[Skarg]

Originally Posted by Original_Carl

Aside from the Squad Leader mention -- and it's been at least 30 years since I've played that game, so I'm taking that poster's word for it -- I don't recall any RPG (war games are different!) where a successful hit could result in no damage without some kind of rule-exception in the form of a power/talent/spell/condition/whatever. But that said, a Zero Damage result rule is very war game-y, and Melee is much closer to a war game than an RPG. If any of that is true, then I can see why this rule exists.

Originally Posted by kjamma4

And even fewer where a "critical" hit does zero damage.

See Steve Jackson's other RPG, GURPS, for another RPG where you can hit for zero damage, and where the median results on the Critical Hit and Critical Head Hit tables are "no special effect".

As someone who started with TFT and then GURPS, and who has tried but others but has always preferred Steve's RPG's, one of the main features for me has always been that (yes, like wargames, and unlike typical RPGs) the rules and stats are actually making an effort to behave like the situation. A weak attack (e.g. improvised weapons, a torch, a light weapon) may well hit but do no significant damage on the scale of TFT ST because that mostly makes sense and is a good representation of the situation. (e.g. if a Rapier or Horse Bow does 1d6, a dagger or Short Bow should do less than that. And there needs to be a way to represent attacks that might hurt you some but may not (1d-3, 1d-4, 1d-5).

Originally Posted by Original_Carl

What gives me pause is that I would think there would be at least one example in the text of this occurring. It seems pretty significant to me, and all three rulebooks fail to bring this up as an example across numerous examples of combat.

Well TFT does have only three short (two merely one-on-one) examples of combat, and since only the lightest in the game have any chance of doing zero damage, it's not liable to come up (IIRC, only the Magic Fist attack in the Wizard example could have rolled zero damage).

"Any hit always does at least 1 damage" would be gamey in a way that TFT's rules logic generally is not. If players really want to, of course they can house rule otherwise.

Originally Posted by Original_Carl

But seriously, there may be a very good reason that Zero Damage on a successful hit is an expected result and I'm starting to think that it might make the game less deadly. The argument about "lighter" weapons having other advantages is a good one, too.

Yes, it does make it less deadly, especially in situations where there are a large number of light attacks, such as a barrage of sling shots or rocks... or unarmed attacks by ordinary not very strong people.