Damage Calculation: Open Handed vs. Weapons

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    • Damage Calculation: Open Handed vs. Weapons

      Until now we handled combat with weapons and open-handed fighting exactly the same.

      But players found it strange that, using smaller weapons gave them less damage, but dropping said weapons and going open-handed allowed them to deal their full potential of damage (as defined by strength).

      I realize that this would be a little strange, so I assume that I misinterpreted the rules.
      So I go read through the compendium again and on page 230 I see this:

      Basic Compendium Page 230:
      For Open Handed or Natural Weaponry, the
      character’s Strength determines the damage caused by
      the attack.


      Basic Compendium Page 230:
      A character’s Strength determines what
      size Melee, Missile, and Thrown Weapons (except
      Siege Weapons) a character can easily wield. When
      using these weapons, the character’s Strength is the
      maximum damage the weapon can cause in addition
      to any additional levels or multiplier from successes
      .
      Characters take a penalty of –1 Action Dice for each
      size category their weapons rates above their Strength.


      Does that mean that attacking without a weapon always only deals your strength in damage (without successes, which in this case only help determine if your attack hits, or theoretically resulting multipliers)?

      P.S.: In the Standard Weapon Ratings Table (Pg 231) open handed combat categorized as a "weapon" and given damage ratings as well, so this confuses me a little.

      I gotta say that I like the idea of open handed combat to be damage-limited like this though, since it would give my martial arts-using players a reason to draw their weapons.

      The post was edited 9 times, last by Sherbie ().

    • RE: Damage Calculation: Open Handed vs. Weapons

      Scott really should be the one to answer this question, but in the cases where a Zoic is using Natural Weaponry, such as claws, horns, tusks, spines, etc., they do their damage plus the Success Levels that get past their opponent's Defense Roll. Furthermore, the type of damage dealt by Natural Weaponry is considered Fatal Damage.

      We reasoned that there was very little difference between a Zoic wielding a chitin knife or five razor sharp claws in this case. They're both deadly weapons capable of inflicting terrible damage. The same holds true of sharpened horns or tusks or fangs or spines. These are all as deadly as knives, swords, spears, shuriken, etc.

      In cases where the Zoic does not have Natural Weaponry and is simply using his fist to punch someone (with Brawl Skill, for example), they still do their Strength in Damage Levels and can still add their Success Levels, only now it's considered Subdue Damage, which is much easier to recover from or heal back. They're not ripping someone open and tearing flesh, after all.

      So would a tiger Zoic do as much damage by punching you as he did by raking you with his claws or by stabbing you with a sword? In terms of Damage Levels, possibly so, but not in terms of the type of damage he inflicted or how easy that damage would be to heal or how quickly that damage could kill an opponent.

      And as Reaperwolf pointed out, having a weapon would give the Zoic some reach advantages and also allow him to avoid having to touch the target (and therefore possibly harm itself). Clawing a Poison Tree Frog Zoic or a Porcupine Zoic might not be the best idea in the world.
    • RE: Damage Calculation: Open Handed vs. Weapons

      Hey there!

      Yep,...in our game world, bare tooth, fists, and claws do just as much base damage as primary melee and missile weapons wielded by the same jánah... All based upon one's Strength, with extra damage added equal to the number of successes that penetrate defense (plus any damage multipliers)... We did this on purpose because we actually don't want to favor weapon-based combat over weaponless combat so that players won't feel hard-pressed to choose one over the other just to have a damage advantage of a few points... (We wanted them to have no qualms choosing to fight open-handed if they thought that would be cooler-looking and more fun!) We wanted cool, open-handed martial arts to be just as viable and prevalent in the world of our game, as weapons-based martial arts... It was purely our stylistic choice...

      Sorry if there is any confusion about the damage rules for combat... Let me see if I can reference the Standard Weapon Ratings Table on page 231 while I clarify... This table pretty much lays it out fully as far as the damage that armed and unarmed combatants cause with just their weapons or bare hands, with the only additional factor being the extra levels of damage cause by the number of successes that penetrate the opponent's defense roll as I just mentioned, which get added to the weapon (or open-handed) damage to create the final total...

      Additionally, however, I want to refer to the section called Damage Summary that comes before the table... This section is on page 227, and summarizes what you should take into account whenever an attack succeeds... Step #2 in this section goes over determining damage levels once again, and essentially provides the formula for doing it correctly... If the attack ended in a Full Success (two or more success remaining after the opponent's defense successes negated the attack successes rolled), then the formula is: Full Damage = (Weapon Damage Level + remaining Attack successes; x Success Multiplier)... If the attack was only partially successful (only one Attack success remained after taking the opponent's Defense roll into account), then the attack merely cause half of Full Damage rounded up...

      This section is at the tail end of (and effectively summarizes and completes) the in-depth discussion about taking damage in combat that starts on page 224 which is called (of course,...heh, heh) Taking Damage...

      So now, with that equation in mind,...let's create several examples using the Standard Weapon Ratings Table on page 231...

