Brass Knucles & other questions

[Holz]

One of my players is a high professional in fighting skills. And he asked me if he could use brass knuckles to improve his damage.

I said it would not be a good trick, since we would shift his skill to melee, which is very poor.
We talked how would it work and ended with me here asking for some advice.

IMHO, to give a punch is one thing, but to hit someone with brass knuckles or a cestus or a spiked glove, you must know what you are doing and how to hit, or else you hurt yourself.

A brass knuckles would do the same damage as the cestus (which is +2)?
And a spiked glove/gaunlet?


And in another totally different topic, is the axe of the Nitobi Blaster Axe doing less damage than the regular axe?
Regular axe is 7 and the blaster axe (the axe not the plasma gun) is 5. Typo? or just a small "nerf" so you don't get an over the top weapon?

[Tupteq]

I think cestus (and brass knuckles) should be used with Fight skill. FSR rules say that and this is rather common approach in various RPG systems.

Also, definition of cestus in FSR includes also knuckles ("most are simple lumps of metal worn over the knuckles"), so I'd use +1 damage for rounded piece of metal and +2 for something more deadly (heavy cestus, spikes etc.).

About Nitobi Axe - damage dice are messed up in FSR. In old FS it was 7 (Axe) vs. 6 (Nitobi Axe), which makes more sense for me.