Heavy Handed

Heavy Handed (called Brutal in TORN) is a trait in Fallout, Fallout 2, Fallout Tactics, Fallout: New Vegas, Lionheart, and TORN.

Fallout, Fallout 2, Fallout Tactics and TORN''
You get +4 points of melee damage, but your critical hits have a -30% modifier to the critical hit tables.

Fallout: New Vegas
Your melee and unarmed attacks do more damage, but less critical hit damage.

More specifically, your Melee and Unarmed damage is increased by 20%, but your Critical Hit damage is reduced by 60%, but only for those two weapon types. Since you inflict more damage consistently with Heavy Handed though, Critical Hits are less of an issue, unless the player relies on Sneak attack criticals as a major source of damage or if the character criticals often due to perks, Luck, and high weapon modifier (certain perk/weapon combinations give you a guaranteed chance to critically hit).

Mathematically, Heavy Handed will provide a net benefit if
 * $$\text{Base damage} > 3 \times \text{Crit chance} \times \text{Crit damage}$$

where each component is considered after all modifiers except Heavy Handed.

For example, a character with 5 luck armed with a machete has a 7.5% critical chance and does 11 critical damage, equal to the base damage. This satisfies the above condition, and expecting a critical hit approximately every 13 swings, a machete's damage with and without Heavy Handed should work out to this:
 * Without Heavy Handed: 13 swings * 11 damage + 1 crit (+11 damage) = 154 damage
 * With Heavy Handed: 13 swings * 13.2 damage + 1 crit (+4.5 damage) = 176.1 damage

By contrast, a character with 10 luck armed with Figaro has a 40% chance to critical and significantly higher critical damage than base damage, not meeting the criterion. Over 10 swings, the average damage works out to:
 * Without Heavy Handed: 10 swings * 8 damage + 4 crits * 16 damage = 144 damage
 * With Heavy Handed: 10 swings * 9.6 damage + 4 crits * 6.4 damage = 121.6 damage


 * Weapons most useful with Heavy Handed:
 * Thermic lance: Only 10 critical hit damage.
 * Chainsaw: Only 8 critical hit damage.
 * Ripper: Only 5 critical hit damage.
 * Rebar club: x0.5 critical hit multiplier, only 24 critical hit damage.
 * Nailboard: x0 critical hit multiplier.
 * Pool cue: x0 critical hit multiplier.
 * Rolling pin: x0 critical hit multiplier.
 * Two-Step Goodbye (GRA): Only 10 critical damage

Heavy Handed with Better Criticals

 * $$\text{Base crit} \times (1 - \text{Heavy handed} ) \times (1 + \text{Better crits} ) = \text{Crit damage}$$

Example: Using a cattle prod.
 * $$5 \times 40\% \times 150\%=3$$


 * See Also
 * Critical chance

Lionheart
You swing harder, not better. Your attacks are brutal, but lack finesse. You rarely cause a good critical hit, but you always do more melee damage. You do +2 points of damage in melee combat (hand-to-hand or non-ranged weapons). Your critical hits have a -30 modifier to critical chance. This trait cannot be selected with Finesse.