      Let's say my Lion guy, with a Strength of 8, just succeeded in attacking my enemy, an Elk, with his terrible claws... I rolled 7 successes, but only 3 got through my opponent's defense...making it an Average Success, which adds no Damage Multipliers... According to the Standard Weapon Ratings Table, with my Strength of 8 I'm considered a Strong Jánah (essentially Heroic-level strength, considering the average jánah has strength of 3 or 4), and my attack falls into the Open-Handed/Natural Weaponry category, which means that the damage for my claws is equal to my Strength of 8... This is pretty awesome! Now, using the easy formula I mentioned above, my weapon damage level of 8 gets added to the remaining attack successes of 3, and then multiplied by any damage multiplier (in this case, none), for a total of 11 levels of damage... This total would then have any of the opponent's armor subtracted from it (let's say 5 levels because he has some kind of ornate Amber armor)...leaving my opponent to suffer 6 levels of damage to his Stamina... He took 3 levels of Subdue damage (lightly penetrating or bruising), and 3 levels of Fatal damage (deeply penetrating or crushing), which he could mark down on his Combat Tracking Sheet by listing a claw wound doing 6 levels, and then circling both the S/F to let him know later it was a mixture of both Subdue and Fatal when it's time to get that wound healed...

      So again, my claws do 8 (my Strength) plus the 3 successes that penetrated my opponent's defense roll , making 11, minus the opponent's armor, bringing it down to 6 levels which actually get through...

      OK,...here's another example using the same opponents...

      This time my Lion is attacking with his crystal sword, which also does the same amount of damage as his Strength (which places it in the classification of a Large Melee Weapon, according to the table)... Here we are assuming that any of my main weapons would be the largest weapon I could effectively wield based on my Strength, which means that it causes base damage equal to my Strength, for the sake of rules simplicity, and to put it on par with hand-to-hand and natural weaponry. This time I rolled 8 successes to attack, and 4 of them got through my opponent's defense roll, which will invoke the damage multiplier of x2! So using the same formula yet again, my crystal sword's damage of 8, added to the remaining 4 successes, equals 12 successes, multiplied by the x2 damage multiplier for a total of 24 levels of damage, minus the opponent's 5 levels of armor, for a grand total of 19 levels of Stamina my opponent has just lost... 10 levels of Subdue, and 9 levels of Fatal...

      Now, this may seem like a lot of lost Stamina, but remember, unless otherwise stated by either the GM or the specific rules on various types of special damage (such as damage caused when striking chosen targets on the Maneuver Location Table), all damage taken is an equal mixture of both Subdue and Fatal, meaning that though you may have lost all your Stamina (and thus been defeated), you are only actually dead if you reach -10 Stamina and you received more Fatal Damage than Subdue damage... In fact, in cases where you receive an uneven amount of damage, the larger split always favors Subdue, which means most folks who get to 0 Stamina or less (down to -10, meaning you're unconscious) are actually laying on the ground, still conscious, and holding up their hands in defeat in the hopes their enemy will be merciful to them... Please read the section Generic Damage Types on page 226 for further info... Now, as I said, the GM may make special decisions in certain cases that certain types of damage are purely fatal, or purely subdue (such as deciding that all Vaylah weapons or all Natural Weapons are Fatal, even though it doesn't specify that in the rules), and I even let my players decide if they only want to cause Subdue damage when roughing someone up, or do only Fatal damage to someone who has already been defeated,...but I usually let their choices on the Maneuver Location Table (and the appropriate modifiers that go with it) decide what type of damage is being meted out in the heat of combat.... Remember,...reaching 0 Stamina simply means you can't continue to fight, and you can't run away... You have been defeated... Now whether that's because you're exhausted, beaten up, and wheezing on the ground, or because you're bleeding to death and unconscious, all depends on wheher you took more Subdue or more Fatal damage before you reached 0.

      Now let's take that same example and say that, instead of a my crystal sword, my Lion threw one of his daggers... Now, the example on page 231 on the upper left corner of the page, states that, if you use smaller weapons than the maximum allowed by your Strength, then they do less damage... This means that the GM usually chooses what weapon size category such a smaller weapon would fall in when assigning damage... For all of my smaller weapons, my GM has ruled they fall into the category below my normal Strength, making my dagger a Medium melee weapon... But that's just in my Lion's case, though... A smaller jánah with a Strength of 6 (Solid Jánah), using that same ruling, would have daggers that fall into the Small size category. So in my case, if I attacked with a dagger of medium size, it would do the maximum damage of that category (6)... When we plug that into the same formula as the sword in the example above, we get a different outcome... The dagger's damage of 6, added to the remaining 4 successes, equals 10 successes, multiplied by the x2 damage multiplier for a total of 20 levels of damage, minus the opponent's 5 levels of armor, for a grand total of 15 levels of Stamina my opponent has just lost... 8 Subdue, and 7 Fatal...

      If my Lion had picked up some other fallen enemy's small throwing dart or hurling disk in the heat of battle, and had thrown it instead in that same example, it would be 3 weapon damage + 4 successes, equals 7, x 2 damage multiplier equals 14, minus 5 levels of armor, which equals 9 levels of Stamina lost... 5 Subdue, and 4 Fatal...

