Why do unarmed attacks deal fatigue if they deal the right amount of damage?
Where as a being hit with club, hammer, or an Ork choppa doesn't. This seams a little off to me.
I read the errata and caught the note about unarmed damage dealt needing to be greater then the TB of the victim in order to deal the fatigue, but then why is not the case for all impact damage types?

comments?

If you've ever practiced martial arts (the actual sparring, mind you), you know that weapons, unless used in VERY specific ways they usually aren't ment for, are to be used to kill, maim, and disable.

The reason barefisted fighting involves fatigue is because of the fact that you are not trying to kill them, or maim them. Just wear them down until they can't fight any more. It's like in a boxing match. Fatigue generally shows on those lucky, heavy hits that get in every so often, and just accumulates until one guy hits the mat and won't get up again.

sure i agree that weapons are for killing and being punched is hurts and tiring, but so is being hit with a hammer!

I guess my point isn't that unarmed attack shoun't cause fatigue, its that the argument for why unarmed attacks cause fatuige applys to most other attack types (even bullets).

Now I see that would bog down combat too much... but its dose (even after the errata) make unarmed attacks over powered. Deal fatigue to an average dude 2 or 3 times and he's out no matter what. Then he's at the mercy of the attacker. Seems a bit much!

You need to deal more fatigue than the opponent's toughness bonus, so it's actually 3-4 fatigue to put the average opponent's lights out.

Unless the target has 20+ wounds, it's probably faster just to whack the opponent with a sword or shoot 'em with a gun.

Our GM has ruled that being heavily wounded incurs a level of fatigue. This might help digest the peculiarities of the system.

I wonder if it would severely imbalance the game if increasing the "how wounded are you" category gave you a level of fatigue?

That is, going from unwounded to lightly wounded would give you 1 Fatigue, going from lightly to heavily wounded gives you another one, etc.

It's because if you're hitting a guy with a bullet or a sword, they are probably bleeding out on the floor/missing a limb, and probably WON"T be recoverable for interrogation with out proper medical care, and even then, wounded enough, they won't be available for a month or more as they recuperate enough to talk.

The ability to forcefully take down in a much less lethal way is the point. The reason NORMAL damage doesn't give wounds and only some crits do is because most wounds before 0 are the nicks and cuts you take, or gashes in some cases. Crits are for after figuring out the chinks in your armor, and TRUE lethal damage is done.

My point being: Weapons do LETHAL damage, whereas (except for martial artists/mountain of meat characters) unarmed fighting isn't NEARLY as lethal, and ment to safely a man.

I like the "fatigue per wound level" idea... I had been thinking for that myself.

It solves my issue... which was:

if punching deals fatigue (regardless as to why or how often)....

then weapons should too (and more often)

thanks all

It is interesting to note that in RT the fatigue only happens if you do enough damage equal to or above the toughness bonus. Which makes it quite hard with normal unarmed damage. With TB and SB of 3 and no armour on both sides, you are doing a max of two damage in basic unarmed combat without Righteous Fury.

Perhaps if you want a good balance, it only does fatigue if you do damage?

Little Dave said:

The Errata for Dark Heresy also gives us this rule.

The OP's problem isn't that unarmed strikes cause fatigue too easily, it's that unarmed strikes cause fatigue with every bruise inflicted while sticking a sword through an opponent's gut, though likely causing more wounds, doesn't seem to tire 'em or get in their way in any way, shape, or form.

The general consent seems to be that it is what it is because of a balance rather than realism issue.

It is all about story and "cool factor"

I went into this in some detail on an earlier thread, but the short and simple version is this: Unarmed attacks that do damage after soak inflict fatigue so you CAN have a classic "barroom brawl" in your game without having 47 dead bodies laying about in tattered pieces.

By contrast, smacking the hell out of someone with some high-tech super-hammer, mono-sword or other more battlefield-oriented hardware is not so much an accumulation of bumps, bruises, minor concussions and sore muscles as they are BRUTAL life-threatening trauma to the body. A good solid punch to the gut HURTS! A good solid meter of sharpened steel to the gut causes MASSIVE BLOOD LOSS and organ damage! This is the game mechanic that separates "Crap, gonna feel THAT in the morning..." from "Crap, I think that is my arm over there by the jukebox..."

Except there's that strange ability of someone who just got slashed in the face with a great weapon to swing and shoot at full ability, not just while the adrenaline is rushing, but until he actually takes critical damage.

Contrast that with someone who just got punched in the arm reeeeally hard (hard enough to cause serious damage), who suddenly is taking -10 to all tests.

The OP's point is actually pretty poignant, in my opinion. Really, what IS the difference between a guy's unarmed strike landing on the leg and dealing 1 point of damage after Toughness and Armor, and the same guy's hammer landing on the same leg and dealing the same 1 point of damage? Why does the unarmed strike cause fatigue when the hammer does not? What is it about using something softer than **** near any other weapon you'd use that makes the opponent suddenly lose effectiveness in a fight?

I agree that it feels tacked on, but post errata it does the job as it's very difficult to do someone in armour and / or they are armed.

