Unarmed with two weapons

[Greg Smith]

After some discussion, I did indeed rule 'no'.

My reasoning being that everyone would get one, from two weapons, from a free hand, or even from a kick if a character was wielding a 2-H weapon. So the extra CA would become meaningless.

However, it is pretty clear that a boxer uses both hands. So I won't rule it out completely.

 

[Dan True]

However, it is pretty clear that a boxer uses both hands. So I won't rule it out completely.

Well, the normal CAs you get from DEX+INT can be used for both hands. You decide yourself which hand to attack with - just as a warrior with sword and shield can choose to use all his CAs bashing with the shield...
It only means that a boxer does not benefit as much from using both hands, as a sword and dagger fighter does.

- Dan

 

[cerebro]

However, it is pretty clear that a boxer uses both hands. So I won't rule it out completely.

Well, the normal CAs you get from DEX+INT can be used for both hands. You decide yourself which hand to attack with - just as a warrior with sword and shield can choose to use all his CAs bashing with the shield...
It only means that a boxer does not benefit as much from using both hands, as a sword and dagger fighter does.

- Dan

Bingo.

You can attack with your feet. As matter of fact, when I use a 2h character and some nasty thing manage to get close to me,I just kick him using unarmed (Cm= Bash) to get him away from me.Not only is cool,but very dramatic.

A martial artist Vs an equally Trained weapon fighter will loose 9 out of 10 times. Not even the truly effectives one like, BBJ,Judo or Wrestling. Why do you think the samurai wore katanas?.

Would it be crazy to make a martial "chi" system?. I can see it a as spells and a Grimoire(Black Fist of the twice forgotten mountain kung fu style).

 

[ThatGuy]

In one of my games I have actually put in place a "Martial Arts" skill that works for the unarmed skill kind of like the "Manipulation" skill works for Sorcery. It essentially grants pretty awesome CM's at every 20% increase usable only by martial artists (Iron Arm block at 120%- allows the defender to increase the unarmed parry to steps, Power blow at 100% does double damage, etc.).

At 50% skill, they can indeed gain the bonus CA for a second weapon.

At 150% they actually gain another CA- like a rapid strike / kenpo extra strike.

Of course, no one in the game now has a martial arts skill higher than 65%...

 

[SnowDog]

Unarmed combat is really the last resort against armed opponent. Of course it is better than none, even against armed opponents. If your opponent is using a sword there is really only about two ways to deal with it. You either flee or try to get really close where you can disarm him or beat the sh*t out of him

Brawling is one thing but I would count wrestling and boxing as martial arts, too even though in modern day they are pretty much sport like karate and judo for example. Still, if the setting is not about various techniques you could say that brawling and martial arts can be condensed to single skill. An experienced and mean spirited brawler will win an inexperienced martial artist very likely (in a bar brawl).

 

[Da Boss]

Loz has very nicely summed up the dangers of taking the principle of extra CAs too far. What we wanted was to preserve the edge that a shield or off-hand weapon gives a fighter in comparison to a 2-h-weapon user. +1 CA was a simple elegant way of doing this.

I must admit I did think the idea was bit odd as I thought that the advantages of shields were already accounted for in two substantial and realistic ways

1. The unique ability to parry missile fire (rather than have to rely on Evade).
2. Size of the shield means it can usually parry larger weapons (and hence avoid having to suffer damage) with could be done with a normal hand weapon.

Why is more needed? If the CA represent the speed and inteligence (nohing to do training as such else it would be related to the skill of the warrior which is another alterntive way of figuing it) why does picking up a weapon boost this?

Given that (and continuing the theme of extreme examples :wink: ) you can, like Brian Blessed in Blackadder get an extra CA for a fruit knife in your off hand, I find it a bit strange that a +1 CA for trained unarmed combat is not logical with the RAW?

Close Combat presently (and rightly) is at reduced effectiveness against weapon wielders as it has low damage output, extremley poor defensive capability (low weapon size) and very short reach.

