Improving the Tonfa

[Icelander]

Originally Posted by Gollum

I'm not even speaking about the bo... And not even about the jo (which inflicts sw+1 cr/thr+1 cr, according to GURPS rules - which is much more than the tonkwa). An even shorter staff... A mere wooden blackjack... Said like that, ancient Okinawan martial artists sound to be very, very stupid. Were they? Really? Do Martial Arts authors really believe that?

Note that GURPS statistics for the quarterstaff and jo assume a specimen that was designed and built as a lethal weapon, in the case of the quarterstaff explicitly including metal-reinforced ends.

A length of light wood like a more typical modern training jo does not do sw+1 cr and thr+1 cr, it does at the very most sw cr and thr cr.

[vicky_molokh]

Originally Posted by Icelander

Note that GURPS statistics for the quarterstaff and jo assume a specimen that was designed and built as a lethal weapon, in the case of the quarterstaff explicitly including metal-reinforced ends.

A bo doesn't have metal ends, but does sw+2/thr+1 damage.

Originally Posted by Icelander

A length of light wood like a more typical modern training jo does not do sw+1 cr and thr+1 cr, it does at the very most sw cr and thr cr.

The four-to-five feet, 2 lbs? It does do +1/+1 (see p. MA230).

Now, the Yagyuzue, which is a lacquered metal jo-sized staff, does sw+2 and thr+1.

[Icelander]

Originally Posted by vicky_molokh

A bo doesn't have metal ends, but does +2/+2 damage.

Note that the description of a quarterstaff (or something Kromm posted once) states that one lacking metal-shot ends does -1 damage. Even if a bo is treated as a quarterstaff in the rules, I wouldn't give it more damage for having a name in anothere language. The +2 dmg is for a metal-shod example.

Originally Posted by vicky_molokh

The four-to-five feet, 2 lbs? It does do +1/+1 (see p. MA230).

Presumably being made of hardwood.

[vicky_molokh]

Originally Posted by Icelander

Note that the description of a quarterstaff (or something Kromm posted once) states that one lacking metal-shot ends does -1 damage. Even if a bo is treated as a quarterstaff in the rules, I wouldn't give it more damage for having a name in anothere language. The +2 dmg is for a metal-shod example.

Presumably being made of hardwood.

MA says to treat a bo as a quarterstaff for stats. Maybe because it's actual combat version made of hardwood too? (Also note the Yagyuzue comparison, which does do sw+2, but is made of lacquered metal.)

[Tomsdad]

Originally Posted by Gollum

Yes. Thank you. It will be much more easy.


Not better in absolute terms.

The bo is much better for parrying and much better for keeping foes at bay. It's length allows to keep foes at bay. And the usual manner of handling it allows to enhance parries: you can parry gedan (down) while attacking almost at the same time jodan (up).

Side note: the jo could theoretically do that but not in reality; it is too short to allow it (I do agree with you here).

Ok that all make sense.

Originally Posted by Gollum

Now, yes, I think that the tonkwa is better for making damage. As I said it, its semi-circular move, its amazing speed (see the video if you can), the thickness of its wood and its very specific shape allows it to break bones quite easily. The tonkwa is more solid and compact than the bo. And when you hit vertically, you take benefit from its full weight while with a bo, the part which goes down is slowed by the part which has to go up. This is the problem with very long weapons. It is harder to give them a great speed. I can see it in all my kobudo trainings. No matter who handles them, the tonkwa really goes faster than the bo. Not just a bit. Really. It goes so much faster than every other weapon, that a specific parry is required when facing a tonkwa attack jodan.

This is where you lose me I think. The tonkwa being spun does indeed increase it's speed compared to if it was just swung, but that's because it's not that optimised for speed when swung. A Bo will end up with a tip moving as fast (if not faster due to increasing the radius of the arc).

