"the critical rating of the characters unarmed attacks is reduced by 1 per rank of iron body (to minmum of 1)."

unarmed means brawl, but with or without brawl-weapons ?!

we had this in another topic where I asked about repulsor fist+pressure point talent. pressure point talent specificly says " without any weapons " which for me excludes brawl weapons for unarmed attacks.

the normal unarmed critical is 5 without any weapons. if this talent works only with no weapons at all, the best crit rating could be 3 (taking the talent 2 x). and this is everything but nice. sense of the talent? usefulness=0

so, do you think it can be used with brawl weapons? i'd say yes.

the rules say there are weapons that count into unarmed combat and that those are specified as brawl weapons. it implies brawl weapons count in when it comes to doing unarmed combat attacks. (eote p.211).

So having the same chance to crit someone with your index finger as you do a blaster is useless? Me thinks not. Particularly with Pressure Point where all your damage will always ignore Soak and you'll be able to land crits on a simple success with a 3 Advantages or a Triumph.

pressure point is not rly supposed to do crits at all, its more about killing down strain. i dont get the comparision here. iron body uses another approach: crits

and clearly: " unarmed attacks " in eote p.211 go hand in hand with the description of what unarmed attacks are in no disintegrations. brawl-weapons augment unarmed attacks (which are using the brawl-skill as well). please also note that the chapter that is stating it (eote p.211) even is named " unarmed attacks " . so unless specified otherwise (as in pressure point: done without any weapons) its likeley to count any brawl-weapon as being unarmed. so "unarmed parry" from no disintegrations should also be done with brawl-weapons, but not with melee weapons.

He's saying you can combine the two and you'll have an attack which has a critical hit chance of 3 that'll ignore soak which could be very dangerous.

and I was talking about brawl-weapons counting as unarmed attacks, unless specfied otherwise.

in no disintegrations there is also the "precision strike" , "precision strike (improved) and the "precision strike (supreme)" talent. compare this to "unarmed parry". for supreme precision strike you suddenly see it stops working with any weapon, even from a brawl-source - so it indicates it. otherwise it'd be tooo powerful and that makes a lot of sense.

generally it makes it more clear to me, that any brawl-weapon counts as unarmed, unless specified otherwise. and whenever it says you're going to do something unarmed , it implies you certainly can use brawl-weapons for whatever you intend.

or am I under a wrong interpretation???

I am pretty convinced that when they say "unarmed," they mean any combat check not using a weapon, including Brawl weapons. Species with natural weapons, like Trandoshans, use the term unarmed as well. So, that being the case, Iron Body is pretty good, and it should apply to those species with natural weapons as well. The best way to clear this up is a developer question.

At least for Iron Body, I think its reasonably clear. Here is what it says under unarmed combat in the core books:

Unlike other weapons, Brawl weapons augment this
basic attack. Brawl weapons can add damage to the
attack (as indicated in the Brawl profile on page 180),
and may have an improved critical rating and addi-
tional weapon qualities. When using a Brawl weapon,
the user can choose to use its critical rating instead
of the standard Brawl critical rating. He also adds the
additional weapon qualities to the qualities already
provided by the Brawl attack. If the weapon provides
an improved version of an existing quality, the charac-
ter uses the improved version.

You see brawl weapons are clearly not the same as unarmed. You merely have the option of "choose to use its (brawl weapon) critical rating instead of the standard Brawl critical rating". So the way I read it, Iron Body reduces the crit on your unarmed criticals, usually from 4 down to 3 or 2, and you can choose to use whichever is best between that and your unarmed weapon when triggering a crit. I also agree that it would work with several species with natural weapons as those weapons are called unarmed attacks.

brawl-weapons + "normal brawl without any weapon" BOTH use the same skill.

brawl-weapons and how they augment unarmed attacks is described in the chapter named "unarmed attacks" (eote 211), so why would they describe weapons for a bunch of paragrapghs in a chapter were its about "unarmed attacks" ? makes no sense, does it?

the normal critical rating is 5, except maybe for a few Aliens.

I try to send to this question to a Developer as its a bit confusing how to handle the stuff. I always have in mind, that melee + brawl-weapons should become more deadly that Jedis actually going to fear something as well, esp. melee orientated scums.

did you checked the other talents i referred to above? read into them and maybe youll see what I mean.

Here's more of the description on unarmed combat, from p. 211 of the EotE core rulebook (emphasis mine):

Quote

Although most characters probably feel more comfortable going into a fight with a good blaster in their hand, there are times they must rely on their fists, feet, or other appendages. Of course, some species such as Wookiees, possibly relish a good brawl.

Characters fighting unarmed generally use the Brawl combat skill. Unlike other combat skills, the Brawl skill is designed to be used independently of any weapons (although there are some weapons that can be used in conjunction with the Brawl skill).

