Cestus does (1d-1) as a melee strike

[warhorse11h]

The rules could support either of two conclusions. One, the damage done by a cestus in regular combat is 1-1, as a dagger, which is what a main gauche is ruled to be for damage in regular combat. It can also be taken as written and that the damage is precisely what it would be for a figure fighting barehanded.

The first seems to be a little too powerful for what the cestus is and the second seems to confer no advantage to the wearer, other than the ability to parry and doesn't reflect that being punched by a cestus is probably going to hurt more than a fist.

Perhaps this is all the result of a rules discrepancy that never was addressed or simply an oversight in the rules.

Absent a fix from the designer, the best fix might be a house rule that in normal combat, a cestus strike does damage as in the table on pg 122 with a +1 damage, keeping the HTH +3 intact.