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[Robosaur]

I've messed around with various levels of unarmed people with enhanced strength or huge size fighting things and I've noticed that pretty much every kill is a blow to the head. With that level of strength, there's got to be more ways to kill someone!

I mean, a blow to the chest can cause the ribcage to cave in, a blow to the throat could easily leave someone winded, grab a much smaller foe (human v cat) and slam them into the ground, and if someone is particularly flashy, they could completely rip off a few limbs and cause their foe to bleed to death.

If two people are the same strength and size, but one is exceptional at unarmed combat, it still should be at least possible to do some of those.

[ashton1993]

Personally I think it'd be quite cool if you could equip fighting styles like weapons, eg. you pick up a book which trains you to novice in beard fu and then one can activate that skill meaning when you go to attack someone amongst the normal options appears attacks such as "strangle with beard".

[Nyan Thousand]

Isn't that how our current system works? If you don't like to die with a blow to the head, you can bleed to death, suffocate, get shot, drown, and so on and so on. You keep on seeing headshots because that's the quickest way to die in DF.

[Putnam]

Yeah, pretty much all of the OP is possible.

Personally I think it'd be quite cool if you could equip fighting styles like weapons, eg. you pick up a book which trains you to novice in beard fu and then one can activate that skill meaning when you go to attack someone amongst the normal options appears attacks such as "strangle with beard".

Planned.

[GreatWyrmGold]

I'm not sure about the ripping off limbs thing (it sounds too much like a scene from a bad kung-fu movie), but the rest sounds reasonable. The problems are twofold:

1. Higher unarmed combat skill does not lead to more powerful attacks, only more precise ones. This would be good to change, and for that matter it should be that way for all military skills to a lesser extent. (I'm imagining a legendary axedwarf who grew attatched to a training axe still cleaving goblins in half because he's an axelord.)
2. Injuries don't reliably cause death unless they damage the lungs or nerves leading to the lungs (causing suffocation), damage the brain (instant death), or casue a lot of bleeding (obvious). Blows to the throat should cause breathing issues, the heart should be more than an organ that bleeds a lot, and so forth...but right now, they're not. This is the bigger issue, IMHO, because it affects all combat. It might be awesome for your militiadwarves to survive arrows to the heart and throat, but it's less so when every red-shirt goblin can do the same thing.

[Xantalos]

I had an idea related to this for wrestling. Say you had a competent strikerdwarf and a !!Legendary!! wrestlerdwarf, if the striker throws a punch, the wrestler should be able to grab the punch before it reaches them. They could then throw them or whatever. This could also work for disarming. Say we have a competent swordsdwarf and the aforementioned wrestler. The swordsdwarf slashes, but the wrestler grabs his arm in midswing and twists, causing the swordsdwarf to drop his sword. Wrestlerman then does whatever. But what I'm saying is that while attacks can currently fail (but it is blocked!) there should be a way in place for your attacks to be turned against you if you attack a warrior of high skill. You try to stab him, he takes advantage of the opening you left to grab your arm in mid-stab and counterstab you in the chest, and you are dead. Did anyone catch what I was trying to say?

[Glyndŵr]

I'm not sure about the ripping off limbs thing (it sounds too much like a scene from a bad kung-fu movie), but the rest sounds reasonable. The problems are twofold:

1. Higher unarmed combat skill does not lead to more powerful attacks, only more precise ones. This would be good to change, and for that matter it should be that way for all military skills to a lesser extent. (I'm imagining a legendary axedwarf who grew attatched to a training axe still cleaving goblins in half because he's an axelord.)
2. Injuries don't reliably cause death unless they damage the lungs or nerves leading to the lungs (causing suffocation), damage the brain (instant death), or casue a lot of bleeding (obvious). Blows to the throat should cause breathing issues, the heart should be more than an organ that bleeds a lot, and so forth...but right now, they're not. This is the bigger issue, IMHO, because it affects all combat. It might be awesome for your militiadwarves to survive arrows to the heart and throat, but it's less so when every red-shirt goblin can do the same thing.

I think I've done the limbs thing as a bronze colossus or a giant or something. I just pinched the arms off or scratched them off and caved the chap's skull in.

[Robosaur]

Well yeah, ripping limbs off only happens in kung-fu movies, but I'd imagine a dwarf could easily rip off the limbs of a kitten.

I guess another thing one could do is have people ignore enemies who are on the ground, dying, and unable to attack, unless there are no other enemies around.

[weenog]

I had an idea related to this for wrestling. Say you had a competent strikerdwarf and a !!Legendary!! wrestlerdwarf, if the striker throws a punch, the wrestler should be able to grab the punch before it reaches them. They could then throw them or whatever. This could also work for disarming. Say we have a competent swordsdwarf and the aforementioned wrestler. The swordsdwarf slashes, but the wrestler grabs his arm in midswing and twists, causing the swordsdwarf to drop his sword. Wrestlerman then does whatever. But what I'm saying is that while attacks can currently fail (but it is blocked!) there should be a way in place for your attacks to be turned against you if you attack a warrior of high skill. You try to stab him, he takes advantage of the opening you left to grab your arm in mid-stab and counterstab you in the chest, and you are dead. Did anyone catch what I was trying to say?