It accompanies a helpful illustration of what it means.

ok, so brawl weapons are neither unarmed attacks, nor are they melee attacks as they use the brawl skill.

so when a close combat talent uses the words 'unarmed', or 'melee weapon' you can hush off with your little brawl weapon that is so powerful and over the top already? im not argueing that some talents exclude the complete use of weapons due to the wording "without any weapons" - and they are right to do so.

that wookie does not prove a simgle point. its an ilustration for an abstract close combat Situation i could say.

again, what kind of sense does it make on that same page (p211) you refer to, that they talk of weapons the wholeeee time, while the chapter is named unarmed attacks. please have a look

so lets say , a bounty hunter with vamblades attached cant make use of parry, unarmed parry and iron body ?? he has to be naked to use some of those?? are brawl-weapons so crazy with such talents??? jedis are far more freaking......

no disintegrations also adds the parry talent. so it can only be used with melee weapons, but not with brawl weapons. then theres also unarmed parry, which counts for unarmed only them.

Now it gets exciting: by your ruling , a fighter capable of parry+unarmed parry would NOT be able to parry with a brawl-weapon. you feel that something is really weird? or everything fine?

Do I feel it odd that Unarmed Parry is restricted to unarmed combat? As a talent for general use, yes. As a talent specific to Martial Artist, it does make some sense, but it makes it awkward for character concepts that aren't Bruce Lee-style unarmed fighters to use. I, personally, would rule it to be used with brawl weapons.

Do I find it odd that Iron Body and Precision Strike (Supreme) are restricted to unarmed combat? Not in the slightest. It not only gives the unarmed fighter build a leg-up, but it seems well balanced. I can see how mixing the passive ability to reduce critical ratings on some brawl weapons with the ability to automatically inflict some of the Hard-level critical injuries (one of which involves removing limbs ) can be all kinds of overpowered. Excepting Trandoshans and others like them, but I think that is a fine exception.

hmm. maybe youre right. i find it very tough as I want brawl weapons having a good spot, while not being overpowered.

supreme precision strike is awesome (despite its once per Session) and it intelligently says 'without any weapon'. i took this as clarification for brawl-weapons being unarmed, except in special cases like this talent. Special cases are those where it is explicitly forbidden to use brawl-weapons for a talent , as in supreme precision strike, or pressure point.

but i guess i repeat myself ... sorry for that.

Ive just send a question to FFG. lets see. i guess im wrong, hehe.

32 minutes ago, Blackbird888 said:

Do I feel it odd that Unarmed Parry is restricted to unarmed combat? As a talent for general use, yes. As a talent specific to Martial Artist, it does make some sense, but it makes it awkward for character concepts that aren't Bruce Lee-style unarmed fighters to use. I, personally, would rule it to be used with brawl weapons.

Do I find it odd that Iron Body and Precision Strike (Supreme) are restricted to unarmed combat? Not in the slightest. It not only gives the unarmed fighter build a leg-up, but it seems well balanced. I can see how mixing the passive ability to reduce critical ratings on some brawl weapons with the ability to automatically inflict some of the Hard-level critical injuries (one of which involves removing limbs ) can be all kinds of overpowered. Excepting Trandoshans and others like them, but I think that is a fine exception.

My problem with Iron Body on weapons is you essentially gut Jury Rigged and make it pointless on an entire class of weapons in the game.

1 hour ago, Gordonovan said:

ok, so brawl weapons are neither unarmed attacks, nor are they melee attacks as they use the brawl skill.

Melee vs melee is an entirely different topic and one that has cause loads of confusion throughout the years. You see FFG uses the term to both refer to the Melee skill of the same name and melee as a generic term for close combat checks with a non-ranged weapon. Sometimes they are nice enough to capitalize Melee when they are referring to the skill and other times they don't. For Example:

Quote

From RANGED ATTACKS AND MELEE ATTACKS sidebar pg. 218 Core

A melee attack is an
attack made in close combat with an opponent,
and with a weapon designed for use in
close combat. Such an attack is most likely to
be made using the Melee or Brawl skill.

As you can imagine, this causes a lot of confusion about when they mean melee attack as described above or when they mean an attacking using the melee skill.

A similar ambiguity does seem to exist when dealing with unarmed attacks vs being unarmed. An unarmed attack is an attack where you use the brawl skill and your racial default attack (usually +0 crit 5 Disorient 1, Knockdown). That attack can be augmented by Brawl weapons as described in the unarmed combat section but that doesn't change it from being an unarmed attack. Being "unarmed" is never defined. It could be taken literally and mean "not equipped with a weapon" or it could mean "able to make an unarmed attack".

