Kukri weapon damage.


Homebrew and House Rules


I find it a bit oad that a Kukri does same damage as a dagger, when it has more of the characteristics of short sword from size and mass prospective.

The Kukri, I think would be a 1d6 damage weapon instead of 1d4.

Any agreement or disagreement with this...??

I am try to adjust the weapon because i think its under damaged by what its listed in the book.


Keith Craycraft wrote:

I find it a bit oad that a Kukri does same damage as a dagger, when it has more of the characteristics of short sword from size and mass prospective.

The Kukri, I think would be a 1d6 damage weapon instead of 1d4.

Any agreement or disagreement with this...??

I am try to adjust the weapon because i think its under damaged by what its listed in the book.

The point of the kukri over the dagger is the 18-20 critical range. Dagger is 1d4 with 19-20, short sword is 1d6 with 19-20. 1d4 with 18-20 is kind of like a mid-way weapon, the kukri. If you make a kukri 1d6 then you have a scimitar, only as a light weapon so you can use it to great effect with Two-weapon fighting, which seriously unbalances the weapon.


The thinking on this is that the kukri has a higher crit range, so it does less damage. If it didn't, nobody would use a shortsword.

Look at the rapier as another example. It's as long as as longsword, but does 1d less damage. The higher crit range is what balances it out. Players using high-crit weapons do very well with improved critical or keen weapons.

EDIT: ninja'd!

RPG Superstar 2011 Top 4

And Critical Focus as well as the Critical feats are just sexy.


Nazard wrote:
Keith Craycraft wrote:

I find it a bit oad that a Kukri does same damage as a dagger, when it has more of the characteristics of short sword from size and mass prospective.

The Kukri, I think would be a 1d6 damage weapon instead of 1d4.

Any agreement or disagreement with this...??

I am try to adjust the weapon because i think its under damaged by what its listed in the book.

The point of the kukri over the dagger is the 18-20 critical range. Dagger is 1d4 with 19-20, short sword is 1d6 with 19-20. 1d4 with 18-20 is kind of like a mid-way weapon, the kukri. If you make a kukri 1d6 then you have a scimitar, only as a light weapon so you can use it to great effect with Two-weapon fighting, which seriously unbalances the weapon.

Lets drop the short sword from this because its not a slashing weapon.

a scimatar has same crit range, does a d6 and is 4lbs.

what if the kukri was a 1d4+2 instead of 1d6 with
smaller critical range?

Liberty's Edge

Pathfinder Pathfinder Accessories Subscriber; Pathfinder Roleplaying Game Superscriber
Keith Craycraft wrote:
Nazard wrote:
Keith Craycraft wrote:

I find it a bit oad that a Kukri does same damage as a dagger, when it has more of the characteristics of short sword from size and mass prospective.

The Kukri, I think would be a 1d6 damage weapon instead of 1d4.

Any agreement or disagreement with this...??

I am try to adjust the weapon because i think its under damaged by what its listed in the book.

The point of the kukri over the dagger is the 18-20 critical range. Dagger is 1d4 with 19-20, short sword is 1d6 with 19-20. 1d4 with 18-20 is kind of like a mid-way weapon, the kukri. If you make a kukri 1d6 then you have a scimitar, only as a light weapon so you can use it to great effect with Two-weapon fighting, which seriously unbalances the weapon.

Lets drop the short sword from this because its not a slashing weapon.

a scimatar has same crit range, does a d6 and is 4lbs.

what if the kukri was a 1d4+2 instead of 1d6 with
smaller critical range?

Because then it would do more damage on average (4.5 vs 3.5) despite being a lighter weapon.


I think your getting hung up on what you think a Kukri is. Some get sword size others do not. Much like short swords and longswords and daggers they cover about 4000 versions but in game terms work the same.

If your thinking of the larger short sword sized Kukri's then your not really thinking the same weapon listed, I would use the scimitar for that one.

RPG Superstar 2011 Top 4

And a greatsword sized one would be a flachion! or possibly elven curve blade.


Yeah, when I think of PRPG kukri stats, I think of a kukri ranging from 6 to 10 inches on the outside edge. For me 1d4 18-20/x2 works just fine for that weapon.

When I think of a PRPG dagger, I think of a blade ranging from 4 to 8 inches in length. This is a comparable weapon.

By comparison, a short sword would be 20 to 30 inches, and a scimitar would be in the same range. There ARE larger kukris in real life that would also be in that range, but they're not the ones with stats in Pathfinder.

If you want to have a larger kukri in your game, just use the scimitar stats (or machete stats, can't remember if those exist). Then say it's a one-handed kukri (as opposed to the standard light kukri). Have it follow the same rules as one-handed weapons instead of light weapons, since it is a larger (one-handed) weapon and things like Weapon Finesse would no longer apply. It would be up to you (or the DM, if you're not the DM) whether to let kukri feats apply to both types of kukri or not.


