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Message: <blockquote data-quote="genshou" data-source="post: 2628548" data-attributes="member: 13164">This thread has been started to avoid the railroading of another thread in which this was not the topic but was beginning to take over.  I've placed my next reply here and hope everyone will bring the discussion here in order to avoid getting any further off-topic in the other thread.  You can find the start of the discussion <a href="http://www.enworld.org/showthread.php?t=150201" target="_blank">here</a>.Since SteveC mentioned Charles Ryan and his take, I thought I'd share it to make sure everyone is aware of what that take is:This makes perfect sense to me.  A human's unarmed strike deals 1d3 points of damage (average 2), just a hair short of a knife's 1d4 (average 2.5).  And yet I wouldn't complain if a character brandishing a knife were able to take out their foes after only a short scuffle.  So how does unarmed fighting between "untrained" opponents differ?Well, next time you're in a fistfight for a few minutes, pull out some knives and see how combat changes.  In d20 Modern's hit point system, hit point damage represents serious damage, not bumps, bruises, and scrapes.  Sometimes with high-level characters it might represent a potentially lethal blow that was "only a flesh wound" due to training and overall toughness (not down to negatives yet, made the MD save).  A black eye or a goose egg hurst like the dickens, but it's not going to immediately and utterly knock you unconscious for hours no matter your level.  To do that with an unarmed attack, you have to utilize a lot of complex techniques and specialized knowledge of pressure points and other vital systems.  That, or try to hit your opponent in a really vulnerable area.  A -4 to deal lethal damage makes sense; which is easier, slicing a guy with a switchblade or punching him to the same effect?I made a slight adjustment to the system to account for the fact that a critical hit should always mean something, even with low amounts of nonlethal damage (see the thread linked to near the top of this post).  But swapping out d20 Modern's mechanic for D&D subdual damage just makes the problem even worse.</blockquote>

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