I've always ben a fan of the 'martial arts' (unarmed combat) in the Abnett books, especially Ravenor, but can't see any obvious mechanic for this - it's a simple WS skill roll! Am I missing anything?

?

Read through the grappling rules and the unarmed attack rules, they are not realy martial arts but should suffice.
Otherwise:

Martial Arts (Elite Advance Talent):
You have honed your body to be a perfect weapon and you are able to fight without weapons.

System:
You gain a +10% on WS to all unarmed attacks and you unarmed attacks do 1d5-2 I damage, you also do not suffer the -20 penalty when facing an armed opponent.

I've understood that there are some talents in Rogue Trader that makes unarmed combat more of a useful choice for melee warriors. Maybe check them up and import them to your DH game? Be adviced that fighting unarmed is a huge disadvantage, even if you opponent have only got a small knife, a piece of chain or even a rock in his hand. And it gets way worse if they have even a medieval style sword and armor. I can only imagine there is an even greater risk of further complications when yelling Haii! and throwing punches at a person with powerarmor and a 4 foot chainsword. From medieval fighting manuals and some painful trial and error I've learned to unarmed approach armed opponents with actions in roughly this order: If at all possible, I run away. Else: Feint to draw out an attack, use the moment of imbalance this creates to get in close, control my opponents weapon, grapple her, optional: disarm her and if in extreme luck gain control of the weapon, break joints (fingers are the easiest, arms the most effective) and poke out eyes until she is not dangerous. Strangulation is at best of situational use. It requires several of my appendages and requires plenty of control. Once you have gotten to the grappling bit the odds between armed/unarmed is evened out by a lot. Of course your armed opponent is very much aware of this, so will do her best to keep distance and feint attacks to draw me into effective weapon range when she is ready to strike.

By my experience, and when I GM, the avoiding-a-grapple-rules should look like this: You may use a Dodge or Parry reaction as a response to an attempted grapple (not just an agi-check as in the rulebook). If you succeed with a Parry reaction you will be allowed to attack the would be grappler as if you had the Counter Attack talent. If you have the Counter Attack talent, you will be allowed to attack without suffering the usual -20% to hit associated with counter attack. Armor shouldn't really protect against the damage from ongoing grapples since it is mostly bending and breaking joints that hurts the grappled. Powered armor helps by increasing your strength, the AP is irrelevant. Fatigue is caused if the damage done is equal to or greater than the targets toughness bonus, as with all unarmed damage. It should also be possible to make "called shots" with grapple damage.

But on the other hand, this is a grimdark world governed by the rule of cool. So I say kung fu moves should have a decent chance of success. Maybe make attacks like this available from talents:

Feint and grapple. Full round action. Opposed WS-check. If successful, you initiate grapple. No reactions allowed to this attack.

Breaking fingers: Full round action. Make an opposed strengthcheck to disarm one weapon from the target you are currently locked in grappling with.

Twist and turn: Your grappling damage is increased to 1d5+SB.

Go for the eyes Boo! You may choose what location your grappling attack hits. Alternatively just allow Sure Strike and Precise Blow to apply to grappling damage.

Stabber: You may use a knife, natural weapons like claws, teeth or similar small edged/pointed weapon to deal damage with the grappling attack. Armor applies as normal against this attack. Blademaster is not applicable.

Armor have joints: As Stabber, but the targets armor values are halfed. Note: In historical medieval reenactment fighting this is considered the second best way to handle a full-plate-armored opponent if you only have a dagger at hand. Grapple, control, expose joints and stab them. Armpit and groin are popular spots to aim for, visors slits and under the chin of the helmet are good secondary choices. The best way to handle this situation is to run away and get some gear and friends.

Ninja grab: While grappling you may do a normal grappling attempt at a second target that is within melee range. If you succeed you will now be grappling two opponents. While grappling two opponents you must spend a full round action each turn, just to keep controlling them.

I dont bottom: +10 to strengthchecks to gain control of or break free of a grapple that you are the subject of.

Half nelson: +10 to strengthchecks to remain in control of a grapple that your target is trying to break free from.

Shackle: If you have a pair of handcuffs, some ducttape, magnetically locked enforcer strips or similar you may do an opposed strengthcheck to apply these to your grappled target. This is a full round action that requires you to have the restraining item readied. A target locked up in such a way is effectively in a grapple with an item that has a set difficulty for a strengthcheck to break free. I'd guess around -30 for proper handcuffs, -10 for liberal amounts of ducttape, +10 for a silk bathrobe belt.

