d20 Modern Tonfa?

[Vigilance]

5) You say, "I didn't change the tonfa at all in Blood and Fists", which seems to stand in direct contradiction to your statement that "...the Tonfa gets some benefits I feel it would have in the real world in its Blood and Fists write-up". Having not read Blood and Fist, I have no idea if the benefits you added ONLY apply to your new rules or not (if you added blocking as a skill, and a tonfa gave you a bonus to that skill, and nothing else, frex), but it initially seemed odd. And, for the record, I'm not averse to changes to the tonfa. That was kind of why I asked.

What I was trying to say here (with apparent limited success lol) was that I did not change it's damage, weight, etc. from what was presented in the d20 Modern Core Rules.

There are blocking rules in BNF and weapons such as the Tonfa give bonuses to that.

As an off the cuff way for you to bring that benefit into the game while changing as little as possible I'd just treat the tonfa like a shield giving a +1 defense bonus while using it defensively.

Ideally, there'd be something official from WotC, because yes, sorry, that's my baseline for official, you've gotten me to admit it, and I'm sorry if it hurts your feelings.

Nah doesn't hurt my feelings at all

I designed BNF to be as friendly to the core rules as possible for a reason. I happen to like them.

This thread wasn't an attack on third-party publishers, but apparently I've tripped your radar as someone who generally only buys the core books, and I feel a bit like you're trying to hijack the thread.

I really didn't think it was.

I was simply adding my thoughts on the subject as others are, giving my take on the issues at hand, while taking the opportunity to make a joke or two about your opinions toward non-core products (which I respect) because... I am in a bit of a zany mood today.

If that's a "hijack" then I will bow out.

Chuck

 

[Spatula]

Actually, correction, Spatula started the topic change

I was just pointing out that the problem wasn't just the tonfa. Doing non-lethal damage with *any* melee weapon doesn't accomplish much unless you've put some serious effort into it (much more effort than you'd need for unarmed combat, as you point out in your first post).

 

[takyris]

Hey, Chuck, apologies for counteraccusation -- I felt that I was being dinged for something that I wasn't trying to do in this thread, and I got defensive.

Tonfa change makes sense -- and yeah, a +1 Defense bonus of some sort is probably about the best way to make it somewhat more attractive as a weapon. I'm tempted to give the tonfa 1d6 damage when used to do nonlethal damage, and up the sap to 1d8, but I might end up with people using them all the time. I dunno. We'll see. Maybe my players will never use one, and it won't matter.

Spatula, I dunno. A strong hero with a three-section-staff might still be okay even with the -4 penalty for using it nonlethally. Or an Investigator with a machete and Streetfighting -- get to the level where you can do nonlethal damage without the -4, and life gets more pleasant for you. There's definitely a tradeoff -- you have to be pretty high level OR you have to invest a lot of feats. My thought, though, is that, from the complaints I've seen, that's sort of true for d20Modern combat across the board. Guns, nonlethal, most melee weapons... none of it is powerful enough to really do a great job until you sink a bunch of feats into it. Compared to D&D, this blows, but it's sort of balanced across the board (well, I think, anyway).

Except for the dang tonfa. The tonfa just blows.

 

[Vigilance]

Hey, Chuck, apologies for counteraccusation -- I felt that I was being dinged for something that I wasn't trying to do in this thread, and I got defensive.

No harm no foul Taky

Besides some of your comments about Blood and Fists (and Blood and Guts for that matter) made those books quite a bit better (in my opinion anyway).

Chuck

 

[Fredrik Svanberg]

Except for the dang tonfa. The tonfa just blows.

Tonfa blows? How about nunchaku? It's an exotic weapon with NO SPECIAL ABILITIES!

It's not like there are any monks in d20 modern who can use flurry of blows with the nunchaku.

 

[takyris]

Are you kidding? It's the best bludgeoning weapon that can take Streetfighting! Okay, that's actually probably not that good, but I tend to prefer bludgeoning weapons, and it's one of the better ones for the size to damage ratio.

 

[ledded]

Yeah, I personally think d20 Modern somewhat stiffed the martial arts guy (in particular the one who uses smaller melee weapons like the tonfa, nunchaku, etc). That's why I like some of the 3rd party stuff like Vig's BnF, Martial Arts Mayhem and MPC 1 and 2, etc. They put some of the bite back into it.

But really, shouldnt the nunchaku and a few other marital arts weapons get some kind of extra umph when in the hands of a well-trained user?

Although I have to agree with Takyris, I like how in d20 Modern it takes a few feats to get good at some kind of focused combat (guns, non-lethal, unarmed or weapon melee). Better emulates training and experience IMO than in D&D, and balances a bit better most of the time.

