Okay, I have a super dumb question and this might not be the best place to ask it, so feel free to shout at me if I did it wrong. The question is, specifically, regarding the Fighter’s Signature Weapon:
The Fists option is meant to represent something like a cestus or punching dagger, right?
The bare-handed Fighter who punches with +messy and +forceful is awesome, but it seems a little odd that you can never be separated from those weapons short of having your hands cut off, whereas you could be disarmed of or give away your signature weapon otherwise.
This has been bugging me for a while, so I figured I’d ask.
Somehow, I think that going hand-to-hand with nasty things such as giant snakes, fire elementals, dragons and the like is not good for your health.
I’d go with having your hand injured, you could sill use a weapon in your other hand but not your signature hand to hand style. Healing the tag would be the same as retrieving your weapon.
There’s two weapon “specialists” that I always wanted in D&D that you can easily do in DW: just fists (but not a monk) and the guy who walks in unarmed and uses his enemy’s or improvised weapons.
Definitely take the fists away by lack of confidence or injuries.
I’d take “found weapons” away by an empty arena.
Another way to take “Fists” away is to present a monster that you don’t want to punch, e.g. a magma elemental, or a giant toad that exudes poison from its skin.
Edit And I just noticed this was pretty much exactly what Ernesto Pavan said :/
I’m playing a Fighter right now with Ancient Sinister Fists that are Messy and Forceful. He was the blacksmith’s apprentice who woke up one day with his hands transformed to giant Hellboy-like stone fists, covered in glowing runes.
The nice thing about DW is that if you can think of an awesome way to make something happen and everybody’s cool with it, you do it.
As for the possibility of losing the weapon – just use your imagination. Hands can be severed and later reattached. The magic could be neutralized. You could lose your monk-like focus for a time.
As always in DW: create your fiction and let the moves and mechanics follow.
The Fighter in my group has magic tattoos all over his hands. Just because I can’t take his weapons away doesn’t mean I have other ways of making his life difficult.
Ernesto Pavan, Michael Sands: I’m basically thinking of a situation like Travis Scott is describing, where the Fighter’s fists are supernatural and he can punch through steel or whatever. I’d feel stupid going “sorry, no, you can’t punch this thing that it would be cool for you to punch.”
Then again, it’s not like this has popped up in play, I was just doing a bit of idle thinking. Ultimately, “my hands have magic tattoos that let them punch through steel” is a super cool idea and saying no to it would be really stupid.
Oh, and Krusty Wightbred’s idea of having an improvised weaponry expert option is great.
Seriously, there’s enough monsters with the messy tag that you should easily be able to disarm your fighter with no problem. As for things that shouldn’t normally be able to be punched, as long as the fiction is satisfied, who cares.
I don’t think taking the Fighter’s Signature Weapon away should be a thing that happens often enough that having “signature fists” should be a significant advantage.
I try to avoid taking away the things that make the characters cool.
Well, no. Taking away the signature weapon shouldn’t be common, but it should be memorable. I look forward to doing it to my current fighter when he realizes that he can still be caught without his signature weapon (it was a munchkin move on his part, though I loved the feel of it). My point is that there are plenty of monsters out there that can drive home the point that nothing is ever truly safe. Not that they need to be used constantly.
Furthermore, the fighter’s pursuit of restoring his magical fists of fury would be cool. Especially if the fighter’s nature and signature weapon had to alter slightly (prescriptive/descriptive interactions between the fiction and mechanics) to accommodate the quest for new fists.
This might totally be a taste thing,* but I’m with Dylan. Taking the Fighter’s weapon away is like taking the Wizard’s spells away is like taking the the Druid’s shapeshifting away. If someone didn’t want to be a Fighter with a kick-ass special weapon, they would have played a Bard.
* Full disclosure: You know those superhero stories where the superhero loses their power? I freaking hate those stories. I don’t tune in to watch Nigthcrawler not teleport for cripe’s sake!