The rapier

[Crafty_Alex]

Except that won't solve his issue: The weapons is supposedly causing Stress damage by making small cuts or something, but the way Stress damage seems to be defined in most other places its mental damage.  I believe pawsplay is asking that it either be explained how individuals who are resistant to mental damage are somehow resistant to this physical damage but not visa-versa, or that the physical damage it causes be brought in line with other physical damage.

I honestly don't know how many more ways I can explain it. Stress damage causes shaken, which *could* be accepted as trauma caused by pain. Pain is this designers opinion primarily mental. Just because a weapon is causing stress doesn't necessarily mean stress can only be caused by Threaten action - fire and acid damage both are common sources of stress damage rooted in physical damage.

But then, we could just make our weapons boring and let people focus only about what damage code they have, rather than coming up with creative ways to use them. Our gear system is predicated on all gear being useful in the right context.

[SilvercatMoonpaw]

But I believe the cognitive block is why if physical damage is causing the stress a creature's resistance to physical damage is not preventing the stress damage from a foil.

[Krensky]

Actually, razor wounds are often dangerously painless. I doubt all the thousands of Filipino and Malay street types killed over the years by razor-wielding Escrima and Kali practitioners would agree with your assessment.

They might, but unless you've been attacked and injured by a moron with more testosterone than brains who brought a box cutter to a party you were working the door at, I venture you're not in an informed position here. (As a hint, I have and have the scar to prove it.) Also, Escrima teaches the dagger, knife, keris, and kali (over simplified, a sword sized keris). It doesn't teach the razor or straight razor. Razor cuts hurt. It's why self-injurers use them, It's why it hurts to cut yourself shaving. Baring a lucky blow, or a terminal situation they are not going to take you out a a fight quickly.

I don't care strongly about the names. I care about the effects. Stress damage is the wrong effect for the rapier in the hands of your average wielder. It interacts illogically with armor, Stress Resistance ("Good think I visited that hooker or that would have really hurt!"), damage conversion, and every other purpose I can think of apart from taking out standard characters. The only thing it does right is the thing that doesn't care if the damage is lethal, subdual, or stress.

Obviously you do. The book, just like D&D uses the wrong namres for a bunch of weapons. Falchion, broadsword, rapier, etc. Ignore the names and pay attention to the mechanics.

[Crafty_Alex]

But I believe the cognitive block is why if physical damage is causing the stress a creature's resistance to physical damage is not preventing the stress damage from a foil.

Because we don't want to create yet another damage type for this situation. When it comes down to making a descision based on simulation vs. simplicity of application, simplicity uber alles.

[Doublebond]

I can't help but feel I'm on 4chan, here, and in a moment someone's going to go ahead and declare "so much butthurt" or "TROLLS TROLLING TROLLS" or something similar.

Is this all really worth getting so worked up over?

[pawsplay]

Pawsplay - the rapier has been renamed the foil in the errata.

I am definitely now 30% less perplexed. I still think it's a strange situation, but I can't complain about added clarity and I appreciate that you guys are listening to feedback.

[Wolverine]

Is this all really worth getting so worked up over?

Each player and GM places different levels of importance on each section of the rules. I've had Spycraft players that were real gun bunnies and wanted to make sure that they had the appropriate weapon for their character's background and players that didn't much care what the weapon was as long as they could afford it.

Different strokes for different folks.

[TheAuldGrump]

Depending on the players, yes, this is something to get worked up over. If I can avoid an argument with my players by enacting one here then the world is a happier place.

I can live with a foil, with a button tip, doing stress damage, but the likelihood of a foil being used, outside of a practice ring, is pretty much nil.  Then again, with a button tip the bleed quality goes away. In this case, I will take 'boring but useful' over 'interesting, but WTF?' The stats for a Scholar's Sword are much more useful in play.

One thing that I would have liked is a consistent choice of culture for those weapons that are found over a wide area. A 'Scholar's Sword' is an eastern affectation, much as 'Rapier' is a western one. Pick a culture, then parenthesize the other possible terms in the weapon description. (Or why so much space on legal documents is spent defining terms....) Call a two handed club a 'Greatclub' in the list, and 'Tetsubo' in the parenthesis.

And in reference to an early post in this thread - a 3 pound club does just fine in cracking heads - if you are using a 10 pound club you are going to get tired much, much faster, and have less accurate aim. Sure, you may do more damage if your weapon hits, but more likely your brains will be decorating somebody else's 3 pound club. Even great clubs did not weigh that much.

Now I can get back to wondering how a weapon that has sometimes had over a hundred years of service can be counted as 'unreliable'.