Keith Craycraft wrote:


Lets drop the short sword from this because its not a slashing weapon.

Weapon types don't come into play for the majority of encounters, and most weapon type DR is either slashing or bludgeoning (another advantage the Kukri has over the Short Sword.) I agree with the previous posters that upping the damage dice of the Kukri would unbalance it over the short sword and rapier.

Keith Craycraft wrote:


what if the kukri was a 1d4+2 instead of 1d6 with
smaller critical range?

That would make the Kukri even more overpowered:

avg damage of a short sword: 3.5
avg damage of a longsword: 4.5
avg damage of 1d4+2: 4.5

The static 2 damage reduces the variability of the weapon damage and gives the weapon the effective avg damage of a d8 weapon at the expense of the very high or very low damage of a longsword. A weapon that a min/max dmg range of 3/6 is much better than a range of 1/8.


A kukri is a knife with a blade less than 12 inches long, the same as a dagger. A short-sword blade is 18-24 inches long, a longsword 30-36 inches long.


The Falcata (stats in the PF campaign setting, yes its 3.5, but it's still PF) is exactly that, a larger version of a kukri.


Adventure Path Charter Subscriber

I boosted kukris to 1d6 with the same crit range.

My reasoning is looking at Cold Steel weapon demo clips from their site. A kukri does more damage than a dagger/knife, straight up.

Cold Steel's best knife will slash through 1" of manila rope with one swipe, a kukri will slash through 3" of manila rope. A kukri will slash through a haunch of pork, a knife/dagger will not.

Gurka tradition has their best warrior decapitating a young bull with one swipe of a standard kukri. If he can do it with one blow, the regiment will have good luck for the year.

A kukri outclasses a knife or dagger. Does it compare to a short sword, I don't know. But the kukri damage is on par with a machete damage in the demos and a machete is comparable size and weight to a short sword.

Besides, despite my upping the kukri damage some time ago, few of my players have available themselves of using the kukri because there are plenty of better weapons. Amongst my group, only if the character is limited to light weapons do I usually see someone take a kukri.

1d6 damage, 18-20 crit range and x2 crit damage doesn't break the game, nor does it presuppose that everyone *must* have it as a weapon.


Black Moria wrote:

I boosted kukris to 1d6 with the same crit range.

My reasoning is looking at Cold Steel weapon demo clips from their site. A kukri does more damage than a dagger/knife, straight up.

Cold Steel's best knife will slash through 1" of manila rope with one swipe, a kukri will slash through 3" of manila rope. A kukri will slash through a haunch of pork, a knife/dagger will not.

Gurka tradition has their best warrior decapitating a young bull with one swipe of a standard kukri. If he can do it with one blow, the regiment will have good luck for the year.

A kukri outclasses a knife or dagger. Does it compare to a short sword, I don't know. But the kukri damage is on par with a machete damage in the demos and a machete is comparable size and weight to a short sword.

Besides, despite my upping the kukri damage some time ago, few of my players have available themselves of using the kukri because there are plenty of better weapons. Amongst my group, only if the character is limited to light weapons do I usually see someone take a kukri.

1d6 damage, 18-20 crit range and x2 crit damage doesn't break the game, nor does it presuppose that everyone *must* have it as a weapon.

If you are doing "real world", then yes, a kukri out classes a dagger. I own the "standard" size, and one of the two handed monsters. The standard is roughly the same size as a classic short sword, but packs a lot more power and area into its hit (reflected by the higher crit). In a real world fight, if I had a choice of being cut by one of my daggers, or the kukri..I would choose the dagger hands down.

The larger size was not used in combat as far as I know, but was used to behead the bull. It it a scary scary weapon..except you would have to be a weight lifter to use it in actual combat. Its much heavier and harder to use that a claymore, or other great sword.
In game..I have not upped my kukris..I dont think it would shatter the game, but they would be MUCH more attractive. The subject never came up, so far.
As a side note I am a little suprized they are not exotic weapons, with their Indian background. Its not like they were common in Europe.


I don't understand the need of folks to look at real world items and then try to change the game mechanics based on them.

I really wish (well not really, but it would have solved alot of issues) if they would have left the weapons nameless and just called them

"slashing weapon 1, slashing weapon 2" and the same for blunts and pierces.

"kukri" in this instance is the name of a weapon described in game terms as the mechanical numbers.
If you don't like that, change the name. or whatever. When you alter the *numbers* instead of the fluff though you have actually altered the balance of the weapon just because the name got under your skin.

If you don't like a weapon (or an armor for that matter) because your real world experience doesn't mesh with the game mechanics then change the name of the weapon. Its just "exotic slashing weapon #3" anyway.

