12-31-2014, 02:09 PM | #11 |
Join Date: Aug 2005
Location: Cowtown, Canada
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Re: Improving the Tonfa
I always thought the only useful part of it was letting somebody with a high unarmed combat skill use an unarmed parry effectively against a weapon. If you have Karate at 20, grab a tonfa if you plan on going against anybody with weapons. Otherwise take Shortsword at 21 and go to town with a long knife or better. The only other nice thing about it is it can easily be hidden under very loose sleeves typical of some places and times, in a ready-to-use position. Trying to pull a sword out of your sleeve will take a bit longer whereas with the tonfa you can still punch with it. If you parry while it is hidden under the sleeves it can help your character develop an 'iron arm' reputation as well.
I basically file it under 'cool martial arts weapon for usually unarmed characters' and leave it at that.
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12-31-2014, 02:17 PM | #12 | ||
Join Date: Nov 2011
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Re: Improving the Tonfa
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12-31-2014, 02:21 PM | #13 |
Join Date: Mar 2005
Location: Maitland, NSW, Australia
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Re: Improving the Tonfa
A tonfa and short staff can be assembled into a crutch for someone pretending to be crippled.
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12-31-2014, 02:25 PM | #14 |
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Join Date: Oct 2004
Location: Forest Grove, Beaverton, Oregon
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Re: Improving the Tonfa
It's hard to imagine a place so restrictive on weapons that one would need to smuggle in sticks. Interesting ancient Chinese settings involving sneaking in to assassinate royalty might fit, I suppose.
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12-31-2014, 02:27 PM | #15 | |
Join Date: Jul 2008
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Re: Improving the Tonfa
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And, well, the tonfa does have a niche of 'superiority', if you let the term be flexible enough. You can use it both as a baton and as an arm-guard for 'unarmed' parries. Other weapons don't do that. It is true that that doesn't encourage specializing in Tonfa skill, but it is a merit of the tonfa as a weapon. Police in particular have significant potential use for both modes. And once the tonfa is your issued weapon, then there's some merit to actually learning to use it well as a weapon, even if in that role it would be outperformed by some other weapon that you are not allowed to carry.
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12-31-2014, 02:32 PM | #16 |
Join Date: Sep 2007
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Re: Improving the Tonfa
If the goal is just to make it more mechanically appealing, you could always just declare it an ethnic badass weapon.
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12-31-2014, 02:36 PM | #17 |
Join Date: Jul 2008
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Re: Improving the Tonfa
How so? It's got a bonus to a technique you usually won't use, and loses the reach C option on a thrust. It's better if you intend to really use those disarming moves, but do you?
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12-31-2014, 02:36 PM | #18 |
Untagged
Join Date: Oct 2004
Location: Forest Grove, Beaverton, Oregon
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Re: Improving the Tonfa
To me it seems like a nice bridge between fully unarmed and fully armed. The more realistic the combat, the more useful it is.
Using house rules that reduce damage, anything that improves unarmed force greatly improves effectiveness, as well as removing Karate's absurd ability to parry weapons without risk. The psychological effects of using a one handed blunt weapon versus a more overtly lethal weapon like blades cannot be ignored in any situation not full out war. You come at me with a sword, I know that you're trying to kill me, and I must fight with everything I have.
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12-31-2014, 03:07 PM | #19 | |
Join Date: Jun 2013
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Re: Improving the Tonfa
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If you want tonfaguy to be a decent choice, then just like making sword-chuck guy a decent choice you're going to have to change some things. For tonfaguy, making access to weapons (and weapon-using skills) extremely restricted works. For both, letting the weapon be cinematically useful (in the case of sword-chucks, that's pretty much "usable at all") can give it a leg up. If you're looking for a good reason for realistic, armed-combat-oriented characters with reliable access to other weapons to use one, you'll likely be looking for a long time. |
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12-31-2014, 03:22 PM | #20 |
Join Date: Jan 2009
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Re: Improving the Tonfa
For wuxia or kung-fu-movie campaigns where everyone is expected to have a degree of skill in both armed and unarmed combat, a tonfa can be a remarkable point-saver, permitting a tonfa-dude to save something in the neighborhood of 2-12 points to invest somewhere else. That benefit isn't small: you can do a lot with those points.
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Tags |
house rules, low-tech, martial arts, tonfa, weapons. |
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