I would also allow some of the melee-specific talents to help with grappling, such as Street Fighting, Crushing Blow, Crippling strikes etc.

Now I've gotten all excited. I'll have to try these rules out on my players. Further suggestions are very welcome.

Here are a bunch of suggestions for unarmed fighting. Be warned that I've recently watched both the movies American Ninja (from -84, watch it and don't miss the lasershooting ninja move right at the end!) and Kung Fu Panda. So some of these may very inappropriate for the wh40k setting. I don't think any of them are seriously overpowered or have any huge balance issues compared to the nastiness that is available through weapons. I think the unarmed fighter as I've ruled it here will be most useful while fighting big groups of opponents that don't dodge or parry a lot, or when gear is restricted by the story. Anything with good armor and/or unnatural toughness will be very hard to make an impression on. I've included Ki-strike and Three Point Punch to give some sort of options. I've indicated at roughly what level I think they should be available for the assassin. Probably add 1 level for the other melee combat careers. Maybe a scholar-monk elite advance package available only for adepts...

Martial arts training: lvl 1. You do not suffer the regular -20% penalty when facing an armed opponent. You may make unarmed Standard Attack using knees and kicks, even while holding something in your hands.

Inside your reach: lvl 4. You gain an extra dodge reaction, usable only against melee attacks, and only while unarmed.

Anatomy knowledge: lvl 6. Requires Takedown (I'd give the assassin access to Takedown at 4 btw). Announcing a Takedown is now a free action.

Mantis stance: lvl 2. You may parry even while unarmed. Power weapons have a 75% chance to deal normal damage to your arm when parried.

Mantis moves: lvl 4. Requires Mantis stance. You gain the Balanced trait for your unarmed parries.

Claw of the tiger: lvl 2. When dealing damage with your unarmed attacks you deal 1d5 damage plus SB.

Weak spots: lvl 4. Requires Claw of the tiger. Your unarmed attacks are no longer considered primitive.

Resonating punch: lvl 6. Requires Weak spot. Your unarmed attacks gain armor penetration equal to your SB.

Ki-strike: lvl 8. Requires Resonating punch. When benefiting from an aim-action your unarmed attacks gains the Warp Weapon trait (ignores most armors) as you punch through reality itself.

Body Control: lvl 4. You gain +10 toughness for the purpose of resisting damage, shock, poison etc. This does affect your TB reduction from damage taken.

Body of iron: lvl 7. Requires Body control. As Body control, with an additional +10 toughness. (This one might be overpowered, but only against armies of mooks. A hit form an autocannon won't care much about an extra 2 points of damage reduction)

Pain conditioning: lvl 3. You will only recieve the -10 penalty for fatigue after taking your second point of fatigue. You may reroll failed WPtests to retain control over your character while you are on fire.

Fists of fire: lvl 4. Full round action, do a single normal melee attack that deals energy damage and has a chance to set your target on fire.

Fists of flaming fury: lvl 6. Requires Fists of fire. As a free action you may choose to have your unarmed attacks deal energy damage for the rest of the round. Anyone hit by at least one of your unarmed attacks this round must test agility or catch fire. When you use this ability you must pass a toughness test or suffer one level of fatigue.

Breath of fire: lvl 5. Requires fists of fire. Full round action. Attack as if shooting with a handflamer, you are considered skilled with this weapon.

A thousand blows: lvl 7. Requires lightning attack. While attacking unarmed you may make 4 attacks as a Full action. This stacks with two weapon wielder in the same way that lightning attack does.

Knees and elbows: lvl 6. Requires two weapon wielder melee and ambidextrous. Whenever you could gain an extra unarmed attack from your two weapon wielder melee, you may make another extra unarmed attack.

Three point punch: lvl 8. Requires Knees and elbows and Dual Strike. Attack as with Dual strike, if you hit you will deal damage as if from three unarmed attacks. Damage reduction from armor is calculated on each hit separately, but damage reduction from TB is only applied to the combined damage.

Some math: A lvl 8 assassin using the most powerul combinations of the above talents and the ones available through the assassin career. She also has crushing blow and street fighting as elite advances (a psyker can gain these last two at lvl 4, I assume he has shared the knowledge). She is assumed to have a SB of 5 and a WS of 50.

She will have 2 parry at ws+10, 2 dodge at agi+20, and one extra melee dodge at agi+20. She will have an effective damage reduction of 6 (TB4 + 2 points of Body control + body of iron).

