques that make the most of this one; I can consider one Polish – Dzikie Pola (Wild Lands) 2ed. TLDR model of this method is: you declare which location you need to hit, which could impose some penalties, and for those who hit you roll on injury chart (modified by your energy, used weapon, used maneuver) which fits one thing like (roughly): 1-4, tis’ however a scratch, 5-7 nothing to fret about, 8-10 gentle wound, 11-15 reasonable wound, 15-19 critical wound, 20 loss of life. One may argue that this method is only a hidden HP pool system (a few gentle wounds quantity to 1 reasonable, a pair reasonable to critical and so forth), however it’s the identical for everybody, not less than for all PCs and „human” NPCs; and the potential of loss of life from one hit is greater. If you roll a nat 20 on injury chart, that’s it, irrespective of different circumstances reducing that roll (i.e. armor). So 5% of all profitable hits end in somebody’s loss of life, irrespective of who’s hanging. The different factor is that it’s fairly troublesome each for GM and gamers to evaluate what the injury output is perhaps particularly combat; the end result was too „swingy”, from barely any injury to recreation over in a single hit.

And now for one thing totally different:

Cont.
5. Debilitating impact of wounds – in some techniques taking injury imposes penalties, in some you effectivly take injury with no repercussions, till you die, or not less than fall unconscious. I want the second system – once more for the sake of simplicity and shifting fight shortly. The first one additionally creates „loss of life spiral” – wounded combatants are worse at preventing so it’s simpler to complete them off. One occasion after I would impose penalties for injury could be for some monsters which have giant HP swimming pools – fight will inevitably drag for a while, so these penalties will velocity issues up.