House rule: Knockouts and the Average Joe

[Pbartender]

Yeah, or that.

Excellent idea -- I might extend it to Lethal Damage and require that it be any light weapon, ditching Brawl and making the requirement "Combat Martial Arts, Two-Weapon Fighting". Dunno if that would unbalance it, though. Consider it potentially yoinked.

-Tacky

Dunno... I was trying to steer away from an Ability pre-req. Though Dex 13+ (for TWF) would be appropriate.

Personally, I'd make a third pair of feats for melee wepons. this one's meant for non-lethal damage.

...And yoink away.

 

[Mistwell]

I thought this was an interesting proposal over on the WOTC boards:

Well, after a bit of testing, I'm tentatively using a minor add-on to the current rules. I'm adding in "fatigue," which adds up approximately like subdual damage, although for now i'm shaving down how much fatigue comes from an unarmed blow (like, maybe only if a hit is critical or exceeds the MDT, and then maybe not all the damage rolled).

When accumulated fatigue exceeds the threshold of Con, Current HP, or Max HP, the character moves through Staggered (only partial actions), Fatigued, and Exhausted. When Current HP equals Max HP, it counts as only a single step. If you lose HP so they're not the same anymore, well, that's another step for you.

I think this could get a decent compromise. Combatants will inevitably wear each other out, but won't necessarily score a knockout. By the time you're exhausted (-6 Str and Dex), there's not much point in fighting any more, since the average guy has no capacity to do anything by that point. Heroic types can struggle on, but even most PCs will give up the fight by that point, I suspect.

This also means that if you realize your opponent is at max hp, and therefore can't get worse than fatigued, you can take the -4 to deal a single lethal blow, which will propell him to exhaustion. No need to beat someone into a life-threatening pulp just because you can't KO 'em, but it still makes the Brawl tree worthwhile, since you can both wear someone down faster and have better odds of a knockout by massive, nonlethal damage. [I'm also trying to think of ways for exhaustion to affect how long a character is unconscious, but I won't worry about it for now.]

BTW, I'm adding this not to make things 'more realistic,' but because I think it will encourage my players to use non-lethal force in common situations. But I am hoping it would also serve as a middleground in all these "That's not the way real fights go" arguments. Feedback on that count is certainly welcome.

Once I can herd my players together again, I'll be sure to test this out further and report what I find.

 

[Mistwell]

Just added to the FAQ:

Q: [How come two people can punch each other all day and not have a scratch under the current nonlethal rules? That makes no sense!]

A: OK, let me clear this up completely:

Two average joes, with no special skills or feats, can punch each other all day long. No-one is going to be knocked unconscious, and no-one is going to be seriously hurt. They may have some bruises, black eyes, and bloody noses, but nothing serious enough to warrant the actual loss of a hit point.

Realistic? Maybe, maybe not. (I tend to think it is--I've never seen anyone knocked out or seriously hurt in a fistfight, unless the fighters were experienced or using weapons.) It's certainly more realistic than the subdual system, in which average Joes will reliable knock each other unconscious after about three hits.

On the flip side, the all-or-nothing nature of this system models something we see in movies all the time--the ability to sneak up behind a guard, hit him on the head, and have him fall unconscious. It takes a couple feats to be able to do this reliably, but it works (it doesn't work with the subdual system if the target is higher than 1st or maybe 2nd level).

Hope that clears things up!

Q: [But that means three low level guys can gang up on one guy and never knock him out! Fix these rules!]

A: Three refugees (or accountants) trap a character in a back alley. They start kicking and punching him, apparently with the goal of knocking him unconscious. After 15 or 20 seconds, the character is not unconscious. The frustrated refugees (or accountants) start picking up bottles and two-by-fours. Now they're packing some punch, and the character, whose beating to this point was entirely superficial, starts taking some real injury.

What's wrong with this scenario? Nothing. It's realistic. It's the sort of thing we see in modern movies and fiction all the time. And it's exactly the result you get in d20 Modern.