Somebody's been watching way too many bad kung fu movies.  You want Wrestler to take the place of Dodger, Armor User and Shield User while also scaling up its damage output based on how powerful and well-armed the enemy is.  It don't work that way, and even if it did, it don't work that way in games that don't suck.

[GreatWyrmGold]

On the other hand, one or two of those ideas could work. For instance, parrying bare-handed could be semi-realistic (especially with stuff like training or elven weapons, or if the wrestler is actually slapping away the weapon, especially considering that the wrestler is probably actually wearing some kind of gloves), and the turn after such a parry it might make sense for grabbing the attacking limb more easily.
Counterstabbing someone in the chest lethally should be impossible barehanded, unless of course there's a size differential or something.

[weenog]

Well yes, but being a skillful grappler and unarmed striker is nothing ilke being the protagonist in an action movie that wants to show off how impossibly badass a romanticized and mostly fictionalized fighting style supposedly is.

More damning, from a DF point of view, is it makes for crappy gaming.

[GreatWyrmGold]

Allow me to rephrase that: A not-too-unrealistic method of implementing Xantalos's idea might be to allow barehanded parrying, albeit with a chance of hand injury varying on handwear and skill. After a parry, perhaps unarmed attacks/grappling on that bodypart could be easier for a brief time (approx. 1 turn).

[Xantalos]

Counterstabbing someone in the chest lethally should be impossible barehanded, unless of course there's a size differential or something.

Yeah, I derped and forgot to mention I was suggesting a method of disarming, eg the dwarf would disarm the swordy guy, take swordy's swrod, and stab him. Herpaherpaherpderp...

[runlvlzero]

Most killing moves in real unarmed combat are to the head, neck, or throat. But it would be cool if the different hits for say - back of the head, or temple strike, or neck punch would be differentiated in combat.

Also its mostly guaranteed once someone is disabled through usually non-lethal strikes to stuff like the solar plexus their going to either get their neck broken, choked out, or curb stomped. Bleed outs from liver or kidney hemorrhages can happen but not as often, especially with untrained brawling. Also groin shots can be lethal too, it would be funny if that were possible in DF. I see dwarves as expert brawlers, but not anything flashy. No tai-chi, fancy street fighter dancing, or taekwondo. But I do see them fighting like Russian martial artists, or Isreali krav maga as a base for dwarven martial arts. Maybe mix in some dwarvenly WWF, like throws that can crush spines (not sure if this can happen, I know teeth and toes can be grappled and ripped off).

Its been brought up in another thread, but unarmed combat involves allot more then just punches, in fact punching is not usually the most effective or safe use of your body to deal killing blows.

Furthermore it would be neat if different civilizations had different fighting styles... elves could sit on the ground with their hands clasped over their heads, humans could be boxers, kickers, orcs (if they were modded in) could do some form of Okinawan karate... goblins could use dirty fighting, like throwing sand and trying to gouge out eyes.

By no means do I expect all that to be put in or modded in, its all just a nice what if. Heck you could make a rogue-like based entirely off unarmed fighting styles from around the world, and fantasy/fiction.

[Glyndŵr]

Most killing moves in real unarmed combat are to the head, neck, or throat. But it would be cool if the different hits for say - back of the head, or temple strike, or neck punch would be differentiated in combat.

Also its mostly guaranteed once someone is disabled through usually non-lethal strikes to stuff like the solar plexus their going to either get their neck broken, choked out, or curb stomped. Bleed outs from liver or kidney hemorrhages can happen but not as often, especially with untrained brawling. Also groin shots can be lethal too, it would be funny if that were possible in DF. I see dwarves as expert brawlers, but not anything flashy. No tai-chi, fancy street fighter dancing, or taekwondo. But I do see them fighting like Russian martial artists, or Isreali krav maga as a base for dwarven martial arts. Maybe mix in some dwarvenly WWF, like throws that can crush spines (not sure if this can happen, I know teeth and toes can be grappled and ripped off).

Its been brought up in another thread, but unarmed combat involves allot more then just punches, in fact punching is not usually the most effective or safe use of your body to deal killing blows.

Furthermore it would be neat if different civilizations had different fighting styles... elves could sit on the ground with their hands clasped over their heads, humans could be boxers, kickers, orcs (if they were modded in) could do some form of Okinawan karate... goblins could use dirty fighting, like throwing sand and trying to gouge out eyes.

By no means do I expect all that to be put in or modded in, its all just a nice what if. Heck you could make a rogue-like based entirely off unarmed fighting styles from around the world, and fantasy/fiction.

And over time, when it becomes possible to learn other fighting styles and fighting moves, I think you should be able to learn the fighting style of the orcs, elves, goblins through training.