Improving the Tonfa

[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.

[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.