House rule: Knockouts and the Average Joe

[danzig138]

Too much hassle, tracking two kinds of HP loss.

Forcegypsy, I like that "non-lethal damage equals or exceeds current hit points" rule. Very nice.

About tracking SD... ain't it though. I like subdual damage. It works, IMO, for unarmed combat and other things. But after more than a year of playing, my players still don't get how you track SD, so it has become a pain in the posterior for us. I also like the exceeds current HP idea.

 

[jonrog1]

jonrog1,

Just to clarify, in case you have the wrong impression...The non-lethal damage in my house-rule doesn't accumulate. If someone does enough non-lethal damage in one attack roll to exceed the target mook's current hp then it forces the save to remain concious. The save works exactly like the one forced by the first condition (non-lethal exceeding current Con).

All it is designed for is the cinematic takedown of the low level mook or the worn out hero. So far so good.

Oh, no I totally got it, and I like it. I was just commenting on the whole "two people can beat eachother up for a while and not do any real damage" concept in D20Modern. Short of using accumulating damage like subdual points, yours is the best one-shot house rule I've seen. I actually like it better than subdual points.

Based on the few bar fights I have been in though, I've now reached the depressing conclusion that in your system, I have just 6 hit points... Damn. I thought I'd at least be third level.

 

[Mistwell]

Give me a third level Strong hero focused on Brawling and I will stand a pretty decent chance of knocking out your 3rd level gun-toting character. My guy will be punching for +9

(+3 (BAB), +3 (Str 16), +1 (Brawl), +2 (Imrproved Brawl)),

and hitting for 7-17 non-lethal damage (plus possibility of a crit)

(1d8 (Imrpoved Brawl) + 1d4 (Streetfighting) +3 (Str 16) +1 (Melee Smash) +1 (Improved Melee Smash)), not including the possibility of a critical hit or a higher strength.

He will also probably have Combat Expertise and Improved Trip, knocking you on your butt (prone) with a trip and taking a punch at you.

I really don't understand the complaints about the nonlethal damage system. It seems to work perfectly fine. You just have to focus on it, like anything else you want to be good at in this game.

 

[JPL]

And I don't have major problems with it, myself.

But Psion mentioned the difficulty of K.O.'s over on RPG.net, and I thought to myself...I like K.O.'s. I'd like to see them more often.

[Arguing the merits of d20 on rpg.net is good practice for going to court.]

 

[jonrog1]

I really don't understand the complaints about the nonlethal damage system. It seems to work perfectly fine. You just have to focus on it, like anything else you want to be good at in this game.

I don't think it's a problem with "I should usuallybe able to knock anyone out in one punch", yes that should require a whackload of training and feats. That's the equivalent of a martial artist's one-inch punch or a boxer.

It's more the "two guys can hit each other for three hours straight and nobody falls down" factor people are having a wee bit of trouble with. I think everyone's just trying to find a little middle ground. Once again, I think the "Con or HP" rule workaround is fine. Playtested it recently and it was spiffy and cinematic.

 

[Pbartender]

Well, here's the house rule that I'm htinking of using...

On a successful unarmed attack (or any attack for non-lethal damage), the target must make a Fort save (DC 5 + damage dealt). A successful save means the target is unaffected. Failure means that the target is Stunned for 1 round. Failure by 5 or more indicates that the target falls Unconcious for 1d4+1 rounds.

How's that sound?

 

[Mistwell]

It's more the "two guys can hit each other for three hours straight and nobody falls down" factor people are having a wee bit of trouble with. I think everyone's just trying to find a little middle ground.

It isn't two guys trying to hit each other WITH THE INTENT TO CAUSE HARM. It's two guys trying to hit each other with only the intent to knock the other guy unconcious for about 24 seconds. In my mind, what you are describing is two guys trying to vulcan-grip each other or whack each other lightly on the back of the neck with the side of their palm trying to get that blow just perfect, or getting the other guy in a choke hold long enough to make them go unconscious. That does take training and experience to do right, particularly if the other guy is pretty stern and healthy.

Two guys hitting each other in a fight is generally for lethal damage, knowing the worst they will do is take the other guy to -2 (unconcious and feeling it), which they will likely recover from on their own, or at least someone will take a minute to stop any major bleeding (IE taking 20 on a treat injury check, an auto-stabalize).

 

[jonrog1]

It isn't two guys trying to hit each other WITH THE INTENT TO CAUSE HARM. It's two guys trying to hit each other with only the intent to knock the other guy unconcious for about 24 seconds. In my mind, what you are describing is two guys trying to vulcan-grip each other or whack each other lightly on the back of the neck with the side of their palm trying to get that blow just perfect, or getting the other guy in a choke hold long enough to make them go unconscious

No, that's not what I'm describing. I'm quoting the description of a common fistfight vis a vis the concept of nonlethal damage as defined in D20Modern. Their idea is that two guys can beat on each other all day without really doing any harm. Okay,I agree. But where I think everyone house-ruling disagrees is -- at the risk of repeating myself for the THIRD FRIKKIN' TIME -- that one of these guys won't eventually get knocked out.


I personally agree that in order to take a guy out with one punch, on a regular basis -- heck yeah, you need training for that. But it's the "fight 'til doomsday and nobody falls down until somebody switches to lethal damage" scenario I don't dig. ForceUser's fix does a lot, but that's the big bugaboo he fixes for me.

