Is there truly any reason to attack anything other than the eyes?

Vault11

Vault11

Banned
I played Fallout 2 as an unarmed character with the power fist, and I was ahead of the curve enough on damage where I could experiment a bit. I didn't want to do what I had done a thousad times in Fallout and go for eyes, eyes, eyes. I mean, I had more control of each engagement by targeting other parts of the body (raider has a powerful assault rifle or sniper? bust his arm to disarm. Go for the legs to stop them from running to the exit grid out of your range, etc.) and I played this way for most of the game, until I got to Mariposa. From there, I was forced to revert to hitting the eyes and sure enough, I would take down mutants in 2/3 hits with high criticals, ending the battles far sooner and easier than I had previously done. By the time I reached the end game I was either fighting things that were so weak they died before I could cripple them, or fighting things so strong I needed to kill them as quick as possible (eyes) before they took me down. It seemed really hard to cripple things throughout, and an interesting contrast was that my character was Jinxed - enemies were crippled more often by the mishandling of weapons than by deliberate attempts to cripple them. So why would anyone try to control the battle by targeting specific limbs when eyes can just end it in two turns? Is there a build that can greatly increase the chance of a crit/crippling effect the first time, in which it would be useful?
 
Well, I sometimes go for the legs to prevent critters from running off-screen or to keep melee-only enemies (like Deathclaws) at bay. The only time I really used headshots was in the Reno boxing ring to get K.O.s. Never really bothered with hits to the arms. But overall, you're right. Aimed shots in F1 and 2 are not very well balanced, as hitting other parts of the body only provide some situational uses, while eye-shots deal immense damage and may even blind the enemy. That's what the combat system is all about after all; deal as much damage as you can on your turn, and minimize the damage you take on their turn. Criticals to the eyes do this so well that there really isn't any tactical advantage for hitting anything else.
 
I always felt like groin dropped the enemies faster than legs. The main problem is that the enemies get up again in the next turn, rendering your attack *nearly* useless.

Not sure what should be done to make aimed shots more interesting. For my own Fo2 mod, I've added a max. hit-chance value for eyes (75%) and the head (85%), to force the player into aiming at something else... but it's still pretty lame. Nowadays we are at a point in Fo2 modding where it would be possible to change some elementar things about the combat system.
 
If you're not ahead of the curve arms/legs targeting can be useful in hit and run attacks against powerful, hard-to-kill opponents such as the aliens in the Redding mines. A crippled alien will run away, but 1 with crippled limbs will have 6 AP rather than 9 so they're much easier to chase.
 
Is there truly any reason to attack anything other than the eyes?
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Of course. Crippling the arm can take away their option to use two handed weapons, (that includes rifles). Cripple both arms and they usually run. Cripple their leg(s), and they can't close easily on your PC; do that to a Death claw, and your PC can always stay out of melee range if they choose to. Groin attacks that score, almost always knock down your opponent, and sometimes knocks them out. Knocking out opponents is great when you are outnumbered; it removes some attacks per round against your PC, and companions; and gives free (unresisted, and max accuracy) attacks at a prone opponent.
 
I find myself aiming at the head mostly. With melee weapon + Better Critical perk it means knocking you target out on first or second hit usualy. As for the firearms, Fast Shot trait seems to be much better to me than called shots, because any burst weapon can deal tremendous damage at point blank.
 
EVERY target is useful. Just depends on the scenario. I said more about it in another thread, so I won't go into it here. Suffice it to say, each target has a benefit to being aimed at, and a drawback. They're all useful to shoot at.
 
I use fast shot, as a rule. I can still use aimed shots in H2H combat. I beat the game just as easily, never had problems with fights, and in H2H fights, I get the joy of punching and kicking people in the groin
 
Of course there is. Others have already explained why, in so does Fallout 1 and 2. It is more useful to aim for the legs and arms in those two games than it is in Fallout 3 and NV.
 
I have a patented sadistic technique I use for clearing out the slavers in NCR, which involves head knockouts and dynamite. Here goes:
1. Knock out a slaver with an aimed blow to the head.
2. Arm 5 explosives, set them all to 30 seconds.
3. Put them all in the unconscious guy's inventory, as well as 10 stimpacks.
4. Wait until one of the dynamites explodes, he should turn into soup, and the stimpacks and dynamite will drop on the floor.
5. Every turn from then on, enemies will run up to the stimpacks and try to pick them up, but be blasted back by another exploding dynamite.

Strictly unnecessary, but absolutely hilarious when you get it to work. I've even modded dynamite to be throwable, which makes it easier because you can knock people out by throwing it at their head if you're lucky.

Also, I tend to try and cripple the arms of serious Big Gun users like Super Mutants and Navarro goons.
 
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