Attacking to Stun

[Jaracove]

Page 383: Attacking To Stun
"The character makes a non-lethal attack against his opponent. He makes a close combat Attack test as normal, but any damage inflicted to his opponent is recorded as Stun damage. If the Stun damage sends a character’s Current Damage higher than his Unconsciousness or Death Rating, the character falls to the ground unconscious."

I might be mistaken, but unless your target is already close to its Unconscious Rating, you could be whaling on the target round after round in order to stun them. This doesn't seem like a good stun rule to me. Am I missing something?

[ChrisDDickey]

You left out "Although it is added to the character’s Current Damage total, Stun damage cannot kill him. "

So stun damage accumulates just like normal damage does, and the normal damage and the stun damage are added together, and if the total is higher than the unconsciousness rating, the target goes unconscious. But the target can't be killed until the normal damage (only) is higher than the death rating.

So if, for example, a target has an unconsciousness rating of 40 and a death rating of 50. If somebody hit the target 3 times for 10 points of stun damage each time, and then somebody wallops him for 25 more points of normal damage. The target would have 30 points of stun damage and 25 points of normal damage, which get added all together for 55 points of total damage. This is higher than the unconsciousness rating, so the target falls unconscious. However even though it is also higher than its death rating, the target is not dead because it only has 25 points of normal damage.

[Jaracove]

I didn't explain myself clearly enough

My issue is that the Stun rules do not allow a character to stun a target with one successful attack (it'll be very rare even with exploding dice)

[etherial]

I didn't explain myself clearly enough

My issue is that the Stun rules do not allow a character to stun a target with one successful attack (it'll be very rare even with exploding dice)

Likewise, we know that in real life, one sword or arrow or crossbow hit is likely to incapacitate if not kill, but in the game system, that's highly unlikely. You're bumping up to one of the core abstractions we live with as gamers. If you were to sneak up behind a guard, and hit her in the back of the head with Surprise Strike to Stun, I would probably GM fiat that she slumps into unconsciousness if you got enough Successes on attack and damage. But once actual combat actually starts, I really think you just have to live with the idea that you have to beat people into unconsciousness.

One alternative version of attacking to stun that often gets floated in games is that a good enough hit costs the target their Action, allowing you to (eventually) subdue them without risking damage to yourself. It's just a question of what you're willing to let NPCs get away with when they want to use them on you. How much easier should it be for NPCs to render you unconscious and then drown you than to defeat you in open combat?

[Telarus]

Denying an action is generally the place for magic (spells, etc).

IT seems the following replaces that effect:

Stun damage does not cause Wounds. If a character would normally take a Wound from the damage inflicted, he is considered Harried for the rest of the round, and he may still be knocked down based on the Damage test result.

Harried _and_ Knocked down (possibly burning your action to get up). That's a lot of penalties to actions and defenses (-5 / -5).