Kraedin: It's only unrealistic if you leave out the flavor text. If you leave out the flavor text, yeah, it's unrealistic. It doesn't come with a bunch of charts. You can make the charts. I'm sure that someone WILL make the charts. But d20 is built on not using those charts as the default, because it's faster, and most people can improvise the damage.
As for tburdett, calling nonlethal damage love taps and hugs is silly. First, the system wasn't designed to simulate schoolyard fights. It was designed for characters with a modicum of ability and hardiness. As well to insult D&D for not handling plowing and having adequate stats for realistic results of being trod upon by donkeys or run over by wagons.
For what it's worth, now that I start thinking about your argument instead of just sniping back, I completely agree with you that nonlethal damage isn't what he says it is. Nonlethal damage shouldn't be the default for unarmed people. It should always be stated as a choice for a person attempting to intelligently render an opponent unconscious without risking permanent harm. For that, it's great. And that IS what he says to use it for.
The problem is that he defends it in the wrong areas, too -- he gets into the "two people beating on each other all day" argument, when that argument doesn't really pertain to nonlethal combat at all -- because two people in nonlethal combat aren't beating on each other all day. They're sparring, trying for knockout punches and avoiding areas that could permanently hurt someone. A schoolyard fight with no rules, two people really trying to hurt each other, is lethal damage. The -4 is because permanently injuring someone with your hands is hard. A schoolyard fight would only be nonlethal damage if it were two people agreeing on rules and "fighting fair" and all that -- and in that case, it wouldn't work well, because nonlethal damage doesn't work well for first-level people who aren't utterly optimized for it, and kids in a schoolyard are first level, as a rule.
So yeah. It wouldn't work in your case. I don't consider your case a big enough problem for it to hurt most games. If you look at most of his argument, it's good -- use it for intentional knockouts, conking people on the back of the head or sucker-punching them. Don't use it in a stand-up fight, unless it's a boxing match, a karate tournament, or some other situation where rules of conduct apply and you can't break people's knees.
-Tacky
As for tburdett, calling nonlethal damage love taps and hugs is silly. First, the system wasn't designed to simulate schoolyard fights. It was designed for characters with a modicum of ability and hardiness. As well to insult D&D for not handling plowing and having adequate stats for realistic results of being trod upon by donkeys or run over by wagons.
For what it's worth, now that I start thinking about your argument instead of just sniping back, I completely agree with you that nonlethal damage isn't what he says it is. Nonlethal damage shouldn't be the default for unarmed people. It should always be stated as a choice for a person attempting to intelligently render an opponent unconscious without risking permanent harm. For that, it's great. And that IS what he says to use it for.
The problem is that he defends it in the wrong areas, too -- he gets into the "two people beating on each other all day" argument, when that argument doesn't really pertain to nonlethal combat at all -- because two people in nonlethal combat aren't beating on each other all day. They're sparring, trying for knockout punches and avoiding areas that could permanently hurt someone. A schoolyard fight with no rules, two people really trying to hurt each other, is lethal damage. The -4 is because permanently injuring someone with your hands is hard. A schoolyard fight would only be nonlethal damage if it were two people agreeing on rules and "fighting fair" and all that -- and in that case, it wouldn't work well, because nonlethal damage doesn't work well for first-level people who aren't utterly optimized for it, and kids in a schoolyard are first level, as a rule.
So yeah. It wouldn't work in your case. I don't consider your case a big enough problem for it to hurt most games. If you look at most of his argument, it's good -- use it for intentional knockouts, conking people on the back of the head or sucker-punching them. Don't use it in a stand-up fight, unless it's a boxing match, a karate tournament, or some other situation where rules of conduct apply and you can't break people's knees.
-Tacky