 

[Dan True]

Given that (and continuing the theme of extreme examples :wink: ) you can, like Brian Blessed in Blackadder get an extra CA for a fruit knife in your off hand,

Well, most of use rule that the extra CA can only be used on the off-hand. So a guy picking up a shield will not get a boost to his offensive abilities (other than shield bash), but can save one "real" CA instead of using it to parry. It also makes sense to rule that one gets +1 CA for a free hand, that however can only be used unarmed. Since most fights takes place at medium reach or longer, this unarmed attack would be useless most of the time.

I find it a bit strange that a +1 CA for trained unarmed combat is not logical with the RAW?

I think it is simply because the system does not focus on unarmed combat. The system is made to focus on dark-age fights style between guys with shields - not martial arts. Allowing some special training in martial arts to give +1 CA makes sense, but was properly outside the focus of the original system.

- Dan

 

[superc0ntra]

Having trained MMA for a couple of years and other martial arts for over a decade, my take on the extra CA's being or not being is that as soon as you go in swinging with both fists fists you give up your defence so in practice there is no extra combat action involved.
On the other hand. If you attack and connect, you always (at least in theory) follow up with extra attacks so maybe it should be an unarmed only combat maneuver, "Follow up attack" make an extra attack at -XX% if the first is successful.

 

[Faelan Niall]

Having trained MMA for a couple of years and other martial arts for over a decade, my take on the extra CA's being or not being is that as soon as you go in swinging with both fists fists you give up your defence so in practice there is no extra combat action involved.
On the other hand. If you attack and connect, you always (at least in theory) follow up with extra attacks so maybe it should be an unarmed only combat maneuver, "Follow up attack" make an extra attack at -XX% if the first is successful.

While this is true I think allowing strikes to potentially do "Stun Location" as a combat maneuver simulates neural override pretty well without adding additional actions or modifiers to keep track of.

 

[PhilHibbs]

I like the idea of allowing the bonus CA for trained martial artists, maybe as an Advanced Skill, or one of a number of different Advanced Skills representing different styles. Each style should have a set of CAs that can be done with that style, and would also include certain weapons, e.g. Aikido could include Jo Staff use.

 

[Jujitsudave]

I love Martial Arts and if I was in an Asian or modern setting, I would develop something myself. The rules as written are a bit overly-deadly for unarmed combat, but they suffice for a standard medieval or classic era campaign.

 

[Da Boss]

I like the idea of allowing the bonus CA for trained martial artists, maybe as an Advanced Skill, or one of a number of different Advanced Skills representing different styles. Each style should have a set of CAs that can be done with that style, and would also include certain weapons, e.g. Aikido could include Jo Staff use.

The danger is again the confusion between a combat Skill - Unarmed and a Combat Style - which can just be Unarmed or included Unarmed as one of its subskills/styles.

So your Akido Combat Style may include:

Unarmed, Staff and perhaps a new defined Martial Arts / Avanced hand to hand which allows more things when not using weapons.

Although again depending on how far you want to take the rules - there is a reasonable argument for including Acrobatics or Athletics in certain Combat Styles and Brawn in others................

It apparently depends on how your define a "Combat Style" - is it the characters skill with one or two weapons or does it represent the sum of his training and experience as a warrior? Both seem to be possible interpretations?

Bringing the topic back to the additional CA for unarmed - I increasingly see no reason for the extra CA for shield (*) and dual wielding as they provide their own advantages so I would likely drop them for all three. I am also now wondering if CAs should be at least partially related to your skill and abilities rather than just raw attributes...............

(*) Shield wielders get:
1. The unique ability to parry missile fire (rather than have to rely on Evade).
2. Size of the shield means it can usually parry larger weapons (and hence avoid having to suffer damage) with could be done with a normal hand weapon.

 

[duncan_disorderly]

Bringing the topic back to the additional CA for unarmed - I increasingly see no reason for the extra CA for shield (*) and dual wielding as they provide their own advantages so I would likely drop them for all three.

Imagine you are armed with just a sword, and I am armed with a sword & shield.

