[Basic] Skill of the week: Breaking Blow

[Anders]

Better have something to absorb the blow or your hand will be turned into jelly.

[sir_pudding]

Originally Posted by Anders

Better have something to absorb the blow or your hand will be turned into jelly.

Isn't that part of the skill already?

[Anders]

I don't know. Maybe it is. It should be.

[sir_pudding]

Originally Posted by Anders

I don't know. Maybe it is. It should be.

Okay, I'm a little confused. I read:

Originally Posted by B182

On a failure, your attack gains no special benefits. On a critical failure, you do the damage to your own hand or foot.

As meaning that you only take damage on a critical failure. What am I missing?

[RogerBW]

The only character in my archives with this skill is a soldier I statted up for a Reign of Steel one-shot, who has it as part of the Robot Fighting style. I don't recall it being used.

[simply Nathan]

I usually just go with Forced Entry and allow its damage bonus to stack with Brawling/Karate/Weapon Master. I keep forgetting cinematic skills other than Power Blow and Throwing Art even exist.

[Ulzgoroth]

Originally Posted by sir_pudding

Okay, I'm a little confused. I read:

As meaning that you only take damage on a critical failure. What am I missing?

Hurting Yourself (B379). A devastating unarmed blow to a hard object is liable to be unpleasant.

EDIT: However, that's not really a special problem with Breaking Blow, except that anything you hit with it will probably be hard enough to trigger Hurting Yourself.

[sir_pudding]

Originally Posted by Ulzgoroth

Hurting Yourself. A devastating unarmed blow to a hard object is liable to be unpleasant.

Well, I suppose it doesn't explicitly say that Hurting Yourself doesn't apply to Breaking Blow, but does it need to? It does say that you suffer injury on a critical failure, or do you suppose that on a critical failure you are supposed to take [damage rolled]+[1/5 damage rolled (up to target's DR)]?

[Ulzgoroth]

Originally Posted by sir_pudding

Well, I suppose it doesn't explicitly say that Hurting Yourself doesn't apply to Breaking Blow, but does it need to? It does say that you suffer injury on a critical failure, or do you suppose that on a critical failure you are supposed to take [damage rolled]+[1/5 damage rolled (up to target's DR)]?

Yes, it needs to say that if it means it. Saying you do take damage under one condition doesn't at all imply you don't take a different damage under a different condition.

Delivering both the Breaking Blow botch injury and any applicable Hurting Yourself injury on a critical failure would seem to be the most literal interpretation. But one could argue for just taking the injury specified by Breaking Blow in that case.