melee question

By darth_scarymonster, in Game Mechanics

the unarmed combat rules seem a little confusing to me.

unarmed combat gets a critical rating of 5, disorient 1, and "knockdown qualities".

it seems like equipping a pair of brass knuckles makes your disorient mod much worse, is that intended?

and what does "knockdown qualities" means? does that mean you can knock down a target with an advantage 1?

if this has been corrected somewhere, i apologize, i did a quick search but didn't see this question before.

ok! haha sorry, please bare with me…

…i think i just figured out the disorient thing. disorient 3 isn't the cost to activate the disorient, it's the duration of time the target is disoriented. i'm still confused by the "knockdown qualities" statement…

darth_scarymonster said:

the unarmed combat rules seem a little confusing to me.

unarmed combat gets a critical rating of 5, disorient 1, and "knockdown qualities".

it seems like equipping a pair of brass knuckles makes your disorient mod much worse, is that intended?

and what does "knockdown qualities" means? does that mean you can knock down a target with an advantage 1?

if this has been corrected somewhere, i apologize, i did a quick search but didn't see this question before.

You've placed the quotes in the wrong place. ALL of the following are weapon qualities:

  • CR
  • Disorient
  • Knockdown

The rating on disorient is how many turns the target suffers disorient, NOT how many advantages are required to activate it. It takes 2 adv to activate disorient, regardless of the rating.

Knockdown allows the attacker to spend 2 adv (+1 per silhouette over 1).

-WJL

interesting, ok…

so if you attack with an unarmed attack, you have a much easier time knocking down an opponent than if you use the melee talent "knockdown" on page 95, which lets you turn a triumph on a melee attack into a knockdown result?

so attacking with your fists lets you knockdown opponents easier than attacking with a sword? just double checking that the RAW is intended.

It's not just "attacking with your fists." The Brawl skill encompasses grappling, punching, kicking ,biting, etc. A decent unarmed fighter will go in to

Anyway. Real-world fighting styles aside, I think this mechanic makes sense and is one advantage Brawl attacks have over Melee attacks. There aren't many of those in the rules as of yet :)

It should also be noted that the guy with a vibrosword can also do unarmed attacks if they want to knock someone over (rather than cutting their target up). I don't see it as a unarmed > melee; It's melee = options.

Ahhh of course. Thanks doc!