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On page 65 in the LM book, it says that creatures automatically do a called shot in the round following Saurons Eye coming up for a player. First of all, while I can see how it might be a fun little twist, this seems like a needless complication to me; another thing I have to remember (which I won't, unfortunately).

But more importantly, does this imply that creatures don't otherwise do called shots? No, right?

I imagine that as Loremaster you can have an adversary do a called shot whenever you like. It's your game after all.
But only having them attempt it following an Eye result works perfectly for me. It means that those Eyes rolled during combat actually mean something (even on a successful roll). Perhaps the PC over-extended himself with that killing blow to the orc, and now another one is seizing an opening. I use those results to help color my combats.

As for book-keeping, I find that in practice, this rule is actually very easy.

The first thing to note is that it's not a given that a creature MUST make such a declaration of a called shot upon an EYE by the hero's attack. This triggers the "option" of it - the hero overcorrects himself or leaves himself open - or gets blood/sweat/dirt in his eyes, helmet turns cockeyed and blocks is view for a split second, slips and loses his footing for a moment, has his elbow funny bone knocked and he loses control of his blade for a moment, or any other imagined whoopsie that befalls the combatant - that allows the enemy to take advantage of the issue.

With that in mind, I have always played that it meant that it's not a usual combat option for the baddies. Most of the combat options are not. Meanwhile heroes always have that as an option in combat and do not need to wait for a STAFF to be rolled by their opponent. Note that many of the truly wicked critters have their own combat options built into their stat block.


Robert

SirKicley wrote:With that in mind, I have always played that it meant that it's not a usual combat option for the baddies.

I like that.