Maul and war hammer do subdual damage?

[Seekerofshadowlight]

Yep every system has its "WTF" bits. Some more then others. Over all I love the system, i was just working on a hammer build and saw this and its just....well a big WTF for me. Not a biggy, I get amused by the oddness more then upset or anything. When I run i hammers except the mallet will do lethal damage.

For other games I'll just roll with it. The system is far to sexy not to over look the odd blemish here and there.

[MilitiaJim]

As a wise man once said,

If it's not Scottish, it's crap.

Generalizing from the self and from having tasted plenty of whiskys, being Scottish is not a guarantee of quality.  It's a strong indicator, but not a guarantee.

As far as the skeletons and mauls, the maul is blunt and does subdual, but the skeletons are immune to subdual, so they take mountains but aren't affected, right?  Minus the bit of common sense.  It didn't occur to me that a warhammer might not be the best anti-skeleton weapon, with its balance of speed and blunt crushing, skeletons are not always shamblers.

For other games I'll just roll with it. The system is far to sexy not to over look the odd blemish here and there.

Think of it as a beauty mark.

[Seekerofshadowlight]

Think of it as a beauty mark.

I more think of it as a really  dumb tattoo she got while drunk and now needs lazed off or cover up. 

[Agent 333]

As far as the skeletons and mauls, the maul is blunt and does subdual, but the skeletons are immune to subdual, so they take mountains but aren't affected, right?  Minus the bit of common sense.  It didn't occur to me that a warhammer might not be the best anti-skeleton weapon, with its balance of speed and blunt crushing, skeletons are not always shamblers.

According to the rules as they are currently, hitting a Skeleton with a blunt weapon that does subdual will deal equal amounts of subdual and lethal damage to it. It then ignores the subdual, and just takes the lethal normally. Unfortunately for the fix, the few blunt weapons that do inflict lethal damage are just that much better at killing skeletal undead...

[Seekerofshadowlight]

Carpenters are lean mean undead fighting machines  Soldiers with  real weapons not so much 

[MilitiaJim]

Carpenters are lean mean undead fighting machines  Soldiers with  real weapons not so much 

Are we really surprised that our man Jesus is better at undead stompin' than legionaries?  No.   

[Seekerofshadowlight]

Thor was more effective.

[ludomastro]

Carpenters are lean mean undead fighting machines  Soldiers with  real weapons not so much 

Are we really surprised that our man Jesus is better at undead stompin' than legionaries?  No.   

            hahahahahahahahahahahahahaha

[Morgenstern]

I'm gonna take this whole conversation as evidence my brain is just plain wired differently.

Why do maul's do subdual damge? Uh, because they're blunt force trauma weapons? Because unlike D&D subdual =/= fundamentally sucky. Because subdual = equal but seperate track, just as good as lethal (and better in some people's eyes). Because anyone who has ever hefted mining equipment knows that one end of the pick-hammer, goes 'splat!' and the other goes 'stabbity!'?

I'd agree instantly "mauls can't hurt skeletons" is a nonsensical outcome of the rules, but I WOULDN"T then go on from there to try and re-type the damage on the maul... I'd ask "why the hell are skeletons immune to subdual?" Subdual damage is virutally defined as "does harm by breaking bones" and skeltons are... nothing but bones!!?! Seriously, is there ANY subdual weapon you wouldn't visualize as being kick-ass effective against skeletons?

[Seekerofshadowlight]

Umm no, subdual damage is bruising damage. Breaking bones is lethal. By the rules you can not break bones with subdual damage, only lethal. Undead are effected( now) by blunt regardless of type of blunt. But yeah by the rules what you are talking about is lethal damage.

[Morgenstern]

Umm no, subdual damage is bruising damage. Breaking bones is lethal.

Um, no, I wrote the weapon tables and that is not the criteria used to assign damage type in Mastercraft.

[Seekerofshadowlight]

You might have meant it a different way, but the rules do indeed use it that way. Subdual is bruising damage, breaking bones is lethal crit damage you can't do with subdual.

[Morgenstern]

Look at it this way - the weapons are assigned damage codes based on how the system actually uses damage downstream.

Subdual damage is NOT bruising (if you are curious what IS bruising in Spycraft/Mastercraft, the term and rules actually do exist, and we can go into that later). If subdual were "bruising", about the only weapon in human history that would have a subdual damage code would be an open handed slap - not tremedously useful as a game term . People making weapons that don't kill you is kinda a new thing. Most times, if you go to the trouble of fabricating arms, you mean to end people with them.

Subdual damage - as a result of the way the rules work - is any physical damage that has a reasonable chance of leave you unconcious for a while before you expire in the aftermath of the fight... because thats what the rules do: you take lots of "subdual", you have a period of unconciousness before further "subdual" kills you. Lethal damage represents those injuries where the period between receiving harm and keeling over dead is really short.

When you get your bones mashed by a maul, there's (cinematically) a period where you probably lie there in a heap and could potentially have to endure a villianous solilloque or maybe get some healing-mojo heaped on you.

When you get chopped up with an axe, you may get to gurgle briefly, but (again, cinematically) you shuffle off the mortal coil right quick.

Thats what the damage types DO. The weapons were then sorted into those categories. Not the other way around.

There is some very obvious and very game-utility based fudging. Maces do lethal... but it can be argued that a mace is actually a precision instrument of war compared to most of the items on the blunt table, and could reasonably be expected to be inflicting enough head-shots that whap-dead-do-not-pause-for-unconciousness is a reasonable treatment of the weapon along with it serving a strictly meta-game goal of introducing some variety to the tables. Because unfortunately a good designer does actually have to pay attention to the balance and sweep of the table as a whole, not just their pet favorite weapon. I, being old enough to have the first Conan movie permanently etched into my grey matter, am in fact quite fond of the maul, being one of the highly distinctive weapons one of the badguys uses. The maul's stats make it, as anyone whose played a few rounds with the rules as written will tell you, a (*&%%ing fierce weapon as much because of it being subdual as any of its other lovely keywords..

[Seekerofshadowlight]

Thank ya for taking the time to explain all that. I know you didn't have to and I sure appreciate it. For me it was not being able to crit, but I see your line of thinking with it now.

[Morgenstern]

Like I said at the outset - I'm learning my brain is wired funny. I hope that you gain some useful insights from my ramblings - and more importantly that the game proves as fun in play for you as it can be interesting in abstract .