Snek Neck? (Part II)

So, do snakes have necks or not?

Maybe.

In all seriousness, though, what does Slayer Swing at Neck actually get you?

If you look at Basic Set, p. 553, everything by default has a "Neck" hit location, regardless of body form.

As Faoladh pointed out on yesterday's post, it's really a question of a throat. Much more than a physical "neck." Creatures with "No Neck" might lack an actual neck, like Strong Mad. But more importantly, that location has to be vulnerable to extra damage from cutting attacks or it doesn't make any sense to hit it.

It also matters that you know where it is. Yes, yes, below the head. But how far below the head is okay? Physiology is a good choice of skills if you want to be sure, and not just be guessing.

Now, even if a target effectively has no neck hit location, but has a neck-looking section, I'll let people attack it. You get a lot of neck blows to golems, incorporeal undead, skeletons, and so on that way. I have no problem with this, because you're accepting a -2 to hit in return for no bonus. Plus you can tell people aboit that time you decapitated a golem.

I tend to broadly assume that learning Slayer Training fits everything, especially in a combat-heavy game like GURPS Dungeon Fantasy. You sunk points into it, you should get your benefits from it. DF11 seems to assume that it works broadly, and the only issue is that smart foes will get a bonus to defend if you do it too often.

So does it work on snakes? Probably on most normal ones, yes. But on some, you're taking a -2 to hit a -0 target.

(We also get a lot of shooting the eyes of eyeless creatures, and shooting "where I think the vitals would be." Nine times out of ten, though, this is taking a penalty for no purpose, often explained by, "That's what my guy would do.")