[Tenex]

You make some good points. I don't mean to be nitpicking you below, it is just my attempt to adequately reply to your comprehensive post.

Originally Posted by guymc

The empty hand training of a samurai didn't vanish when they wore armor. But a samurai would not have relied on hand to hand techniques while in armor BECAUSE it is so much less effective when your vision and movement are limited.

The point isn't that they relied on unarmed techniques when armored, but rather if they found themselves unarmed and in armor they still could have used the techniques. Honest question for you: why are empty hand techniques any less effective than weapon techniques due to reduced vision and movement of armor?

IMO, a shin kick or punch would be vastly improved if done with an armored shin or hand. The cestus exists in TFT and the real ones in use by the Romans included leather straps extending up the forearm that were apparently thick enough to be used to block other weapons. That sounds like leather armor to me.

Originally Posted by guymc

Current body armor is made of materials and with designs that restrict movement less. Today's body armor is less restrictive than medieval cloth or leather armor, but much of that freedom is because it is designed to prevent the penetration of a ballistic weapon, where any effective armor of the past was primarily designed to stop slashing, stabbing and crushing weapons.

This is partially true and partially false. I give you that medieval plate was probably pretty restrictive, but not chainmail. That is as flexible as any modern armor, although probably heavier.

Much modern body armor is designed NOT to stop bullets, but to stop crushing blows, stabs and cuts. The physics and material nuances that are involved in this are probably beyond what I can describe well. Here is a manufacturer's explanation of stab vs. ballistic armor: https://www.protectiongroup.dk/en/fa...ody-armor-a-13

Here is a stab resistant vest that is not marketed as protection against bullets:https://www.galls.com/point-blank-sp...002278&PMSRCH=

Here is a non-ballistic helmet: https://www.galls.com/monadnock-906-tacelite-pc-helmet

Here is a protective chest piece which is designed to protect against blunt force trauma and expressly does not protect against stab or bullet threats: https://www.galls.com/galls-upper-bo...002200&PMSRCH=

I have worn both stab resistant and bullet resistant body armor. The stab resistant armor was considerably heavier and bulkier. I think people familiar with typical covert ballistic armor are under the impression that modern body armor is lightweight and almost comfortable. That is emphatically not the case when it comes to stab resistant armor.

Originally Posted by guymc

Those primarily engaged in the unarmed martial arts have gone without the protection of armor for a reason. There were and are unarmed martial arts designed to be used by someone in armor, but they are mostly techniques for trying to minimize the limitations of armor as much as possible in an extreme circumstance. Any armored fighter knows he's at a decided disadvantage trying to engage in no-weapons fighting.

I think the primary reasons unarmed martial artists go without armor are:
1. modern society frowns on people wandering around in police riot gear,
2. most modern martial arts battles are in a ring with rules and those rules don't provide for armor.

Originally Posted by guymc

Armor in real life is more complex than any game system can depict it. Some is more effective against one type of damage (or even one direction of attack) than another. We generalize this to "X armor protects against Y damage" for playability. Otherwise you'd need a computer simulation run every time someone tried to strike a blow.

Similarly, we have to abstract the effect of armor on advanced hand-to-hand techniques. In general, the types of techniques lumped under "Unarmed Combat" in TFT are enough less effective for armored combatants that it makes sense just to say they aren't for armor-wearers most of the time.

I tend to agree with the above as a matter of practicality. But much of this thread has been about the disparity between two characters who each expend a similar number of points in unarmed vs. armed fighting skills. Instead of going through all the machinations used earlier in the thread to try to make a UC fighter competitive, simply allowing them the use of leather or chain would make a big difference.

Most actual curriculums for prison guards are kind of confidential, but this list is kind of typical. https://www.correctionsoneacademy.co...s-corrections/ Take a look at those techniques. All are meant to be performed either in or out of the stab resistant riot armor I linked to above. I think the shield rush, disarming, etc. described in TFT UC are well within the described curriculum.

It's emphatically not my intent to argue that UC techniques are as easy to perform when encumbered by armor, just that it is possible and the player should be the one to decide when the DX reduction is too costly for the armor benefit.

Fencing can't be used when the adjDX is reduced below 14, why should something as finesse oriented as fencing be allowed to wear armor when the martial artists can't?