The Shaman said:
Sure he is, but he wasn't badly injured enough to be disabled.That's fine, but there's a difference between saying you don't like something and saying that that something is bad.
The Modern hand-to-hand rules were designed to mechanically represent the cinematic brawl between a couple of antagonists in which they beat on each other without appreciable effect until one or the other gets in a particularly damaging strike - at this they are quite effective. It was not intended to be "realistic."
That you may not like that style of play is not a problem with the rules as written - it's just a reflection of your personal tastes.
To paraphrase James Whistler, "Don't say something is bad - say rather that you don't like it, for then no one can prove you wrong."
I have to make a comment here, because I am quite a fan of D20 modern, but the non-lethal damage system is just awful.
Why? Three reasons:
First, it's not realistic. This is my least concern, really, because gaming is not about real life. However, in my youth I was in a couple of fights, and I've both won and lost them. I don't have any particular skills and feats in brawling, but I've managed to both stun, and in one most unfortunate case, knock someone out. This was a pretty comparable person, of about average height and build. I can also recall one experience where I was knocked loopy by someone. In both cases, neither of us suffered any appreciable long-term effects. Unless one or both of us either had very low Con scores, or secretly had several feats backing us up, this is flat-out impossible in Modern.
Second, it doesn't match cinematic reality either. Again unless you have feats backing you up, you simply can't knock someone out and not have long-term effects on them. How many films have a physically weak character in them who turns around and one-punches a bad guy when they absolutely have to and the situation calls for it? It happens all the time. Now one might make the claim that it does model the situation where our hero fights it out for several minutes and doesn't come out the worse for the wear, but how does it actually handle that BETTER than non-lethal damage from D&D or subdual damage from Spycraft?
Finally, it frankly frustrates the heck out of the players. Unless you spend one or more feats on it, you simply can't knock someone out without seriously hurting them. This was, frankly, the clincher for me on this rule, because it takes options out of my and my player's hands. Every time they would tell me "I just want to knock the guy out" we'd come up with these rules, and they'd get frustrated. A character doesn't get that many feats, and the notion that you have to spend them for the sheer purpose of just knocking someone out rather than killing them simply amazed them. I remember one combat where one of my players just stated: okay, going for lethal damage right off the bat when he didn't want to because his character would have exactly ZERO chance of doing anything to the opponent otherwise.
Now it seems like you don't have a problem with the rules as they are, and that doesn't bother me at all. From what I read when D20 Modern first came out, Charles Ryan believes these rules are both realistic and model cinematic action. That's fine, although I obviously disagree.
I guess what I'm ultimately saying is that, yes, this is all a matter of opinion, but when you can't get a rule to do what you want it to do and what you expect to see it do at all without spending a feat, that's an issue. And frankly, I think it's bad design to do so.
Hopefully that didn't come off as mean spirited, because that's not the way I intended it at all...if you like the rules, your players are okay with them and you're having fun, then what the heck! I just think that the majority of people playing modern would disagree with you...
--Steve
If it weren't such an undertaking, i'd probably cannibalize it to make an improved d20M system but who has the time.
