Subdual Damage

[CJ]

Subdual Damage in a nutshell;

Subdual Damage is non-lethal damage or fatigue caused by overexertion or having your brain rattled around in your head. If at any time your total subdual damage is greater than your HP, you will be knocked out, but not killed.


Finer Points

-- This form of damage is dealt by Bludgeoning attacks primarily. Any Bludgeoning attack or weapon will cause it, even if it isn't explicitly stated to do so. This allows it to compete with its better-loved brothers, Piercing and Cutting.
----In the case of unarmed attacks, they will gain Subdual 'Weapon Damage' in the form of 3x their Power Bonus, as long as they have at least one level of Martial Arts Proficiency.
-- Subdual damage may also be incurred by using fully-physical attacks, providing a way to counter-balance them without using the slide rule method. This will give greater versatility in taking full-physical specials.
-- Subdual damage is healed by any healing spell without deducting from its healing of more the mortal wounds.
-- While not dead, knocked out characters are pretty much helpless and easy pickings to finish off.

[Spyke]

It gives bludgeoning and martial arts that oomph it finally needs, but the numbers themselves are potentially very high.

It would be simpler if you just stated that Martial Arts and Bludgeoning can pick between the two.

For MA, assign a low base value, such as +6 or +4and have gloves add to that weapon power.

This keeps them in line with other weapons by making them equipment-based. Having a purely stat-based weapon is potentially unbalancing and more in line with spells than weapons.

Somewhat off-topic, but I think purely physical techs should just use MP anyway, since not only is it simple, but MP can be thought of as exertion just as easily as spell-casting.

Your focus goes into different aspects, but you only have so much stamina, which is what MP kinda is and tends to vary from character to character. It also balances out characters like Rock Lee who had 300 HP at half the level of higher-end characters because he didn't need MP. HP is never equal to MP and should never be directly equatable as one for one.