Eyes are a Hit Location on most living creatures, enabling vision. They are very difficult to hit, but are usually very vulnerable. While they use wounding like the Skull, they are affected by strong attacks to the Face.[1]
Targeted Attacks[]
Eyes are typically at -9 to hit, or -10 if protected (such as a helmet with eye slits).[2] Eyes can only be specifically targeted by impaling, piercing, and tight-beam burning attacks.[1] Note that eyes, like other hit locations, are a proportional to the creature--add their Size Modifier to the total roll modifier. For instance, a massive SM+3 giant will have huge, SM-6 eyes. Not easy to hit, but a lot easier! Ask Odysseus.
Hits to the eye count as a hit to the skull, although they don't benefit from the skull's normal DR 2. Eyes are crippled by any injury over HP/10 (simply put, 2 points on any human), so any damage is likely to blind a target, at least partially.[1][3]
Incidental Eye Damage[]
While eyes are incredibly difficult to hit on purpose, eyes are often damaged from major wounds to the face. See the Face page for details.[1]
Protecting the Eyes[]
Armor[]
Transparent armor, such as goggles (or invisible metal, force-fields, the Nictitating Membrane advantage) can be worn over the eyes and always provides DR against an attack to the eyes.
Posture[]
As logic would dictate, a character who's expecting an attack to the eyes (such as a whale about to crash its tail into the water) can cover themselves with a hand, limb, shield, etc, sacrificing damage to that body part or item instead of being hit. Likewise, if a character is facing away from a source of area-damage, such as an explosion, they can protect their face and eyes. Duck and cover! As expected, eyes can only be targeted from the "front"--a character cannot be blinded by being bopped in the back of the head.[4]
Eyeless Creatures[]
Creatures/characters with No Eyes simply bypass rules for attacks on the eyes--attacks that would've hit the "eyes" count as hits to the face. Likewise, a creature with No Head usually has no eyes either.
Eyeful Creatures[]
Most creatures tend to have eyes by default.
Note that by default, Diffuse and Homogenous creatures technically still have eyes.
Recovery[]
While eyes are often considered the fastest-healing body part, they don't usually grow back or recover from serious wounds.
| Option | Setting | TL |
|---|---|---|
| Regeneration Spell | Fantasy; Supernatural | TL0+ |
| Healing Beam | Supers | TL7^? |
| Clone-Transplanted Eye | Any near-modern Sci-Fi | TL9+ |
| Bionic Eyes | Any Sci-Fi | TL9+ |
| Miracles? | Supers; Supernatural; ??? | Any |
References[]
- ↑ 1.0 1.1 1.2 1.3 Basic Set: Campaigns, p.399
- ↑ Basic Set: Campaigns, p.547
- ↑ Martial Arts, p.72
- ↑ Not unless you're using some very fancy Martial Arts houserules!