Its also heavier, it also has more force being directly applied by the arms.

basically the spinning attack is an interesting one but it#s one which is making a virtue of the necessity of side angled grip one third down the length

Originally Posted by Toptomcat

*Sigh*

Okay, one more try.



Okay, then: if qualitative argument can't convince you, let's get back to physics. I'm going to take the initial tonfa swing in the sequence of five that starts at 1:02 in the video you provided as being representative of tonfa swings made by an expert.

The video has 30 frames per second. The cleanest frame of the instant the tonfa strikes is here: the blur of the striking tonfa has been highlighted. Conveniently, in that same frame, the figure's head is just about straight on to the camera, though tilted to the right just a bit: it's boxed here, from the tip of the chin to the top of the head.

From the tip of the chin to the top of the head, 95% of people are between 24.7 and 21.9 cm. So that's the size of the head rectangle.

In this image, both highlighting rectangles are present. They've been straightened out and laid next to each other in the upper right, the tonfa-blur rectangle in black. It can be seen that the tonfa-blur rectangle is just a hair more than two and one-sixteenths head rectangles.

24.7*2.0625 = 50.94375

21.9*2.0625 = 45.16875

So the tip of the tonfa moved between fifty-one and forty-five centimeters in that thirtieth-of-a-second frame. That's between 13.5 and 15.3 meters per second.

Happily, YouTube has another 30 fps video of the same guy doing strikes with a bo from more or less the same camera angle. Let's see if I can do a similar analysis...damn. The bo is fast enough that its tip altogether blurs out of existence on the frame in which the weapon reaches its maximum speed. I'll have to settle for the immediately previous frame, given the same treatment. This puts the staff blur at one and five-eights heads, or...

24.7*1.625 = 40.1375
21.9*1.625 = 35.5875

...between forty and thirty-five and a half centimeters in a thirtieth of a second, or between ten and a half and twelve meters per second.

Per your numbers, a tonfa weighs a pound, or 0.453592 kilos.

This rokushakubo weighs 1.2 kilos.

At the low end of my velocity estimates- 13.5 m/sec for the tonfa and 10.5 m/sec for the rokushakubo- the tonfa will have kinetic energy (not 'power') of 41.33 Joules, while the KE of the bo will be 66.15 Joules.

At the high end- 15.3 m/sec for the tonfa and 12 m/sec for the bo- the tonfa's KE will be 53 Joules, the bo's 86.4 Joules.

This is all very sloppy, back-of-the-envelope physics. For instance, it doesn't account for the way a staff swing will effectively hit as if it had far more mass than a staff of the same weight and velocity sailing through space on its own, because of the way the staff's weight is linked to the body's in a way that a side-handled tonfa swing is not. It calculates the momentum as if it were linear, rather than angular. It doesn't take perspective into account. It picks the fastest instant of the tonfa strike and has to settle for the second-fastest instant of the bo strike.

It's nowhere near perfectly precise- but it does demonstrate that a tonfa swing is simply not that much faster than a bo swing in terms of terminal velocity*, and that even if the term for mass is linear while the term for velocity is exponential, it's still possible for a slower big thing to hit harder than a faster small thing for reasonable real-world masses and velocities.

*Now, there is a sense in which the tonfa is much, much faster than the bo. From the beginning to the end of the striking motion, much less time will elapse for a tonfa strike than a bo strike. This is a factor of considerable real-world importance in fighting: if you can hit twice by the time I'm finished with one blow, it sucks to be me. But the tip of the weapon isn't moving not very much faster at the instant the weapon is moving fastest, which is the sense of 'fast' which is relevant for the actual damage dealt by an individual strike with the weapon.

Nice, cheers for the work on that.

Originally Posted by Gollum

Too important (and brilliant) to be ignored...

Thank you for that brilliant demonstration. Just note that I did admit that the comparison with the bow (as equal) was debatable and precisely wrote:

• tonkwa: sw+1 cr / thr cr.
• while bo would remain: sw+2 cr / thr+2 cr.