 

[takyris]

Ledded: yeah, if I was gonna do some rules extensions, I'd do something to improve the life of a Martial Artist character holding weapons. Right now, there's no reason for them to use the average martial arts weapon, and that's just silly. I was considering something like having "living weapon" also allow someone wielding a martial arts weapon to do an extra +1-+3 damage (+1 if holding a 1d4 weapon, +2 if 1d6, +3 if 1d8).

Thing is, though, then it got into a question of "What's a martial arts weapon?" At my real-life rank, my martial arts weapon is my gi-top -- I'm using it to grapple, choke, and throw people, as well as using it as a tool of deception (cloaking movements in order to strike with surprise, etc). My teacher might hand me a copy of the Oxford English Dictionary and say, "Here's your weapon. Defend against a knife attack," and I've got to trap the knife in the pages, slam it shut on their hand, use that for a wrist lock-throw, and then brain them with it. The OED is clearly just me doing unarmed attacks with flavor text (since it's a bit more effective than an Improvised Weapon would imply), but if I hold a baseball bat, I'm at least as dangerous as if I'm holding kenpo-specific sticks or knives. If I don't restrict the weapons at ALL, though, I run into "Um, yeah, so, living weapon AND a katana?" I dunno. Maybe someone with Living Weapon 1d10 and a katana SHOULD get a ton of extra damage. No matter what rank I've achieved, I'll always prefer HAVING a katana if attacked on the street to NOT having a katana...

Dunno.

 

[ledded]

Ledded: yeah, if I was gonna do some rules extensions, I'd do something to improve the life of a Martial Artist character holding weapons. Right now, there's no reason for them to use the average martial arts weapon, and that's just silly. I was considering something like having "living weapon" also allow someone wielding a martial arts weapon to do an extra +1-+3 damage (+1 if holding a 1d4 weapon, +2 if 1d6, +3 if 1d8).

Yeah, the living weapon extension may work in a non-WotC d20 Modern game, though I much prefer the work done with the supplements. You can easily mix-and-match to get what you want.

Thing is, though, then it got into a question of "What's a martial arts weapon?" At my real-life rank, my martial arts weapon is my gi-top -- I'm using it to grapple, choke, and throw people, as well as using it as a tool of deception (cloaking movements in order to strike with surprise, etc). My teacher might hand me a copy of the Oxford English Dictionary and say, "Here's your weapon. Defend against a knife attack," and I've got to trap the knife in the pages, slam it shut on their hand, use that for a wrist lock-throw, and then brain them with it. The OED is clearly just me doing unarmed attacks with flavor text (since it's a bit more effective than an Improvised Weapon would imply), but if I hold a baseball bat, I'm at least as dangerous as if I'm holding kenpo-specific sticks or knives. If I don't restrict the weapons at ALL, though, I run into "Um, yeah, so, living weapon AND a katana?" I dunno. Maybe someone with Living Weapon 1d10 and a katana SHOULD get a ton of extra damage. No matter what rank I've achieved, I'll always prefer HAVING a katana if attacked on the street to NOT having a katana...

Dunno.

I understand what you are saying. To me, it's a 'martial arts weapon' if it's a specific weapon that is an integral part of a style that enforces training and practice to be able to accomplish something above the ordinary. If you came up with a secret martial arts 'scholar's revenge' style where someone used a OED like that, and they trained to use it, then there should be some benefit to it used within the parameters of that style. At the same time, though, not all improvised implements or weapons, IMO, can qualify for the same treatment. For example, I've trained for quite a few years in kenjutsu, using a bokutoh for a lot of the training work. With my wooden stick/bokutoh I can do quite a lot with a wide variety of options for attacking/defending. A baseball bat is just a wooden stick also, and similar in length, but the feel/weight of it would give me problems with some maneuvers even though I would consider myself better-than-average chances to use one like my bokutoh (i.e. certain 'slashing' type attacks/defenses, etc would just not work as well with a baseball bat, but may still be possible, and the bat would be much slower/clumsier for a lot of fine control maneuvers used in blocking).

Unfortunately from a rules perspective, it just seems that you have to adjudicate what constitutes a martial arts weapon on a case-by-case basis, i.e. does the object you want to use have enough similarity to something you've been trained with or is it an object that you could realisitically see providing a similar benefit to another 'martial arts weapon'.

 

[Plane Sailing]

EDIT: Ok... having consulted the 3.0 PHB, which is what I thought I was using, I now have no idea where this [subdual] rule comes from. However, here's what I do:

Looks to me like it comes from 1e AD&D!

Nor the sap, which is kinda funny, since that's what the sap should be good for...

Perhaps characters should get the benefit of Knockout Punch when using a melee weapon to deal non-lethal damage (first attack vs flatfooted opponent is automatically a crit). That way it might actually be possible for a non-brawler/MA to knock someone out if a weapon (or improvised weapon) is handy and the jump can be gotten on the target.

This is precisely the house rule that I've been using for sap, pistol whip and related weapons. It mirrors what we see in the movies and works for us.

Cheers