Improving the Tonfa

[Kale]

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.

[Sindri]

Originally Posted by DanHoward

The whole point of the Police tonfa/baton is that it isn't very effective at killing people. Police carry them because they are less lethal than their sidearm. These days the taser meets that criteria.

Well I'm not really looking at this from a high tech point of view. From the perspective of not being very effective at killing people the jutte does the same damage but is generally much better.

Originally Posted by Kale

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.

Yeah the primary point as it stands is as a tool for unarmed fighters. Hiding it under sleeves is a good point, I should keep that in mind.

[DanHoward]

A tonfa and short staff can be assembled into a crutch for someone pretending to be crippled.

[Flyndaran]

Originally Posted by DanHoward

A tonfa and short staff can be assembled into a crutch for someone pretending to be crippled.

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.

[Ulzgoroth]

Originally Posted by Sindri

That's part of the problem really. If it's just a bad choice on the weapons list that's a shame especially if one of the players likes tonfa but it's not a big problem. However it's frustrating for a PC to have to put up with gear that is mechanically bad though if they are a member of that police force. It's much more pleasant for the PC if their assigned gear has some kind of niche of superiority even if it's overall worse than other choices.

...That's just not a reasonable expectation for regulation gear, I think. There's some reason it's the regulation gear, but it's very likely to be one at a policy or political level that is contrary or irrelevant to the PC's direct interests.

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.

[Anaraxes]

If the goal is just to make it more mechanically appealing, you could always just declare it an ethnic badass weapon.

[Ulzgoroth]

Originally Posted by Sindri

Well I'm not really looking at this from a high tech point of view. From the perspective of not being very effective at killing people the jutte does the same damage but is generally much better.

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?

[Flyndaran]

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.

[Varyon]

Originally Posted by Sindri

It should certainly be able to use the Hook technique and also hook various things such as in climbing. Giving it a chance to protect the forearm in the right grip and maybe the hand is a good idea. A +1 to parry in reverse grip seems a bit strong. Certainly the tonfa is good at parrying in reverse grip but if it gets one there are probably quite a few other weapons that equally deserve it.

Compared to the bulk of the alternatives, a tonfa really isn't a very good weapon. It was originally used because it was difficult to have access to anything better. Police forces likely adopted it because a) it's a less-lethal truncheon with a handguard and b) it can be used to enhance unarmed combat (and many cops are probably better at Brawling than Shortsword).

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.

[Toptomcat]

Originally Posted by Sindri

Yeah the primary point as it stands is as a tool for unarmed fighters.

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.