Rules & Rulings from Session 185

Some rules and rulings from Sunday's game session.

Throwing Art & Damage Bonus

This was a sizeable issue. I believe Vic ran this as follows:

- allows you to throw anything.
- weapons without a stat line get to use a similar weapon with no penalties.
- Range bonus and damage bonus apply to any actual weapons even if not normally throwable.

That's not how I read DFRPG Adventurers, p. 34. I read it as follows:

- allows you to throw anything.
- actual thrown weapons with a ranged weapon stat line get a range bonus and damage bonus.
- weapons without a stat line are improvised and are thrown like a similar ranged weapon, but do not get a range bonus or damage bonus.
- said weapons usually have a -1 to -3 penalty to hit, which Throwing Art ignores.
- said weapons use whatever the similar weapon's attack types (see below) but if their own similar attack does less damage, use that instead.

So a thrown kama has the Acc and Range of a hatchet, and does sw/cut. I allow sw/imp because I've played around with actual kama and that's a more plausible missile attack than the cutting, but letting it manage to cut isn't crazy either. Again, I've played around with actual kama.*

Now, I did argue duing Vic's game that Hanari should be able to throw his katana and inflict cutting damage, because I thought that would be awesome and it wasn't my call. He allowed for it. Would I? Generally not. A spinning sword is going to do crappy cutting damage, if any, because all that spin around a balanced blade can't be good for preserving any kind of force or impart it to the target. Their is a reason that sw/thrown weapons are all top-heavy weapons. Anyway, in my game, no. Throw your sword point-first; I may allow "tip slash" damage if you want to crease the edge along a target, though. Ask when it matters.

So I had to put my foot down and not allow a thrown Long Knife to do sw-1/cutting; it's thrown like a lowsy large knife. I understand the logic - it doesn't have an entry for throwing, it's thrown like a similar weapon, and if he could throw a katana for cut in a related game he should be able to do so here. But I intend to be strict on my stance.

FWIW I checked with Kromm, and his response is consistant with my interpretation for DFRPG, our base rules set. GURPS Martial Arts, p. 220, has different rules, but DF Felltower is cored by DFRPG at this point, with expansions, and the simpler rules in DFRPG win out here.

My player took it very well, but I know he put a lot of work in making weapons stat up nicely in GCS and then in Foundry and now those stats are inaccurate.

Balanced and Throwable

Does the Balanced prefix make a normally non-throwable weapon into a throwable weapon (and thus able to get those range and damage bonuses)? No. It provides +1 to skill. The name implies "balanced for throwing" but the name isn't the game effects. I mean, "Fine" means "+1 damage and harder to break" for swords but they aren't ornate, which is what "finely made" might mean in reality. Names are just names to imply a game effect.

I don't allow a different prefix to make weapons throwable, nor do I allow a non-prefix cost change. Stick with what's on the charts, there are plenty of weapons there. The game is about delving and exploring and killing monsters and finding gold, not optimizing custom weaponry to add options to an already broad list of effective weapons. My player's spending habits for their PCs disagree but here we are.

FWIW, one important caveat - Weapon Master matters. That's per weapon, and it doesn't matter how you use that weapon. Damage bonuses from WM do get included for throwing normally non-throwable weapons if the WM advantage covers it.

Shoot it off your own face

What's the penalty to shoot a spider, or stirge, or whatever, off of your own face?

-10. Only a critical miss will result in shooting yourself.

How did we come up with that?

Because reversing your bow so you can shoot something on you, in such a way that overpenetration or a miss has a minimal chance of hitting yourself, seems really hard. Stupidly so.

Does Heroic Archer reduce the penalty? No. It makes it possible. I won't even allow someone without it to try. It's stupid and illogical and makes no sense to even work, nevermind hit with full damage and be doable on a 1-second time scale with no special moves to ready anything. Heroic Archer means you can try.

That ruling makes me happy, and the couple times this has come up Scouts haven't hesitated to try. So I think that's a vote in favor!



* You can literally buy one out of a bin in Japanese hardware stores. Weaponized kama, no, but tool ones, sure. I didn't buy one, I grew morning glories and they didn't need much pruning.**
** My job successor threw them out, because she was a late riser and said the pots only had vines and never flowers. Timing matters. RIP flowers.