When attacking with a full round attack she will do 6 attacks (A thousand blows 4 + Knees and elbows 2) with normal WS chance to hit (no best quality weapons for her). Each effective hit will do 1d5 (unarmed damage + claw of the tiger) +5 (SB) + 2 (crushing blow) +2 (street fighter) +1d5-1 (crippling strike) damage with pen 5. This adds upp to 2d5 + 8 damage, pen 5. Average 13p damage, before TB and AP.
Compare to a similar character with two chainswords. she would then do 1d10 + 2 + 5 +2 +1d5-1 = 1d10+1d5+8, tearing, pen 2. Average (roughly) 17.5 damage, but only 4 attacks.
The same character with 2x powerswords would do 1d10 + 5 + 5 + 2 + 1d5-1 = 1d10+1d5+12, pen 6. Average 20.5 damage, and 4 attacks.

Lets assume a target with TB4 and 5 or less points of AP that will manage to dodge or parry one attack each round.
The six unarmed attacks will cause 3 hits, one parried. Each will cause 13-4=9 damage on average. For a total of 18 damage.
Four power weapon attacks averages two hits, one miss is rerolled with blademaster for an average of 2.5 hits. One avoided leaves 1.5 hits. Each hit will do 20.5-4 = 16.5 damage. On average this is 24.75 damage per round. Mastercrafting the mainhand powersword will increase this further.
So the unarmed fighter does less good, but not by much. On a target that parries or dodges two hits per round the unarmed attacker is much more useful.

On a target like an orc with TB5 and unnatrual toughness, the average unarmed damage will be reduced to 3p, making the attacks pretty worthless. Hence Three Point Punch. Assuming a hit, and no dodge/parry, the hit will do 39p of damage, minus TB of 10, for an effective 29.
A dual strike with above mentioned power swords will do an average of 41p damage, minus TB 10 so an effective 31. Blademaster will let this attack hit 75% of the time though.

Ki-strike is mostly useful for hitting things with loads of armor and makes aiming an interesting tactical choice. Can be comined with Three Point Punch to hurt things with lots of armor and high toughness bonus, such as spacemarines and certain daemons, but will then require you to stand in front of the big nasty while aiming for a round.

This post grew a lot bigger than I thought it would. I'll read through this tomorrow and post a new thread or two over at "House Rules" if I still think these seem like clever ideas. For now, enjoy :-)

that's pretty cool!

But I think crippling strike only adds 1D5-1 when you land a critical (below 0) not in general.

Bah, of coruse crippling strike only works on criticals. I blame 5 o clock in the morning for that misstake :-) Oh well, I'll redo those calculations properly before I post at "house rules". However, my gut feeling is that an unarmed attacker will do way too little damage then. Some rough numbers gives:

On average 10.5 damage with a hit. With a full round 6 attacks, 3 hits, one parried/dodged, target with TB4 = 6.5 points damage per hit, on average 13p of damage. Compared to the 2x powersword that will do 18p damage per hit. 4 attacks, 2.5 hits with blademaster, one parried/dodged leaves 1.5 hits. 14p damage per hit, an average of 21p damage.

Against a target with Unnatural toughness, so an effective damage reduction of 10 each normal hit will do 0.5 damage... not impressive. A three point punch will then cause 3x10.5=31.5 damage, reduced to 21,5. This is less than a powersword dualstrike that causes 36 damage, minus TB so effective 26, and blademaster makes sure that this will happen more often.

Unarmed fighting could greatly benefit from something to improve chance to hit. Either a version of blademaster or the ability to increase WS, "best quality fists". Or it could be left intentionally subpar on flat damage, but situationally interesting (a place where weapons are not socially acceptable for example) with additional utility. Wich is actually much more interesting than just buffing it up to do damage as if it was an armed fighter. More controlling, more grapple, more effective take downs. More sneaky tricks. Then it becomes a tactical choice, rather than a numbercrunching excercise. I'll keep thinking about this one.

you could give the fists various traits according to style. Like Fast for Snake, Tearing for Tiger, Defensive for Crane, Ballanced for Dragon, Flexible for Monkey, Shocking for Mantis etc.

I like all the above suggestions very much, but am wary of 'rules creep'.

I had some ideas after first posting this thread that went something like this:

Empty Hand (Talent): All unarmed attacks made can be combined with any other melee Talents the characters knows.