Note that an unarmed attack doesn't always mean a punch, since we know that at least a kick is also an acceptable unarmed attack (although this may be restricted by a particular brawl or species specific trait). We know this because there are stun boots that can augment kicks. Since at least kicks, and presumably knees and elbows and whatever, can be used as unarmed attacks, it seems reasonable to say that someone could make an unarmed block with the same body part. Having just watched IP Man list night, I don't think it's unreasonable to assume that a Martial Artist can use Unarmed Parry regardless of what weapon they may be holding.

Precision Strike (all three) - Can be used with brawl weapons because the attacks are still unarmed attacks that are then augmented by brawl weapons

Iron Body - Lowers species basic unarmed attack and can be use with Brawl weapons only in the sense that you can use whichever is better.

Unarmed Parry - Since "Unarmed" remains undefined, I am going to rule that as long as a player can make an unarmed attack, regardless of whether it is augmented by a brawl weapon, then the player can make an Unarmed Parry.

I think the wording on the first two are fairly clear and by RAW. Unarmed Parry is a bit up in the air but I think this interpretation is reasonable.

7 hours ago, Gordonovan said:

the normal unarmed critical is 5 without any weapons. if this talent works only with no weapons at all, the best crit rating could be 3 (taking the talent 2 x). and this is everything but nice. sense of the talent? usefulness=0

it's usefulness is relative. Keep in mind that the designers tend to be forward thinking when designing talents. We may only have two occasions of Iron Body at this time but that is not to say that we may not see other trees with the talent down the road.

22 minutes ago, Gordonovan said:

supreme precision strike is awesome (despite its once per Session) and it intelligently says 'without any weapon'.

This is a great point. There are several talents like Supreme Precision Strike and Pressure Points where they are very careful to call out that they can't be used with a weapon. I think it's safe to say that if they wanted Unarmed Strikes to not allow weapons they would have included the way wording.

3 minutes ago, mouthymerc said:

it's usefulness is relative. Keep in mind that the designers tend to be forward thinking when designing talents. We may only have two occasions of Iron Body at this time but that is not to say that we may not see other trees with the talent down the road.

It's also worth noting that if you reduce your unarmed crit from 5 to 3, you are allowed to carry that improved crit range over to your brawl weapon. Because of this: "When using a Brawl weapon, the user can choose to use its critical rating instead of the standard Brawl critical rating." Since it's optional, that means it would allow you to take whichever crit is better and 3 is better than many of the best brawl weapons. Plus of course the talent also removes setbacks and makes you deadlier when you don't have brawl weapons. Overall I think it is a very good talent for 5xp.

" Unlike other weapons, Brawl weapons augment this
basic attack. "

This makes it relatively clear for me. Brawling weapons to do change the type of attack you're making. They simply augment it, improve it, make it better. Throwing a punch is throwing a punch whether you are clutching a roll quarters or not. Or have on studded gloves.

With brawling weapons you aren't changing your style of attack. Once you pick up a chair, lightsaber, vibroaxe, ect. you are now changing your fighting style.

I think the confusion is the term "Brawling weapon." Brawling weapons aren't a weapon in the sense that they are an extension of the user and the user must interact with it to gain efficacy like you would a lightsaber, or a blaster.

No, unarmed combat means combat when you're either not using your arms or combat when you have no arms. Obviously.

'

22 minutes ago, GroggyGolem said:

No, unarmed combat means combat when you're either not using your arms or combat when you have no arms. Obviously.

'Tis but a flesh wound! '

This might be helpful:

Question Asked by Kaosoe :
With the release of the Martial Artist in No Disintegrations, we are seeing several talents like "Unarmed Parry" and "Iron Body" that enhance unarmed combatants.However, there is some debate about what constitutes an unarmed character. If a combatant is using brawl weapons such as shock gloves or vibro-knuckles are they still considered unarmed or do brawl weapons count as weapons for the sake of being unarmed. From my understanding brawl weapons augment unarmed attacks as in the Paragraph EotE p. 211. so unless specified otherwise (like in the "pressure point" talent: not to be done with any weapon) brawl-weapons are considered unarmed attacks by all means?

Answered by Sam Stewart :
Normally, Brawl weapons augment unarmed attacks, and can be used as part of an unarmed attack. Some talents may specifically require the user to not be wielding any weapons, which would include Brawl weapons.

10 minutes ago, kaosoe said:

Answered by Sam Stewart :
Normally, Brawl weapons augment unarmed attacks, and can be used as part of an unarmed attack. Some talents may specifically require the user to not be wielding any weapons, which would include Brawl weapons.

I love how the answer was to restate the question without answering anything.

That was probably Sam's way of politely telling me "You answered your own question, dummy!"

I figured the same. Still it would have been nice if he had just come out and said so clearly and concisely. I get that they are under no obligation to answer our questions, but it would be nice that if when they do it would actually remove all doubt regarding the ruling. Or at least as much doubt as can be expected from a non-RAW dev answer. I mean these guys write rules for a living, you'd think they'd know they needed to give cleaner answers.