-S

Grand Lodge

Adventure Path Charter Subscriber; Pathfinder Starfinder Adventure Path Subscriber
Selgard wrote:
I don't understand the need of folks to look at real world items and then try to change the game mechanics based on them.

There are quite a few of these types of threads showing up lately. Armor and weapons seem to be the most offensive to the realists' sensibilities.

-Skeld


If you 'have' to change the kukri to resemble 'real world' weapons try this: 1d6 19-20/x2 Slashing.

In other words, give it the stats of a shortsword but keep the cutting properties it currently has. The kukri is a chopping weapon, more like an axe than a knife anyway.

The Exchange

A quick images search on the word "kukri" in yahoo turns up a ton of images with blades ranging in length from 6" to around 3' long. The kukri in the standard equipment for PRPG is probably somewhere in the 9" blade range I would guess. If you want to make one for every category of equipment you can. A 2-handed 2d6 exotic version with 18-20X2 crit is cool with me. A tiny 1d3 version with a 6" blade would be cool with me too. Someone wants a one-handed version? 1d6-18-20X2 martial. The d8 version is exotic one-handed. d10 or 2d4 is 2-handed martial.
There I just made a bunch of kukris!

The Exchange

Big Kukri.
Regular? Kukri.
That's different.

Liberty's Edge RPG Superstar 2015 Top 16, RPG Superstar 2013 Top 16

Skeld wrote:
Selgard wrote:
I don't understand the need of folks to look at real world items and then try to change the game mechanics based on them.

There are quite a few of these types of threads showing up lately. Armor and weapons seem to be the most offensive to the realists' sensibilities.

-Skeld

I suspect a lot of it has to do with folks wanting to use a weapon/armor that looks cool, but that is a substandard choice by rules mechanics. For instance, what rogue is ever going to use 2 daggers when they could use 2 shortswords? Don't bother listing reasons, I know what they are, but let's face it, those are corner cases. Mechanically, the 2 shortswords are better 98% of the time. Kukris are not, of course, mechanically inferior as they are. I for one am glad there is no line on the weapons table for a katana, or else there would be endless debate over their supposed effectiveness because "ZOMG KATANAS CAN CUT THRU ANYTHING THEY WIN 4EVERlolololol!!!11!"

Liberty's Edge

Charlie Bell wrote:
"ZOMG KATANAS CAN CUT THRU ANYTHING THEY WIN 4EVERlolololol!!!11!"

Truer words have never been spoken.

;P


I'm going to just regurgitate what everyone else has said (for the most part) they're only a d4 because they have a high crit range. I really don't like that people are calling them "a smaller scimitar" because they're from India and Nepal and were used by Ghurka's not Dervishes throughout the middle east, although I guess people confuse scimitars and shamshirs. I kind of agree that they should be an exotic weapon but I think the reason they aren't is because they don't deal a bunch of damage. In real life yes they do more damage than a Dagger but that's supposed to be reflected by the high critical range not the d4, I think if you want to make them "better" you should give them an 18-20x3 crit instead of a higher damage die.


Blackerose wrote:
As a side note I am a little suprized they are not exotic weapons, with their Indian background. Its not like they were common in Europe.

They were in 3.0. And they were (occasionally) worth the exotic weapon proficiency then. Being martial fits a bit better, but they're on the strong side of martial choices already.


Charlie Bell wrote:
"ZOMG KATANAS CAN CUT THRU ANYTHING THEY WIN 4EVERlolololol!!!11!"

This is actually true, because the steel that makes up the blade was folded 1,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000 times and the quality of each blade was tested by cutting a live king tiger tank in half.


Doug OBrien wrote:
Charlie Bell wrote:
"ZOMG KATANAS CAN CUT THRU ANYTHING THEY WIN 4EVERlolololol!!!11!"

This is actually true, because the steel that makes up the blade was folded 1,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000 times and the quality of each blade was tested by cutting a live king tiger tank in half.

Whoa, wait a sec... Japan had living tanks? Damn it, did we blow up this biotechnology in Nagasaki?


Inglorious Basterd wrote:
Whoa, wait a sec... Japan had living tanks? Damn it, did we blow up this biotechnology in Nagasaki?

Yes, kinda. Living tanks were manufactured by the Japanese, along with the transformable battle charriot, in the late Nara period. They used Chinese alchemy to infuse chi batteries with the spirits of animals. I guess ancient pilots had to use their Animal Handling ranks to control the tanks.

The manufacturing techniques were mostly lost by the end of the sengoku jidai, with some of the few remaining destroyed by Korean artillery during the botched invasion. The Ikusou temple in Nagasaki housed many of the original documents and the last surviving fragments, which were, of course, nuked.


Kukris are fine where they are.

Exotic weapons are terrible, both as a flavor mechanic and as a balancing mechanic. Exotic weapons are pretty much never worth the feat, and the flavor of, say, a bastard sword requiring an extra feat to use is absurd.

