Appendage

Appendages are parts of enemies in Xenoblade Chronicles X. These enemy body parts have their own health, and destroying them will disable enemy abilities and reduce the enemy's resistances to attacks. Additionally, destroying them can also grant extra s (and Skell weapons from certain Mechanoids).

Overview
Typically, the character will target the closest appendage, although they will instead target the main body if there aren't appendages nearby. Appendages can be locked onto by pressing the Right Stick while targeting the appendage, and holding R and pressing Up on the D-Pad will command other party members to focus on the same appendage. However, this appendage lock is broken when the enemy s the player, forcing them to target the main body instead.

Appendages have specific hardness tiers, ranging from -5 to 5. This means that targeting appendages with a negative hardness will increase the damage dealt to both the enemy and the appendage, and targeting appendages with a positive hardness will decrease the damage dealt to both.

The weapon Augment Appendage Crusher will soften all enemy appendages by one tier, and the skill Core Crusher negates damage from Ether attacks to appendages while keeping the damage increase from targeting an appendage, so the skills are powerful together as long as the player does not intend to destroy the appendage.

The augments Ranged Appendage Damage and Crush.APPEND increase the damage done by ranged weapons to appendages, but not the damage done to the enemy, so they are explicitly for destroying appendages rather than exploiting weak points.

Skells can only target some of the enemy's appendages, but the from Sakuraba Industries and the  from Meredith & Co. will target random appendages of the enemy, including otherwise untargetable areas. This makes Skells great from removing the appendages of enemies in the late game.

Appendage destruction
Destroying appendages will disable enemy Arts and reduce the enemy's resistances to all types of attacks. Additionally, destroying them can also grant extra s (and Skell weapons from certain Mechanoids).

Destroying appendages will also give to a Skell, and temporarily interrupts the enemy's actions similar to. The fighter that destroys the appendage also has a chance to say the Dismemberer Soul Voice, with the Crush Surge augment increasing the chance.

Crush: Gain TP (or Crush.GP for Skells) increases the amount of /GP gained when a part is destroyed.

Skell Appendage
Skells have their own appendages with their own health. The health of a Skell appendages is listed with the Skell armor, but is not shown to the player during combat. Skell appendages indicate which weapons can be used during a fight, and when a Skell appendage is destroyed, the Skell will lose access to that weapon and it will lose GP.

Typically, Skell appendage loss is uncommon, because appendage HP is often high enough that the Skell is more likely to be destroyed before the appendages are.