I swing at you and you parry - this pulls your sword out of position.
You swing at me, I parry with my shield and can still attack with my sword unencumbered.

being able to parry and attack with different implements gives you an extra combat action, because you don't have to factor in (as much) "recovery time" between parrying and attacking. It's not 100% perfect - with the RAW, if I'm not attacked I can use all my CA's to attack with my sword, including the bonus for having the shield, or if I'm in trouble, I can use them all to parry with my shield and not actually use my sword - though if either of these are regular occurrences the GM should probably look at redeigning their encounters!

 

[duncan_disorderly]

I don't really see any problem with allowing an additional CA for an unarmed strike. I probably couldn't count the number of movies I've seen in which someone wielding a sword delivers a punch to the face with their off-hand or even a knee-strike to the groin. Though admittedly it usually only happens once during the combat rather than during each exchange. Some may consider that overly cinematic, but I personally don't feel it breaks the realm of believability. Once you take weapon range into consideration it only becomes a viable option at close range and in certain circumstances.

There is nothing in the rules that prevents you from punching/kicking/headbutting an opponent during a fight. The fact that it happens only once per combat rather than every exchange is why it shouldn't be modeled by an extra CA...

These sorts of blows tend not to happen in games because mechanically, hitting your foe with your sword does more damage, so unless your unarmed skill is massively higher than your armed skill will always be a better bet. In movies etc, it happens when the opponent leaves themselves open to this "surprise" attack, so in RQ terms the blow is often unnopposed, ans so would generate a CM...

 

[duncan_disorderly]

I like the idea of allowing the bonus CA for trained martial artists, maybe as an Advanced Skill, or one of a number of different Advanced Skills representing different styles. Each style should have a set of CAs that can be done with that style, and would also include certain weapons, e.g. Aikido could include Jo Staff use.

I assume you mean CM's (Combat Manouvers) not CA (Combat Actions) here? If so, then I agree - just as some (types of) weapon have access to particular CM's, so could/should particular unarmed styles, and some of these manouvers might only be available once your skill rises above a certain threshold...

 

[Dan True]

... and some of these manouvers might only be available once your skill rises above a certain threshold...

Instead of building on the skill level, then it should be like most RQ2 stuff: you need to learn it. Instead of you magically learning a new CM when your skill hits 80, you should instead seek out a master to teach you - or try yourself for two months...

- Dan

 

[PhilHibbs]

Each style should have a set of CAs that can be done with that style...

I assume you mean CM's (Combat Manouvers) not CA (Combat Actions) here?

yes, typo.

 

[Deleriad]

These sorts of blows tend not to happen in games because mechanically, hitting your foe with your sword does more damage, so unless your unarmed skill is massively higher than your armed skill will always be a better bet. In movies etc, it happens when the opponent leaves themselves open to this "surprise" attack, so in RQ terms the blow is often unnopposed, ans so would generate a CM...

It would be quite nice to have something that comes naturally out of the combat system which makes this a viable thing to do. One way is to look at current CMs and interpret them that way.

E.g. Say you hit someone with a sword and choose the trip CM then you could simply say that you clout them with the sword and while they're off balance kick their feet out from under them. Same for bash and so on. I might also be tempted to allow someone to use the Grip CM if they are using a 1H style and have a free hand to grip with. You could also rule as a GM that if someone has a weapon and uses an unarmed attack and the opponent hasn't seen this before that you get either a bonus to hit or they get a penalty to defend. So there are quite a few ways to do it RAW. You could also modify riposte and say that an unarmed riposte doesn't cost a CA.

Generally speaking though, thinking of classic movie fights, when someone makes an unarmed attack as part of a duel the outcome is usually to trip someone, bash them backwards, grab something and so on. Those are all outcomes of CMs. One minor rule extension might be that if you want to trip someone then rather than having them roll Evade vs the original attack roll you could use a new roll of your Unarmed skill vs their Evade. That would give a little extra use to the Unarmed skill in combat.

 

[Jujitsudave]

You could also modify riposte and say that an unarmed riposte doesn't cost a CA

This is another idea I was thinking. A quick and easy thing you could do is have the option for a new CM. It would be called unarmed strike and would work like the Riposte combat maneuver except it would be both offensive and defensive, not cost a CA, useable on a regular success and must be applied in the right range.