Martial arts for the man-at-arms
 

I'm making templates for a world at early TL3 (although, inexplicably, there's full plate around*). But the rest of the world is at early TL3. Promise.

Anyway, there are knights there, and they sometimes lose their weapons on the battlefield. So, what unarmed martial art should these knights (and mercenaries and maybe even experienced militiamen) learn to supplement their swords and maces?

Re: Martial arts for the man-at-arms
 

Wrestling or Judo see use even when they don't lose their weapons, in that grappling, tripping, throwing, takedowns and other uses of leverage form a core part of most realistic melee fighting styles, particularly if armour is common.

Note that Wrestling is a part of most knightly martial arts and for the one style where it is not, Judo takes its place. Longsword Fighting uses Judo, Master of Defence Training has Wrestling (with Judo as optional), Shortsword Fighting has Judo and both Sword and Buckler and Sword and Shield use Wrestling. For close-in specialists, Dagger Fighting also incorporates Wrestling and Combat Wrestling is a plausible supplemental martial art for any armoured fighter.

Re: Martial arts for the man-at-arms
 

That's what I thought. Striking arts would be dangerous to use when there's metal armor involved... How about Sumo Wrestling?

Re: Martial arts for the man-at-arms
 

For a fantasy world, it's actually quite suitable as a supplement for armoured warriors. GURPS Martial Arts doesn't include it for historical styles, prefering a combination of Brawling* and Wrestling, but that's no reason to avoid it for fantasy styles.

*Which can be used or slamming.

Re: Martial arts for the man-at-arms
 

And pommel striking, which works when armed, does extra damage, and avoids the realistic danger of breaking your hand.

Re: Martial arts for the man-at-arms
 

Unarmed striking isn't good against armor, and is mostly inferior to using a weapon in any case. But having armor yourself is a considerable plus if it does come down to hitting somebody, and there are likely to be plenty of bodies to hit that aren't heavily armored.

Defense Boxing from Pyramid 3-61 being an example of taking this pretty far.

Re: Martial arts for the man-at-arms
 

I probably won't be using styles - I don't need the detail - but it's still useful to know which skills would be good.

Re: Martial arts for the man-at-arms
 

Cheap plate would make mail very rare, so, having the average DR higher, you should expect more 2 handed weapons.

Re: Martial arts for the man-at-arms
 

Several Ancient Greeks pointed out that martial arts skills were of limited use in a closed formation. So a lot depends on how the culture fights.

Re: Martial arts for the man-at-arms
 

Plate is probably not cheap, since only Dwarves can make it and they are very finicky with who they sell to.

Re: Martial arts for the man-at-arms
 

So, it's only good quality or better for plate?

Re: Martial arts for the man-at-arms
 

No cheap plate, no. I'll probably arbitrarily double the base price of plate armor - the steel can only be made in the deepest bowels of the Earth, where the lava spirits are chained to the furnaces. Also, the spirits of the ore must consent to be made into whatever the dwarves make it into, and that may be rare. Adjust to taste, really.

Re: Martial arts for the man-at-arms
 

It's what the PC fighter in my campaign uses (or at least did, before he started relying on shield rushes instead). It's good for closing distance; a slam is usually more effective than a move and attack, and lower risk than a committed or all-out lunge.

It also comes in handy when trying to capture a fleeing opponent alive, or if they're in town unarmed. The fighter puts the target down, then the entire party joins the kerbstomping...

Re: Martial arts for the man-at-arms
 

Plate is already available at TL3, although lack of sliding rivets means chinks are easier to target. The primary problem with such plate is that it's made of bronze, and is therefore quite expensive. Of course, while the description of Dwarven Plate sounds like it would be extremely expensive, it's going to need to cost at least equal to the bronze equivalent (unless you opt to make it not suffer the no-sliding-rivets problem). Doubling the base cost works if you're looking at everyone just getting Good quality plate, but once you start adding in Tailoring and Fluting, bronze is going to be far superior (a DR 6 Fluted Bronze Plate Cuirass is going to be around $20,000, a DR 6 Fluted Dwarven Plate Cuirass is going to be around $25,000; it gets worse if you go for higher CF options and/or Styling). Unless you want this (let's face it, bronze looks a lot better than iron), I'd suggest increasing the price in the form of a CF modifier. +1 will give you the same end price for Good quality and keep superiority over bronze. +2 will make Good quality more costly than your doubling, but will maintain superiority over bronze. +3 makes it equal to bronze... if you want to go this route (or higher), I suggest ignoring the sliding rivets rule for Dwarven plate.

Re: Martial arts for the man-at-arms
 

Re: Martial arts for the man-at-arms
 

It does not at all follow that bronze plate for every part of the body is available in every quality, let alone available at the list price, let alone with every modifier such as Fluting.

Re: Martial arts for the man-at-arms
 

Interesting. I'll have to think about this.

Re: Martial arts for the man-at-arms
 

...or you could have a non-bronze using culture (no tin perhaps?). Sub-Saharan Africa managed to go more or less straight to iron ...
Or in a fantasy culture, you could even rule that the dwarves are only selling steel plate and human armourers lack the skill to duplicate it in bronze - human made armour is either steel mail or non-articulated plate in bronze or steel. Full plate is only dwarvish and only steel. And probably a pain to get repaired unless there are a lot of dwarven repair shops above ground.

Re: Martial arts for the man-at-arms
 

Even if you won't be using it, review the period martial styles in MA for skill lists, it will make sure you haven't missed anything.

Re: Martial arts for the man-at-arms
 

I'm converting a Swedish original setting, and their approach to bronze is... interesting. It's not as good as iron, but on the other hand it's cheaper. Since this makes No Sense I have decided to change things. But they do have bronze.

Re: Martial arts for the man-at-arms
 

I love the information in the thread, but even still, I keep reading the title as "marital arts for the man-at-home." :)

Re: Martial arts for the man-at-arms
 

It's the commonplace 'bronze is an inferior material' rule. Like you find in huge numbers of computer games, or on page 275 in Characters for that matter.

Re: Martial arts for the man-at-arms
 

What setting is it Anders?

Re: Martial arts for the man-at-arms
 

It's called Trudvang and it's 362 pages of fluffy goodness about a world inspired by Swedish folktales. I doubt that there's any material in English.

Just too bad they don't believe in using editors so there are sentence fragments and bad Swedish all over the places. GURPS has spoiled me, I suppose. (They 'open-source' their editing, putting texts on the net and asking their readers to proofread and edit. Don't do this, SJG, it doesn't work.)

Edit: That said, the fluff is very, very good. I haven't been this inspired by a world-book in a long, long time.