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Message: <blockquote data-quote="jonrog1" data-source="post: 632067" data-attributes="member: 189">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.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 RANTPbartender, 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.</blockquote>

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