I Wouldn't Miss "Miss By 1 Hits Torso"

One rule that I find annoys me the longer I play GURPS is entries on the hit location table that say "[1] Miss by 1 hits torso instead."

Why?

- it slows play, even if only because everyone says, "Does a miss by 1 hit torso?" No one can seem to remember (it's eye, skull, face, groin, neck, vitals, and that's it.)

- it causes edge cases, like rolling a 17 to hit the vitals (a 17 always misses) when you have a 16 to hit. Does that miss? A 17 always misses. Does it hit the torso? It's a miss by 1, and a miss by 1 hits torso. What about Chinks in Armor? Does that count as the underlying location? I think yes, but it's not stated clearly.

- it complicates rolling in a VTT, because it will show "miss" and it'll still be a hit, just not to the location auto-selected for damage by a player's macro. That adds an additional step.

- some of the sitations feel wonky. A miss by 1 with a swinging attack to the skull hitting body? Sure, the upward sweep clips the torso instead of the skull, or a downward cut misses the head narrowly and hits the body. But a miss by 1 to the eye with an arrow hits the body? A thrust to the groin hits body instead . . . okay. A thrust to the face also hits torso, not skull or neck? They're both closer. Why do the limbs never get hit on a "miss" to a central location?

With all of those things in mind, I'd love to delete Note [1] off of the Hit Location Table and just let a miss be a miss.

This admittedly messes with PCs - who aim for vitals and eyes and neck and skull more often than their NPC companions and foes. But it's also the case that it comes up less than you might think. And I've ruled a 17 is still a complete miss, but it's still an edge case people want to argue when it comes up. It would just speed things up and get rid of what's essentially a freebie +1 to hit overall when going for a better location.

Unless my players really revolt over this . . . it's probably gone as soon as I can reasonably ditch it.