Say an ordinary Joe -- no, make him a somewhat strong ordinary Joe -- gets into a smackdown with another ordinary Joe. They both do 1d3 nonlethal damage, plus their strength bonus -- let's give them a 14 STR, they're hard-working guys but not professional athletes. SO +2 to their nonlethal damage. Each has a CON of 10. ONLY ON A CRIT do they even kind of have a the chance to knock the other guy out, or even stun him.

However, real world experience teaches us (sometimes rather painfully) that when you get punched repeatedly, you will eventually pass out or at least be stunned. Not maybe. You will. And as the FORT 15 save is still in place even with ForceUser's proposed (CON or HP threshold) rule, there's still an decent chance that if you pop a 1st level thug, he won't pass out, but he WILL be stunned. Having been hit in the head a few times in surly bars, I'll testify that the stun option's a fair one. ("OW! Who the -- what -- gonna puke --")

I think that's the only mechanism we're trying to come up with -- people aren't that hard to knockout or stun, so what's a good in-game representation? Something cool and cinematic but not game-breaking or overpowered.

Two guys hitting each other in a fight is generally for lethal damage, knowing the worst they will do is take the other guy to -2 (unconcious and feeling it), which they will likely recover from on their own, or at least someone will take a minute to stop any major bleeding (IE taking 20 on a treat injury check, an auto-stabalize).

Ah, but unfortunately -2 is DYING in the D20 Modern rules. And an unarmed schmuck can't do that damage without "training" (a feat). Plus, you're contextualizing the rules, giving intent to the characters, where good rules are context free.

Now, all the above is the "this is why a few people are looking for a House Rule for something they don't quite think works." The following's a mini-rant:

Dude, what up? JPL wants to tweak a rule. ForceUser comes up with a nice broad-based tiny rules-fix. Compliments all 'round, and a discussion on making sure it's not overpowered. Then you paratroop in here basically to say that "none of this discussion is necessary. The system's fine. Look, here's my shiny math showing so." What's the point of that, man? Why jump in here with the big buzzkill, and a flawed argument to boot?

We don't want vulcan nerve pinches. We never said that. We frikkin' agree that to regularly knock people out requires training. We just want it to be SLIGHTLY more likely that in a fight, somebody might get stunned or knocked out, a situation that seems to mirror reality just a little bit more. I state that this is the motivation for the ruels tweak REPEATEDLY (tediously, one might say...). Yet you ignore that and reframe the discussion in a way that makes sense for your point. You're not disagreeing with the way we're tackling the problem, the way you're posting comes across as saying our problem is invalid.

Arrogantly, as relatively bright humans, we believe our small problem may be valid. Crazy us.

Maybe it's the flat-affect nature of posting, but you tend to come across as discourteous and condescending.

We get it, You think the system's fine. What we're trying to do makes no sense to you. Can we go back to discussing our little changes, now?

END RANT

Pbartender, I think that your pitch is excellent, you just might want to keep in mind that FORT saves are going to creep up, overtake and eventually be much higher than the unarmed damage most characters will be inflicting. Your mechanism might scale out of usefulness fairly quickly.

The CON requirement in nonlethal (and lethal, but that's a different discussion) seems to be in there to allow even high-level characters a chance to get knocked out. I personally happen to agree with that idea, game-wise, but if your group likes their higher-level characters a little more heroic, dropping the CON req. should do it for you.

 

[Pbartender]

Pbartender, I think that your pitch is excellent, you just might want to keep in mind that FORT saves are going to creep up, overtake and eventually be much higher than the unarmed damage most characters will be inflicting. Your mechanism might scale out of usefulness fairly quickly.

You think so? I'm not so sure.

Remember, Saves (especially in a rule set with such low magic and there fore few ability-enhancing magic items) creep up pretty slowly, even when "good". At 10th level, most heroes will have a base Save between +3 and +5. Even with Constitution modifiers added in, a DC in the teens in nothing to laugh at... Fort bonuses could be anywhere from +3 to +10 at 10th level.

Plus, that DC 5 + damage can easily be upgraded to 10 + damage.

The CON requirement in nonlethal (and lethal, but that's a different discussion) seems to be in there to allow even high-level characters a chance to get knocked out. I personally happen to agree with that idea, game-wise, but if your group likes their higher-level characters a little more heroic, dropping the CON req. should do it for you.

Now, here I really disagree. It seems to me that the Con limit helps out the low-level guys, not the high level guys. The high level guys are better at making the Save regardless (especially since it's a fixed DC). But the Con limit saves the low-level guys from having to make the Fort save in the first place. And for your average Joe, he can't throw a punch (1d3 non-lethal damage), that would trigger the Fort save on another average Joe (10 constitution), even if he got a critical hit (2d3 non-lethal damage).

The method I proposed would mean that... 1. Harder hits are more likely to knock you out than soft hits. 2. More experienced or tougher fighters are harder to knock out than your average Joe. 3. Every punch has a chance to KO or daze, no matter how small that chance may be.

 

[Forcegypsy]

Misnomer

Now, I know it isn't my real name, but c'mon give a guy some respect, it's Forcegypsy not ForceUser.

Good points though.