Scientific combat: By successfully studying their opponent for one round, all attacks made by the attacker effectively half that opponents damage reduction for either Armour or Toughness until the opponents break from combat and sensory contact with each other. The attacker decides which aspect they will study (Armour or Toughness, but never both at the same time) and then has to make a successful Awareness skill test versus the opponents Deceive skill.

Combat conditioning: Unarmed strikes by the attacker do 1d5+SB (Primative) damage.

I like the elegant approach to this, and leveraging off exsiting Skills and Talents (except Combat conditioning). O fcourse, where to slot them into the Advances is the real problem? I'm thinking of these mainly for Assassins, Adepts, Guardsmen, and Arbities.

2c

There are two new talents in RT that should suffice:

Unarmed Strike: Your unnarmed attacks now do 1d5 + SB damage and no longer count as unnarmed.

Unarmed Master: Your unnamerd attacks now do 1d10 + SB damage and no longer count as primative. (I might need to check the damage figures).

Mellon said:

Yeah the rule of cool have quite the influence. However, 40K has military romanticism written all over it. If effective martial arts are to be included I think something reminiscent of modern close quarters combat techniques used by real armed forces should be prevalent.

Ninja myths and dodgy kung fu stuff just doesn't fit the setting if you ask me.

In 40K, it is always Rambo the ubersoldier with his twin M60's that wins the day. Not Sasuke the Legendary Ninja of the Shadow Realm...

Varnias Tybalt said:

At least not in the imperium.

But that's not to say there isn't a lot of cross over between what armed forces are trained with and more conventional martial arts.

How about the imperial assassin temples? Some of them seem to know some pretty oriental stuff :-) But I do agree with you. Ninjas and kung fu monks should be used very carefully in the 40k setting.

call me the Radical, i can't disagree more...ninja myth and dodgy kungfu hav every right within the 40K setting. because they haven't been discussed and worked in to any of the literature doesn't mean it cannot have any place whatsoever. we have daemons from the warp, Orgyns, psykers, living saints (the Emperor only knows how they get that kind of power!) but no folks that have sat in temples and wandered learning the ways of hand to hand combat?!?!? no myths of black clad death dealers and spies? yeah their called death cult assassins. or bad ass Imperial ones. why can't their be the flourishing and existence of ninja myth clans? or lil old men that can balance of their fingertips sitting cross-legged and use enough KI/CHI energy to punch through power armour?

we have myths of these now. glorified and much celebrated in magazines,movies and comic books. surely in the world of 40K we'd have some of the same cutls, clans and Kung fu. and in the 40K setting, they can be even MORE spectacular. Ok not too much more. that said most hand to hand will be more in the domain of the soldiers of the Imperium. basic stuff. none of that stops individual cultures from placing an emphasis or deemphasis on hand to hand training, as is the case now with various modern militaries in the worlds.

i'll add my own.

Defensive Martial Artist: Prerequisite: Wall of Steel, Ag 40 Skilled in the art of defense, you may Block (parry) a number of times equal to your AB against a melee opponent.

Combat Throw: With a successful attack or counterattack to grapple, you throw your enemy a number meters equal to your SB in a direction of your choosing. 1d10 base dmg with a +1 for each meter thrown. SB 1 1d10+1, SB2 1D10+2, SB3 1D10+3 etc. if the damage seems excessive reduce to 1d5+? with the Stun capability. the damage i used was taken from the Falling Damage table in DHRC.

and i've just recalled, we do have our own badazz martial arts analogue in 40K albeit minor. MkVenner from the Gaunts Ghosts novels. he learned that secret art of Cwylwll (sp?)...broke up quite a few Blood Pact with it.

cheers all

liegekiller, DH dose have little old men who can balance on their fingertips and punch through power armour; they're called a Biomancer with some TK ability ;-) And 40k dose have ninjas and not just any ninjas but Spaaaace Ninjas! Of course, they're usually just called assassins.

@Mellon

Think about allowing Body Control and Body of Iron only when the character has a certain AP value or less (say, two or three, since that's what most bodygloves grant). This makes assassins a little more competitive in the higher levels, but it doesn't render power armour superfluous.

MDMann said:

Wait, so in rogue trader fist beats sword? That better be expensive talents.

Graspar said:

I think that Master talent is ment to be available at a pretty high level. So compare that fist to a best quality powersword, or something else at about the same level of availability

It doesn't matter. Empty hand hurts more than sharp steel, that's wrong no matter what level you're on.

Why? It's not like your evenly-matched swordsman won't have a couple points in corresponding armed combat talents, is it?

