Hello,

one question came up in yesterday's game session and I hope you can give me an answer to it. If someone's attacked by a called shot on a vital area he cannot roll any defense. So far, so good. But does such an attack also reduce his Defense for defending against other attacks (-2 per attack to defend against)? He didn't really defend himself against the called shot, so does this penalty still take effect?
I'm thankful for any help.

That's a darn good question. It is more a Ubiquity than a Desolation-specific issue.

I'm assuming you're referring to the Called Shot option where the attack rating is reduced by the Defense rating of the target, and any successes in the roll automatically count as Wounds.

Technically, he did defend himself against the Called Shot (that's what the penalty to the attack signifies, regardless of whether there was a roll or not). So applying a penalty to other defense actions would be expected.

On the other hand, if the target has been previously attacked, the rules don't specify any reduction to the Defense penalty applied for a Called Shot. So it's equally feasible that the Called Shot does not impact or is impacted by other attacks.

I'll posit the question in the HEX forums and see if we can get an informed ruling there, too.

Yeah, that's the Called Shot option I'm talking about.
I'm looking forward to any definite answer to this question.

A comment from over in the HEX boards regarding this issue that I thought worthy to share here:



Thanks, Dan!

And thank you for getting this answer for me!