      Now,...if my Lion guy also had a pistol hidden away (which is not based on Strength, and instead has a set amount of damage), and chose to fire that instead, using the same formula as the example above: 5 weapon damage + 4 successes, equals 9, x 2 damage multiplier equals 18, minus 5 levels of armor, which equals 13 levels of Stamina lost... 7 Subdue, and 6 Fatal...

      Does this pretty much make it clear how it is supposed to work in the basic rules?

      Again,...if you are in the middle of combat and you want to make sure, just see the formula for damage on page 227 under Damage Summary, step #2, and then reference the Standard Weapon Ratings Table if you're dealing with some irregular-sized weapon or Vaylah weapon...

      And remember, you guys are still welcome to use any personal house-rules you come up with if you want to tweak the system to your liking,...that's totally cool! For instance, if you want to make the combats less deadly (thus also slower, since it would take everyone longer to be defeated), you could choose to take armor into account BEFORE you apply any damage multiplier... That would certainly cause less damage than some of the examples above portray...

      Scottie ^^
    • RE: Damage Calculation: Open Handed vs. Weapons

      Originally posted by ReaperWolf
      For my own games, I give an armed combatant a +1 attack and defense bonus when fighting an unarmed opponent.

      I like the idea, but I'm not sure if a +1 bonus is enough for having to spend a fortune on a weapon, having to draw it for one combat action. *thinks*

      Originally posted by Aaron de Orive
      Furthermore, the type of damage dealt by Natural Weaponry is considered Fatal Damage.

      I see that "Spines" deals Fatal damage, but I see no mention that Natural Weaponry deals exclusively fatal damage. :O
      Explain please!

      Originally posted by Aaron de OriveIn cases where the Zoic does not have Natural Weaponry and is simply using his fist to punch someone (with Brawl Skill, for example), they still do their Strength in Damage Levels and can still add their Success Levels, only now it's considered Subdue Damage, which is much easier to recover from or heal back.

      That reminds me of an idea I had that I might try:
      I would find it easier if instead of having to manage subdue/fatal damage points seperatly, characters simply had two different "health" types.
      "Health" and "Fatigue"
      Fatal damage subtracts from Health, Subdue from Fatigue, Subdue&Fatal from both, with different effects on the character as they become depleted.

      Originally posted by Aaron de OriveAnd as Reaperwolf pointed out, having a weapon would give the Zoic some reach advantages and also allow him to avoid having to touch the target (and therefore possibly harm itself). Clawing a Poison Tree Frog Zoic or a Porcupine Zoic might not be the best idea in the world.

      Heh, yeah. Biting a heavily armored combatant isn't a good idea either.
      That's why I thought about trying this as well:
      A system for simulating natural and forged weapon/armor wear and tear would be awesome, because that's one of the key difference between all the different weapon types.
      Every weapon/armor, depending on quality, material and type could have a certain durability that slowly wears down with every combat symbolized by a number of boxes you check after each combat.
      Like a humble wooden spear/cheap chitin armor could have only two boxes, as it would get completely destroyed in the course of two combats.
      Same could go for a bull's horns, a tigers claws, a turtle's shell or another zoic's fists. Using survival horns could be fixed, claws sharpened and with dress wound bruised and bloody knuckles could be treated. Damaged body armor could be fixed with either survival, dress wound or when it comes to turtleshells even craftmanship/artistry.

      Originally posted by Scott Jones
      Sorry if there is any confusion about the damage rules for combat... Let me see if I can reference the Standard Weapon Ratings Table on page 231 while I clarify...

      Thanks for writing everything up, but damage calculation is generally clear to me. :)
      I've been calculating damage this way until now, but what confused me was said line about Open Handed attack damaged being determined by strength.
      But that's all cleared up now. x)
      Thanks dude <3

      Originally posted by Scott Jones
      And remember, you guys are still welcome to use any personal house-rules you come up with if you want to tweak the system to your liking,...that's totally cool! For instance, if you want to make the combats less deadly (thus also slower, since it would take everyone longer to be defeated), you could choose to take armor into account BEFORE you apply any damage multiplier... That would certainly cause less damage than some of the examples above portray...


      Talking about house rules:
      I think the main differences between armed combatants and unarmed ones could be the speed, damage output and effectiveness against armor.

      Unarmed characters could have more combat actions and an initiative advantage (technically already have, they just react to you drawing your weapon!).
      They could use "Subdue"-Type Maneuvers easier, "Subdue/Fatal"-Type Maneuvers as usual, but "Fatal"-Type ones come at a penalty.
      Also Damage through armor could be calculated differently for open handed combatants: Armor is subtracted from the damage before multipliers are applied, as you said, while for armed combat its subtracted after multiplying.

      The post was edited 4 times, last by Sherbie ().

    • weapons vs natural weapons

      I don't really have a problem with the rules as written.

      Expensive weapons serve two purposes. One they are status symbols. Two they show that you are ready for action.

      One thing I do find kind of interesting is that the damage resistance from armor stacks. So a turtle wearing armor gets to add the armor value on top of their natural armor.
      "One without crystal is without life"