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Improved Unarmed Strike really seems to be a worthless feat. All it really does is convert 1d3 nonlethal to 1d3 lethal damage. D20 Modern did a little tweak that doesn't seem to imbalance gameplay, but makes an unarmed combat feat slightly more useful by having unarmed lethal provide 1d4 damage. It seems a fair house rule to adopt this feat instead of Improved Unarmed Strike. Thoughts?
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IUS also has a second effect: It makes it so that using unarmed strike does not provoke attacks of opportunity, and makes it so that you can take attacks of opportunity with it (because you now count as armed with it).
Upping the damage to 1d4 wouldn't have any appreciable balance impact, as far as I know.
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IUS also has a second effect: It makes it so that using unarmed strike does not provoke attacks of opportunity, and makes it so that you can take attacks of opportunity with it (because you now count as armed with it).
Upping the damage to 1d4 wouldn't have any appreciable balance impact, as far as I know.
You are correct. Still, the only real difference between the two feats is that IUS maintains damage at 1d3, whereas CMS ups it to 1d4.
D20 Modern did a little tweak that doesn't seem to imbalance gameplay
The real change was how nonlethal damage is handled in D20M:
"Nonlethal damage does not affect the target’s hit points. Instead, compare the amount of nonlethal damage from an attack to the target’s massive damage threshold. If the amount is less than the target’s massive damage threshold, the target is unaffected by the attack."
In other words, unless you have the KO punch feat, nonlethal damage is worthless. CMA essentially removes the -4 to hit and makes you armed for AOO purposes. Also the d3->d4 can actually make all the difference if you still insist on trying to KO someone.
In DnD/PF, nonlethal damage affects your HP anyway, so the main benefit of CMA is irrelevant - making IUS even less interesting. In fact, nonlethal damage is often a nice thing in DnD/PF.
Upping the unarmed damage to d4? For sure I'd go with that, though my main reasons would be that d4 are much more convenient to roll than d3.
I don't use this feats. I simply ignore it. Unrealistic and useless in a game where warriors slice dragons and wizards makes fire rains.
D20 Modern did a little tweak that doesn't seem to imbalance gameplayThe real change was how nonlethal damage is handled in D20M:
"Nonlethal damage does not affect the target’s hit points. Instead, compare the amount of nonlethal damage from an attack to the target’s massive damage threshold. If the amount is less than the target’s massive damage threshold, the target is unaffected by the attack."
In other words, unless you have the KO punch feat, nonlethal damage is worthless. CMA essentially removes the -4 to hit and makes you armed for AOO purposes. Also the d3->d4 can actually make all the difference if you still insist on trying to KO someone.
In DnD/PF, nonlethal damage affects your HP anyway, so the main benefit of CMA is irrelevant - making IUS even less interesting. In fact, nonlethal damage is often a nice thing in DnD/PF.
Upping the unarmed damage to d4? For sure I'd go with that, though my main reasons would be that d4 are much more convenient to roll than d3.
One thing you didn't mention was that the massive damage threshold was your Constitution score (and not 50, like in D&D).
Still pretty high, but not an absurd thing for anyone that focuses even a little on knocking people out (maybe a feat or two and decent strength).
For example..
There's the Brawl feat (non-lethal damage at 1d6 + Str) and Knockout Punch feat (auto-crit non-lethal against flat-footed), means you are doing 2d6 + 2xStr damage, which is definitely in the massive damage threshold range.
Even if the person saves against the DC15 check, they are dazed and cannot act, therefore maintaining the flat-footed condition of *has not yet acted*. He can keep forcing knockout saves on a target as long as he beats his massive damage on a crit non-lethal attack. And the person can't act. Pretty significant, really.
However, this does show that Combat Martial Arts did have a point to removing the non-lethal clause for unarmed strikes: you could actually participate in hitpoint attrition instead of forcing condition checks. It changed the nature of fighting with unarmed strikes entirely.
In D&D and Pathfinder, it just makes it so that the damage is a little more permanent, it's still part of the attrition game.
Death threshold is on constitution, massive damage (a useless rule) is 50 yet.
Death threshold is on constitution, massive damage (a useless rule) is 50 yet.
In Pathfinder.
In d20 Modern (which is what this thread is talking about), it's entirely different.
Oh, ok. Just for curiosity, how is this rule?
Makes people think twice about gun fights that for sure when a single shot from a shotgun can force a massive damage save against up to 16Con.
Also though it makes melee smashers who focus on non lethal very rough these guys can easily force saves vs unconciousness every time they land a hit.