Thrown Weapon (Dart) - What can I actually throw?

[Ulzgoroth]

Originally Posted by Phantasm

Pretty sure he's referencing the damages listed for everyday items thrown with Throwing Art.

Ah.

...Throwing art is, of course, intensely and unapologetically cinematic. And is it even compatible with the 'throw a box of stuff' rules?

[Ulzgoroth]

Originally Posted by Hellboy

It says an expanded list of improvised weapons that martial artists with TA would find helpful. Doesn't say ONLY they could find it helpful. But if that is the intent...it would be nice to revisit the list for thr ststs for all these items for people without the skill.

I figure armor divisor 0.5 fixes the issue since it gives 1 DR to everywhere but the eyes. A sewing needle to the eye should do the min 1.

The list is inside a Throwing Art specific block, and is extending a list in the Basic Throwing Art block about Throwing Art's special relationship with extreme improvised weapons.

I see no reason to think the content there has any applicability outside that context.

[evileeyore]

Originally Posted by Hellboy

Going with sewing needles for thrust-4 impale may be the ideal plan. They seem real light.

Maybe, just maybe, I'd give the larger leather sewing needles thr-6. Anything smaller I wouldn't allow to do damage without targeting eyes or vitals.
Which I would not allow to be done with your ludicrous "box of small junk" idea.

[Tomsdad]

Originally Posted by Ulzgoroth

Ah.

...Throwing art is, of course, intensely and unapologetically cinematic. And is it even compatible with the 'throw a box of stuff' rules?

Given it says:

"If you know Throwing Art, you can roll against that skill to hit,
and receive its usual bonuses to range and damage!"

In the box on pg120, I'd say yes


(of course IMO that just further underscores the cinematic nature of the whole thing, which you've pointed out)

[Rupert]

Originally Posted by evileeyore

Maybe, just maybe, I'd give the larger leather sewing needles thr-6. Anything smaller I wouldn't allow to do damage without targeting eyes or vitals.
Which I would not allow to be done with your ludicrous "box of small junk" idea.

Would you allow someone (assuming you're allowing the 'box of stuff' thing at all) to try and hit a snail? A rat? A cat?

An adult garden snail is about the size of an eye. A largish rat the size of the face, and a cat the size of a human's vitals. So, saying "You can't target the vitals" means you're also saying "It's impossible to hit a cat with this attack". Saying "You can't target the eyes" also means "You can't hit a snail".

This, BTW, is where many attempts to 'fix' being able to aim rapid fire at hit locations and have all shots that hit land in that location fall down. When you say things like "Only the first hit lands in the selected location", or are also saying that when shooting at small or distant targets only the first hit actually hits.

[Tomsdad]

Originally Posted by Rupert

Would you allow someone (assuming you're allowing the 'box of stuff' thing at all) to try and hit a snail? A rat? A cat?

An adult garden snail is about the size of an eye. A largish rat the size of the face, and a cat the size of a human's vitals. So, saying "You can't target the vitals" means you're also saying "It's impossible to hit a cat with this attack". Saying "You can't target the eyes" also means "You can't hit a snail".

This, BTW, is where many attempts to 'fix' being able to aim rapid fire at hit locations and have all shots that hit land in that location fall down. When you say things like "Only the first hit lands in the selected location", or are also saying that when shooting at small or distant targets only the first hit actually hits.

Personally my problem with targeting the vitals here is that as far as human or vaguely equivalent vitals go they're not just under the skin and susceptible to being reached by such low powered attacks. Evolution being what it is a lot of organisms which have vital structures tend to anatomically protect them with other structures*.

See also guidelines on first aid, trauma treatment and the reasoning behind some regs on bladed weapons etc that support this

Basically in terms of hitting them the vitals aren't just a smaller subdivision of a larger target.


So I have a house rule that is you have SM+1 worth of ordinary torso HP in front of vitals. I.e on a human you have to do at least two points of damage to reach a vital the first point won't get the vital x3 injury multiplier (but could get the a Imp, or Pi++ related one).


This also means that you don't have people dropping from knock down tests from 1 point attacks to vitals or requiring surgery to stop the lightest wounds possible in the system. It also makes TL0/1 mammoth hunts more difficult as you need to do more than just get one point of damage past DR over the mammoths vitals to force a HT knockdown


*of course if the structure has to be on or very near the surface of the organism to fulfill it's function, that get's in the way of this i.e eyes.

But then I also have a house rule that has eyes themselves be a HP/10 object in front of the brain that doesn't get the x4 injury multiplier or requires surgery to treat. Which has the side effect that at low damage you can now cripple eyes instead of pretty much automatically destroying them as by RAW the lowest injury a human eye can receive is 4 points

[Rupert]

Originally Posted by Tomsdad

Personally my problem with targeting the vitals here is that as far as human or vaguely equivalent vitals go they're not just under the skin and susceptible to being reached by such low powered attacks. Evolution being what it is a lot of organisms which have vital structures tend to anatomically protect them with other structures*.

See also guidelines on first aid, trauma treatment and the reasoning behind some regs on bladed weapons etc that support this

Basically in terms of hitting them the vitals aren't just a smaller subdivision of a larger target.


So I have a house rule that is you have SM+1 worth of ordinary torso HP in front of vitals. I.e on a human you have to do at least two points of damage to reach a vital the first point won't get the vital x3 injury multiplier (but could get the a Imp, or Pi++ related one).

That's different from not being allowed to attack them at all, which is what the post I was replying to was saying (or what I read it to be saying). I tend to agree with you when it comes to low damage attacks vs the Vitals, and as I recall the eyes worked like this WRT to becoming brain hits in 3e. So far as I can see in 4e all eye hits count as unarmoured brain hits, take x4 damage and thus almost always result in blinding. If I've missed a rule like 3e's where you have to cripple the eye with normal damage to get the x4 multiplier (which is how I run things), I'd love to know where it is, because I can't find it.

But then I also have a house rule that has eyes themselves be a HP/10 object in front of the brain that does get the x4 injury multiplier or only require surgery to treat. Which has the side effect that at low damage you can now cripple an eye instead of pretty much automatically destroy them as the by RAW the lowest injury a human eyes can take is 4 points

Ah, so I'm not the only one who has found this...

[Tomsdad]

Originally Posted by Rupert

That's different from not being allowed to attack them at all, which is what the post I was replying to was saying (or what I read it to be saying).

Oh I was just posting my thoughts on the vitals and very small attacks not really trying to negate what you were saying

Originally Posted by Rupert

I tend to agree with you when it comes to low damage attacks vs the Vitals, and as I recall the eyes worked like this WRT to becoming brain hits in 3e. So far as I can see in 4e all eye hits count as unarmoured brain hits, take x4 damage and thus almost always result in blinding. If I've missed a rule like 3e's where you have to cripple the eye with normal damage to get the x4 multiplier (which is how I run things), I'd love to know where it is, because I can't find it.
Ah, so I'm not the only one who has found this...

Yeah (sorry don't know much 3e though)!

to be fair it's only really an issue for very small attacks though. A lot of which are cinematic as per some of the stuff in the thread (and well it's described as cinematic for a reason and that impacts on expectation and weather I'd even bother to apply my house rule based on RL anatomy)

[evileeyore]

Originally Posted by Rupert

Would you allow someone (assuming you're allowing the 'box of stuff' thing at all) to try and hit a snail? A rat? A cat?

Apples to oranges. And yes, my rulings would be different, I don't treat my games as "reality simulators" so different circumstances can call for different rulings, even for "nearly identical" actions.

[Kalzazz]

If the Ninja Tailor wants to kill someone with a box of 100,000 needles . . . why not