Causing the Stunned Tilt: differences between GMC and B&S

[nerdokingoftrash]

I noticed that there are some inconsistencies in the rules about causing the Stunned Tilt:

Head (–3): A damaging attack can Stun the victim if it deals at least as much damage as the target’s Size

A character can be stunned by any attack that does at least as much damage as her Size in a single hit. (...) Attacks against the target’s head (...) count the character’s Size as one lower for the purposes of this Tilt.

Then again, when discussing the "stun" special ability of weapons:

Stun: Halve the victim’s Size when aiming for the head with intent to stun

Some weapons have a “stun” special ability. These double the weapon modifier only for the purposes of determining whether the attacker inflicts the Stunned Tilt.

Now, the sap has the stun special ability, but 0 Damage, so it would be pretty pointless to use the GMC version of the ability. With respect to the general rule, however, is there any specific reason the GMC Rules Update ruling is different from the Blood and Smoke one? Is the (more recent) B&S supposed to take precedence as an "official" ruling? Or is it just a matter of conveying different tones (as in "how hard it is to stun someone")?

The GMC version allows every blow in principle to stun someone, with called shots to the head being only moderately easier to stun people with. On the other hand, only called shots to the head can stun someone under the B&S rules. Is it a game-specific patch made in order to avoid "stunlocking" people to death with Vigor-powered strikes? Or is it supposed to work this way in all game lines?

[Rose Bailey]

We tried to avoid differences between the rules in B&S and GMC, but the rules team felt this was an important adjustment. (There were a couple of concerns. Stun-locks were one of them.) Future rulebooks will use the B&S rules. We may update GMC with it, but we don't usually change books once they've gone to print, so it hasn't happened yet.

[nerdokingoftrash]

Thank you for clearing it up!

[Xenesis]

Unless I'm completely missing something, doesn't this change make it easier to inflict the stunned tilt?

[Leetsepeak]

Unless I'm completely missing something, doesn't this change make it easier to inflict the stunned tilt?

I think I can clarify.

In GMC, the Stun weapon ability didn't actually do anything, because it doubled the weapon bonus of a stun weapon. The Sap, the only stun weapon provided, had a weapon bonus of zero.

They've revised the Stun mechanic so that instead of doubling the weapon bonus, it halves the Size threshold you need to beat in successes to Stun somebody.

I think they made it so an attack to the head in B&S now requires you to do Size damage or greater. I imagine that it's harder/impossible to Stun somebody without using a power, a fighting style or making a called shot to the Head.

Weapons with "Stun" lower that threshold by halving the size (round down or up, Rose?).

So that would mean you can only stun people through special abilities and targetting the head. A Sap just makes it easier to do that.