Compare to psykers. Empty hand my ass, a magical gesture and a firm glare is where the real hurt comes from.

Now repeat after me until the nasty voices go away: There are no laws of physics, there is only the Rule of Cool. There are no laws of physics, there is only the Rule of Cool. There are no laws of physics, there is only the Rule of Cool. There are no laws of physics, there is only the Rule of Cool. There are no laws of physics, there is only the Rule of Cool. There are no laws of physics, there is only the Rule of Cool. There are no laws of physics, there is only the Rule of Cool.

Better now?

;-)

The Rule of Cool commenced c. 348. M39 in the Do *** system of the Whoa Sector. The Cools wrested control from the now defunct line of Be Bop (on the planet Do *** III), for being Uncool. The current ruler is Diadomo Jerome Cool X (DJ Cool X), son of Cool Ian Oscar IV (Cool IO IV) and Regina Beatrice Esther Cool XX (Reg. BE Cool), two distant branches of the Cool line, making him Totally Cool. Long Live the Rule of Cool.

Do *** III experiences rampant global warming and balmy sun kissed beaches, so the Rule of Cool is Hot!

Graspar said:

Sure, a fist from an unarmed master would beat a regular sword because the sword is primitive damage, unless you like parrying (I don't have the Rogue Trader book yet so I'm going by your infomation). But mono that sword and I don't see how the fists would be better. Especially if you get a good or best quality mono sword.

the Martial Arts Master talent is an attempt to give players another viable avenue into combat, and be successful in the attempt. The idea of the unarmed master from whatever school, culture or discipline.

it doesn't matter which will do more damage than the other. what matters is can a fist have the potential to kill? in the DH rules a fist used by an average combatant doesn't have the chance to kill..the damage factor is far too low. in RT, it takes the added thought with supreme training, the lethality of said combatant increases, in its stages. a normal person vs. SAS vs. Grand Master Deathblow (ok he doesn't really exist, but you get the point). the weapon utilized increases with the skill of the user. a fork can kill someone but its lethality is increased in the hands of a master.

the dropping of Primitive at the Master level, is obviously a both a bit of fictional license to give the player a chance vs. armoured opponents but also a further envisioning of the 'art of breaking', tameshiwari. you've all seen this - folks breaking bricks, boards, punching steel...etc. another way of looking at this is not just from the perspective of strikes and kicks, but throws, joint manipulation and breaking necks...something that armour would have little to no effect on depending on what it is. the ony exception to this may be power armour.

Cool, I've never noticed that icon before. Happy Birthday Liegekiller.

Mellon said:

Are you sure that you're not just correlating imperial assassins with ninjas subconsciously because imperial assassins often wear black bodygloves and masks?

Now I can't really say that I think any of the imperial assassin temples resemble anything in a kung fu or ninjaesque way. We have the Cailldus Temple, whose assassins are masters of disguise and deception (but that's pretty much all they do), we have the Vindicare which are specialized snipers, we have the Culexus which are Untouchable anti-psykers, and we have the Eversor which are psychopathic "one man armies" fighting with guerilla and terrorist tactics.

Make no mistake, im sure that all of these have had extensive CQC-training and are proficient with many types of close combat weapons, but I fail to see why extensive CQC-training necessarily have to be oriental style martial arts, when they could just as well be simple, yet extremely effective military versions of martial arts?

My point here being: why would an assassin ever employ mythical kung fu/ninja stuff like the "five point palm exploding heart technique", when a slit throat or a snapped neck is just as quick, silent, effective and way more fool-proof than fictional "chi" usage and pressure point manipulation?

It's not that I dislike oriental combat myths and such (I am a huge ninja buff myself), but I think it's a bit stereotypical in a way when everybody thinks "badass combat monster" they always think of oriental martial arts.

An imperial assassin going more along the lines with badass "military-grade effective", rather than "elaborate mythical ninja effective" is by far more cooler and a lot more along the lines of the 40K-mindset, with all it's modern military romanticism and such.

Besides, we all know how world war 2 went. The US faced of against Japan. That's an entire nation of ninjas and samurai if you are to believe all the myths and martial arts romanticism. In fact, many of the japanese soldiers actially carried katana swords during the battles. Now which side won the war in the end? The mythical, uber ninja/samurai warriors, or the normal soldiers with guns, battleships, tanks and bombs?

MDMann said:

thanks brother. i never noticed that icon before either..its rather embarassing. but thanks nonetheless.

cheers