Breaking weapons

[Leeder]

Hello everyone!

One of my players had a duel in our last session. Both PC (chest-deep character) and very powerful NPC (total spent refresh around 15) used melee weapons, and PC managed to disarm his opponent. The NPC then tried to break the opponent's wooden weapon with his Supernatural Strength. I have judged the situation like a normal Fist maneuver without any bonuses, and I don't satisfied with the decision. What would you do in such a situation?

I see a bunch of options, but non of them seems to me as good one. And what if the weapon is not an ordinary club, but one of the weapons listed in stunts or aspects of the character? I need advice, fellas.

[PirateJack]

The rulebook has a segment on this:

Items can have a stress track with two stress boxes as default and no consequences. Extra boxes are added for the quality of the item in a similar way to the Endurance skill and the physical stress track.

You could rule it as a Fists attack against the Weapon with the defensive skill being the wielder's Weapons skill.This works better than a Fists manoeuvre because it accounts for the difference in damage being done by a Supernaturally Strong character (i.e. the extra stress inflicted as part of SupStr being enough to destroy all but the toughest of weapons) compared to a non-powered character, who would likely do damage but not enough to destroy the weapon outright.

[Leeder]

I have seen this block of rules. But it is placed under the Craftmanship trapping "Breaking", so I thought it doesn't relate to my question.

If it does, it's great. But I still don't know how to integrate the SuperStrength's bonus to breaking into this action. If I treat this like an attack, I add +4 to damage, not +6 to breaking things... Or you propose to add the breaking&lifting bonus only to attempts to smash inanimate objects? Why not use the same damage-based solution with them too?

It is pretty confusing to me, why we should use very different ways to describe very similar actions.

[PirateJack]

It's two ways of doing the same thing, which is why Breaking things is under both Craftsmanship and Might. That said, Craftsmanship seems to be focused more on large, stationary objects like buildings and things that you have a bit of time to work on to deal damage. Might looks to be more along the lines of 'I need to break this thing NOW!'.

The way I see it, Breaking/Craftsmanship is like demolition. Breaking/Might is breaking down doors and smashing furniture. So in this case I'd go with it falling under the Might category, with the +4 bonus for muscular strength.

[Sanctaphrax]

Personally I think a Fists/Might maneuver to disarm the target is the best way to go about it. If you have sufficient strength (and that guy definitely does) you can include breaking the weapon in such a maneuver.

[PirateJack]

Personally I think a Fists/Might maneuver to disarm the target is the best way to go about it. If you have sufficient strength (and that guy definitely does) you can include breaking the weapon in such a maneuver.

Could do it either way, but I like the idea of inflicting stress on the weapon itself, because it allows for the possibility of Awesome Moments when you're facing off against a superior swordsman and are gradually wearing down wearing down his weapon so that he'll be rendered helpless when it's broken. Sure, it's more optimised to just try and kill him, but I'm all about allowing cool moments like that to happen in my games.

[Sanctaphrax]

But even if you can't break the weapon with one roll, you can take it away. Disarming is a common maneuver.

Of course, your opponent will probably have another weapon on hand. So it's hardly a fight-ender.

[Leeder]

Personally I think a Fists/Might maneuver to disarm the target is the best way to go about it. If you have sufficient strength (and that guy definitely does) you can include breaking the weapon in such a maneuver.

You mean a (Fist OR Might) or (Fist modified by Might) maneuver?

It is not a combat solving action, of course. But I like an option that gives me an opportunity to change the course of a fight.

[umdshaman]

Arguably (unless you want to get into the question of why weapons don't naturally break from hitting things during combat) you might require the attacker to take possession of the weapon before trying to break it. If you don't want to do that, then the player's dodge/block/etc and own consequences should probably come into play.

[Sanctaphrax]

You mean a (Fist OR Might) or (Fist modified by Might) maneuver?

I meant the former. But Fists modified by Might might work too.