Which still makes a huge difference.

Now, could you make the same comparison with a short baton, please, to see if the tonkwa is really no more than that?

Only the Bo is actually a point less if it not shod. (I'd forgotten that)

Originally Posted by Gollum

But why would Okinawan people designed a so strange weapon by taking a lot of time to modify a tool originally used for grain while taking a mere baton would have been exactly as effective? Or even much more effective...

Because they actually did both, the Tonkwa was not the only peasant weapons ever used in Okinawa. Your talking about a MA that came out of training with one specific weapon with some pretty specific uses.

It's niche-ness does't detract from it utility, you seem to be worrying to much about how the Tonkwa matches against other weapons. But I don't think that's the right way to look at this.

The tonkwa was really good at being a tonkwa, and sometimes that's what you needed (or what you had trained in, so was your best choice)

A better question is if the tonkwa was this amazing damaging peasant weapon why wasn't it more ubiquitous

Instead for most of it history it was pretty geographically specific weapon, with specialised training in the from of pretty isolated martial arts.

Originally Posted by vicky_molokh

MA says to treat a bo as a quarterstaff for stats. Maybe because it's actual combat version made of hardwood too? (Also note the Yagyuzue comparison, which does do sw+2, but is made of lacquered metal.)

I think it fair to assume all staffs were the local equivalent of hard wood (why would they not be), so it's reasonable to assume an unshod Bo did less damage than shod quarter staff. The Yagyuzue would seem to be shod by definition.

[Gollum]

Originally Posted by Tomsdad

This is where you lose me I think. The tonkwa being spun does indeed increase it's speed compared to if it was just swung, but that's because it's not that optimised for speed when swung. A Bo will end up with a tip moving as fast (if not faster due to increasing the radius of the arc).

Its also heavier, it also has more force being directly applied by the arms.

basically the spinning attack is an interesting one but it one which is making a virtue of the necessity of side angled grip one third sown the length.

Yes. It sounds that it is only my opinion here. I've no other argument and I may be wrong, indeed. As so many kobudokas... Having said that, it doesn't solve the other problem, the historical one.

Originally Posted by Tomsdad

The tonkwa was really good at being a tonkwa, and sometimes that's what you needed (or what you had trained in, so was your best choice).

Following GURPS rules (and with kobudo use of the tonkwa), tonkwa has absolutely no utility. Short staff is better. So, the man who designed the tonkwa was just stupid (he'd better have picked up a short staff in the wood) and those who learn kobudo are completely stupid too. They spend hours of training for a clumsy weapon (the normal grip is absolutely better - as it has been said). Brief, they'd better learn another weapon... Or choose to learn the modern police use of the tonkwa... It's amazing the number of great kobudo masters who are completely stupid...

Hence this thread... How to make the tonfa more attractive?

And its answer: no way. Choose another weapon, poor idiot!

I'm exaggerating a bit. There is another solution. Creating specific techniques... Good luck, since it is not a good weapon. Just an ethnic creation by someone very strange...

[DouglasCole]

Lots of comparisons with the bo here. The strike being described with the spinning feels rather more like a nunchuk motion. Short radius, same weight weapon, same reach (actually tonfa will have shorter reach than most nunchuks).

If the motions and physics of the two are the same, they should do similar damage. if the flail has superior velocity in a real-world fighting mode, and when one looks at, say, a hatchet (2 lbs, balanced, does sw), does the spinning tonfa strike qualify as closer to one, or the other.

Finally, and forgive me if this has already been done, but this spinning thing sounds an awful lot like something that requires training, can be screwed up, and has a damage bonus if it works. So break out the Technique Design System.

I'm going to say that this technique improves the strike to the level of the nunchuks. More would be too generous. That's +1 to damage, or (optionally in my games) +1 per 2 dice. That's a default of -2.

But it also seems to me that if you don't do it right, the weapon won't come back into a good place for both attack and parry. That sounds like weapon Unready to me. So +1 to default.

