To stun or not to stun, Somthing not right here..... Options

[Mortax]

Okay, so I was looking through the boards and a thought struck me.

If I remember the rules correctly, hammers should do stun damage by rules. I may not be remembering this right but if I am...

As someone who spends many hours a day swinging variouse sizes of hammers (blacksmithing), I don't see them doing stun. I could prolly only do stun if I tried real hard, but with a little 16 oz claw hammer it would be hard. With my 10 lb. hammer.. That thing will break bones very easily. One of the other guys at work found that out when it sliped out of his hand and broke his toe.

So I gues my question is, am I remembering stun damage rules right. When does stun become physical damage? Clubs? Staffs?

Without books.....grumble grumble..

[hobgoblin]

i belive i have read atleast one discussion about stun vs physical damage and what kind of real life damage falls under each.

still, stun damage can represent stuff like broken fingers and toes. hell, maybe even broken arms and legs. imo that is...

allso, you can allways do physical damage with blunt melee items, just by taking a -2 to power or something.

physical damage seems to be when there is open or internal bleeding created. so a broken leg where the bone have been pushed out thru the flesh or a broken rib that have gone thru a lung may well represent physical damage from blunt trauma rather then a sharp object.

thing is tho that the human body is buildt to handle blunt trauma to some degree and therefor its more difficult to do physical damage that way. you have to hit in special places or in special ways to do real lethal damage using blunt force. or just with enough force to crack someones skull open (good luck doing that on a troll tho).

[Mortax]

[Cain]

Clubs, IIRC, do stun damage; but maces do physical (or, at least they *can* do physical). I'd be more inclined to classify a hammer as macelike than clublike.

A light wound heals in 24 hours, assuming a successful Body test. Which, granted, isn't enough time for a broken finger to heal-- but a disjointed finger or toe would be functional in that time. With a splint on, even a broken finger won't be much of a hindrance anymore.

The thing to remember is, healing doesn't mean you're completely back to normal. It means you're no longer taking penalties from the wound. The day after you took a Light wound, you're still going to have bruises and marks-- they're just not going to be crippling you anymore.

As part of good roleplay, I try to carry across to my players that they still feel crappy, even after the wound is healed. But when it comes down to the pinch, they can bite the bullet and ignore the pain. They're hurt; they're just not wounded anymore.

[toturi]

A mace inflicts Stun as well. You are misremembering the spiked mace, which is intended to draw blood and therefore does Physical.

[FrostyNSO]

I can't think of anything that's happened to me in real life that isn't technically "physical" damage.

I feel "stunned" because I stood up and hit a steel beam, but that feeling of stun could just be the modifier. Really, I have inflicted physical damage upon myself, which my body quickly tries to "heal".

After a little bit, my head no longer hurts constantly, but I still feel tender for a day or so.

Really. L-M-S-D stun/physical doesn't really cut it when it comes to comparing it to RL.

[fistandantilus4....]

well when a poorly aimed shotgun blast is S dmg, I'd say a hammer would be M at base.

But as an actual weapon, I would see it as physical, as Mortax mentioned, jsut because of healing times. You can completely recover from deadly stun in a day (24 hrs). You can't do that with a broken arm or collar bone that a hammer could pretty easily inflict with one good smack.

[northern lights]

i made a character like this once, he used 2 5lb hammers as throwing weapons (and melee if he got desperate) and used a 16# sledge in melee.

the cheapest way to go would be to give him karate to give him physical damage. some argued the rules about it for like 20 minutes and in the end that is what i did.

but everyone at the table agreed that if i took them outside and clocked them with the sledge in the garage, they would suffer physical damage, but as they saw it, the rules don't reflect real world well enough to use that arguement.

in my world, i'd say that weapon definitely does physical damage, but i don't know how i'd clarify it for other people's games. maybe something along the lines of sacrificing 2 net successes to do physical.

i haven't slept much after last night / this morning 's run, so i'm still not thinking clearly.

[FrostyNSO]

Your group needs to give the rules-sticklering a fragging break. I'd go physical damage on those all the way...screw the "rules".

[kelvingreen]

[hyzmarca]

It is simple really, in Shadowrun having shards of your skull broken in half with jagged shards of bone driven into your brain will knock you unconscious but cause no lasting damage. It isn't like the brain is an important organ. Most people never get any use out of it, sort of like the appendix.

[Austere Emancipa...]

[Nevermind, better let this one rest.]

This post has been edited by Austere Emancipator: Nov 16 2006, 11:54 AM

[Kagetenshi]

Threadcromancy!

Anyway, silly as it is, Shadowrun's philosophy on the matter is your classic Hollywood "if it ain't sharp, it ain't real damage."

~J

[Austere Emancipa...]

Holy crap! Didn't even notice the posting dates, just picked this up from the Online Users list.

[Fortune]

[Trax]

Until I got to your post mentioning the date, I didn't notice it...

[Butterblume]

I noticed the date 8).

In SR4, most blunt weapons inflict physical damage.

[Wounded Ronin]

So, yes, just to clarify. In SR3 a lot of things do stun damage (like maces that don't technically have spikes, or nunchaku) which really shouldn't. That's not realistic but that's just the way the game is. Kind of like the 9M uber pistols when you load them with AV rounds.