All it typically ends up doing is punishing characters who have a character idea they like.

Here's the thing - weapon base damage rarely matters that much. A rogue choosing between short swords and daggers? Yes, short swords are technically the "superior" weapon, except that their superiority is a giant 1 point. One freaking point! That's not going to change the game. If a rogue wants to use daggers, they're by and large perfectly fine to do so.

What makes or breaks weapons are crit range (in Pathfinder), handiness (light weapons, two handed weapons), or special abilities (rapier is finessable).

But weapon damage?

Yeah, doesn't really matter. Grab what you like.

Scarab Sages

Anyone who does make the kukri a 1d6 weapon with an 18-20 critical range should also make it an exotic weapon. Those that don't increase the damage should not. The exotic weapon, game wise, is not really about how unknown the weapon is, but is for those weapons that bend the damage progression a little.

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ProfessorCirno wrote:

Kukris are fine where they are.

Exotic weapons are terrible, both as a flavor mechanic and as a balancing mechanic. Exotic weapons are pretty much never worth the feat, and the flavor of, say, a bastard sword requiring an extra feat to use is absurd.

All it typically ends up doing is punishing characters who have a character idea they like.

Here's the thing - weapon base damage rarely matters that much. A rogue choosing between short swords and daggers? Yes, short swords are technically the "superior" weapon, except that their superiority is a giant 1 point. One freaking point! That's not going to change the game. If a rogue wants to use daggers, they're by and large perfectly fine to do so.

What makes or breaks weapons are crit range (in Pathfinder), handiness (light weapons, two handed weapons), or special abilities (rapier is finessable).

But weapon damage?

Yeah, doesn't really matter. Grab what you like.

For the most part I agree with you. Dagger vs. shortsword? 1 point of damage. 1700gp worth of difference between a masterwork and +1 weapon, but still not really a big deal. However, dagger vs. longsword? 2 points. That's a fighter-only feat worth of upgrade.

Regarding your point about weapon special abilities, I strongly agree. I've been pondering lately some houserules that would make "suboptimal" weapon choices more mechanically viable. They would be situational things, like brace for polearms or trip for flails. For example, "bastard spears": spears can be used 2-handed as a simple weapon, or 1-handed as a martial weapon. That way you can play a Spartan, Roman legionary, or Zulu warrior kind of concept within the rules, but spears don't become the "one best weapon" for simple weapon classes. Maybe daggers could grant some kind of bonus related to sneak attacks: +2 to hit with a sneak attack or some such. Situational, but good enough that some players would want to choose a dagger instead of a rapier, for instance. And very much in keeping with a dagger conceptually. Maybe bludgeoning weapons give a penalty to concentration checks if you're threatening a spellcaster or if you hit a spellcaster who's casting, since you're clobbering them silly. A fighter might want to take a heavy mace instead of a sword or axe then, but a simple weapon user would just never have that option.


Like many things in PF, you need to distinguish between the somantic and the mechanics. A kukri is a devastiing weapon when wielded correctly. The one held by the gurka is the "correct" size.

I knew one petroleum engineer who spent time in Indonesia and loved to used kukri on the jungle. He said they were much more potent than a machete and you could use them all day without getting tired.

On the game mechanics side . .
I thinks its pretty stupid that short swords do not have a slash and pierce option. I could also see slash only and pierce only, but historically, most blades that size and weight could do both. I will have to to the local armorer and see what they have for a finesse rogue.


NeonParrot wrote:


On the game mechanics side . .
I thinks its pretty stupid that short swords do not have a slash and pierce option. I could also see slash only and pierce only, but historically, most blades that size and weight could do both. I will have to to the local armorer and see what they have for a finesse rogue.

I completely agree with this. I can also see a longsword having a slashing or piercing damage. I allow players with a short sword to do either or just because I know for a fact that not everyone fences with a short sword.


I like the way that kukri's look and act in pathfinder (as opposed to 3.0 or 3.5) and I currently have a half-orc fighter with two.

Rather than compare with a shortsword I prefer a comparison with the handaxe, a similar weapon in terms of damage and usage.

Perhaps if you want to strike a balance from the above options keep the kukri as a martial weapon but add in a feat that increases the damage dice to a d6 (for that matter call it 'Gurkha Training'). This gives the same overall feat cost as a exotic weapon feat but can be taken at a different point in the characters progression.


It can be very hard to balance character concept with max damage output. I tend to pick flavor over power myself.
I think people get frustrated when they see real world weapons in action vs the rules of a game, which by nature half to have limits. I don't see upping the damage die as breaking anyones game, any more than making them exotic would. A small cog in the entire machine.
If you watch actual sword combat based on feudal europe, most swords would also deal some for of bludgeoning damage, because the struck with the pommels as well as the tip and blade. You cant make every weapon everything.

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