A single differently-colored die wont quite suffice though, as you may well roll more than one set, and each such hit will (or could) go to a different location…
but as for the faster arrows: granted, its not a narrative mechanic, but there could be a narrative justification for it - Of course arrows that hit the head are faster! They must have been. After all, the head is very hard to hit not just because it is small, but also because it is the seat of the perceptory organs, an therefore is well-protected by all kinds of reflexes. That means the head dodges and flinches most easily of all the body parts - which in turn means that if you got hit there after all, it must have been a pretty fast shot indeed.
Admittedly, that doesnt clear up that business about which arm gets hit first, or the issue that hits to the legs are always the slowest to happen…
Um, lessee, an attacking right arm tends to swing in a counter-clockwise direction, which is countered by the Coriolis effect, so that, er, hang on a minute …
going back to -H-'s observation that “a dicepool has only so many unique properties to connect rules with” (sloppily quoted from memory):
sure, the sets you roll only have height and width for you to work with. But you COULD make use of the single dice results that remain, as well.
For ex, “your highest single die determines the hit location for your highest set”
“your lowest single die … for your lowest set”
“if you have 3, 4 or more sets, use the second-highest, second-lowest, third-highest etc. single die results for those”
That way, you could make a really strong, but slow, shot (say with a 4x3 set or something), but your single highest die could always still be a 9 or 10, allowing you to hit the enemy’s head with that shot…
Of course, with the rather big dicepools ORE tends to use, losts of single dice in the 7-10s will tend to show up, again making a lot of tie-breaking (presumably still done via height) necessary.
And very fast attacks (sets of 9s or 10s) will in fact rarely hit the head (because those 10s are all bound up in your set, your highest single die may be just enough to hit the torso…
I think that the easiest would be to roll a specially coloured die.
In the unlikely case if multiple success on an attack role you’d pick up the die and roll it again for hit location. Starting from you highest match to the lowest. It should happen rarely enough not to be much of an issue, really…
Sure, Simon, that most simple of solutions is probably the most attractive one after all!
And hey, I’m just spamming ideas for re-writing ORE… apparently it’s been to long since I’ve hacked a system, seem to be gettin the old itch again…
(Personally, I think I’d tend to “outsource” initiative rather than hit location, if I really redesigned the system. So instead of having speed & power determined by sets, and location by a separate die, I’d probably go for accuracy & power determined by sets, and derive speed (ini) from a separate die. But then I’m sure that’d cause problems of its own with various implications re. expert/master dice etc.)
If hit location is dissociated from height, expert dice would always be set to 10, removing that tactical element …
How about this possible fix: Simply invert the hit location chart. It’s still not entirely logical, but you could kind-of-sort-of explain away the different flight speeds by saying that aiming for vulnerable targets (or waiting for openings in close combat) takes slightly longer.
All right, that doesn’t make much sense, either, but at least you’d sometimes wind up with an interesting choice between a quick shot or a well-aimed one. Maybe not a fix, but perhaps a slight improvement?
Then again, my design prowess only extends to flipping a coin, so what do I know.
