[DF] 125 pt start?

[Peter V. Dell'Orto]

Originally Posted by Bruno

GURPS intentionally handicaps characters that rely on unarmed combat vs armed opponents.

Intentionally and realistically, yes. My solution was to turn a genre switch on - a rule that folks with TBAM, and many (but not all) monsters, get to count their unarmed attacks as armed for purposes of being injured on a parry. So a 250-point DF martial artist with TBAM can punch away, risking only injury from hitting hard surfaces, but a sword parry won't injure him. Many monsters are the same way.

It's not at all realistic, but it fits the genre, and my players seem to think it's pretty cool. It makes "and your parry gets to cut the monster" a nice bonus, and makes Chaos Monk types a bit more dangerous to high-Parry knights.

All that said, if you want to make a 125 point martial artist using DF15, you can. A "monk" type is a nonstarter due to lack of points, but an unarmed fighter who can eventually learn cool esoteric skills and buy sweet powers is there - check the Skirmisher, especially with options 4, 5, and 6. You just won't be a full-out high-jumping Power Blow using martial artist. Yet.
It's not the only way to do it, but it's probably the most like a D&D "monk" starting out. Right down to AC 10. ;)