It's nice to see that I'm not the only one who sees that there is discrepancy between the way unarmed and armed damage works, and for those who might care here is how my group has agreed to handle it.

Note: the following may seem cumbersome but sometimes my group will accept that for a more " logical " (I use the term loosely ) solution.

1. Unarmed damage rules remain as in the errata: i.e. if damage is dealt after TB and armour (doubled if not primitive) and is =< then TB then target suffers one level of fatigue

2. For each wound level (lightly wounded, heavily wounded, and critical wounded) acquired target receives 1 level a fatigue (I would like to thank Unusualsuspect and bogomips for that idea )

3. If at any point before being critically wounded a subject gains more fatigue levels then their TB that subject must test toughness to remain conscious. This test is made more difficult for each fatigue level acquired above subjects TB (-10 per fatigue level)

Example: Character with TB 3 has been in a fist fight with a drunk, and has just won the fight. During the fight Character suffered 3 fatigue levels, when third level was dealt the character made a Challenging Toughness Test, and is now stumbling out of the bar. PDF officer is responding to disturbance call sees the character and proceeds to “ arrest ” them with his “law giver” billy-club, this deals enough damage to lightly wound the character and therefore deals an additional level of fatigue. The character now makes a Difficult Toughness Test (-10) to stay awake.

This mod allows for those wounderfuly foolish characters who don’t seem to know when to quit... to keep getting up for more . BTW if a PC fails such a test they spend a Fate Point to stay awake.

4. Once a subject has been critically wounded they receive a level of fatigue, unless the effect on the critical chart already includes fatigue. For the typical subject with a TB for 3 or 4 this will likely need to test toughness as above. However because I believe in giving my players all the tools they need to hurt themselves as badly as possible , we decided that if a subject is critically wounded and needs to make a toughness test to stay awake, they my simply choose to pass or fail said test. This allows for all manner of glorious death in the name of the Emperor, or for those who feel every nick and cut their character’s feel; it allows them to end suffering and simply embrace to warm comfort of blissful unconsciousness .

guardianforever said:

One interesting side effect of this approach is that players could use stimm to resist the effects damage induced fatigue (GM discretion of course). It's a helpful for the players, otherwise trying to shoot a heretic with 30 BS and 3 fatigue could prove rather difficult.

Bogomips

I still wouldn't say overpowered in combats with armed opponants and some one is making attack rolls at -20, doing 1d5-3 primitive damage trying cause more wounds than their TB per hit (quick summary: if 1d5-3+SB > 2TB+2AP = fatigue) isn't very likely. Id say you'd have them on crits with a mono melee weapon long before you would have caused a point of fatigue. And of course when you start causing crits the fatigue mounts up at rate of knots, quickly becoming d5 or d10.

But that said in difference to not ignoring been hit for a lot of damage I do have attacks that cause >2xTB force to character to make T test or be stunned.

All in all fatigue is pretty nasty and overusing it is going to slow your game down. Not the fighting as much as every character needing to nap for at least an hour after any fight and ANY wounds putting you at -10 is crippling for low level characters.

bogomips said:

No more difficult than with 1 or 2 Fatigue, as far as I can tell. As I read it, it's not -10 to all tests per level of Fatigue, but rather -10 if you have any levels of Fatigue. More fatigue, aside from the risk of unconsciousness if you get too much, simply means that it takes longer to rest sufficiently to remove the penalty.

N0-1_H3r3 said:

You are absolutely correct sir. Easy mistake to make I guess but a significant one.

To address Face Eater's point; let me say... I know

But the fact remains that if I don't make all damage cause fatigue, then there is a inconsistent logic to rules that govern the game's reality. This will drive my players, and therefor me, insane. I'm just tying to patch a small reality leak. I'm not saying it will cause any floods if left, but over time a slow drip can carve a hole straight through the Golden Throne!

(psst! don't let the Custodians know about that or they have all the water in sol system banished for heresy!)

Well i'm not worried. I wouldn't think about it too hard. As nasty as the system is it relies on a certain suspension of disbelief to allow characters to play the hero in a grimdark world. I mean i wouldn't expect a stab wound to cause fatigue, however in the real world and stab wound of any real depth has a good chance of leaving the stabbee bleeding to death.

I've got no problem with your rules. It adds complication, but not a lot compared to other things. But it certainly isn't working against a certain type of character. In a way it makes any wounds bad because you get fatigue (favouring agility) but you are limited by how much fatigue you can take and needs to be resisted (favoring Toughness).

So please, give it a ago and tell us how you find it. For people looking for a more brutal game it might work out well.

(for myself, I left my players on between 3 and 8 levels of fatigue after the last session thanks to good old fashioned crits. It stands to reason that even with some good first aid they would need to rest up after such a pounding but that would have normally required a lot more rest than I was willing to give them at this point.)

I find the errata to be unclear on the fatigue application...

According to RAW damage is calculated before applying TB and Armour reduction. With the errata stating that you must inflict more damage than the TB seems to mean that you only need to get a damage total greater than TB before applying armour reduction.

Is it the intent that you have to a higher damage roll than the TB, simply inflict at least one wound, or inflict more wounds than TB?

Is there an official ruling on this yet?