d20M - improvised weapons curiosity?

[Plane Sailing]

I've just been reading the bit about improvised weapons (p109) and it seems that they've clearly made the damage of some of these things too low. badly out of "whack" < grins >

As an example, a fist sized rock, screwdriver or wrench will do 1d2 damage (attacking at -4). A bit bizarre considering the basic unarmed attack will do 1d3 damage when striking for lethal damage (at -4). I can't believe that holding a wrench or rock in your hand would make you *less* effective!

Similarly, a hockey stick will do 1d4 damage, when it doesn't really have any difference from a big club (which happens to do 1d6 damage).

While I applaud the attempt to give examples of improvised weapons and base it on the size of the object, I think they fall far short of realistic.

I suppose it might be possible to fix it by moving things up a category if they are metal and/or if they are particularly swingable. Maybe there is a better way to fix this?

Cheers

 

[Crothian]

My only thought was it must be a balance issue. Why would people havea specific weapon when a chair does as much or more? So, they reduced the damage so that no one would be able to take advantage of them.

 

[Wulf Ratbane]

Not looking right at it at the moment--

But improvised weapons, I assume, do lethal damage, and you would be considered armed, whereas your fist is non-lethal.

There's the benefit.


Wulf

 

[Plane Sailing]

No, that's my point actually...

A standard unarmed person does 1d3 nonlethal, or takes -4 to hit and does d3 lethal...

or he can pick up a "fist siized rock" and attack at -4 to do 1d2 lethal.

Maybe you could argue that you count as "armed" if wielding a rock or an ashtray so you don't incur an AoO when you attack with one - but that still seems completely backwards to me. If you are holding a rock in your hand you ought to do more damage with it! Similarly for a wrench.

Cheers