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Message: <blockquote data-quote="takyris" data-source="post: 1105193" data-attributes="member: 5171">This has been brought up a lot.  If you search back in this forum, you'll find it addressed a whole bunch of times.Here's the basic breakdown of my feelings:1) Nonlethal damage has no chance whatsoever of doing you any permanent harm, and being taken to -1 or -2 is really less "you are near death" than "you have been knocked unconscious".  You're thinking of nonlethal damage as being like a wild swing that cracks against your skull -- but that's LETHAL damage.  Someone who takes the Brawl feat isn't doing wild swings anymore -- he's making relaxed, almost soft jabs to the target's temple or chin or solar plexus, shots that have no chance to really hurt the person but might knock them out by pressure-point manipulation.  He might be doing so because of martial arts training, or he might have learned it as a dirty trick in bar fights -- "you hit 'em here, and you can take 'em down soft with no trouble".2) It's relatively easy to get nonlethal damage up to levels where you're forcing a save a fair amount of the time.  You can't do it at first level, no -- but think about it: You're making a difficult strike that can make somebody unconscious but has NO chance of actually injuring him.  That ought to be a bit difficult, don't you think?In terms of a low-level way to get good at nonlethal damage:Brawl, Power Attack, Streetfighting, and as much Melee smash as you can get.  A 3rd-level Strong Hero with a 16 strength could have:1d3 base damageOccupation: BrawlLevel One Feat: Combat Martial Arts (doesn't help with nonlethal, but is nice to round out your character)Level One Feat: Weapon Focus: UnarmedLevel One Talent: Melee SmashLevel Two Bonus Feat: Power AttackLevel Three Feat: StreetfightingLevel Three Talent: Improved Melee SmashSo now, he's attacking at:+3 BAB, +3 Strength, +1 Competence from Brawl, +1 from Weapon Focus = +8, with a possible -1 to -3 from Power AttackHe's doing:1d6(Brawl) +3 Strength +2 (improved melee smash) +1d4 (streetfighting) = 1d6+1d4+5, with a possible +1 to +3 from Power AttackSo, an average of 11 points damage per hit without Power Attacking, and as high as 15 -- and you're a third-level character.  I'd consider that not bad.At 4th level, you'd take Improved Brawl to raise that damage to 1d8.  At 5th level, you'd take Advanced Melee smash to get another point of damage per hit.  That's a fifth level character whose nonlethal attack is at +11 (improved brawl and BAB bonus) who does 1d8+1d4+6, an average of 13 points damage and as much as 18.You also should factor in Power Attack -- since nonlethal damage only applies per-hit, you don't care about hitting lots of times -- you care about hitting once for a lot.  Flank, charge, do something to get yourself a bonus to hit, and then unload that Power Attack, and you can do some significant damage.3) Finally, this speaks to two major problems that I've seen a lot of people having. First, it sounds like you have Flavor Text issues -- if the rules aren't matching your flavor text, try changing your flavor text first.  Are those two people really doing their best to kill each other with their hands and not doing ANYTHING?  No.  If they really wanted to kill each other, they'd take the -4 and do LETHAL damage, which DOES add up over the rounds, and will eventually put one of them down.  Second, it doesn't bother me at all that you need to take feats to get good at this stuff.  d20 Modern is based off of feats and skills.  Just putting in your ranks or getting your BAB up there doesn't really cut it in this system.  If you want to be good at something for the level that you're at, you need to toss a couple of feats that way.  You have a lot of feats to play with in this game, unlike in D&D -- and most of these feats are meant to create what you'd think of as the D&D class abilities.Anyway, hope this helps.EDIT: One thing that I've heard as a house rule that sounded reasonable.  Change the text to read, "Any time a single hit does more than your Con score OR YOUR CURRENT HIT POINTS."  This lets you wear down an opponent and then use little shots to finish them off.Your way seems to have too much homework involved in it, too much number crunching.  They ditched subdual damage in this system because it was annoying to have two separate hit point levels.  You're adding in more stuff to keep track of.  As it is, it's very easy to keep track of combat modifiers, because it's damage-per-hit, and that's all you need to compare.</blockquote>

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