Giant Cestus Damage

[hcobb]

ITL 78: "Giants usually fight with clubs and without armor. On occasion, too, they fight with swords or axes, or with great cesti strapped to their hands (see p. 122)."

ITL 122: "When a fighter uses a dagger or cestus in HTH combat ..."

ITL 113: "A single cestus is treated exactly like a main-gauche ..."

ITL 126: "Trampling"

The Giant isn't in HTH with Eric the Emaciated? So the Cestus damage is the 1d-1 of the main-gauche in regular combat and not the 1d+6 of a (ST 30) main-gauche in HTH?

[Skarg]

Yeah, 1d-1, if it's even allowed to do a cestus attack as a giant against some smaller figure lying down in your own hex, without entering HTH.

I'd instead tend to have the giant do a melee kick attack, as that seems more certainly to be in reach of a groveling puny humanoid, and it would do ST-based unarmed attack damage.

[TippetsTX]

Further illustration of the problem in applying human-size weapons and damage ratios to 'huge' figures.

'Great cesti' should probably have unique stats.

[Shostak]

Originally Posted by TippetsTX

Further illustration of the problem in applying human-size weapons and damage ratios to 'huge' figures.

'Great cesti' should probably have unique stats.

Agreed. Given that a giant's club does damage off the charts (I can't reconcile it to the info for clubs on ITL 122), a giant cestus should certainly do a heap of damage.

[hcobb]

Here's my suggested fix:

Great Cestus: For every 10 full base ST rating of this weapon it does 1d damage, costs $20 and weighs 2 pounds. It does an additional point of damage per die in HTH. So the ST 30 Great Cestus does 3d damage (3d+3 in HTH), costs $60 and weighs 6 pounds.

[larsdangly]

I don't understand what you guys are talking about. The cestus does damage by ST, which should be 1d+6 for a ST 30 giant, and there is no indication that it can only be used in HTH; why would you have it do 1d-1 when attacking an adjacent figure?

[TippetsTX]

Well, Henry is clearly taking the following text too literally... "A single cestus is treated exactly like a main-gauche". That phrase definitely should not be interpreted to include damage.

My issue is that while I agree that 1d+6 is respectable damage (7-12 points) for such a simple weapon, it does bug me a bit that cestus sized for a human hand and one for a creature at least twice as big still have the same +3 damage adjustment.

[hcobb]

TFT ST and damage are quadratic.

ST 13 is 69% "greater" than ST 10
ST 33 is 21% "greater" than ST 30

And so on.

[Axly Suregrip]

The weapon table (ITL page 110) lists cestus damage as "By ST" and "Damage depends on ST". This to me means the HTH chart damage is always used with a cestus whether in HTH or not. The line about being like a Main Gauche is about how to handle DX penalties and other aspects.

In non-HTH the cestus fists should do more damage what the naked fists would do. So, to me the cestus giant does 1+6 in and out of HTH.

[Skarg]

Originally Posted by Axly Suregrip

The weapon table (ITL page 110) lists cestus damage as "By ST" and "Damage depends on ST". This to me means the HTH chart damage is always used with a cestus whether in HTH or not. The line about being like a Main Gauche is about how to handle DX penalties and other aspects.

In non-HTH the cestus fists should do more damage what the naked fists would do. So, to me the cestus giant does 1+6 in and out of HTH.

Yeah, despite my initial comment, that's how I have done it, too.