This is an armed strike - a weapon swing. So Average.

Kobujutsu Tonfa Strike

Average

Defaults: Karate-1 for attack; Karate-4 for instant ready.
Prerequisite: Karate; cannot exceed prerequisite skill.

This attack attempts to use the handle of the tonfa to allow the baton to rotate sharply, more in the manner of a striking nunchuk than a swung baton. This spinning is more difficult than a usual Karate-based swing, and defaults to Karate-1, damage on a successful strike is sw+1 cr.

After the strike, the weapon is likely to be out of position - it automatically becomes unready even on a success. A Ready maneuver will allow repositioning the grip to any desired. It may also be done after the strike as a free action by rolling Karate-4. The technique buys off both penalties simultaneously. Weapon Master halves the basic re-ready penalty to -2.

[Tomsdad]

Originally Posted by Gollum

Yes. It sounds that it is only my opinion here. I've no other argument and I may be wrong, indeed. As so many kobudokas... Having said that, it doesn't solve the other problem, the historical one.

The thing is while I'd definitely go to a kobudoka in order to look at Tonkwa's at their most effective. I'm not sure I'd go to them for an even handed assessment of them in comparison to other weapons!

Originally Posted by Gollum

Following GURPS rules (and with kobudo use of the tonkwa), tonkwa has absolutely no utility. Short staff is better. So, the man who designed the tonkwa was just stupid (he'd better have picked up a short staff in the wood) and those who learn kobudo are completely stupid too. They spend hours of training for a clumsy weapon (the normal grip is absolutely better - as it has been said). Brief, they'd better learn another weapon... Or choose to learn the modern police use of the tonkwa... It's amazing the number of great kobudo masters who are completely stupid...

Hence this thread... How to make the tonfa more attractive?

And its answer: no way. Choose another weapon, poor idiot!

I'm exaggerating a bit. There is another solution. Creating specific techniques... Good luck, since it is not a good weapon. Just an ethnic creation by someone very strange...

Well I think your selling the Tonkwa short even in GURPS terms basically as per by post #105. Remember if you take the shoding in question an unshod Bo is only doing a point more damage than a Tonkwa.



EDIT, and thinking laterally, what about putting an end cap on a tonkwa for +1 damage?

[Langy]

Originally Posted by Gollum

Maybe because historical arguments are ignored and just treated as an "ethnic" irrelevant past... But if the purpose of a weapon cannot be found in its origin, where can it be found?

I'm not sure you know this, but an 'Ethnic Cool Weapon' is a term of art in GURPS. It's intended to make things like a Katana better than they were in reality because people think they're more awesome than they really are, just like you seem to think the Tonfa is more awesome than it really is.

Now, you're right. We are turning in round. And I'm tired of doing it. So I won't repeat anymore what I know for sure and what everyone can know just by reading the web (it's not a secret). Lets go on saying that the tonkwa wasn't use in Okinawa during samurai time, that kobudo senseis are all liars when they say that it is a very effective weapon, that they better learn to use a blackjack, and that the modern use of tonfa is the only possible use.

'An effective weapon' does not mean 'better than anything else'. The Tonfa was used because it was legal for them to use it, not because it did more damage than a club or an axe; it certainly didn't do as much damage as a Greatsword (Sw+3 damage), which is what was suggested it should do earlier in the thread!

[Ulzgoroth]

Originally Posted by Tomsdad

EDIT, and thinking laterally, what about putting an end cap on a tonkwa for +1 damage?

I dunno if an end cap is the right form factor to use, but LTC2 p14 seems to clearly support putting flanges or spikes onto a tonfa for +1 to damage.

Doing that might interfere with using it in the reverse grip. Then again, it might not.

I imagine it's historically not much of a thing because a spiked mill handle is not exactly subtle, and no modern users of tonfas really want to beat people to death efficiently with them.