The Auld Grump

[Sletchman]

Now I can get back to wondering how a weapon that has sometimes had over a hundred years of service can be counted as 'unreliable'.

I don't think it's so much "unreliable" as it is "error range 1-3".  It's not like spycraft where unreliable = free error activation.  Unless you're suggesting that black powder weapons are less likely to have an error then say a Colt M4 [also error range 1-3, in Spycraft]?

In my experiance, black powder weapons shouldn't have an error range of just 1, but I'll defer to your greater level of expertise on the matter.

[TheAuldGrump]

Now I can get back to wondering how a weapon that has sometimes had over a hundred years of service can be counted as 'unreliable'.

I don't think it's so much "unreliable" as it is "error range 1-3".  It's not like spycraft where unreliable = free error activation.  Unless you're suggesting that black powder weapons are less likely to have an error then say a Colt M4 [also error range 1-3, in Spycraft]?

In my experiance, black powder weapons shouldn't have an error range of just 1, but I'll defer to your greater level of expertise on the matter.

A Land Pattern musket had a field failure rate of 1 in 16 shots, under battlefield conditions. Close enough to 1 in 20 for me. In more relaxed conditions... I have put over a hundred rounds through smoothbore muskets, mostly Brown Bess (Land Pattern) and never had a failure. Not once. This includes two shots in the rain. (Guns weren't loaded in the rain, but were fired.) Powder clumped, less power than normal, more fouling, but the gun did fire. Putting in rules for firing and loading in the rain are one of those things that I would house rule. If I were rushed, going for more than two and a bit rounds per minute, then I might have had the same failure as the norm, but since I was able to swab between each shot I was able to fire every time. And load faster than the standard time in Fantasy Craft.

By contrast, I have put fewer than fifty rounds through Berettas, and have had them jam twice. (In my mind Beretta is synonymous with 'cheapass piece of junk.) This was in the early eighties, Berettas may have gotten better since then, but I doubt it.

Make of the numbers what you will.  

The Auld Grump

[Crafty_Pat]

I'm gonna point out one more time the first word in our game's title. Does our game take place in the real world? It can, but it's not the default, and as with any deviation from the default - even in a toolkit game - some personalization is required to hit just the right balance for your world.

Honestly, this would be the case even if Fantasy Craft were a real-world game. No game mechanic can be 100% universally right for everyone - it's flatly impossible - and everyone's experiences with various weapons is subject to their own interpretation. Grump admits he's only fired a Beretta 50 times, for example. I suspect someone who's done so 1,000 times might take issue with his findings.

By all means, make the game your own and post how you use it so others can maybe adopt your ideas. Don't expect the game to automatically match your ideal because, frankly, that's just not possible.

[Sletchman]

I had literally the complete opposite experiance [never had a round put through a Beretta 92R jam, >100 rounds], put about 40 through blackpowder weapons [50/50 split flintlock pistol and rifle] and had a bundle of mishaps [around 10/40] of varying types, sometimes the round wouldn't even reach the target, it just didn't have the power [I count that as a mishap].

I think without massive sampling it'd be impossible to have an accurate sampling though [which is largely what Pat said].

Of course, one could argue that a Land Pattern musket has the reliable upgrade, which gives it an error of 1.

By all means, make the game your own and post how you use it so others can maybe adopt your ideas.

Hmmm, idea...

[aegis]

No game can be perfect, even if some are closer to perfection than others. Still, if the fact that DR doesn't apply to weapon stress damage bothers you, change that! You're all grown-up players and GMs, feel free to houserule what you dislike or don't understand. That's what you do with other games, don't you? A simple post-it at page 211 that says "stress damage ignores damage reduction when it's applied from a non-weapon source" should do the trick.

In my opinion though, this is more an issue of realism vs fantasy. And just as Pat pointed out, the goal here is not to make a simulation game. Yes, maybe the musket shouldn't have unreliable (note that there is an upgrade for that), maybe the rapier (or foil) shouldn't bypass DR that easily, but hey, it's fantasy! Look at the Rune Knight, he can make his weapon damage electricity: this bypasses DR and inflict lethal damage. How realistic is that? Same thing for various class effects and magic items, so really, don't always look for a realistic explanation for everything.

[pawsplay]

aegis, don't try to teach your grandma how to houserule. The issue at hand is the rapier and other stress weapons and how best to handle it, not whether anyone is qualified to make the game their own.

[Crafty_Pat]

aegis, don't try to teach your grandma how to houserule. The issue at hand is the rapier and other stress weapons and how best to handle it, not whether anyone is qualified to make the game their own.

Come on now, paws. There's no need for that.