Unarmed Combat?

[philotomy]

How are you handling unarmed combat in your OD&D game?

[Stonegiant]

I plan on using the system described in the article Brawling: The easy way "out" in D&D by Rob Kuntz in Dragon #11.

[korgoth]

I plan on opening with a strong right cross and staying on the lookout for an unprotected knee to kick. OH! I was thinking of something else. ;D

Hmm. Good question, actually. I'm not actually running a game, but planning a campaign and deciding between OD&D and Moldvay for it (actually currently favoring OD&D, which is why I'm here!).

I'm a huge fan of Strength bonus to damage... 15 or greater gets a +1 in my house rules (and 6 or below is a -1). Just eyeballing the scale of hp, damage bonus, weapon damage, etc. I'm inclined to adjudicate unarmed attacks as regular strikes that do 1d2 damage, +/- bonus.

I'd also say that if your foe is wearing plate armor unarmed strikes are ineffective unless he's not wearing his helmet.

For grappling/overbearing, I'd say that's just an alternate description of your unarmed strike. Not very realistic, I know. But it might be good enough... I'm interested to see other people's ideas.

[philotomy]

I'd forgotten the Dragon #11 article. Let's see, some of the options I know of include:

The example from the D&D FAQ (Strategic Review Vol. 1, No. 2)
Brawling: the easy way "out" in D&D (Dragon No. 11)
How to Finish Fights Faster (Dragon No. 83)
1E Unarmed Combat Rules from the Dungeon Masters Guide
1E Weaponless Combat Rules from Unearthed Arcana
Roll-your-own

[philotomy]

The qualities I'm looking for:
- fairly simple
- should make sense (e.g. plate mail shouldn't offer the same protection against a grapple as it does against a sword)
- should allow for multiple participants, not just one-on-one
- ability scores & size should be a factor (probably more so than in combat with weapons -- even a melee weapon like a dagger is something of an equalizer)

[Finarvyn]

Actually, I never really bother with unarmed combat. Most of my weapons do a d6 so I let a punch or kick be a d3 and just handle it like any other combat.

Realistic? No. Easy to run? Yup.

[philotomy]

admin said:

Actually, I never really bother with unarmed combat. Most of my weapons do a d6 so I let a punch or kick be a d3 and just handle it like any other combat.

Realistic? No. Easy to run? Yup.

Yeah, that works fine for strikes. What about grapples/overbears, though? For example, five goblins trying to pull down/pin an armored fighter, rather than fighting him with short swords?

[WSmith]

Unarmed combatant = dead combatant.

[WSmith]

Seriously, I misunderstood the FAQ example and derived a system from that.

Each participant rolls their HD. results are compared. The higher total has whatever they were trying to do happen.

I will post an example...

[WSmith]

This is what I was thinking of.

www.knights-n-knaves.com/phpbb/viewtopic.php?t=202

Granted, it is AD&D, the the intent is the same,

4 goblins = 4 dice
2 level charcater = 2 dice, etc.

[serendipity]

philotomy said:

What about grapples/overbears, though? For example, five goblins trying to pull down/pin an armored fighter, rather than fighting him with short swords?

I haven't really had to deal with grappling; frankly, I can't recall the last time my DM threw unarmed baddies at us, except for the ones that don't use weapons. They always seem to be ready for us.... Can I join your world, philotomy? ;D

[crimhthanthegreat]

We have used the rules from The Dragon #11 and we have used a simple system somewhat like WSmith outlines above in the link.

[Falconer]

I like System I from UA. Simple, plenty of action. I've often used it to resolve conflict within the party. :-) Regards.