Some people have called on us to "fix" these rules "before it's too late." We aren't going to, because they aren't broken. They work great in play, they require less bookkeeping than the subdual system, and they're more (yes, that's more) realistic.

If you'd like to use a different system in your home campaign, by all means do so. But recognize that you're doing so because of a difference in your taste, not because of a flaw in the game.

I, and the rest of the design team, stand by the assertion that this is a realistic, playable, and enjoyable system--and I think you'll agree when you give it a try. If it bothers you that two accountants can trade punches all day long with no real effect, I offer two points:

First, the game is not about amateur fisticuffs. If you need to simulate schoolyard scuffles, pick up a copy of Atlas Games' Lunch Money. You'll have a lot more fun. But if you're like most of us, the corner cases that are causing such a fuss on this thread will never come up in your game.

Second, remember that in the game, like in real life, people who actually want to harm one another have many options other than trading painful but generally harmless punches. They can pick up weapons. They can accept the standard -4 penalty for dealing normal damage. They can grapple. They can look for situational advantages. They can take a karate class.

If your idea of a fight is two people trading punches, with one of them falling unconscious after 18 or 24 seconds, this system isn't for you. If, on the other hand, you can see that in real life, the movies, comics, books, and every other milieu you might reasonably want to mimic in a modern roleplaying game, unarmed fights are somewhat more chaotic and require more creative approaches than simply trading punches, you'll probably find that d20 Modern's system serves your needs just fine!

I hope this answers any lingering questions. I certainly hope that, even if you aren't convinced, you can find some other aspect of d20 Modern of greater importance on which to base your decision to buy and enjoy the game.

 

[Pbartender]

They can grapple... ...unarmed fights are somewhat more chaotic and require more creative approaches than simply trading punches...

For example, if you have a reasonable GM who would allow "non-lethal" Coup de Graces (Automatic non-lethal critical, if they aren't knocked out right away, they make a Fort save (DC 10 + damage dealt) or get knocked out anyway)... Then you have several people grapple a guy, pin him, and then one thug Coup de Graces him, until he's knocked out.

EDIT: Oops, just noticed that there is a Kockout Blow, which is essentially a non-lethal Coup de Gras. Only, it only does a critical, and does not require a second Fort save.

 

[The_Gneech]

House rule for my game, as yet unplaytested (because so far the only fight has been with guns):

Whenever a nonlethal attack successfully hits, the target's Constitution is effectively reduced by 1 for the purposes of damage comparison against future nonlethal attacks. A critical hit reduces the target's effective Constitution by 2 for this purpose. (This reduction is not true ability damage, however, and does not have any effect on hit points, Fortitude saves, etc.) This reduction is recovered at the rate of 1 point of Con per minute.

For example, a Tough Hero with a Con of 16 is fighting against a thug. The thug manages to successfully land a punch on the hero, doing 7 points of nonlethal damage. This is nowhere near the Tough Hero's Constitution, so no Fortitude save is required. However, the Tough Hero's Constitution is now effectively 15 should the thug manage to hit him again. However, if ten rounds (one minute) go by, he will recover back up to 16.

This rule is specifically designed to gradually wear people down during the course of a fight, without penalizing people who have taken a pile of feats to increase their one-punching chances. I may have the Unbreakable Talent Tree include a built-in immunity to this rule, to simulate that one thug the master criminal has who just stands there and smiles when the hero pounds on him.

-The Gneech

 

[Tellerve]

Competence bonuses stack? When i first read, and well still do, think that the +1 from brawl wouldn't stack with the +2 from improved brawl? Am I off on this? Maybe I should pull my dmg out but I didn't think they'd stack as they are named like bonuses.

Tellerve

 

[Mistwell]

Competence bonuses stack? When i first read, and well still do, think that the +1 from brawl wouldn't stack with the +2 from improved brawl? Am I off on this? Maybe I should pull my dmg out but I didn't think they'd stack as they are named like bonuses.

Tellerve

I agree. Improved Brawl supercedes and replaces Brawl, it does not supplement it. The total is +2, I believe.