chainsaws and power drills that are turned off?

[Plane]

was looking at the Improvised Weapons list on Monster Hunters 1 Champions pg 60 and noticing the limited minutes of run-time...

In a gritty game where you ran out of gas/batteries but wanted to keep using them, any idea how much less damage they should do?

[Anaraxes]

A chainsaw without power is just an awkward club, poorly balanced, too heavy, and with the center of mass too close the hand instead of out on the end where it should be to get a decent swing damage bonus like a mace. The chain itself is sharpened, but not like a sword edge. (Chain saws rip, rather than slice -- but that needs the teeth to be moving.)

I'd call it a TL1 club with "flanges" (per LTC2) for sw +1 crushing damage. The chain isn't any sharper than flakes of flint or obsidian embedded into a wooden club.

A drill without power is just a metal rod. The edge it has is tucked inside the spiral groove, hard to cut yourself on even accidentally. The "point" (if I can call it that) for a typical drill bit is very blunt, like around 80 degrees. It's meant to make a little dent to help keep the drill centered, not do any actual piercing. And the bits are too short to count as impaling, even if the bit is thin enough not to simply be thrust crushing damage. Pens or styli do dagger - 2 damage, and they have sharp points. Maybe you could rate it as thr -2 pi-, just to make it different from a baton.

[Dalillama]

A power drill without power is probably best used to 'pistol'-whip people with. As a fistload it should be equivalent to a decent sized handgun. A chainsaw is basically useless as a weapon in a gritty game, powered or not; swinging them into flesh at semirandom angles of attack is a great way to jam your chainsaw up seriously, or otherwise render it nonfunctional.

[Anthony]

Note that the table in MH1 is distinctly cinematic; realistically, both are cruddy weapons even if powered. In any case, a chainsaw is a horribly balanced club, a drill is a dagger with a terrible tip design (I'd call it Thr-2 Imp(0.5) with a high chance of breakage).

[awesomenessofme1]

The chainsaw as presented in Horror is significantly more fitting for a realistic game. Among other things, it adds a (0.5) armor divisor when hitting anything hard, much harsher breakage rules, and about a doubling of the weight.

EDIT: That was supposed to be a response to the previous comment. It's not much use in answering the actual topic of the thread.

[Mark Skarr]

I would allow a larger drill bit, held in a hand, to turn punching damage from crushing to piercing. Larger bits would probably inflict -1/die but be large piercing.

Any bit large enough to inflict huge piercing damage, I would think, would be too awkward for a human to wield in an effective way and would only do crushing damage.

[Anaraxes]

A spade bit might serve as a sort of punch dagger, though it's still more like thrusting with an edge than a point. At least they do have a sharp point and exposed sharp edges.

[Pursuivant]

A cordless power drill is essentially a really clumsy (-2 to Hit) light club. If you jab with the drill bit it can be treated as a Cheap-quality small knife which can only do piercing or small piercing damage, based on the diameter of the bit.

An unpowered chainsaw would be an incredibly unbalanced (-3 or -4 to skill) Cheap-quality two-handed sword.

Even Fine quality power tools are likely to be Cheap quality if used as weapons because the metal parts aren't tempered correctly for use as weapons. As an example, drill bits are made from steel, and then tempered so that the steel is very hard and rigid but brittle relative to a sword. A good sword might be able to flex 6" out of line with no problems. A drill bit just breaks.

[dcarson]

Wrapping the chain from a chainsaw around as club might make a decent weapon.

[Anthony]

Originally Posted by Pursuivant

Even Fine quality power tools are likely to be Cheap quality if used as weapons because the metal parts aren't tempered correctly for use as weapons.

Based on the number of drill bits I've broken as compared to the number of kitchen knives I've broken, even that's probably generous.